#//And the only person he genuinely considered; he ended up having a Fallout with
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got a text from my coworker apologizing that she accidentally outed me to another coworker and i am not sure how to respond because on the one hand theres not really a safety issue and if there is fallout im pretty sure its handlable and the most likely outcome is literally nothing happens. like one of our other coworkers is openly nonbinary so this is not a stealth-necessary work environment and i have often considered coming out to coworkers with the main reason i havent being because i dont want to put the effort in to talk to everyone LOL. and the coworker who outed me is a pretty good friend and i know it was an accident and she feels bad so like i dont really want her to beat herself up about it or for it to reflect badly on our relationship
but on the other hand im not sure how to convey that without saying something like "no worries" or "you're fine" or otherwise minimizing what she did, which i dont want to do because despite there not being a safety issue it is kind of upsetting and nerve wracking. like i just dont have control over a situation where i previously did have control & there isnt a way to put that back the way it was. and i don't know exactly what our other coworker has been told either, or how he reacted, or anything really, so i just sort of have to wait until sunday to see if he says anything or treats me differently (the latter of which i think is extremely likely; not that he'll be directly bigoted, but ive talked to this coworker about trans stuff before and the conversations have been... ill informed and very exhausting. usually i just try to end them as fast as possible because i dont get paid enough to have a difficult conversation with someone who knows nothing but thinks they are an expert, especially when i am the only one of us with any personal experience).
she already feels bad and i dont want to make her feel worse (she's my friend!), but i also don't like being put in the position where i have to comfort her about the thing that she did to me. i know this isn't what she intended like i firmly believe this is a good faith apology, i just dont know how to respond to it in a way that doesn't involve saying it's okay. and i don't want to say it's okay because it really is not okay.
(the other thing also, which just has to do with the general atmosphere of transphobia and not my coworkers apology, is i find that i am usually expected to say everythings fine when something transphobic happens to me, lest i be painted as the evil and unreasonable transgendered who isnt willing to let people make mistakes and rules my tyrannical pronoun kingdom with an iron fist. or whatever. i dont think my coworker would react this way, but years and years of people misgendering/outing/saying transphobic things and then crying to me as though they're the victim and reacting extremely negatively if i did not dry their tears and reassure them that They're A Good Person, Really... it weighs on you. there's an unspoken expectation that you will be endlessly tolerant and forgiving, and an accompanying resentment or anger if you don't fulfill that expectation. even when people aren't getting angry at you, you still flinch from the times people were, and you still try to temper your reaction based on the possibility they will react badly. difficult to have honest and genuine conversations in that environment!)
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Alhaitham tends to lean toward being a service top. However, he is 1) okay with bottoming if his significant other wants him to be, esp if he’s allowed to still take the reins in pleasing them, and 2) is okay letting his significant other take over completely and prioritizing his pleasure if they want, BUT he will be pouty then Entire Time. Unless they can break his composure-
#hc; alhaitham#//And then there’s the fun fact that he’s never actually had sex before#//Never found the time nor the person for it#//And the only person he genuinely considered; he ended up having a Fallout with#//Though post-Sumeru archon quest; the people he’d be okay with had grown a bit#//He is an Avid study however the instant he gets in a relationship bc he wants to be Ready#//Deffo studied LOADS back when he’d first contemplated courting Kaveh before their fight#//Never really made use of it since#//Practiced a fair amount in himself though; that’s how he figured out his preference#//Low key LOVES getting spoiled by his partner; but he really does wanna be the one spoiling them more#//Like he does in everyday life with them—truly he is SUCH a doting partner#//Can be a bit of a bratty bottom tho; trying to take the lead when his partner told him to take it easy and be spoiled#//Teasing and riling up his partner; gotta shut him up real good if you want him to behave himself#//So basically; he likes things a certain way but is flexible abt it depending on his partners wants#//But that flexibility comes with Mischievous Compliance
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“I swear, if you hurt him –”
“If he wasn’t trying to be hurt he shouldn’t have –”
“Hold on!” Lance shouts, finally close enough to hear. “Everyone – cool it for a sec! Hold on!”
There’s still a lot of fear on a lot of faces, and a lot of anger, and a lot of weapons raised. But when a guy riding a fucking giant beastly grizzly bear the size of a house tells you to cool it for a sec (Jesus fucking Christ, Lance), then you cool it for a sec. There’s a kind of inherent authority demanded.
Lance pulls gently on the beast’s when he reaches a respectable distance, and it stops. (Keith knows, at this point, with the demon spider and the poison plants and just…everything else, he shouldn’t be surprised, but somehow he still is). He leans down and kisses it right between the ears, which causes several gasps and, if Keith is hearing correctly, a couple fainting bodies to hit the floor, before hopping to the side and sliding to the ground. His slight smirk suggests to Keith that the show of friendliness with the beast was an intentional one.
He keeps on hand on the beast, but he turns toward the gathered crowd of people, searching until he finds whoever he’s looking for – who, it turns out, is the dignitary.
“I have come to apologise,” he says solemnly. His tone and posture give no indication of sarcasm, and in fact, he has softened his entire face considerably, looking to the dignitary with more grace and understanding than anyone has, so far, let alone the person who not twenty four hours ago was flipping them off and calling them a brainless amoeba.
“I give up,” Allura mutters after a moment of shocked silence, throwing her hands up and sitting heavily on the ground. “I rescind my position. Hunk, you’re in charge now.”
Hunk pats her delicately on the head. Lance easily ignores the both of them.
“I really am sorry,” he says to the dignitary, which Keith thinks might be a hard case to make with the giant beast of controversy not two feet behind him. “I didn’t…I think there was some miscommunication here.”
The dignitary sniffs derisively, keeping one wary eye on the beast. “If by that you mean you refused to communicate with me at all, then yes.”
Lance holds his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, fair. I didn’t handle this well. But there was something off, here. If you’ll allow me to explain?”
For a moment Keith thinks, somehow, everything is going to go smoothly (for once). The dignitary seems to be genuinely considering Lance’s offer, and from experience Keith knows how convincing Lance’s earnestness can be. Besides that, this whole alliance is rocky, and the tension is coming to a head – a civil agreement could end this whole thing. Lance, although still among the most stubborn here, is offering something of an olive branch.
But all at once, the dignitary’s eyes harden. They open their mouth, stubborn set to their shoulder, and Keith’s hand tightens on his bayard. Lance, sensing the incoming fallout, does what he does best:
He talks.
“Corduroy was as scared as you were!” Lance blurts. The absurdity of his statement gives everyone pause – who the fuck is Corduroy – and he takes that opportunity to steamroll right on, talking so fast it’s difficult to keep up but impossible to look away. “You guys expanded your city limits in the winter, right? An increase of the entire perimeter to compensate for new growth and new projects. You’ve been planning for it for years, replanting a forest farther out to prepare for what you have to cut down. But Corduroy’s hunting ground was all the way to the edge of the first.” He looks back at the bear, who Keith can only assume he has named Corduroy, and smiles at it. It makes a rumbling noise in the back of its throat and limps forward, causing several scattered shouts of fear and raised weapons, but the beast only stares at them in what can only be described as judgement before nosing gently in Lance’s hair.
