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gren-arlio · 7 months

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Rewriting this sucks, but we ball. Welcome to Episode 13 of Waku Puyo Extras.

(...If you saw the post before I deleted it, no you didn't. I hate my internet.)

Heya everyone, Gren here, rewriting this for a second time because I accidently clicked post and lost everything because my internet decided to be a dickhead. Welcome to Episode 13 of this wonderful show I've made, where I discuss random Puyo things and hope they make sense to an audience. They usually do.

Today we'll be focusing on our favorite idiot out there, Ms. Draco Centauros. It's wild how she's been with us since day one and we haven't made anything for and about her. This one might seem more summarized and less "Gren's rambling again," because man. Retyping sucks.

Uploads have been scarce due to school, we're hitting the toughest parts by far, I plan to change it sometime.

Let's begin, shall we? I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and please play Persona 3 Reload. Amazing game.

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So Who IS Draco in Puyo?

I have to specify Puyo so we can mention Madou stuff later, since it's how I wanna roll this time around.

She's been with us with a personality since what, 1992? And she's had two wonderful traits.

She loves beauty contests.

And she may be stupid.

We'll come to love and hate those traits later on down the line. Believe me on that. That's how she began in Tsu, after all.

However, everything changed when it came to Puyo SUN, where something very unique happened. She's now a protagonist, and I believe the first one to do so, a massive accomplishment. She's the protagonist of the Easy Mode Course, the shortest one, but that's fine.

She finds Skeleton-T heating up tea while she basically dying of heat, and she burns the tea, making the man (skeleton?) PISSED, and a fight happens, classic Puyo. After that, Draco encounters Harpy, who collapsed on the ground due to dehydration, so Draco saves her life via a water bottle. Sadly, it results in Harpy singing, and Draco to slowly die inside because...it's Harpy's singing for God's sake.

And finally, she runs into Choppun (remember that guy?) He's land surfing on a rock... before he gets properly swept away by the water, thankfully. With that, Draco tries to relax, and uh, that doesn't end well. The sun's too hot, and she goes flying, not by her free will, of course, but because sunburn does that to someone...leading to her being the first fight of Arle's story, basically in severe pain due to that.

The fact that she got a protagonist role is something to behold, and it's very interesting to know that a common Mook like her was able to secure such a spot. Later on, other side characters like Witch and Lagnus would get the role in other games (Comet Summoner, Madou Saturn, etc,) but no, Draco is the first one to do that, a very big accomplishment in of itself. Nice one Draco.

And hey, she returns in Puyo~N too, being one of the first fights in the game.

(Just want an excuse to show the artstyle. MAN, it's so good.)

Here, Arle asks if she knows who stole Carbuncle, as that's basically the plot of the entire game, but Draco has reverted back into her good old "Is she stupid?" personality, assumes she's there for a beauty contest and fights her, and loses, go figure. After that, she actually joins Arle for the search for her missing Carbuncle, alongside Witch, Serilly, and Chico.

She even says Gao. It's perfect.

But after that, it kinda went all over the place. It was her last real major/semi-prevelent role for a good bit. She's there in Minna, but she doesn't exactly do a ton. She's part of a long fetch quest where mail has been messed up, and her mail got lost 3 years ago because Witch accidently got it instead, but that's really about it. And then, like everyone in Compile besides Arle, she vanishes for The Fever Era. She doesn't even appear in 15th, when Nasu Grave and Zoh Daimoh made it. But hey, jokes on them, they haven't appeared since.

But after so long, Draco makes her grand return in Puyo 7.

(Wonder who you saw first in this image. For me it was Raffine.)

Here, she's in the Bermuda Triangle because Dark Arle told her that there's a beauty contest there, and she just believes it. Ringo and Amitie go there for plot reasons, and Draco assumes they're there for the same reasons as her. Sadly, they're not, and Draco has been HOODWINKED. And as we know, if you play as Amitie, Witch and Harpy make their cameo appearance, new designs as all... just to not use them ever again. Makes me sad every time.

Draco reappears in 20th Anniversary, where Witch also makes her real debut back. Harpy died sadly. She got smacked to the Land of Chronicles instead. Back to Draco, she wants to find a really cool swimsuit Arle mentioned, but it's Draco, life hates her. After a slew of mishaps and ruining people's day, she finally finds it... and finds out it's from Suketoudara. Rip.

And hey, she reappears in Chronicle, where she's just minding her own business until she gets yoinked by the book that took everyone else to Ally's world. And in Draco Fashion... she assumes Ally and crew are there for a beauty pageant and won't be usurped. Wonder how many times I've mentioned her and beauty pageants, gotta keep count sometime.

She's in Tetris 1 and uh. She tries to eat O.

And uh...she does a talent show with Witch in the DLC. That's it.

TETRIS 2 TIME

She's one of the many people who got corrupted by Marle, but had Ringo fooled for a good bit on accident, and apologized for her odd behavior. Not her fault Marle is uh... quite the character.

And in side story stuff, she's just playing around with Mini Puyos since she finds them interesting. Unfortunately, Witch also finds them interesting and makes Draco her test subject for studying Mini Puyos, saying it'd at least be a good workout for her. And since we're playing as Draco, she does just that...for science, we swear. After that, Witch notes that due to their smaller size, much higher chains and such, before Draco says she's just there for a good time, much to Witch's annoyance.

So That's Puyo. How About Madou?

(One guy out there just decided to make the coolest Draco art out there. Thanks man.)

Draco began in the series like many other characters, a Mook, a random encounter, a person Arle ran into during dungeon crawling adventures, the sort. It's simple enough, it's her beginnings.

However, I won't exactly be going in chronological order for this, rather, I want to mention some things here and there as I go.

Draco began to get fairly popular due to her design and appearances in Puyo, ala Witch, so she began to make a lot of appearances in side stuff, such as Disc Station games. She appears in a few off memory:

Tower of the Magician, where she's a random encounter Schezo can fight. Here though, she has a little more personality since it's been more established.

PuyoLympics, where she makes a cameo appearance in the swimming section of the game. She's not playable, like Rulue and Schezo, but she makes an appearance.

Rulue's Spring Break of Fists, where like many other characters, she talks a lot... because it's a visual novel. She only appears in one story route, like almost every other character in the game.

Arle Man'Yuki, where she's uh. There.

Madou Saturn, where she's a playable ally, but a temporary one.

Waku Puyo Dungeon and it's manga, where in the manga, she fights against and alongside Rulue.

So let's talk about her role in Saturn first. She's been chained up alongside Witch due to Incubus being Incubus, and you're given a choice to save her or Witch first. Today, it's Draco.

Arle and Rulue save Draco, and Draco's first thing to do is go to a beauty pageant...to find out that she's late and it's already over.

And it leads to this. She's gone, bros. To the point where she doesn't help fight Schezo 3 minutes later. However, after said fight, she regains her senses and enters a whole other contest since the reward is a key that opens literally anything. You know, so they can save Witch.

Unfortunately, Yog Smoke is appearing, and it's not looking so good for our heroes, but we skim some smaller details, some fights later, it's honestly quite similar to Witch's route, down to the Schezo Refight and Jaan appearance, I guess to give players similar experiences. It's honestly a very nice role Draco has at least, where she's able to kinda bounce off Arle and Rulue decently well, and she's no slouch in combat either.

After saving Witch, she does leave you, but reappears at the end of the game at the very least. And that's mostly her role, she has her own quirks and her personality, while a little one dimensional as always, still leaves room up for some unique conversations with Arle and Rulue.

And even then, her role in Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon and its manga are at least more than that, to an extent. It depends on the Route.

In Arle's Route (yeah, sorry for not translating in a hot minute. School work over that, sorry.) she relies more on her stupid self and assumes Arle is there for a beauty- basically the usual. However, at the very least, she does canonically say she can make 5 chains, before realizing they her and Arle are gonna PROPERLY fight rather than Puyo battle, which is neat. And even after defeat, she just trains to become even better, which is honestly a nice change of pace.

And in Schezo's route, it relies on Schezo also being partially a Grade A dunce, since the boss dialog is him misunderstanding Draco completely about "Something," before she says it's a Battle, leaving him to feel stupid for not thinking that. And after defeat and near the end of the game, Schezo runs into her again, and he says that he's not really interested in appealing to women or anyone, leading to Draco assuming he's gay, much to his annoyance. And on another talk, Draco mentions if he was more in touch with how people feel and watched his wording, Schezo would be even more popular with the ladies, before he's shocked that he's popular in general.

Notice how I haven't spoken about Rulue yet, and it's because...I dunno how she acts there. But I do somewhat know how she acts in the manga.

(This requires context. Believe me.)

Like in the game, Draco is the boss of Fire Mountain, and since Rulue and Minotauros are there...to put it bluntly, the three fight. Draco's no slouch though, as she's able to actually fight Rulue competently and WIN round one, so to speak, which is the top image of the entire post.

When knocked out, Rulue begins to dream about Arle...and Satan. The rest is history. Round two happens, and it's a real back and forth, honestly. Draco lands good hits, Rulue gets good hits, before out of nowhere, steals the Naruto Handbook and Shadow Clone Justu's, shocking Draco and ending the fight there.

It's worth noting that it appears Draco might (or definitely does,) like or even crush on Rulue herself. Since this stupid 10 image limit it kicking my ass, you can probably find many pages online of those moments. Draco even tags along in fighting... these guys, who are basically traumatized from fighting Rulue.

(They're in Saturn, that's for sure.)

And as such, ends our talk about Draco. She's a very fascinating character, since she hasn't changed a whole lot throughout the decades.

She's been fairly two-note for years now, but it doesn't really stop her from being a good and fun character, especially when Compile/SEGA decide to give her a little more than "Is she stupid?" and beauty pageants.

That'd be all from me. Adios.

#puyo puyo #madou monogatari #sega #waku waku puyo puyo dungeon #rulue puyo puyo #arle nadja #arle puyo puyo #puyoposting #draco puyo puyo #draco centauros

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saltygilmores · 1 year

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Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls 2/16, There's The Rub, The Part Where Dean Shows Up And Ruins Everything, Part 5

Read parts 1-4 and all other episodes in my pinned post. This one may not come across as terribly funny; I felt the urge to continue with this episode but I also felt a bit off my humor game, probably because it's 8,000 fucking degrees outside. Maybe that's what's draining my funny juices. But it does contain a bonus surprise (something I've never done before), so read on. Where we last left off, we were moments away from armageddon as Dean was heading over to the Gilmore house, with his fucking pint of ice cream in a bag, ignoring Rory's wishes to be left alone because consent has never been his forte, hell bent on destroying this evening of blissful harmony being shared between Jess, Rory, and Paris. Rory has just checked the Butthead News and Weather report and learned that a Level 5 DeanStorm is bearing down on the Gilly Girls house. She immediately shifts into panic mode as she tries to evacuate everyone from the house.

I swear he is too smart for his own good. #AdmireTheBaby #ISAIDADMIREHIM

Please don't go, my love.

God, I'm ashamed to admit how long it took me to notice this was actualy a clever ploy to get Rory alone in her room. Clever baby.

I thought Jess was saying he wants to sit down and have a heart to heart talk with Rory, then I realized he actually meant Dean and that is way funnier. I love the absurd image of those two idiots working together to achieve mature conflict resolution. Totally bonkers concept. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if Dean and Jess would just fucking make out with each other there would be peace in Stars Hollow. Rory would be spared, Lindsey would be spared, Lorelai would watch her dreams of marrying Dean Forrester wither on the vine, Shane would still be alive and not murdered by Jess after the dance marathon...

Milos "tiny little ice cream package" line delivery in the following scene is so fucking adorable that I went ahead and made it into a video clip. I should start doing this more often tbh.

I don't know how Jess is always so fearless around Dean, if I were Jess I'd be pissing my fucking pants. Dean fucking terrifies me.

Shit. Is the cold fear that this fictional character instills in me on a regular basis a testament to Jared Padalecki's acting or what? I mean, I hope it's just acting. It's a little too convincing.

He is one scary motherfucker.

Poor Paris. Dean is so horrible to Rory in the next scene, like he is just getting more and more abusive towards Rory as time goes on. So you know what, I'm not even going to write about it. Fuck Dean Forrester. Paris jumps to Rory's defense and makes up an excuse to calm Dean down from his jealous rage and it works. I wish I just could give the both of them (Paris and Rory) a great big hug. Paris is a hero and her love for Rory knows no bounds.

You are not. Fuck you!

Rory, honey. No...just no. 😭

#denise rewatches gilmore girls #rory gilmore #jess mariano #milo ventimiglia #gilmore girls season 2 #theres the rub #paris geller #anti dean forester #The MESSAGES these shows were planting in our young millennial brains #Dean yells at Rory so she apologizes to him and kisses him #and promises not to spend her time with anyone else #like #I didn’t watch these kind of shows when they first aired #so this still blows my mind there was tv like this

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pinkprimrose05 · 2 years

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Pink's ARC-V Highlights - Volume 2: Beware The Blue

Warning: Very Long Post, Contains Spoilers

Okay, uh, I lied. I'm not only here to talk about theories and potential foreshadowing. This series also serves as a quick recap of all ARC-V episodes and the cool moments in them -regardless of relevance to the plot- sprinkled with a generous drizzle of ramblings from yours truly.

If all goes well, you can expect fairly consistent updates, where I cover a few episodes every time. This one, for example, will go over Episodes 3 to 7, since those are the ones I managed to watch this week.

(I. hate. midyear finals.)

If that still piques your interest, then I hope you enjoy the read!

(And yes, I know Yuuto is purple, but purple is technically a shade of blue so the rhyme still works-)

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1) Episodes 3 & 4, OR: The obligatory "No card is useless!" Duel.

We pick up where we left off with the You Show crew, and the mishaps of Learning How To Pendulum At The Unholy Hour of 3 A.M. I must applaud the sheer lack of braincells between Gongenzaka and Yuuya, because wow, I can't believe they both forgot that Duel Replays are a thing.

(This is why only Yuzu has a 60%+ winrate.)

Fast forward through school-flavored pain, and we now introduce everyone's favorite banana peel...

... whom I highkey want to punt off a cliff.

Look, I love Sawatari. I really do. But good Lord, I forgot just how insufferable he was this far back in the show. I had to refrain from punching my screen several times through the back half of Episode 3, because Shingo, you idiot, who the fuck told you it was fine to put 8-year-old children in mortal danger for a bunch of shiny new cards??

Suffice to say, it took me a good while to actually like him after this atrocious first impression... but hey, at least he gets humbled with style!

As far as early-game Duels go, this one is actually not half bad. The "weak card wins you the game" trope is a bit cliché, but Yuuya gets props for turning it into a pretty light show with Kaleidoscorp and Block Spider, and then using said pretty light show to win the game in one turn.

Another thing is that this Duel introduces Action Traps! Gosh, I would have loved to see more of those later down the line. The concept is pretty neat, and the negative effects create an interesting risk, where a Duelist has to stop and think if they really need to grab an Action card, regardless of the potential ramifications of it being a Trap.

Oh, and did I mention that Sawatari gets roasted to oblivion before the final direct attack? Because he does. Yuuya went above and beyond to make this as entertaining as possible to his friends, and as humiliating as possible for Shingo... for which I ultimately have to thank him, because that's the spark that eventually turned Sawatari into the flashy dork we all know and love.

... And because he deserved an asskicking at the time. Sora did well knocking him out, actually.

Speaking of which—

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2) Episodes 5 & 6, OR: That one time we adopted a war criminal.

I actually kinda like these two episodes. They're nothing particularly special if you look back (well, unless you're subscribed to the theory that the stadium in the first minute or so is the same one from Leo's flashback in Episode 126), but hey, at least we get to "properly" know our beloved sugar gremlin!

God, I love Sora. He's actually pretty terrible at disguising his position as a spy- like wow, he keeps outing himself as suspicious every time he makes a snide comment, even without the context of who he actually is. I think he could only afford to slip up so much because no one could ever guess that he came from a world-invading organization in a reality parallel to their own.

... And also because everyone thought of him as a mere child with a bit of a quirky, mischievous streak. I mean, who can ever think ill of such a sweet little guy?

(Yuuya can, but that's because Sora was annoying him on purpose lmao. It's good that he wasn't fooled by the cutesy act, though; that means he could read Sora better than most, despite his deflection and the constant switching between cutie pie and smug bastard.)

As for the Duel, it isn't much to talk about. The first few Duels are usually for exposition and showing mechanics, and in this case, we just see what happens when a Pendulum monster gets destroyed.

Short answer: It goes to the Extra Deck instead of the GY.

Long asnwer: Yuuya goes through a minor existential crisis, because his mishmash of a strategy comes crashing down the moment Odd-Eyes is out of the equation. How does he deal with that, you ask? Hysterical laughter, that's how.

(Goddammit ARC-V, isn't it far too early to make me question the protagonist's sanity?

... actually, don't answer that.)

Aaaaaaaaanyway, we also get to see the reintroduction of Fusion summoning!

(Look at this cool animation. So clean. So awesome.)

Fluffals are actually a very good Deck to showcase the different levels of complexity of the mechanic, and they get bonus points for the contrast between the cutesy plushies and... whatever animatronic shit the Frightfurs have going on. I am now reminded of how glad I was to see the older summoning methods getting a neat glow-up, especially after ZEXAL booted them out of existence in favor of focusing on Xyz.

(And on that note, I feel the need to stress that it's Xyz, not XYZ. Please. It's been twelve years. Stop confusing the game mechanic with the Union cards, people.)

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3) Episode 7, OR: The one I actually wanted to talk about all along.

Oh this. This. This is where the plot finally starts to move forward. Nothing against the previous episodes, but I did say before they're mostly there for exposition, and that, by nature, is bound to be a little boring.

Unlike here.

I'd like to start by talking about Yuzu, because we have to admit: this is the first time she's relevant to the story as herself, not as Yuuya's friend or as a student at You Show. And boy, does she make it count.

She busts Sawatari on her own, and literally calls him a hundredth-rate Duelist. To his face. In front of his lackeys. Yuzu was ready to take him on, even when she was alone and locked in the warehouse (again, Shingo, what the fuck??), and I'm fairly certain she could've backed up her words given the chance...

Except, well, she wasn't given the chance.

I'm actually willing to let this one slide, because Yoot's interference doesn't invalidate Yuzu's ability to handle this by herself. I see it more as a precaution on his part, and also a chance to learn more about LDS and Academia that he simply couldn't pass up.

There's also the likely possibility that he genuinely didn't know how Duels worked here, and couldn't risk Yuzu getting hurt if he could help it. It's clear that Yuuto was aware she wasn't Ruri at this point (wow, good job man, you're not as colorblind as everyone else), but still didn't wish to involve an innocent bystander in conflict... which actually makes sense, considering his moral code.

And besides, the Duel was still pretty cool! There's something inherently awesome about setting a full backrow board on Turn 1, and the first time I saw it, I was absolutely shooketh.

(Also, there was a copy of Mystical Space Typhoon among the set cards. Something tells me that Yuuto knows it doesn't negate, and that is definitely praiseworthy, because it means that he actually reads the damn cards.)

Even Sawatari gets kudos for Monarch representation. And also for showing us that Prismatic foil and different rarities do exist in-universe, just like in GX. It makes me wonder why most Duelists don't use them, buuut I guess that was just a throwaway detail that they used to highlight Shingo's spoiled rich brat disposition.

ANYWAYS, moving on to more important matters!

Like dark matter. Which exists in space. Which is the theme of many Xyz cards. Among which there is one Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon.

(HAIL THE T-POSE ALTERNATE ARTWORK!!)

Don't let the lesser requirement of 1 Overlay Unit fool you; the anime version is still worse than the one we got in the game... though it does, at least, have better OTK abilities against non-Xyz bosses.

I still laugh at the fact that it left Sawatari with exactly 100 LP. Poor guy probably thought he could pull a protagonist comeback, but alas, he forgot that he is not the protagonist...

Well, at least he gets a shot at the role in Episode 139, but we're a few ways away from that right now.

And speaking of stuff that we're a few ways away from...

*shakes Yuuto* Did you just- DID YOU JUST FUCKING NAMEDROP ACADEMIA???

I don't remember this at all. I thought he just asked about the significance of the LDS pin and left. What the hell? Why does none of the characters talk about it then? Not Sawatari, not his goons, not even Yuzu? What??

This is really, really weird. I may have to look into it a little more later on, but for now, we return to a bewildered Yuzu... and her absolute party pooper of a plot device.

Yes. You know the one.

(FuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufUCKYOU)

This stupid bracelet and the subsequent events following its activation bring us to a point of great frustration that I would like to touch upon, that being the cast's crippling inability to tell the counterparts apart from each other. Brace yourselves, Duelists; this might be a bit of a long tangent.

*inhales*

Okay, look, there are two sides to this issue; one that can be excused in more than one instance, and one that makes zero sense, no matter how you spin it.

The excusable side is the visual confusion. I understand Yuzu's shock at the situation as a whole, not helped at all by this odd fellow who strongly resembles her best friend.

(And before you say Yuuto doesn't resemble Yuuya for shit, yes he does, if only because the goggles' band is holding his bangs down.)

One must also remember they were locked in a now-wrecked warehouse, so the lighting conditions are bound to be rather bad, and it might be difficult to see clearly as a result. With all that in mind, I can forgive Yuzu for confusing their looks.

The inexcusable side, however, is the auditory confusion. The counterparts -every single one of them- don't sound the least bit similar to each other, even in the English dub.

They could look straight up identical for all it matters, but their voices are so wildly distinct I cannot begin to fathom how anyone can ever confuse them. You could technically make a case for excluding Yuuri and Yuuya since the sole difference between them is voice tone (at least in the sub), but the former is not a subject of comparison right now, and Yuuto's voice is far cry from the latter.

In conclusion of these two factors, I only have one thing to say:

... This is stupid.

This is so, so stupid.

It's so fucking stupid it's not even funny, but it is what it is, and as with every single time anyone talks about this issue, we'll just have to roll with it and be glad when a character doesn't take the bait.

*sigh*

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Well, this should be everything for now, and *checks post length*.... holy shit I didn't think it'd slip from me this much. If you somehow managed to reach the end without dozing off midway through, then you deserve a cookie.

Thanks for reading, and see you soon, Duelists!

#pink's arc v highlights #yugioh #yugioh arc v #arc v #yuya sakaki #yuzu hiragi #yuzu hiiragi #shingo sawatari #sora shiunin #yuto (arc v)#long post #episode analysis #also uhh #just noticed i keep switching between sawatari and shingo every time i mention him #i hope its not disconcerting #im still talking about the same guy

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bouffees · 2 years

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Hi, im in the process of figuring out a heart condition & I kinda need to vent/ if anyone has advice it would be appreciated?

