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chloe-skywalker · 2 years

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Northside Serpent - Fangs Forgarty

Fangs x Fem!reader (eventually)

Jughead x Toni x Reader (friends)

Warnings: bullying?

Word count: 1,154

Summary: Being a Northsider who is very quiet but when the bulldogs and Cheryl are being mean to the Southsiders she speaks up.

Authors Note: That summary is the idea I came up with but it turned into something with that as the underline plot but also something. So I can’t say it's really a good description and I can’t say it's a bad one.

Masterlist

Riverdale Masterlist

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“Hey, Juggie.” Y/n waved towards her beanie wearing friend as he showed up in the school parking lot with his friends.

“Y/n/n, long time no see.” Jughead smiled as he approached the Y/h/c-ed girl along with Toni, Fangs, and Sweet Pea.

“Jug I saw you two days ago.” she laughed, hugging him once he got close enough.

“We haven’t gone to school with each other in a while.” Jug nod's his head at her statement.

“True.” Y/n smiled

“Why are you outside?” Fangs asked the pretty girl who obviously knows Jughead.

“There’s a welcoming party for you all.” Y/n smirks shaking her head as she answered the handsome young serpent.

“Huh?” Jug looked at her confused and suspicious.

“Only a few put it together and yes, it’s who your thinking Jug. But be warned the Bulldogs and Cheryl are very against this.” she explained, shrugging in the process.

“Well before we go in mind introducing us to your friend here Jones? Toni?” Sweet Pea crossed his arms, not missing how Toni had also greeted the girl with a hug.

“Well, if either of you ever paid attention to anything other than pole at the Wrym you would’ve met her already.” Toni stated giving them an annoyed look that screamed ‘I told you so’.

“We’ve known each other since we were in diapers, she’s not just a friend she’s like my sister.” Jug explained to his followed Serpent boys. Jughead could tell Sweet Pea was still wary and Fangs seemed to not be able to take his eyes off her.

“She use to hang at the Wrym all the time.’ Toni added.

“Having known Jughead here all my life FP’s like a father to me.” Y/n smiled at the two boys standing in front of her.

“Like?” Jug scoffed tilting his head in her direction.

Y/n was family, there was no question. There was also no question that she was the honorary adopted daughter of FP.

“Oh haha. Fine, he is practically my dad. He helped my mom raise me and has been there for me my whole life.” Y/n answered.

“So are you a Serpent?” Sweet Pea asked with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Yes.” Y/n nodded as she answered his question holding her head high. She could understand his skepticism from his point of view.

“Y/n is the Serpent Princess.” Toni smirks nudging her friend, teasing her with her nickname.

“A title my dad gave her and I believe it’s fitting.” Jug stated.

“I’m gonna be the polite one between me and Pea and ask your name.” Fangs smiled

“It's Y/n. Y/n Y/l/n.” Y/n smiled reaching out to shake his hand. “An you?”

“Fangs Forgarty.” he smirked slightly but it ended up just turning back into a smile.

“Nice to meet you Fangs.” Y/n nodded

Once they let go of each other's hands Fangs elbowed Sweet Pea. “ow” Sweet Pea glared at Fangs.

Toni raised her eyebrows at the tall boy. “Introduce yourself instead of integrating the girl.”

“Sweet Pea, nice to meet you Serpent Princess.” he introduced himself after giving the pink haired girl an eye roll.

Y/n laughed at the exchange before shaking his hand. “Nice to meet you too.”

“Now that we're all acquainted, why don’t we all head into school now?” Jug asked, always the lover of education.

With that said they all grabbed their stuff and headed in. After the greeting by Archie, Veronica, Betty, and etc etc … Toni turned to Y/n with a look before asking. “This is Northside hospitality?”

“Welcome to the Northside.” Jughead snarked

“You know Y/l/n I thought once we were rid of Jones here, you would finally understand where you belong.” Cheryl spoke as she approached the group of young Serpents.

“Oh? And where would that be Cheryl?” y/n asked with her voice full of sarcasm as she crossed her arms turning to fully face the red headed Bombshell.

“By my side and the Bulldogs of course, silly. Not with these street rats.” Cheryl smiled her fake Blossom smile. Y/n would know the difference.

“Listen here Bombshell. These street rats as you call them are way better friends than your bulldogs would ever be. As for you Cheryl Blossom. You and I were good friends once upon a time until you decided to become a snot-nosed Bitch.” Y/n spoke pissed off stepping into Cheryl's personal space. Looking the HBIC right in the eyes. Y/n honestly missed having Cheryl as a friend. But then Cheryl she became someone who wasn’t the Cheryl Y/n grew up being friends with. If Cheryl ever came back then they could be friends again. “So leave us alone. I’m where I should be. Are you?”

With that said everyone started to head off to where they needed to be for the first period. After Toni and Y/n left off to their first classes the boys stood in the hallways for a minute. Sweet Pea and Fangs were ready to intervene when it came to Y/n and Cheryl’s talk. But Jughead and Toni had convinced them to back down. Y/n could fight her own fights, they know that for a fact. But they still stood ready as back up if the Bulldogs so much as moved a finger.

“I think I’m in love.” Fangs stated as they watched the girls disappear.

“She’s a Serpent so I’m cool with it.” Sweet Pea stated with a shrug at his friend's words. Truth be told he’s just glad it’s not a Northsider.

Jughead cast a glare at Fangs before saying. “She’s like a sister to me. If you hurt her Fangs I’ll bury you somewhere no one will ever find the body.”

Fangs gulped looking Jug in the eyes promising. “If I can get her to actually say yes then I promise I’ll never hurt her. At least I won’t try to.”

Sweet Pea suddenly got a thought in his head and he smirked. “Jones, you said she’s like a daughter to your dad right?”

“Yup.” Jughead nodded, casting a confused look to the tall dark haired boy. And then it hit him.

Sweet Pea clapped Fangs on the back as he let out an amused laugh. “Good luck Forgarty.”

Fangs turned his head to look at Jughead hoping he could explain since it seemed like he understood what Sweet Pea meant. “Huh?”

“Sweet Pea’s hinting to the fact that you’ll be dating the honorary daughter of Fp Jones, leader of the Serpents.” Jughead explained, and it was true if Fnags could get Y/n to say yes then he would be seeing the confusion leave Fang's face and was replaced by worry and a hint of fear. Jug patted him on the shoulder before continuing. “Don’t worry Fangs. She’s worth it.”

Tag: @gruffle1

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trashlie · 2 years

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ILY FP 181, 182, and 183

Man, I thought I’d at least put together one of these for 181, but I really have not been able to pull myself together for this last month, I guess, ugh. That’s okay, I think - it will keep me from turning this into a recap and maybe allow me to explore my VERY MANY thoughts on this little flashback! And trust that I have SO MANY.

It is no secret that I’ve taken a lot of interest in Alyssa over this last half year or so, so you can imagine how much I’ve been enjoying this flashback arc. While it doesn’t provide us a major look into who Alyssa really is, we’re finally getting more clues to cobble together than we had before, and it definitely is blowing some fandom beliefs out of the water! It also reinforces what I’ve said before - that Alyss and Kousuke are mirrors! In my Alyss and Kousuke As Mirrors post and ask responses, I had a lot of uncertainty as to where I thought this would go, because of how little we knew of who Alyssa truly is and what is part of an act. I think we’re starting to get somewhere with her now! I know she’ll likely never be a very sympathetic character to a lot of people, but my fascination with her has definitely increased and it’s giving me some hopes and wishes of my own!

To preface, I’d like to lay out what the general fandom belief of Alyssa has been. Until now, she’s been regarded as a fame seeker who wants to have everyone’s attention and always craves the spotlight, that she’s spineless and cannot handle confrontation which may be coupled with the fact that she wants to be liked (as in, to save face, she doesn’t defy or contradict others wishes), she doesn’t care about who she hurts to get what she wants, she’s more interested in Kousuke than Nol, and in general she’s been viewed as supremely selfish and self-centered.

There’s some things I agree with, others only to a certain degree, and still others I wasn’t totally sold on. In previous posts, I’ve noted that I believed it possible that Alyssa’s idol career itself may not have been what she truly wanted (although at the time I assumed it might just be a stepping stone towards what she really wanted, a necessary stop in her trajectory to her power-couple goal, to influence and power). At any rate, though, we can see now that a lot of this has been proven incorrect, although certain things have definitely been reinforced.

People Pleasing and Peer Pressure

Something that certainly stands is how very easily influenced by others Alyssa is. This isn’t something I’m going to fault her for, either, because frankly, I know a lot of people who take to their mid-twenties or thirties to feel comfortable and confident in who they are, regardless of what others think. Especially for a middle-schooler with no prior experience with social settings, this is extra hard for Alyssa, who begged her parents to let her attend public school with the dream of making lots of friends and experiencing a “normal” life. Peer pressure is hard and when what you want is to be liked and have a lot of friends, being seen as weird for the things you do like (like math) or hanging out with someone who everyone else regard as weird and potentially a bully doesn’t bode well with what you want. Frankly, it takes a strong spirit to be comfortable in your own skin, to be who you are, and Alyssa doesn’t have the experiences yet to be that person. I think we can also argue that the way her parents treat her hasn’t helped - though well-meaning, they seem to overwhelm Alyssa and limit her ability to actually explore the things she’s interested in. She states that she’s not even good at dance, which is why she’s taking lessons at all, and she’s only in them because she once expressed interest in it - and there’s an implication that it’s not something she even likes or enjoys anymore, and yet she continues.

Is it just that Alyssa lacks the ability to push back and tell her parents when she loses interest in something? Is it that they don’t give her the room to do it? It sounds a lot like they hear she likes something and then drowns her in that thing without ever considering that her interests will change and wane.

We are also given a lot of indication that at this early age, Alyssa just struggled to confront people in any form of it. She can’t stand up for herself to her parents about not wanting to follow certain paths, she can’t tell Shinae the truth about her feelings and seems to be cornered when she finally starts to open up, she can’t push back against people who are picking on her.

