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woneuntonzz · 2 months

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competitive academic rival!eunseok x overachiever, afab!reader

“ started with a spark,¹ now we're on fire.² ” ; (1/2)

warning/s: cussing, violent thoughts

content: songfic, enemies to lovers, academic rivals, fluff, incy-wincy bit of angst, very lovey-dovey i'm actually attached, mention of other idol names for world building !!

wc: 5.7k!!

⋆⭒°｡⋆ i feel like we've made it pretty far, now we're stargazing ☄️ ; inspired by The Neighbourhood's Stargazing 🎶

“Stupid algebra.”

Eunseok was never the type to grumble, but in this particular scenario, how could he not?

You were getting too good at math, better than him even. You were assigned by your teacher to create two algebraic word problems by pair. You were most certainly not expecting to get paired with him.

Your school life could've been perfect if it all had remained as simple as it was, but he had to pop out of nowhere to ruin everything for you. You've been a straight A student ever since stepping foot on a school, unfortunately for you, so was he.

A second year transfer from the pits of hell.

“Are you trying to say he's hot?”

“Ew, no. Why'd you even ask something that stupid.”

Your friend shrugs at you. “Cause hell is hot?”

“Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

A stone-faced egomaniac, just as much as you were a people pleaser that strived off of sarcasm.

If you thought he was jerk-of-the-year, he thought you're pathetic, and for that reason he paid you special attention. He saw you as this pretentious overachiever that got everyone's approval for a reason he could not understand, either way he refused to understand.

But now you had him caged, tied down, crawling in the dark because of a math problem that you created. It was humiliating for him, but even more so redeeming and amusing for you.

“Is this a trick question? you sure you're not trying to make a fool out of me?” you scoffed at the frustration being hinted in his tone and his mouth moved fast, apparently not as fast as his brain should've been.

“Uh, yeah. I don't like wasting my time —just admit you can't solve it, geez.” the sound of his pencil hitting his desk followed right after you. “Are you mad at me?”

You looked at his face. Not an ounce of expression could be seen from it. This would be the pinnacle of your hatred, how he's just so good at hiding how annoyed he truly was that you could outsmart him, outperform him in oral recitations, that both teachers and students seemed to be so fond of you.

You avert your gaze from him. “What an interesting story it would be, Y/n staring at me.”

Halfway from lowering your head to recheck your equations, your head would snap back at him.

“Don't get too cocky now, the numbers and variables won't solve themselves.” you went back to your paper, expecting to hear not another breath from him.

“So you were staring?”

You held yourself back from cursing right at his face, pulling on the ends of your skirt as you readjust your position. “No, I believe being a smartass would have granted you the ability to conclude that I simply just refuse to acknowledge your bold assumption.”

You heard him scoff. It was such an excruciating sound, like nails against a chalkboard. He wouldn't speak again for another ten minutes, and when he did, he had already snatched your notebook from you.

“Being respectful and asking isn't in your list of attributes?” you retort, but he remained unbothered, flicking through your notebook and dismissing your foreboding stare.

You watched as his eyes scanned through your notes.

“Hmm…” his menacing hum sent shivers down your spine. “No wonder why.” he scoffed again, throwing your notebook into your hands with forgiving force.

He had a smug look on his face that you wanted to wipe off with such pressure that could erase his entire existence.

“You missed a step, miss know-it-all. Try harder next time.”

Your notebook hit the top of his head, exerting all the strength you had left in you. The impact was so loud and potent that he could no longer speak —is what could've happened if you weren't so patient. You're not a child after all, so admitting to your mistakes came easier unlike then. These hostile thoughts would only arise because of how tenacious he could be.

He was right, you missed a step and he saved your project. You would never be in the mood to be thankful, you still wished he could get one of his feet bitten off and not show up in class again. You doubt he was the same with everyone, well, sure, he kept displaying impassiveness towards everyone, but you'd prefer if he'd stay that way and not contest you in anything and everything.

You wished your misery would end at that, but he'd go on about it everyday. It was definitely on purpose, purposely letting you answer first when both of you had your hands raised, and then answering after, giving a much more impactful stand and if it was a bad day, he'd go on to correct you one way or another and oppose your opinions. You've learned to wait for him to finish answering before you raised your own hand. He picked up on it quickly, you should've known, so he'd go all out when answering, not leaving a single detail out for anyone else, especially you.

Both of you were never certain just how much of an effect you had on each other, but it was there and very undeniably so. Your classmates could see it, your teachers were no exception —your teacher's and other school officials being the few he'd spare his enthusiasm.

Nobody knew just how far the two of you would go, but it wouldn't take long until he'd finally pushed your buttons down in place.

“With all due respect Ma'am, Mr. Song and I aren't even friends. I don't think it would make sense for us to copy off of each other's work.” a frown fell upon your face, bracing yourself for whatever Eunseok had to say after shaking his head.

“Ma'am, you must know by now that I would never even attempt such a thing… Miss Y/s/n however…” with slightly knitted brows, the grip of your clasped hands became tighter. “I mean, where's her fair share of well written essays anyways?”

Utter disbelief washed over you. You had a lot to say, a lot of daggers to throw at his chest.

“Miss Y/s/n, got anything to say for yourself?” It took you about eight seconds to have enough courage to look your English teacher right in the eyes.

“I stand by what I said. I did not copy off of anyone.”

At the end of the day, you'd walk out of the teachers' faculty room in tears. However, you'd never let anyone catch you in that state of vulnerability and you'd be out of their sight by the time you broke down.

“Y/n!” it was that stupid voice of his again, now it called for you.

Wiping your tears away, you weakly seek for the cockiness that he'd proudly carry around you. But there was none —he had nothing on him that you could see through your watered eyes.

“Y/n, can we please talk?” the way he grabbed your wrist made your cringe, immediately pulling away before he could even get ahold of you.

“Oh, you wanna talk now? Why didn't you tell her? Why didn't you say that the essay you were holding was not yours?” you tried your best to hold your composure, but halfway into it, your voice cracked and your tears continued to flow.

“Yes, I knew it wasn't mine, but how would I know that it wasn't you who copied whoever wrote that—”

“Are you that fucking shallow? you've been making my life fucking miserable just cause I could do some things a little better than you —you had no reason to hate me —why do you hate me?”

Why did I hate you again? —he searched within the crevices of his mind, “Why wouldn't I when everyone else loves you—”

“Everyone? you know nothing, don't pretend you don't hear others spreading rumors about me.” —the thing is, he never heard them.

He never cared about everyone else, in his world, he had only one nemesis —you, the only one he thought was worth his thoughts, and his precious time.

“I didn't copy, and whoever did that can—” you had to stop yourself from spewing out anything from your jumbled mind. “Get off my back, fuckface.”

He watched as your feet almost stumble on nothing as you rushed out of the school building. The paper he held whilst he humiliated you in front of your teacher was not his. He went back to the faculty room to ask his teacher why he was called in when the paper had no name or class number written on it at all.

“The writing is excellent, I couldn't really think of anyone else capable of this. While Miss Y/s/n does have a lot of potential, the sudden shift of word choice and the incredible transitions between the points were flawless.” Eunseok's eyes grew a little wider.

“But it really isn't mine. I haven't submitted anything yet, I was facilitating an org program all week.”

“Is that so?” the teacher held her chin as she hummed. “Well, we owe Miss Y/s/n an apology, don't we?”

Eunseok nods hesitantly, answering the teacher only in his mind —Only mine, my apology.

“We just have to figure out who submitted that nameless paper.”

“I'm on it.” Eunseok had only mindlessly gotten himself into something he knew he didn't have a knack for.

While he was familiar with the faces he often saw around school, he'd never really waste his time on familiarizing himself with the attitudes, the eyes and the voices. He has friends, but they were all in his org, with the same motivations and skill level as him.

The next couple of days, he'd observe, but would fail to be inconspicuous.

You ignored the eyes that lingered at your direction, you thought he was sick for even daring to look anywhere near you.

He was trying to see who stuck around you, especially when you were at your most useful.

He was lucky when three days later you were assigned to conduct a trio experiment project on microbiology. The one that seemed to be your best friend was pulled into another group, while two other girls who he'd never seen you hang around with as often would pull you to them.

“You're ours!” The pitchy exclamation from one of the girls inflicted pain to Eunseok's ears.

He fanned his apprehension away to the people who dared to approach him and slowly made his way to you, walking closely behind you as you exited the classroom after briefly greeting your groupmates.

You could feel his lanky figure following you, but you were persistent.

“Y/n.” his conceit would shatter when you continued to walk as if he was just a lone spirit cursed to follow you.

When you were near the library, he swiftly got in front of you, blocking the door. You rolled your eyes at him, turning your feet around to go back, to where? —you didn't have anywhere else to be.

“Where are you going?” His question halted your steps.

You finally faced him, mimicking his stoicism. You didn't answer, he didn't deserve an answer.

“There'll be one duo for the project since there's forty-two of us.” you just stood there and waited for him to speak again. A scoff almost broke out of you when you watched the movement on his throat as he gulped in search of his next words. “Be with me.”

He picked the wrong words and it shuddered your core, he saw it, looking into your eyes as he added with haste, “Be my partner for the project.”

His heart sinks, seeing your eyebrows nearly touch each other. “Did you seriously think I'd even consider it?”

You shook your head, moving towards the door behind him making him move aside warily. You were sane enough to not slam the door at him, and after all you were entering a library. Shh —at that point you had no idea if the librarian had shushed you or if it was just the voices in your head. I hate him, he's just another jerk.

All he had to say was he had already talked with the teacher, and that he's helping —or offered doing all the work himself in finding the culprit responsible for your misfortune. The affliction could've easily been avoided, he was only now starting to realize how much of an asshole he was three days ago.

Everyone loved you —loved was in the past, people would prove to be ever-changing.

“I'm really not surprised she plagiarized, she's such a try-hard.” it was meant to be a whisper, but Eunseok could hear it, finally.

“I know right? is it that hard to admit that Eunseok is better—”

“Shh! he's right there!”

He'd only subtly shake his head at their lax attempts to keep quiet, it seemed as if they wanted him to hear. He felt small under their disparaging mouths. They were all way below him, but somehow they've evoked his frailty with running gossips.

The cluster of students would flinch at the loud sound of his chair's feet grinding against the floor as he stood.

Without facing them, he spoke, “She didn't plagiarize anything, she's better than all of you, better than…” his eyes shifted from ahead of him to the floor beneath him. “...me.”

And he could only say so because you weren't there to defend yourself, even then, you wouldn't have the strength to speak up against them.

He'd run into you on his way out of the classroom, and he would stand there and stare into the empty hallway as you walked past him with your headphones on and textbooks in hand.

He hoped you would see it —he had left you a note under your desk. Be my partner (please?) ;It had a drawing of keroppi, you grew to despise that character. You'd always see it doodled around his notes, and that time you were in the same group for a mosaic project where he had sketched the frog in pencil on multiple spots of your worksheet.

“Keroppi is cute, you should accept his offer.” you almost gagged at your friend —Yunjin's suggestion.

“No, after what he did? Why should I?” Yunjin shrugged at you.

“Maybe he has something to say, maybe he might even apologize.” you avert your eyes from your laptop, giving yourself a second, and more to think.

Apologize? him? with that inflated ego of his he might as well just tell everyone I plagiarized his work. —you vigorously shook your head. “He wouldn't.”

Scrolling through an article in your laptop, your eyes glided over an ad that read, Looks tough? look again., the image of Eunseok's dismay flaunted by his usually stoic face flashed in your mind. You swore you have never seen him that way before.

He had never raised eyebrows at you or looked at you for more than ten seconds. You both held the same high regard for your time, and for as long as you've started this enclosed war with him, you've had this unspoken vow to never waste a minute of your time on each other unless it was necessary for you to accomplish your goals.

“Well, are you really going to group up with Yuri and Ahra? they've been milking you like a cow.” you chuckled despite your friend's genuine worry.

“Well what can we do? They need us.” you watched Yunjin shake her head at your response, a bitter smile spreading across her lips.

You had no choice. You would definitely tell your teacher if they had no contributions, but they tried.Most of the time their work would be utter garbage, but as the assigned leader for every group work and a renowned top student, you were obligated to put up with their shit and correct every mistake and redo it if it was completely useless.

It's this aspect of yours that Eunseok could never compete with, more of a reason for him to despise you. You could easily talk your way in and out of your classmates' favor, and he thought it was unfair.

Was it your stupid smile? your gaze so sweet it could kill a man? nonetheless, it was unjustifiable. You can't just be perfect.

He knew you weren't perfect, that you still made errors. When he read the copycat of the essay you made for yourself, he could tell it was definitely yours. The copy was plagiarized word for word, technically he was reading through your very essay. There was an overlooked grammar error, you missed a word in one of the sentences of your conclusion.

For a minute, he loathed the chuckle that escaped his mouth when he spotted that error. It was very unlike him and he noticed a few of his classmates looking at him like he was an extraterrestrial. Ridding of his immersion, he swiftly folds the paper he was reading, hiding it under his desk.

You were so flawed, yet he hated you for being perfect.

“Hate's a strong word.” Eunseok didn't even dare to look at Shotaro as he spoke.

His left leg was restless, bouncing up and down continuously putting it to an abrupt stop as he replied, “Yeah. So, maybe it's not hate.”

As much as he'd like to deny, he knew he fixated on you —your best qualities— as much as he did his studies. Perhaps it was envy, but it wasn't like he tried ousting you from everyone, he would only watch from a distance whilst you connected with others, and he disconnected himself from the world, too preoccupied with the thought of you. Sure, he could never stare at you, but your image in his mind was crystal clear. So it must be jealousy. But was he really jealous of you, or the people you chose to be involved with?

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School hours have ended, the bell rang and it was soon followed by heavy chattering and some laughter. You could also hear some pained groans, must be because of piling deadlines —you thought as you walked past the rambling crowd.

You are one amongst those who had no time to wander outside of school perimeters for trifling activities like hanging around. You had responsibilities, responsibilities that did not stray far from your academics, responsibilities that kept you busy and distracted from the sorrows of your life.

“Y/n! hi! I was wondering…” you turned around, being met with the pretty-faced Yuri and by the look in her eyes and her disheveled cheer uniform, you already knew her purpose of approaching you. “I'm really busy with cheerleading these days, we have a big recital coming up. I was just wondering if you could help me with our oral comm project.”