So idk where to begin and it kinda might be long. Last year i was diagnosed with an arrhythmia and tachycardia. I take 40mg of Propranolol every am and it has helped a lot tbh. I had these palpitation episodes for years but assumed it was due to trauma/my anxiety for a long time. I was also a drug addict due to said issues but as of this past July 5th I am 5 years clean . Unfortunately i know that did its fair share of damage as well. Anyways in the past 5 years ive done a lot of therapy and as i finally became an adjusted member of society one would assume those palpitations would have gotten better but they did not. They increased, were random, without physical exertion or stress. Every time it began the same; my heart would miss a beat, like if you skipped a step going down the stairs, it felt like my heart was being squeezed and i had stabbing pain when I took a breath. Then it would go away after like a min or two. Last year right before i was put on the Propranolol (i had switched primary care doctors and she was concerned with my weight loss and tachycardia) the episodes were happening more and i was starting to notice other symptoms, then I had a really scary episode in September. Now, being an MA/nursing student i realize just how bad it actually was and how idiotic I was for not going to the ER. I was playing a video game with my bf and the episode came on, i tried to ignore it/held my breath except this time it didnt go away. At the time I hadnt graduated my program yet and had all my equipment at home so i grabbed my pulse oximeter. The reading was 140 at first and i was like okay lets try breathing exercises etc. But it jumped to 162 and at this point i was starting to feel numb in my left leg, my fingertips and was getting dizzy. So i was like um ok this is not ignorable any longer and got up to get my mom who is a retired nurse. I could barely get downstairs, i felt sick, dizzy, my limbs were FREEZING but my chest felt on fire and i was sweating. My mom panicked when i showed her my bpm and listen I dont blame her she has a TBI and although shes still very smart it kinda affected her emotional control so it was a mess. I went into self preservation mode and was like i gotta get my bpm down so i took a bunch of benadryl and one of my moms anxiety prns and laid under the fan with my head back and my legs up. Eventually it finally evened out. Next day i went to my dr and she immediately put me on a beta blocker snd did lab work, my lipid profile wasnt great tbh. But the Propranolol helped once we had tweaked it a bit and I didn't experience the episodes for a while. I still have weird symptoms like numbness in my left arm or leg, no appetite, once in a while palpitations but not rhe same intensity they were before. When im hot/stressed ive experienced dizziness/tingling feeling in my head/fingers. Im not really sure what to do moving forward, i know i probably need a cardiologist. Heart disease runs deep iny genes, both my moms parents had cardiovascular issues, and their parents etc. I also had substance abuse issues and ptsd. And the more time i spend in medical field rhe more aware i become. I just feel like its hard for doctors to take me seriously, i do have trauma/psych/substance problems in my file. A few years ago i had a very dismissive dr and although he tried to be sympathetic it made me feel like i was crazy and so i stopped trying to figure out these weird symptoms and told myself it was anxiety/trauma but obviously it got worse and now here we are. I just want to know whats actually wrong not just basicallt being told your heart rhythm is whack and it beats to fast? Im nervous and dont know where to begin/continue. And i just really needed to get it off my chest so thanks for everyone who actually read it through

submitted by /u/korinmuffin [link] [comments] from For issues related to heart disease, cardiac health and cholesterol control https://ift.tt/4chLKOQ

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whiteqnn · 4 years

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Pairing: Corpse Husband x Fem! Reader

Summary: Sean invites one of his good friends - Y/N - to play with him and the group. She has a lot of fun with them, but at the same time is too oblivious, too nice, and too pure to notice that one particular Among Us player has taken a liking to her the moment he heard her voice...

Notes: Hello everyone! This is the very first time I’m publishing something bigger in here, I’m honestly still figuring out how Tumblr works, even though I’ve had this account for quite some time now 😅. That being said, please don’t expect anything super impressive. I tried my best though just so you know. 🥺

A/N- It didn’t turn out as I expected, but I really hope at least some of you find it enjoyable :(

Y/C/N - your channel name

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

PURE [1]

“Did you guys find anybody?” Felix asked, as the number of players still showed just 7 of them. They could just start now, but the game would be way more fun with a full lobby.

“Yeah, Lily’s joining. I just texted her the code, so she should be here at any moment.” Sykkuno replied after receiving a text message from the said girl. “Oh, and Corpse also said he’d be joining soon.”

“Great. Anyone else?”

“I think Jack was also bringing someone, right?” Dave asked.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I have one coming, she’ll join us in a few” the asked man replied at the same moment Lily’s character appeared in the lobby.

“Who you’re bringing Jack?”

“Y/N” he said, causing Felix to gasp in shock and yell into his mic:

“How the fuck did you manage to convince her? I’ve been bugging her about this game for the past week and she always had some excuse!”

“What can I say, my charm is irresistible” Jack replied nonchalantly, causing everyone in the lobby to laugh at his fake deep voice.

The number of participants changed to 9, as a little black astronaut with horns on his helmet appeared in the lobby.

“Corpse, you’re here!” Rae’s character ran up to the man, circling him excitedly.

“Hey man!”

“What’s up, Corpse?”

“Hello everyone” his deep voice sounded out “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“All good man, we’re still waiting for one person.” Felix reassured him “Sean, why is she not here yet? Are you sure you’ve sent her the right code?”

“Of course I am!” he all but shouted at Felix “And about that, she just texted me to give her a few more minutes and that we should start without her.”

“We can just wait, right?” Lily offered, earning a few hums of approval from the others.

“I think it might take a little longer than a few minutes, she has some problems with her microphone.”

“Who are you guys talking about?” Corpse asked, completely unaware of who Jack was referring to.

“Wait, Jack, you mean Y/N from Y/C/N?” Sykkuno asked suddenly, only then realizing why this name sounded familiar

“Yeah, the one and only” Jack replied, a smile evident in his voice.

“Oh my god, I love her videos!” Rae exclaimed at that “She’s so funny and sweet!”

“Yeah! Her new video is so freaking cute, I wish she’d upload more often.” Poki agreed.

“Right?” Jack said, clearly very proud of his friend. “But don’t let that sweet demeanor fool you guys cause she’s one of the best players I’ve encountered in this game.”

“That’s true, she’s a secret big brain genius” Toast confirmed, making Pewdiepie gasp once again.

“wHAT??YOU TWO PLAYED WITH HER?!” Felix’s offended voice boomed through everyone’s headphones “HOW DARE YOU. HOW COULD YOU NOT INVITE ME?!”

“That’s for not inviting me to your latest Cringe episode!” Jack was quick to respond, making others in the lobby laugh at their mini fight.

“Oh, so that’s where I recognized her from!” Sykkuno nearly shouted when he finally put two and two together. “I can’t wait to meet her, she seems like a really nice person.”

“She is! When she got impostor for the first time she refused to kill me” Toast explained, earning himself a couple of Aww’s from his friends. “So we just ran around the emergency button until I called the meeting and voted her off.”

“Yeah, only to be her first victim in the next game.” Jack all but giggled, clearly very amused at the memory of Y/N going into a full berserk mode. No one except for him and Toast knew how good she really was at this game...

“She’s basically the wolf in sheep’s skin” Felix concluded with a chuckle “Very soft wolf, however.”

“She’s like the complete opposite of Corpse, both in voice and personality” Jack suddenly said, making Felix laugh wholeheartedly at something only two of them understood at the moment.

“I don’t know how should I take that” Corpse admitted with a chuckle. He remained silent for most of the conversation since he didn’t really know who the guys were talking about. But he would lie if he said he wasn’t intrigued by this girl at least in the slightest. Although he heard about her channel, he hasn’t seen any of her videos, so he didn’t really know what to expect. But hearing what gamers like Sean and Felix said about her, he knew he’s not gonna be disappointed once the girl joins them in the game.

“Imagine Corpse and Y/N talking.” Felix said suddenly with a seemingly very amused voice.

“Imagine Corpse and Y/N both being Impostors” Toast said, which resulted in many of them shouting over each other at how crazy that would be.

“Alright, now that you mention this I start fearing the moment two of them meet” Jack confessed with loud laughter following the sentence. Corpse chuckled deeply under his breath, at the same time glancing at the questions his audience was asking him in his stream. He could hardly read any, as there were quite a lot of people asking, so all he saw was just a bunch of comments moving at the speed of light in his chat. He wouldn't say it out loud, but he was slightly nervous, seeing the growing number of people watching his stream. It was still a rather new thing to him, and he feared he'd say something inappropriate, or just make a complete idiot out of himself.

"At least no one can see me..." he mumbled under his breath after muting his microphone.

"Oh! Y/N just texted me! She's joining the call right now!"

"Fuck yeah!" Felix shouted excitedly "Just so you know Jack, I won't forget that you two played without me."

"Uh-oh. Is that a threat? Are you threatening me now?"

"It's a warning" Felix replied, receiving a series of gasps from other players. "If I get impostor, you're the first one on my list."

"Okay, everyone heard that! You know who to vote off when I'm dead!"

"It's so cool to play with someone new, I wonder if she's as good as you guys depict her" Sykkuno spoke up, but before anyone could answer his question, a new character popped up in the lobby.

***

"Hi everyone! I’m sorry I left you just like that, but this stream would be completely useless without me being able to answer your questions. Fortunately it wasn’t anything serious, I just had to readjust my mic and go through the settings to find what was wrong. Took some time, but here I am now!” Y/N chirped into her microphone, smiling apologetically at her webcam. At the moments like this, she really appreciated how supportive her audience was. No one was hating on her when she had to get off the stream for a couple of minutes, and everyone was just so understanding that it made her heart melt. Perhaps her audience wasn’t very big, but it felt almost like a second family to her.

“Anyway, as you already know from my twitter, today I’ll be playing Among Us with my friends and their friends! I can’t wait if I’m being honest, last time I played this game was so much fun, and there was only a few of us.” she admitted with a genuine smile on her face. “Let’s just text Sean now so we can get into the lobby...”

Y/N: Ready to play with you guys ^^

Jackaboy: Great! You got that mic fixed already?

Y/N: Yes, everything is fine. I’m sorry you had to wait so long.

Jackaboy: It’s all good kiddo, no worries. I’ll call you and send you the code in a sec.

Y/N: Perfect, thank you Sean :)

Jackaboy: Btw, everyone can’t wait to meet you ;-)Y/N stared at the screen for a moment, only now, seconds before joining the group, realizing how nervous she felt. From Sean’s tweets she saw earlier, she figured that the lobby was right now full of many famous streamers, those she wouldn’t even compare herself to. It’s not that she thought of herself very low, but... being among such youtube celebrities like them made her panic a little bit. She didn’t want to look like a complete fool amongst them.

Playing or recording with Sean and Felix was something else because she knew those guys for years (and yet still sometimes found herself thinking how lucky she got to be able to call them her friends). She felt good in their company, not worrying about choosing the right words. But amongst the rest of the players, she knew only Toast and talked with Rae maybe once in her life...

What if the rest won’t like her?

Y/N cleared her throat, realizing that she was still staring at her phone like hypnotized and her audience was already asking her what’s going on. She quickly typed in the code Sean had texted her and readjusted her headphones, before joining the discord chat.

“THERE SHE IS” screamed Sean, making her grin from ear to ear, hearing how excited he was “Little wonderchild!”

“I think you meant little TRAITOR” Felix corrected him with a scoff. A silence settled in the lobby as everyone was waiting for Y/N to speak up.

“Um... hello everyone..” she said softly, almost inaudibly, a sudden wave of shyness taking over her. “I’m Y/N”

“Oh, you were right about that Corpse thing!” replied another, also very soft and very sweet voice, and Y/N saw the image of someone named Lily pop up. “It’s like the exact opposite!”

“See? Told ya. Everyone, meet Y/N/N, the little angel from Y/C/N.”

“Hey Y/N!”

“Hi there!”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“H-Hi, so great to meet you, Y/N!” a very friendly sounding voice said, and a little lime astronaut with the name Sykkuno above it started running around her. “Can’t wait to play with you!”

“That’s so nice, thank you” she replied with a wide smile on her face, moving around his character as well. “I can’t wait to play with you too, actually with all you guys. It’s so great to be here with you.”

“Jack I swear she’s the cutest little thing I’ve ever heard. Where the hell did you find her?!” Poki all but yelled at the man, making Y/N giggle to herself and in-process loosen up a little bit. They all seemed like someone she’d happily be friends with.

“Or rather, where do you get one?” someone else commented, making them all burst into laughter, Y/N included.

“Guys, what did I say about that sweet demeanor...” Jack said after calming down from his fit “Don’t put your guard down just because she sounds like that!”

“Wait- what did you tell them about me?” Y/N asked confused, the tone of her voice making him laugh even more “Jack!”

“Don’t worry, only the good stuff” a very deep, low voice spoke up, leaving her taken aback for a moment. Her eyes widened slightly and she glanced at the name of that person, reading out CORPSE. Now that’s something she didn’t expect...

“Corpse, mind your manners! You didn’t even introduce yourself!”

“Oh, shit- yeah, sorry. Um, I’m Corpse, it’s very nice to meet you Y/N” he replied right after, making her lip corners curl up into a smile.

“Nice to meet you too Corpse, you have a really pleasant voice.” she spoke sweetly, completely unaware of the chaos that was taking place in her stream chat. She didn’t even think of it the way her audience did, she just simply spoke up her mind, and being an incredibly nice person - turned it into a compliment.

“Oh- wow. I mean, thank you so much. I love your voice too, it’s really sweet” he replied, nervously chuckling at the end, before muting his mic. It was, however, enough for Felix and Sean to start teasing him, as the two immediately screamed:

“SIIIMP!!!”

“It’s the voice Felix, I told you he’d fall into her trap!”

“Wait- he was just being nice, guys! Stop making fun of him” Y/N immediately defended the man, trying to speak up over the hysterical laughter of the other players.

“Oh my god, but what if they both get impostors and they both pull the voice cards on us?!” Rae managed to yell through all the noise, making Y/N even more confused.

“Wait, what? What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry Y/N, that’s how I feel all the time around them.” Sykkuno seemed to be the only one who heard her question, as the rest continued their gabbing without giving her as much as a glance.

“Alright, let’s start the game maybe. I might have a few old scores to settle” Toast cleared his throat theatrically, his astronaut coming face to face with Y/N’s.

“Oh, you mean me? I thought I already apologized!” she replied frantically. “You gave me no choice Toast, I didn’t even want to kill you in the first place...”

“BUT YOU DID. IN THE VERY FIRST ROUND”

“I’m sorry!”

“Alright, enough! Toast, just don’t kill her right away, okay? Let her run around the map, fearing for her life for a moment.” Y/N gasped upon hearing Jack’s words, clearly sensing the smirk behind his voice.

“Wha- Jack?! Since when are you against me?!”

“Don’t worry Y/N, I won’t let them hurt you. You haven’t played with us yet, I’ll protect you.”

“Oh, thank you so much Sykkuno! I’ll protect you too!”

“Great. Another one simping...” was Felix’s last words, before the game began.

Y/N sighed in relief upon seeing the word crewmate forming on her screen, but at the same time feared Toast’s inevitable revenge. She thought they'd already buried the hatchet, but it seemed that he was desperate to make her pay for the last time they played together.

“Aw, Sykkuno was serious” she mumbled with a smile, when his lime astronaut started circling her white one, so she would follow him. “Okay, let’s do some tasks.”

They both made their way towards the medbay, Sykkuno patiently waiting nearby as she did the scan, then Y/N waiting for him to do the same. The moment his little character stepped towards her, a meeting was called by none other than Felix.

“What happened?” Rae asked.

“I called the meeting because I’m afraid of Jack” he responded, causing everyone to laugh. “Seriously though! Dude’s been following me around the whole time.”

“I was just making sure nobody kills you.”

“Yeah don’t go all Sykkuno on me!” Felix screamed, making the call erupt into even more laughter.

“Alright, are we skipping?”

“Yeah.”

“Guys, my life is in danger!” Felix wouldn’t give up. “Come on, show some support! Y/N? You played with him, you know his techniques!”

“Sorry Felix” Y/N giggled, clicking the skip button.

When the next round began, Sykkuno was quick to join Y/N on her way towards admin, where they both found Poki doing the upload. They did the card swipe and left her there, when the lights suddenly went off.

“Uh-oh. Let’s head the opposite direction, Sykkuno” the girl murmured, dancing around his character and heading towards Comms instead of going to Electrical. It was the easiest way to die, after all.

Once they entered the room and waited for someone to fix the lights, Y/N could see another figure appear in the same location. She couldn’t recognize whose character it was, but upon seeing the horns on the helmet she smiled to herself.

“Hey there, Corpse” she said, walking up to the black astronaut, who was standing still in the same place as if he was just watching her and Sykkuno run around Comms instead of doing their tasks.

They stood like that for a couple of seconds until Corpse turned around and ran away, and that’s when the first body was reported.

“Oh no, Jack!”

“Poor guy. He’s gonna haunt us now.”

“Where’s the body?”

“Navigation” replied Rae, who was the one to find Sean’s green astronauts’ body “Didn’t see anyone around, but I’m pretty sure someone just vented right in front of my eyes...”

“Any suspicions?” Toast asked.

“Um, not really sure, it was the exact same moment the lights went off. I was doing tasks with Jack and then he just died. I only saw the vent close, nothing or no one else.”

“Okay, where are you guys right now?”

“I’m in admin with Dave, we only passed Poki when we got there.” Lily’s voice sounded out, quickly being joined by Poki’s explanation.

“Yeah, I was finishing the upload when you guys came in, Y/N and Sykkuno saw it”

“Did you see her?” Toast asked, addressing his question towards the white and lime astronauts.

“Yes, we were doing the card swipe before going to Comms. Corpse joined us for a moment and then left.”

“Yeah, I was on my way to fix the lights when I stumbled upon them in Comms, the body was reported the exact moment I left.”

“Can someone confirm this? I mean, did someone see you besides the two of them?” Toast continued his questioning.

“I think I only saw Felix in Medbay.”

“Hmm, so no one really knows where you were this whole time. You could easily lure Jack into Navigation and kill him there. Is that what you did, Corpse?”

“Woah, that’s some serious accusation” Corpse replied in his usual, low and calm voice. “Where were you Toast? You seem the only one who still doesn’t have an alibi”

“Neither does Felix.” Y/N spoke innocently, and the mentioned man quickly started his explanation.

“Okay, I was with Jack at the beginning but he clearly can’t confirm this since someone snapped his fucking neck. We’ve split up in O2 after doing our tasks and then he must’ve gone with Rae. I just wandered around the map, escaping from the death.”

“Hmm, so not only were you one of the last people to see him alive, but you also admit to not doing your tasks” Y/N said, trying her best to keep her voice steady and stop herself from laughing. She was sure Sykkuno was doing the same thing, they both refused to do any tasks after the lights went off, after all.

“Yeah, but does that already makes me an Imposter? I’m just scared for my life, that’s all.”

“Y/N has some good logic, but I’m not really sure it’s Pewds. I mean, I saw him in Medbay and he really seemed to be just jogging around.” Corpse said, his voice almost immediately doing its magic, as people more or less willingly agreed to skip this round as well.

“I think it’s Felix. I mean, I haven’t played with him yet, but I have this feeling that he’s just acting.” Y/N said to her chat after muting herself. She went towards Weapons to do another task, seeing Sykkuno’s little character follow her once again, but the doors were suddenly locked and his lime astronaut remained in Cafeteria. “Oh no, Sykkuno” she sighed with a pout on her face, deciding against waiting for him and risking getting her neck snapped. She finished her task in Weapons and moved towards another location, when suddenly Corpse appeared in front of her, coming right out of nowhere.

“Oh- Corpse, you scared me to death” Y/N breathed a laugh, watching as his character stood still for a couple of seconds, before circling around her white astronaut. Y/N nodded her head with a smile, even though he couldn’t see her, and followed him in Shields, where they found Poki’s dead body.

“The body is in Shields” Y/N replied right after reporting the body, only to gasp in shock when she realized more than one person was killed. Red crosses decorated not only Poki’s name but were also visible next to Dave and Lily.

“What the hell?!” Felix all but yelled into his mic, obviously shocked just like everyone else who was still alive.

“Now that’s... a lot of bodies” Sykkuno mumbled under his breath.

“Alright, who’s in Shields? Y/N, you said you found the body there, which one?”

“Poki’s, Corpse was there with me” her reply was followed by his short and low hum.

“Sykkuno, where are you? I didn’t see you anywhere since the last round.” Felix asked, clearly accusing the lime astronaut of being a murderer.

“I was... doing the wires in electrical, Toast was there for a moment as well.”

“Yeah but I was only searching for the body, so I saw you maybe for a second” Toast replied, building even more suspicions around Sykkuno.

“But- guys, you know I wouldn’t kill two people in one round, let alone four of them.”

“No one says you did that, I only mentioned that you were nowhere to be seen. You could’ve been sabotaging the map for the other Impostor” Felix said nonchalantly.

“Guys, I-”

“It’s him! It must be him!” Rae shouted through her mic.

“Sykkuno is 100% innocent, I can vouch for him” Y/N’s voice sounded out in everyone’s headphones “We were together since the start of the game and he didn’t kill me, even though he had quite a number of chances to do so.”

“Weren’t you with Corpse this time?” Felix asked suspiciously.

“I was! But at the beginning, I was with Sykkuno, until someone locked him in Cafeteria. That’s when we split up.”

“And you haven’t seen him ever since?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Then I can assure you it was only a matter of time before he’d stab you in the back” Toast concluded, making Sykkuno gasp in confusion.

“Wha- No, I would never do that! Y/N is our guest, I was just making sure she was okay!”

“Sykkuno, simping won’t save your life right now”

“Wha- I- Guys!” he tried to stutter out some logical explanation “Y/N, don’t believe them!”

“I don’t, I know you’re innocent! C’mon guys, he wouldn’t do it!”

“Yeah yeah, let’s kick him out. Corpse, who are you voting?” Toast asked, and Y/N could see the I voted sign next to his character.

“I kinda feel like Felix tries to shift the blame onto Sykkuno. He didn’t even tell his location, and was already throwing accusations on someone else.” Corpse replied after a moment, making the smile widen on Y/N’s face. Someone was finally on her side!

“That’s because he can’t even explain himself!” Felix exclaimed, voting as well.

“Besides, I’m pretty sure if it wasn’t for whoever locked that door, Y/N would be dead as well!”

“No, I told you I-!”

“Guys, we have ten seconds to vote. Rae?”

“I think it’s him as well. He was acting suspiciously since we started this round. I vote Sykkuno”

“But..!”

“No, Sykkuno...” Y/N whispered with a pout on her lips, when she saw the number of people who voted for her lime friend.

Sykkuno was ejected.

“Alright, I’m pretty sure it’s Felix. I saw Rae multiple times and she didn’t kill me, Toast also doesn’t act very Impostor like, but maybe that’s just one of his strategies... Corpse is with me again, I don’t think that’s him, I mean, he followed me around last round, but still didn’t do anything, and even vouched for me and Sykkuno when we were both clearly chilling in comms. It can’t be him... right?”

Dead body reported.

“I just saw Corpse kill Toast, then vent!” Rae’s voice blared through Y/N’s headphones, as she looked in shock at the red cross next to Toast’s name. If not him, then..?

“What?” the accused man asked calmly “That’s a self-report, she’s trying to frame me. You guys can’t possibly believe her.”

“I believe her. I saw you enter the Electrical with Toast, then he’s suddenly dead” Felix said.

“That’s because she vented in there and killed him.”

“No! I swear, Y/N/N you have to believe me!” she directed her words towards the girl who remained silent during their discussion, processing her accusations over and over in her head. “I was fixing the wires, Toast was doing another task, and then boom! I see Corpse snapping his neck!”

“How could you see that if the lights were off?” Y/N suddenly asked, making Rae cut her own sentence off “No one went to fix them, they were off the entire round.”

Silence.

“It’s Rae, it must be her” Corpse couldn’t help but laugh wholeheartedly at how small was the mistake which completely blew Rae’s cover. “We’re voting Rae, right Y/N?”

“No! Guys, I mean, let me explain, I-!”

Rae was ejected.

“Now that was something I didn’t expect. I would’ve never thought it was her, I even suspected that Sykkuno might really have been the other Impostor, but now... It’s just me, Corpse, and Felix. I’m clear, clearly, so it must be one of them. And since Corpse protected me for the past few rounds, there’s no other option than...”

Her eyes suddenly widened when the realization hit her, and she quickly turned around to speed towards the emergency button. Fortunately, no one was around to stop her from calling the meeting.

“Felix.” Y/N started, trying to contain her excitement and sound seriously “Where were you when Sean was killed?”

Neither Corpse of Felix said a word, as it was probably the last question they expected her to ask. Felix cleared his throat, however, and finally replied:

“Y/N, that was literally the beginning of a game. How am I supposed to remember what I did then?”

“Well” she said nonchalantly “I, for example, clearly remember the things you said even when we were in the lobby.”

“What are you implying?”

“Wasn’t it you, who told everyone that Sean was your number one if you get Impostor?” she asked with a wicked smile on her face. Felix was dumbfounded, he obviously didn’t expect her to pull that card on him, hell, he didn’t even know how she knew about it since she wasn’t even in the call at the time.

“FELIX” Corpse suddenly broke the silence, simultaneously breaking the said man from his train of thoughts.