At any rate, the point stands that due to the way her parents treat her, smothering her with everything she dares to breathe about, she hasn’t been given the opportunity to find comfort in being who she really is, because they are always a step behind or clinging to something she said in the past that is no longer true. She’s too reluctant to mention anything else she likes because maybe they’ll do the same thing again. She has no room to breathe to explore herself to figure out what she really wants, and the things she does know about herself are considered “weird” by other kids - her disdain for kpop and preference for classical music, her favor for math and science type things, she goes to exhibits for her own keen interest! If the other kids knew, they’d definitely continue to pick on her and call her weird.

And yet that’s exactly what she’s so afraid of. She states she’s seen what happens to kids who are ostracized and that’s the last thing she wants. Alyssa is learning the hard way that not only are kids cruel, but who she wants to be is at odd with who she really is. If she wants to fit in with the other kids, she has to put on a front, feign interest in things she doesn’t care for, squash down her true interests and perform for them. Long before she becomes an idol, Alyssa is already having to perform and learn about conditional favor: people will like you only so long as you fit what they want you to be.

How ironic, that she had such strong disdain for kpop, and yet she had to perform for what she wanted, and ended up in that very career.

I still badly want to know how this happened, because it’s clear that the career Alyssa is in is not what she truly wanted. I’ve seen people argue that maybe she’s here for the stepping stone reasons, or because she changed her mind. But idk, she seems pretty set in her way with her interest there, and it just really reinforces my theory that Alyssa only wound up a kpop idol because she couldn’t speak up against it. It largely seems like something that fell into her lap and her parents jumped at it assuming that Alyssa was on board for it because she’d practically trained for so long. Maybe she felt too guilty about the money they’d put into her lessons - there’s implications that they’ve spent so much money on her that they’re tight on money - maybe it’s just part of her inability to speak up for and defend herself, her inability to say no this isn’t actually what I want.

Maybe it IS just that she reluctantly is following through for the hopes that it will afford her the connections to get out it and go for what she really wants?

Power (for freedom)

Even this little glimpse into Alyssa’s life has given enough to re-examine her previous statement about how she desires to be part of a power couple (and how Kousuke likely might be her intended target). Even though her family seems to be trying to do things for her favor, she still feels trapped and oppressed by them and craves escape. And now she’s in a kpop group that she doesn’t seem to enjoy completely - the fact that in middle school she made a note that being able to write music is far more interesting than being able to play instruments and she was given that opportunity to write a song, and it ends up being about feeling trapped and shackled down, unable to escape speaks volumes. Additionally, we know she spends more time with her sister than her group mates, it’s implied that she doesn’t practice as much/as hard as them and frankly I don’t think this is mean girls being mean. I think it probably IS true that Alyssa doesn’t put as much effort into things because she doesn’t enjoy it she doesn’t want to be here and who can blame her group mates? They DID train hard for this, they DO want this. Of course they’ll be upset by the way she acts!

Unlike them, Alyssa doesn’t want to be part of this career, and if her case is anything like Shinae’s, she feels trapped by Yui. What happens if Alyssa denies this opportunity? What has her family gained from Alyssa’s career/connections? I think there’s a good chance there’s a lot more on the line than we know about, and thus Alyssa has to continue to fake it to make it. So, who is surprised she wishes to be part of a power couple? It seems less about wanting to be influential, to have people look up to her and more about wanting to be in a position to feel in control of her life, to be free to do what she wants.

Consider this: Yui is a powerful woman with a powerful family name and more importantly, she is very much in control of herself, she takes no direction or control from others, she has shadow puppets (possibly including Alyssa herself). I think Alyssa is aware of what kind of person Yui really is - a widely-held fandom belief about Alyssa is that she wants to be the kind of person Yui is, right down to the scheming manipulation. But when Alyssa calls Yui a charitable woman and says she wants to be like her, her eyes are closed. They remain closed as Alyssa remarks how nice it is of her to give Shinae a job. I think Alyssa sees through this, because it’s the same situation she’s in, and she above all probably knows what a trap it is. If Alyssa feels stuck in a career she can’t escape, “gifted” to her by Yui, then she has an understanding of what it means for Shinae. I used to think maybe Alyssa said it because she understood the implications - that she, too, had been handed her career like Shinae, but if Alyssa has no love or pride in her career, then it’s less that she cares about what others will think of her being handed a career and maybe more about concern for Shinae, and what it means for her to also be entangled with Yui.

Despite this, though, Yui possesses qualities that Alyssa clearly covets - starting with the fact that someone like Yui wouldn’t be ensnared in traps like Alyssa currently is, the fact that no one controls her or dictates her moves.

And this brings us to Kousuke! From the outside, Kousuke lives this way, too. He looks to all outsiders like he’s completely in control of his life, on a path of his choosing that he was meant for, he’s successful, influential, rich, and in control. Like Yui, he looks like he is free to move where and how he wants, so it’s not a surprise that Alyssa is drawn to him. But more than that, we now know that Alyssa and Kousuke are far more alike than we had considered before! I used to think that Alyssa was drawn to Kousuke because she saw in him all the things she wants for herself, and while I do still think that’s true, it clearly isn’t the totality of it! I wonder how well she knows him - does she know they both favor the same kind of music? Kousuke is regarded as a bit of a genius, years ahead of kids his age in school, quick to pick up new things. Since she was 3, by the time she was in middle school, Alyssa had learned to play FIVE different instruments and wound up writing her own song pretty early in her musical career. And it’s not even a left vs right brain thing, because she’s also good at math and fascinated by science, especially anatomy, with a previous dream of being a biomedical engineer. Much like Kousuke, we can see that Alyssa isn’t really into things kids her age are. Does she know how similar they are? Does she just sense it? Kousuke clearly doesn’t see this in her yet (I think) but I wonder if with enough time, they could come to see this? She’s easily written off by others as being vapid and maybe even ditzy, with little going on in her head, but that’s clearly not the case.

Notably, too, where Alyssa learned to play all five instruments, Meg only learned a couple and stopped her lessons. We are further given a sense that there’s a “golden child” vs “the other one” with Alyssa and Meg. Was Meg allowed to give up because she wasn’t as gifted as Alyssa, not worth the money it would take to teach her? Is the focus just heavily placed on Alyssa so Meg is given the freedom that Alyssa badly wants for herself?

And so, in search of that escape, seeking a sense of normalcy and the ability to breathe and explore what she wants, Alyssa finds herself in public school, befriended by a boisterous Shinae.

Shinae from hope to self-isolation

This is a very Alyssa-heavy post, I know, but I do want to dedicate some time to Shinae, too, because the Shinae we see in the flashback is SUCH a contrast to the Shinae we first meet at the start of the series, which reinforces just how much of an impact this experience had on Shinae. Alyssa’s betrayal affected her so deeply it left her with not only physical but also mental and emotional scars, so deep that when Nol later betrays her and walks away, this bubbles back to the surface - an experience for which she blamed herself and repressed, shoved so deep down that she never recovered from it. Had she made peace, it wouldn’t have come bubbling to the surface when Nol acknowledged the very scar she hides.

Alyssa was so important to Shinae, despite their brief stint in friendship. She was Shinae’s first friend, someone who she found so cool and fascinating and she fought hard for that friendship, too. Both girls know that Shinae is putting more into this friendship than Alyssa is, and I think Alyssa shows some guilt over it. She’s never quite able to address her issues to Shinae and though we know she’s trying to pull away and distance herself, she never succeeds when Shinae calls her out on it and corners her. Shinae has spent much of her childhood picked on and bullied, not even defended by the school, and it gets so bad that she has to transfer schools! You can’t blame her for being a little desperate to keep that first friend, so afraid of losing out something she’s always craved.

There’s a lot about young Shinae that really hurts my heart, to be honest, especially compared to her current self. Her admission that despite the barriers she put up, despite all the ways she isolated herself for her own protection and chose loneliness over the risk of getting hurt again, she carried some hope that people would prove her wrong, that she would find the friendship and acceptance she actually craved HURTS - especially when you know that because of that quiet hope, she let down her walls for Nol who she thought had proved he wasn’t the threat she worried, only to learn that so much of him was a lie, that maybe that friendship never meant anything.

The Nol vs Alyssa parallel is SO intentional and BOY does it hurt! Also, I know I’ve talked about the irony that Shinae has been hurt by these two people who are dating, but it just feels even more intense in light of everything. Shinae put so much hope in Alyssa despite all the signs she should have listened to, she hoped so much and fought so hard to help Alyssa learn to ignore the feeling of being picked on, and in the end, she failed. Alyssa meant so much to her and as far as Shinae was concerned, she didn’t mean the same to Alyssa. If she did, wouldn’t Alyssa have chosen her over popularity? Wouldn’t she have stuck with her? If she meant so much to her, would she have treated her the way she did, ostracized her in effort to save herself from that very fate? For Shinae, Nol’s betrayal hurts so much not because of the lies but because it runs parallel to the last significant betrayal she experienced. Once again, she made someone so important to her, only to feel like she wasn’t.

It’s not about the lies or that he gave her a fake name: it’s because she believed it didn’t mean to him what it did to her, that she foolishly fell for someone who didn’t care about her the way she did him.

And that’s what is SO significant, too, about Shinae’s willingness to accept Nol, how desperately she wanted him to answer her calls or messages, to come back and show his face. If it was about the lies and betrayal, it might be harder for her to accept that friendship - but despite that, she ardently hoped he would prove her wrong, because she needed to know that it meant something to Nol, that her friendship was not so easy to cast aside, that she mattered. And that’s why she’s able to accept him back, albeit with anger. To know that she is important to him, that even though he began those friendships with no intention of them being real only for them to end up meaning so much to him makes up for the lies.

Popularity vs Individualism

The thing is, I think Shinae may have meant something to Alyssa, but she was just at odds with what she wanted. Numerous times, we see Alyssa get very flustered over the sincere, earnest way Shinae praises her, the way she sees her as this really cool person for traits that the other kids treat as weird, things she knows she would get made fun of for. She downplays her skills and intelligence, not even in a coy or demure way but like... Alyssa really doesn’t seem to think there’s anything special about being able to learn to play instruments or anything like that. She’s quickly learning what she needs to hide about herself in order to fit in, but outlier Shinae finds these things about her so admirable and cool. In fact, Alyssa is so sure that Shinae had lots of friends before because she’s so tough and confident and courageous and brushes off all the teasing that comes her way - but she only seems that way because she’s been there before, because she’s endured it before but NOW she finally has a friend. It’s easier to deal with that if she has a friend to have fun with.