Keith’s jaw drops. Lance has had, what, four vargas with this thing? Five? And it already treats him with the same quiet affection that Blue or Red do, covering him in affection when he comes buzzing into their hangars, a bundle of enthusiasm. Only this bear is wild, and untameable, and apparently scared and injured besides.
The Blue Paladin is the Paladin of empathy and fluidity, indeed.
“Corduroy didn’t intend to attack anyone,” Lance continues softly. One of his hands reaches up to stroke the flank of the beast, as high as he can reach – which is not high. He doesn’t even reach up to the bear’s shoulders. “But if you woke up from a month long nap to try and find some food only to find other people taking residents where you used to live and hunt, and all of those people were screaming and running and making a ruckus at you, you’d get defensive too, I think. In fact you did! Understandably. This whole thing was just fear from all sides.”
The queen clears her throat. “The beast,” she says. “Corduroy. It…you have subdued it?”
“Not subdued,” Lance corrects. “It was just hungry. And hurt. And a little distrusting, I think, but it seems to understand reason pretty well.”
The queen hesitates for a moment, then nods to herself. She takes a step forward, her people parting for her instantly, until she is inches away from the beast. The beast watches her warily, but does not bear its teeth, nor does it growl at her closeness.
“Don’t, your majesty,” the dignitary begs. There is genuine fear in their voice. Keith wonders what has made them so afraid, if it was just the up-close struggle with the beast itself or if there is more to it. He figures it’s not his place to ask. “Just because one inane individual has somehow earned the beast’s trust does not make it trustworthy. Remember the pain it has caused.”
“And look at the pain we have caused it,” she murmurs. The bear snorts, injured leg pawing carefully at the ground. Slowly, giving the beast ample time to turn away, she extends her hand. The air itself feels like it’s holding her breath. Her hand finally stretches out as far as it can go, and she rests it on the bear’s great snout as it bends its head to meet her. The touch seems to loosen her shoulders instantly, and with her relief the rest of the crowded people exhale, tension that has been building finally coming to a head and leaking out.
“I can’t say I approve of your methods,” the dignitary says begrudgingly. “But I suppose I did ask you to solve the problem yourself, didn’t I.”
Lance beams. “Yes! I was very smug about it!”
Keith hears a snort behind him. When he looks, Hunk and Shiro are looking deliberately at the ground.
“The important thing is that I think this matter is as good as solved,” Coran interrupts smoothly. His face is a mask of pleasant professionalism, and Keith suddenly remembers that Coran has been managing disastrous diplomatic affairs for longer than toilets have been invented on earth, so. Maybe they should be asking him along for way more missions than they do. “I trust, your majesty?”
The queen nods. “Yes, I think so. If you’ll return with me to the meeting room, we can outline final arrangements for the alliance, and then you may return to your ship.”
“Indeed,” Coran says, cutting a glance back at the rest of the gathered team. He meets eyes with Keith, then glances at the stubborn way Lance distances himself from the rest of them, and purses his lips. “We have some matters of our own to settle, I believe.”
-- -- --
next
#okay im aware this isnt a pov switch#its bc i cut yesterday's part in half lol bc i was tired#but the last of the fic SHOULD be posted tmrw. theyre gonna talk about trust etc and then boom loose ends are tied.#vld#voltron#lance#lance mcclain#keith#keith kogane#klance#pre klance#bamf lance#langst#lance is good with animals#pining keith#black paladin keith#red paladin keith#blue paladin lance#red paladin lance#its a whole thing#lance is a disney princess#longpost#my writing#fic#team as family
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My Spoiler Free Review of the Fallout Show:
Biggest, sloppiest, awesomest recommend of my life, solid 9/10.
The show’s tone was absolutely perfect, nailing the feel, tone, attitude and comedy of the fallout games, as well as understanding the atmosphere needed to give the impression of a post-apocalyptic world. One complaint I have with a lot of post-apocalyptic shows is that it doesn’t feel like the world has been fucked over, but in Fallout it really gives the impression that 200 years have passed of not a single bit of true human development on the surface of the planet.
The show’s writing can be a bit iffy in some places such as certain plot points earlier on and some lines, but in all honesty it’s all around a completely solid: plot, story and script, while also not being afraid to add to the Fallout universe and lore. The characters are interesting, intriguing and genuinely enjoyable save for one, but even then he’s still written well and an enjoyable character, despite being weaker than the other main characters.
It isn’t perfect though! And I really don’t expect it to. The CGI can be a bit, euhhh in some places, but it isn’t immersion breaking in my opinion. I am slightly disappointed certain things from the Fallout universe didn’t see representation within the show, but to be honest I think it’s really forgivable as every other aspect brought in from Fallout is done perfectly. The world itself is done perfectly, with all environments again given a feel that actually looks like and feels like the environments of the game in person. The Vault, Wasteland and other Settlements are done absolutely perfectly, and genuinely look like how I’d picture them in my head. Genuinely one of the best adapted universes to digital screens.
As for the people saying the show is only there to just decanonise the non-Bethesda Fallout games - a sentiment that has been shot down by the creative leads of the Fallout Franchise themselves - the show definitely does not do this. And it’s clear that the next season of the show will definitely focus on non-Bethesda projects, and people do need to remember this is a Bethesda show, as well as the Bethesda games - unfortunately - being more well known than non-Bethesda Fallout projects, save for New Vegas. But even then, things are pulled from non-Bethesda projects, and considering the ending, there isn’t anything to worry about in terms of decanonisation. I personally, as a long time fan of most Fallout games (I’m still iffy on 76), see this show as a beautiful love letter to the game series that I’ve enjoyed since I was 7. I grew up on the original Fallout and Fallout 2, as well as played the hell out of New Vegas, and think that these games didn’t get as much love as they should have in Fallout 3 and 4, but this tv show really makes me think that Bethesda is showing that they care about these games too, and I have faith that they will be shown in future seasons as perfectly as they have in this season.
Honestly, if you love Fallout, please watch it! If you know nothing about Fallout? Watch it anyway! Some references and such may not be as impactful to you, but I feel it has a story and plot that can be enjoyed by anyone.
Oh yeah and all the characters are hot.
#fallout tv series#fallout prime#fallout 2024#fallout 3#fallout new vegas#fallout nv#fallout 4#fallout tv show#fallout 76#fallout#ramblings#show review#show recommendations#fallout 2#fallout tactics#fallout brotherhood
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i have to say it’s kind of funny seeing people reblog my poorly made fo4 essay after the show came back. welcome back haters. If anyone’s curious about my thoughts on the tv show, it’s not my thing. i don’t really like it. i think the props department and the set people did a fantastic job but i think all the problems ive pointed out about fo4 carry into it heavily. and everything about like. everything. I don’t like the brotherhood as a milita, and it’s. Weird. To see west coast brotherhood portrayed as that.
to be clear, i have not finished the show nor do i plan on finishing it. i got about halfway through and im not going to hold the parts I haven’t seen against it. for the purposes of this rant, pretend that all you’ve seen is 4 episodes. act like this is still cable. and don’t get fucking weird about the fact I decided I wasn’t into it and dropped it. i don’t care if you personally think these issues are fixed by the end of the show.