“Okay, first of all- YOU WEREN’T EVEN IN THE CALL WHEN I SAID THAT” he yelled through his mic, making both Y/N and Corpse laugh, as it only confirmed their suspicions.

“See? You only proved my point.”

“Oh, fuck’s sake- I was just joking okay?!” he tried to defend himself, but hearing how he couldn’t even contain his own laughter anymore, it was clear he already accepted the defeat. “It wasn’t serious, god damn it!”

“You know what to do, Y/N” Corpse’s voice asked through her headphones, and surely, she knew exactly what to do.

“C’mon Y/N, that’s not fair! At least let me explain myself!”

“Bye Felix” she said in an overly dramatic tone before Corpse voted as well.

Soon enough, the sign VICTORY could be seen on her screen, which made her squeak and joy. This game was really fun, even though she was so scared of being killed first.

“I knew it! I knew you would figure out it’s him! That son of a bitch who murdered me!” Jack basically yelled out, clearly very happy about the result.

“Y/N, seriously now, how did you know I’ve said that?” Felix asked without even hiding his surprised tone.

“Let’s just say I might’ve stolen some of your viewers, Felix” she admitted, winking at her webcam, a new wave of comments landing on her chat. “Thanks guys!”

“Okay, that is rude and not fair!”

“It helped me win, so I’ve got nothing else to say” Y/N grinned from ear to ear, before muting herself for a moment to finally answer some of the questions from her chat, while the rest took a quick break to eat something or go to the bathroom.

She was halfway through telling the story of how she met Sean when she noticed she got a message from a private discord chat.

CORPSE: That was really impressive :)

Y/N smiled to herself upon seeing his text and quickly typed out the answer.

Y/N: Thanks!! I wouldn’t have done that without you though, you stood up for me and Sykkuno and all

Y/N: Also, thanks for protecting me from being murdered ^^

CORPSE: No problem, I knew you were innocent right away.

CORPSE: Anyway, good game, Sean was right saying that you’re one of the best players

She couldn’t help the blush that arose on her cheeks, it was very sweet of him to say that, even though she didn’t actually do much except for exposing Felix.

Y/N: I wasn’t an Impostor though, so you didn’t really see much :)

She watched the three dots beside his name, that signaled he was still texting. The chat was completely forgotten, but people seemed to quickly notice that small, shy smile on her lips, and the pink tint decoring her cheeks.

CORPSE: Okay, now I’m intrigued...

Y/N: Maybe we’ll both be Impostors one day ^^

CORPSE: Can’t wait for that to happen.

Soon enough, they returned to the lobby to begin another game. Y/N glanced at her chat for a second, and the moment she returned her eyes to the game, her jaw basically dropped.

IMPOSTOR was written in bold letters in the middle of the red screen, right above her name.

Corpse’s little character was standing beside her.

#corpse husband #corpse husband imagines #corpse x reader #corpse husband x reader #corpse imagines #youtubers x reader #fanfiction #writing #imagine

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yjwhatif · 3 years

Text

With the semi/cryptic confirmation of Ed and Barts relationship in the series I have a question:

Do you think everyone knows about them (in world) or do you think they’re keeping it secret from some?

It’s just a thought that’s been in my head recently. It is most likely fuelled by the whole drama of G&B not being able to depict a “specific character” (it’s definitely Bart) as gay. They’ve had to hide the relationship from their audience - because of ridiculous reasons - but there are still moments that bring up the question - Are they? Before the reveals from AskGreg, I kinda thought- well they are clearly not together yet, but perhaps they both have feelings for one another and are just waiting for the other to make the next move because they’re nervous idiots who don’t want to have read the situation wrong — all while their friends are like - seriously guys? just get together already. Kinda like they did in s1 with Wally and Artemis - and I guess early Supermartian as well - which I would have been okay with... though with the likelihood of there being at least another two year time skip you’d probably have missed the getting together moment - which would kinda suck. Anyway. With the information about the chances being they were supposed to clearly be in a relationship throughout S3 — which makes the whole structuring of ILLUSIONS just make sense — it’s got me viewing their moments with a whole new energy. Also, I saw this post by Greg —

And let me just clarify, I have no idea if this is actually referencing the Ed and Bart stuff, it might not be (probably isn't). This is purely me speculating.

My reading of this is they got told they couldn’t depict Bart as gay pretty late on and that specifically affected ILLUSIONS where they likely intended to confirm the relationship with that first shot - the kiss on the cheek moment. Even now that moment is just odd - because it’s there but it’s not - because technically there is no actual kiss… which I think is absolutely the point. It plants the seed without actually breaking any rules - all by keeping the momentum but removing the specific kiss frame. It’s the only moment that I feel is explicit in saying they are in a relationship - everything else you can just read into and imply there’s something - but they technically don’t confirm anything.

The whole thing is actually quite interesting - despite the reasoning for it being totally ridiculous. By keeping/showing what they did... People notice it. People talk about it. People reflect on it. More people talk about it. People writing. Make. Create. Discuss it. An entire audience is formed who want and support it. It’s a whole thing now because people noticed it and generated a positive response to it - and that was before all the AskGreg information. The whole reason YJ got a season 3 is because the fans fought to get it back. Enough people talked about it - and kept talking about it - to convince TPTB that the show should come back. Greg and Brandon know this. They know the power the fans have and maybe they hoped that power would help them again in freeing Bart from these ridiculous restrictions. #letbartoutofthecloset

Obviously, we can't know until S4 is released whether G&B got the permission to confirm Bart's sexuality the way they envisioned - but maybe the responses that came during the release of 3b were enough to convince TPTB that they were fighting a losing battle. But who knows, people in power can be very stubborn at times, so we will just have to see what we get. Fingers crossed they eased up though - and not just because of the Ed/Bart relationship (which I am obviously a fan of -- it's fine if not everyone is) - but because these restrictions on LGBTQ+ content shouldn't be a thing and need to stop -- there is just no validity in them.

Anyhow. despite their not being allowed to officially confirm the relationship, Greg's comment about Ed's having a boyfriend they can't name basically confirms the fact without technically breaking any rules again. Masterfully done Wiesman. With this, it implies the pair are in fact dating during S3 which brings us back to the original question... but who knows??

With the comments of Virgil during ILLUSIONS, it's easy to assume their friends do in fact know. They also seem to have no problem being close and interacting with one another whilst in the presence of others -- that is, except for one moment...

Ever since the first time I saw this episode (ELDER WISDOM) I have always found this moment strange - because Ed seems to get kinda awkward when Barry comes to check on Bart. (Or that's how I see it at least.) He realises Flash is standing there and immediately pulls his head down averting his gaze -- almost like he doesn't want to be seen by the elder. But why? Does Barry not know about the pair -- or maybe he doesn't know about Bart and Ed thinks their current closeness is too revealing -- who's to say Bart's even fully out to the world yet -- who's to say either of them are? We certainly don't since we weren't allowed to be shown. We can't know until we know - so until then we can play the speculation game while we wait.

Bart is certainly a bit of a secret keeper when it comes to being himself. I'm still convinced the Bart we see onscreen is merely his interpretation of what he thinks people expect from a speedster in this time. We saw 'real' Bart, he was snarky and cynical and nothing like the Bart we've had for the past two seasons. He said it himself - he's playing a character - and I don't think he knows how to break out of it - not while the possibility exists that it might hurt those he's grown to care about. Bart wants to be seen a certain way to avoid acknowledging the truth of the past - if people see him as happy and smiley, then no one will question him on things he doesn't want to talk about. The problem with that is you can't hide yourself forever - cracks begin to form and eventually, the truth comes out whether you want it to or not. So who knows how comfortable Bart is revealing any of his true self to those he cares about. Maybe his relationship with Ed will be the thing that finally helps him find comfort in being himself, whilst also trusting others to still accept him as himself... and maybe getting him that bit of therapy he really needs.

This brings us to Eduardo… First, can I just say it made me so happy to see Greg’s confirmation of Ed being gay - though it is slightly annoying that he was robbed of his explicit onscreen reveal in S3 thanks to the drama with Bart. His whole relationship to his powers in S2 to S3 fits the representation of coming to terms with your sexuality/identity from a very negative point of view. Feeling like it’s something that needs fixing or needs to be “cured” - to then finding the light and freedom in accepting yourself for you. His growth between seasons is brilliant. He understands the hate and insecurity the teens are feeling because he felt it himself. He does all he can to help them because he never felt he got that help when he needed it - and no one deserves to feel worse for being who they are. Obviously, the things he talks about are framed in the context of dealing with/accepting the meta-gene - yet there are certain moments where it seems he’s saying more than that…

All of which got me wondering - why did Ed originally runaway? It certainly wasn’t because of the meta-abilities he did not yet have. All he’s ever said on the subject was he thought he wanted to be with his father - the man it seems he barely had a relationship with. No, I think Ed has been running from himself for a long time and his dad just happened to be an actual direction for him to aim for. The way he speaks about his wanting to be “cured” and “praying to get rid of his powers” suggests an upbringing around religion and traditional ideas of there being a ‘normal/proper’ way to be — while anything that doesn’t fit that way is treated as other or something that needs to be changed or 'fixed'. Maybe he ran to avoid being found out and run the risk of being ostracised by those he loved. Or maybe he was found out and leaving wasn’t entirely his choice*. If this was the case, I can certainly imagine him not wanting to come out to his dad for fear of his reaction and completely losing all chance of that father-son relationship they’re both trying so hard to keep. It can seem easier to live in secret than risk the reality of loss. So while the meta-gene likely wasn’t the main thing he was angry about in S2, it was able to become a physical thing he could blame and focus his anger on - without having to think about where his issues truly lied… Though with a bit of time it also became the thing he was comfortable conveying his feelings through...

“I’ve learned to accept, even love my meta-abilities”

I love this line so much and it’s all because of the delivery by Freddy Rodrigues. There is the slightest hint of a pause before he says “meta-abilities”, which gives the impression he was about to say something else before then remembering himself and who he was talking to. Then there’s the small inflecion he put on “love”, which makes it sound like it’s the first time he’s heard himself say the words out loud. I don’t hear him talking about the gene - I hear him talking about finally accepting himself - all of himself - for the first time in maybe ever and finally feeling happy because of it. I hear growth... From being the angry 14-year-old skater who just wanted to run away and escape any way he could. To the 16-year-old councillor/Outsider jumping straight into the danger to protect and inspire those who need it. Both he and Bart are such strong characters with so much more to be seen - especially when it comes to the insecurities which lie behind their masks. They both compliment each other pretty perfectly - both powers-wise and personality-wise - meaning while they try to hide themself from others, I don't think it'll take long for them to realise they can't hide from each other.

Anywho, that’s all the speculatary nonsense I’ve got for today. This turned into such a patchwork of vaguely linkable thoughts I’ve had which barely relate to the one I started with - but that is usually how it goes. Take it as you will…

Also, completely unrelated to YJ, but Bi Tim Drake now exists in dc canon which is really cool - seeing all of the joy it’s sparked has really given me something to smile about this week… There is hope after all. 🌈

— LB ⚡️☀️

* OK so here’s a little random snapshot into the chaos of my mind— as I was writing the Ed stuff I had a scene pop into my head of Ed finally -for whatever reason- having to tell his dad that he didn’t leave his abuelo’s home - he got kicked out. His dads confused about this and asks Why? What did you do? And Ed’s like Nothing… I didn’t do anything wrong… he just… found out something. So Seniors like Found out what Eduardo? And Ed’s getting really nervous now because he doesn’t want to say it - That I, um… I’m… Senior step a fraction closer as he picks up on Ed’s anxiety but remains an appropriate distance - Son? Then after a tensening silence he finally says it - sounding the most vulnerable he has ever been - I’m gay… The silence is there again, heavy and unnerving, neither saying a word. Ed can’t move as he’s lock in his elders unreadable glare. Expecting the worse his head drops to take in the floor - anything that isn’t the disappointment ahead - he feels the urge to disappear burning up inside him - consuming him. Then just as he’s about to escape he’s suddenly grounded by a steadying hand rooting itself on his shoulder. Tentatively he lifts his gaze to witness his father, there, with nothing but love and support in his eyes - Mijo. The clamping in his chest dissipates as all the tension escapes at once, along with the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. Ed embraces his dad and the elder embraces his son. Together. A family.

Anyway. That’s probably a load of rubbish but hey my minds full of it… but basically I really want to see a tender moment between Ed and his dad. For whatever reason. Something where Ed’s in a vulnerable state and in need of some emotional support from his father - and without hesitation his father steps up - because that’s what we haven’t seen from them yet. It would perfectly portray the strength of their relationship as father and son - despite their previous struggles - and prove that Senior is willing to support his son no matter the situation as the father - not just the scientist. Its the final step in their healing journey and I wanna see it so bad!!

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ichika27 · 3 years

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Luke and the Fall of Akzeriuth

I’m making a separate post about this due to the sheer length of it. I have so many things to say bottled up all the way from the first time I watched Tales of the Abyss. Rewatching it made me feel things again and I have to release those in words. This should’ve been in my thoughts post for episode 8 but it’ll make that super long and it would end up being not just about the episode if I added all of that there.

Plus, Luke is like one of my favorite characters so I want to make dedicated posts about him. This was originally titled “My Thoughts on Luke” but I retitled it cause this is more about a specific arc than just about Luke. And I may or may not make a post that’s about just Luke in general where I could use the original title later on.

These are mostly my personal opinions, by the way. These are my thoughts based on the stuff on the show and extra info about the original game I read online.

[Warning for spoilers from episode 8 and beyond]

Luke is at fault for the destruction of the Sephiroth as it was his power that did it although he was tricked. I’m not gonna say he did nothing and I can understand why everyone got mad at him for not taking even the least bit of responsibility for his actions that ended in tragedy. It can be quite infuriating to see and hear his reaction after something that horrible had happened. He wasn’t even apologizing and kept pushing everything away.

On the other hand, I could understand why he was in denial as well: it can be pretty hard to accept that you did something wrong and much more so if that “wrong” is the destruction of an entire city which kills thousands of people. That’d weigh on anyone especially someone like Luke who recently was just starting to get used to having to kill people as self-defense.

Thing is, I think it’s not just Luke but also everyone else had some kind of fault as to how it all ended up this way.

Luke’s Personality Change:

First of all, Luke being a jerk through their journey towards Akzeriuth did not help make anyone in and out of universe to sympathize with him. Thing is, rewatching this made me see the difference between how Luke was in the first couple of episodes compared to Luke on their journey to Akzeriuth.

I pointed out before that Luke is kind and understanding when he notices something is wrong. He just doesn’t know how to express how he feels like apologizing to someone or trying to make someone feel better. He’s also defensive of people he likes. The worse about him before was he’s annoying and ignorant due to his very, very sheltered noble upbringing and (now I can finally say it) the fact that he’s a seven year old replica.

Compare that Luke to the one these past few episodes: he’s much more impatient and inconsiderate of others’ feelings. He’s more arrogant and insensitive, too. He was worried about Ion being kidnapped and wanted to save him but before and after that, a lot has happened which I think contributed to why he just became terrible:

-Van telling him things like Luke be used as a weapon, people were lying to him and are gonna keep him “locked up” longer, and that he’d (Van) take Luke away from here after everything is over.

-Luke had always felt like he’s being treated like an idiot because of his “amnesia” with no one explaining things to him and everyone looking down on him. It doesn’t help that it’s happening again on their journey - he’s asking important questions no one wanted to answer.

-Luke seeing Asch’s face. He didn’t know who Asch was but he could feel that there’s something absolutely wrong. This made him more irritable than usual.

All of this combined and I think it made Luke just want everything to be over. He just wants to see his Master Van, fix Akzeriuth, and finally leaving and be somewhere he actually likes. Bonus is that if he did the heroics, people would stop looking at him negatively like they always do. While it’s no excuse for his terrible behavior, it makes it more understandable why there’s like this shift in personality suddenly.

I personally think that if the journey was straightforward (Van hadn’t fed him with lies and manipulation and he hasn’t met Asch), he would’ve happily saved Ion without it ending with complaints and they’d move on and he’d listen to the others. He would’ve not have anything else on his mind to make him impatient and he wouldn’t feel upset cause of Asch.

Anyways, his current attitude made it harder for anyone to listen to him. It ended up being a cycle, cause them not saying and explaining anything made his attitude much worse. In return, the more terrible his attitude is, the more they didn’t take him seriously and hating him.

Luke Knowing Nothing:

Second, on the topic of information withholding. Luke is sheltered and was a blank slate due to being a replica. Everything had to be taught to him and as he said before, it took a while for him to even learn the basics of what his physical appearance could do. He looked ten when he was created and had to be taught what 10yos could already do and as such, he’s kinda behind on a lot of things most people his physical age or older already know as basic knowledge. He doesn’t know anything he wasn’t already informed of and we see that when he asks questions about terminology and lore stuff episodes before.

Luke knowing the least about plot important information helped make it easier for Van to use him. I have said before that Tear isn’t completely right when she said people should make decisions without depending on others. We all need to have at least some information to be able to make decisions. The fact that all of them kept secrets from Luke and were being vague made it easy for Van to feed Luke with lies and bad information. Luke would have nothing to compare them to other than vague warnings from others.

Van had seven years to get Luke to like and trust him so it’s no surprise Luke would take his word easily above everyone else’s. Guy had knowledge about Van but doesn’t know the entire plan and Natalia is also an outsider like Luke was when it came to all of this and those two were the only other people around who have been with Luke just as long as Van was. Tear, Jade, Anise, and Ion were people Luke met just recently and not really in good ways too (plus it’s not like they’re telling him anything either).

Before I expand on my thoughts on that, I wanna say I know why they don’t say anything. It’s more than just Van after all - each of them have their own personal secrets that they’d have to reveal if they decide to give out important info and like Luke, they don’t know the others well enough to give those things away easily.

-Jade is the one with the most info. He’s pretty smart so apart from his knowledge of fomicry that he created (which would explain stuff about Luke and Ion), he’s also perceptive and have deduced some info about the others through their journey. If he revealed stuff about replicas, he’d have to dig up stuff related to his past as well.

-Ion knew about a lot of other important things but because of his position, he wasn’t allowed to just reveal them. He stopped Jade from talking about replicas when they faced Legretta at Deo Pass cause of who he is himself. He’d have to out himself as a replica and explain a crap ton of backstory things if he revealed things he knew.

-Guy knows Van and knows some of Van’s plans. Not all of them as he doesn’t know about the whole “Qliphoth, Outer Lands, and destroying Akzeriuth” thing. He does know Van isn’t who he was trying to appear to be and that Van has some hatred of the fon Fabre family due to their shared backstory of coming from Hod. If Guy had said anything about Van, he’d have to reveal the truth about himself which he couldn’t.

-Tear knows something about Van’s plans as she had called him a traitor and had tried killing him multiple times. She couldn’t reveal what she knows cause she can’t exactly talk about Qliphoth and the truth about their world to everyone else.

It feels like if they had said something, Luke would have second thoughts. He’s protective about those he care about and he thinks of Van as some kind of father-figure. On their journey towards Akzeriuth, Luke is also easily angry and impatient and if you’d notice, he kept talking about how Master Van is the only one he could trust and how he wants to see Master Van soon. What I’m getting at is that, if they tried something, Luke would probably slip and say something Van told him to keep a secret and they would know something is up.

Remember when Tear heard bad things about Grand Maestro Mohs and she was all defensive like “He’s not like that!” and the more others point out otherwise she starts having doubts? I just think it’d have happened with Luke. If they have said something fishy about what’s going on especially about Van, Luke would sooner or later try to debunk them with some stuff he knows.

Like, Tear would have had to start if off with the reason why she wants to kill her brother and then Guy backing some of the things up with what he knows about Van. Then Jade would piece some things together and Ion would also realize some things in the end.

If Luke had important information and second opinions, he would’ve had doubts about what his master would make him do. If everyone else had some inkling of what Luke knows, they would’ve been there with Luke to stop him. The only one there was Ion and somehow it never crossed his mind that Van was planning to destroy the Sephiroth.

Although I wish he would’ve thought things through more since not only were the enemies who kidnapped him making him open the seals like Van was making him do now but doesn’t he think it’d be dangerous to let anyone near the Sephiroth? You know... the pillars literally holding up their entire world from falling down from who knows how high down to where there’s a deadly miasma?

I mean, Ion is still a kid (younger than Luke as Ion is technically only a 2yo replica) but it’s weird he didn’t notice how fishy it was what they were making him do.

Asch and His Failed Attempts:

And then there’s Asch.

He didn’t know about the plan for Akzeriuth earlier and seem to only have realized recently but he knows a lot about how terrible Van is cause he was kidnapped by him as a child and the whole replica thing. He knows more than Luke does.

Anyways, he tries to stop Luke by basically yelling at the guy and insulting him. He was vague about it, too. It was not hard to see why Luke wouldn’t listen to him: they’ve just met and are enemies. Asch had tried to kill him and had Ion kidnapped plus Asch is part of the Six God Generals who Luke’s group had to fight against. Luke also felt uncomfortable after finding out they have the same face since, while Luke knows nothing, he feels that this meant something wrong.

And Asch just kept yelling and insulting him the entire time. Why would Luke listen to Asch who never gave a good reason to why he should be trusted? That versus Van who had been kind and helpful to Luke the entire time?

Also, Asch after the incident goes “Did you not think of what would happen if you used a hyperresonance?” and like, that’s the thing... Luke doesn’t know enough of what would happen if he uses a hyperresonance.

-Luke only learned about what a hyperresonance is after it was explained to him how he and Tear got transported halfway across the world.

-Luke only learned he could do it on his own on the way back to Baticul and Van was the only one there to explain things to him. Van also demonstrated he could help Luke do something about it and even teach him which no one else had done which made Luke believe his Master Van would know what he should do.

-Asch doesn’t really say anything other than basically “Don’t go any further or you’d doom us all, dreck!” and “He’s tricking you, idiot!”. No context, no explanation, but has insults. He gave Luke no reason to listen to him.

Master Van and His Interactions with Luke:

Luke’s family didn’t know he was a replica and didn’t even know anything about replicas and so they all just think Luke has amnesia. They didn’t know he was a different person and not Asch so they have put on him a lot of expectations they had on Asch.

They expected him to get back memories that he doesn’t have, learn things that would be difficult when he knows none of the basics, and overall, they expect him to be the age he appears to be. And this lead to disappointment which affected how they treated Luke.

-Everyone is disappointed that the smart and responsible Luke is now basically a helpless child that can’t even walk, read, or write. This makes them ask why Luke doesn’t know all of those things already and why can’t he learn faster. This means Luke gets looked down on for not meeting those expectations.

-Everyone wants the old Luke. They kept reminding him of the past and wants him to act the same as he used to. This not only annoys Luke cause he just can’t (as those memories are not his own to begin with) but they’re also making him feel bad cause he’s not the Luke they wanted (which actually gets much worse later when the truth comes out).

-Luke’s kidnapping (and him being the sort of chosen one) also caused those around him to be overprotective enough to not let him out of the manor. They had to make him happy inside which meant they spoiled and babied him which is both a good and a bad thing. This also meant he knows less people and is usually not told of anything happening outside which made Luke ignorant.

Point is, Van isn’t any of this. When Luke knows nothing, Van explains and teaches things to him. Van also scolds him when he does something wrong. Van doesn’t force him to be the old Luke. This makes Luke more comfortable and free when around his Master Van. Van is the father figure Duke Fabre isn’t being to Luke.

Van had seven years to be this to Luke. He showed no indication that he isn’t to be trusted and he gave Luke no reason to not listen to him and believe in him. He was able to manipulate Luke by possibly being one of the more positive interactions he had around him as he grew up.

End Thoughts:

I wish I could say that what happened to Akzeriuth could have been avoided. The sad thing is that there may have been possibilities of them being able to avoid it or stopping it before it got worse. In the end, there’s just so many factors in and out of their control that lead to this ending.

Everyone had their own priorities and they didn’t know each other long enough to trust the others with helping with whatever problems they had (many of which are either close to or are just personal). They also didn’t know and trust each other enough to reveal secrets that would be uncovered if they decided to give out important information that had any connection to them.