That whole admission is so painful, for Shinae to confess that duh, of course she also wishes she could experience what it’s like to be liked by so many people instead of treated like a weirdo, picked up and bullied simply for existing. But she doesn’t know. That’s why Alyssa means so much and is so important to her. That’s why even though she knows Alyssa is trying to pull away, she keeps trying to reign her in closer, asking her to be her project partner even when she can see Alyssa looking away, calling her out on her she’s growing quieter and quieter and less involved in this friendship. Shinae is determined to keep this special friend.

But the other kids think Shinae is weird, and Alyssa knows this. In fact, the flashback where Maya overhead the girls calling Shinae weird is probably a big turning point for Alyssa. Based on the two flashbacks, that’s probably the day that Alyssa misses lunch with Shinae, and we can sense a big change in Alyssa. She’s been told that public school sucks unless you’re popular, she’s told that people think Shinae is weird and even that she looks weird, and though they don’t really tease her about it there’s definitely a dig about how Alyssa uses intelligent words the other kids do and that it seems weird to be so studious and well-learned. Again, Alyssa is learning that she has to bury who she really is to fit in, and while she seems to like Shinae, she also is learning that to stay friends with her will very likely lead to her own bullying. Alyssa never even though Shinae’s hair was weird until the other girls said anything! There’s so many things she accepts for what they are, until she realizes that others think they’re weird. I think we can agree that she’s shaped by what others think, but I think it’s a little more like... it’s not necessarily that it’s changing her opinion of things as much as she’s just learning what is and isn’t considered acceptable and she’s trying to align herself with the acceptable.

Everything is a parallel

It begins her rift with Alyssa, though. Through Maya’s flashback, we know something will go down with Alyssa and Shinae’s science project - there’s a flashback where she’s being accused of copying someone else’s project and Shinae pointed says she did all the work, it’s her project and never once mentions Alyssa about it. Following that, Minhyuk asks if Shinae hangs out with Alyssa anymore and she notes that no, they don’t hang out as much as they used to, because now Alyssa has lots of friends. Alyssa has been influenced and she makes her choice - she decides to fit in, to shrink herself into something the other kids will like, to start playing a role.

And yet, before she was influenced by other peoples’ opinions, Alyssa really did seem to like Shinae. She had fun with her in math club and she seemed really touched by Shinae’s sincere compliments and earnest friendship. But she also knew that she was making a different decision, that Shinae was giving more to their friendship than she was.

When Shinae smiles that blinding bright, very Yeonggi-like smile, Alyssa’s face screws up and she blushes - but I think it represents guilt and remorse, not anything positive. She feels bad Shinae cares so much and she herself cares more about popularity than this friendship. She knows the choices she’s making, that she’s pulling away, and she feels so guilty she has to physically escape.

In a very similar way that Kousuke seems to see Nol in Shinae, Alyssa seems to see Shinae in Nol. That bright smile she puts on is SO very like the kind Yeonggi would wear, so it’s only natural that in the aftermath of all that went down, when Alyssa was back to being lonely and friendless, when Yeonggi offered her his friendship and that bright, earnest smile, Alyssa would accept this weird stranger’s friendship, because it reminded her of another person who candidly offered her such sincere, earnest friendship when she needed it. And, likewise, when Alyssa is aware that she’s hurting that person, she finds herself pulling away and withdrawing.

For a long time I couldn’t tell if Alyssa really understood how much she was hurting Nol, if she simply took his friendship for granted. I think she definitely carries guilt that she refuses to acknowledge, which is why she deflects and throws things back at him when he calls her out. But I also think she knows that she’s being a bad friend, a bad girlfriend, and that’s why she avoids him, the way she avoided Alyssa. (Shoutout to DATBOYWHOISCHILL on reddit for calling out that parallel of avoidance). The way he reaches out over and over, just like Shinae trying to reign her back in, UGH the way Nol and Shinae are SO VERY SIMILAR and yet unaware of it just KILLS ME. It was even pointed out the way they both defend her and aren’t really met with gratitude - although I guess it’s worth noting that by the time Nol is doing this for Alyssa, her image is on the line and she’s already aware of the conditional relationship she has with her fans, the image she has to maintain if she doesn’t want to be ostracized and cast out.

Honestly, all of this makes me even more certain that Alyssa needs to experience a fall from grace in order to learn to be herself and to escape the people-pleasing quest of acceptance. Only when she loses everything - her career, her fans, her image - will she be able to face who she really is and who she really wants to be, to come to terms with being okay being alone, and maybe find her voice to push back against what she doesn’t want. And I still think it could possibly lead to some kind of reconciliation. While I’m not sure if Shinae and Alyssa could ever be friends - there’s so much hurt and anger there yet - I think they could at least make peace with their past and resolve their issues in a way that helps Shinae move on. An Alyssa who, like Shinae once had, has lost so much and hit rock bottom and has to go through the hardest and darkest times would probably be better able to understand what she couldn’t in sixth grade, how Shinae was able to endure the ridicule because she had a friend at her side. I think it would lead to Alyssa being able to accept herself for who she really is, and not the performance she puts on for other people.

Frankly, I feel like while Alyssa is a people-pleaser who seeks out popularity, what she really want is the kind of friendship Shinae offered. She’s chasing after something she won’t receive. Fans don’t unconditionally love their idol - they will only love her if she performs for them, and that means the person she presents herself as, too. Who will love Alyssa for who she really is, for her nerdy side and her love of classical music, for finding math fun, for her interest in anatomy. Who will love her for all the things that made her so “weird”? She continues to put on a front for people who “love” a version of her she’s created for their consumption, chasing down the sincerity and earnest approval she received from a maybe-weird outcast who saw her for who she really was and still thought she was cool and interesting.

Trauma and Healing

But to segue back to Shinae, I think these episodes have shined a lot of light on who she used to be, as well, and we can still see glimmers of that Shinae today. I keep thinking about that smile she wore for Alyssa, and how she said that she hated Yeonggi’s smile because she was unable to smile like that herself. She went from being able to wear that smile to finally defeated, scarred deeply by Alyssa’s choices and the fall that followed. Physical ramifications of trusting someone too much, of giving someone too much of a chance. In her eyes, she was punished for daring to think she could have friendship like that.

In fact, even though Minhyuk fills that void and becomes the kind of best friend Shinae needed, we know that years later she still has enough seeds of doubt to wonder if Minhyuk was only her friend out of pity because it’s so unfathomable for her to think that anyone can truly be her friend because they like her for who she is, and it takes reaffirmation for her to accept that it’s true.

That’s what makes this current arc SO special, in my opinion. This is a Shinae who still carries trauma with her, who is still so greatly affected by a literally traumatic fall, and in spite of that, she still finds herself wanting to find the best in people, craving the friendship she dares not believe she deserves. Despite it all, she held out a hope that she didn’t necessarily believe in, that Nol would find his way back to them not just for closure but to maintain that friendship. I think that much is obvious by the way she addresses him when he finally joins her on the rooftop - she’s cagey and uncomfortable having exposed so much of her vulnerable self to him because she thought they were ending things, not that he might decide to go back on his word, and she was so unprepared to face that. And still she tries to! Though he has to corner her to get her to, she admits that yes of COURSE she wanted him to hear all of that, to see him again.

In spite of all the ways Shinae has been hurt by people - by her mother, by her sister, her first friend, by Maya and Rika, by students who knew nothing about her but bullied her anyway, by the adults who never did their job and intervened or looked out for her - she still wants to find people who prove her wrong. I think this is even true for her relationship with Kousuke, who she has noted she thinks isn’t so bad as much as he just has lived a different life and is kind of misguided. I continue to think this is why Shinae will serve as a bridge between Nol and Kousuke, too - because she is likely to be the person to see the best in each of them, to bring out the best in them, and help them to see it in each other, too.

For as much as she’s told herself she doesn’t like people, that they will only let you down, for as much as she tried to isolate herself from others to prevent that kind of hurt ever happening again, she can’t resist but to want to let people in, because even though she believes the universe is punishing her simply for existing, I think she is learning that it’s not enough to simply bow your head and accept it. Things don’t ever change when you do that, and though she’s also experienced that sometimes things don’t change when you try to fight back, maybe it’s different when you have others by your side?

Again, I think Shinae’s entire experience with Alyssa has only reinforced her friendship with Nol, should they both decide to continue this friendship - which I think is what is being established. If Nol wanted to still run away, he would have used his opportunity. He states that his being there is for him - because it’s his last night and he wants to make things right, to make things up to the people he’s hurt. It’s for him because he wants to be where he really wants to be for once, and to atone for what he has done not for his karmic retribution or absolution, but because that is what friends do. The whole conversation that follows where he holds Shinae in place is not because he is finalizing their goodbye but to call her out and square things away. If they are starting this again, they need to do it on the same page.

Where Shinae gave too much of herself to Alyssa and to Yeonggi, maybe this time she and Nol will be equals, partners for real, and with this deeper understanding of each other, what their past has done to hurt them and twist their feelings, it is likely for them to form an even stronger bond and alliance.

UGH I have so MANY feelings and I feel like I’ve still missed so many points I’d like to make, but I think I’ve at least addressed a good bulk of them. I know there are people who aren’t enjoying this because they’d rather see Shinae and Nol talking, but this flashback is such a necessary piece of storytelling. It’s clueing us in more on who Alyssa is and what her motivations are, it’s really emphasized just how much of a toll this experience took on Shinae and comparing it to Nol demonstrates just how much it means for her to still reach for him. The perspective it’s given us is, I think, crucial to the friendship that Nol and Shinae are setting and helps us better to appreciate it as something beautiful in spite of the ugly they’ve endured, and what they mean to each other.

I think there are some readers who forget that what has happened to Nol, Shinae, Kousuke, and Alyssa in the past is absolutely a part of who they are now and what their paths currently are. Without examining all those scenes, we’re missing pieces in our puzzle and we can’t move on to their adult selves without exploring all of this. And considering this is a very character-driven story focused on exploring human traumas and the way it affects us, I, for one, am absolutely over the moon with this. I appreciate the rekindling of Shinae and Nol’s friendship even more knowing just how much Alyssa’s failed friendship hurt Shinae. Give me all the emotional baggage, thank you!