ive always been an insane fallout conspiracy theorist and i was expecting to at least get super mad about the lore but im just. kind of apathetic. i think personally, that it’s fucking baffling that they decided to make their one main black character . like that. Maximus is like, constantly failing or being incredibly cruel to another person. like, when he put a razor into his only friends shoe for no reason other then social clout. i don’t know if they considered the optics of making the entirety of the brotherhood horrifically abuse the only black character because i genuinely believed for like the first three episodes that there was going to be some kind of “this brotherhood is racist” reveal, but no. I don’t think they thought about that. i don’t think they thought about much, to be honest. it feels like every new bit of information we get has to be delivered to us in the most unsubtle of ways. And that makes it boring to me. i don’t like how there’s essentially nobody normal in the wasteland except Lucy, because like. that’s really never been the case.
yeah, sure, there’s a bit of cruelty in everyone in fallout. that’s how this world works. But this show beats you over the head with the conclusion that everyone must be not trusted and everyone is to be feared and the wasteland really has fallen into complete anarchy. i think the complete destruction of shady sands and the ncr is a direct concequence of that choice. bethesda fallouts are kind of stuck in the old world apocalypse, and i just. think that’s kind of boring. the whole fantasy of fallout is seeing how things can change, and it feels like sometimes Bethesda takes “war never changes” too literally. like yeah. but that’s not what the quote means. it’s about how conflict is always the same, not how the world around it stays the same always. i also just think the fact there’s really nothing new or original to explore here is .. boring.
Quite frankly, im tired of the brotherhood. Im tired of the ncr. Im tired of the “find your family” plot. Im tired of the enclave. there’s nothing to mix up the formula. and im sorry, but i think the characters are boring too. i think that Walton goggins ghoul is not very interesting. I think Lucy’s arc is just. kind of predictable. because she’s literally just doing what people tell her with a kindness twist. fallouts always had these cool ass side characters, like, every dlc character from new Vegas. obviously it’s hard to translate that into a show, but who’s favorite is going to be the weird old lady? who’s honestly going to be interested in the horny farmers plight? does anyone care about that guy maximus was friends with? every character just falls flat for me. and that’s why i dropped it. because the new things it brings are just.. boring. and the things they keep the same are boring too. Genuinely, i had a better time watching the resident evil netflix show. at least that was interesting. I don’t care if you like it. I don’t think you’re a bad person for liking it. I get why. I just didn’t. be respectful in the notes please.
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do you think benny would’ve just left the courier unburied if he didn’t have the khans with him? that post, especially the ending, really made me think about how much mindless killing you do and kind of can’t get away from along with how dehumanized (i think is what i’m looking for) a lot of the people are. like their only purpose is to be something to shoot at and get stuff from without a second thought about them at all. hopefully this makes sense and doesn’t sound like a big ol mess.
personally I think that Benny would have still wanted the Courier to be buried, but if it was any other gang of mercs it may not have happened. See I think Benny and the Khans may have clashed a lot in their principles but they overlap in a desire to give the Courier a proper burial.
While Benny probably thinks he's being purely respectful, I'm not sure if it's entirely genuine. See, in All Roads he didn't want Chance to be buried and got mad at the Khans for insisting on it. I think part of Benny's reasoning is to do with hiding the evidence. As suggested in this post, most people aren't gonna go digging up a graveyard to look for some missing courier. Then again, we know that Benny looks down on Chance for being an addict so maybe he thinks he's undeserving of a proper burial while the Courier is just a "wrong place wrong time" situation, idk.
It's worth pointing out that this clash in principles is something Benny jabs at the Khans about. His "Maybe Khans kill people without looking them in the face" is him directly saying "look how much I respect the people I kill, unlike you guys who probably shoot them in the back". I think he's projecting, or at least trying to convince himself and everyone else present that this is the correct way to do things (when it's still fucked up)
Anway, your second point:
I agree totally. Obviously a lot of it is because Fallout New Vegas is a video game where you kill people but I think it clashes a lot with the message of the game itself, but it's just part and parcel with the games going from isometric strat games to an FPS. As you said, a lot of characters and factions get dehumanised and reduced to just guys to shoot. But I do think that more people in Fallout should be like normal people who object to idk... straight-up murdering "Freeside thugs" yknow?
Having two characters who Do morally object to killing people does give me a lot to think about, especially with the way that Sun and Luke both have opposing reasonings behind their dislike of killing. Luke being a Follower who genuinely believes everyone is worthy of life while Sun is a Khan who thinks that the finality of death is not his to deliver. I wish more people explored it because it is genuinely interesting and fun and also more interesting to consider in this wide wide game of "guys who want you dead" they would be okay with putting in the ground
#Sun kills both Dean Domino and Lanius in my canon which is really funny to me. opposite ends of guy#anyway your ask made perfect sense <3 I hope I answered it well#txt
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I mean to be fair, the entire scene with Oodle and Pear at the beginning of Fartists both had good and bad points on Pear's side.
(essay under the cut)
The beginning of the major conflict starts in AIB 4, but to me, it starts in the 3rd episode. Pear is, in the best definition: an observer. He's done nothing to truly participate in the competition itself (which is itself a flaw, considering that practically drops Team 5 from 10 members to 9) and sometimes is a detriment to the team's success, like in AIB 2 and 3. Nonetheless, his lack of care towards the competition itself makes him a neutral party. And a neutral party looking on the absolute shitshow that was AIB 3's fight would probably immediately think "whoa! what the fuck! y'all need to calm down! this competition is tearing you all apart!"
And that's exactly what Pear thought.
It's interesting how the only characters that don't hate Pitchfork by the end of the episode are the ones that weren't there (Antimatter and Chip Bag) and... Pear. That isn't to say that Pear's motives are truly good at heart, after all everyone being serious is making it harder for him to relax and laze around. But his perspective seems to be at least of good nature, seeing that Oodle's challenges are driving people up the wall and instead of shifting any of the blame onto any one of his team members, blaming Oodle for the challenges in the first place.
But does Oodle really deserve that blame?
Oodle is trying his best- you can't really say that he isn't. Unlike a majority of hosts in object shows that are either apathetic, neutral, or even condescending to the contestants themselves, Oodle is cheerful, upbeat, and kind! His main motivation seemingly is to have fun, the reason he built the entire competition in the first place, but his cheerful and optimistic persona isn't without flaws- mainly that he tends to be overly forgetful and make oversights. (omg, he just like me fr)
Many of his oversights seem to be about the contestants themselves as well, and despite his efforts to help them get along, it's obvious that he doesn't seem to consider whether or not anyone might have protests with his competition, simply because well, he's having fun! He's putting this all together for them! Which, is understandable considering he's never really had friends before, so navigating through something like that would be completely foreign to him. He's vulnerable and he makes mistakes, but he genuinely does care about his contestants. Whether or not he truly is to blame for the Team 5 fight is really up to speculation- would they have gotten into an argument had the stakes not been so competitive? Considering how Pitchfork seems to immediately regret her actions after getting overwhelmed by anger- probably not!
That leads us finally to AIB 4.
Pear does not care about the competition. He doesn't bother to show up to his own team's elimination, even though he's up for elimination himself (being the final 2 as well). Oodle himself, the person that he's been blaming the entire team fallout on shows up personally to bring him to elimination, and this is the only time that Pear starts to genuinely care about what's going on. Oodle isn't busy zipping around the Blank Slate right now, so Pear can properly express his frustrations with the entire competition.