Busy? busy fucking the jocks? —you hid your hostility behind a lenient smile. “Yeah, sure. Will do.”

“Thanks so much!” you yelped when she had —almost aggressively— pecked your cheek before she ran out of the school building.

Well, the help was only writing a five-page transcript accompanied with unfabricated evidence that you could only hope she'd study for her own sake. You couldn't really say no. You didn't play a major part in the student body org or the literary club, and you were still not accepted in the journalism team. There was no way you could say that you were busy too.

Taking another step, you feel a tap on your shoulder. Three quick taps, whoever it was, you felt their aggression falter in between those taps. You turn around again, thinking it might be Ahra.

“You saw the note, right?” an exasperated sigh leaves your lips.

“The groups are finalized. Find another partner.” you spoke as you turned your back against him, your tone was a mimicry of his.

“But…” you halt your steps. Pathetic. —you thought he sounded pathetic, and it was amusing, somehow made you want to hear whatever he had to spew.

“But I want you.” When he saw you shake your head and continue to shun him, he promptly added, “We need to talk, please.”

You were already out the door. It was like a scene in a drama, a very melancholic scene.

For the first time in Eunseok's life, he'd feel like he made the biggest mistake of his life.

“Oh, sorry!” he kept his eyes straight ahead when Yunjin bumped into him.

He watched you through the glass, as Yunjin ran after you with a query, “Is he asking you to be his partner again?”

You sigh again, weakly nodding your head. You felt his gaze through the glass doors, instinctively, you looked back. He was at a great distance from you, but you could see his apologetic eyes. Still, you refused to accept them, shying away from his stare as your subconscious drives you to grab Yunjin by the wrist and pull her away with you.

Writing an argumentative essay is nothing for you, but why can't you just say it? —he was frustrated with himself, his misguided words, his hesitancy. All he had to say was, I spoke to our teacher about your essay, we're trying to find out who did it. I'm sorry. —just as simple as that.

He kept his eyes on his feet as he walked to the bus stop, vanity hanging low, wondering when he should try again. If he were to do so, he must do it soon.

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You had left your study music playing as you rushed back to your classroom to grab your favorite pen. It was the best pen, the best brand that fit your handwriting. It made your writing look effortless and pretty, and you hated when you'd use another pen that makes your writing look like you missed all writing days in kindergarten.

Before you could reach your classroom though, you were stopped by your English teacher. You almost flinched thinking she'd still have this condemn attitude towards you.

“Hi Miss Y/s/n, i'm sure Mr. Song had already told you about, you know, the essay.” she looked expectant, but you were still clueless.

“Oh, Ma'am, I actually haven't heard anything from him.” —anything other than his constant, piteous pursuits of having you as his partner.

“Oh, I thought he would've told you by now —well, anyways…” your teacher holds on to your forearm, moving the both of you aside, out of the way of passersby. “We're trying to find out who plagiarized your work, Mr. Song has offered to help as an apology.”

Your eyes widened by itself, shifting and blinking to the melody of your teacher's short hum. “I have three leads, two of them might've not passed their essays yet —and one is the culprit. A Joo Yuri, Choi Jiung, and Matthew.” you nod along with your teacher's words.

It's Yuri again. —you knew all too well.

“Make sure to inform Mr. Song about this too, I apologize for my inconsiderate assumptions.” she holds your hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as she finishes speaking.

You nod hazily, his name still blurry to your auditory canals, “Will do Ma'am.” your utterance was faint, like you were going to break down into a sob.

Your teacher leaves you a small hug before walking away.

You clear your throat to no one, almost forgetting why you were there, where you were supposed to be. Why didn't he say anything? —was all you could think about as you made small steps to your classroom. Maintaining your pace, you went to your desk, looking and feeling for your pen, but it wasn't there when it should be. You had one knee making contact with the ground, you remained still next to your chair, unsure of where else to look. It wasn't like you constantly shifted places in the classroom, even during vacant times you were always just sitting pretty on your seat.

You stood up after another minute, and there you saw him from the corner of your eye. He was only two seats behind you, the image was blurry in your peripheral vision, but you knew he was looking at you. You pretend to fix your uniform, fingers clumsily gliding through your shirt's collar and tugging your skirt down a bit. With a quiet sigh, you would turn your back against him again, but instead of lifting a foot and head back to the library, you just stood there.

He hoped you had a reason for not moving as fast as you'd usually be, one that would lead you to finally accepting his offer. He was obviously oblivious to the fact that you already knew about his personal little mission, so when you rushed near his desk and said, “Wait for me by the drinking fountain near the exit.” the distinguished fire that he had in soul would form sparks.

His hopeful eyes watched your figure hurry out of the classroom. He knew you'd ignite his flame again, and with an unspoken promise to himself —and to you, he'd grow to treat you as his equal.

He took anxious steps to meet you later that day, he still wasn't so sure if you had called him there to slap some sense into him or not.

He'd be a few meters away when you spot him, keeping your gaze at him as he got closer. When he finally stood in front of you, your mutual eyes would meet. It was the closest he'd seen your eyes, and it reflected his own. It was overwhelming for him, and he'd look down to the floor at his right.

“I'll be your partner.” he snaps his head back up to meet your expectant gaze.

His eyes were the widest you've seen them, you almost wanted to laugh. You tried your best to keep the corners of your lips from rising, but he saw it. It was small and short lived, but it was something worth his own smile spreading across his face.

However, you would never see that smile since you'd left him after two minutes, but the watchful eyes of your school saw —those who knew him for being so aloof wanted to ask him what made him that way when they had never seen him smile like that.

“Won the lottery or something?” Shotaro had come up to him from behind, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Huh? Why'd you ask?” Shotaro only shook his head at him, not minding to explain further.

Eunseok seemed to be indifferent to his own feelings as he'd never realized then just how odd he looked to everyone else, especially Shotaro —who had known him since he transferred, swore he'd never seen him make a face like that.

“You have got to tell me what happened.”

It was a soft urge, but Eunseok gave in so easily, words slipping off his tongue like they've been sitting there, “She said yes.”

Shotaro had to stop him for a moment, confused as to what he was referring to. Did he ask someone out? —then he remembered the little mission that Eunseok had about asking you to be his project partner. It felt like centuries for him to finally succeed, and when he did he still he thought it was all because of his own effort.

The next day however, his theory would be debunked, finding out that your English teacher had beat him to it.

“It's either Yuri, Jiung or Matthew according to Mrs. Cho.” you were clear-cut with your words, giving him a good three minutes to think of what to reply.

You were situated in the school's microbiology lab, seated close enough for the two of you to have a comprehensive conversation as you prepared for the project.

“It should be Yuri, right?” the words that fell from his lips had caused a stagger in your movement.

“What makes you say so?”

“She sticks around you often —during group assignments. She seems so desperate to have you around, and for what? only to make use of you?”

Your eyes lingered at the side of his face, unbeknownst to you, he's been looking at you the whole time when you weren't looking at him. He'd slowly look back at you, a low chuckle escaping his mouth when he saw a speck of shock on your face.

Your eyes only grew wider at the sound of his voice, it was unlike his conceited scoffs, and he did not present himself as usual, there was no arrogance in him it seemed.

“I hope you don't call her your friend. She's not. Friends don't use you, friends don't keep you around because they need you to maintain their B pluses and get a few A's.” his voice had a hint of softness in it, it made you avert your eyes from his.

“I know that. I have a friend —I have Yunjin.” you could see him nod from the corner of your eye.

“That's good, but maybe stop saying yes to those idiotic low-lives.” as harsh as his words were, his tone contradicts them, sounding like a fresh breath of air on a summer night.

You stared at the poster at the other end of the room, a poster about culturing. You two were like pathogens, slowly growing to understand each other.

He'd keep the image in his head. He could only see one side of your face, but it was enough for him to see your eyes softening as you zoned out, still refusing to smile wholly.

Later that day, he walked to the teacher's faculty, straight to Mrs. Cho's desk and he bluntly states, “Joo Yuri, it's Joo Yuri who copied Y/n's essay Ma'am.”

The English teacher would tell him shortly after that she'd already figured it out since the two other leads had already passed their essays earlier that day, but she still thanked him —and reminded him to pass his own essay before the end of the week.

He'd finally rid of the needle stuck in his mind, it was just that now, he'd find himself a different reason to stick around you.

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Yuri and Ahra had seated themselves with you and Yunjin in the cafeteria, confused as to why they were now grouped with some other brainlet and not you. You would carry on to explain to them why as you ate your food, but Yuri would interrupt, “Isn't it unfair for you and Eunseok to be in the same group?”

And Ahra would butt in. “Tell me about it, like, share some brain cells guys.”

You and Yunjin exchanged looks with each other, and your friend would subtly shake her head.

“You know what, we could've asked Eunseok first. He's not only really smart, he's like, really cute too.” you softly bit the inside of your cheek, suppressing a scoff as you listened to Yuri babble on about your project partner.

“Yeah? Do you fancy him now?” you ask with a slight laugh.

“Well, yeah. There's no way a little touch won't break him out of his shell.”

You and Yunjin would exchange looks again, this time visibly disgusted.

There was no way Eunseok would fall for someone like her, right? But he was just another guy, and guys are so unpredictably predictable, if that even made any sense.

In a span of a few days, you would walk in the classroom seeing Yuri seated next to Eunseok, almost squishing herself into him. You'd meet eyes with him, and you'd immediately look away, almost rolling your eyes as you walked to your seat.

Once you were seated, you'd hear them converse, or more accurately, here Yuri ramble as Eunseok gave her the driest replies you've ever heard.

“You should tutor me, you know. I feel like you could make me a better student. Maybe we can hang out at your place? study? or anything else you have in mind?”

“I don't do commissions and my family doesn't welcome strays.” Your back faced them so they couldn't see you holding back your laughter as you quietly sat and listened, pretending to read something in your textbook.

The bell rang minutes later, you remained seated watching everyone else run out of the classroom to get lunch or go on about whatever they had to do before you got up yourself. When you stood up, you felt a slight nudge. It was Yuri, she held out a tiny piece of paper with what you could only make up as numbers —a phone number in Eunseok's handwriting. “I got him.” she whispers, wearing a smug smile after.

You waited for her to disappear from your sight before you shook your head. It wasn't impossible for Eunseok to not give in to her, she's pretty, she's skinny, her hair is healthy, so why not right?

When you had tidied up your space, you turned around to make your way to the door, only to be met with him. It's been more than ten seconds when he realized you were looking right into his eyes, and he'd shy away for a bit before finding your gaze again.

“What happened to saying no to low-lives?” an innocent chuckle left your mouth as you spoke.

“Oh, that? it wasn't my number.” he smirked, glancing at the ground for a short while. “I saw it on a flyer for pest control.”

You almost guffawed at what he said, but you maintain your composure. “That's too bad, I thought you'd consider tutoring her.” you started taking steps to the door, and he'd follow closely behind you.

“Me? tutor her?”

“Well, yeah. She's a pretty girl. You could ask every guy in this school and they'll tell you they'd hit.”

You two were already out of the classroom, walking side-by-side as you made your way to the cafeteria. It was silent for a while, until he spoke again to reply,

“Maybe that's true, but I'd rather have you than her.” he said, almost in a laugh.

It wasn't quite clear to you what he meant, but you assumed it was just his way of telling you that he'd prefer an intellectual over someone who's just in for play. You two would part ways once you've stepped foot in the cafeteria, giving each other one last glance before heading your separate ways.

A playful grin greets you when you sit down next to Yunjin who says, “You seem happy today.”

“I do?” it was a genuine question, but Yunjin couldn't help but laugh at you. “What?”

“I see you got yourself a new best friend.” she would then wiggle her brows and point at Eunseok's direction with her head.

“He's not.” a smile would creep up to your lips, shaking your head at the same pace you spoke.

“Well, you two were definitely not fighting. That has got to count for something.” you would end up quietly laughing with her.

You couldn't tell if it was just the pity he felt for you that one fateful day at the teachers' faculty room, or if it was something in the air —perhaps something you had said to him that had led him to take a second look. Hate is a strong word, and when he'd look at you again, he knew it wasn't hate, nor resentment. Maybe it wasn't the others' favor that he yearned for —maybe it was yours.

do you want to stargaze with me?

> yes <33

> no :(( (thanks for reading!)