#I Love Yoo #ILY Brainrot #ILY FP #ILY Spoilers #Alyssa Cho #Shinae Yoo #this is largely about these two #admittedly it's very Alyssa-centric but I promise I get to Shinae throughout this too!#i'm forever fascinated by the way Alyssa and Shinae continue to parallel each other but more than that i am fascinated by how much their #intersection has affected them and the people around them #you could argue that as much as Alyssa has affected how Shinae responded to people and potential friendships Shinae has affected even how #Alyssa treats Nol which is just incredible to me and something i really didn't anticipate #i talk a lot about how i think Alyssa may never have gotten over what happened with Shinae too and how this might be something that affects #her to this day but god being able to see the core of who she is now back then is wild. and also sad #gonna character tag for nol too since i address him here #Nolan Oliver T. Lochlainn #Yeonggi #because there's some Yeonggi specific bases too lol #i'm gonna end up making relationship tags soon i swear #rs: a few good friends are more than enough #afkjafjkafkjaf lmao idk if i'll use that but i love the idea of it #because i just know that we'll be seeing a lot more of the alyssa shinae impact in time #anyway aAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH #i hope alyssa kousuke anon is out there and sees this cos man i am vibrating #i'll probably work on a follow up for that alyssa and kousuke as mirrors post in time too tho it may be better to wait for more eps #IDK we'll see #this post is a best i am sorry

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iconic-ponytail · 3 years

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there's always money in the banana stand

riverdale promptathon week 3: yellow + business

Even as the sun sets, even as the breeze blows, the hell furnace of July in Riverdale burns on. It’s triply as sweltering inside the tiny booth running three freezers, offloading heat to sustain the frozen merchandise inside. “How can it be so hot in there when we are supposed to be selling frozen bananas?” JB complains, at least twice a week.

She’s twelve. Complaint is her new first language. She complains about being left in Riverdale while Gladys went back to Toledo. She complains about living in a trailer park that usually does not have warm water. She complains about their father being imprisoned for covering up a gruesome murder. But most of all, she complains about working in the banana stand.

Child labor laws aside, Jughead can’t blame her for that one. He hates the damn banana stand, but it’s their best shot.

Gladys’ monthly check covers rent and utilities for the trailer. Everything else is on him, now. The idiot eighteen year old who decided to petition the court to be his sister’s legal guardian. Well, and his idiot mom who signed off on it. So he needs money, and the Jones family has never been particularly flush with cash, just trampled over by FP’s failed “business opportunities.”

Enter: the banana stand.

It’s not the fastest revenue stream, Jughead finds. But it’s got potential.

Initially, Dilton doesn’t let him sell during the Twilight Drive-In’s concession stand hours. Before or after the movie, sure, but no overlap. “I’m not worried about competition, Jones. It’s just too humiliating for me to watch you sweat through that horrible yellow polo you call ‘branding.’”

But when customers asked him more than twice a night when the banana stand would be open, Dilton caved.

It’s not like being open during the screening hours is a whole lot more preferable. He only just transferred from Southside to Riverdale High last spring; now he’s the rising senior who hands out phallic symbols from inside a giant phallic symbol. Not exactly a boon to his popularity.

Still, recently the money is enough to pay the internet bill and keep JB fed for dinner when she can’t go to the summer breakfast and lunch program at the local park district. It’s still not enough for him to eat particularly well, and the smell of hot dogs and slurp of his classmates’ slushies makes the heat feel like a minor inconvenience.

He eyes the tip jar, willing himself to wait on rampaging the concession stand until the beginning of the film roar dies down. It’s a double feature tonight, which means maybe he can score enough cash to cover those damn college application fees his counselor will start hounding him about week one of school.

Then he sees her—Betty Cooper. She’s laughing, watching Archie Andrews try to catch popcorn in his mouth, tossed by his paramour, Veronica Lodge. She pauses to sip from her slushie straw, her lips—which he’s watched argue against homophobic and racist comments in their advanced lit class, or pressed to the cheek of her other best friend, Kevin Keller. Which he’s imagined, doing slightly less savory things, though the mere thought of said imagining has his heart pounding wildly.

(Jughead’s been eating way too many fucking bananas. Someone needs to check his potassium levels.)

His absolutely pathetic gaze, once available three times a day in their shared classes where Jughead has still not managed to exert any confidence whatsoever regarding speech, eye contact, or general acknowledgement of Betty Cooper’s existence other than whatever drooling may or may not be happening, all of which he finds he has no control over… is all interrupted by the absolute polar opposite of Betty Cooper. Hiram Lodge zooms up to the banana stand on his segway, angling to a stop just before taking out the stand’s foundation.

“Still getting a hang of that, Mayor Lodge?”

Hiram grimaces. “Just checking that you’ve renewed your business permit, Jones.”

They do this once a week. It’s still the same permit.

“You know,” Hiram starts as Jughead rustles for the paperwork to make him go the fuck away, “I could find you an arrangement with a better banana supplier. For a discount. If you’re interested.”

Jughead rolls his eyes. “I’m not interested in your GMO, black market bananas, Hiram.”

Hiram gives him a pointed look. Jughead rolls his eyes even harder. “Mayor Lodge.” He proffers the papers, Hiram waves them away. “I’ll take one chocolate peanut butter dip. With peanuts.”

Jughead kisses his teeth. “That will be $3.50.”

Hiram’s whole face goes serpentine. “Not between business partners, Jones. Put it on my tab.”

Jughead grits his teeth, handing the finished banana so aggressively he hopes that the chocolate splatters and stains Hiram’s $500 tie. It is only slightly worth it to watch Hiram struggle with navigating the segway one-handed, frozen banana in the other.

He muffles a chuckle before realizing he’s used the dead end of the chopped peanut topping, and exits the stand to update the order board hanging on the outside. It’s mostly an excuse to feel a ten degree drop in temperature, a sweet relief he might be able to extend by grabbing a hot dog before the intermission rush.

He’s crossing off peanuts from the topping list and spinning around when he hears a shriek and a sudden, cold slosh across his chest. The yellow polo drips with artificial blue slushie, but Jughead swallows his fucking hell when he sees that the shriek, gaping stare of horror, and stumble in question all belong to his very own blonde kryptonite.

“Oh my god. Oh my GOD, jesus, shit, I’m so sorry!”

Jughead is frozen while Betty grabs about half his napkin dispenser and starts pawing at his shirt in a vain attempt to right the giant sticky blue mess all over his chest.

Finally, Jughead swallows the golf ball in his throat and chokes out. “Honestly, it’s fine. That stand is a sauna. I needed that.”

Betty stops, both her blotting and her stream of apologizing (which includes a fair bit of cursing, and he is a little revolted with himself by how much this turns him on).

“It’s going to get very sticky, soon. Maybe I should buy a bottle of cold water?”

Jughead can’t help himself. “Oh, impromptu yellow t-shirt contest?”

Betty grins.

I did that.

“Do you have any employees who could bring you another shirt?”

Jughead shakes his head. “Just my sister. She’s playing video games at home. There’s no earthly way she’ll bring me a spare.”

Betty cocks her head. “I had a feeling you were more than the silent back row kind of guy.”

The fact that Betty Cooper has, at any point, considered what kind of guy he is triggers full-on nervous blathering. “I’m usually very tired at school. I have this little sister—but I’m kind of um, her guardian. So I’m doing this stupid banana stand thing because it’s like one of the three assets to our entire family name I guess? Anyway, it’s hard to engage with Haggly’s basic discussion questions at eight in the morning when you spent the whole night dreaming about wholesale banana margins.”

He’s essentially vomiting words, but Betty is still smiling.

“Anyway, I should crawl back into my fruit-shaped purgatory and let you go back to your friends.”

She’s biting her lip, hedging. “Honestly, they’re probably using the alone time to make out in the car, and I’d rather let them get all their sexual tension out so that I don’t have to feel it radiating off of them for the whole second half of the double feature.”

Jughead laughs and tamps down the impulse to offer her a frozen banana, because he cannot possibly say something like that without making it sound sexual.

“What are frozen banana profit margins like, anyway?” Betty asks, either genuinely interested or legitimately flirting with him. Jughead finds both potentials baffling.

Jughead hesitates, then ducks inside the stand, pulling out his spiral bound notebook. “I’m still kind of figuring it out. All my records are in here.”

Betty sidles up to the stand, taking up the whole window. They’re both leaning over the scribbled line items on college ruled paper; he can smell her shampoo. She takes the notebook, scanning thoroughly.

“Do you have a pencil?”

He hands her one and observes her going to work, writing out some algebraic formula and calculating quickly in her head. There is a calculator within his reach, but he thinks handing it to her might come off as an insult. (Jughead wouldn’t know; he assumes Betty is in an advanced math class. Jughead is not.)

After a few minutes of watching her devoted focus, thinking about her hands touching his pencil, thinking about her hands wrapped around his hand, or his—

“I don’t know how to tell this to you, Jug.”

The shortening of his name stops his heart for a jolt, and his response is embarrassingly delayed. “What is it?”

Betty winces but smiles through it, a combination she’s surely learned to use when delivering bad news. It’s well earned, it really does soften the blow.

“There’s no money in the banana stand. At least, not with these margins.”

Jughead finds himself less than devastated by this news, mostly because it makes a hell of a lot of sense. The messenger doesn’t hurt, either.

“But,” she interrupts. “I don’t know if you’ve nailed down your course load for senior year. But I’m taking AP Econ? This could be, um, a good project. Like, if you want to take the class. Or even if you don’t. Not that you’re like a project or… whatever. I’m just saying we could figure it out. Make lemonade out of… bananas.”

Betty Cooper is extremely cute when she stammers.

Jughead doesn’t know what to do, so he gives her an easy out. “I can’t like, hire you, if that wasn’t obvious by the whole… deficit spending or whatever the whole negative circled number at the bottom of the page really means.”

She flushes. “No, that would be highway robbery. I just thought there might be an… opportunity. For um, us. I mean, for you and I. I mean—” she clears her throat, as if it’s closing up. “An academic opportunity. Or, in your case, professional. Well, a betterment of your livelihood. Okay, um, shit, just… I should go!”