One of the flaws about Pear that tends to take away from his entire statement about the competition is how he intersperses genuine, understandable criticism with personal attacks on Oodle and what he's striving to accomplish. This wasn't needed in order to express how the competition was tearing people apart, but it gives us a look into Pear's character and how he views Oodle. Pear doesn't like Oodle at all, and his opinion on him has seemingly gotten worse after the big Team 5 blowout.
Pear has a point here! Oodle has sort of assumed that everyone would go along and agree with whatever competition that he has in mind, and especially with the lengths that he went to for the third challenge, I doubt that anyone would consent to having their limbs snatched and placed inside of a dumpster for a temporary amount of time. Although Oodle does seem to try to rectify this in future challenges (wanting the next challenge to be more low-key and not really having a choice on the fifth challenge), Pear's criticisms are more or less justified considering how he feels.
The thing is, although Pear is mainly incorrect, there's no way of him knowing that's not what everyone thinks. The only thing that he's been focusing on here is himself and the rest of his team. Even if everyone else in other teams is more-or-less alright, his entire team was tearing at the seams last challenge. Pitchfork is probably miserable, Chip Bag seemed to agree with him before getting pulled away by Creamy (which- the rest of Team 5 is something I could write another essay about), and he's not having fun. In a way, he's kind of acting like Oodle is, but instead of focusing too much on the broad scale, Pear is focusing too little on it.
Both Creamy and Pear have points in this situation. None of them really had lives before this game, so for many of them even with the fights, it's still a better situation than when they started! But, to be fair, Creamy is part of the group that won the argument against one singular person. Pear is still seeing this as more of an observer's outlook, seeing both sides of what exactly happened. It would make more sense that Creamy has a more positive view of this competition than Pear does. Does this mean Pear's outlook isn't self-serving? Nope! One of the reasons that he's so upset about this is because he didn't want this, so he assumes that no-one else does either. However, with what he's been able to see, it makes sense that he'd believe the others would at least agree somewhat with him.
The thing is, something that Pear fails to recognize is that Oodle is not malicious. Oodle starts to try and reason with Pear at the beginning, now more aware of his mistakes, but Pear refuses to let him finish his sentence. He doesn't want to hear any excuses, instead continuing to personally berate Oodle for everything that's happened. Many of Pear's points seem to be more of what Pear thinks himself, projected onto his team and the rest of his contestants, believing that he feels the same way as everyone else. This repeats itself a lot, with Pear believing himself that he's trying to help the rest of his team. That he's "standing up" against what's causing these problems in the first place. Although his points are understandable, he takes it too far in a direction that's more about personally attacking Oodle. But, he's stressed out! They're all stressed out! He has a reason to be upset, but he ends up taking it too far.
And Pear's confrontation and subsequent elimination both has good and negative consequences on the competition itself.
Oodle is clearly shaken up by that entire experience, not just from Pear's insults but from the subsequent effects it had. Team 5 is clearly upset at him now, but Oodle seems to be doing his best to try and make the competition more enjoyable for everyone involved, choosing a challenge that's a lot more low-key and chill, painting and drawing!
It's a breather, a more relaxing challenge compared to the stressful circumstances of the last episode. Despite his flaws, Oodle is genuinely trying his best in order to make the game a more pleasant experience for everyone involved, and Pear's argument may have made him realize that he should take more precautions. (This was written before episode 6, so this is mainly speculation) He even made the challenge's reward a fun pizza party!
Although, now without Pear, there's even more vitriol against Pitchfork by the rest of her team...
(If you can't tell I really like Pitchfork)
#aib#aib oodle#aib pear#pear aib#oodle aib#long post#in this essay i will *actually writes an essay*#i can't believe i spent over an hour writing this#animated inanimate battle
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What the hell is Ben thinking in NLMG? Part 1 (up to immediately following the outing)
Why is a multiple thousand word, multiple parts essay coming out about Ben from Never Let Me Go so long after the show ended? The very quick summary is – like many of us, I was immediately sucked in by the Dangerous Romance trailer. Excitement about the show made me want to learn more about Perth and Chimon’s background.
Although I swore I’d never watch Never Let Me Go for reasons I won’t go into here, I gave it a shot to see the two of them in action. As I watched, I fell completely in love with Chopper. And since Chopper loves Ben, I became somewhat obsessed with figuring out what the heck was going on in Ben’s head. On first watch, Ben drove me crazy— it felt like he was constantly flip-flopping; taking one step forward, two steps back; and generally being a big ole hypocrite.
But after multiple rewatches, I realized that Ben actually goes through four distinct character arcs within the show that help explain his actions. I’m going to break those down here.
(Quick caveat that this is very Ben/Chopper focused because I watched the absolute bare minimum of Ben’s scenes with Nuengdiao necessary to write this. Again, I love Chopper too much to see his person with someone else!)
Arc 1 - Ben explores being with a man for the very first time; he also realizes that losing Chopper as a friend hurt him badly
Let’s start by throwing it back to 10th grade. Here are a few things we know about younger Ben thanks to canon:
Chopper was his very close friend – they were close enough that other people like Nueng, who doesn’t seem to pay much attention to anyone at school, noticed their relationship.
He was at least equally, if not more terrified of his dad than he is in modern day.
Because of this fear, coupled with the things he’d presumably been hearing all his life about homosexuality being wrong, he lived in complete denial of at a minimum, his feelings for Chopper, but possibly his sexuality overall. He actually admits this twice:
Listen to his voice when he says this in episode 8 – he is rueful. He sounds incredulous. He’s realizing as he says it, that that was complete BS. He probably caught himself staring at Chopper’s pink lips or looking at the way his hair fell across his forehead and found ways to explain it away often enough that it became habit.
Back then, out of sheer self-preservation, Ben had thoroughly convinced himself either (a) that he was straight, or (b) that he absolutely, under no circumstances had feelings for his best friend. He suppressed all his feelings for Chopper so deep he didn’t even know they were there. And once he learned Chopper liked him, he rejected him in a way that was unmistakable.
At the time, that wasn’t a lie – Ben thought he meant it when he told Chopper he didn’t feel the same way.
10th grade to present day (less than two years)
Ben immediately suffers for this — he completely loses Chopper in his life. I get the sense they only had each other, and both of them leaned heavily on the other considering the stress they both were dealing with at home, so this would have created a noticeable absence in both of their lives.
You can argue that vacancy persists to modern day. To quote @thirstkanaphan , “the fallout of the loss of their relationship is also evident in their respective lack of other close friendships when the series begins. Does Chopper have any friends? The bullies don't target him unlike Nueng because he shrouds himself in an aura of cool untouchability (and genuine danger); but Chopper seems to be quite isolated. And while Ben achieves a high social rank in school (student council president) and cultivates a congenial personality, we also don't see anyone coming to his defense in the aftermath of The Outing. Who are their friends?”
Chopper later explains to Ben why he stopped talking to him, and his perspective is completely understandable, but I can also see how that wasn’t fair to Ben – to overnight lose his best friend when he thought he’d told Chopper the honest truth about how he felt.