#riize #riize au #riize fanfic #briize #riize x reader #riize fluff #riize eunseok #song eunseok #riize imagines #songfic #spotify

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1990jeevas · 3 months

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i love how the first three episodes of soul eater very clearly tell us what the characters are like even in a 24 minute episode limit...soul and maka are very capable as partners, they had 99 kishin souls but the thing that sent them all the way back to square one was overestimating themselves. they thought blair was a witch, they didn't bother checking and just. killed her. sure, she has 9 lives, she's fine, but they not only overestimated their ability to tell she was a witch, but they also jumped right into the fight and kept persuing her without confirming at all if she was a witch all because maka was so determined to make a weapon stronger than her mother had, a weapon stronger than her dad who she hates. and soul is so caught up in the excitement of getting the status of death scythe that he just follows along with it.

the episode show us how well they work together as a pair, maka being quick on her feet and soul coming up with a plan out of nowhere, something not even maka imagined him doing which ultimately helped them sell it in the end, but we also saw their weaknesses.

we get a glimpse into maka's insecurities early on with her truly believing soul was leaving her for blair, equating it to cheating and us getting a montage of spirit cheating on her mother with various women all in front of maka (although he was unaware of that last bit). and although soul had spent the better half of the episode picking at her insecurities in a way that could come across as mean spirited, we see his immediate reponse be "how am i supposed to know? cool men don't cheat on their partners." which makes maka realize he was just setting up blair to fall directly into his trap and get her soul. while maka is usually regarded as the smarter partner, soul shows he is a great asset in a fight, weapon form or not, because he's a quick thinker and can transform from weapon to human fast enough for them to get the drop on blair who has cat like reflexes for...obvious reasons.

in the defense of maka and soul, even lord death and spirit think she's a witch at first, but lord death also stresses to them both that if they fuck this up they have to start all over and they don't even...double check that she's a witch? idk how easy that is in this universe especially given this is before maka can see soul wavelengths (which is probably a huge part of why they just went with whatever intel they had) but i'm sure there has to be some way to tell if it's this huge of a deal to aquire one.

and then we have black star who...immediately shows us he could be a very good assassin if he didn't give himself away every fucking time 😭😭 his ego is his biggest downfall but it's also what gained him his incredibly loyal, kind, forgiving partner tsubaki, who saw him be so bold as to stand on top of the building and ask who would work with someone as loud, obnoxious and brash as him and that's honestly probably the best way he could've went about it. how else would he find somebody willing to put up with all of his flaws if they couldn't even handle him as his regular, outgoing, over the top self?

it's also really interesting how tsubaki and black star go over the assassins' rules of silence, stealth, not being seen, etc. followed by black star immediately throwing that out of the window. and tsubaki chastises him. instead of her being the type of girl who just goes along with whatever black star does, she tells him he doesn't understand assassination at all and complains about how they never collect any souls. black star doesn't take any of her words to heart though and tsubaki doesn't take his actions to heart either.

after this we see lord death even say their issue isnt skill, its purely performance, its how they (black star) don't take the mission seriously and tsubaki accepts blame for both of them instead of just pinning it on him. even if she knows he's the problem, she also sees them as a package deal, a team all the way through and she's okay with this. tsubaki also shows that she fully trusts black star as a partner and thinks he will make her a death scythe, it'll just take a little longer than others.

tsubaki and black star both show a lot of strength in battle, with tsubaki being able to transform into multiple weapon forms, black star being very agile, with the ability to do all sorts of moves that most of the other characters are never seen doing. we can see black star go from a poor excuse for an assassins to an impressive one within seconds to mifune and all it took was him actually wanting to do it. we see he can make himself silent and he can use stealth quite well, making it so mifune doesn't even notice him and tsubaki have switched places for a few minutes and he only notices because tsubaki's breathing is different than black star's. we also get to see that even if his ego is a flaw of his, it's also why he can use his wavelength so well when nobody else in his class really can. he has the confidence in his abilities that most of his other peers do not and that is part of what makes him dangerous when he is actually determined to kill somebody.

and he was determined to kill mifune until he found out that he was just protecting a kid. witch or not, angela was a fucking kid and black star couldn't do it. tsubaki could've. she even tells black star they should take they opportunity that was practically handed to them, with plenty of kishin soul's and angela's right there for the taking and he refuses. despite how they have no souls collected, he still choses to walk away and takes the souls back to lord death in a sack rather than having tsubaki consume them because that isn't a real win to him, he didn't kill those kishins.

and then we get to kid's episode and right off the bat we see this dude is talented and a bit cocky but despite his abilities, his ocd gets in the way of retrieving kishin souls. patty's stance is off, he yells at her about it and she responds apologetically, but clearly isnt upset by him yelling, implying it either happens a lot so she can brush it off or she is truly just that bubbly that it doesn't phase her (probably both). liz, on the other hand, tries to reason with him, telling him now is truly not the time as they're in the middle of pursuing a man and when he keeps lecturing them, she just complains, but let's him do it anyways. it's only when he gets a little too out of hand with it does she put him in his place, punching him and telling him he probably shouldnt be talking about how unsymmetrical her and patty are when he has three stripes on one side of his hair and not the other. he calls himself an abomination and cries. they comfort him despite their (liz's) clear annoyance before.

this shows us that despite them all working well as a team in battle, they get caught up in the actual performance of it all, much like black star and tsubaki do, but for completely different reasons. they're plenty skilled, but instead of ego getting in their way like it does with black star, it's arguing (similar to soul and maka) over what seems like little details to liz and patty, but are all consuming to kid.

we also get a line from liz about how "these little rich kids are always so gullible" which implies her and patty are, at the very least, not well off (though we don't know the extent yet). this is when we learn he is lord death's son and that he doesn't actually need to be doing...any of this. he doesn't need to collect souls, doesn't need to train to be a meister or have weapons or work with his team to make them death scythes for his father, he's doing this out of pure want. lord death says because he had two weapons, he needs to collect double the souls. kid, cocky once again, says he wants to collect all 198 + 2 witch souls at once. he's cocky, but they have the skill to back it up.

and obviously they do, kid's a reaper after all and he specifically picked out patty and liz because he knew of their reputation on the streets (plus the symmetry, but lets stick to skill rn)

but again this isn't what slows them down. they go on a mission and as soon as they get there, kid starts worrying about whether or not a painting he has at home is off center and he cant stop obsessing over this thought until the point where he straight up abandons patty and liz when theyre in a pyramid about to fight mummys.

so instead of seeing kid's strengths, we see liz and patty's. the sisters are great at fighting even when the plan goes to shit, likely due to their time before the DWMA. liz shoots with good aim but switches with patty effortlessly when the mummys get too close, not even having to say anything for patty to know to switch with her. and patty shows that she's definitely less scared than older her sister and works better under pressure, hugging the mummys, giggling at them and sticking liz right in one of the mummy's mouths to blow its (metaphorical) brains out while liz complains about it being gross and creepy.

they collect all the souls alone, without their meister and split them evenly just to respect kid's unsaid wishes.

and then finally kid comes back! he's on his gay little skateboard of course, forgot to mention that earlier but it definitely says something about him that it's his primary mode of transportation and its named beelzebub. he gets back just in time as patty and liz have been captured and since they cant use their weapon forms, kid uses his skateboard to free his partners, but that's about as much as he can do before realizing the pharaoh is perfectly symmetrical and he would rather die than destroy it. like he is literally getting torn to shreds by this fucker but he cant do anything about it.

but then the pharaoh steps out of it's tomb and kid sees how asymmetrical it is and that's also what saves them. it almost gets him killed, it ruins missions regularly, his ocd absolutely disrupts his day to day life, but in this instance it also saves them as he gets so mad about the asymmetry that he blows a fucking HOLE through the back of the pyramid and DESTROYS THE ENTIRE THING by unbalancing it.

so yeah, basically i say all this to say the first three episodes do such a good job of introducing us to the main characters and showing us what their strengths and weaknesses are, even if they're played for laughs like kid's ocd, maka's insecurities or black star's ego.

#shit self #im sorry but i did warn yall that i might start waxing poetic #soul eater #maka albarn #soul evans #black star #tsubaki nakatsukasa #patty thompson #liz thompson #death the kid #bangerz

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safetycar-restart · 6 months

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I love your poly!piarles' fics sm <3. I was wondering if u could do a follow-up to the previous 💧💧with them.

Where Pierre didn't wear a diaper after a very intense scene because he didn't want Charles to find out, but then he had an accident. I just need a fluffy ending to that with obv Charles be OK with it and pierre just being reassured <3

Oh my god I had actually completely forgotten about that? And yeah we really need to discuss it more I can't believe I forgot about it. Also, all watersports thoughts are tagged with 💧 💧 and all diaper thoughts are tagged with 🧴 so block those if either of those things are not your vibe.

For context, this is in reference to something I wrote a while ago with poly!piarles. Pierre enjoys very intense scenes with painplay that sends him into subspace for the next day or two. During those days, he's so vulnerable and reliant on you, and he needs those days to properly rest and he feels amazing afterwards. While you're looking after him, he wears diapers, because he's just floating in subspace so deep and lovely that he can't control anything. He adores it.

But then Charles joins the relationship and suddenly Pierre is not just a sub anymore he's now also charles's dom. Make no mistake, he ADORES that. As a switch, he thrives when he can both dom and sub, but because of charles's involvement he's scared to bring diapers back into the equation.

Even though Charles has no interest in those intense pain play scenes, he loves coming in for aftercare to help you take care of Pierre. Pierre loves having his bunny there for cuddles and reassurance for the less intense pain play aftercare, but he's terrified of doing the type of intense scenes that will require days of aftercare and him wearing diapers because he doesn't want his sub to see him like that.

But he needs those scenes, and so eventually he tells you to do it anyway and just not diaper him after. And it goes about as badly as expected with Pierre wetting himself out of nowhere and going right into subdrop after because he feels like he's disappointed you.

Charles has no idea what just happened, so confused about why Pierre had an accident, but he's more worried about Pierre than anything else. He doesn't at all care that Pierre wet the bed, that can be handled, but Pierre is crying and begging for forgiveness and he doesn't know what to do.

You know why this happened, of course, but you promised to keep Pierre's secret. So you just pull Pierre into your arms and kiss his head, promise him that you and Charles arent upset with him. Charles hugs Pierre from behind, trying to give Pierre as much comfort as he can.

You take Pierre to the bathroom, clean him up and get him in fresh clothes while Charles changes the sheets. Maybe you put a diaper on him? Even though you had promised you wouldn't, he's deep in subdrop and you don't want to imagine what might happen if he has another accident. You make an executive decision as his dom to put one on him anyway, and you know you've made the right call when he relaxes as he feels it put on him.

Charles is confused when he sees the diaper, but you subtly shake your head at him. Charles nods and doesn't say a thing, understanding that now is not the time.

You and Charles take care of Pierre as best you can until he's out of the drop and can talk to you two properly. He cries again when he comes up, realising what he did and he's convinced that Charles will hate him for it.

Except Charles looks at him with only love and concern, taking his head and begging to find out what he can do to help and make him feel better.

Pierre has you explain to him what happened, and why, and charles's heart just breaks. Charles actually feels like he's failed in some way, because he made Pierre feel like he couldn't be honest about what he needed.

Charles thinks about all the things he gets from Pierre, all the times he's ugly cried and been carried to the bath and had his hair washed and been hand fed. Pierre did all of that and more for him, and yet Pierre couldnt tell him what he needed?

It's a very tough thing to work through because they both feel inadequate, and I think the thing that might get them straight is you admitting that you feel like a bad dom? Because you knew doing that scene with Pierre and not diapering him afterward wouldn't end well, but you agreed to it anyway. You shouldn't have done that.

When you say that, Pierre and Charles both jump and instantly start going on and on about how it isnt your fault. They say how they both made mistakes and how they both feel and why.

And then suddenly they just turn to each other and then they're both hugging and crying, promising this will never happen again.

(And now this is already too long so I won't go into the first aftercare with Charles where you do diaper Pierre, but I would love to talk about that so if anyone wants to see it then let me know!!)

#poly!piarles #sub!pierre #sub!charles #cl #pg #nsfw.#f!reader #🧴#💧 💧

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the-nysh · 10 months

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Trigunbookclub vol1-2 reread and OHHHHHH god this one's gonna Hurt ;o; (spoiler alert: I already feel DISTRAUGHT like I've been hit by a truck; here we go again with the incoming Emotional Damage~)

See, because if in vol1 Vash asked Rem in his dreams his ongoing existential question: how people in such a terribly dry world aka his waking reality found reasons (hope) to keep on living

"...Rem. I had this dream. Everything was so terribly dry...even people's hearts. In a world like that...I kept asking myself, why people would go on living."

And then after experiencing the Sand Steamer incident, where everyone's Doomed 'ticket' on that ship could be changed and course-corrected with the help of people working together to survive this, he feels a closer understanding towards her beliefs in humanity's hope & potential, and more of those answers towards what it means for people to go on living.

"Maybe...this is what it means for people to go on living. This must be what she believed...why she traded her life for everyone else's."

...But then in vol2 we suddenly violently understand WHY he kept on asking himself that question....

BECAUSE, for all this time, his ONLY reason that's kept HIM going so far (driven with one purpose despite how Hard and dry it's been to live) has been to find & settle his score with Knives. ;o; THAT fiercely angry & resentful, too.

"[Finding Knives is] the the one thing that has kept me living for so long. I must send him to hell! That monster killed Rem! It's time for him to pay for his sins! He's mine!"

But whoaaaaa there, oh noooo Vash sweetie....just what would Rem think of that? Surely her sentiment and sacrifice for the chance that Everyone else could even have a 'blank ticket' future applies to both you and Knives too, right?

"I made a promise. And if I put out the light of even one life, I don't think [Rem] would forgive me."

Because now! Wouldn't Vash's promise to Rem be broken, and wouldn't she become terribly sad (including her whole belief & legacy she's left behind), IF either he or Knives were excluded from that? Would she even be happy if her boys died or ended up killing each other TOO? D:

OR can Vash absolutely not even See Himself (& Knives) as part of that same equation as those (other people humans) whose lives are Worth saving----

"Rem...we were no good...right from the start... [Maybe] we...I...should never have been...born..."

...!!!!!!!! ;A; *gasp* OH MY GOD VASH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO~!!!! Aaaa, that's the painful extent of how little he values himself and his life's worth--hating that of what he is, with the terrible destructive power he's capable of and does not want, so much to the point he regrets ever being born.

Bonus: and then all of a sudden his daily pondering at breakfast (vol2 omake: 'Day In Day Out'), where he thinks he can't ever really live like a normal person, hits with terribly upsetting clarity:

#trigun #trigunbookclub #commentary #long text post #URRGGHHHHH it's only week2 vol 2 and i already feel like curling up in a fetal position ;o; (god i need sleep)#someone pls give him a Hug so bad it's unreal #BUT ALSO once he 'found' knives he then took meryl's suggestion to live quietly & peacefully as eriks..welp how that turned out

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essayofthoughts · 10 months

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So I had a terrible terrible thought.

Oh Wise Friend of Paleopathology... what do you think you would be able to learn from Percy's tomb, whenever he kicks the bucket and ends up buried? Assuming a language barrier + at least a few thousand years (and Kiki can't just chime in if still alive).

What strains of his life would still be on his bones? What about the teeth? What do you think Whitestone’s burial customs would be like (and how would his status/history be conveyed in that context)? Would any fabrics used in funeral dress be likely to survive, or only his wedding ring + buttons + whatever that shiny thing is in his ascot?

What would you, future archeologist, make of that earring in just one ear???!

I would note that it has been several years since I properly studied the subject, but Palaeopathology and Skeletal Analysis were some of my favourite classes and I do remember a fair bit. But for any currently practicing Archaeologists - forgive my oversights. It has been Too Long.

Now. Before I get to anything else in this scenario, we have to think about the likely context. This word means different things in Archaeology and Anthropology but for our purposes here today the short definition is "What is he found with? Where do we find the body? Is there a tomb, a grave, grave goods? What is there here that is not the body, that can tell us about how the body got here?"

I don't know how to explain to you that this is one of my favourite parts of archaeological thought - everything matters, everything plays a part, everything is context enabling us to better understand a site or an artefact. Every new thing we discover is another datapoint to weave into a greater whole until the web resolves into something greater than the sum of it's parts.