She turns away, her face the deepest scarlet he’s ever seen.

“Betty, wait.”

She pivots back, eyes down at the ground.

“How about I buy you a new slushie and you come back into the booth. Tell me everything I’m doing wrong for the rest of the night.”

Betty looks up, biting the corner of her smile. “Sounds like a deal.”

They shake on it.

#this is unhinged but i had to ok #I HAD TO #riverdalepromptathon #riverdale fanfiction #bughead fanfiction #riverdalepromptathonweek3

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statticscribbles · 4 years

Text

Pioson

Summary: FP/Reader; FP’s a jock, readers a serpent Song-Fic Poison-Alice Cooper

Serpent’s weren’t welcome around the bulldogs. You knew this from how they’d glare; but Fred Andrews had befriended you and Alice and you weren’t going to turn down the nicest man in the school because his jacket patch was a little different than yours. You’d been surprised that in befriending Fred Andrews meant FP Jones’ turning his attention onto you. You had avoided him the first few times until Alice snapped that you’d better do something about his whining; both her and Fred had been complaining that he would whine about how you ignored him. “Y/N? What’s a snake doing in study hall-” “Do you want to fuck me or not?” You mumble into his ear before you pull back and walk out of the room. FP follows you after taking a moment to not seem desperate. You don’t comment but as he follows you to the back of the school you know this will end in tragedy.

He keeps your number in his pocket and you find yourself always meeting on your turf; you’re not surprised; you know he would hate for the northsiders to see him becoming serious with you. Still you avoid the Wyrm; curling into the back room of your trailer. “Why are you doing this?” “Doing what?” “Being with me?” “Do I need a reason Y/N?”

“No; but if it was to get back at your parents or worry someone then it would be more public; but you’re also not trying to hide me in school.” You think back to where he’d all but pinned you against the wall after gym. You hadn’t done anything particularly attractive; not that you think anyways, but for some reason FP had managed to corner you off from Alice and the other Serpents without looking like he was hanging around everyone.

The coach only coughs and looks unimpressed when FP jogs back over to continue the impromptu coaching session since most of the footballers had free period now.

You don’t look up from where you’re sat in detention; not until the sound that had been bugging everyone stops and FP grins at the window. “What are you doing here?” “We finished practice early and one of the Vixen’s said you were in here for calling them a ‘money grubbing bitch.” apparently. “Slut actually; is what I called her.” You grin sliding through the window and waiving the rest of the students in detention goodbye. “So what made you decide to break me out?’ You grin at him and he pales slightly. “I didn’t break you out…” “You opened the window; sure I climbed through but you opened it; I wouldn’t have been able to unless you opened it.” You laugh when he looks horrified at himself and you roll your eyes.

“Come on FP; you’re dating a Serpent; you need to be a little looser in your moral standings.” “About that…” “Your moral standings?” You smirk, wiggling your eyebrows. “No us dating.” “Do you not want to?”

“Well I mean I never actually asked you out; we just started having sex…” “Are you, a northsider trying to ask me, a serpent out?” “I mean I shouldn’t be dating you at all.” “Because you’re into football? What’s next you’re going to be too good to let me suck your dick?” “Jesus Y/N… I just; i know this will end badly.”

“Badly like you lying about your dad being the head of the Serpents and you desperately trying to lie your way into the northside?” He cringes back and you nod looking unimpressed. “You’re right then; we’re not good for each other.” “No we’re not; you’re just poison.”

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amazingphanisnotonfire-imagines · 4 years

Text

FP//you are summer, to my winter heart

Request: if requests are open can i request a fp/reader where you show up once Gladys leaves cause he asks you to help take care of jughead and you two end up together?

hey! i decided to do this as a headcanon because i thought it would be easier to show the development. i hope you still like it!! title is from a poet called gemma troy! i liked it (even though winter is the superior season)

- ‘she’s gone’

- It was the first words you heard when you walked through the front door.

- But you didn’t really need to be told

- You could just tell

- You’ve been in and out of the Jones household countless of times

- And every time you’ve walked in before...its been loud

- On good days when Jughead and Jellybean are playing

- Or bad days when Gladys has called you over to talk some sense into FP.

- You and Fred usually take it in turns to go over

- Either to talk to FP or to take the kids out for a few hours

- But on the 24th of February 2009, for the first time ever, the trailer was silent.

- You looked around, noticing the lack of kids toys, shoes and just general mess

- The lights were off, the curtains drawn and FP leaned against the kitchen counter, barely able to stand up properly.

- As soon as you saw him your heart dropped

- Your arms were around him instantly and he just let go

- His fingers gripping your jacket so tightly you thought he was going to rip a hole in it

- And he just cried

- He cried for what seemed like hours and you just stood there and held him

- Because what else where you supposed to do?

- He was your best friend

- Even if he did have his flaws

- Even if he did scream and shout for no reason

- Or pushed people away when he was too drunk to realize what he was doing

- You were always going to be there for him

- Because who else would be?

- Especially now

- When Jughead emerged from his bedroom, he smiled as soon as he saw you

- And you untangled yourself from FP

- ‘hey jug’ You’d said as cheerily as you could and he sent you a toothy grin back

- ‘y/n, what are you doing here?’

- ‘i came over to hang out with you’

- ‘can we go to the park’

- ‘of course we can. but you need your breakfast first...so what do you want?’

- ‘...pancakes?’ He’d asked nervously and you’d smiled and ruffled his hair

- ‘sure. why don’t you go watch some tv’

- He’d ran off before you even had the chance to finish your sentence

- And the action made you smile a little.

- It seemed he hadn’t noticed yet

- His family had fallen apart and he was worried about missing the Ninja Turtles

- Or if he had noticed it, it hadn’t sunk it properly

- ‘have you told him?’ You’d whispered to FP who just looked at the floor. ‘so no?’

- ‘no.’

- ‘okay.’ You nodded. ‘we’ll tell him together. later on.’

- ‘you don’t have to.’ He’d argued but you just sent him a look

- He’d grown used to that look, and by now he knew not to argue with it.

- ‘thank you’ The sincerity in his voice made you smile softly at him

- ‘but you have to do something for me’

- ‘what?’

- ‘sort your life out’

- And he did

- It took him a while

- And there were a few bumps mountains in the road

- But he eventually did it

- Nothing is ever as easy as they say though

- It was difficult at first

- What isn’t difficult about raising an 8 year old that isn’t yours

- And keeping one of your best friends sober after his wife left and took their daughter with her

- There was a lot of tears, shouting and slamming of doors

- And that was just from FP

- ‘you’re not my mom’ - jughead jones every single time he saw you for a week

- ‘we don’t need your fucking help y/n’ - fp jones every single time he saw you for a week

- But eventually you got the hang of things

- A routine was formed

- You’d drop Jughead off at school before going to work

- FP would pick him up on the way home

- Dinner would be timed perfectly for you coming home

- You’d help Jughead with his homework, always finding a way to make it fun

- You’d spend your evening watching movies either at home or at the drive in

- Or you’d spend hours arguing about what to watch

- Weekends would be spent at Pop’s, or the park or at the river

- And sometimes you’d drive to the beach and have a picnic

- Jughead would always insist that you had to tell him a story before sleep

- ‘because you do the best voices y/n’

- Sometimes you’d read them from books

- Other times they were made up (mostly)

- And FP would always stop outside of the room to listen in for a few minutes

- And when Jughead said he didn’t need a story anymore he was able to quickly put him to bed while you cried on the sofa

- He’d hugged you until the two of you fell asleep

- Only woken up by Jughead asking what was for breakfast

- Some stories he’d recognize from the years before Jughead and Jellybean were born

- They’d be from summers spent together going on adventures despite being in your twenties and thirties

- Others would have just elements of truth in them

- Like when you’d found a suitcase by the river

- But you managed to leave out the fact that it was empty apart from the blood splatter

- You replaced the blood with a portal to another world

- And all of them you made sound magic

- To both Jughead and FP

- And he’d be left wondering what he would ever do without you

- So he would come up with a plan to show just how much they appreciate you

- And so the 7th November was officially made Y/n’s day

- It was kind of like mothers day

- But not

- Jughead would make a Y/n’s day card

- FP would make breakfast for you and then you got to chose what to do for the rest of the day

- You’d also always get a present

- One made by Jughead and another bought by FP

- It was usually always small, but you loved it anyway

- And even after almost ten years, Jughead always still got you a card and FP always bought you a present.

- You’d practically moved in with them within the first year of it all happening

- Sleeping on the pull out sofa in the living room

- It wasn’t that bad after a while

- Although you will always blame it for the permanent sore back you have now

- And eventually everything felt semi-normal

- You were like a little family

- You’d go to parties of friends together

- And you and FP would rarely be seen apart

- Always sat or stood together, talking or laughing at something

- Sometimes and arm would be slung around your shoulder or waist

- New friends or neighbours of the trailer park assumed you to be a proper family

- Assumptions would always be met by awkward laughs and quick mutters of ‘we’re not a couple’

- Over time though you started to notice a change in the way they made you feel

- At first it was sort of funny and a little awkward

- But the more it happened the more you felt your chest tighten when you or FP denied it

- Until you found yourself not denying it, letting FP laugh it off every time

- But despite that small detail

- You worked well together

- Everything seemed to be going well

- Until it happened

- Until FP spiraled and you were left to pick up the pieces

- Looking after a now 15 years old Jughead while his father was in prison and his mom and sister were god knows where.