I definitely don’t think Ben expected that would happen; I’m guessing for the first few weeks or months after Chopper pulled away, he kept waiting for him to come back
Over time, Ben became increasingly hurt and lonely, but I think once again he denied the shit out of it. He threw himself into his music (which based on the way Chopper spoke has only recently started to take up much more of his time). When they do speak for the first time in the present day – more to come on that – these are Ben’s first words:
It’s telling that Ben’s first reaction is anger to see Chopper. He’s convinced himself over time that losing Chopper was for the better – that Chopper is a selfish jerk – but that anger has only been masking a lot of pain underneath.
This brings us to the start of the series
Ben first starts paying attention to Nuengdiao for a few reasons: because Nueng seems so lonely; he’s in awe of Nueng’s piano playing; and as class president it really is his job to help put other students at ease. There certainly is a superficial attraction there but also — it’s no coincidence Neungdiao is Chopper’s cousin and presumably resembles him!
@thirstkanaphan adds: It's telling that Nueng and Ben probably did not interact much before the start of the series, but the death of Nueng's dad and his subsequent return to school results in the escalation of bullying towards Nueng, as the bullies feel as though Nueng no longer has the same protections as he once did. Ben is - at heart - a caring person who dislikes seeing others in pain.
Over time, this shifts to more genuine romantic interest. In Never Let Me Go, Nuengdiao serves as the first time Ben has felt brave enough to admit that he is interested in a man and to explore pursuing some kind of relationship (whereas, Ben plays an important role as a catalyst that helps get Nueng and Palm together). More than anything, I get the sense Ben feels Nueng is safe. He’s similar to him so Ben understands him, he’s very quiet, and he keeps to himself — so as Ben starts to finally come to terms with himself and his sexuality, Nueng is a good potential person to explore those feelings with. With Nueng, Ben gets to have a pure, simple crush, whereas his feelings for Chopper are significantly more complex – and bogged down in years of other more negative emotions.
When Chopper and Ben speak for the first time in episode two, Ben’s frustration in Chopper’s absence becomes immediately clear from his words and tone (see above). He makes it very obvious: “You are the one who has avoided talking to me. Then you disappeared”
This is also the conversation where Chopper asks him about becoming close to Nuengdiao.
Ben’s incredulity at this is palpable. On first watch I thought his line of “have you been watching me” was over the top, but it’s unmistakable that he’s like (“this is why you’re finally talking to me??”). By leaning in so close to Chopper, he’s actively trying to provoke him. (EDIT made many months later. Also!! As you’ll see in later parts, Ben jokes about things he wants, so “Have you been watching me” is VERY interesting.”)
In this scene, I think Ben answers Chopper honestly about what he thinks of Nuengdiao: He’s interesting, he doesn’t brag about his father’s name, they get along well because of music. Nothing about this is overly romantic. Slightly out of order but:
And after this brief and very awkward exchange, Chopper asks:
You can see that Ben is genuinely rocked by this. He can’t believe someone who used to be his friend would ask something like this
This is when Ben drops the line “maybe because you think of me this way we aren’t friends anymore”. At the time, I think his feelings got a little lost because the audience was being led to be suspicious of Ben’s motives, but looking back, Ben is so so so stung by everything about this exchange.
You can argue that Chopper’s comments hit a nerve – Ben is being duplicitous. He has been hiding his attraction to men from the people in his life for years. And you can tell Ben is wondering, (“Does he really think this little of me? Is it possible I deserve that?”)
It’s after this that Ben’s solicitation of Nueng escalates — his burgeoning crush aside, I would argue some of his determination is targeted indirectly at Chopper, like (“see, I don’t need you, I have a new friend”)
And then we get to the paper cutting scene, which is a crucial one for Ben & Chopper:
It had already been made pretty clear to the audience that Chopper liked Ben, so I remember YELLING at my screen at this line for how badly that had to hurt him. But now that we know Ben knew about Chopper’s feelings all along, this line is actually kind of cruel. And Ben follows it up with a similarly cutting piece of dialogue. “Like I said . . .”
Apparently this is a thing he has said to Chopper previously – possibly while rejecting him – and it can be read as surface level; similar interests, etc. But we, as the audience, could also read into it that Ben means someone else who’s not ready to be out of the closet yet (going back to Nueng = safe)
This boy is hurt and he is so very bitter and he is exceptionally good at masking it with a smile and an easy tone. I think it’s telling that he word for word asks “what if I confess to him and he rejects me?”. He is thinking about the 10th grade as much as he is present day.
Except despite Ben’s slides towards pettiness, Chopper remains nice, he encourages Ben in this very soft earnest voice. He apologizes for what he said about Nuengdiao. He says WHO WOULDN’T LIKE YOU?
And look at Ben’s face here. The raw, unguarded staring that goes on for a second too long:
I think in this moment he’s beginning to truly understand how much he hurt himself when he rejected Chopper and feeling the first stirrings of the confusion that come back in full force in episode 8. (“Does he still like me? But he wouldn’t be encouraging me and Nueng if he did, would he? Why does the way he’s looking at me so intently make me feel so weird?”)
You can see him try to shake it off. He convinces himself it’s his excitement over them talking again.
They don’t show it on camera, but Chopper touches his hand or his arm – there’s a clear movement just below screen – and Ben gives him another one of those unguarded looks.
The cracks are already here in full force in episode 4!!
And then a whole lot of stuff happens with Ben and Nueng afterwards during which Ben gets to be a normal teenage boy who likes another boy and has the freedom to explore that. This is important to his development, because by exploring – and acting on – his attraction to men through his interactions with Nueng, he is better able to later realize he likes Chopper later.
@thirstkanaphan helpfully provided some context on the main romantic plotline that I missed entirely while skipping all the P/N scenes: Director Jojo films the first few episodes in a way to make the viewer suspicious of Ben’s intentions. We are meant to regard Ben’s open display of care and concern with wariness in the context of how the rest of the school treats Nueng. Plus, we are in BL territory and Ben is set up as the second romantic lead, so we are conditioned to root for Palm, who is standing outside this scene at the piano bench, witnessing their kiss with confusion, jealousy, and heartbreak. We are meant to be rooting for the main couple, so while Ben's actions may be considered reckless (kissing at school? wow!!) this moment sets Palm/Nueng's romantic arc in motion - Nueng's disappointment in Ben, his breakdown on the roof, and Palm's subsequent offer to replace the memories of Nueng's first kiss. For all that WE are concerned with Ben's interior life, the show is not. The show needs Ben to be the foil for Palm, so that Palm can be noble and swoon-y for Nueng.
At this point, the pivotal Ben/Nueng moment happens— the photo of them gets plastered all over the school entry, and Ben, who is visibly cowed by his father the entire time in the office, makes the horrible decision to say Nueng forced himself on him; we’ll come back to this decision in Arc 3.
I cannot understate how traumatizing this whole experience had to be for Ben. This would be deeply scarring for almost anyone. His first queer experience should have been a positive experience for him and it was treated entirely as something wrong – something to be embarrassed of; something his father would under no circumstances tolerate. Although he makes a bad decision, he is still a victim here.
I will wrap up part 1 with the lunch scene, which never fails to touch me deeply. (I can’t believe anyone genuinely thought Chopper spread those photos!!): Ben, who is feeling ashamed of himself and isolated from the entire school, goes to sit at a lunch table all alone. While everyone else stares at him and whispers behind his back, Chopper comes over and takes a seat beside him without a single moment of hesitation. He assures Ben. He touches Ben’s hand! He offers Ben help. And he coaxes a tiny smile out of him.
