It’s heavy
Erm its a small thing about wanting to carry Ume’s burdens ig that ive been thinking about (even though i ended up going a whole other direction than i originally daydreamed. When i first thought about it, it was gonna be like stand in the rain dramatic but.)
its sfw and theres no cws i think except it’s kinda spoilery from recent chapters (not in depth tho) Also I read through it once but you know how it goes with proofreading owo)/
"I didn't know it would feel that heavy," Sakura says, mid bite into his lunch.
"Whatd'ya mean?" You swallow your own food before getting a drink. He's talking about Umemiya.
"The resolve to fight. For the town, the people you...love," he grits out the last word, still unused to verbally speaking about affection, but he's been getting better. "The weight of everything on your shoulders makes it hard to move sometimes" Your eyes widen at that. At the change in demeanor since he first came to town. He's really improved since you first met and honestly the change is for the better.
"Is it...a bad feeling?" You wonder, food forgotten now that the conversation has turned serious.
"Not bad, just annoying. And comforting? I don't know how to explain it." He's flushed now, embarrassed by the inability to find the proper words to convey just how it is. It's one of those things you have to feel for yourself to really grasp.
"Exhausting too I bet," you say more to yourself, thoughts suddenly going fully to the white haired man. Two bi-colored eyes look your way as you twirl your fork in your hands thoughtfully. He turns even redder when he sees your dazed look, knowing you're ruminating about Umemiya. You take out your phone, shooting out a text to see where he's at. When he texts back that he's on his way to the cafe from school, you decide you'll meet him halfway, telling Sakura you'll be back in a bit and that he can have your leftovers.
You're jogging really, not caring about pacing yourself when an urge has overtaken you. The anxiety spreads in your chest to your arms and hands, prickling at your fingertips. Nothing's wrong, but at the moment you feel like if you don't see his face soon, you'll never see it again. Logically, you talk yourself down knowing those thoughts are just your brain screwing with you, but the feeling won't go away until you get to him.
The sun warms Hajime’s face as he heads to Kotoha’s, wind blowing the chimes as they clink daintily. He's got an easy walk going, not surrounded by people for once.
The look on his face when he spots you is one of delight, slowly switching to concern from the way you're running towards him, cheeks flushed.
"Hey pumpkin, what's with the running? Somethin' up?" He asks before you plow straight into his chest, arms squeezing around his waist. You shake your head, tightening him in your hold knowing it's not gonna hurt him in the slightest.
"Can I carry it sometimes?" you mumble from his chest after a minute of breathing in his scent, sweat and deodorant mixing into a smell that was so him it calmed the frayed nervous that had been unraveling. When he asks what you'd be carrying, you lift your face to lock eyes with him.
"You? Everything you're carrying? Not all the time, but I don't want you to be the only one shouldering so much weight. I'm not that strong, but," you're suddenly self conscious about it, looking down at your feet for a second before forcing yourself back to look at his face. "but I can do it for you. Whenever you need me to." You finish, waiting on his response. He breathes deep and ponders it for a second, the look on his face a mix of hesitance and adoration at your declaration. For once he’a speechless, but he’s not surprised it’s you who’s rendered him as such.
“…I love you,” he says simply, eyes wide. Like he just rediscovered the fact despite his almost constant mission to let you know that with his words and actions on a daily basis.
“That’s not what-,”
“I know. I know, but I just wanted to say it I think. Or I couldn’t help it.” He kneels down to your level, holding both of your hands in his own, a look of resolve in his cloud grey eyes. “I can try…letting you carry some of it. It’s heavy.”
“That’s fine,” and you release his hands before grabbing his face. “I’ve got you.”
Atlas was punished to hold the weight of the world, but Hajime isn’t Atlas and he has you.
You both drop the subject for a bit, a ghost of the conversation still stays lingering in both of your heads. It's easy to say he'll rely on you like that, but the truth is putting it into practice is remarkably difficult.
He's still wondering how to work this new part of your dynamic when you decide to take the bull by the horns. He wakes up and shoots a text to Hiragi, telling him he'll meet him at the bakery to help paint the new sign, but he receives a text back saying it's been taken care of. Well that clears things up a bit, he thinks. So he goes to Kotoha's knowing she's been needing someone to do a supply run...only to find the first years already carrying the groceries over, and when he tries to help put them away? He's blocked from them, Nirei stuttering that they can handle it on their own.
His sister chimes in, though, that she thinks you really needed help with something over near the park. He thanks her, figuring his two main task for the day were complete, albeit almost immediately without him lifting a finger. By the time he makes his way to you, it seems you've been sitting for a while, passing the time on your phone wearing one of his old hoodies.
"You needed help lovebug?" He's asking, a hand running rough his hair, breath taken at the sight of you. You don't look any way different from any other day, but the feeling he gets in his chest when he sees you has yet to fade and he doesn't think it ever will.
"Yeah. It's a tough job. Think you can help?"
"Anything for you." You can tell by his voice and the look on his face that he means it.