So in this instance we're going to have to start with the following questions:

Where is his body interred?

What kind of inhumation is it? (graveyard, cemetery grave, wooden coffin or vault casket or leaded sealed, mausoleum, crypt, ossuary?)

How well preserved/damaged is it?

What are the burial customs of Whitestone nobility and how will that affect things?

Why am I exhuming it?

Now, we know a few things from canon, most namely that the de Rolos had a family mausoleum beneath their castle. This suggests a formal burial in a family crypt. We do not however know if the bodies were placed in coffins, or niches or even if they were cremated! From the transcript of Reunions Pt2:

MATT All right, so. You progress through the undercroft as quietly as possible. You notice as you get past the first section, you look to your right and left and the inside of these small like cubby offshoots that contain these separate ten by ten stone tombs. The walls have shelves burrowed into it, in which there are urns and small gems and offerings-- things that were buried alongside the family members as part of a remembrance. →

So it seems like some may have been cremated! Being adherents of Pelor, this doesn't actually surprise me - the sun burns, after all. But then again, neither would traditional burial - Pelor is also associated with agriculture and standard decomposition returns you to the earth that fed you.

Though... that would be a bit complicated in a sealed stone tomb.

Given also how I'd equate to modern time periods and technology levels... I'm inclined to say embalming hasn't taken off in Exandria at the time Percy dies. And... even if it was possible, I rather feel it'd be associated with Necromancy more than standard burial, plus Whitestone is predominantly Pelorian and Percy's wife is Champion of Pelor, and Pelor is god of agriculture. Embalming chemicals seep into the soil and are catastrophically bad for the environment - there's a reason American cemeteries expect caskets to be fully sealed and in a concrete vault - to prevent exactly that. I can't see Pelor being down with that kind of embalming, so most likely a body is neatened up, shown for funeral, and buried, with minimal messing about. Even nobles being buried in crypts where they won't immediately return to the soil, I imagine they'd want to stay true to the general idea.

Further, from Matt in that same episode:

#MATT Continuing down, a long set of whitestone-constructed stairs descend for about 45 feet before they level off into the de Rolo mausoleum. A long hallway continues forward that contains two ten-by-ten stone structures that contain the entombed bodies of previous generations of de Rolos, with six passages-- three on each side-- that split off of this main hallway that contain their own stone-encapsulated corpses. → This is a place of silent prayer and showing appreciation for the previous families. Not all of them are full, and there were extensions planned as the family grew, but the first thing you notice is all of the tomb doors are open. →

So the idea is that the graves stay in use! This isn't a case like Sedlec where bodies are periodically disinterred to be reinterred in an ossuary, these are meant to be lasting burials.

So... why am I excavating here?

Given Keyleth's lengthy lifespan I would assume that Whitestone likely survives quite well (yes, even with the Apogee, shush, I've only watched C1 so far). It's also a source of, well, whitestone and residuum, meaning it's likely to remain inhabited. Even given the significant shifts a thousand plus years bring - castles and keeps and forts are pretty good at lasting in some form! We have a lot of remnants of old castles (In Britain alone: Tintagel, Colchester Castle, Tower of London, the Roman Forts at Hadrian's Wall, various Caers throughout Wales), and they frequently get built on or rebuilt over time. In a case like Whitestone, with valuable resources and economic links, even if it were, say, invaded, colonised, etc. - the castle would be a good seat of administration or even just a tourist hotspot. And crypts are well down in the foundations: even if the castle was damaged or destroyed, it actually has good odds of staying intact. The Alabaster Sierras are mountainous, but given the ziggurat survived from the Calamity to when we see it well enough it only took the Briarwoods and Ripley a few years (minus the time excavating down to it) to restore it, it seems that they're not terribly tectonically active.

So... this is likely a very stable site, with good odds of at least 500 or so years of protection (Pike and Scanlan are set to have long lifespans, JB too seems set to live there, all would have reason to see it protected) even before we get to Keyleth's likely thousand-odd year protection. Given that much time to build itself stronger, I see Whitestone as most likely still existing, and the castle a significant historical site and cultural heritage.

I can see some degree of linguistic drift, but if the area has remained inhabited then there's good odds there'd be scholars of the area able to translate Pre-Apogee-Era Tal'Doreian Common. And, likewise, if the area has had so long protected then there's good odds the Chamber is still around, and so there's probably a good library and even recorded genealogy of the founding de Rolos, even if the family itself had died out. (Factual accuracy of these records might be suspect, but I'll get to that.) This kind of persistence of a culture would not be without IRL historical precedent - Ancient Egypt lasted for thousands of years using largely the same Hieroglyphics, even as Dynasties rose and fell. The culture absolutely changed, but good chunks of records were still around.

Given all of this, most likely I can see the reason being some kind of refurbishment of the castle prompting archaeologists to be called in for the safe disinterrment of the tombs and then some kind of funded study by the Chamber of Whitestone of the bodies in those tombs to help inform on who Whitestone's forebears were. This, again, is not without precedent - if I'm recalling my Sixth Form case studies correctly, Christ Church in Spitalfields had a massive crypt of lead caskets that were disinterred, catalogued, studied and, wherever possible, returned to relatives.

Let's return to those questions, yeah?

Where is his body interred?

Most likely in the de Rolo crypt under the castle.

What kind of inhumation is it? (graveyard, cemetery grave, wooden coffin or vault casket or leaded sealed, mausoleum, crypt, ossuary?)

Stone tomb burial - likely dry but not anaerobic. Reasonable odds of non-human disturbances (rats, flies, bugs, etc.)

How well preserved/damaged is it?

Good odds of reasonable preservation. Depending on how well and consistently the crypt is tended it could be best case for the scenario or somewhat less.

What are the burial customs of Whitestone nobility and how will that affect things?

Given Taliesin has said that the de Rolos took a bit from Prussian nobility in etiquette and manners, I'd be inclined to say probably similarly, with an eye towards our 1800s funerary practices simply because that's when the Pepperbox was prominent in our world.

So most likely, Sunday best, plush coffin, but - unless royalty - left to rot. Royals (in the UK at least) have historically been prone to leadlined caskets but that tends to lead to a specific kind of anaerobic putrefaction that results in something called corpse liquor.

Ick.

So let's hope that's not the case. Given Whitestone is primarily Pelorian in devotion, at least in Percy's day, I'd be inclined to say they're not completely sealed - possibly even just interred as bodies, but unlikely - plus the crypt is in the family castle and it seems that the crypts were visited periodically by family prior to the Briarwoods' attack - the odds of someone breaking in to try to steal royal relics is pretty low, unlike the public royal burials in Westminster Abbey.

Why am I exhuming it?

Castle refurbishments prompting a Chamber-sponsored study on the historic remains in the pre-Chamber de Rolo crypt.

OKAY. Now that's all out of the way, let's get into what I might discover, yes?

So most likely I've gone through several other bodies before I get to Percy. During exhumation the details of the tomb would have been recorded - it's placement in the tomb, which tombs it was next to. Now, I would imagine his tomb would be between Cassandra's and Vex's, but while working I likely wouldn't know that! Assuming linguistic drift and font changes, most likely the burials and tombs are labelled in the database something like T6E2 - Tomb 6 of the 2nd East Section. I would then have to find a scholar working on recording and identifying any inscriptions and translating them - so names, dates, quotes, etc.. And, most likely, I would be kept in the dark until I was done! Archaeology is best done without recorded human history to bias one and huge amounts of history have no contemporaneous record to speak of.

Now, if I'm just doing the Palaeopath then likely with a specialist in coffins, caskets and funerary fittings, I would record the state of the coffin and body inside, as well as the positioning of the body inside. Is the body extended (laid out flat as we tend to bury bodies now) or contracted (foetal position, very common prehistorically)? How intact are the remains?

And then, recording everything as I go, I would extract the body from the coffin, bit by bit. I would want to ensure that no bones were left inside the coffin, no tiny tatters of cloth - assuming any remained, cloth disintegrates shockingly quickly and if it wasn't fully sealed it's likely the moths got to it, let alone any rats - and that I didn't misplace any bones as I laid them out per diagram.

Jewellery, buckles - any metal grave goods would also be extracted here and recorded. Also, given Exandria - Detect Magic. Make sure anything enchanted is Identified so we know what it did (hello Earring of Whisper!). Again, I'd probably end up giving them over to someone who knows how to compare them to similar items to properly study them.

Now... Percy's fleshy bits would most likely be gone. Unless he mummified which is not impossible with a dry stone internment but between two thousand years, one's own gut bacteria (remember, modern embalming is unlikely), rats and bugs... yeah I can't see much remaining beyond fragments of cloth and bones.

Oh, and his glasses.

That would have been noted during removing the body from the coffin - this person wore glasses. From my colleague examining them, we'd be able to see if they were prescription (or as historically close as you could get) or if they were a stylistic choice - so we'd know this person had bad eyesight.

Now, the first step after checking every bone is present would be to sex it and to look for damage or signs of wear and tear. Given this is Exandria 1. Gender equality for ages and 2. Magical with options to trans one's gender. This is also a high-status burial so there's good odds this person was living as their chosen gender; and sexing the body could tell us what that was. Even if there's a mismatch - grave goods can also tell us. Is the jewellery more commonly seen on men or women of the era? Percy would likely have a pocket watch (he does make a clocktower! I'd be shocked if he didn't make himself a pocketwatch) which is often a more masculine item, and an ascot pin - ascots are a masculine fashion - and his Earring of Whisper, which is a bit more complicated. Any remnants of clothes could also tell us. And of course - the coffin furniture. Any plaque with inscription, or inscription on the tomb panel. After drawing my own conclusions I would ask my scholarly colleague if their findings lined up with my own.

Given also that this is Exandria, it'd probably also be very important to identify which (DnD) race he was. Elves seem to be more gracile than humans, half-elves likewise albeit to a lesser degree, genasi would likely have magical influences, likewise aasimar, tieflings having horns, tails, hooves, claws, dwarves being short and stocky, while halflings are short and comparatively gracile and gnomes are smaller still. Goblins would be ruled out by size alone, goliaths would be massive and probably have big muscle attachment marks and dragonborn would have very obvious conformation compared to a human.

I don't think identifying Percy as "Most likely human" would be hard - but we can confirm it later.

Now... damage.

Percy's torture would almost certainly show on his bones. Given it was torture, I highly doubt Ripley wasted magical healing on him. It was only a week or two, so likely no broken bones - unless she only wasted enough healing on him to keep him alive, in which case... yeah absolutely some wear and tear. Signs of partial healing, mixed damage. Scarring on the bones, evidence of dislocations, etc.. Likewise, injuries from his time with Vox Machina would show - him leaving his hand in a bulette's mouth probably left marks on those bones, his death at Ripley's hands probably is extremely interesting in the skeletal record - most of his pre-mortem injuries only partially healed if that, while the actual cause of death being healed up completely, a lacuna in the record. Likewise - Percy's cane. If he was buried with it we would probably look for some kind of leg injury. Was the cane an affectation or was there an injury it was compensating for? What injury might that be, what could have caused it? Or even... was he not buried with it? Would we see a leg injury that implies a need for a cane, but no cane to go with it? If so, we could assume that presentation in death had significance, and they were presenting a "perfect" "whole" version of him at death. Again, there's cultural precedent for this! Ancient Egyptians would provide wooden prosthetics and false eyes during mummification because of a belief that how one was interred was how one would arrive to the afterlife - they could be given limbs they had lost or even never had in life.

Just due to all of this I'd probably also take a close look for any evidence of malnutrition - though this might be significantly faded after his many comfortable years retired. That said, Percy was tortured and then washed up on a fishing boat and dissociated for two years. Given this was at the tail end of his puberty, I'd be shocked to find no sign at all of lasting physical trauma at that.

I'd also find he had one arm that was just. Fine. Factory reset perfect. Nothing wrong at all. What the hell. Did someone cast Regenerate on him? (If they did cast Regenerate: did that have an accelaratory effect on any bone remodelling his healing bones were going through after the Vecna fight?

Assuming I've studied some of the other crypt bodies before Percy's this would be very interesting! Most of those would be de Rolos who likely went through little to no hardship - Percy stands out.

I'd also want to check to see his teeth - what kind of teeth care is he getting? Any cavities, calculus build up, abscesses, missing teeth? How worn down are they? Are there any fake teeth? Given Vex would probably chivvy Percy to take care of himself (and wouldn't care for stinky breath) and they have Pike on hand for healing, I imagine he has very good teeth for his age.

This is a good thing.

You see, assuming this is a very thorough study and all of that time between Percy's era and know gives me access to modern technology or some equivalent I would want to a few destructive tests. Namely - carbon dating, isotope analysis and DNA testing.

And these are often best done with Teeth. Teeth are fun! They are growing bones which live in our bones! And we lose our milk teeth and gain our adult teeth on the same reliable time frame as we use to age infant skeletons (sealing of skull sutures in that case) which makes them really useful. Like. Unspeakably useful. Teeth are fantastic. Take care of your damn teeth.

Carbon dating would, obviously, give us a rough idea of how old the body was. This is easier the more recent it is, and much more exact. We can then cross-reference this with the scholar translating inscriptions and checking historical records to see how well the carbon date matches up with the historical record!

DNA testing is the thing that would tell us if he was human, and, depending on how advanced it is, might even be able to tell us a few phenotypic genes! Melanin levels for skin and hair, eye pigmentation - possibly if he was genetically predisposed towards a few diseases. It would also allow us to compare him to other bodies in the data set! We would find out that the female body interred on one side of him was most likely his sister, and while the woman interred on his other side shares no meaningful DNA with him, there are other nearby bodies which share DNA with both of them, being their children! And from those children we'd know that there was a tiefling in the family, which would allow us to infer that somewhere in this family there was some kind of infernal influence.

Isotope analysis - if I'm recalling correctly, you can use isotope analysis to both identify some part of a person's diet in life (carbon and nitrogen analysis, usually) and where they came from (strontium and oxygen analysis).

So we'd have some idea of Percy's general diet, and also know he was local! I imagine given, you know, Exandria, magic - we'd have not just strontium analysis to place him as a Whitestone native, but also likely some lingering magic from the local whitestone rock to further establish that. Now, if I recall rightly, strontium analysis only really works for childhood, but based on the injury and malnutrition pattern, the idea that he either went through hell locally or left in some relation to that is not an unlikely one - just hard to prove.