For all that his mind was on what happened in the office, I think from the moment Chopper takes hold of his wrist, Ben’s thoughts are completely on him:
In this moment, he must be thinking about how good of a person Chopper is, how empty he felt for so long without him, and how grateful he is to have Chopper in front of him right now. And what’s so beautiful is — this is probably one of the lowest points in Ben’s life, but it’s also the moment his closest friend comes back to him. I genuinely tear up thinking about it. How much did that mean to him?
–
TLDR: In his first character arc, Ben simultaneously confronts the fact that losing Chopper as his friend in 10th grade hurt him badly, and begins to explore his attraction to men through his pursuit of Nueng – who (initially) serves as a safe person for him to do so with. Both halves of this arc conclude at about the same time – he gets to kiss a boy for the first time and in that aftermath, Chopper returns to his side. But the events of arc 1 create a new set of problems for him that I will explore in parts two, three, four, and five!
Continue to part 2.
#never let me go#never let me go the series#nlmg#chopperben#chopper the best boy in the whole world#chopper kiattrakulmethee#benchopper#ben x chopper#chopper x ben#thai bl#ben nlmg#perth tanapon#chimon wachirawit#nlmg ben#meta meta meta#Ben meta series
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9, 33, and 72 for Wyn! :D
hehehe thank you!! <3
9. What deity, if any, does your character worship? What’s their opinion on other people’s worship?
Wyn doesn't really worship anything, at least not in the traditional way. Her relationship with her god (if they ARE a god) is built more on a sense of solidarity than it is on devotion. She finds their domain, and their path to it, something that makes sense to her. She wishes to join them on that path. That's all. It's very similar to how Val, my paladin, feels wrt her god, except that she considers HIM to be actively more powerful, and more like an employer that she happens to get on well with. Wyn considers that she and her "god" are more on the level of equals, at least when it comes to their work.
Which is why she tends to side-eye people who fall into the more traditional categories of worship. She thinks giving anything blanket devotion is a bad call. (Which is absolutely not at all related to her own personal traumas, no siree!!) She typically doesn't speak her distaste for it aloud, because that's not really her call to make, but she will sort of...make a distance between herself and the more fanatical.
33. What person does your character admire most?
WOOF, unexpectedly loaded question! If you had asked her as little as three years ago, the answer would have been easy: her brother. Atticus was everything that their parents wanted him to be - clever, ambitious, science-and-business minded - but he was also excruciatingly kind, and compassionate, and Wyn's absolute best friend growing up. They got along like a house on fire, and spent their entire childhood getting into mischief and then protecting each other from the fallout. They never blamed each other for the strictness and favoritism of their parents simply because they had a deep and unending fondness for each other.
And then he left her, twice, in the absolute worst ways possible. He threw himself so hard into his work - tried so hard to outpace the specter of death that he always saw following him - and it ended up killing him. And then, when Wyn's desperation and a frantic deal with something she genuinely didn't understand revived him, and took years off of her life in the process, he barely acknowledged it. He'd been so fundamentally changed by his experience in the place between life and death that he was hardly her brother anymore. And then he found his own exit, barely a year later.
Mostly, she tells herself, she doesn't hold it against him. But she doesn't think she has it in her to admire anyone, anymore.
72. Who in the party would your character trust the most to keep an important secret?
RIGHT NOW, UH. NONE OF THEM?
Admittedly, we're on like session 3? 4? So we haven't gotten much of a chance to really gel as a party. But given that Wyn's options are:
- the divination wizard who cons people with fake (?) fortune telling, who has spent the last two days trying to swindle everyone's coin from them and running away from half of our fights
- the very tight-lipped artificer who mostly has let the rest of the party do the dangerous exploring while chilling in the back
-the thief rogue whose only goal seems to be 'steal everything worth carrying in this spooky house before we die'
and
- the farm-boy-turned-adventurer who accidentally signed up with a bandit crew that robbed Wyn of all of her worldly possessions before the campaign started
WE'RE LOOKING AT SOME PRETTY RAW OPTIONS. Admittedly, farm boy adventurer is a himbo extraordinaire who seems to have his heart in the right place and helped Wyn escape from the bandits after realizing what was up, so...probably him...but only by default LMAO.
#frenchy replies#oc crap#the wyn tag#i need a curse of strahd tag#also admittedly i'm sure the other party members aren't much keen on wyn either so it's a mutual wariness i think!
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15 and 2 for the oc ask for any ocs!
OMG HIII…. fallout mutual on the skyrim blog 😳 i don’t think i’ve ever seen you here. let’s seeee. as usual i shall do Ummm. all my ocs
2. Can they take care of a plant? What about a pet? What about a child?
azug would be hopeless with a plant, she’s not home/in one place nearly enough to maintain one. she could probably take care of a dog or cat but anything other than that would require too much specialized care for her. for a child… she could be a good parent, but again she’s not at a point in her life where she spends much time at home. if she did have a child, it would probably be an orphan she adopted, and sadly they may suffer from her not being home much — she would make sure people checked on the child and, with how shitty being an orphan in skyrim is, they would at least have a fairly nice home to live in, but she wouldn’t be very present for at least a few years
megana is the most responsible irresponsible person you’ve ever met. she can and does take care of plants (mostly alchemical ingredients she grows herself) and a pet (her rabbit, thistle). as for a child… hypothetically, she could take care of one, if she had to babysit or was otherwise saddled with one for a while, but she doesn’t have much interest in having her own. she’s more like the fun gay wizard aunt. except she’s an only child and has no close friends with children. yknow?
never trust antony with anything alive. he likes dogs and has had a couple in his life, but uh…… i just wouldn’t trust him with it
at the start of her story (since i, um, haven’t Started hers and thus cannot give insight as to the end of it), cirendil would easily be able to care for anything. other than herself of course
my mostly-joke-oc, friki, actually already cares for two dogs and one child with plans for more. granted, her current only child is a pickpocketing street urchin that is more than happy to be alone while friki wanders the country, but still. it works for them. she dgaf abt plants tho
15. What would they consider a waste of time– other than school or work?
azug doesn’t consider anything a waste of time. if you told her that bird in that tree was stuck she’d be up there in a heartbeat to save it. not because shes super empathetic for the bird or because she’s naive enough to believe it’s stuck, she just loves procrastinating and avoiding her responsibilities. something to distract her for a minute? great! sign her up!
megana considers many things a waste of time but *what* specifically depends on when you ask her, what she’s doing that day, and what her current biggest interest is. shes spent the last week and a half trying to create a new spell? get out of her face with your “vampire problem in the cave outside town,” wdym, she’s Busy
antony thinks life is a waste of time
cirendil also doesn’t think anything is a waste of time but that’s because she Does genuinely believe everyone truly needs/wants her help and. well. she doesn’t have anything better to do right now anyway
friki thinks everything is a waste of time and she LOVES wasting time
i used to have an actual format for answering asks…
thank you for the ask :3
#oc: antony#oc: megana arterius#oc: azug gra-lurak#oc: cirendil#oc: friki birds-eye#ask game answers
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Question 12/13 for the fallout ask post? Also love ur blog sm <3
12. What’s a quest that everyone hates, but you like?
While I don't think anyone outright hates Come Fly With Me so much as they just find it tedious to do over and over again (and believe me, I Get It), I genuinely do enjoy going through it. Even though I can easily skip over Novac altogether let alone this one quest, I tend to do it when I can anyway because I like the tension that comes with sneaking around in cramped, dark corridors full of invisible guys that can easily kick my ass if I'm not careful. I also like disarming all the traps in the room Hadrian's in. Honestly it feels like a quest that caters to my overly-cautious stealth play style on top of being one of the most interesting side quests in the whole game.