It ended up being this really awful scenario for everyone but much more so for Luke. Everyone else also in a way denied their actions (or inactions) that helped caused Akzeriuth’s fall. They all blamed Luke and let him carry all of it and as mentioned before, Luke is still traumatized at having to kill people before and is just at this point having to deal with the fact that he has to continue doing that in order to survive.

It’s why despite how Luke is as a person and his decisions that lead to this moment, I still can’t help but feel bad for him and not completely blame him when to him, it looked like there was no other choice. The only person who gave him any guidance happened to be a manipulative liar and sadly, a person he wholeheartedly trusted for the entire seven years of his life up to this point.

And now after episode 8, he has to deal with more depressing things: the trauma and guilt of what had happened once he finally accepts responsibility, the truth about Guy, the losses he’d experience and the more deaths he would cause, and of course, an existential crisis.

Oh my god, this was longer than I expected it would be! I’m so glad I cut this off from my episode 8 thoughts lol. This had more info that was supposed to be revealed in later episodes too so it isn’t just an episode 8 thing anymore.

I do have a bit more thoughts but that’s for later, I guess. I don’t know who would read all of this or if anyone would even want to but if you did, then thank you. I hope this was at least entertaining enough to read and waste time on.

#Tales of the Abyss #Luke fon Fabre #spoilers for akzeriuth #tota #sana_post #long post #I'm reusing pictures from the other tales posts I made

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bruhstories · 3 years

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Dazed and Confused

Summary: You and Connie have been friends for ten years, crushing on each other like a bunch of idiots who can't confess their feelings for one another. Until you go on a trip with your friends. Pairing: Connie Springer x Fem!Reader Warnings & Content: 18+, language, oral sex (female & male receiving), unprotected sex, weed smoking, alcohol consumption, f l u f f Word Count: 4.2 k

A/N: I got so pissed at that last anon that I finished this oneshot quicker lol. @fiaficsxo here it is!

You loved parties. Not the loud music and thick smoke, not the booze and smell of vomit, but your friends. Every time they gathered at someone's place, your heart fluttered, filled with happiness and content and long-lasting memories.

Connie had the brilliant idea of spending a week in the mountains during your spring break, and you wasted an entire night searching for the perfect cottage to rent. Luckily everyone was down with his suggestion, the only problem was how you'd sleep. Historia obviously wanted to share a room with Ymir. Mikasa and Eren were an item now, so they'd have to sleep together. Armin wanted to try his luck with Annie, so no one objected to that. Jean declared that he wanted to bunk with Connie, like the two eligible bachelors they were, and that left you and Sasha to share a room together. You didn't mind it, in all honesty you loved Sasha with all your heart — but you secretly hoped someone would pick up on your feelings for Connie and let you sleep with him. You weren't that lucky.

You packed your bag the night before the trip, obsessively ticking everything on your list and double checking every item and pocket. It was ready, with one item missing — the white lace babydoll smoothed on your dorm bed. You chewed the pen cap, debating whether to bring it with you or not. You bought it for special occasions, but you haven't had a dick appointment in a long time, and you doubted you'd have one this week. With a shrug, you decided to bring it — you never know what might happen. Nighttime passed quickly and you soon found yourself all dolled up, albeit still sleepy from all the tossing and turning, excited to make more memories with your friends.

The train station was packed with people, especially students who went back to their hometowns for the break, and you were relieved to find Armin and Mikasa there. You three were always punctual, followed by Jean and Annie. Eren, Sasha and Connie were always late, which is why you told them the train leaves at 7 am instead of 7:30. It was a dirty strategy, but no one wanted to miss such a fun opportunity because of those lazy fuckers. And lo and behold, they decided to appear at 7:15.

"That was some good thinking." Jean shook his head, hand sympathetically placed on your shoulder.

"I'm only glad you guys rolled with it." You laughed without noticing the way Connie stared at you, and even he didn't understand exactly what he felt. Was he grumpy because he hated morning, or was it Jean's hand on you that irked him?

"It's not polite to stare." Sasha pulled Connie out of his thoughts.

"I wasn't staring, I was looking." Connie rolled his eyes, gripping the handle of his suitcase a bit too tightly.

"I just don't get it why you don't tell her you like her." The girl popped a bubblegum baloon, proceeding to chew it very loudly.

"Are you kidding me? She obviously likes Jean. Look how she's laughing!"

Sasha placed an arm on his shoulder, a sheepish smile on her face. "You, my friend, are a dumbass."

"Takes one to know one."

To say that your friends were loud during the train ride was an understatement. They didn't really care about the nasty glares other passengers shot at them, opting to talk, sing, eat and practically embarrass themselves. But two hours later you arrived, and the fresh, crisp air of the mountains was a blessing. You didn't regret coming, all of you deserved a break after all the exams, studying and all-nighters you guys pulled.

"We could visit the military museum!" Armin suggested, but Connie scrunched his nose.

"We came here to get high, drink and spend time together, why the fuck would we visit some old ass building?"

"I'd like to go to the museum." You awkwardly smiled, earning a 'see?' from the blond. Mikasa, Eren and Annie backed you up, and since it was a democracy, you ended up leaving your bags at the cottage and touring the small town to find the military museum. The building wasn't massive, and inside it was dark, with crimson carpets and dim lights. It was actually quite a romantic atmosphere, had it not been for the weapons and armours displayed in glass cases. Connie watched you intently, taking in every movement, every flinch, every hair tucking, every scrunch of your cute nose. You absorbed the information, hungry for knowledge. This was something you and Connie didn't share — yes, you were down to drinking and smoking, but you were also eager to learn and study, while he always preached how 'you can always retake an exam but you can't relive a party.' He wasn't stupid by any means, but unlike you, Jean, Armin and Mikasa — who alwaysstudied and never skipped lectures — Connie would wing it and somehow end up getting better grades. His strategy didn't always work, and sometimes, when you were in college, he'd ask you to tutor him. Now you were second year undergraduates, and while you were studying different subjects, you still made time for each other.

"That's a nice, uhh..." Connie squinted, "...shotgun."

"It's a musket." You chuckled, your fingers accidentally brushing his as you turned around to face him.

"Shotgun, musket, same thing."

"Actually, muskets are muzzle-loaded and fire a single bullet, but shotguns pack multiple pellets in one shell." You explained. "I'm sorry, you're probably not interested in my ramblings."

"No, no, it's... interesting. I just wasn't expecting you to know so much about guns." He rubbed his nape and smiled at you.

"Well, I do study history, in case you forgot."

"How could I forget that?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" You awkwardly elbowed Connie. Why was it so hard for you to just tell him your feelings? Oh, right, because you've been friends for ten years and if he didn't like you back, it would only ruin a great friendship.

"It means you brag about it so much it's kind of hard to forget." He told you, quickly realising just how insulting that sounded.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know that's how you felt..." You sighed, eyes darting back to the weapons.

"No, I didn't- forget it." Connie shook his head. Well played.

Back at the cottage, with enough food and booze to last the group a month, you decided to stay in your room for the rest of the day. It wasn't the first time you had embarrassing moments with Connie, but this particular one made you anxious to be around him. Did he really dislike you that much, or was it just friendly banter? If you were to ask him, you could find out, but every scenario in your head had a bad outcome, so avoiding him for now was the smartest choice. Sasha pleaded with you to spend the evening in the living room with everyone else, but you brushed her off, telling her you weren't feeling quite well.

"Text me if you need anything." She told you before leaving. It was immature to act this way, you knew that all too well, but it wasn't like Connie cared, right? You eventually decided to go downstairs after finishing a long episode of your favourite tv show, your stomach begging for nourishment. As silently as possible, you tiptoed behind the couch. The hallway was dim, the sun had already set, and the only lights were the ones from the wide TV screen in the living room where your friends were watching some corny horror movie. You could cut the suspense and tension with a knife, and when you dropped a teaspoon, everyone jumped.

"Sorry, sorry! It's just me!"

"Jesus Christ, Y/N, you almost gave me a heart attack." Jean got up from the floor and walked behind the couch. "How are you feeling? Sasha said you're ill."

"I'm fine, don't worry." You picked the spoon up and threw it in the sink. "It's just a headache, I'll sleep it off."

"Good, we need you here." The man wrapped an arm around you. "You're missing how Connie's crapping his pants at this shitty movie."

From the outside it would seem like you and Jean were a couple, but the truth was far from it. You two grew up together, his family was friends with your family, and what you had was nothing more than a brother-sister relationship. Jean's little remark earned a disgruntled look from Connie, you quickly picked up on that, and so you playfully jabbed him in the stomach.

"Connie's crapping his pants? You're the one who almost had a heart attack." You grinned.

"Oi, that was only because you dropped your stupid spoon. I was invested in the movie."

"Mhm, sure you were."

"Hey, you sure you don't want to join us?" Mikasa waved at you from the living room. You pondered over her question. Perhaps it wouldn't be too awkward to sit with them.

"Alright, sure, why not?"

"Come, sit next to me." Sasha shuffled to the side, but what she really meant by that was 'sit next to Connie', because she shuffled to the otherside.

The following two nights were surprisingly quiet, all you did was play board games, watch movies and walk around the town taking pictures. The tension between Connie and you seemed to dissipate, and you both forgot the unpleasant interaction you had on the first day. But on the fourth night, that's when shit hit the fan. Annie and Armin left for a date, and Eren and Mikasa wanted to spend the night alone in their room, leaving you, Sasha, Jean and Connie unsupervised, bored and tipsy. There was absolutely nothing good to watch on the TV, and you almost wanted to scream when your friends wanted to play truth or dare. It was one of those games you despised, because the whole point of it was to put the players in uncomfortable situations. And you didn't like being uncomfortable, unlike your friends.

"Jean, truth or dare?" Sasha beamed.

"Dare, duh."

"Alright, I dare you to switch roommates for the rest of the week." She sipped her blackberry cider.

"Okay? So, I'll stay with Y/N, then."

Good lord, if looks could kill, Connie's would annihilate Jean and Sasha off the face of the Earth.

"No, no, you'll stay with me. Y/N will stay with Connie."

"Eh? Why does your dare involve us?" You asked, confused and curious of your friend's proposal.

"Because." She shrugged. "Don't pussy out."

"I'm not pussying out. A dare's a dare." Jean scoffed. "I'm gonna go take my shit in your room and shower."

"Y-yeah, I'll go bring mine, too." You got up, using this time to hyperventilate alone. What the fuck was Sasha even thinking? Was this some stupid joke? But your friends wouldn't harm you, so why would she suggest such a stupid thing?

You took a quick shower before curling up in the bed, blankets covering you from neck to toe. Connie wasn't back yet, and you didn't want to go after him, that would just be odd. You were hoping you'd fall asleep before he returned, to avoid any unnecessary fuss, but just as you closed your eyes, the door opened. Maybe you could pretend you were asleep? He struggled to find his pyjamas in the dark, stumbling over furniture and knocking things down, and you turned the bedside lamp on to ease his search.

"Did I wake you up?" Connie bit his lower lip, and through the dim light you watched the way his grey eyes glistened, the way his short brown hair was ruffled, and how the sage green t-shirt hugged his toned abdomen.

"No, no, 's alright. I wasn't sleeping. I can't exactly fall asleep." You clutched the blanket at your chest as you shook the intrusive thoughts away. Connie was your friend, damn it, there was no room for romance between you.

"I can sleep on the floor if you want."

"Oh, God, no, it's... stiff."

"Um, yeah, it kinda is. Alright then, I'll jump in the shower real quick before going to bed." He stumbled into the bathroom and you really wanted to fall asleep now.

But you couldn't. Every time you closed your eyes, Connie's face popped in your head. So much for resting. You tossed and turned on the mattress, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in, but nothing helped. It didn't take long for him to finish his shower, and you mentally chastised yourself for not falling asleep when you felt him shuffle under the same blanket that was covering you. For a minute, you didn't utter a word, you barely breathed, afraid to disturb the silence in the room.

"Are you asleep?"

"Nope." You heard the click of Connie's phone and turned around. You couldn't see him, but you could hear him.

"Do you wanna talk about something? Until we fall asleep, I mean." You suggested.

"Hmm, sure." He turned on his side and you felt his breath fanning over your cheeks. You were too close to him. "Actually, d'you wanna smoke?"

"Aren't the others gonna be mad if we smoke without them?"

"They don't have to know. Besides, you and I never smoked together." Connie was already up, rummaging through his backpack with the flashlight of his phone. "And then we can talk as much as you want."

"Alright, I'm down."

You laid on the floor, your head next to Connie's as you looked at the ceiling, smoke leaving your lips. He took the joint from you, fingers touching yours and you blushed, the haze of the weed melting your worries away.

"Do you want me to skip the song?" Connie asked, and for a moment you forgot there was a song playing.

"No, I like it." You confessed. "I didn't know you liked Led Zeppelin."

"There's lots of things you don't know about me, Y/N." He passed you the joint.

"Okay, tell me something else I don't know."

"I like it when you randomly say historical or scientific facts."

"Didn't you say I brag too much about it?" You took one final drag before you stubbed the joint out in a makeshift ashtray filled with a bit of water. By this point you were high as a kite, every trace of rationality gone.

"That doesn't mean I don't like it." Connie smiled and you could feel it in his voice. "Now you tell me something I don't know about you."

"I can't sleep with open doors. It freaks me out." You sat up, a breeze blowing through the window sending shivers down your spine. "It's a bit cold, do you mind if I close the window?"

"Go ahead."

You got up and picked the ashtray up but before you could close the window, you stumbled over a chest of drawers, the ashes mixed with water spilling over your t-shirt.

"You okay?" He quickly crawled to you, concern written all over his face.

"Yeah, I'm just clumsy." You laughed it off and waved your free hand. "I'll go get changed, I should have a spare shirt."

But you didn't have a spare shirt. All you had was that stupid white babydoll, and anxiety seeped through your veins. You couldn't exactly show up in that in front of your crush. And you didn't want to ask him for a shirt either. Fuck it, what else could you do?

You peeked out the bathroom door and saw Connie back in bed, lazily scrolling through his phone. God, this was embarrassing.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." He laughed, but when your facial expression didn't change, he frowned. "Y/N?"

"Um, so, I didn't have a spare shirt and- Jesus, this is awkward." You opened the door and his eyes widened. "Is it alright if I sleep in this?"

"Oh, I get it now." Connie scoffed.

"Get what?"

"You were hoping you'd share a room with Jean, right?" He sounded almost disgusted.

"Excuse you? Where did you even get that idea?" You slammed the bathroom door shut, arms folded across your chest.

"I'm not stupid, Y/N. I've seen the way you two act. Do yourselves a favour and just fuck already."

You were speechless. Completely reactionless. The weed amplified your anger, but his words brought tears to your eyes.

"You... you fucking asshole! You think I brought this for Jean? I brought it for you!"

"Eh? M-me?" Connie was confused, and you were pissed.

"Yes, you. Jean's like a brother to me, oh my God! Ew!"

"Wait, so you and Jean are not in love with each other?"

"In love?? Connie, how high are you exactly?" You walked closer to the bed, arms still crossed.

"But- Fuck, I am stupid." He shook his head, the memories of you flirting with him flashing before his eyes. "I fucked up, didn't I?"

"A bit..." Your muscles relaxed and you sat on the mattress. "Really, Connie, I... I like you. A lot. But you're always giving me mixed signals."

"That's because I always thought you liked Jean!" He threw his hands in the air in exasperation.

"No, you're the only one."

"Huh, guess I've really been dazed and confused."

Calloused fingertips ran across your hips leaving goosebumps in their trail. Your hands roamed his back and the way Connie kissed you was better than any high you've ever experienced. He was touch-starved, and you were just as needy. His knee found its place between your thighs and you moaned when it barely brushed your cunt.

"I've been dreaming for this moment for as long as I can remember." Connie breathed into your neck, the hot breath tickling your skin.

"Me too, you blind bat." You laughed and he turned you over, hovering over you.

"'M sorry I didn't notice quicker." He kissed you again. One hand travelled lower, pushing your underwear to the side before he pushed two fingers between your folds. "Fuck, you're so wet."

"Well, at least now I don't have to finger myself thinking about you." You whimpered with a grin.

"Oh?" Connie arched a brow. "Is that what you've been doing?" He curled up his fingers and you threw your head back with a moan. "I thought you were a prude."

"T-there's lots of things you d-don't know about m-me!" You replied back between oh’sand ah’s, imitating his words from an hour ago. That only earned a sneer from Connie, his head dipping between your thighs. "Wait, what are you do- ooh fuck!"

His tongue lapped at your cunt, fingers pumping in and out of you, and you completely sunk into the mattress, moaning his name over and over again. You gripped the sheets, flexing the muscles in your legs as you squirmed and thrashed. Connie stopped and you almost crushed his skull with your thighs at the empty feeling. He pulled your underwear down and shoved the cotton panties in your mouth.

"Don't wake everyone up, Y/N. You don't want them knowing what a little slut you are, do you?"

You shook your head and Connie went back to circling your clit with his tongue, adrenaline rushing through your entire body with each lick, each suck. Tears of pleasure pooled at your eyes, nose and cheeks red from the thrill of your incoming orgasm. The way he was sloppily eating your pussy and moaning while doing it drove you insane, and within seconds you came undone, thighs trembling with delight. In fact, you were so sore you had to push his head back, begging him to stop so you could return the favour.

"You taste so sweet." Connie licked his lips. You don't know what possessed you to pull him into a kiss after you removed the makeshift gag, but he was right, you were sweet.

"Can I...?" Your eyes drifted down to his twitching cock, your voice soft and quiet.

"You wanna suck it?"

"Yes."

"Later. Right now, I wanna fuck you."

Connie gave you no time to protest, his elbow pushed one of your things to the side, the blushing tip of his cock grazing over your overstimulated clit, up and down your slit. Inch by inch it disappeared into your cunt and he let out a satisfied sigh. You bucked your hips, manicured nails digging into his shoulders with each thrust.

"Shit, you're so fucking tight!" Connie growled, head lowering to kiss you. You could still taste yourself on his lips and that only made you clench your spongy walls around his cock. That seemed to please him, because he rocked his hips harder and faster. "You like it?"

"Oh, God, yes!" You gasped, beads of sweat forming on your forehead as you clawed his back.

"Fuck, I want you to ride me." He gripped your hips tighter and turned you over. You tried your best to get in the new position without letting his cock slip out of you, and when you finally adjusted yourself, it was a whole new challenge. Gravity pulled you down, and his tip brushed your cervix, your eyes squinting at the slight pain. "If it hurts, stop-"

"No!" You cried out, your hands resting on his chest. You bounced up and down, the uncomfortable feeling slowly replaced with pleasure. Connie's hands traced your thighs as you rode him, another wave of heat flushing through your core. His palm met your cunt, thumb circling over your clit. "I can't c-come again!"

"Yes, you can. And you will cream on my cock."

The disgust words worked like magic and you flexed your thighs, bouncing faster, head thrown back, hair cascading down your back. "You're so beautiful, Y/N."

"Connie, I-" The words stopped in your throat, the pressure too much for you to handle.

"You what?"

"I'm- oh, God!"

"Atta girl!" He praised you when he felt your silken walls relaxing and your thighs quaking. The second orgasm was so intense you let yourself fall over his chest, dizzy and tired. You thought he'd give you a break, but Connie wrapped an arm around your back, holding you in place before giving your oversensitive cunt a few more thrusts. "Now you can return the favour."

You mustered up some strength to get up and kneel in front of the bed, between his legs.

"Please don't come in my mouth." You asked him before wrapping your pretty lips around his cock.

"Gotchaah-" Connie choked on his words when he felt himself in your hot mouth. You bobbed your head up and down, cheeks hollowed and eyes on him. You didn't break eye contact when you pulled away and spat on the tip, hand pumping his cock to smear the spit. "Hot." He mumbled before you went back to sucking. You felt the throbbing, tightening your lips around him and picking up the pace. "Y/N-"

It all happened in a flash — Connie yanked your hair and pulled your head back, thick ropes of milky white cum shooting all over your face and neck.

"Eew!" You scrunched your nose, hand under your chin to stop it from dripping down the floor.

"What do you mean ew? That's, like, a billion kids!"

"Actually, a fertile man produces around-"

"Don't start. Do not." He pressed his index finger over your lips. "Let's get you cleaned up."

You woke up sore, especially between your thighs, but damn, was it worth it. Connie wrapped an arm around your waist, mumbling something about how pretty you are, but you assumed he was still sleeping — or still high. The sun shone through the blinds and you squinted, annoyed by the brightness, and so you turned around, watching the way your crush snored peacefully.

"Cute." You smiled and planted a kiss on his forehead, waking him up. "Oh, I'm sorry!"

"Why?" Connie rubbed his eyes. "Waking up to you is a blessing."

You couldn't hide the tinting of your cheeks and the grin on your lips. "I didn't think you were the romantic type."

"There's lots of things-"

"I don't know about you. But I'd like to know those things. If you let me, of course." You bit your lower lip, eyes filled with hope.

"Can I be your boyfriend?" He sat up, his eyes serious.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Okay, so maybe Sasha knew a thing or two when she dared Jean to switch roommates.

You walked into the kitchen after getting ready for the day, with Connie following behind you. Everyone was eating their breakfast, and Jean instantly dashed to you.

"Connie, bro, take me back. Sasha's leaving crumbs all over the bed! I can't sleep like that!"

"I can't, man, I wanna spend the rest of the week with my girlfriend." He sneered and you elbowed him.

"I forgot to mention Jean's overprotecti-"

"Your what? Hands off my sister from another mister, you creep!"

"Creep? You're the one who was sexting someone's sister last night." Sasha chimed in, mouth full of cereal.

"Thanks, Sash." Jean rolled his eyes. "For real, how did this happen?"

"You see, mate, when a man and a woman love each other-"

"Nope. I will not hear this."

#connie springer #connie springer x reader #connie x reader #aot #aot x reader #aot smut #aot x you #aot x y/n #connie springer x you #connie springer x y/n #snk #snk x reader #snk smut #snk x you #snk x y/n #connie x you #connie x y/n

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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A guide to the 02 kids’ personalities and overall demeanors

I’ve already covered the deeper details of each 02 kid’s character arc and development throughout the series, but I figured I might dedicate a more specific post about the complexities of their outer personalities, and their behavior patterns on a day-to-day basis. 02 is the kind of series that doesn’t really spell out what the characters tend to do or don’t tend to do, or what boundaries they will and won’t cross, which means it can be a bit of a challenging task to track their behavior over fifty episodes and figure out the patterns. Fortunately, these characters are written remarkably consistently over said episodes, so we have a lot to work with!

Disclaimer before we continue: In general, all of my 02-based meta is specifically written for the Japanese version in mind, but this especially applies to this one, because the majority of the nuances of the demeanor and personality traits described below were not retained in the American English dub at all (please see this post for more detail). As a result, please understand that if you’re working from the perspective of having only seen that dub, and the contents of the below post sound completely different, that would be why.

Daisuke and V-mon

Believe it or not, I would say that Daisuke is actually the most difficult to nail the nuances of out of this entire cast. This is probably a really weird thing to hear when the usual fandom mantra is that he’s “flat” or “lacking in development”, but I think the deceptive part is that while he’s simple-minded and himself doesn’t think in complex terms, analyzing his behavior as a whole and how he approaches things actually involves a lot of very delicate balances, and getting that exactly right can be very easy to mess up. Daisuke’s not a rude jerk who looks down on anyone, not in the slightest -- but he’s also not a saint who can do no wrong, either!

I think the easiest analogy (which I’ve brought up several times on this blog already) is that Daisuke is like a puppy, but not just any puppy -- a tiny puppy that barks very loudly at anything it perceives as threatening (regardless of whether it’s actually threatening), makes its feelings very clear with obvious likes and dislikes, and can do some phenomenally stupid things in a bid to please others, but in the end means no malice and only wants you to be happy.