CONCLUSIONS

We would see from his grave goods and the circumstances of his burial that he was high born and likely associated with the de Rolo family. From DNA analysis we'd know he was related to a good number of people in the crypt and that his apparent spouse was not, meaning he is most likely the de Rolo of the pair. Plus the strontium analysis we'd know he was local and his likely spouse was not, again furthering the idea that he was the de Rolo.

We might also have some idea of how he'd look, and if we decided to try to do a digital or artistic facial reconstruction we'd likely have some pigmentation pointers. Also, we know he wore glasses and that he needed them - that they weren't a stylistic choice.

We'd know he'd been badly injured at various points in his life, and, depending on how severe his various post-Glintshore and post-Raishan injuries were, we might still be able to see the gap of the resurrections in his bones, which would further suggest he was someone of means to have afforded such a resurrection. A lot of his injuries could probably be put down to an adventuring lifestyle, which the resurrections and any evidence of magical healing would probably attest to, and without the kind of surface scarring torture leaves, while we'd know he was injured badly over the course of his life, I don't know if we'd be able to easily conclude it was all at once. Certainly some marks on the bones would seem older than others but bones remodel over time! Some of it might be damn near invisible, while others would remain obvious. He also has a mysteriously perfect arm for Some Fucking Reason.

We'd likely have his wedding ring (I'd be shocked if it didn't have some inscription on the inside; this was very common historically and Percy is a complete sap), an ascot pin, a belt buckle and some buttons or fasteners for his clothing, a pocketwatch and chain (and again, I'd be surprised if the pocketwatch didn't have an inscription or a hidden flap with a miniature of his family or something). We'd have his glasses and possibly even his cane. We'd likely have the Earring of Whisper and based on how well Purvan Suul's two magical items lasted - one of which was not a Vestige! - I'd be inclined to say an Identify would let us know what that was once Detect Magic turned up that it was enchanted.

I imagine someone would also have catalogued any offerings left outside his grave - keepsakes, mementos, inscribed tablets of memorial, etc. which would help to let us know not just who he was but what he meant to the community in which he lived.

After all, the dead do not bury themselves - this is what I meant at the start by context. He was buried by people around him - his community. They chose his grave and his grave goods, they chose the inscription of his tomb (he may have requested it, they chose whether or not to honour that) and they left offerings and markers of what he meant to them.

And... from all of this? Assuming Scanlan really went ham telling the Legend of Vox Machina and bards keep telling it? I'd think an in-world archaeologist could make a good guess as to who this body was even before getting it confirmed by the scholar checking the inscriptions. And with the Cobalt Soul storing information - good odds they'd have a record of Scanlan's version of the tale and their own additions (see also Chronicles of Exandria books, intended as being from the Cobalt Soul). And, also, of course, Tary's version too! There's likely to be several different contemporaneous sources, not to mention later additions from the Voice of the Tempest.

So... I imagine this would probably help to fill out things that weren't covered by Scanlan's tale, refute things in Tary's and generally do as finding Richard III's body did for Britain - give us more information about the person behind all the stories and propaganda. Flesh out their life, give us hints of the hardship they went through - if there's inscriptions on his ring or pocketwatch, give us a hint of the heart he shared with his family.

It certainly wouldn't be everything, but it would be enough to let you touch another's humanity across a thousand years or more.

#percy de rolo #percival de rolo #vox machina #blorbologist #whitestone #ask #archaeology #god damn i love archaeology #you sent this in as enrichment BLORB DO YOU REALISE WHAT YOU HAVE DONE???#I AM SO ENRICHED #i'm sorry this got so long except also no what am I saying no i'm not #this was amazing thank you so much blorb #living up to my username #long post #such a long post #yes that's where i put the cut YOU WILL UNDERSTAND

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thevideogameshutterbug · 6 months

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Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (PS5) Thoughts - Beginning At The End

No photos this time (I might add a few later). But I've got a lot of thoughts (and photos) about this game now that I'm finishing it up, but I just got finished my last sidequest in the postgame and I wanted to gush about it.

Spoilers, by the by. Quite a few of them.

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The Mysteriums were a lopsided a pain the ass but man am I glad I saved this quest for last.

I've been thinking a lot about how much this game seeks to embody why Peter's beliefs in having empathy for the people he fights and getting to know who these villains are as people matters, and this quest - as well as Quentin Beck's final words to cap off the story - are such a perfect capper to that.

Nothing is as it seems, especially when you look at heroes and villains. Anything can change for anybody faster than you could ever realize it. When you take the masks off, it's all people making decisions. A good person can go down a dark path, a bad person can decide they no longer want to be that person any more. Not everyone is going to, but it's important to know that such a thing is always possible.

Heck, this game has an almost ''unprecedented'' number of reformed villains for a superhero franchise: Sandman, Mysterio, Tombstone, Mr. Negative, Prowler technically Lizard, all people who understand they did wrong and whose only motivation now is trying to make their way in the world going forward.

Jonah has a podcast early in the game where he insists that people never really change (about either Sandman or Lizard, iirc), advocating for criminals to be just kept in prison in perpetuity (which, I like this version of Jonah, but goddamn is he hard to like sometimes). Wraith advocates just killing these guys because naturally they're never going to change and they might as well be removed from the equation. And naturally, Symbiote Peter eventually starts considering the idea that maybe the best way forward is just to kill everybody who could be a threat.

But this game doesn't just counterpoint that by having its ultimate evolution be monstrous like most superhero works: instead, this game makes a strong point of why that mentality doesn't work - this is a fantasy story, but it's also a good point for real life.

Coming from a law family where I had a lot of interaction with formerly incarcerated people, and living in an inner city relationship where - again - anything can happen to skew a person's life in ways nobody thought they would go, it's not just a more realistic point - it's an essential point: people always change, and any belief otherwise is just an excuse not to examine the world around oneself. They can change for the worse, they can change for the better, or just kind of laterally shift, but they always change. A failure to recognize it is a failure of the self, not the other.

There's a strong trend of former villains in this game being taken advantage of by other villains, with the new villains doing so with the expectation that nobody will come to the former villains' aid, trust them, or aid them in any way (Mysterio's partners try to frame him, Tombstone and Negative get abducted by people who were sure no one would come for them, Sandman gets driven mad and dumped onto the city to be tossed into prison). And it's absolutely amazing to be Spider-Man in this game and be the one who fights tirelessly for everybody, even the people who have spurned their chances before, because that's who Spider-Man is.

Even if their stories still don't always end positively. Because it's still the right thing to do it, and it's a worse crime to stop.

Man, I love Spider-Man.

As a final note, I especially like that none of the former villains really expect to be forgiven and several never are. This might be the philosopher in me talking, but it's not in forgiveness that one finds redemption, but in the capacity of change in and of itself.

#the video game shutterbug #spider man ps5 #marvels spider man 2 #playstation 5 #insomniac games #heroes and villains #mysterio #sandman #tombstone #prowler #the lizard #mister negative #people always change #rehabilitative justice #philosophical thoughts #heroism #no photos in a photo focused blog #lots of spoilers though

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omi-papus · 1 year

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Concept I pulled out of my ass while trying not to pass out in the micro:

A couple of fanon interpretations of the architects have the idea that they have genetic children, (whether by insemination, something about spores I think, and literally just raw DNA depends on the creator) but they don't give birth, and they don't have partnerships between the parents, they also don't care for their children themselves. That's left to specific qualified caretakers and essentially no member of the equation knows who it is they shared genes with, neither do they care

Now. Present day. No architects save for one are left. Robin and Al-An have been traversing the home world for years and have yet to find sight of any survivors. They find records of what was apparently an evacuation effort to get as many of the children out of the planet as possible, apparently not all were able to be boarded, and they learn that one child was intentionally left behind. The file is too corrupted to get the explanation as to why. They assume said child has already dead, and Al-An is too afraid of facing any more disappointment, but Robin pushes him along, encouraging him to try and find it.

And above all odds they do. Its consciousness is stored in a faulty terminal and it luckily they can get a body for it rather quickly, but due to time and resource availability. They are forced to give it a body that's much smaller. Smaller than even Robin. Al-An claims it to be a couple of decades old, around 98, and to Robin it appears to hold the mannerisms and behavior of a twelve-year-old. It's initially scared and untrusting, and it only begins to trust them somewhat when it seems that they made it a body and that it has nowhere else to go. It can't speak any human languages, being far less apt than Al-An, but it can speak some architect. Both Al-An and it can communicate, and he senses that there'is something it's not telling him. The network is gone, so these two cant read each other's thoughts, so they are stuck as they are. This is why the brooding doesn't actually recognize Al-An in any meaningful way. It can tell he's an older architect, but nothing more. Al-An recognizes this insecurity and, after a long period of trust building, mostly between him and it, Robin being a presence he feels uncomfortable with. Al-An decides to sit it down and explain to it who he really is. Why things are the way that they are, and why he is here now.

The broodling remains frozen for a second and without warning emediatly attacks him. Al-An has no problem stopping him. And begs for its forgiveness and in the midst of it screaming and crying, falling over its own legs, repeating itself in its rage induced misery, tells him “It is your genes that made them choose to leave me here!” Before running off.

Al-An doesn't understand. He stands there still for way too long, and it's only when Robin shakes him to get out of his stupor, that he manages to whisper.

“That is my offspring…”

He can't face it. Al-An has never even thought about this being before, and cant believe the chances of ever meeting it like this. The guilt swallows him whole as he realizes that his failure was not only known throughout the network, but that they deemed his very being so repulsive that they left an innocent child to die only in the name of culling his bloodline. He does not expect it to forgive him, and he is terrified by the very notion of being a genuen father. He was never meant to be. He doesn't even know who the mother was. It was just something all architects where instructed to do at one point. He's scared and remorseful and yet, even now more than ever before, so desperate to hold it close, to keep it safe and tell it he loves it more than anything. But he can't bring himself to follow after.

And Robin does not plan to let that stand. She's going to get those two back together if it kills her. And she isn't going to tell either of them… but she doesn't want to think about Al-An having a family with somebody else. She deep down wants the kid to accept her too.

#subnautica #subnautica below zero #robin ayou #al-an #al an #al an x robin #au i guess?

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starseneyes · 1 year

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Chenford REWIND- Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 4 Ep 12

The Knock AKA "Who's Dating Who, Again?"

This one's been requested a few times, and it seemed like the PERFECT one to help me come down from the labor that was S2E10/11/12. Plus, it has one of the first scenes of Chenford I ever encountered on Twitter that left me thinking, "Okay, they're right. I need to know about this 'Chenford' thing."

SPOILER ALERT: Standard operating procedure for these Metas (if you're new) is to warn you that there will be spoilers. I try to write these as though I'm watching for the first time without forethought (so that newbies can read through without fear), but I'm gonna spoil ALLLL of this delicious episode.

All that out of the way? Everyone clear on the rules? Awesome, because I'm ready to dive in.

"I hate beach calls. Getting this close to the water without being able to dive in is torture."

Hey! I "dive in" to each Meta. So that kinda made me warm and fuzzy inside.

"Not for me." "There's no surprise, there. Hating one of nature's greatest gifts is totally on-brand for you." "I don't hate the beach. I'm just not a fan of the ocean."

I. Am. Horrified! All this time I've been mis-remembering that Tim hated sand, but it's the ocean he hates. I feel like a terrible fan! Tim, can you ever forgive me for getting it wrong?

Oh, wait, he's fictional. I'm good. But I hope y'all can forgive me. Gee wiz, Rachel, get it together!

"You know, psychologically speaking, fear of the water equates to a fear of not being in complete control of your environment. Again, on-brand. Uh, you know, also, good luck dating a lifeguard."

Lucy is teasing him, and I love it. Look, we are in an era where Tim and Lucy have some feelings stirring that they are not ready to deal with. So, throwing jabs and jokes at one another feels safe, but outsiders are looking at this thinking, "Geez, these two need to stop talking and start kissing."

"Did you hear her say the hottest?"

Tim, dear, you don't need your wife to validate your hotness when your placeholder girlfriend calls it out. Like, I know you care about Lucy and what she thinks of you, but you shouldn't care if she notices you're hot when you're dating another chick who is literally five feet away from you.

Just sayin'. If you're looking for Lucy to call you "hot" maybe you should, y'know, be dating Lucy. Just sayin'.

*giggle* "What's that look?" "Nothing. What?" "You wanted to strangle that guy last week. Now you're all sweet on him?" "'Sweet on him'? What, did, did we suddenly just get dropped in the 1950's? What?"

It should be said that all it took was a look. Tim knew from one look that Lucy had an attraction to this guy. It took one look. And Tim's none-too-happy about it. But he can't say that and he wouldn't acknowledge it.

Especially with the biggest mistake of his life hovering behind him. Tim turns to face her, but as he does, he steps over alongside Lucy. Because, at the end of the day, Lucy is who he wants by his side.

Is he fully aware of it, yet? No. Tim's a champion at repressing thoughts and emotions. But, subconsciously, he shifts closer to Lucy, even as he turns to face Ashley.

"Hey, do you have plans tonight?"

Watch how Lucy presses her lips together and turns away, finding some way to occupy herself so she doesn't have to listen to this.

"I'll have to think about it." "What's there to think about?"

She can't understand why Tim isn't jumping at the chance to spend the night in the sand eating experimental food, and that just goes to show that she doesn't know the man at all.

His wife has to step in to help.

"Uh, the control freak in him doesn't like to try new things. So..."

Tim is so annoyed, he turns to face his wife. Like, he turns away from his girlfriend to face Lucy.

"I'm not a control freak."

Tim, have you forgotten who you are? You orchestrate Tim Tests that kept Lucy under your thumb as a Rookie. You like to do the same thing every weekend, if you can help it. Maintaining control of your environment is completely your brand (or "on-brand" as Lucy would say).

Lucy cocks her head to the side in a silent, "Really?"

"I would be happy to go to your dinner thing."

Wrong move, Bradford. Spiting your wife by going to something supremely uncomfortable with the Baywatch Bitch is not going to go well for you.

"It's Ash."

Yeah, that relationship's gonna be "ash" soon enough. Trust me, this isn't sustainable. You can't spend every day with the girl of your dreams and every night with a person who doesn't even know you and pressures you into doing what she wants.