13. Which companion quest did you enjoy the most?
I think it's a tie between Old School Ghoul and I Could Make You Care. I may be biased because Raul and Veronica are my two favourite companions, but imo they're also two of the most well-written companions with equally well-written quests.
While Old School Ghoul physically amounts to dragging Raul around while talking to some old guys, it also acts as a vehicle for him to tell his own stories (which I can listen to all day) and brings up the subject of... well, aging. Of growing up and growing old and changing as your body changes, while remaining who you are despite that. Raul was only around 30 when ghoulification hit, and is basically a young man 200 years older than he should be, and his body began to deteriorate while still in his prime. Despite this, he's tried to make himself Useful TM as both a handyman and a protector, facing the worst of the age of raiders and living long enough to remember it all. When he fails to protect someone, he seems to give in to his perceived uselessness in 'old age', giving up his guns altogether and settling for simply finding purpose in repairing things. It's only when he sees a few older men still doing what they can that he considers not relegating himself to a quiet life, though he still needs the courier to tell him that it's something to admire and that these guys aren't useless or should live a certain way just because they aren't physically the same as they've always been. You can convince Raul to take up his guns again to become a protector during and after the events of FNV, just as he had 200 years ago, and he does a damn good job of it despite his cataracts.
Meanwhile, I Could Make You Care starts with Veronica seeing just how well the rest of the wasteland is doing, from the Followers to the Boomers to even the Fiends (at least in how much trouble they give the NCR compared to the BoS). Exploring the outside world forces her to come to the conclusion that the Brotherhood, her family, is slowly dying because they refuse to change their ways even slightly to become self-sufficient. You have the opportunity to help her find something that will make the Elder wake up, from farming technology to an advanced weapon, but even with evidence the Brotherhood refuses to change. While you can technically convince Veronica to remain, I think it only narratively makes sense for her to leave, whether she ends up joining the Followers or not. She's seen how everyone else has adapted and continues to, and how the quick the Brotherhood is to turn their back on her the moment she challenges their dogma. Even if you can't relate to her on a personal level here, her quest is a powerful conclusion to the Brotherhood's role in Fallout as a whole (by which I mean fo1 and fnv) and serves to symbolize how fast humanity has grown in the last 200 years since the world ended. This quest is so fucking good it makes me wonder why all I ever seem to see from the fandom about Veronica is how much she likes dresses. Sure, it's a cute fun trait and we love her for it, but you'd think that's her main quest instead with how much people sleep on this one.
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i feel like a lot of people play up "blasé dylan" way too much considering how vulnerable we see him become over the course of the game—or at least they don't explore this facet of him in-depth to show the layers of his personality. his flat characterisation is even more obvious when considering the amputation route.
losing an entire limb is a huge shock to the system, and with the addition of him losing it amidst such a traumatic event, i highly doubt any jokes he might make about it would ever have much heart in them. he uses humour to cope, but even speaking from personal experience, there are just some things that are impossible to cover up with a witty quip. he could try to make a genuine joke, and yet it would fall flat every single time. there's a sinking feeling that hits you whenever you think about these kinds of painful lived experiences, and dylan would not be an exception. it's frustrating! especially when your attempts to appear okay only earn you pity and/or uncomfortable looks. in the end, after several failed attempts to make light of his situation, i think he would resort to an avoidant tactic instead by completely ignoring the loss of his limb entirely. he's desperate to make people stop glancing at his wrist, and so instead he makes even more of a spectacle of himself so that they have no choice but to keep their eyes on him instead of what he now lacks. he breaks more often whenever he's forced to remember his acquired limb difference, and for those that witness this emotional fallout, it's nothing short of heartbreaking.
"no one's ever going to treat me the same" is right there! he is affected by this. please just let him be deeply affected by this.
#the quarry#the quarry game#dylan lenivy#the quarry dylan#this is entirely my own take on this but i do still think it's undeniable that a lot of people fail to give depth to 'blasé dylan'#me when people misinterpret my favourite characters [people screaming] [dogs barking] [sirens wailing] [car crash]
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Content warning for domestic abuse
During his sophomore year in high school, Jaden entered a romantic relationship with a girl named Angela.
Things between them went well for a time, and he even confided into her about his pansexuality at some point. But it didn't take long for Angela to reveal some of her truer, nastier colors to Jaden.
She was one of those types of girlfriends who wanted her boyfriend to be attached to her hip at all times. So all their activities had to be done together, always; no matter what. When Jaden didn't want to comply, for whatever reasons he had, she'd hit him while half yelling, half whining to him about it. They'd argue, things would escalate, and it would end with him either relenting into her demands or them having a prolonged fight about it until he finally relented.
Eventually though, after reaching out to Penny and gaining the support of his sisters, Jaden called things off with Angela. Then, it was a mad dash to come out to his parents before the high school rumor mill could reach them because he knew Angela would out him as a means of revenge for breaking up with her. And she did just that, and then some.
On top of there being a rumor about his queerness, Angela twisted their story around and claimed that it was Jaden who was physically abusive towards her, not the other way around.
Jaden's social standing fell apart rather quickly after that, and only a few people who knew the truth/believed him when he said it was really her who was abusive stuck around him after that. Those few people would wind up being the friends Jaden carried into adulthood and bonded deeply with - in spite of or maybe even because of Angela.
It's been years since he's dealt with Angela and the fallout of her abuse towards him. Jaden considers himself moved on from it and healed nowadays, and this is a mostly true statement. He's less afraid to stand up for himself, should he ever find himself in such a position again. Part of the reason why things got so bad between them was because Jaden was genuinely afraid to hit a girl and she had power over him in knowing his closeted status. Now, he wants the world to know of his queerness, and if a girl throws the first punch then he'll throw the last one without a care about what anyone thinks of it.
But he has emotional walls set up too and isn't completely aware that they're there. Angela's torment has pushed Jaden into holding himself more guardedly while keeping others at distance. It's safer that way. People can't hurt you if they don't get in at all. He's also sensitive to any sort of perception that makes him out to be a bad and-or abusive boyfriend too because he doesn't want to be caught in the turmoil of those kinds of rumors again. He doesn't want to be that sort of person either. His love language is doting because he cares and because he wants to be the opposite of the worst thing he could be.
#head canon#head canon; Jaden#tw: domestic abuse#apologies for the roughness on this#as you know it's a touchy subject for me#and it's weird writing about it while also being so adverse to it#but like I put it to a friend whilst discussing that very same point#it's like I'm standing here with my hand on the plug in#the warning is not for me#I know I have a firm grip on the plug and can unplug when I need to#the warning is just so everyone else know I'm standing prone and ready to unplug at a moment's notice#still though#it's weird writing this#getting it out on discord was tricky enough#trying to formalize it for tumblr was even trickier#took me like three or more hours just to do this ya know
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3 for Kynan, 12 for Cass and Kaylie? NPC hour letsgoo
I will be absolutely honest I don't really think that much about Kynan or Kaylie. So. This'll be a challenge.