This is to the point where I’m just going to have to bullet-point this, because there’s so much going on at once:

Excessively emotional: One of Daisuke’s earliest profiles refers to him as having “an excessively large range of human emotions”, and really, a lot of the humor surrounding him has to do with the fact he has incredibly dramatic, overblown reactions to nearly everything around him. So if he gets a little annoyed or suspicious of people making fun of him, he tends to get really dramatic about being upset, and when he experiences only a minor setback, he acts like it’s the end of the world, and when he’s emotionally hurt, he sometimes even gets set on the verge of crying (you can especially hear this in Kiuchi Reiko’s delivery). Even Daisuke himself doesn’t tend to get caught up in it for too long and gets over things surprisingly quickly, so you can take it as him just constantly being too wrapped up in the mood -- but when it really is a serious situation, he gets truly emotionally invested in it, too.

Too easy to read: Because Daisuke wears his heart on his sleeve and is dramatic about everything, he’s awful at hiding anything. Any attempt at trickery or trying to disguise his intentions quickly blows up in his face because he’s too simple-minded and too transparent.

Not malicious: Daisuke only ever lashes out or gets angry at others when he thinks others are doing something he disapproves of, or when he thinks he’s being attacked; he’s very warm and kind to everyone otherwise (even in the earliest parts of the series, when he’s at his roughest, you might notice he’s very soft around Chibimon, as if understanding that his partner is now in a very small and delicate form and needs to be treated accordingly). In other words, Daisuke is very quick to get defensive, but he has no malice or reason to be condescending towards anyone otherwise, and he’s perfectly friendly with people even when they’d provoked him earlier (because he doesn’t really hold grudges). He doesn’t attack people without reason; even when he voices dissent against what someone is doing, he very rarely, if ever, insults a person or their character directly. Even when he’s trying to state his opinions (such as when he bids for the others to accept Ken), he never forces them down others’ throats and accepts that they disagree with him, even if he’s clearly not happy with their disagreement.

Easily critical and suspicious: Daisuke is a very bluntly straightforward and honest person, and he seems to get most set off by people who act suspicious; note how his early-series outbursts towards Takeru tend to be when Takeru’s acting evasive, and in Hurricane Touchdown, he catches onto Wallace’s shady behavior even before he starts flirting with Miyako (Daisuke’s own method of trying to seem attractive to others involves just “doing something cool and hoping it’ll impress others”, so he seems to dislike the concept of flirting as a whole). Because of that, he catches easily onto “things looking off”, so he tends to call it out (even if sometimes he’s overdoing it and there isn’t actually anything significant to be upset about).

Supportive and adoring of others: Other than the moments when he gets set off, fundamentally speaking, Daisuke likes other people, is perfectly willing to acknowledge them or heap praise on them when they do something awesome, and generally cares for their well-being. He’s easily defers to others when he understands they’re better than him at something, and he even has a decently realistic scope of his limits (see how he’s perfectly aware he’s likely to lose the soccer game in 02 episode 8, and figures he might as well enjoy the experience). This is even taken to its logical conclusion in the Kizuna drama CD when he “credits” his friends for giving him amazing and insightful advice when all of it was actually pretty ordinary stuff they’d done offhandedly. It also means that, given his penchant for getting emotionally invested in everything, he has a huge emotional stake in making sure his friends are doing okay, and supports them accordingly.

Deferential to seniors/elders: Tying into the above, you may notice that Daisuke takes a properly respectful and soft tone towards his elders and seniors in nearly all occasions, even to the point of occasionally using proper polite-form language around them. All things considered, Daisuke is a pretty well-behaved kid.

Constantly getting strung around: As much as Daisuke looks like he’s aggressive, in actuality, it’s very easy to get him to back down if you argue against him strongly enough, and since he has such a “the heck is that?!” attitude all of the time, you can see him constantly getting strung around and at the mercy of things happening around him. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have enough will to put his foot down when it becomes a really important subject (especially in the second half of the series), but it’s very often when he’ll be talked down by others around him and shrink with an “oh...okay...” In fact, this is why a lot of his actions aren’t nearly as reckless as they might be otherwise; as much as he’s a bit hot-headed and likes to lead the attack, he also has a sense of self-preservation and intimidation when things look a bit too dangerous, and will only push forward in such a case when there’s something he really believes in at the other side of it.

Lacking in self-awareness and insecure as a result: While Daisuke doesn’t have any signs of persistent self-hatred (on the contrary, there are times he arguably comes off as overconfident), it also seems that he has practically zero awareness of how he himself is doing -- which means that he ends up rolling over like an idiot trying to get others’ approval and trying to impress them, even when it’d be clear to anyone else that he already has that approval. This also likely ties into the fact that he’s perfectly capable of acknowledging others’ accomplishments and skills (see above), so you might even think that the problem isn’t so much that he thinks he’s bad as much as he keeps comparing himself to people he perceives as being that much more awesome. (Perhaps symbolic of this, he apparently has a complex over being shorter than Takeru and Ken, despite the fact that he seems to be of perfectly average height for a kid his age.) It seems that his only bar for how he’s doing is dependent on everyone’s reactions around him, hence why his ridiculous antics are significantly less pronounced when he has proper emotional support and friends to keep him in check. It’s also important to consider that this applies to his apparent crush on Hikari as well; his crush mainly manifests in wanting her approval very badly, and it’s mostly visible in terms of him losing a ton of brain cells in her presence and bending over backwards to please her or impress her. He never actually says in words that he’s interested in her, nor does he ever show signs of intending to seriously ask her out, so it’s something that’s only apparent because of this behavior, and it’s very likely he hasn’t even seriously thought through what would happen if she actually accepted him in return. You can basically see this as an extreme version of the way Daisuke tries to get approval from everyone else, and this trait of his noticeably dies down whenever there’s more important things at hand, or when he seems to be in the midst of getting proper validation from those around him.

Simple-minded and pragmatic: What’s usually referred to as Daisuke being an “idiot” comes from the fact he doesn’t play well with complex thinking, tends to settle for very simple explanations or answers, and more thoughtful types like Ken or Iori will often have to fill that part in for him. However, because Daisuke is so simple-minded, he’s sometimes the most pragmatic person in the group, because he doesn’t overthink things or get principles of theory caught up into everything. So if Ken is clearly not showing any indication of doing bad things anymore and is actively working to help, Daisuke believes he should be allowed to help regardless of what he’d done in the past, and if they’re dealing with the situation of potentially having to kill a living enemy, Daisuke points out that hesitation would have resulted in even more casualties. In essence, in a situation where everyone’s running mental loop-de-loops, Daisuke will usually be the first one to snap them all out of it and go “uh? Guys?” Moreover, this trait of his makes him very good at spotting glaring threads or asking questions about the elephant in the room, because since he works best with things that are right in front of him, he can’t not notice it.

Enjoys the little things: Because Daisuke is so simple-minded, it’s very easy to please him (this is why his chosen career path is something as simple as ramen making). Daisuke likes his friends, and appreciates even simple things around him, so he’s happy with even simple pieces of happiness -- hence, why he’s fine with potentially losing the soccer game in 02 episode 8, because he’s ready to simply just savor the experience of getting to play against a respectable and formidable opponent.

Note that the main reason Daisuke never seems to bring up any of these issues with himself within the series proper is simply that he doesn’t seem to be aware of them -- he’s too simple-minded to understand what’s going on with his own behavior in depth, and hence, this is how he can say he’s not worried about too much by the time of 02′s finale, especially since by that point he has a proper support group that’s already helping him deal with most of his issues anyway.

Daisuke also has the roughest speech pattern out of any of the 02 group (similar to Taichi and Yamato in Adventure); he has a tendency to shorten words a lot and use “rough” variants of words (for example “-nee” instead of “-nai”).

Mischievous, friendly, and playful, V-mon is pointed out even by official sources to be much like his partner (far more so than usual), and it’s likely a byproduct of the fact that Daisuke himself is very honest and straightforward about his emotions and thoughts, and so since he has nothing to hide, V-mon is pretty much exactly like him -- with the major difference being that he’s a little more outwardly friendly and less likely to lash out angrily. So he’s effectively Daisuke without that very thin abrasive exterior, and because both of them are so like-minded and friendly, they get along extremely well (albeit with quite a bit of comfortable bantering on the way there).

Ken and Wormmon

Ken is the more intellectual type that Daisuke isn’t, and even after his stint as the Kaiser, it’s clear that he’s still quite studious and naturally interested in studying things. Looking closely at his style of dress and way of carrying himself (note how he lays down his chopsticks in 02 episode 36) indicates he’s also a rather tidy person in general. Being someone who’s capable of thinking things thoroughly, this makes him able to have a lot of deep insight into both intellectual and emotional issues, but because he takes things too seriously sometimes, he can sometimes come off as a bit overly stickler or insistent (note Daisuke and Ken’s Shopping Carol, where he subjects Daisuke to a long-winded lecture about the history of Christmas, because, really, he’s a nerd), or lead himself down the wrong direction when he’s having a hard time being straightforward (such as when he comes up with some very flimsy theories about why Jogress might be dangerous in 02 episode 28).

In fact, Ken’s disposition could be considered to be the opposite of Daisuke’s in many ways; while Ken is much softer and more conciliatory on the surface, he’s actually much more assertive and strong-willed by default, and it’s made clear that, even after his reformation from the Kaiser persona, he could still be vicious if he wanted to, he just doesn’t enjoy it because he doesn’t like it and it goes against his belief system (note that he even offered to "dirty his own hands" in lieu of the other kids if push came to shove and Archnemon had to be killed in 02 episode 29, even though he clearly wasn't enthusiastic about the idea). In fact, he has a very strong sense of responsibility and believes heavily in making up for what he’s done -- recall that 02 episodes 26 and 49 involved snapping him out of it by reminding him that there were things that needed to be done, and that he himself still had many things he wanted to do that wouldn’t be addressed if he’d stayed fixated on his past. Thus, Ken doesn’t deny nor avoid anything he’d done, and he isn’t even all that prone to self-pity -- it’s just that his tendency to put too much responsibility on himself means that he also takes a while to accept everyone’s support, too, because he doesn’t like the idea of putting burdens on others.

Because Ken is actually one of the more straightforward people in this group and a fairly honest person (at least, as long as he’s not lying to himself), he might hold himself back a little bit in order to not be rude, but he doesn’t do it nearly to the same degree Takeru or Hikari would and is much more willing to speak his mind when he has an opinion he wants to voice or needs to sort out his thoughts on something. Conversely, he’s not nearly as cold as Iori can get when criticizing things (he’ll certainly be firm, but not as incisive). Most post-02 materials also indicate that he’s not above being a tease or even a little mischievous (see Armor Evolution to the Unknown, Diablomon Strikes Back, Daisuke and Ken’s Shopping Carol).

Ken uses a speech pattern that’s slightly more casual than Takeru’s, but not nearly as rough as Daisuke’s. While anime will often have speech patterns substantially change between different personas of a character, other than Park Romi’s delivery of a more condescending tone for the Kaiser and a significantly softer one for Ken, nothing about his speech pattern is substantially different between the two personas (not even the first-person pronoun), indicating that, in the end, they’re really the same person after all, just manifesting the same personality traits in different ways.

Wormmon is affectionate and clingy, unfailingly loyal to Ken, and his biggest advocate during a time when Ken is trying to relearn how to love and accept himself -- meaning that he ends up very important to providing Ken the initial support he needed before Ken allowed other friends into his life. Wormmon isn’t all nothing but clinginess, though -- he has some insight about the weight of his experiences when prompted (02 episode 46), and in fact is more than capable of calling out Ken’s behavior when he’s being unreasonable or throwing himself into denial (see 02 episodes 27, 30, and 49).

Miyako and Hawkmon

Miyako approaches everything she likes with an attitude that makes her come off as constantly having bubbles and hearts around her. When she likes something, she says so. When she doesn’t like something, she says so (and she will go off when she’s on a roll; see 02 episode 14). In fact, part of the reason she so infamously voices her opinion on people being cute is, quite simply, that it’s her honest opinion. (Note that she never actually tries to ask them out or anything -- she just wants to make it very clear that they’re attractive.)

For the most part, she adores the people around her, and, like the others in the 02 group, she’s perfectly respectful towards elders. She also loves poking her nose in others’ business and trying to be as helpful as possible, which is good in that she ends up being a huge help to others, but also not good in that sometimes she overdoes it a bit (when Hikari calls her out for being a “handful” in 02 episode 31, the word she uses is one that literally means "a little too overly involved in others' business").

Miyako is the one who gets everyone up in high spirits by being cheerful, and whose cheer rubs off on everyone else around her (see her cheerfully leading the charge into the Digital World with her “Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let’s roll!” catchphrase). This is something the rest of the group catches onto very quickly, asking her to supply the “usual cheer”, and the later episodes of the series especially drive home the fact that her presence and antics bring happiness to those around her.

Miyako has a similar “chaotic, sloppy, and straightforward” demeanor to Daisuke, but there are some key differences. Unlike Daisuke, who’s bluntly honest about his opinions mainly because he doesn’t really hide things in general, Miyako’s opinions will be out of her mouth before she can control it. In other words, she has a nasty case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. In addition, while Daisuke tends to have a very thin skin and lashes out defensively out of instinct, Miyako takes things much more at face value and doesn’t blow a fuse nearly as easily, but because she’s significantly more assertive and aggressive, she’s much more prone to doing what she wants on her own whims instead of backing down to anyone. In fact, Miyako is significantly more emotionally sensitive in the long run, so while Daisuke tends to blow a fuse more easily, he’s also able to shrug it off and move on more quickly, whereas Miyako has a thicker skin, but when she does take emotional pain, she takes it much more deeply and harshly. She also tends to get overwhelmed easily by stress and panic, which makes her one of the more prone to running around in circles and doing frantic things in the midst of it.

One thing you might notice about Miyako is that she’s actually more critical of herself than anyone else in the group is; most of the time they act with mild exasperation at her antics but don’t tend to criticize her directly, whereas Miyako is very aware of her own shortcomings and is constantly either criticizing herself or comparing herself negatively to others (see: 02 episodes 10, 14, 18, and 31 especially). If she slips up and does something that stepped on someone else’s toes, it doesn’t take her long to realize that she’s messed up and want to do better. So while she generally tends to act the most in-your-face and aggressive, she also doesn’t necessarily want to be this way, and suffers from self-confidence issues and a poor opinion of herself.

Miyako uses a feminine speech pattern that’s a bit more casual than Hikari’s (she noticeably is willing to use the word anta for “you”, which has a bit of a connotation of being abrupt and in-your-face, especially with Daisuke). She’s also the most likely to physically manhandle things, both in the affectionate (hugging people) and aggressive (grabbing things and jumping on them in order to attack) senses.

Hawkmon is repeatedly referred to as being like Miyako’s “knight”, since he has absolute loyalty to her (in spite of her ridiculous antics often meaning he gets strung around by her) and is effectively in charge of minding her so she doesn’t get too out of control. While his overly polite and gentlemanly demeanor initially seems like a sharp contrast to Miyako’s aggressive and messy personality, you might also notice that, at their cores, the two aren’t all that different -- both are unfailingly loyal to others, and both also have a penchant for dramatic theatrics and being a bit overly proud of themselves.

Iori and Armadimon

The key thing to know about Iori is that he’s not stoic because he’s not feeling fervent emotions, but rather because he’s constantly holding them back (this is especially apparent if you look carefully at his facial expressions and Urawa Megumi’s delivery, where you can tell his facade is often “slipping” even when his words would indicate otherwise). Since Iori is trying to live by the ideal of being a model citizen, especially under the very formal environment he was raised in, he comes off as mature for his age, but it’s very important to not forget that, underneath all that, he’s still an impressionable nine-year-old child with the wide range of emotions and immaturity of one, and when he does emotionally fall apart, everything tends to burst out (see 02 episodes 16, 44, 47, 50). In addition, Iori is never condescending about the fact he usually acts more mature than the others; the impression is that he’s much more strict with himself than he is with others, and in fact still does look up to his elders in the 02 group even when they’re obviously a lot messier than he is.

The “need to be a model citizen” is something looming over Iori’s head at almost every moment, and it’s the easiest way to understand the way he acts in a nutshell. Iori is focused on the idea of “becoming a proper adult”, which means that he’s adhering to all of these principles because he feels they’re necessary to live a proper and honest life as per the formal manners that his family background trained him into. But like a young child who insists “you have to do this because those are the rules!” all of the time, Iori is over-applying all of this, and even his own grandfather advises him that he really needs to chill (02 episodes 5, 24). In short, he struggles with thinking flexibly and understanding that life isn’t all that clear-cut, because he’s a young child. Since he also tends to bring out these things in relation to “what my father would do/say”, it’s implied that he’s basing all of this off of having only hearsay to work off of in regards to what his father was actually like, to the point of aspiring to an impossible, saintlike version of him he’d created in his head.

Note that Iori’s “rules” have less to do with institutional rules (that would be more of a Jou thing) and more to do with self-imposed personal rules; for instance, he doesn’t mind sneaking into school during a holiday when it’s obviously not hurting anyone (02 episode 6), but he struggles with things like wasting food (02 episode 3) or not formally introducing himself to an elder (02 episode 5). So in other words, his adherence to principles has heavily to do with “the right and proper way to live” more than anything, and what he believes is the right thing to do in a given situation.

Iori’s journey in 02 is largely fueled by the fact that, as an inheritor of sorts of the Crest of Knowledge, he has a sense of “I want to know and understand more” whenever he sees something that makes him curious, but unlike Koushirou’s desire to learn more about the world around him in terms of its technical workings, Iori mainly wants to know more about people. The reason he begins to let go of his inflexible mindset is that he has the humility to understand that he still has a lot more to learn and understand, and when he sees behavior from others that doesn’t make sense, he does his best to learn more about it -- hence how his aggressive probing into learning more about Takeru allows them to reach an understanding and eventual Jogress, and how he’s able to eventually reassess his own view of human morality and emotions.

Iori sticks out in that he almost always uses the formal variant of Japanese in most situations (nobody else in the 02 group does this). However, formal in this situation doesn’t necessarily mean polite; Iori doesn’t believe in flattery and will bluntly state his opinion in said formal tone, and will be very cold towards something he sufficiently disapproves of or doesn’t have any respect for, which can make him even come off as passive-aggressive at times. (Noticeably, while he still asserts his own opinion, he does refrain from criticizing the others in the 02 group too much, presumably because he respects and looks up to them a lot as his elders, regardless of how chaotic they can sometimes get.) In addition, because a lot of his demeanor comes from him restraining himself, when his emotions are sufficiently pushed over the edge, he loses grip on the polite form and starts “lapsing” back into the casual one.

Because Iori was so young during 02, and because the events of its story ended up really upending his view of the world, the huge eight-year gap between 02 and Kizuna makes it difficult to predict certain things about his demeanor at the time of Kizuna (especially since his own voice actor commented on the difficulty of conveying the nuances of Iori’s character, thanks to only being able to work with the limited time frame of a movie that doesn’t put him in the kinds of emotionally drastic situations that push him to his limit). That said, everything we’ve seen of him in the movie itself and the drama CD makes reasonable sense; now that he’s much older, he comes off as having much better restraint on his emotions and coming off as genuinely calm, but he’s still not one for flattery, and you can still see very minor slips in his facade every so often.

Armadimon also initially seems like a sharp contrast to Iori in terms of demeanor, in that he’s much more casual and laid-back, and he’s indeed a huge factor in reminding Iori to chill once in a while -- but, much like Iori, he prods and asks questions about anything he’s curious about. This initially seems to be out of simple-mindedness because, being a Digimon, he doesn’t understand human society that well, but his very basic questions often end up snapping Iori back to reality in realizing that he’s getting hung up on things that don’t actually make practical sense. Urawa also felt that Armadimon fills in some of the void that Iori’s late father left behind, in that he provides Iori with unconditional love and helps guide him.

Takeru and Patamon

Takeru is the kind of person who seems to dislike major disruptions to the status quo, so he doesn’t say anything inflammatory that’ll rock the boat. It’s very difficult to get him to talk about serious topics related to his deeper personal feelings (02 episode 17, 35, Spring 2003), and even when it’s clear he might have more misgivings on the situation, unless it’s an urgent situation where it needs to be brought up, he won’t voice his misgivings too clearly for the sake of not causing trouble (hence why Daisuke is so unsure what to make of him in the early episodes of the series, because Takeru constantly fails to clarify his own position in favor of a “good for you” or “sure, you keep believing that if you want” attitude). This also makes him the most likely to awkwardly change the subject or try to distract with small talk, and it means that, even when he’s saying cheerful, pleasant things, it’s very likely there’s pain or uncertainty under that initial facade. (Note that while his suspicions of Ken during 02 episodes 25 and 27 aren't nearly as vicious as Iori's turn out to be, we learn that he's still willing to quietly accuse Ken of working for his own self-satisfaction in the latter episode, but he never brings this up to anyone but himself.)

Because Takeru isn’t necessarily doing this to be consciously dishonest, it does mean that he also has positive applications of this tendency to take everything in stride and keep the peace, because he ends up keeping the more extreme personalities in the rest of the group in line and acts as an effective mediator. You could say that he has a pretty high amount of tolerance and a capacity for taking everyone’s points of view in mind. However, since it’s also very difficult to tell what he himself is thinking, his use of this as a poor coping mechanism for his personal trauma leads to a tendency for him to suddenly explode in a mess of emotions whenever something gets too personal, leading to sudden conflict, and with others at a loss in terms of how to deal with him (the most extreme example being 02 episode 19, but also present in 13, 11, and 34). This “two-sidedness” is why it ends up having to be the more consciously methodical Iori who steps up to try and understand him better as his Jogress partner.

Fortunately, Takeru shows signs of becoming more straightforward in the aftermath, although you can see that he still has a penchant for mild flattery and “trying to hold back for the sake of not being rude” all the way up to Kizuna (but, again, this can’t be said to necessarily be a bad thing when it means he has a valuable skill as a mediator).

Takeru has a fairly neutral speech pattern that comes off as casual but not too aggressive or assertive (not as absurdly polite as Iori’s, but slightly less assertive than Ken’s).

Patamon initially still seems to be “immature” in the same way he was in Adventure, which initially seems to widen the gap in personality between him and Takeru, but looking closer reveals that the differences aren’t as big as they seem; Patamon seems to have gained a capability for slyness and active trolling behind his playfulness (see 02 episode 7), not entirely like Takeru starting to use his evasiveness in a teasing-like manner. Moreover, Patamon does actually seem to have gained a bit of proper maturity in the meantime; see how he instructs the Baby Digimon on convenience store food in 02 episode 3, and in general seems much more willing to take independent action in ways he didn’t always in Adventure. Noticeably, Takeru’s difficulty with his own convoluted feelings means that he can’t even have a proper heart-to-heart with him about it on the situation (most glaring in 02 episode 34, where it’s implied that Takeru would rather leave Patamon to be happy right now instead of bothering him about it), especially because he’s clearly having difficulty even working it out with himself. However, despite their ostensible differences in mentality, Takeru and Patamon have no difficulty getting along at all in 02, and, other than Takeru pampering Patamon a bit, there isn’t all that strong of an impression of them being so mismatched -- perhaps because, in the end, they really aren’t all that different.

Hikari and Tailmon

Taichi stated in Adventure episode 48 that Hikari has a problem where she's so selfless and thinking of others that she'll never speak up about her own problems. Hikari states in 02 episode 31 that she compulsively cannot speak out about her own feelings even if she wanted to, to the point she’s jealous of Miyako for being able to be more open (even if it means being overkill at times). As a result: if Hikari’s talking about “the right thing to do”, or something for everyone’s sake, or something that’s relevant to other people and what’s best for them, she will be extremely vocal and quick to act, and she’s not above even chipping in with criticisms (see: 02 episodes 19, 32, 44). In fact, she’s fully capable of being playful or toying with others if she really wants to (see how she casually manipulates Daisuke into calling a lunch break for everyone in 02 episode 6).