"I was thinking of asking Byron and his girlfriend-"

Tim isn't into that. He doesn't like Byron. We can see in one glance that he doesn't want to be even more uncomfortable at this thing.

His eyes turn to the woman right beside him—Lucy. Because, let's be real, we're at a point where Tim would love to share a dinner outside of work with Lucy.

Watch the wheels turn as he realizes he could have a buffer against this horrible night.

"You know what, Lucy's been pining after that place all day. Maybe we ask her."

Ashley doesn't know that Lucy's right in front of him. But Lucy's thrilled. And this is the epitome of their "Grumpy/Sunshine" relationship because while Lucy's beaming in front of him and holding her hands in prayer position, Tim's glaring at her and trying to get her to calm down with a wave of his hand.

"Cool. Does she have a date to bring?" "Hey Sanford. You got plans tonight?" "What are you doing?"

Picking an awful boyfriend for you because he's too afraid to pick himself. Look, Chris and Lucy started out butting heads, and we can argue that so did Tim and Lucy. Starting points for relationships can happen in any combination of scenarios. But the trajectory is what matters.

Baywatch Bimbo doesn't know Tim at all, and I don't have high hopes for this dude.

Also, can I just say that whenever Tim and Lucy say, "What are you doing" to one another, the other is usually up to no good or trying to do the best thing. Trust me. You'll see.

"Lucy needs a date to a fancy dinner." "It'll be fun."

With Chris gone, Lucy gives him a look. Reminds me a little of the first time Tim met Caleb and how embarrassed she was by him. Like, "what the hell, man?!"

"What? Don't be such a control freak."

Look. At. Tim's. SMILE. Because he's purposefully needling at her. It's part of their rhythm and language. And at this point in the show, it's safe. He's not ready to acknowledge that there might be something else there besides friendship.

And Lucy glares (as she should) at her husband.

"I told a food friend I was coming here and they flipped."

I once made the mistake of bringing food to the beach on a windy day. My twin sons' first birthday weekend we went to Cape Charles armed with two smash cakes and good attitudes. It ended with sandy buttercream and a stranger helping bathe our kids in the ocean water.

Some people may love eating at the beach, but I'm not a fan.

"I'm sorry, but who puts a restaurant on the beach? I mean, you're just asking for sand in your food. I don't get it."

Tim! Mi amigo!! But this is a case where Lucy is "used to you" and the others aren't, necessarily. Tim's going to call it like he sees it, sometimes, and he doesn't care what people think of him.

But, he needs to care a little because his girlfriend is right there and she is super excited about... sandy food.

"Was any of that English?" "Let me translate. All you need to know is that pancake is made of mushroom, which I know is not your favorite, so I'll just-" "Oh, no, yeah, take it."

Did you two, just, like, totally forget who your dates are here? Tim. Lucy. That is married behavior. Forget dating. Y'all've skipped it and gone straight to marriage.

Lucy scooped the pancake off his plate.

Ashley's eyes follow the fucking pancake because she's never seen Lucy and Tim in the wild, before, and holy shit she just took the food off his plate, and he didn't care. In fact, he invited her to do it.

Ashley has never been so mad at a pancake in her life. Be mad, Budget Barbie. You're the one who made him come here.

"... once on vacation I did have curry goat." "Was his name Gerald?" "God, shut up! *laughing* Don't." "It's a great story." "It's nothing." "No, it's something."

You know that couple that tells tag-team stories at the table? That's Tim and Lucy right now. My husband and I do it, and when we had my cousin and his wife over for dinner a few months back, we learned they do it, too.

And Tim's "It's a great story" isn't subtitled (probably because of how quickly it's said), but I love that detail. He wants to tell the story with Lucy. It's their story that they're sharing together.

And the clueless idiots still don't realize they're already married.

"Okay, we had a 2-11 at a petting zoo." "All the animals got lose."

Tim's the rambling husband who is so excited to share, he's forgotten everyone at the table doesn't speak the same language. And Lucy's the one translating. Because Lucy speaks Tim. It's not just the cop-code, but just the Tim-code.

She knows the meaning behind the words, and like a good and patient wife, she's not making him feel bad for speaking in a manner that's clear for him. She's simply providing context to the others on the outside.

Because, no matter how physically close Chris and Ashley get to Tim and Lucy, there is only one Tim for Lucy and one Lucy for Tim.

"So, we nab our suspect. We get him back to the Shop and that's where we find-" "Gerald the Goat. He is so cute." "And he's sitting in Lucy's seat." "Because I forgot that I had rolled down the-the window. You know, who knew goats could jump?"

I love her looking back to him on this. Like, "right, honey?" And have we ever heard them speak like this? No, no we haven't. Because in this moment Tim and Lucy have both completely forgotten themselves and are just having fun together.

They don't realize they've stepped outside of the paradigm of the evening—acting the couple instead of dating the people across from them.

Also, mad respect to Melissa O'Neil for actually rolling the window with her hand. Kids today have no clue, but it looks like she remembers! It was a tiny detail that made me smile.

"She tries to talk him out of the Shop, but it's a goat, right? So she spends 5 minutes making goat noises at this thing." "Yes, he called me 'goat whisperer' for all of last February."

Awww. Her first pet name from him. Come on, if Isabel could dub him "Eagle Eye" and it turn into a pet name, I can definitely see this being their first, even if they didn't realize it.

Also, can we please appreciate that some hapless suspect witnessed this whole ordeal?

Like, there was someone in lockup saying, "man, my cops must've been high because one of them was making goat noises the whole time".

And. Look. At. Tim's. Smile. He beaming. All of him is alight, engaged in this conversation with the love of his life. He just doesn't know it, yet.

"It was great." "Darn thing wouldn't move! So, you know, we finally had to call Animal Control." "Right?"

Look. At. Them. The framing of this is so perfect. We're on the inside with Tim and Lucy, who are looking at one another with pure joy. And on the outside, looking in, are Chris and Ashley.

Tim and Lucy are smiling and I bet Ashley's never seen him smile this big with her. That's because it's not for you, Beach Girl. Step off, now, before you break our boy's heart.

And we end on Ashley's face. Because we don't know Chris well enough to hate him (trust me, Rachel from the Future knows we will), but Ashley's realizing there's a kink in her "Enslave Tim Bradford" plan.

She's met a guy with a nice house, a steady job, a strong moral compass, and a heapful of loyalty. It's like a diamond in the rough if you're talking LA dating. And she likes the idea of this life—but not necessarily with Tim.

He's a project for her. She wants to mold him into the right man because the rest of the package is so appealing. But, honey, that'll never work.

Tim is growing and changing, sure, but that's the result of years of learning to bend. And I'm so horrified you think you can break him to get what you want.

"Well, people don't like the idea of experimenting on the dead for emotional reasons, but it's an important tool in the medical field." "Yeah, I'm not arguing that. All I'm saying is turning people into cyborgs is how the world is going to end."

Look. At. Their. BODY LANGUAGE. Tim and Lucy are turned towards one another, their eyes locked on each other. It's as though Chris and Ashley don't even exist.

"So, then I guess you haven't volunteered to be an organ donor when you die."

This is like the child at the table trying to enter the adult conversation. Famously, when I was 4-years-old, I was frustrated to be left out of the adult conversation. I set my elbows on the table very determinedly and said, "So, what do you think about peas?"

Ashley's giving off those same vibes.

"Tim? No."

Because his wife knows him best. Like, Lucy doesn't even give Tim the room to answer. It's not that she's cutting him off, but a husband and wife know one another so well, sometimes, it just flows.

"He wants to be cremated and spread over Dodger Field." "I was joking when I said that. My ashes would screw up the pH level of the grass." "I can't believe you actually called and asked." "I like the Dodgers."

Third wheel energy, my man. Third wheel.

Look, this whole date has been a massive disaster... for Chris and Ashley. For Chenford, it was actually a fun time. And for us viewers, it was kinda validating. We don't get to see every second Tim and Lucy are together, so knowing that they can speak so easily and volley off of one another so naturally in a different setting? Pure magic.

"Anything in these videos that can lead us to where he's hiding?" "Not that I've seen." "Well, let's keep looking."

The staging's been really interesting, because Tim is standing over Lucy, in a position of authority. But here, he chooses to sit alongside her at the table. He's joining her in the effort. Much as Tim protests their partnership, it's there.

And the inclusive language, too. It's beautiful. Tim is acting like they are a unit, here, and I really love it.

When Angela comes into the room, Tim has turned his body to face Lucy and the laptop. And it's eerily reminiscent of the night before over dinner with their separate dates.

In the morgue hallway, Lucy is the first one to spot the blood on the floor, and Tim's gaze follows hers. I love that touch. Yes, Tim is Senior Officer, but Lucy's damn good at what she does. And Tim knows it.

This next sequence is really beautiful to watch, just the way that Tim and Lucy move in sync. They don't need to check in with one another, too much. They don't have to worry if the other is doing the right thing. They're united in this effort. They both know this dance very well, and they're great dance partners.

"It's him. He's got hostages."

Tim gently pushes Lucy where he needs her, and it reminds me of the gentle pressure of a lead when you're dancing ballroom. One of my instructors said I was a great follow, and I swear it's the only time in my life where I excelled as a follower.

He's not shoving her. He's leading her. And she trusts his guide to go where he needs her for their next move.

Also, can we please applaud Tim Bradford for that genius move with the body cam? Way to use what you have to get the job done!

"So, what's our game plan?"

Look, we're far past Tim being her TO and her being his Rookie. But, I don't think we're past these two teaching one another lessons. That's going to be a life-long thing, methinks.

And, look, that plan looks like a "Tim" plan to me (he does like to come at things from a different angle), but I'm cool if it was Lucy, too. They both think creatively, and I think that's part of their appeal to one another.

"Have to be honest, I wasn't really feeling last night... hanging with Ashley and Tim." "I am so sorry. Tim and I spend so much time together on the job, we have a shorthand."

Lucy Chen. He didn't tell you why he wasn't vibing. He just said he wasn't vibing. But you already knew you were having way too much fun with your husband last night.

And now that Tim's conveniently opened the "Chris" door for you, you're going to keep walking through. Because Tim's not an option, right? Might as well have some fun, right?

"... and then you spent the whole night talking to Lucy. It didn't feel good."

Goooooodddd. Let that hate grow inside you so you leave our boy alone. What? I can dream, right? This is only going to end in tears for one of them, and I'd rather it be Asinine Ashley than our boy Tim.

"Life can't just be about watching the Rams game on the couch, or talking about the job with your partner." "She is not my partner, okay? I am her Sergeant. And, that's not the point."

He is so caught up in trying to keep himself separated from Lucy that he's explaining away his feelings and setting up road blocks in front of his girlfriend. Because as long as there are obstacles, Tim can keep himself from thinking of Lucy as... Lucy.

This beautiful, bright ball of sunshine that fell into his world, warming his chilled skin with her radiance, piercing the darkness of his thoughts with her rays of light.

It was a close call at that dinner, and he already knew he needed to apologize when he next saw Ashley.

But the walls that separate Tim and Lucy are thinning—so he has to cling to his mental roadblocks to keep himself from falling through and running to her.

This is the era of Tim and Lucy running from one another. Not directly, of course, but as a way of avoiding their feelings. Because at that dinner they were downright married. And it was fun. And it was nice. But he's dating the Blonde Bimbo and she's going to Pinks with Cockblock Chris.

Someday I have hope these two'll get it together. In the meantime... we enjoy the ride.

As always, thank you so much for reading! This one came together quicker than anticipated.

And thank you to those who have messaged to check on me and my blasted back. I have a long list of things wrong with my body. Whenever I orient a new doctor, I welcome them to the freak show.

I still live a beautiful life. I love my treadmill, my stationary bike, and way too many Jillian Michaels DVDs I've horded over the years. I can bike ride and roller skate and trampoline. But I'm always in pain. I can't remember the last day of my adult life that I wasn't in pain.

This back thing hasn't happened since before my twins were born (they're 8, for reference) and is a result of life circumstances that will pass.

Today was my first day all week of not being on a heating pad half the day, and I only took pain pills once, which is good. Progress. Moving forward. Getting better.

Life isn't simple or easy for any of us. We're all up against something, whether it's physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological. Or some combination of the aforementioned.

The point is, I'm thankful. I can be bitter and angry about the body I've been given, but this body carried three babies. This body has gone amazing places. This body is still moving and shaking and doing.

And maybe my stomach's not as tight as it once was, and I have deep scarring on my tailbone from surgeries, and I have to adapt my exercises constantly... but I'm alive. I'm here. And I'm going to make the most of every moment I'm given.

One breath at a time, loves. That's the only way through.

#Chenford #Lucy Chen #Tim Bradford #Melissa O'Neil #Eric Winter #The Rookie #Meta

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rawliverandgoronspice · 11 months

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forgive me if I sent this before sdfg But I sorta have this headcanon about the Gerudo? Gender is fucking weird to me anyways, so my brain looks at "they only have a man every 100 years and he's destined to be king" and i'm like 'but why tho'. I like to think their view of gender just doesn't translate well into Hyrulian/a language with gender binary. There are technically trans* people born into the Gerudo (*everyone is assigned 'female' at birth) so they are able to sustain themselves just fine. But the role of like, champion or king or whatever you want to call it, there's a distinction from the average person. Ganondorf isn't special because of his, err, equipment or anything. But this nuance is lost on Hylians, and centuries of misunderstanding contributed to this idea of "ah gerudo only have 1 man" (always did find it backwards that divinity is feminine in this series, yet it's almost always Zelda's father The King who is in charge and gets to be a character)

Ohhh the famed question of Gender Among Gerudo!!!

Okay, so. I think I'm a little weird in that regard. First, I think I need to be a little transparent about how I write, because it changes the way I go about this sort of things. I tend to be the sort of person that kind of gravitates around fictional cultures with really weird gender components and pressure points and then want to scratch at them and push them to their breaking point, because it interests me to see characters struggling to make sense of their identity in these contexts.

Again, all of this is about my own approach/my own creative curiosity and not at all a rebuttal of any other approach!! I'm super interested to see gerudos interpreted across the fandom, it's always so endlessly fascinating!!

(I'm putting it under the cut because I don't know if my own approach interests you, so just in case!)