- Jughead was lost and you could tell

- What 15 year old wouldn’t be

- So you made sure he knew you weren’t going anywhere

- You were always there when he woke up in the morning or came home from school

- You listened when he talked

- Whether it was about his novel or his friends

- And you reassured him his dad would be okay

- Even if he had been arrested for murder

- You’re still there for FP too

- Visiting as often as possible

- Even if you do give him the look every time you see him

- But you promise to help him

- And when he eventually gets out

- Your the first one to hug him

- Wrapping him up in a giant hug that makes both of you feel like you’re home

- Even more so when he hugs you back just as tightly

- Jughead coughs awkwardly and you pull apart

- You shuffle away from him

- Letting them have their own moment before taking them both to Pop’s

- Again it took a while

- But you got your routine back

- And everything went back to normal

- As normal as you can be when you live in Riverdale

- You supported Jughead when he wanted to join the serpents

- And you helped FP get his job so he could support the three of you

- Before his arrest there had been talk of you moving out

- Its not like Jughead needed you anymore

- Not really

- And FP was doing great

- But now, it looks like you were stuck sleeping in the living room still

- Jughead needed stability

- And you and FP needed each other

- It was never said out loud

- Never discussed

- Never so much as briefly mentioned

- But everyone knew the two of you needed each other

- The thought of moving out may have made your back happy

- But that was the only part of you that wanted to

- The rest of you didn’t know what you’d do without him

- And FP was absolutely terrified of the idea of not seeing you every day

- It made his chest tight and his head hurt

- So you stayed

- Until she came back

- Jughead went looking for his mom and sister

- Something you don’t blame him for

- You’d probably do the exact same thing

- But whenever Gladys is around

- There’s trouble

- She may be your friend but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t bring chaos wherever she goes

- Yes, she might have had her reasons to leave

- You don’t blame her for that

- What you do blame her is leaving one child while taking the other

- ‘well isn’t this cozy’

- The familiar voice makes you jump and you watch as FP stands up, eyes wide as he stares at his daughter and estranged wife

- Jughead is also just as shocked, hugging Jellybean tightly

- The ache in your chest returns, and this time no matter how hard you try it stays

- It stays all through the night

- And its still there by morning

- It follows you around wherever you go

- It seems no matter where you are in Riverdale

- Gladys and FP are there

- They both make your heart ache

- But both of them for different reasons

- And its not until you’re lying in bed

- Two weeks after Gladys turned up and essentially kicked you out

- Leaving you to quickly find a trailer to rent

- That you realize whats happened

- You’re in love

- But there’s nothing happy about it

- There’s no magic, sweetness or joy to it

- Its all yearning looks and gloomy thoughts

- Watching a family you used to be apart of from the outside

- She does what you used to

- She should, she is their mom and his wife

- But she’s missed 7 years of their lives

- Seven years that you’ve been there

- You held together, looked after and cleaned up the mess that she left behind

- And the worst thing is

- You know you’ll do exactly the same when she inventively leaves again

- You tried telling FP

- ‘you and gladys together does not work’

- But he just brushed it off

- Happy that his family was back together

- But he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something was missing

- Like when a photograph has been folded over

- He knows something’s not right

- He just can’t figure out what it is

- He can

- He knows exactly whats missing

- Its you

- But what’s he supposed to do?

- He can’t bring you back

- Gladys and Jellybean have come back

- They’re happy

- Or at least thats what they’re trying to be

- But there’s a massive crack down the middle of this family

- And there’s not enough glue to fix it

- Its just a matter of waiting

- Waiting for the inevitable to happen

- No matter how much he wills it not to

- Jughead and Jellybean are happy

- Gladys is happy

- But he isn’t so sure its because of him

- And to an extent he’s happy too

- He has his kids back

- He’s got a great job

- And eventually a house

- Even if it is the Coopers

- But he can see you’re unhappy

- And he hates that

- He only ever wants to see you smile

- Its one of his favourite things

- Always has been now he thinks about it

- But he saw you at his party

- You were smiling

- But it wasn’t real

- And every time you see each other you send each other smiles

- But they never reach your eyes.

- Riverdale being Riverdale

- Crazy things always happen

- You hear of a Griffins and Gargoyles being played again

- And remember when you would play

- Remember what happened to your friends

- And to The Midnight Club

- FP telling you all about it one night after Jughead had gone to bed

- Those nights seem so far away

- You suppose they are really

- You make sure to tell Jughead to stay away from it

- Not wanting him to have to go through anything that you or his parents did.

- And then there’s the robbery at Pop’s

- And suddenly FP’s in hospital and you find yourself giving him the look when you visit him

- He smiles

- Despite the trouble and pain he’s in

- Because you being here eases both of those things

- It doesn’t last long though

- FP is arrested and you’re sent home

- Its not until a few days later do you find yourself walking into the Jones’ residence again

- ‘she’s gone’ FP says, sat at the dining table with his head in his hands

- ‘i know’ You say, sitting beside him and grabbing his hand.

- ‘have you come to say i told you so?’ He looks at you sadly and you just shake.

- ‘no. i’m here to help.’

- ‘thank you.’

- ‘what are friends for?’

- The word stings, but it needs to be said

- No matter how you feel about him

- You’re still his friend

- So you do what you do best

- You fix

- And after a while you have a routine again

- It takes a while

- But eventually everyone gets used to each other

- And its normal-ish

- You still listen to Jughead talk about his novel

- You’re the only person he really talks about it with

- And you help Jellybean with her homework

- You take her shopping at the weekend

- And listen to her when she tells you about whatever drama is going on in her class

- You and FP take it in turns to cook dinner

- The other one always washes up

- You still feel the ache in your chest every so often

- But it’s not as strong

- Because you see each other every day

- You’re back together

- Where you should be

- Even if it is platonic

- Well, up until he kisses you before you go home

- He walks you to the front door as usual

- Offering you a lift which you always politely decline

- And just as you’re about to leave

- He grabs your arm gently, spinning you around and kissing you softly

- It takes you by surprise

- Your eyes widen at first and he panics, starting to pull away

- But when you fingers grip his arms

- The dark fabric bunching together as you pull him closer

- And you kiss him back

- A lot more force that he had

- He knows he hasn’t messed up

- He knows he made the first right decision in about 7 years

- Because when your arms wrap around him he knows he’s home

#fp #fp imagine #fp x reader #fp x you #fp jones #fp jones imagine #fp jones x reader #fp jones x y/n #riverdale #riverdale imagine

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derireo · 4 years

Text

fair & square / itaru chigasaki

Request: yohoo~ , read some of your works and absolutely loved your writing game! how about a one-on-one gaming session with itaru that ends a little spicy if you don't mind :D Your works are always a joy to read

Hehe, thanks, anon! I hope you enjoy!

「 Read on AO3 」「 1.4k words 」

"Not gonna lie, but you're totally pissing me off right now." Itaru grumbled through his headphones. You were able to hear the aggressive clacking of his keyboard as you snorted in response to his complaint, leaning back in your chair with a relaxed sigh.

The two of you were in your respective rooms when your boyfriend suggested that you two 1V1 each other, and whoever won got a prize. You didn't want to back down when there was so much at stake, and being confident in your own abilities, let Itaru choose the game you two would be playing. Luckily enough for you, rather than choosing a game that required 120 fps or guns, the blondie actually chose one of the more classic games. A revamp, sure, but still a classic.

"Sucks that you're losing to me in Bomberman, huh?" You mocked him, a delighted laugh coming deep from within your chest as you witnessed his player get crushed by the falling blocks due to one of your items blocking his way to escape.

A groan was heard through your headset, and then a slam of a fist hitting wood. As much as Itaru was skilled at a variety of games, his skills were rusty when it came to this childhood classic. A few times you'd see his character jerk in the wrong direction and then get caught up in a spot that wasn't ideal, and even more times where his quick reflexes weren't enough to save him from the strategically placed items you scattered across the board.

It was all so very amusing and you were winning by a landslide, but Itaru just refused to give up.

"Want to take a break?" You asked seriously though after you finished up your last round of the match with him. You could hear Itaru sigh on the other side, and with how he was staying silent for the next few seconds you were just about to put your gaming session on pause and turn off your monitor to let it cool down.

"Nope. I'm gonna win and I'm gonna get that prize." He mumbled through a bunch of snacks snapping between his teeth. The determination in his voice briefly held you back from telling him what was really happening, but you told him anyway.

"You do know that you've lost, like, I don't know. Five matches at this point, right?" Your smile was tentative as you brought your boyfriend back to reality. If he really did want to keep playing until he won, you two would have to continue going against each other until very late at night. Maybe even one in the morning at the earliest, considering Itaru's proposition popped up not too long ago.

"Yeah, and?" He said through a mouthful of food on the other end of your headset. You sighed, not having the heart to scold him as you scooted back into your desk while stretching your arms above your head. The stretch was very much needed, and your pleased hum had Itaru munching louder on his chips.

He wasn't going to get distracted by such pretty sounds.

"Please don't complain if you lose again." You begged him to which he only hummed in response. He wasn't listening anymore.

You knew he was serious when he decided to stop talking and started the next match without asking if you were ready. The cramping sensation in your fingers were slowly growing with how long you two have been playing for the whole day, but you didn't want to set aside your pride just yet.

You were winning fair and square right now and the only one who had a problem with it was Itaru.

The soft tapping of your keyboard and the click of your mouse was the only sound in your room as the both of you focused on the game on your computer screens, eyes squinted to focus on the monitor while your tongue stuck out in concentration, knee bouncing anxiously as you tried your best to win the round and get Itaru's will to break.

You nearly screamed out in surprise when you had just barely escaped one of his items, your hand and mouse flying out to one side to quickly move out the way as the barriers began to close down on you two. The menacing sound of the blocks thudding down on the screen made your heart race inexplicably faster and both you and Itaru made a prompt decision to lay down an item at the same time, the barriers restricting how far away you two can move.

The clock was ticking faster on your screen and with bated breath and closed eyes, you waited for either yours or Itaru's bomb to go off.

Your body flinched at the sound of the explosion, eyes still closed. You were too scared to look, but the frustrated sigh Itaru let out from the other side of the headset told you the end result.

Slumping in your chair with relief, you pressed pause on the game to talk to Itaru who seemed to be silently fuming. "Do you still wanna play?" You questioned him gently, smile bashful as you listened to him rummage around his room in annoyance as grumbles left his mouth. You could practically see him rubbing his hands over his face as he tried to keep his cool, but before you could say anything else, his headset cut off and you could hear a door slam outside.

You flinched again at the sound and quickly took off your headphones when the door to your bedroom flew open to reveal an obviously upset Itaru, blond hair dishevelled and lips pouting. He tried not to slam the door on his way in, but the door frame still managed to shake when it shut, his eyebrows creased in frustration as he quickly approached you.

His steps were filled with purpose as you tried to back away from him on your chair only for his hands to fly out and stop you by gripping onto the armrests, his smile nearing an emotion akin to wickedness as he towered over your cowering figure, an annoyed groaned escaping you once he had you cornered.