The moment the issue at hand is about herself, though -- her own feelings or pain, or something that might hurt others’ feelings (hence the presumable reason she dodges Daisuke’s affections rather than proactively doing anything about it), or something that would put a burden on others for her own sake -- she completely clams up and refuses to do or say anything, and when bad things start happening to her, she resigns herself to her own fate and concludes she can’t do anything about it. Hence, why she takes such a defeatist attitude towards the Dark Ocean swallowing her up in 02 episodes 13 and 31, and why it’s such a big deal if she even so much as asks for help. 02 episode 31 indicates that Miyako reaching out to her is an important step in breaking her out of her shell, and the Kizuna drama CD -- which has Hikari assertively declare something she personally wants -- heavily implies further that Miyako was instrumental to this becoming possible.

Hikari is compassionate for others to the very end, expresses pity for BlackWarGreymon as early as 02 episode 31, and catches on quickly to Ken’s feelings on himself in 02 episode 37 (and even back when she’d been more skeptical about him in 02 episode 25, she never seemed to have real personal distaste against him as much as she still wanted to make sure he was trustworthy first). But although she’s one of the most compassionate in the group, she’s also one of the most assertive in the group. This leads to something that initially seems like a paradox: she’s actually more fervent about the need to fight than the more aggressive Miyako is. Miyako is, ultimately, emotionally caught up in everything and briefly falls apart at having killed LadyDevimon in 02 episode 44 (even despite knowing how horrible of a person she’d been), but Hikari is the one who points out that there would have been more victims if they hadn’t. 02 episodes 25 and 43 had made it abundantly clear that Hikari didn’t like it at all, but she states in 02 episode 37 repeatedly that they need to prevent there from being victims -- meaning that she values the importance of protecting all lives, including those who would be hurt in the process, and thus has some of the more resilient guts when it comes to the prospect of fighting to save others. Again, her hesitation only comes into play at its worst when it has to do with herself; working to save others is a no-brainer.

Hikari uses a casual feminine speech pattern that’s less in-your-face than Miyako’s, but she’s still a bit more casual than she was in Adventure, when she used the more polite watashi instead of atashi. Interestingly, Tailmon herself seems to have mirrored this as well, presumably because now that she’s had more time to recover from her miserable life under Vamdemon, she’s able to enjoy her life a bit more freely. This means that, while Tailmon is still the most mature and put-together of the Digimon partners in the 02 group, she sometimes acts a little more casual and playful in a similar way to Hikari, and while she has a certain degree of stuffy personal pride (see how she wasn’t very amused at how frivolously the other Digimon were playing around in 02 episode 3), she’s still open to enjoying herself a little more freely. Hikari, for her part, becomes surprisingly like-minded with her during those times -- see them in 02 episode 12 -- and, as stated earlier, it’s not like Hikari isn’t up for making tough decisions when they’re needed, either.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #shihameta

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captnjacksparrow · 3 years

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Hey, really liked your analysis of Hinata. I feel almost the same way about her. Even though generally I dislike female characters who are naturally meek, subservient and pointless with no character arc in any type of media, what made me absolutely hate her character was how she treated Neji. If Kishi wanted to show her arc being developed organically, instead of proposing to Naruto that removes her stuttering and gives her new found confidence (because girls only get confident when proposing to guys 🙄), Kishi could have shown her talking to Neji after he literally told his bitter story on the chuunin exam grounds in front of everyone. She is shown like she is sympathetic but didn't do anything about it. She didn't even talk to him after he was hospitalized. She knew exactly why he was the way he was, and yet she fights him as if it was his fault. She, an heir of the clan, could have asked her father to support Neji, she had some clout. But nope. In fact, it was Neji who apologizes to her in a way, he is the one who trains her and help create a new jutsu for her. What did she ever do for him exactly? And Neji didn't have to help her. She was in the best position to help and understand Neji but what did she do? A lot of fans like her character because she is reserved but kind and sympathetic. She is reserved but a coward. She was not kind towards Neji. He died for her when he didn't deserve to, he had dreams and goals that were much bigger than Hinata's entire existence. She couldn't even see her own cousin's pain and she claims to understand Naruto?? Really??

Even Kishi said she was a pitiful character who only watches from a distance. He deliberately made her that way, no goal, no backbone and no lines. And I think she sucks the most after Danzo.

WoooW!!!! Thanks for the ask, Anon.

[[Hinata and Sakura fans!!!! Please stay away and don't interact. I fucking tagged them properly]].

Even though generally I dislike female characters who are naturally meek, subservient and pointless with no character arc in any type of media, what made me absolutely hate her character was how she treated Neji.

We definitely share the same thoughts on this one, Anon.

I am really tired on most of the media for their poor treatment of female characters.

The last time I was amused by a female character was from 'Game of Thrones', I loved Cersei Lannister, who is an absolute biashhh and Sansa Stark, started out as an annoying rose tinted princess but ended up winning everyone's heart. Both are non-combative, soft spoken and somewhat powerless women in a world dominated by men. But they just didn't let the inconveniences stop them and instead they learned how to fuck that world back and take control. Both are similar and yet very different.

After seeing, such well-developed characters..... For me girls in Naruto series, is blehhhhh..... Nothing to get inspired from them. And I knew it by episode 3 itself. I have no idea how can girls, in real life, treat Sakura as some feminist icon, which makes my skin crawl for number of reasons. If you point her mistakes out in any discussions, they will pull the misogynist card to your face. When in reality, I am also a girl and my world views are entirely different from Sakura or Hinata. There is no way a 12 year old girl would want to look at the Duck of another boy.

And the problem is, They form the majority, I mean people who can connect with Sakura or Hinata. So, as long as girls like them exists, we really should suffer from these crap portrayal I guess.

That's why I advise people that If you want to see a good woman character, Narutoverse is not the place.

Having said that, I find Temari, Konan, Tsunade were better (I mean inside the Narutoverse). Though their motivations or reason to achieve a goal revolve around their men, I find their attitude relieving. Unlike Sakura or Hinata, they don't wet themselves on the sight of the men they love.

What irritates me was, Kishimoto could've easily put a character like Temari or TenTen or Tsunade into Team 7. It would've made my viewing experience a lot better. If he doesn't want the strong girls to take over the attention from his boys, then he should've introduced a meek character like Rin Nohara. She is silent and cute but atleast she was willing to die for the Village and never wetted herself over Kakashi, though she loved him. And she treated Obito like her best friend. But he deliberately made Sakura hateful and he never stopped.

Sakura and Hinata were the lowest of the low, compared to any other side characters. And, in the end, they got the main Character's Ducks without actively doing anything. For me this tells me three things

He was using these girls as a shield to close the hetero normative mouths while in reality hiding those boys true feelings under that shield.

He really hated these kind of girls and constantly showing his hatred on them at every given chance and never redeemed them back.

He knew the target audience’ mindset and he simply caters them by giving them what they need and at the same time writing the important arcs according to his wish.

I think, it’s the combination of all three.

Just to give you an example.

There is this delusional SS shipper Who justifies Sasuke was acting Tsundere throughout the war arc. I mean, come on!!!!

I came across this post because, the Original Poster was an idiot who comes into the anti SS tag and reblogged my content and saying I was wrong... So, I don’t mind sharing that person’s content.

So I don’t know where this delusion comes from... It's truly pathetic.

There are millions of idiots who believe in this kind of shit and Kishi is deliberately feeding them with bits and crumbs while making his boys go out and save the world.

These delusional mindset tells us they don’t give a single shit about the story as a whole. They watch it purely for the pretty faces and getting high over them. In this case, Sasuke.

It’s as clear as day that Sasuke didn’t care about anyone other than Naruto when fighting the war. You don’t have to be a shipper but even a non-shipper can point this out. I mean Sasuke wouldn’t have saved Jugo either, if he didn’t come to Sasuke and advice him. Do you think Sasuke would’ve tried to look for Jugo and saved him at all cost???? It’s just that he came to Sasuke and he helps him back. But Sasuke would’ve saved Naruto from the bomb blast even if he was standing a mile away.

So, if these delusions reflects the mindset of the majority of the women audience, then the creator will never try to give anything better but instead give us some low-life characters like Sakura and Hinata.

So, Anon, your expectation for Hinata’s character could’ve been developed much better is just a wishful thinking. Because, Hinata is a character for these kind of people and not for us. And the author deliberately did it.

She was in the best position to help and understand Neji but what did she do? A lot of fans like her character because she is reserved but kind and sympathetic. She is reserved but a coward. She was not kind towards Neji. He died for her when he didn't deserve to, he had dreams and goals that were much bigger than Hinata's entire existence. She couldn't even see her own cousin's pain and she claims to understand Naruto?? Really??

For me, this also irked me a lot.

Hinata could’ve tried to talk to Neji about his problems even when he was a child. But she was simply playing innocent when in reality, she is just a coward. Even after the Chunin Exams, there was no apologies from her side, like you said. Because she is from the Main Branch. That hierarchy never changed. If she had the gall, she could’ve easily broken that hierarchy by saying, ‘I want Neji Nii-San to take over our Clan, He is the best candidate for this and I can gladly help him with all my efforts’. A single line and just 2 or 3 panels, it all takes.

For me killing Neji is where Kishi asking us silently,

Do you really want these pair to happen despite having a blood stain of another character???

Most people said, ‘Yes!!!’, because they don’t give two shits about Neji. As long as Hinata gets Naruto, the main character’s Duck, that’s all there is to it. It doesn’t matter who dies, who lives.

That's why Kishi is shitting on them by making her as a non-existent woman in the Boruto Manga.

Even in real life, there are many hopeless foolish little girls who would do anything for the man she loves. I've seen them and I always stay 2 miles away from them. I mean, they even ditch their own friends and spends her entire time with him and when he dumps her later, she will come back to her friends for consolation. I think Sansa Stark is the best example for this. She started out much similar to Sakura and Hinata, believing in Princes and shit, she even naively betrayed her father for the man she had crush on. But the author made her to learn her lesson in a much painful way and later she came out as a Queen who no longer needed any man at the end. I think, this is called Development.

At the end of the day, Romance and Sex is all that matters. The author knew it. So, he is feeding these girls with some low quality cookies and they are very glad to take and eat it.

#ask #anti naruhina #anti hinata #anti sakura #anti sasusaku #anti nh #anti ss #naruto analysis #sasunaru #sasunarusasu #sns #antisasusaku #antiss #antisakura

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binniedeactivated · 4 years

Text

txt reactions. || 👾👾

Reaction to them cheating on you...

a/n; was just in the mood to write this, purely self indulgent because this is what sam smith at 5am does to me <3

soobin;

it’s been a while since you and soobin had done anything romantic. so, while he was at work you decided to fix the house up pretty and make him a big dinner. the both of your work schedules prevented you both from even touching each other, you were much too tired. most nights you guys would come home and go straight to bed. you thought a nice dinner, some lingerie and soft sex would get you both back on your game again. you got off work a little earlier tonight and put your plan into action, making all of his favorite foods and lighting some candles in your bedroom to make everything look as romantic as possible. you even went as far as to making the bathtub water floral and inserting scented candles in there also.

you were excited. you were finally going to do something with your boyfriend other than sleep inside the same bed as him night after night. you thought he would be really happy about it as well considering he was often moody when you two weren’t clingy like usual. you lit the last candle while you heard a bit of bustling on the side of the door and you assumed soobin could be coming in at any moment. you turned off the light and stood further away from the door, waiting to surprise him.

as soon as the keys unlocked the door you heard a body slam into the wall beside it while soobin closes the door with his foot. you heard soft moans and you could see soobin rushing to take his jacket off just to throw it on the floor beside him and lift the girl on the wall by her thighs. your blood began to boil.

“fuck soobin-- you really gonna fuck me right here? while you’re girlfriend isn’t home?”.

“we have another hour baby”. soobin groans and moves his lips to her neck. she grips his hair strands and continues letting the meek noises flow from her throat.

“you have another hour?”. you spoke up loud enough to startle them. soobin jumps and immediately puts her down to glare back at you in fear. “baby i was just--”.

“i got off work early and bought all this shit just so we can have a romantic night to ourselves. I cooked, I set up the bathroom and the bedroom. I made it all nice and pretty thinking maybe we can eat and have some fun. but now I see why you haven’t been touching me. It isn’t because we’re tired it’s because you’re too busy fucking someone else”.

the girl breathes, releasing her grip from soobin’s forearm. “maybe I should leave--”.

“yeah maybe you should. now”.

she scoots past soobin and slips out of the door with ease. soobin could only stare at you in guilt. “It’s not even like that baby I swear”.

you blow the candles out one by one. “sure it wasn’t soobin. you were about to fuck her had I not spoke up sooner. how long has it been?”.

“what are you talking about?”.

you take a spoon from his plate and throw it at his chest. “you know what the hell I’m talking about. how long have you been fucking her?”.

he rubs himself in pain. “only a few weeks”.

“good. i hope you continue to enjoy her for the rest of your life. you’re going to need someone to keep you company because I’m not staying with you”.

“baby I just felt like we haven’t really been doing anything so I thought--”.

“so you thought--hey let me just go cheat? you’re an idiot and that’s a stupid ass excuse”

“cmon--you know I’m a man we have needs”.

“I’m a woman with needs too soobin! you think we all don’t crave sex sometimes? what did you think I was making this whole night about?! I wanted to spend time with you and have sex. but you’re getting your needs met with someone else so I’ll do the same thing. like I said enjoy her. this will be the last time you ever see me again”.

“I’m sorry--look I’m sorry I’ll cut ties with her and I won’t do again”.

“save every last apology you have. I’m not taking it. I’m find someone else”.

yeonjun;

it was all over everywhere. especially stan twitter. and quite frankly you were tired of seeing it. it was yeonjun doing his solo song at their recent concert, singing jealous by labrinth. he sung it as painfully and brutal as if someone stuck a stake through his heart with no care in the world. but he wasn’t the hurt one here. it was you. he was cheating on you repeatedly with numerous women, not giving a damn about his actions until you caught him. and now here he was, singing his heart out on stage and crying, making everyone believe you were the one that broke his heart.

his voice croaked and cracked when he sung it. and you’ll admit it he sung it beautifully. so beautiful it made you cry every time you heard it. it was sad that you both had to end a three year relationship because he didn’t know how to be with you and you only. you were sick of his games, his lies, you were sick of it all. you wanted to be completely free of him. you moved to a different city and took an acting job elsewhere. one you were proud of in fact. well, you were proud of it before you realized who was casted to play as your ex in the next episode.

you avoided yeonjun during rehearsal as much as you possibly could. but that didn’t stop him from singing about you on stage and pouring his heart out as if he missed you. you didn’t believe he missed you. you thought he just missed the fact that you gullible enough to fall for every lie he told. today was another taping day. like the script instructed you open the door and yeonjun was required to be there with a sullen expression on his face.

��what are you doing here?”.

“just give me another chance. please. I swear this time I’ll do right by you”.

you attempt to shut the door in his face but he holds it open with arm. which wasn’t in the script at all. neither was his next line.

“please. please I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I know i wasn’t the best boyfriend. I was so stupid for thinking those girls could ever make up for the endless love that you showered me with. I’m so dumb for taking you for granted in the moment I thought that having multiple partners would make me feel better about myself and boost my ego but it only hurt me in the end. It made me feel so empty. you were the only person that could ever make me feel whole”.

you cross your arms, seeing that this became real.

“yeah, you’re stupid for losing me but i’m not responsible for your wholeness yeonjun. you are. don’t ever depend on someone else to make you happy that’s selfish. the emotional trauma and stress you put me through is something I will never go through again. you broke me beyond repair. I constantly poured out for you and all you did was take. you didn’t appreciate me and I don’t deserve that. you sung about how you were jealous of anyone else I ever come across because you’re afraid of someone loving me the way you should’ve. I’m not running back to you anymore”.

tears raced down his cheeks.

“I’ll be good to you. just please let me be good to you”.

“no. I’m done with you”.

beomgyu;

the front door open and closed softly but he didn’t think you were awake. little did he know you were. in fact you were wide awake. your pregnancy hormones kept you up later than usual. you were grateful though because you were wide awake enough to see beomgyu. to see him try to discreetly throw his condom wrapper in the nearby garbage before taking his jacket off and placing it on the coat rack.

you quickly turned the kitchen light on behind him which startled him completely. he frighteningly turns around to face you, he could already tell you weren’t too pleased with how late he was coming in. his heart started to pound rapidly hoping you wouldn’t suspect anything. but you saw everything. even down to the purple hickeys on his neck that he failed to cover.

“I’m so sick and tired of this gyu. I’m so sick”.

“I had to work late tonight. me and the boys-“.

“you and the boys weren’t doing anything because I already texted yeonjun and soobin and they said you got off work two hours ago. so where the hell where you?”. you fold your arms, hating how he was getting you worked up while you were carrying his child. he swallows,

“I had some extra things to take care of”.

“like what? who were you fucking gyu? because I’m not stupid”.

“why would I cheat on you while you’re pregnant? that’s bad for baby. I think you’re just stressing yourself out at this point”.

“I’m stressing myself out?!”. you lean over as best as you could just to pluck the wrapper out the garbage can and angrily flick it at his face. “what the fuck is this then? and why are you lying about it?!”.

“babe that’s from the last time we--”.

“that’s bullshit beomgyu! when have we ever used a condom?! please tell me and then after that please tell me what the hell are those marks are your neck?!”.

he reaches his hand up to try and cover them. “mosquitos--I’ve been getting bitten by a lot of bugs lately”. you shove him backwards.

“get out! please get out until you can learn how to stop cheating and lying. go get yourself some fucking help. I’m not doing this with you! when the baby is born we can figure out some custodial situations but I don’t want to be with you if you don’t want to be with me. I’m done with this. I’m done with us”.

“don’t do this. you know what I want most is to be a dad. how are you just going to kick me out?”.

you shook your head in disbelief. “pack your shit and go beomgyu”. you hated yourself for crying. “I don’t want you here anymore”.

“I’ll admit it then i was cheating. alright? is that what you wanted to hear?”.

“it’s sad that it took me threatening to kick you out for you to come clean. you’re not even man enough to tell me straight up?”.

“I won’t do it anymore. just please let me father my son in the same household I can’t do any of that custody crap. don’t be like this”.

“you did it to yourself. had you made it clear that you wanted to love me, the mother of your son, you wouldn’t be out here cheating and lying like you are right now. I’m not stressing myself over this anymore beomgyu. get out. take all of your stuff with you”.

taehyun;

friday nights always ended like this. you and taehyun cuddled together on his living room sofa eating too many snacks to name. surrounded by complete darkness except for the movie blaring on the television screen. most would think that couples your age would love to spend their friday nights partying or drinking. however you and taehyun were a different pair.

“sweetheart can you get your elbow off my bladder that’s why I have to go pee every five seconds”.

“no you have to pee every five seconds because you’re lowkey pregnant”.

as taehyun gets up he laughs at your comment. “whatever. I’ll be back can you pause it?”.

you shove another piece of popcorn in your mouth before pressing the middle on the remote, rushing him. in the midst of waiting though you realized taehyun’s phone was getting numerous notifications, most of which you brushed off thinking it was the group chat he’s in with the boys. but an unfamiliar number popped up on his phone screen, one you haven’t saw before. in pure wonder you grab ahold of his phone, taking another peak at the bathroom door before unlocking it to see the message.

333-333-333: are you still with her? when she goes to sleep you should come over...

with a jaw clenched you angrily squeeze his phone, wanting to lock it again so you can gather your thoughts. but you couldn’t help yourself from scrolling through his message thread with whoever the number was, which you assumed was some girl because she’d been sending him nudes since a couple of weeks ago. and to make matters worse he was responding with heart eyes. once the sink in the bathroom went off taehyun closes the door behind himself and you immediately lock his phone, glaring at him with the coldest expression you could muster.

“sweetheart? what’s the matter? why do you have my phone?”.

with your heart racing you launch his phone at his chest. “fuck you taehyun!”. you remove the blankets off yourself to fetch your shoes. he winces at the sudden hit just before unlocking his phone to see that you had opened his message thread. shit. “why are you going through my phone?”.

“that’s all you have to fucking say?! why was i going through your phone? why were you getting nudes from some other girl?! that’s the real question!”. you grab your bag and approach the door. of course taehyun was trying his best to pull you back over to him. you snatch his arms of your torso in a fit of rage. “she’s just a friend--”.

“we’ve been dating for 5 years and you do this shit?! fuck you. if you didn’t want me anymore you could’ve just said that. don’t call me, don’t text me or talk to me anymore. we’re done”.

“sweetheart please. I can’t be alone. I didn’t even mean to text her i don’t know what came over me”.

“don’t talk to me anymore. you’re a cheater. that’s what came over you”.

“so you’re just going to leave so quick like that?”.

“you think you deserve for me to stay? you’re so fucking self centered. don’t make me seem like the weak one for leaving someone who obviously doesn’t love me anymore. now move your damn hands. I’m leaving”.

and with that there was a slamming door. taehyun could feel his heart sink with every step you took down the hallway.

kai;

you were working when you got the notification. it was from your bank account, specifically the joint account you and kai shared. they were notifying you about a recent purchase from last night. one that you hadn’t remembered at all so you figured it had to be kai. he didn’t know that you opted to be notified about the spending on the account just to make sure the both of you were keeping your savings in order. but one thing that wasn’t in order was what the last purchase was on.

dinner for two and perfume shopping.

no. no way. you checked once again to make sure you weren’t seeing things. but the notification was loud and clear. you figured maybe someone had stolen your credit card and began using it. but even that wouldn’t make sense because it has a pin and only you and kai knew it. you felt your cheeks grow hot at the thought of kai with someone else. you knew he was acting a little distant these past couple of days but you couldn’t figure out why. the tears welled in your eyes but you refused to let them fall, in front of your colleagues at least. you took a step out into the bathroom to take a breath. but you couldn’t keep yourself from crying. you couldn’t understand why he’d be doing this. you loved him too much and too hard for him to even think of being with someone else.

you opened your phone deciding to call him. the phone ringed so many times you thought he wasn’t going to pick up until he finally picked up on the last ring. you didn’t even give him a chance to speak once he did.

“kai i’m only going to ask you this one time and please don’t lie to me”.

“what’s wrong baby?”.

“don’t call me that. who were you taking out on a date the other night? buying perfume for?”. you ask more calmly than you rehearsed in your head. kai’s heart dropped. he panicked. how did you know?

“no one. what are you talking about? you sound so upset. I don’t like when you’re like this baby”.

you exhale heavily. fury pooled in your chest. “you don’t like it? so why the hell were you cheating? you know what? you’re so pathetic. i can’t. I’m fucking leaving you”.

“baby for what? why are you leaving? don’t leave me I promise I wasn’t with anyone else”.

“you sound so innocent when you say that. is that what you like? huh? you like sounding innocent so you can further manipulate me?”.

“baby please”.

“don’t worry. I’ll be out the house by tonight”.

#choi soobin #choi yeonjun #choi beomgyu #kang taeyun #heuning kai #soobin angst #yeonjun angst #beomgyu angst #taehyun angst #heuning kai angst #txt reactions #yeonjun #soobin #beomgyu #taehyun #reactions

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loquaciousquark · 4 years

Text

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E116-119 (Dec. 15, 2020)

Hi! I missed the first three minutes or so and opened the stream to Brian giving an absolutely incoherent ...ad? for some jewel game? Six thousand jewels just for logging in? Some app in the app store and he’s literally been talking about this now for six minutes and I don’t know what he’s talking about. He finally wraps up, Laura brings the show to a close, and we’re all a little worse than we were before.

Ashley tries to get us back on track and Henry bays over her. Brian tries to ask the first question and breaks off into feigned sobs halfway through. This is chaos incarnate.

Tonight’s guests: Laura Bailey & Ashley Johnson.

How’s Yasha feeling right now about Molly? She and Jester both are desperately curious about whether there’s a spark of Molly left in Lucien that can be brought back. It’s not the same as when Yasha was controlled by Obann; this seems more like just the way this is now. They’d settle for even finding the good in him, like they did with Essek. Brian jokes that they can monitor his mental state if Matt’s Irish accent starts to slip a little bit.