So. While I think that it would also make sense for gerudo to think of gender in way that are radically different than hylians, I'm personally interested to take the claims at face value and see what sort of people that would create --for better and for worse. I am a big fan of the gerudos, but I also see gender (and especially masculinity) as one of their messiest pressure points.

The reason why that interests me is that an enormous part of Descant's subtext is Ganondorf being completely overwhelmed by the notion of masculinity and its expectations. Having no real blueprint to even understand what being a man is even supposed to imply beyond old legends about kings long dead, more myth than people, the contradictory, vague and messy expectations of the gerudos women who hardly know any better than him (but might say that they do, right Koume&Kotake), and hylian men who are literal threats to his life, actively hated by his people and who get imprisonned/killed if they ever get inside gerudo lands... How in the world are you expected to construct a stable perception of yourself in a context like this? And that's excluding the differences between hylian and gerudo perception of masculinity, or the insane stuff that hylians do project upon him based on their own understanding of gender and gender dynamics. In the end (in Descant), it's Darunia who does the most for him in that regard, though pretty much without realizing it nor the importance that it holds for Ganondorf, and then uhhh everything goes well forever and nobody's people gets eaten by a reanimated dragon very importantly.

I am taking a rather dark interpretation of the gerudos in OoT by taking their situation so literally, buuut I'm that kind of writer unfortunately for everybody involved. :((( This makes their relationship with hylians and their own brithrates very very dire in a war context, makes Ganondorf's appearance in the equation all the more important --but also very... questionable in a lot of ways. Extreme arbitrary gendered power combined with absolutely crushing gender expectations you can't really run away from, and expectations that are far from neutral (that's some wild shit to project onto a literal newborn is all I'll say). I think a Ganondorf raised in such a context might try to do anything for his people, buuut a part of him might also cultivate some resentment for the role bestowed upon him and the fact that he can't just be. This would have uhh implications once he gets a whiff that divine power (so self-definition at its most absolute) is a goal he can strive for.

What can I say, I'm interested in the mess!!!

But I also think trans gerudos are completely fair game, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a social space for trans gerudo to exist without this kind of pressure, especially when, culturally, masculinity is also a function --but I also think sheikahs might be much, much better at the whole gender thing than gerudos are as a culture tbh.

And as far as Goddesses being feminine while Zelda not holding actual power... I agree that it feels weird. I decided to handle this as hylians using it as an excuse to have the Goddesses relegated as religious passivity --blessed symbols of balance-- while having the concrete messiness of down-to-earth power be the domain of men; less pure and heavenly, but also, by definition, more power.

(I think this also changes a lot across Hyrule's history, but again I'm talking OoT era)

Thank you so much for your ask!! I hope I didn't overspill with my own headcanons haha

#asks #thoughts #ganondorf #tloz #oot #descant of greatness #gerudos #the gender thing #unhallowed vespers #descant is full of defused gender angst #much more than I anticipated #but then everything I write always has much more gender angst than I anticipated #HMMMM #thank you for the ask!! I hope I didn't answer besides the point

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eyesanddragons · 1 year

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I mention a lot that in media (and especially in Wings of Fire) there is the presence of a Good Victim/Bad Victim Dichotomy, where there's a type of Victim is "good and right" who processes there trauma in a sanitized nice way and another type of Victim who is "bad and evil" for processing there trauma in a wrong ugly way.

I hate this, it's too simplistic and an ultimately harmful way of looking at trauma that puts traumatized people into "moral" categorizations based on how "pretty" they process it. But WoF follows this a lot. I'm mentioning this because a good portion of Arc 2 doesn't actually conform to this Dichotomy, it has it's faults and falls into the same trappings the previous and next Arcs fall into, to an even more egregious extent actually considering how Darkstalker is treated. But if we put that aside for a moment Arc 2 has a really good story about trauma, and this is why I care so much about Winter Turning.

Winter Turning is one of my favorite stories about trauma, ever, It's why this series sticks with me even though I don't like it that much anymore.

And I'd like to unpack why.

So first of all. Winter lives in a incredibly hostile society where any sort of deviation or weakness is punished, except the society is almost incomprehensible, it's not something Winter understands no matter how hard he tries. He can't wrap his head around the system no matter how hard he tries, he emulates the people around him and yet he's always doing something wrong. Except he can't figure out what he's doing wrong, there's something he's doing differently. There's something different about Him.

Page 25, Winter Turning:

He could see their faces so clearly - that look they got whenever he did something wrong. The look that said, if only we’d lost you instead of Hailstorm. If only you met any of our expectations, If only you were everything an Icewing should be.

So he's pushed into isolation, guilt and self-hatred but also rage, rage at himself and rage at others. His anger is one of his most defining characteristics. It's lived with him forever, it's his way of coping with a world he can't (and shouldn't in his mind) fight back against.

And a very common thing in these types of stories is that the traumatized individuals that are full of rage and anger are evil and wrong for feeling like that. It's part of the Dichotomy, it is wrong to be angry. Now this is a simplistic way of looking at it, anger itself isn't bad it is the actions taken and again the moral categorizations of traumatized individuals based on how pretty and sanitized they process trauma isn't...great. Treating other traumatized people as evil for feeling emotions that can't easily be sanitized is bad.

Winter's actions are, bad, sometimes downright awful. But his anger at his parents and his society is never portrayed as evil in Winter Turning.

In an interesting subversion of this, what really causes Winter harm is his selflessness. His willingness to forgive and his unbreakable loyalty. Winter has given his loyalty to the wrong people, to the people that hurt him, to the people that hurt his friends. He's unwilling to break free from them. And that's ultimately what causes him and others the most harm.

Winter is unable to care for himself, missing that his suffering doesn't automatically equate to other people's happiness. And he project this unto people.

I've mentioned this in other posts but when Turtle first reveals his animus magic in Escaping Peril Winter's reaction (one of anger because Turtle didn't help his queen) doesn't seem to make sense at first. Why would Winter be angry that Turtle for not using his animus magic, post-Winter Turning Winter starkly believes that using animus dragons for mass destruction is bad and horrifying.

Page 237-238

If they still had animus dragons they could have won the War of Sandwing Succession in no time at all, and then all the territory Blaze had promised Queen Glacier would now be theirs. More important, no Icewing soldiers would have had to die...and Hailstorm would never have ended up as Scarlet's poisoner

(...) When he thought of the Icewing lives lost in the war, and for nothing in the end, he wished he could climb back through time, find an animus Icewing- maybe the one who wasted her gift on defense- and force her to make something that would wipe out all the Nightwings at once.

Uneasiness whispered through his bones at that thought...a thought he had hundred of times before. But now he could picture the Nightwings in their ramshackle rainforest village, trying to rebuild after the horrors of the volcano. He could remember the shivering dragonet in the wingery and the protective parents he'd scene, including Moon's mother.

It was actually completely terrifying to think that any dragon with magic could easily wipe out an entire tribe with just one enchanted object.

And yet he gets angry anyway. And the answer can be found here as well.

"More important, no Icewing soldiers would have had to die."

To phrase my point simply, if Winter was doing the trolley problem he'd kill the one guy to save the four others, but if a person he cared about was the one guy he'd switch tracks, albeit with a lot of hesitation, and if there was an option to let himself die to save all of them he'd take that with no hesistation.

What happens is that when Winter hears Turtle not wanting to become a living weapon, he hears "I don't want to sacrifice myself for the good of others" which makes Winter furious. Because to him Turtle is basically saying he'd let people die if it means he'll be okay.

Now this is unfair to Turtle and Winter is Not In The Right Here but it illustrates my point.

Winter's problem isn't his rage, it's him equating sacrifice with what is right while completely ignoring the wider context. Winter's rage is the way he express this worldview but it's not the problem.

Which leads to a differed question, why does Winter need to sacrifice himself? Why does he need to do this?

The answer: Guilt.

He feels guilty, he's weighing everyone down, in his mind he's so inherently awful that he's always Guilty. He needs to be sacrificed, pawned off, used, so that his debt can be repaid. He has to have something bad happening to him because to him he doesn't deserve good things.

It's this that makes me love Winter, these are the traits that would be portrayed as heroic, if not heroically tragic, the hero who sacrifices there happiness for others to live on in peace.

And that concept is being portrayed as Unhealthy, that no, you shouldn't have to live like a saint to be a good person, that Winter is Wrong.

What Winter needs...is selfishness.

And that's why it's so compelling as a trauma narrative. Winter (and Winter Turning) Is about this.

And better yet you can't sanitize this, Winter's story, Winter's Character, won't let you do that. You can't sanitize Winter's story because by it's nature you'll most likely only like Winter (and as such write/draw him) if you...engage with his story.

It's also why fandom caricatures of Winter always paint him as an even bigger jerk than he actually is but that's a whole other issue and I'm not unpacking fandom flanderization in this post.

Even if the rest of the books don't deliver on this, I always think about it. And that's why Winter Turning is so special to me, it's just this incredible look into one of my favorite stories about trauma ever.

Also Winter's feelings and experiences are incredibly relatable as an autistic person, this post is already really long so I won't get into it in detail but the feelings are There.

#I did not proofread this so enjoy!#wof #wof winter #wof meta #winter turning

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icharchivist · 4 months

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Ngl if I were in Lucilius's shoes back then I might have lashed out as well

He was happy being dead. He was fine with it. His suffering was over and he got to die at the hands of his favorite person. Lucifer rebelling against his creator was the last thing he saw so he died with vindication on his mind and a smile on his lips

And then all that was taken away from him and he was thrust back into this world, in a body that wasn't his and then learned that he would never get to see Lucifer again because he was killed to bring him back, even though he never asked for that

So he lost his peace and he lost his dear friend. Maybe that's why he's touching the scar like that in Rising

Belial is definitely to blame for his own misery, not because it's his fault, but because he keeps digging his heels in

They're super compelling in many ways. They're tragic characters from a lot of angles and interesting and raw and I can even see how you'd like to ship them, there's so much emotion there, it's like a powder keg

I get the rage from Belial fans especially, but yeah, Lucilius didn't ask for any of this. Now he's been brought back he has no choice but to either go for a murder-suicide with the whole world or die trying, because he just wants to hang in the void and not be here

Perhaps what they all need is therapy

Honestly??? yeah. completely.

I think the thing that strikes me with Lucilius's apathy, the reason maybe i'm a little defensive when the conversation on his apathy turns into this moral failing on him and all is that....

Lucilius' apathy, for me, is deeply suicidal.

The whole point of the difference between Astrals and Skydwellers is the fact that Skydwellers can find their meaning in the fact their life is ultimately finite - but Astrals have to move on, immortal, eternally.

If we can understand Belial's suicidal angst about how the ages are going to continue and he'll always be alone as a primal, i think we can understand that the same angst should apply to the Astrals.

And Astrals are not supposed to die. Astrals are supposed to keep going and living. And Lucilius himself lived this life with agony, always feeling like the life he was living was a joke, plagued with visions reminding him that no matter how he anchored himself into this world, there were stuff outside of his control robbing him of his own autonomy and agency.

And i think it's why Zero, the song, is so much more about how he prays for everything to return to the void, for Rebirth, pure white splendor, to restart the cycle.

the idea is that when the Omnipotent broke into two, with the astrals like this, this freedom in death was fully taken away -- and Lucilius wants this freedom back.

Ultimately, Lucilius' plan is all the suicidal wish of a man who cannot die, and as such, is driven instead into finding another solution that could replace death in this equation, without specifically doing anything to help him want to be alive. And Lucilius, especially, therefore wants to bring this exact salvation he's seeking to everyone. Not to help them, but to properly restart the cycle and to spite God.

The Primals are created immortals, because that's the only things the Astrals know how to do. Also Lucilius was creating the first primals of their kind. It's easy to project the Frankeinstein logic of "you should love your own creation and your own son" on how he made the primals - and it's the one reason people will never forgive Lucilius and i cannot blame them, because this is too relatable of a thread to let go of. But the point is still that... when you create the First Creatures Of A Kind, you don't exactly get to planify how things will go. Lucilius wasn't a parent who knew he was putting a new life into the world and should be responsible for it, he was a mad scientist who was trying to find a loophole to his inability to die by testing around and see if he could reproduce what God had done and eventually find an answer to himself. He didn't create the primals because he wanted to be a parent, a caretaker, or anything. He was making experiments to answer the bigger questions of his life.

He made plans using those in order to take down God, ultimately, his ultimate plan was to destroy everything, including himself. And then his beloved creation killed him. And i don't think he planned for that, but it gave him peace. It gave him the death his apathy has been seeking for his whole life. It gave him peace of mind that his rebellion was worth something, that there is something such as free will in the skies, that God couldn't control everything that was going on in his life.

Lucifer killing Lucilius was the achievement of everything Lucilius had worked for, and finally something that brought him the peace he had been working for his entire life.

And Belial couldn't live without him so he ruined all of that instead, and thrusted Lucilius right back into his previous plans, the others desperate outdated plans Lucilius had started before Lucifer gave him what he wanted in the end.

And it's not like it's untrue Lucilius had an impact on why Belial did all of this. Regardless to his reasons, he was Belial's creator, and the emotional neglect and its effects are still something that are on his hands. But it's clear Lucilius was never in a position to give Belial what Belial wanted or needed, and at this point, Lucilius never would have.

Belial brought Lucilius back, hoping desperately that this time, Lucilius would give him the love he always wanted. But in doing so he stole Lucilius' agency one last time, and he stripped away Lucilius' accomplishments. He brought back to life a man who only ever wanted to die, and just so happened to want to take the whole world down with him to make it worthwhile.

and it's why it's.... complicated, to me, when we see the scenes where he's not too hot about being brought back to life, how he ignores Belial's attempt at a hug in gbvs for instance, focusing on Belial's neglect while... Lucilius himself is being brought back against his will to start with yaknow?

And like. Belial deserves to have his emotional needs met, but Lucilius will never be able to be the one to give those to him. Belial is the one to ignore Lucilius' clear signs about it and still desperately asking him for this need and affection. He sets himself up to fail on that regard.