"I want my boyfriend to relax for the day. Do you know how I can make that happen?" Faux innocence filling your expression. A few things click in his head at once. Throughout the week, his schedule seemed to be getting freer and freer no matter how many people he'd heard needed help with something. Every time he checked in with the person, someone had already taken care of it vehemently denying a need for any more assistance. Even today, the two things he planned to do were quickly swept up and deposited for someone else to do.
The look on your face, and your question have the last puzzle piece fitting into place. He'd smack himself for taking this long to notice if he wasn't flushing a bit right now. You were around less during the week or at the very least on your phone a bit more than usual, but he chalked it up to it being a busy week for you. He never would've thought you were working behind the scenes to lighten his load.
He'd gotten more done for himself this week than he had in a while and he had you to thank for that, even though it took him a while to figure it out. He thought briefly about thanking you, but realized this is what you wanted to do, no thanks necessary. So he shrugs before answering your question.
"I could've sworn he said something about really wanting to kiss you right now. He's around here somewhere I think," he's walking closer, hand on his chin, looking around as if to search for himself.
"Great, when you find him, let him know I've got a pillow and blanket fort set up at home with a stack of movies near the TV." You dodge him, twisting out of the way to head in the direction of your place. He huffs a laugh before running up to your side, arm wrapping around your waist, and drawing you in a close hug. He presses a big kiss to the crown of your head, and releases you just enough to keep walking. He feels lighter than he has in a while, and if you'd been asked, you would've told him the same thing.
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Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:
The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.
2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]
3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.
4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]
5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]
Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]
At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]
6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.
7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.
He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]
8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!
So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.
Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?
So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.
I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.
The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.
anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.
As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.
Also the books, the books slap.
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Fair warning: I don't think this is going to be a question, just a few post-latest chapter thoughts haphazardly stacked together under a trenchcoat.
Thank you for this chapter. It made my day to read something almost fluffy (I don't think anything in LH can be called purely fluff, and that's a good thing because fluff is best when it is padding for the plot, and that's what this chapter was).
LH Book 5 has been the beginning of payoff for the Dramione slow burn, and while that is immensely satisfying, it also means there are less milestones to look forward to. I don't know if this was an intentional decision, but I love how you started seeding in another slow burn that has kept us equally invested: the Black family drama.
I love reading anything that does the dysfunctional family dynamic well, and seeing Draco getting old enough to identify it clearly, have questions, testing his boundaries, fighting back against what he's been told to accept, has all been immensely satisfying as someone who has gone through this myself. Your depiction of the Black family dynamics has been /chef's kiss/. * spoiler for chapter 70 * when Draco witnesses his cousins casually throwing information his way, what I wanted was for one of the adults to see how much he needed that information, that connection, and give it to him. My god ❤️ You have written a lonely boy craving family so well.
Back to the Dramione of it all (and this might be a question), I love how Harry chose to approach the contained chaos waiting to unravel around him and just bluntly told Draco what he did. Question: do you think this is something Canon Harry would have done in this instance? Was there a choice to change anything in your characterisation of Harry (with respect to Canon) that resulted in this wonderful, blunt, more-mature-than-many-adults-who-can't-even-identify-their-needs version of Harry?
If not, what canon Harry actions/traits do you think would point to him acting this way?
Thank you! This is a beautiful and very kind trench coat, and I am luxuriating in it.
I will answer your question while continuing to luxuriate: I don't think canon Harry would ever confront his friends about an emotional problem, mostly because because he never does. Hermione and Ron, the two people he's most comfortable with in the world, are feuding for most of HBP, and while he does have a few "can't you guys just get along?" type-outbursts, he doesn't really sit down and ask "hey, what's going on with you? How can I help?" because canon!Harry is, as you might expect for a 15-year-old boy, better at ignoring his problems than solving them. (I also think there's an ingredient of conflict-avoidance in there from his upbringing with the Dursleys, but I'll be the first to admit that's mostly headcanon.)
My Harry is a bit softer — in part because that's just how I prefer my Harry, my favorite scenes with him are those where he's showing tenderness for things other people have neglected. This is the best of him, and this is the core of him, in my opinion. Canon Harry has this marvelous capacity for empathy, and when he chooses to use it, it's kind of astonishing how capable he is of resisting prejudice and caring for people. He's fiercely loyal in defending Hagrid, always. He makes a point of freeing Dobby, who's just spent a book trying to maim him. He refuses to let Sirius kill Pettigrew, even knowing that Pettigrew betrayed his parents ("My dad wouldn't want you to" — sweet boy, you mean you don't want them to, and you understand on some level that's the only thing you can say that will stop them.) He saves Gabrielle Delacour, because even if she would have been safe in the end, he's not leaving a little girl at the bottom of a fucking lake. He reads the Half-Blood Prince's handwriting — Snape's handwriting — and thinks: "I bet he's someone like me." On the basis of handwriting, he empathizes with this person! Harry is constantly trying to save people, and he doesn't ever really tell us why. And we'll never know why canon!Harry does that, consciously or subconsciously, but I have to imagine that every time Harry looks at someone in pain, he sees a lonely kid stuck under a staircase, and he thinks not fucking today.
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