Jester is a little wary about scrying on Lucien now since he’s able to see her back. She’s interested to try again now that Fjord’s given her the necklace.

Ashley has to run and grab a replacement set of headphones from Brian after hers get “crunchy.” It’s pretty cute seeing them run around and smooch on another screen. Brian teases that he doesn’t have any more questions for Jester since Caduceus has been doing all the healing lately. Laura tells us indignantly that she had Heal prepared for Caduceus in that last big fight, but Fjord got to Cad first. Brian explains how this is the same as all the good jokes he always lines up for Talks but never tells. Ashley’s crunchiness continues and we go briefly to a technical difficulties screen while Brian hops up to fix it.

Dani pips in to get this show back on track. Save us, Dani!

Ashley hadn’t thought about the aspect of Lucien controlling his friends’ minds, but finds it really creepy. It’s a cool game dynamic, and it’s a little different because they’re there willingly, but it’s really weird.

Jester thinks that “the tarot cards know all. She wants to buy into it real hard.” If it doesn’t make sense now, it will later. Laura has an Idiot’s Guide to Tarot Reading.

They’re super interested in why Aeor is like it is. Were they more advanced than us? Did they evolve along a different line? Ashley loves sci-fi and is all about this, especially since she wasn’t there for Happy Fun Ball time & hasn’t been able to get caught up on some of the things she missed in between, so she’s using this as an erstwhile replacement. She can already tell there are some things from this campaign that will bother her the way the unopened box did from C1. She and Laura both seethe at the camera about having to leave the spider behind.

Cosplay of the Week! Harland3r on instagram with a gorgeous winged Pike with a shield & mace. It’s an incredible photo and the wings look great.

Travis distracts Laura by dancing like a Trex offscreen. That seems right for this episode.

Jester’s encouragement of Yasha pursuing Beau was important in a lot of ways, not least because Ashley considered herself as uninterested in D&D romance as Travis & was a little unsure of activating a romance among her friends. However, it felt really natural within the game and it was really helpful to have Jester’s in-game encouragement. Yasha’s grown a lot and is in a much more positive place and is ready to find out what’s possible. Laura: “Jester from the get-go has seen Yasha as this wonderful soul from the beginning, and has seen how sad Yasha’s been through everything, and to see the difference that she exhibits when talking about Beau is drastic and wonderful. Jester’s joy in life is helping others find joy.”

Ashley points out it’s also so fun to “yes-and” with Laura because you’re like a little kid being dragged along by the hand - you don’t know where it’s going, but you know it’s going to be fun along the way.

Ashley does have a sense of “thank goodness Marisha isn’t jumping right into this” so she can coax herself into it, but when she tried to figure out the poem she had a lot of drafts that didn’t survive. She intentionally crafted the letter to give Beau an out if she didn’t feel the same way. There’s a lot going on with Lucien right now and there’s constantly a running thought in the back of her head about “maybe Beau is not into this.” Even the last couple episodes with Jester & Fjord have had Ashley finally understand shipping.

Brian brings us to the moment “almost as romantic as the pre-season finale of the Bachelorette.” Jester was “goo” afterwards. Early on in the campaign, Jester was very forward with her flirtations with Fjord & he shut her down. And then he kissed her underwater and immediately went and slept with Avantika, and Jester automatically shut herself down, because she thought she was misunderstanding & would only be hurt by those emotions. She deliberately focused on just being there with her friends, making everyone healthy and happy. These last few episodes where Fjord was flirting back felt like “my teenage heart again, my first kiss, the boy I like actually likes me back!” and she was able to open back up.

Yasha definitely has some instrument plans for those bones. She doesn’t know if she’s going to add to her harp or create a new one.

Ashley and Laura cheer about Travis stepping out his comfort zone. Laura thinks it was really good that he was doing it with her, his real-life wife, to see if he likes that sort of stuff in his D&D campaign. “It was just so sweet. It was just so sweet.” Brian says he’s actually a really romantic dude & Dani is so glad he asked before the kiss. Brian: “It’s going to be so sad when he breaks your heart and goes back to the corpse of Avantika.” Laura: “It’s fine, Jester will be long dead by then anyway.”

Jester does believe the four-year time trade was worth it, but that the city leaves “a mark on your brain,” especially as in-depth as she saw it. “Jester’s always been reticent to talk about her age because she’s aware she’s perceived in a juvenile way by a lot of people, and she’s insecure about that. She grew up by herself without a lot of social interactions and is experienced in a lot of ways now and naive in others; she’s very aware of human emotion around her, but chooses to see it in a certain way.” Losing the time makes her wonder if she needs to grow up & become an adult about certain things now. Laura: “I think actually she’s closer to Fjord’s age now. Actually, I’m not sure about his age. I don’t know how old he is - I’ve never even asked Travis!” Brian: “I think he’s definitely fifteen.” Laura: “Travis, how old is Fjord?” Travis, off-screen: “Sixty-five,” but he’s had the Mask of Many Faces up this whole time. Later, he adds that he’s in his early 30s.

Ashley has really enjoyed digging into Yasha’s more humorous side lately. It’s how she gets comfortable as a player, making it fun and light in a way that this year needs. “It’s also really funny to think that Yasha doesn’t know how Message works.”

Brian congratulates Laura & Ashley both on their game awards nominations. Brian vamps trying to get himself in as the presenter, but incidentally refers to Laura as his sister in the conversation and it’s super cute. “I would like to be the one to give the award to either my fiancee, or my sister!”

Fanart of the Week: @ethanmaldridge with an illustrated page from the Katzenprinz book. It’s just beautiful.

Jester’s polymorph gambit was terrifying, but the stakes got even higher when everyone else got stunned. She does lament choosing a bunny at the start. “Frickin’ Fjord’s armor!”

Yasha loves being polymorphed lately. She thinks it’s kinda funny, especially given her rigid upbringing with such defined roles.

Laura feels like Jester and Vex are weirdly two halves of herself. Brian: “You see the very bargainy, I’m gonna use my wit & smarts to negotiate situations. But at the same time, you’re very open to what people are thinking & feeling and navigating that. What you end up putting out (though it comes across as innocent and naive) is something pure because she truly believes it.” Laura thinks Yasha and Pike are the same way for Ashley, though Ashley feels a little closer to Yasha right now. Sometimes you just feel really exposed. Laura compares how much idealism she put into Jester to her character from Fruits Basket.

Since Yasha didn’t belong to either side in the war, she’s not hugely concerned by the fallout; she more wants to make sure her found family are okay and safe. Jester is the same way, Laura tells us. Jester doesn’t have any greater vision of the Empire & Dynasty interacting; she cares about the people, and it hasn’t been until the vision with the city that she kind of woke up and realized they have to really stop this now. It feels bigger than the Dynasty/Empire. Ashley: “It seems more of a thing for Beau and Caleb to care about.”

Really, up to now Jester was mostly concerned about getting Molly back, but now the stakes seem much higher. “We have to do this. We have to complete this, to beat them, to keep them from doing this.” Yasha is just going with the flow for now. There’s a lot coming at them and they are ready to find out what’s next.

And that’s that for tonight! Brian thanks the crew especially for working incredibly hard on switching everything to home-based streaming. He then gets stuck halfway spinning around in his chair and the last thing we hear is him idly wondering “What’s Fjord taste like?” which seems pretty on brand for tonight’s show. Is it Thursday yet?

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts

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sweetestlamb · 3 years

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Mostrami Amore.

Summary: Cha-young tries to move on from a certain mafia boss.

Author’s Note: Thank for to everyone who sent in prompts for Chayenzo, it resulted in this mess. I don’t have much to say, I considered making this into a multi- chaptered story but honestly I don’t have time for another ongoing story so if this seems rushed it was a little, I wrote it in one go today. Hope you enjoy this, I stuck in some of my favorite crack ship because I am weak and obsessed. Happy reading!

p.s takes place after final episode but han seo lives because this is my world and I get to play God.

Another postcard.

Their delivery becomes sporadic and she’s embarrassed at the giddiness that washes over her each time a new square is sent miles across a wide stretch of ocean, the view on the card most likely lackluster in comparison to the true rendering of Malta. She has spent many hours on her laptop searching for images of the small paradisiac island, yearning to see what he sees and feel just a tad bit closer to him. Most of her life has been spent in solitude with only her work acquaintances filling the void at times, so she expected herself to be more equipped to deal with his disappearance and subsequent absence. But nothing prepares her for those moments at the coffee shop, when she finds herself smiling across a table only to realize there is no miniature espresso cup in the hand of a very dangerous Italian Korean mafia member grinning back at her.

The smile melts off her face and she swallows the bitter cool sludge in her cup, the beverage tasting exactly as he had described it without him there.

Nights are the hardest, loneliness coils around her like a snake.

There was never any other fate for them, she knew that when Vincenzo murdered all their enemies this was their only real outcome. He would always be a fugitive on the run and she an accomplice if he were captured and questioned, it was in both of their best interests if he vanished from the face of the planet. But knowing that does nothing to qualm the ever present feeling of isolation that clings to her skin as she sits alone on her couch, downing makgeolli at a vicious pace. Trying to wash his taste from her mouth, that kiss on loop in her mind and the phantom grip of his hand on her neck.

It’s those treacherous nights without the plaza members that have become a second family to her and Han Seo following her like the lost puppy he is calling her “Noona” so freely and frequently until she forgets her own name, that she allows herself to feel exactly what she’s feelings.

Heartbroken.

Desperate.

Lonely.

Rage.

The last one she hides like a dirty secret in the closet of her heart, she knew what she was signing up for. She has no legitimate reason to be angry, or so she tries to reason with herself. But. This was the same man who had bypassed the security of one of the richest men in Korea and ultimately killed him without leaving a trace. She had watched him do despicable things, blackmailing, threatening, seducing, and murdering others as he saw fit and yet, he hadn’t used any of those dastardly ways to see her. That chance meeting at the art gallery had been the last she had seen of him, Then a few weeks later another postcard with the same message she had boldly uttered at the airport, it feels insufficient after having him in her arms again. She knew in that moment that they would never be enough again. She hadn’t even argued when Mr. Nam claimed he would leave this one on his table instead, she merely nodded and walked away to peruse the new sexual assault case she has taken recently.

It gets harder and harder to hear Han Seo regaling the wonders of his “hyung”, her anger boiling deep below the surface like magma waiting to explode and transform into something tangible and destructive.

“He told me that he has a room for me too. I wonder when he’ll let us visit.”

She nods absently, staring out the window at the sunlight twinkling in through the blinds but then his words register and the gears in her head churn before running the sentence back through to carefully process them.

“He---what? You spoke to Vincenzo?”

The human puppy pouts his lips before tilting his head and dealing a hard blow to her ego and her heart, “Yeah, he sends me letters. I got so scared the first time! He said the letter would self-destruct after I read it and I really thought that was true and I dived across the room to escape but I bumped my head on the table and then...”

He sent Han Seo letters.

She had received the same fucking postcard for months on end with the same message she had said to him, and he had time to write Han Seo letters. He hadn’t sent her even one in the time he had been gone.

“That fucking bastard!” She explodes interrupting Han Seo’s recount of his near death experience and he looks wide- eyed and taken back by her outburst, she almost soothes him before another wave of anger rushes through her veins. She had accepted the bare minimum because she thought this was all he could give her but it seemed she was being too naïve. He was Vincenzo Cassano after all, he could make anything happen. She had seen it with her own two eyes. If he wasn’t reaching out to her maybe that was a message and she was too blind to see it.

“Noona? Are you okay?” Han Seo looks absolutely terrified, eyes huge and quivering. She doesn’t bother answering, grabbing her cup of lukewarm coffee and stomping out of the office ignoring Mr. Nam’s calls behind her. She’s tired of being an idiot.

She throws herself into forgetting him, the same way he seems to have forgotten her despite his words to her that fateful night on the stairs.

I thought about you everyday.

Actions speak louder than words and she is done accepting his crumbs. She has never needed anyone, had even accepted when her own father wanted nothing to do with her; she has basically been prepping for this moment her entire life.

So she goes shopping with Miri, buying gadgets that she has no idea how to use but that the other girl makes sound like things that she definitely needs such as a new home security system, her break in still fresh in her mind. She grins at the pretty smile on the other girl’s round face as she explains the specification of the machines around them and she can see why Han Seo has such a huge crush on the girl, the pretty blush that blossoms on the other girl’s cheek after stating the fact out loud is adorable and she pinches said cheek much to her chagrin.

“You should worry about your own love life.” Miri teases but the words sting like acid on her skin and she turns away to hide the grimace on her face, but she’s not fast enough and the other girl catches her wrist halting her movement.

“What? What’s wrong? Did something happen to Mr. Cassano?” Miri whispers the last part, looking around to make sure that nobody overhears them.

She forces herself to stifle her emotions, trapping them in the back of her mind refusing to let him have this kind of affect on her.

“I wouldn’t know.” She tries for a emotionless tone but even she can hear the bitterness in her own voice and Miri’s eyes fill with pity and it makes her sick to her stomach, “Don’t. I am going to be fine. Let’s just go.”

They don’t utter single word in the car ride home.

After that it becomes painfully obvious that everyone in the plaza thinks something is wrong with her and are teaming up to make her feel better. It’s the packed lunches that keep showing up on her desk without fail, her clothes being steamed and pressed for free, the way that they won’t allow her to be alone and there are countless spontaneous family game nights all ending with her drunk and being carried home.

Tonight Mr. Tak is the unlucky volunteer, dragging her limp body in her father’s house and she thinks of all the times that they drank here together and a certain person was the one hauling her body to bed complaining and grumbling but that distractingly fond smile on his face that he only ever seemed to shoot her way. Her heart thumped loudly as he loomed over her and leaned in close, getting her hopes up only to brush her hair behind her ears and softly tell her, “Go to sleep now,” and she had never been obedient all her teachers could testify to that but when he looked at her like that she was powerless to do anything else but listen.

“I miss him.” The traitorous words fall from her lips and vanish into the inky darkness of the night.

A deep sigh from the left of her, “We know.”

She feels vulnerable, the worst thing about having a weakness is other’s noticing too. She hates how weak she feels.

“I am going to forget him.”

The body supporting most of her weight tenses under her arm and she waits for his response, they all love Vincenzo- he had become their unexpected hero and leader in many ways. They would always take his side, she knows that.

“If that’s what you need to do to be happy. Then, do it. Loving a man like Vincenzo isn’t easy.”

She turns to look at him in genuine shock.

“What? You thought I would tell you to keep waiting with no end in sight? You should know by now, you mean a lot to us too. Your happiness is important to us too, we’re a family.”

“But we’re the Cassano family,” she challenges unable to accept that they could love her without Vincenzo attached, but Mr. Tak shrugs at the clarification, “We can be the Hong Family too.”

She feels her eyes swimming.

“I should go inside.”

She feels sober and more awake than ever, she stays up all night twirling the long strands of her hair in between her fingers.

Thinking.

Variety is the spice of life.

She doesn’t know where she’s heard that but it’s those sage words that are the catalyst for her spontaneous decision.

“Same as always? Silky with some body?” Her stylist peers into her eyes through the wide mirror and she hears herself say, “No I want a cut and some color.” Yu-jin raises one pretty tweezed brow but nods after a moment’s pause, “Okay. How short are you thinking?”

And that’s how she starts her day with long thick hair that grazes her lower back and ends it with a short bob that tickles her neck. It feels like a weight has been lifted from her shoulder, metaphorically and literally and she loves the face that she sees in the mirror, her eyes looking brighter than they have in months. She feels more alive, like a snake shedding its skin and becoming a newer and fresher version of itself.

“Your hair?” That becomes the running theme for her day, shocked gaping mouths and hands reaching out for the hair that was once there. She merely smirks at their palpable surprise, especially Seol-jin who doesn’t recognize her from behind.

“I haven’t seen a pretty lady like you aro--Oh Ms. Hong! I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you, I am so sorry please excuse me!” The interpretative dancer bolts away leaving her to watch him bemused, she skips to Jipuragi with a pep in her step laughing loudly when Mr. Nam drops his coffee upon seeing her and the brown liquid goes flying and douses him in a sticky hot mess.

It’s an entertaining day to say the least.

Moments later when he’s finished cleaning himself up and changing into the cheetah print track suit that he insisted to keeping in the office, he mentions that a new postcard has arrived. She nods at the information, looking at her laptop and it’s only seconds later that she finally looks up and sees that he’s waiting for her response. She doesn’t have one.

Forcing a tight smile on her face she replies, “Oh that’s great. Just put it with the others.”

He does.

But she can feel his eyes on her, his concern heavy and tangible in the air.

She pretends not to notice and keeps clicking away on her laptop, only glancing over at the card once or twice. But it’s only out of habit.

Nothing more.

She starts going on dates with random men. Men she meets in coffee shops, on the streets, in bars, hell one time even the bookstore. She never meets the same man twice and they never get what they want but it does make her feel desirable and that’s all she’s looking for.

“Where are you going?” Han Seo asks her curiously, Miri by his side as she struts out the plaza new perfume on her skin.

“On a date. I’ll see you both later.” They both gape at her and can only watch with wide eyes as she sashays away, heels clicking with every step.

Word spreads like wildfire and no one takes it harder than Mr. An, who calls her a “jezebel” and cries at the front of the law firm for hours, she has to step over him to go get lunch shaking him off when he latches on to her ankles.

The others just look at her with sad eyes, filled with both understanding and disappointment.

Much to her surprise the lunch boxes keep coming and her clothes are still pressed and starched to perfection though.

She also starts taking self defense classes, Korea is much more dangerous than she had first suspected and she has to be able to protect herself because nobody is coming to save her. Not anymore.

It becomes a great outlet for her built up anger and her instructor praises her for being a fast learner. She grins and nods before flipping him and twisting his arm around his own neck in a modified sleeper hold. When he taps on her arm she squeezes tighter instead of letting go and he goes limp for a moment before she comes back to herself and releases him hastily with a quick apology, “Sorry!”

He rubs his neck, panting for air and she feels guilty, there's a tinge of that but most of all she feels powerful, more so than she has for a long time.

It’s crazy but she finds herself asking him for drinks after class and even crazier is that he agrees even with her marks still there on his skin, the area bruised and red. He looks at her like she’s challenge that he wants to conquer, she lets him believe that’s possible. It’s only a bit of fun anyway, she has no plans for anything serious.

Drinks turn into a drunken cab ride home with his hand on her thigh, hot through the thin material of her tights and they don’t feel right- too small and not rough enough but she’s moving on and she has no time to reminisce.

There hasn’t even been a postcard lately. Message, loud and clear.

When she shoves the keys into her door, he’s glued to her body leaving wet kisses on the long column of her neck and she tries to suppress the nausea that swims in her stomach, everything feels wrong and she hates herself for feeling that way. Why shouldn’t she fuck whoever she wants? He is probably doing the same thing, everyday on his beautiful private island. Kissing women that aren’t her and whispering dirty Italian words into their ears as he rocks back and forth, nary a thought of that Korean woman he knew once upon a time.

Fuck him.

She rocks back into the purposeful grind of the hips behind her, feeling the hardness that digs into the soft flesh of her ass and finally the door opens and they both tumble in haphazardly and he thrusts a hand under her loose shirt fingering at her breasts before a dark figure moves far too quickly in her peripheral and she hears her date cry out in pain.

She almost faints at the familiar sight of the one person she never expected to see, the hard glint of his cold eyes as he twists the same hand that had just been fondling her chest. The grip looks painful, the wrist contorted in an unnatural manner.

“What the fuck? You have a boyfriend?!” Her instructor cries out, voice high pitched falling to his knees as Vincenzo kicks his feet out from under him.

She rolls her eyes, of course he would come now when she is trying (and failing) to get over him.

Vindictively she answers the question, ‘No.”

But that makes Vincenzo twist the wrist in his grip even tighter and she can see the bones breaking so she takes pity on the poor man, he didn’t sign up for a murderous mafia leader after all.

“Just let him go. You have no right to do any of this.”

He doesn’t listen right away and absently she wonders if she’ll need to test out her new moves on him, it would be satisfying to deck him square in the face. She dreams of that as often as she dreams of their reunion. Her feelings are...complicated to say the least.

Then with a grunt, he throws the other man away like he’s trash and growls out, “Get out of here before I kill you.”

She tries not be get turned on by that. But it’s a hard sell, her body already getting revved up. He’s telling the truth.

The man wastes no time, jumping to his feet and bolting out the door without one backwards glance. Asshole, he was really just leaving her with a clearly unstable and dangerous man.

“We need to talk.” Vincenzo squeezes out between clenched teeth, and her blood runs cold but she stares him dead in the eyes tired of this game they’ve been playing, if he’s here to end things she wants to know.

“Okay. Then talk.”

She looks insanely beautiful, with her hair cropped so short bringing his eyes to the tantalizing length of her neck. His eyes close in on a spot of moisture on her neck, he feels his blood boiling imagining that bastard touching any part of her. She’s glaring right back at him, her chest rising and falling and he can’t help but check her out, it’s been months since he saw her in person the photo of her doing aerial yoga above his bed couldn’t compare to the tempest that is Cha-young in real life.

The flat plane of her belly is on display under the white crop top loosely stretched across her chest which leads down to her slim hips and legs wrapped in white spandex, leaving very little to the imagination not that he hasn’t imagined her in far less many, many times. Too many times to count. Spilling across the silk adorning his king sized bed with only her name on his lips.

She looks fucking hot.

That makes it even more frustrating because he can still clearly see that bastard wrapped around her like a snake and his hands going up her shirt---he has to take a deep breath before he breaks something. Or chases that asshole to break his face.

There’s so much he wants to say to her, so much he owes her.

I missed you.

I love you.

Come with me.

“Who the hell was that?” He says this instead then watches her eyes glint over into nothing but pure murderous rage. Wrong move. But he couldn’t help it, green eyed raged taking away his decision making abilities.

“That’s all you have to say? Get out.”

He wasn’t expecting rose petals and trumpets when he returned but he definitely wasn’t expecting this, her cold glare or another man in his spot. He thought she would wait for him, just as he had done for her.

“Are you serious right now?” He counters, flabbergasted.

“Deadly. Get out.”

He clenches his fist, and then stomps out. Turning back but only to watch the door slam in his face.

What the hell.

It had only taken a letter from Han Seo to get him on boat that would take him to an open field and hours later he was soaring through the skies on a hot air balloon, on his way back to Korea. It was insane and he barely had time to explain to his family but Luca nodded at him like this was the only choice and told him that he would take care of everything, and he trusted those words more than he had ever trusted anything in his life.

“Vai a prendere la tua donna( go get your woman).”

He had nodded, gruffly patting the other man on his shoulder before hopping over into the waiting boat.

But he wasn’t so certain anymore that Cha-young was his.

She seems different. Colder almost, she leaves whenever I mention your name and she goes on dates now. I think she’s moving on hyung, what are you going to do?

Those words had been the scariest thing he had never seen. Scarier than every gun that had ever been pointed at his head. He thought what they had was something special, something that could stand the test of time and distance. He stared at the huge pile of letters on his bedside, all addressed to her. He had written one everyday since they had been separated, but each time he was too much of a coward to send it. In those letters he could say things that he could never say to her face, things like how much he ached without her by his side and how her smile was the only thing that kept him going. In those letters he could regal the ways he loved her, and how deeply she had been branded into his soul, every atom of his body belonged to her and her alone. He would kill for her, die for her, anything she needed or merely wanted he would provide it, all she needed to do was ask.

He could only share those feelings in the letters.

He walks for hours, until he ends up at his old apartment the familiar door greeting him and he sticks his hand in his pocket before he remembers that he gave the key away, with a sigh he starts to walk away before the door creaks open and he hears a voice he hasn’t heard in months.

“Hyung!”

A warmth spreads across his back as a solid weight almost knocks him off his feet. He reaches one arm around his body, awkwardly slapping the face that is pressing into his collar.

“You really chose to stay here.”

He feels the nod on his shoulder, “Of course. It made me feel closer to you hyung, I missed you.”

He grunts in response, before turning around and tugging the younger man into a real hug. He had missed the annoying little leech too, he had missed everyone.