"I told you not to-- mmf!" Your sentence was cut off when your boyfriend grabbed you by the front of your shirt and yanked you forward until his lips clashed with yours in a fiery kiss, his tongue already poking out to invade your mouth. With how rough he was kissing you, all complaints you had had flown out the window as you melted under his overwhelming touch, soft moans spilling from your mouth.

His weight against the chair began to push you back until you both hit the wall and with your hands going numb held onto his neck with your arms instead, dragging him down to pull his body flush against yours as your legs unfurled to wrap around his hips. His hand on the armrest came up to brush your hair back from your cheek and cup your jaw in his heated palm, lazily nudging your head back as his teeth came out to tug at your bottom lip.

"I hate playing games with you sometimes." He whispered against your reddened lips as he tugged you off your chair until you were hanging off of him, his strides hasty as he brought the two of you to your unkempt bed so that he could feel your pliant body beneath his calloused fingers.

"It's not my fault you suck." You shot back, laughing as he shot you an edgy stare. His hands found your wrists and pinned them down to the bed while the look of betrayal on his face only made you giggle more and he did his best to keep his cool. He had already lost his temper once or twice today; he couldn't do it a third time.

You peered up at his uncharacteristically sulking appearance and smiled, absolutely smitten by how adorable he was. You didn't fight against the grip he had on you, but you twisted your arms just a little to regain his attention.

"If you wanted a kiss, you could've just asked instead of trying to win."

Once again offended, Itaru squinted down at you and bumped your noses together, mouth moving to kiss the corner of your lips.

"Now where's the fun in that?"

#ur on queue #itaru chigasaki #chigasaki itaru #fluff #itaru x reader #a3!#a3! imagines #a3! act! addict! actors!#A3! Actor Training Game #a3! scenarios #NO BETA BABEY

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plus-size-reader · 5 years

Text

House Party

Young! FP Jones x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 1570 words

Warnings: none

Summary: The reader has a huge crush on FP but she doesn't think he'll like her because she isn't like the girls he usually dates

———————————————————————————————————

As far as reputations went on the south-side, FP Jones was infamous. He was the youngest of his family to ever take over the serpent's gang and he didn’t go anywhere without a posse to prove it.

He was incredible, but you knew that he would never give you the time of day.

It just wasn’t how it worked.

In fact, you would be shocked if he even knew your name-even though you two had went to the same school all your lives and you lived in the same neighborhood.

You simply didn’t command attention like he did. No one paid attention when you walk past, and quite frankly, you preferred it that way.

Slipping under the radar was just how you rolled, it was much easier than having to deal with the ghoulies hanging on you, like they did with the popular girls or getting catcalled in the street.

In fact, you were hardly ever bothered when you walked the halls of Southside High school...until today.

Your step-sister, Julie had decided to throw a party and because she was much more popular than you, people actually showed up. However, when the doorbell rang for the fifteenth time tonight and you looked around to find Julz doing a keg stand-you decided to get the door.

It was probably just the rest of the football team. Apparently, they had stopped to pick up some beers and seeing as most of the south-side was here, you knew better than to leave them on the porch.

That wouldn’t go down well.

However, when you opened the door-there were no jocks to be found. Instead, one man stood in its wake, brown hair parted down the middle and a leather jacket hanging from his frame.

you were so shocked at first, blinking slowly as you tried to figure out if this was really happening or not.

It was FP in the flesh, the guy you’d been completely and totally infatuated with since middle school. You didn’t even know that Julie knew him, led alone that he would come to some party she threw.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, the words slipping from your lips before you even meant for them to.

He looked confused at your question, mostly just trying to figure out where he’d seen you before. Though, that look of confusion quickly morphed into a smirk that could have stopped your heart.

“This is where the party is right?” he checked, looking past your shoulder to the rowdy scene behind you. It was tame, compared to the things that he was used to but it could be interesting.

...If nothing else, he knew that he could find you if he got bored.

You nodded, trying to still your shaking hands as you let him in, pulling the door open all the way to make room for him before closing it. FP watched you, amusement in his gaze as he studied you.

He thought that you were in one of his classes, probably English though he didn’t attend very often.

One thing was bothering him though...he had never seen you at one of these parties before. By his standards, they were more like social gatherings but he didn’t mind.

It was better than going home to his drunk dad and a pile of dirty laundry he had to take care of-even if it wasn’t as eventful as a rager at the Wyrm.

FP just didn’t get it.

You’d never been at any of the other high school parties and now you were getting the door? It didn’t add up. However, when he took another look at you, he realized you weren’t attending this party at all.

Dressing your frame was a t-shirt, which hung low on your shoulders and fell just above your hip line and a pair of shorts. It wasn’t exactly typical of what girls wore to these things but there was something endearing about it.

You weren’t like any of the other girls here, and he thought it was cute, in a quirky sort of way.

“The drinks should be in the kitchen, I’m sure you’ll be able to find Julie” you gestured, instantly regretting coming down to get a glass of water and a snack.

You should have just stayed in your room where you belonged, because FP had just seen you in your pajamas, and probably thought that you were a total loser...not that that was a secret to begin with.

“You know Julie?” he wondered, not putting the pieces together. Julie was at least three years older than you two were, and he wasn’t sure how you knew her.

She didn’t usually make friends with underclassmen unless they could do something for her.

There it was.

That was the line that you dreaded in every conversation.

Your mom marrying Julie’s dad had been the worst thing to ever happen to you because every guy that talked to you now wanted to get to her. You should have known that FP would be no different.

Still, it sucked to hear it out loud.

“She’s my step-sister” you grumbled, hating the words as they bled into the air, seeming to stain the environment all around you.

FP could hardly believe it, he didn’t even know Julie had a sister...led alone the fact that you were that sister. If he had known, maybe he would have crashed one of her parties before tonight.

“Cool, are you gonna hang around? I don’t really care for anyone around here” he asked, making your stomach flip. If you hadn’t known any better, you would have thought that FP was flirting with you.

...but that wasn’t possible.

Guys like FP didn’t go for girls like you, it just didn’t happen. Guys like FP dated girls like Julie with size 2 waists and a collection of pumps. You couldn’t even remember the last time you wore something other than jeans and sneakers.

Usually, you didn’t have a problem with it but every once and awhile, moments like this came along and reminded you all about everything that was wrong with you.

...Everything you desperately wanted to change.

“I was actually gonna go watch a movie upstairs, I’m not much of a party goer” you shrugged, assuming that you’d just blew it, not that you really cared. As far as you were concerned, FP would be all over one of the seniors before midnight.

He didn’t actually want to spend any time with you. Who would with all the other exciting things he could be doing?

You could have sworn that you saw his face fall a little before he finally nodded.

“Well maybe I’ll come visit you if this gets too painful” he winked, leaving you to it. You let out a deep breath as he walked away toward the living room, your skin felt like it was on fire.

You couldn’t handle this.

Before you could have an actual stroke, you headed back upstairs, hoping to leave all memory of this whole thing behind you in favor of watching MTV until you went to bed.

Julie had a habit of not clearing out until the very last minute and it was likely that the party would go all night long. If you were lucky though, you wouldn’t have to go back downstairs until morning.

...Or at least that was what you were hoping.

Of course, nothing every worked out like that in real life so half way through watching a taping of the exorcist, there was a knock at your bedroom door.

At first, you assumed that it was just Julie, telling you she was going to leave with some guy she just met but if that was the case-she would have just yelled through the door.

This had to be someone else.

You groaned, rolling out of bed and pausing the tape, before making your way over to the door. You weren’t used to being interrupted when you were trying to chill but for all you knew, it could have been an accident.

There were a few different rooms on this floor and they could have just made a wrong turn at the stairs. You wouldn’t know unless you checked.

However, when you opened the door, it wasn’t an accident at all. Standing there in the hallway, holding a couple sodas between his right arm and his chest, was FP.

You had no idea what he was doing here, but you couldn’t help the butterflies in your stomach at the sight of him. Even if he got lost and was looking for another room, it was nice to see him again.

As nervous as he made you.

“Hey, the bathroom is down the hall” you gestured, pointing in that way as if that was what he was here for. You had no idea what he was here for but you knew that it wasn’t looking for you.

There was no way he would come all the way up here to find you.

“I actually came to see you” he grinned, holding out a can of pop for you with that same charming smile on his face. You were shocked, mostly, when the words left his mouth but you knew better than to argue.

It may not have made sense to you, but for whatever reason, Fp Jones was standing at your bedroom door and you weren’t going to close it in his face.

#fp #fp jones #fp jones x ps reader #fp jones x plus size reader #fp x ps reader #fp x plus size reader #forsythe pendleton jones ii #riverdale #riverdale x reader #riverdale x plus size reader #riverdale x ps reader #riverdale imagine #young fp jones

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stattic-writes · 4 years

Text

Poison

https://statticscribbles.tumblr.com/post/639099629845233664/masterlist

Support My Writing?

#fp jones x reader #fp jones #fp x reader #FP Jones x You #fp jones x y/n #Skeet Ulrich #skeet ulrich imagine #riverdale #riverdale fandom #riverdale fanfiction #riverdale cw #riverdale reader insert #riverdale request #written #female reader #female reader insert

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soyosauce · 4 years

Text

Cyberpunk 2077: Is This To Be An Empathy Test?

Cyberpunk 2077 is an adaptation and extrapolation of the popular tabletop pen-and-paper role-playing game Cyberpunk, originally published in 1988. The video game uses an extrapolation of the setting and Interlock system, translated to video game format.

When I finished the game, credits rolled. And rolled. And rolled. More than 15 minutes went by.

Now, days later, as I reflect on more than 70 hours of playtime, Cyberpunk 2077 feels like many people have had their hands in the pie. Its strengths and weaknesses stem from its massive ambition, marketing, and promises.

Different Experiences

I played CP2077 on a Ryzen 7 3700x with 32 gigs of RAM and an RX 2700 GPU. I was able to get around 35 FPS at 1440p without noticeable drops (except when looking in mirrors), and I played on ultra-settings without ray tracing on. I began playing it with the rest of the PC consumers with the day 1 patch.