And it's sympathetic, and yes, it's something that can be heavily relatable for people who have been into abusive relationship, especially family relationship - the desperate feeling of coming back to a parent who was SUPPOSED to love you, but never gave you the love and yet you come back every time hoping for it, and they won't give it for you. And i know that this is the major reason a lot of Belial's fans will hold Lucilius responsible for it, and cannot blame Belial for wanting it this much. But aside from the fact that while the thematics echo those, Lucilius isn't Belial's parent and shouldn't be held on the same standard as a parental figure due to the specific of the fantasy system they're a part of, ultimately the conclusion to this type of thematic should be "you need to move away from the person making you feel this way. you can't keep asking them to give you water when all they can produce is oil.".

And meanwhile Lucilius has his own thematics to be accounted for, which i also think are worth compassion to a certain degree. "extreme level of alienation bringing you to a level of apathy for the world that lead you to suicide, destroying also everything around you you've ever created" is also its own tragedy that is worth the room to feel bad for. And on that level, someone constantly answering to someone being suicidal with "but you can't die because i need you, and i will make sure you will never be able to die because it's what I want, no matter what YOU want" is just as damaging for someone's psyche as the elements mentioned in the previous paragraph.

(also while relating to some elements, especially like that, is an important part of connecting with characters and everything, i do think it's really important to compartimentalize and understand that just because the situation is relatable, doesn't mean it has to be exactly in line with the way the reader got to live it. A story will first need to serve itself and its own themes before being a mirror. Relating to a situation is important, but ignoring how different the situation actually is because of that can lead to misunderstand the actual story being told.)

idk i'm kinda rambling now, i 100% agree with all of your ask over here though.

Ultimately both of them are super toxic with themselves, with each other, with everyone around them. They're deeply fucked up invidivudals who have reached a level of self destruction where all they can do is take others people down with them around them.

and they both probably just majorly need therapy. And if either of them wants to recover (which they don't), they need to be apart from each other because they bring the worst out of each other and they hurt each other by the fact they need extremely different things.

They make each other worse, and i think they both have reasons to resent each other for that.

There will always be the argument that as the creator, Lucilius has a powerdynamic though - which will always tip the balance in this conversation. But it shouldn't actually remove the fact that Lucilius is also suffering from it. Just the fact there is an imbalance at play doesn't mean that the elements which are pilling up outside of the imbalance aren't important to take into account to start with.

so yeah, team therapy.

#ichareply #ichafantalks gbf #anonymous

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dragongutsixofficial · 2 years

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On the topic of Rhea, Byleth, Crimson Flower and abuse

I see a lot of people saying Crimson Flower is a bad route for Byleth, and I'm always a little confused about it, so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the matter. This post isn't at all to invalidate their opinions or how they view the game- this is just offering my perspective on things. Please forgive any possible mistakes, as English isn't my first language. Also, I will be criticizing Rhea's treatment of Byleth, so I'll tag this appropriately of course, but I'm still warning any of her fans beforehand in case you just wanna skip. ^^

For a little bit of context, when i first played the game, Rhea creeped me out THE MOMENT she looked at Byleth from the balcony in the cutscene when they arrive at Garreg Mach monastery. So, I was already wary of her-I dunno, I just had a feeling she wasn't as honest as she was pretending to be.

And I mean, this isn't completely wrong. She desperately wants to be able to relax and be truthful, sure, but she also has a great deal of responsibility in putting in place and maintaining a really unfair theocracy based entirely on lies, because she wants to protect her family, the last of her kind. While her behavior is, of course, understandable given the horrible trauma she went through, it still doesn't sit right with me, but that's not really my point here. The thing is, she has problems with not being in control at all times because of her story. Her despair even pushes her to try and bring back her dead mother by crafting her a vessel- something she fails at several times, including Sitri.

And, then, there's Byleth. Byleth, who disappears for twenty long years, along with all her hopes, and when they reappear Rhea immediately sees the possibility for her to achieve her goal is not totally lost. She was desperate and now that she's found them, she wants to keep them.

That's why she places so much trust in Byleth from the start, but also why she grows cold every time they step out of line- like when they refuse to give her Miklan's spear. She allows them to live their life, but only so long as they do not disappoint her in any way or deviate from her ideas- because for the longest time, she struggles to see them as their own person and puts unreasonable expectations on them.

And that, sadly, is when that becomes psychological abuse on her part. This is really obvious to me when Byleth's hair and eyes turn green after fusing with Sothis, and she sings to them and puts their head in their lap while they're asleep- it just makes me want to run far away in the opposite direction every time, and her giving them the prophet outfit after that makes me so sorry for Byleth because what she's essentially doing here (albeit maybe unvoluntarily) is chipping away at their developing self and bodily autonomy by turning them into literally what she physically wants to see-and that isn't them. She wants them to become what she wants of them.

And then, in the Sacred Mausoleum, Byleth chooses Edelgard. All hell breaks loose because Rhea's hopes are shattered- and she also realizes her affection for Byleth is (partly) unrequited which, to me at least, makes sense- I don't really see how they could care as much for her as they do for their students when they spent every day with them for a year, and their actions seem to be made more out of love for their close ones than anything else. Byleth breaks out of the mold and confronts her directly. They make the clear cut decision to deviate from the path she had laid out for them. From that moment on, Rhea considers that all forms of violence against them is allowed (which, fair, they just declared war on her lol) including taking their heart out by force, which is physical abuse obviously (then again, violence is to be expected in a war but you get the idea). She now hates what she's created and sees it as her duty to destroy it.

Now. Byleth choosing to walk down Edelgard's path does not equate cutting themselves from their divine part, and I think that is a very important point. I see a lot of people make that criticism, especially since Byleth loses Sothis' powers at the end of CF. But to me, it's a totally different phenomena that occurs.

In every route, post-timeskip Byleth embraces their divine side. They use the Creator's sword and they go back in time as they wish to protect and further their and their lords' vision for the future of Fodlan. Heck, their main class is literally "Prophet". But something strange and, I think, beautiful happens in Crimson Flower that always made me feel disappointed in the other routes' plots: Byleth has a chance to stand up to their abuser and cut ties with them explicitely and directly. To fight back against them with all they've got.

Now, don't get me wrong. Rhea apologizing for her wrongdoings and bad treatment of Byleth is good, sure, but it just… doesn't seem like enough to me. Sure, that's a nice thought… but it's not like anything can be done about it now: they're stuck with body modifications and a position as an Archbishop reforming the system she helped put in place that they never really asked for in the first place. But what makes it ok is that they embrace those fully and voluntarily, and that's beautiful on its own- however, that resolution leaves me a bit disappointed and honestly feeling like they let Rhea walk all over them.

The thing is, when you get out of an abusive and toxic relationship, you are left changed from the experience. You lose a lot of things, but you also get some things. It's like you're left with a random object your abuser gave to you once. You can either keep it and give it a new story of its own, or discard it if keeping it just doesn't feel right. But in the end, it is your responsibility, your thing, and you're not a bad person for not using it. The metaphor is broken, I know, but I hope you get my idea. You're not a bad person for moving on for that thing- You don't resent the thing, you can thank it and appreciate it for what it brought you while you used it, you don't hate it, hell you might have even learnt from it.

In the other routes, Byleth chooses to keep everything and use it equally. In Crimson Flower, Byleth "regaining their humanity" doesn't in any way, shape or form mean they reject all that Sothis brought to them or their enlightenement. It's just them choosing that they'd rather not use that from now on, or not engage with it to the same degree. They might go back to it later, might help rebuild the church, I don't know-just not in the same way. On new terms that make them more at ease with who they became following that route.

They're still the same loving and caring person who would do anything for their students. They still go to the ends of the Earth to give someone a random thing they lost. They still spend hundreds of coins on their loved ones' favorite teas. But… they do not have to forgive Rhea. They do not have to accept everything that happened to them because of her actions, even if some of it was good. They've made their peace with it and they've let it go of their own volition.

They do not become a lesser version of themselves because they chose to deal with the abuse they went through in a different way than in the other routes.

And I think a lot of people underestimate how powerful CF!Byleth's narrative can be.

#fe3h #byleth eisner #byleth discourse #lady rhea #seiros #rhea discourse #rhea critical #tw abuse #tw mentions of abuse #tw physical abuse #tw psychological abuse #crimson flower #this is no hate towards rhea's character you love who you want #byleth #fe16 #archbishop rhea #fe3h spoilers #edelgard von hresvelg

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jewishvitya · 1 year

Text

Content warning: a picture of Nazi propaganda

Okay, so, I had a couple of replies from someone who seems genuine. These are all points either I or other people made before, but I'll try to collect them in a way that makes sense.

I'm not going to reiterate the list of antisemitic issues in the goblins narratively, I did that twice, here and here. I'm going to talk about why it's antisemitic despite this being a fantasy race with traits that commonly go together. I hope you'll forgive me if I'll repeat or quote things I said in other posts. I'll also use examples I've seen given by other Jews, like I did with theineffableshe (from tiktok) before. So, credit to her.

Fantasy and SciFi are speculative fiction. They take us out of our own world and our own familiar reality to allow us to explore ourselves. All stories we tell are stories about people. We only understand our own minds. You can't imagine a color that you never saw, you can't create a reality that isn't grounded in human experience.

That's why very often the struggles and the traits of a fantasy race are pulled from the real world. Either the real struggles of real people (with some exaggeration or magical/futuristic elements), or the caricaturized traits that were applied to a real group of people.

This is not inherently bad. This is just how stories work. All stories are derivative - they all pull from the stories we told before.

Here is what you said:

If you seriously connect jews with generic greedy goblin characters with huge noses that work in banks, then it honestly sounds to me like YOU are the one being filled up with these prejudices.

But here's what I need you to understand: we don't think we look like the goblins. We don't relate the goblins to ourselves. We relate the goblins to how we were portrayed in the past, to demonize us.

Goblins in other pieces of media can look very different. Because those are fictional, they can be made to look like anything. And they look like antisemitic caricatures.

To illustrate, here's a comparison between the game and Nazi propaganda.

The first picture is from theineffableshe. She traced some of these from stills of the game, and some of these from antisemitic Nazi propaganda.

I know which is which - because I've seen all of the originals. But if you never saw them before, do you think everyone would be able to tell which ones are from HL and which ones are 1930's propaganda?

And the two on top? One of them is the trophy you get for killing Ranrok, the main antagonist of the game. The other, is again, antisemitic propaganda.

Just a reminder that I'm not blaming Rowling of writing intentional antisemitic caricatures into her books. This is more complicated than that, and that complexity is what this post is about.

I showed in two posts the narrative similarities between the goblins and antisemitic propaganda. Here, I showed a bit of the visual similarities.

It's the collection of all the traits that creates the problem.

And you understand this. I felt encouraged when I saw you say:

This discovery honestly makes me feel uncomfy. Sure, it's just a generic animal horn, which isn't solely special to jews, but it kind of does start piling up.

Which is exactly the point. You get it. I just want you to see that it's still true if you disregard the horn.

You also said this:

Most greedy characters are portrayed ugly, which oftentimes includes large noses. And greedy people working in banks isn't a huge jump.

Greedy characters being ugly, ugly characters having large noses and greedy people working in banks are all stereotypes that are portrayed in media fairly often- How exactly is this case in particular offensive?

So. I'll start by saying again that the original books had no problem with the goblin's noses. They weren't even described. The antisemitism was in the other traits. But in these messages from you, there are a couple of issues: what we consider ugly, and equating beauty with goodness. For that, I'll get into the issue of the noses.

Beauty is cultural. I have a Chinese friend and we had long conversations about it, because it's something that fascinates me. The beauty standards around them are very different from those around me. We spoke about how it influences art and fashion and make up. You can see similar things throughout history. What we consider beautiful or ugly is not neutral.

I'm not talking about personal taste right now. I'm not saying "if you have certain preferences, you're a bad person and there's something wrong with you." I'm saying that culturally, some beauty standards come from racism. Others come from classism and prejudice towards poor people. Others, from ableism and prejudice towards sick and disabled people.

That's why the idea of ugliness being tied to evil is not neutral. People in reality treat beautiful people better. They're more likely to be assumed kind, to be assumed innocent if accused of crimes. It comes from a concept of purity, an assumption that moral corruption will be visible on you.

And it wasn't invented by white supremacists, but it aligns with their ideology. White supremacists put on a pedestal traits they consider better and purer. And traits that don't fall into that idea of racial purity, were the ones seen as ugly. If marginalized people's traits are considered ugly, and ugliness is equated with immorality - marginalized people are seen as immoral.

Exaggerating the phenotypical traits of a marginalized group to dehumanize it, is common. It's how racist (and transphobic, etc) caricatures are created. In terms of phenotype, Jewish people can belong to any race. There is no one way a Jewish person looks. But Jewish people tend to marry other Jewish people, so sometimes we don't completely look like the non-Jewish populations where we live. This was the case for Ashkenazi Jews in Europe. We were more likely to be shorter, to have darker and curlier hair, darker eyes, and there's much more. The "Jewish nose" is part of that.

European Jews were not considered white, they were racialized, and being racialized meant being subhuman. So the traits that the Nazis associated with us were demonized.

"They're shown as ugly, and that includes a big nose" is not a neutral thing. It has a very heavy history of white supremacy and antisemitism.

When you ask "it's a well established trope, so how is this case in particular offensive?" you assume every other case is harmless. I'm not accusing every single creator who made hooked-nosed villains of antisemitism. I'm saying that the pattern has pretty bad origins.

These traits that you listed commonly go together - but why? Most real rich people who hoard money don't fit that collection of descriptions. So where did this come from?

We pull narrative tools from the stories told to us, and we do that without always thinking about how those tropes interact with the real world. The idea of greedy bankers has been tied to the demonization of Jewish people for a very long time.

Rowling wanted to write a bank, and she wanted to make it magical, and she reverse-engineered her fantasy bankers from there. But when she did that, she did write an antisemitic fantasy race.

Goblins are portrayed in many different ways in folklore and in media. Goblin is originally a term used for a collection of creatures that have different traits, not all of them associated with love of treasure. They can be tricksters, but not necessarily bloodthirsty. And since it's such a varied mythology, there's no reason for them to look like this. There's no reason for them to be only loyal to each other. To either not care about human lives or enjoy the idea of humans getting hurt - which we see in the books.

She pulled more from antisemitic stories than she pulled from real folklore. And it was enough of a problem that antisemitic producers were able to pick up where she left off and make it as bad as they did.

So you're exactly right. It's how it piles up. I just hope you can see that the issue goes very deep.

#riki babbles #hogwarts legacy #HP #JKR

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