They are still in each other’s embrace for a moment before Han Seo pulls away, sympathy etched deep on his face.

“She wasn’t happy to see you.”

“There was someone else there.” He hates the words even as they leave his mouth and Han Seo winces, looking pained for him before tugging him into the small apartment. Everything is just like he left it. He looks around in awe.

“I’m sorry hyung. What are you going to do?”

That’s the golden question, he pondered it all the way here and he’s no closer to knowing the answer to that. Usually she is the one that makes the move, she has always been the brave one between them. He back steps and says things he doesn’t mean and she sees through him and smashes down all his walls. That’s how this has always worked.

“I don’t know. Maybe I should just leave her alone. Let her be happy.”

A loud scoff reaches his ears, “Sure. Is that why you sailed across sharked infested waters and trusted a hot air balloon company run my former thugs?”

He smarts at the sarcastic reply and glares before flicking the cheeky brat on his nose, "I liked you better when you were stupid you know. Now you're a little smart ass."

The younger man looks even more youthful as he grins back at him, rubbing at his nose before shrugging. "I learned from the best."

He has no rebuttal for that so he tries to flick him again, giving chase when he darts off.

It feels good to be home.

He warns Han Seo not to tell anyone that he's here least they give away his location.

So he's not surprised the next day to find the cavalry at his doorstep hands filled to the brim with containers of food. There are tears, mostly from Mr. Nam who won't stop screaming his name and pinching his cheeks to see if he's real and Mr. An who wraps around him like a koala despite his very detailed threats. It's all chaos and so familiar that his heart aches but her absence is like a hole in his chest. Nobody mentions her but they all keep looking at the door, so it's obvious that she was invited but chose not to come.

Because she didn't want to see him.

"You're here to win her back right?" He doesn't know who even utters the words but when he glances up they are all looking at him expectantly.

He didn't know that was what he was indeed here for thought that she would happily welcome him back and they could pick up where they left off but she's made it clear that this won't be the case. This will be the most important fight of his life.

"Yes. I'm here for Cha-young."

He gets enthusiastic thumbs up and a loud giggle from the Yeon-Jin and Cheol-Wook’s adorable baby, her little hands too uncoordinated to do a thumbs up but she waves excitedly feeding off the energy around her.

He wonders how Cha-young would look with a baby in her arms, their baby it's a dangerous thought. But one that he can't get out of his mind once he thinks it.

They stay until midnight, forcing him to eat and drink too much soju until he passes out to dreams filled with a round Cha-young, belly swollen and protruding from her body.

It doesn't take much to learn her schedule(Mr. Nam hands him a laminated copy) and he has to put on a disguise but he enters the shop seconds after her, hearing her order that god awful sewer water she's so fond of.

"An espresso for me." He leans in too close, almost brushing her shoulder and she jolts at the sound of his voice, turning to stare at him as if she's a mirage.

"You're still here?" She whispers and then shakes her head and looks away as if she's hadn't meant to say the words aloud.

It hurts him that she thought he would leave without telling her but he can't blame her, he has been anything but consistent. Instead of answering, he leans forward to hand his credit card to the cashier who glances between them suspiciously before accepting the card.

Their orders are ready in seconds and he follows her as she walks to their table, butterflies in his stomach at the familiar sight.

She turns to him with a glare, "It's just the only available table."

He moves to pull out her chair and she starts at him tight lipped before sitting down. She's in a tight black suit today, two long slits on the side of her pants going all the way up to her thighs. He gulps down his drink to get rid of the drool pooling in his mouth.

"You're upset with me."

She stares at him like he's the biggest idiot on the planet, it's not a look he receives often but she's always the outlier in his otherwise organized life.

"Astute observation." She quips back, sucking loudly at her coffee.

"Why?"

He considered how to go about breeching this subject and in the end had decided on going straight to the source, he had been under the impression that this was working for them.

Her face morphs into a person he hasn't seen for a long time, the Cha-young that would berate him and make him angry enough to curse in Italian.

"Do you think this little of me?"

He's completely lost, "What do you mean? What did I do that was so wrong? Wrong enough for you to cheat on me!" He's panting now, his voice has gotten loud enough to catch people's attention he can feel them watching their table, nosy and invested.

"Cheat on you?"

Cold as ice, her voice is. It almost makes him shiver.

"How could I possibly cheat on you? We're not together. You send me the same postcard with the same message every few months. I have no idea what you're doing in Malta, who you're with. You can't even be bothered to send me a letter, do you think this is a relationship? You think it's enough to pop up like this every once in a blue moon? You've told me nothing about how you feel about me but I'm supposed to be satisfied with whatever you throw my way?"

If he wasn't sitting down his legs would have already given out he's certain about that. Her voice is deadly quiet each word landing and chipping away at his confidence.

"I'm doing the best I can! You knew it would be like this after everything was over, why are you blaming me now? How about you, I don't know how you feel either!"

"I love you! Anyone with eyes can see that, I told you that at the airport too. And again when I took a bullet for you, you didn't think that meant I loved you? I was willing to die for you."

Shit.

It's not at all how he expected them to confess their love for each other, it's hard to believe the words that are coming out of her mouth as she bares her teeth at him.

"So why are you doing this? Why are there other men?"

Why aren't I enough? He wants to say but he's scared of her answer, terrified that she'll say that she can't do this anymore. That he just isn’t enough anymore.

She stares at him long and hard.

Waiting for something. But he doesn't know what.

"You haven't changed at all. You're still a coward, I'm not interested in guessing anymore. I’m done playing this game.”

She stands up and walks away, leaving her unfinished coffee on the table.

Unwanted just like him.

She doesn't see him for days and she accepts that her words had done their damage, she had cried until she fell asleep that night. Waking up with swollen red eyes that no amount of concealer would save but thankfully no one commented on her state.

She goes through her day on autopilot and before she knows it she's back home, ready to face her night alone again. She pushes the door open, half praying he'll be waiting for her but her hopes shattered when she turns on the lights and finds no one.

"It's better this way." She lies to herself, pouring herself an obscene glass of soju. She's going to need plenty of alcohol to get through this pain.

Her head is woozy and heavy when she hears a sound, suddenly alert she stills in her chair before rushing over to get a frying pan walking on the tips of her toes she prowls closer to the clicking sound, finding herself at the window peering at a long lost friend. Placing the frying pan on her window sill she pry opens the window, screeching when the audacious bird flies inside landing on her table as if he belongs there.

"Hey Inzaghi! Get your dirty bird feet off my table!"

He looks at her nonchalantly, making himself comfortable on said table and she sighs before shutting the window and drunkenly swaying over to him.

"What are you even doing there? Do you want to be my bird now, I won't be a very good owner. I won't remember to feed you. I barely remember to feed myself."

Despite being a bird he finds a way to roll his eyes at her before standing up and only then does she notice something on his leg. She looks at him cautiously before moving closer and untying the paper on his leg, the pigeon barely reacts before flying over to her couch. She sighs in annoyance, she's going to have to clean everything after this bird leaves.

She unwinds the string holding the paper together, unrolling the paper scroll. There is a message written inside: the rooftop. 9 pm.

Glancing at her clock the time shines at her.

7:34pm.

"This could be a trap."

It very much could be, she has enemies now. It was a small price to pay for taking down Babel but she's always looking over her shoulders now, so this note could easily be someone luring her to hurt her or get back at Vincenzo.

Inzaghi coos loudly at her as if he can hear her thoughts. This time he finds a way to look exasperated.

She stumbles off to her room.

She needs time to think.

"So she told you that she loved you and you didn't say it back?"

"I was shocked. She was growling at me and looked ready to kill me at the same time." He reasons back, trying to show his hyung his point of view. The younger man doesn't look even a little bit convinced by his logic.

"Okay and? That sounds perfectly normal for you too. You should have shot someone and wrote it back in their blood on the table."

He recoils in disgust at the suggestion, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you actually insane, why the fuck would I do that?"

Han Seo stares deadpan in return.

He puts up a hand trying to stop whatever response he has, "Don't say it."

It doesn't work.

"Pig's blood. Don't forget I saw it all, I've never seen Ms. Hong look so excited before. You're both crazy."

Well, that had been different. It was an old tradition, she simply had an appreciation for the classics.

"And I bet you're defending her right now in your mind. Noona is just like you, that's why you're made for each other. She's the gasoline to your fire."

"You know that would just make an even larger fire right?"

"Yes. I'm smart now remember? I know what I said."

He sighs falling into the comfortable familiarity of the couch, a spring digging into his thigh.

"Why didn't you say it back?" His stills at the barely whispered question, his chest constricting as he recalls the passionate confession. He had frozen, like he'd always known she was the brave one between them. Always doing the unexpected and the time was no different, her words had knocked him off his feet.

"Because I was scared."

Han Seo huffs at his honesty. He doesn't know where the words are coming from but he's tired of keeping it all in.

"Because if anything happens to her it'll break me, I thought it would be better if I kept her at a distance. I thought this was enough. I thought this would be easier. When I think about her I want to drop everything and just be with her and that...was too dangerous. I had to keep my distance."

There's a pregnant pause, just the sound of their breathing filling the void.

"Was it?"

"What?"

"Easier. Is this better? Enough?"

He thinks about Cha-young getting married to a faceless man, exchanging vows and sealing it with a kiss, happy and in love on their honeymoon wanton moans and screams from their room, learning that they're having a baby and her round and glowing with someone else's child smiling brightly as she rubs her belly and it's too much. He wants to smash it all into little pieces.

"No. It's not enough. I need her, without her nothing is enough."

"That's what you should have said to her. Don't glare at me I'm right, but I have an idea. I saw it in an American cartoon."

And that's how he lets his younger brother convince him to send a note to Cha-young using Inzaghi, the pigeon had shown up one night and he'd been so happy he almost kissed the bird.

"How will he know where Cha Young lives?" He asks skeptical even as he ties the note to the birds leg.

"I showed him a picture of her house. According to the cartoon, birds just know.”

He stares at the younger man, wondering why he's listening to this ridiculous plan.

"This is stupid. I should just text her, Inzaghi is never going to deliver this. He's just a regular pigeon."

"This is more romantic." He answers matter of fact.

"How is a pigeon delivering a message in anyway romantic?" He challenges already knowing from the shit eating grin he won’t like the response.

"The same way pig blood was." The brat counters and he doesn't get a chance to respond before Han Seo picks Inzaghi up and throws him out the window, "In the name of love!" He only barely stops himself from bashing his head into the wall, the younger man has to wrestle him to the ground.

It's stupid. They did all of this for nothing the cool breeze makes him pull his coat tighter around his body, exposed to the weather on the open space of the rooftop.

He checks his watch, 9:48.

She's not coming and the worst part is that he doesn't know if it's because that damn bird never delivered his message or if it's because she really doesn't want anything to do with him. The burden of not knowing hurts more than anything.

Expelling the air in his lungs he walks back to the single door that leads off the roof, twisting the doorknob in his hand and pulling it open.

Meeting the shocked face of one Cha-young.

They both just stare at each other before he speaks, "You came."

He can't believe it. Inzaghi had actually delivered the note, somehow the pigeon had found her house and she was here. He almost pinches himself to see if he'd passed out on the roof and this was just a dream.

"I didn't know Inzaghi was a carrier pigeon." She futilely tries to change the subject and he takes a step back, gathering the tattered pieces of his courage. The same courage that had propelled him to kiss her all those months ago on the stairs.

"I'm so happy you're here. I waited for you."

She stares at him like he has two heads before blushing, and avoiding his eyes.

"Come with me." He extends his hands and tries not to be too hurt when she bypasses it and steps around him instead.

At least she was here.

With a quick swipe of his hand he sends the message to his accomplices.

Now.

The lights come on, fairy lights decorating the roof top in a heavenly glow. She spins around in wonder, eyes nearly as bright she's so beautiful it's almost painful to look at her.

Then the music starts.

The soft notes filling the space.

When I walk down a road I don't know well....

She looks around in wonder, staring back at him she can’t believe what’s happening.

Then the letters start falling from the sky, all the letters he had written to her alone and missing her thousands of miles away. His plaza family smiles down at him, throwing letters from a higher building.

Cha-young stares up at the sky in surprise, hundreds of letters landing all around her.

It had taken a few days for Luca to send them all over and then another day to get the guts to do this, there was no turning back now. He had never willingly made himself vulnerable to anyone else, but according to Han Seo it was the only way he was going to win her back.

“She just wants to know that you love her too. Show her.”

He watches anxiously as she picks up a letter, stroking lightly at her own name on the front looking at him with stunned wet eyes.

“You wrote me a letter.” Her voice is revere and awe that he doesn’t deserve, not after everything he has put her through in the sake of protecting himself but he’s too elated to see her looking at him like that again, like he’s someone important to her.

“182. For each day we were apart. I told you I thought about you everyday, and every time I did I wrote you a letter.”

She stares at the letter in her hand, gently ripping it open and devouring the words on the page. Nerves shoot up and down his body as he watches her read his most private thoughts about her, her expressive face for once empty of emotions as she silently reads the letter.

He waits.

Breathless and terrified.

“Why didn’t you ever send them? They were mine so why did you keep them?” He hears an edge in her voice that makes him wonder if she’s only talking about the letters.

“Cha-young, I don’t think you understand.”

She breathes out loudly, stomping over to him until they are inches apart and he has no choice but to look into the deep pool of her eyes.

“I don’t! I don’t understand anything, I thought you had found someone else in Malta and the postcards were just your way of being nice. I thought you didn’t feel the same way I did, you were sending Han Seo letters but you wouldn’t do the same for me. What was I supposed to think? Why didn’t you try to help me understand, you were gone for six months!”

There’s so much wrong with everything she said, how could he find anyone else when his heart beats for her? How could he forget her when everything he did reminded him of her, he saw her every night in his dreams. But he doesn’t make the same mistake this time, he says what’s important.

“I feel the same way. I love you Cha-young. I thought this was better for you, that this could be enough. But I was wrong, I missed you every minute of every--”

“Come home with me.”

He stops, stares, gapes and then stares some more.

“What? I wasn’t finished confessing though.” Actually offended that she interrupted his planned speech. He was about to recite one of his favorite Italian love poems for her and then ask her to dance.

She rolls her eyes dragging him towards the door, “Don’t you think we’ve wasted enough time? It’s been six months and you have been here for too long, you have to go soon.”

She’s right, he has a flight in two days for an identity he borrowed for his escape.

“Listen to her, just go back to her place and have a good night!” That sounds like Cheol-Wook and then they all erupt into applause and start cheering and hollering, chanting their names and then to his embarrassment they start chanting, “Go have sex! Go have sex!” complete with the monks banging on their drums and he doesn’t think he will ever live down this moment, especially when he sees Miri capturing it on the new video camera he had gifted her.

He flips them off as an eager Cha-young pulls him away their laughter following them all the way.

The car ride is too long on the way over and she wonders how quickly she can undress them both as soon as they reach, there is simply no time to waste.

But once they get to the doorstep he suddenly freezes, tugging her backwards into his chest.

“This looks familiar doesn’t it?” His voice is dark and smoky and she immediately knows what he’s referring to, and she refuses to give him any reaction.

“Are you seriously doing this right now?”

“You let someone else touch you. Here.” He runs a hand up her neck, briefly squeezing, “And here,” she gasps at his hands suddenly on her breast, squeezing harshly at the tender flesh.

“So what are you going to do about it?” She knows that she’s playing with fire, but that is their foundation. She has never aimed to cool him off or tone him down, she sees the dark side inside of him and loves it, encourages it and feeds on it herself allowing it to bring her darkness out too.

He kicks the door open, shoving her side and she delights at the rough treatment. She hopes that she is filled with his bruises tomorrow.

She doesn’t wait for his next move, pulling her shirt up and over her head before tugging off her skirt leaving herself in a barely there lace panties and a matching lace bra that is translucent, her nipples peeking through the sheer material. He stares at her transfixed, his hunger evident in his eyes and in the tent forming in his tight dress pants.

“Take those off.” She commands and he smirks before obeying, peeling the pants off his thighs standing in his button down shirt and tight boxer briefs that leave nothing to her imagination, every delicious inch of him visible. She steps forward bringing their bodies in contact, before thrusting her hand inside the opening of his briefs. He feels hard and smooth, liquid pooling at the tip and she twists her hand collecting it to ease her slow strokes up and down. His voice hitches as she fingers his balls and without warning she tugs his boxers off, leaving him bare to her eyes.

Mesmerized by the unencumbered sight of him, she drops to her knees using her hand to guide him to her eagerly waiting mouth.

His flavor explodes on her tongue and she swallows more, grabbing his hips to drag him deeper into her mouth until she can feel him in her throat, but even after her eyes start to burn and she feels herself choking she doesn’t stop, bobbing up and down hungrily, sloppy wet sounds filling the room in a filthy symphony. At first he lets her control the movement, pliant in her hands but as she increases her speed and suction he starts groaning and huffing loudly and then she feels his hand on the back of her hand, keeping her in place and when she looks up at him he looks wrecked. Eyes dazed and his face red and flushed, she ingrains that image in her mind, for when he’s gone and all she has are her toys.

She stares back defiantly before he draws himself out of her mouth, a single line of spit connecting them and then he thrusts back into her mouth roughly and she opens her mouth wider to accept the abuse, loving every second of it even as a her throat aches. He sets a frantic pace, his balls slamming against her chin and she doesn’t realize at first that his grunts have transformed into words, too much blood rushing to her head.

“Mine. Mine, nobody can---ah fuck! Nobody can see you like this. Only me. You’re mine.”

He fucks her mouth like it’s his to use and do what he pleases, and she’s wetter than she’s ever been listening to him claim her verbally and with the wet push of his dick in her mouth.

She starts grinding on the floor like a cat in heat and without preamble he grabs her under her armpits and lifts her like she weighs nothing, his dick sliding free from her hot mouth, “I want to make you scream.” He says this like a declaration of love and she throws herself at him, kissing the words off his lips. His tongue swirls in her mouth and she wonders if he can taste himself in her. It makes her hotter and she grinds her barely covered pussy onto his naked length, groaning at the friction even though the thin layer separating them.

He tosses her onto the bed and she doesn’t even remember them walking, his tongue and his wondering fingers had completely distracted her.

She lays sprawled across the bed as he stares at her, like she’s feast he can’t wait to devour.

“Nobody has been in here.” She doesn’t know if he’s asking a question or making a statement, but she feels that his jealousy is real. Seeing her with someone else had done something to him, guilt washes over her. If she had seen him with someone else she would have lost her mind too.

“Nobody. I never brought anyone home before, that guy was a mistake. I was just hurt and missing you. I’m sorry.”

He had abandoned her for six months and she didn’t owe him anything but his pain is her pain and they are stronger now, everything has been said.

“Good.”

Then he rips her panties away and buries his face between her legs, prying her wide open with his hands and lapping at her with his searing hot tongue. Immediately he has his wish and she screams, loud enough to fill the entire room.

“Already screaming amore? It’s going to be a long night, I want to make you hoarse.”

She doesn’t get a moment to respond before he’s back to licking and sucking at her most sacred part, fingers deep inside her as he thrusts and strokes alongside his tongue, his fingers and tongue moving in tandem and she tries to stifle the scream but a particularly deep fuck makes the sound erupt from her throat and her head feels dizzy from the overwhelming sensation.

He has boundless energy it seems, as time drags by and she feels her body tightening up as he systemically destroys her, he never takes a break or pauses, slurping up all the liquid that drips from her and the sounds of him swallowing are beyond erotic. When a hand runs up her stomach and squeezes at a bouncing breast she can’t contain her moans of pleasure, crying out as his fingers pinching the tight bud of her nipple.

“Please.”

He coos in her, “So pretty when you beg.” Then he sticks his tongue as far as it can go and she hears the rush of blood in her head as her body shakes apart and her release gushes from her body, twitching when he laps it all up her oversensitive body recoiling from the overstimulation.

She has never come like that before, most men have never put in the work necessary to make her come and she wasn’t one to fake it so her experiences with sex with someone else were few and far in between.

This feels like nirvana.

“You still with me amore?” The bastard looks so smug, looming above her naked arms on the side of her head, and she had no idea when he took his shirt off.

“I can’t feel like my legs.”

He chuckles loudly at the statement, grinning growing wider.

“Well I can assure you that they’re still there and they will look great wrapped around my waist.”

Raising to his challenge, although her body is still buzzing she wraps her legs around his waist, they feel like jelly but she finds the strength to follow through with her movement.

“I was right they do look great.”

“Well this would look great in me.” She counters, grabbing at his thick ruddy red dick jutting from his body and he rocks into her hand before knocking her hand away and taking himself in his hand.

“Do we need a condom?” He asks her, looking like he is ready to stop at nay minute if she tells him that they do.

“No.”

She has been on birth control since she was a teen and there’s been no one for her since she met him, and she trusts that it’s been the same for him.

“Thank goodness, I want to feel everything.” He barely finishes his sentence before he’s easing into her, slow and steady. She lets him continue for a moment before she tightens her legs around his waist and pulls him in roughly, as deep as she can get him in this position. “Fuck, you’re so impatient.”

“Shut up and fuck me already.”

He grumbles at her calling her bossy, but she sighs when he draws out and slams back in with a quick snap of his hips.

“Yes just like that!”

He takes direction very well, repeating the motion until the bed starts to creak from their movements, he pistons in and out of her gone all semblance of gentle or slow, they have teetered into a speed that can only be defined as “break neck” and she feels her body sliding up the mattress as he pounds into her over and over again, she latches onto his neck eager to leave a branding mark on him and he groans at the suction, grinding harder into her and gripping her ass to force her to meet his vicious thrusts.

Absently she feels him peeling her bra from her body, the only remaining item of clothing that has survived their coupling and she knows exactly when he sees the scar. The grotesque knitting of skin that had left a permanent scar on her shoulder, she almost covers it up but when she peels her eyes open he is staring at her mesmerized.

“Don’t look.”

He leans down to kiss it, the softest more precious kiss she has ever received in her life.

He peppers more kisses all over, then strokes at it with a single finger.

“I should have realized, this was your confession. I was an idiot. I will never be that stupid again, I love you so much. I would do anything for you. Anything.”

He puts her legs on her shoulder, nearly bending her in half before resuming his thrusts but they are less frenzied now, it feels like lovemaking. Her eyes prickle when he kisses her scar with every downward thrust, whispering, “Beautiful, so beautiful. Every inch of you.”

She cries out.

With every thrust he kisses her scar, making her feel lightheaded and naked.

When he moves them into a new position, her back to his front giving him better access to her scar, she loses herself as he whispers sweet nothings into her ears and litters the spot with warm kisses.

She falls off the edge with his lips on her scar and him deep inside her, warm bursts filling her up before leaking out onto the bed sheets.

“Today’s our last day.”

Waking up next to him is torture, she tries not to ingrain that in her mind but it’s too late it’s already there. He blinks away the sleep in his eyes at her words and then nods solemnly in agreement.

“Yes for this visit. But I’ll always come back for you.”

She smiles brightly, “Don’t keep me waiting for too long.”

They don’t leave the bed except to get breakfast and that ends with her laid across the kitchen table getting taken from behind after teasing him. He can’t seem to keep his hands off her new hair, twisting the short strands in his hands and yanking on them. She catches him looking at her heatedly more than once.

Then they wind up in the shower, trying to clean up and getting dirtier instead, his hands tight in her hair and around her waist as he hoists her up to pound her into the wall. Making up for lost time.

They get messages from their entire family, Vincenzo showing her a message from Han Seo asking if he’s going to be an uncle soon. She promises to embarrass him in front of Miri very, very soon.

Both pretend they don’t feel the day fading away, bringing them closer to their goodbye.

Tomorrow he will be gone again, but there’s no guessing now. She knows what she means to him now and that’s more than enough.

She wakes up to an empty bed and a ticket to Malta, the ball is in her court.

#vincenzo #chayenzo #smut #but you know with feelings #romance isn't dead #you can find it in strange places #like pig's blood #han seo has the best wingman #the mafia family

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