As a crafted experience, I can say that it is the most impressive looking game I've ever played, and my playthrough seems to be a fortunate one, with maybe a handful of glitches or bugs across the entire 70 hours. None of which were remotely game-breaking. I was never unable to progress in the story. I never had a crash. The most annoying thing I experienced was sometimes crosshairs from a gun would continue to stay onscreen after it was holstered.

I mention this because I think a major component of why I come away with a positive experience is because my computer could deliver the intended experience. And Cyberpunk 2077 is unrivaled in its execution of a funneled narrative. Characters and environments have never felt more genuine and cinematic.

The sound design is some of the best I've heard, and it's perfect in every aspect of the game. From the sound of a throaty exhaust to the scraping of metal-tipped hands against hardwood, the sound is superb and adds to the immersion.

The World

With a setting as old as Cyberpunk, there will be consumers who are familiar with the setting and have a grasp on the worldbuilding. For the uninitiated, however—of which, I think most customers will be—the aesthetic and gameplay elements the marketing team used in advertisements will be the primary hook. The game doesn’t go out of its way to communicate that it is anything more than that, either.

What was most compelling about Night City was the meticulous detail and care devs clearly put into every nook and cranny of the city. Distinct and disparate, no part of it feels reused or like its filler. It is the most gorgeous and well-realized environment I've encountered in a video game.

Yet the gangs, fixers, and side jobs located within it feel one dimensional when viewed from a macro, worldbuilding perspective.

Typical fixer missions are varied enough and have different small bits of story, but usually just elucidating that specific mission and its characters. You’ll find little bits of lore some of the time, which augment the siloed stories, but often don’t give a wider context to help situate the faction you’re interacting with.

The gangs seem to have a central theme, but I never learned why they were actually there from a worldbuilding perspective, beyond the fact that the game wants you to be looting and shooting.

Culturally, the gang elements are too often a pastiche and don’t feel real. They have scripted lines that are often dehumanizing and feel unrealistic. Some of them don't even make any sense. They'll find a dead body and start yelling for you to come out, "cunt", or some other misogynistic pejorative. How do they know it's a woman? Making them all say and act that way feels so cheap, encouraging you to take them out because they're demonstrably “bad” people. And it doesn’t matter what kind of mission it is. Context doesn’t matter.

With the bits of lore you’ll find all over the place (often repeated), it feels like a missed opportunity to not humanize and characterize the gang identities as a whole; even if you are spending most of your time mowing them down, at least you’d come to understand why the city is the way it is and what its general makeup is better than just knowing which gang claims which area of the city.

The world feels overly concerned with aesthetics that the player never gets context for, so it feels like a caricature used for aesthetic purposes only.

For instance, Arasaka, the megacorporation controlling/running Night City, has a highly traditional, tyrannical, Japanese businessman who has had his life extended with cybernetics. He’s over one hundred years old and controls Arasaka with an iron fist. The inference on my part is that locations in Night City with heavy Asian aesthetics are there because of this megacorp’s influence. But it still feels strange because, in other lore given, the city has been run by other corporations not that long ago and had other cultural influences asserted. So why is Little China, Japantown, and Kabuki a weird pastiche and the only place that seems to assert its cultural influence on the city? When you enter other areas, they don’t look like they’re trying to recreate foreign cultures. Is it because of the Arasaka influence? Possibly, but I never found any lore that explained it. Visually, this aesthetic dominated my playthrough.

The result is a siloed microworld that feels like it might be there simply to justify some of the predominantly Asian gangs, who seem to be basically just cyberized yakuza and come up fairly often in fixer missions. The main story also springboards off some of these locations, so the game really wants this look to make an impression on the player.

When you explore in-depth, all of the interactable, consumable portions of the city have a faux quality because you can only look at them. Sometimes you can buy food from a couple of vendors and clothes, but everything exists solely to be interacted with in a hyper-specific way, rather than extrapolated from a perspective divorced from what would be merely aesthetically interesting and actually realistic enough to let V feel like a character that is a part of this world.

You can sleep with and date a few different people, depending on your gender presentation, but the relationship's extent beyond that varies. There are some texts between characters, but you don't get to, say, go home and do anything with them. Their interactions with you in person are the same as though you had phoned them.

You can talk to people on the sidewalk, but they have a regurgitated one-liner and then go back to what they're doing. You can't go up to a gang member and talk to them because once they see you, they’ll attack you if you get too close.

The only things that feel genuinely next level are the prescriptive story elements. And that's okay! It just doesn't jive with the level of detail or how much you think you'll be able to interact with things when you first see them. Marketing makes it seem like the world at large may be something you can interact with, but those all end up being the curated narratives.

Because the worldbuilding framework is from a first-wave cyberpunk perspective, unfortunately, pitfalls like techno-orientalism are prevalent.

The themes around the commodification of those things that make us human, from our body, faith, and art, are all interesting themes present in the genre—but here they are skewed toward fetishizing minorities and subcultures, just as first-wave cyberpunk texts tended to do.

V is ostensibly a cyberpunk and it follows that they would be a part of the same subgroup as the minorities who are underrepresented and lacking nuance in the CP2077 world, but V is actually traversing the story with their only integration into a subculture being that they’re a mercenary. With few exceptions, they all seem to not really share punk values, either. Some take jobs from corps (you certainly can if you want), some don’t like the corps but aren’t particularly anti-establishment or pro direct action. Most just seem to hang out at a bar. You don’t hear about what they do on the news or in the world. You don’t get jobs from fixers that are ideologically aligned with being punk. And you don’t integrate with any other subcultures when out of the main narratives.

The exploitation of people and the world's general themes and sensibilities still feel firmly rooted in the late 80s, early 90s. It is not aware enough to fully realize an actual subculture or even the dynamics of criminal elements in the city, so it frames the story from a mainstream perspective for mass appeal.

The problem is that, with so many people consuming the game, this becomes the default that those consumers will adopt. It has a responsibility precisely because it is so popular and will become a part of the general intellect. Rather than be progressive with its themes and push mainstream depiction of cyberpunk to something in line with what can be found in literature today, it is regressive.

Ultimately, the worldbuilding is the most disappointing aspect of Cyberpunk 2077. The main narratives, however, are a different story.

Story

Arguably, the most important thing for a role-playing game experience is the story. In 2077, you play V, a mercenary on the edges of society trying to make it big in Night City. In classic cyberpunk genre fashion, a chance at a big score drops into your relatively inexperienced hands, and you seize it. A heist is planned; it doesn't go as planned—and Johnny Silverhand, a long-dead anarchist and misogynistic jerk—basically a proto-typical embodiment of 70’s rock ethos—ends up in your head. He has his own agenda, and V can either go along, get along, or make their own decisions about what to do next. For the most part.

The story beats are as meticulously crafted as corners of Night City. The character animations are the most advanced I’ve ever seen—: they’ll smoke a cigarette for a portion of the conversation, stub it out, then get up and pace nervously while delivering their lines. Their emotions will be written on their face and flow naturally. They'll touch items or other people in the scene. They look and act like real people and sound like it too.

There’s a 4-part storyline with a trans character in which you just won’t ever learn their story unless you talk with them and earn their trust. You can go through the whole narrative and help them out (or not), and never learn much about them. But if you spend the time and ask questions, you'll always get something from these storylines, even if they initially seem to be just another gig on the map.

Because the game's worldbuilding, including in-game ads, is blind to its own defaultism, stories like this are absolutely vital. I wish there were more of them and I hope the free DLC forthcoming are things like this.

2077 is populated with genuine, human moments. They communicate why you should care about the city and the people you encounter. And most importantly: these moments define V as much as the main storyline.

Whether intentional or purely a byproduct of how each facet of the game was developed, these stories augment the play experience a tremendous amount.

What I remember most is finding out if Johnny can, and will, actually change or if he's just trying to manipulate me, discovering how my decisions alter the way he interacts with me, and going down a rabbit-hole, sex trafficking narrative that initially feels a bit too archetypical, only to have it morph into a multi-part story that rooted V's narrative in an emotional and impactful way.

These are the stories that you can actually, meaningfully change. And because I did them all before the main storyline, they all felt like they meshed well with my V’s overall story.

Of course, you could do the main story right away and then go back and do these side stories. I think the experience would be quite different because of the knowledge and relationship you have with Johnny at the end of the main story experience, though.

The main storyline has multiple endings; I've experienced four of them, and they all deliver fairly well on expectations. These endings do not consider anything that isn’t a main or side job, which is labeled as such in your log. Your relationships with the main characters do change the endings slightly, but they don't change the overall outcomes for V and Johnny. This made the game's main attraction for me the fleshed-out side narratives and a few other mysterious side jobs that crop up without a fixer giving them to you.

These other stories were more enjoyable because I felt like I really mattered and could actually mess them up. The main storyline is only preoccupied with whether or not you did X and, if so, you can see the Y ending. It felt like it had lower stakes.

Conclusion

I do feel like 2077 is a new way to consume an immersive role-playing video game experience. It's unfortunate and unfair to many people that multiple promises the game makes cannot be fulfilled unless they can experience it on a particular platform (with a fairly sizeable amount of money in the investment). A decent computer to play it on is the best way, and it’s expensive if you want to max out absolutely everything. Next-generation consoles aren't even optimized for it yet. Last generation consoles are struggling. Crashes, bugs, poor textures, and framerates.

What is Cyberpunk 2077 when it can’t replicate the ideal delivery for its desired experience?

So much of what made the experience singular and noteworthy for me comes down to how life-like and human the people I came to care about the most in the game looked and acted. Take that veneer away, and the cracks in the façade appear.

Doing most of the side content before the main jobs gave my V a meta-narrative: they were a ruthless killer that would do pretty much whatever a fixer asked of them. Those were the expectations set by the world outside of the story. But then V morphs into a person confronting that life, questions who they want to be, and what it takes to thrive in Night City when you hit the main narratives. That’s why I had a positive experience. And that’s why I’ll return to the city and do things differently.

Ironically, Cyberpunk 2077's overall game experience relies on technology to build empathy between the player and the main cast. Yet, the world outside of the main narrative denies that same empathy to the denizens and factions it populates Night City with. If the platform you’re playing on can’t effectively utilize the demanding Red Engine developed for Cyberpunk 2077, the most likely outcome is an experience devoid of the only substantive thing it has to offer.

#cyberpunk 2077 #Cyberpunk #CDPR #Review

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