Kynan - 3: Drinking headcanon
This boy doesn't drink. He doesn't. He has had maybe a mug or two of ale in all his life, and that more because it was given to him than because he chose it. He grew up with an angry, aggressive father, and I don't doubt that was worse if his father had been drinking: I think there's some chance he's afraid of how he might act without that control.
I think he has maybe a sip or two on a special occasion, when a glass or a tankard has been thrust into his hand, but I think he largely prefers not to drink at all. The guards he works with tease him over that a little, especially as he becomes more significant, mostly to suggest that he's always on the job - but he kind of thinks he is, really. Vax'ildan asked him to keep an eye on things and after Vax is gone... well, he's not going to let him down.
So yeah, I don't think Kynan really drinks much.
Cass & Kaylie - 12: Friendship headcanon
In short, I don't think these two would be friends. They barely had cause to interact in canon and when they were briefly around each other Cass had work and was still (not) dealing with the fallout of the Briarwoods stuff. And, not unlike her father, Kaylie is quite a brash person, bold and also a bit more abrasive; I think she'd rub Cass the wrong way, especially in so immediate an aftermath of everything and with so much on her plate. I don't think they really had much time to get to know each other before Scanlan's departure and I don't think they necessarily cared to get to know each other either. Kaylie may well have thought her proud and a bit up herself and Cass thought her needlessly crude and abrasive - and the end result is, I think they largely brushed by each other.
They might come to get to know each other a little better in the years after Vecna, at Vox Machina and I could see them being passingly friendly with each other, but I don't know that they'd ever necessarily see each other as friends.
Independently, however...
All of Cass' friends from before the Briarwoods are likely dead. Given everything that happened during the occupation too, I imagine she's very hesitant to make new friends for a long time - she doesn't want to be turned against them, doesn't want to lose them and while it's a relief to have her brother back it's also frustrating that he's not there to help. I think the people Cass is most likely to first call friends are actually some of her personal household - her maid, her secretary, her personal guard, etc. - because they're people she sees every day and comes to trust through sheer exposure and experience. Later, after Vecna and with help healing, I think she considers Vex a friend, and perhaps also Pike and Keyleth. I think she has a correspondence with Allura and Kima and perhaps also Assum - I can see her liking him. I think, in time, she's known for having very exclusive tea parties with people she considers friends and potential friends - but I think also that that number remains small for the rest of her life. She's friendly with many - but only considers a few genuine friends.
Kaylie meanwhile I think is kind of the opposite end of the same spectrum, if that makes sense. I think she makes "friends" easily, which is to say she's fantastic at cosying up to people once she knows what makes them tick, can be as irrepressibly and borderline irritatingly charming as her father and can be just as persistent. There are a lot of people who think of her in friendly terms or who consider her a friend. But, in similar terms to Cassandra, I think she rarely actually considers them friends. She knows better than to get attached to people - she saw what it did to her mother regarding Scanlan, she's seen it happen travelling with Dranzel's troupe, she doesn't want to get attached because she knows it hurts. And... she's also very unlikely to show how much she cares except in gruff, abrupt, ways from which she can easily turn back into her more casual self: when she cares she cares strongly, but she'll rarely show it for a long time.
The education Scanlan pays for for her helps. Spending time around other bards who have much the same habits as her helps her to understand herself better through the lens of them, and I think she ends up with a small, tight-knit band of boisterous friends with whom she feels safe being absolutely insulting - but also absolutely vulnerable, safe in the knowledge that they all know where the line is.
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favorite fanfic trope: enemies to lovers but it's the moment when their tension is at its peak 😈
title: The Mess I Made - submitted by anon
summary: you may not be on the best terms with Bucky Barnes, but it doesn't stop you from coming to his defense
prompt: “Did anyone ever tell you how pathetic you are? It’s incredible how low my standards are for you.” / multiple requests for enemies to lovers
word count: 1.5k
a/n: enemies to lovers is already tough for me and to do it in drabble form is impossible for me because it requires a slow burn, but I did my best!!
You were on your way to the tower's gym when you heard Bucky’s voice echo from the end of the hall. Towel swung over your shoulder, headphones barely even grazed your ears as you paused, turning down the music. Bucky’s shadow danced over the walls as his run his hands through his hair. A woman’s shadow emerged next to him, her heels clicking against the tiles.
You rolled your eyes. Bucky’s latest string of conquests were an inconvenience at best. His pathetic attempt to rekindle whatever version of himself he idolized from the forties in the form of cheap, meaningless hookups was just another reason you made every effort to steer clear of Barnes. His seemingly indifference towards you made easy to do so.
Steve wouldn’t let it go – his questioning of why the two of you could never get along. It wasn’t that you hated Barnes. You didn’t know him well enough to hate him. You just didn’t care for what you saw. He was guarded and cold. Condescending and arrogant. Half the time, you barely believed Steve’s stories of Bucky’s charming days in the forties. The rare moments you caught his smile, it looked forced. It barely touched his eyes and he wore a mask to bring home women who spent their nights admiring an arm he would not allow them to touch.
The rare moments you thought you saw something genuine in him, he’d lashed out. The cracks in his foundation breaking through the surface in the screams at the night of dead of night, flinching at loud noises, the easy transition to taking orders and losing himself for the briefest of moments.
You’d made the mistake once of trying to comfort him. His eyes had glazed over in the middle of a conversation. There were dozens of agents around for the annual holiday party and Bucky was in another world entirely. His pupils were dilated, his hands shaking as he closed them to fists. You never learned what triggered it, but the moment you laid a gentle hand upon his forearm, Bucky had you in a chokehold.
It took both Sam and Tony’s strength to wield Bucky away from you, all while he was practically foaming at the mouth, screaming at you to never touch him again. He was rabid as Sam and Tony struggled to hold him back. The whole party stopped to watch the scene unfold – as Bucky hurtled countless insults at you.
He was drinking Thor’s liquor. He had to have been. Half of what he said that night barely made any sense. None it worth the audacity to lay a hand upon his arm to draw him back from wherever his mind had taken him. Perhaps, if you weren’t so thoroughly humiliated, you might have considered as much.
But what he said that night stayed with you and you never let it go.
“Why don’t you stay, sweetheart?” Bucky’s voice carried down the hall.
You tapped your foot impatiently at the elevators, desperate for an escape before he turned the corner. You noticed the woman’s heels were still clicking on the floors. She hadn’t stopped.
“Let me take you for breakfast, at least,” Bucky asked, a nervousness in his voice you didn’t recognize. He cleared his throat. “I was thinking we could—”
“I’m going to stop you right there.” The clicking ceased and you watched as the woman’s shadow placed a hand on Bucky’s chest, stilling him in an instant. “I thought you knew what this was.”
“I did. I do, but,” Bucky started, running a hand through his hair. You’d never seen him act this way before – so unsure of himself. The elevator doors open and closed as you watched his shadow sway on his heels. “I just... I want to try something different. Something... real and I thought, since we had a nice night together you might...”
“What?” the woman scoffed. “You thought I would want to date you?”
Bucky stiffened. Even his shadow appeared to mask into stone. Dread curdled in your stomach and you found yourself inching down the hall, approaching the shadows.
“Listen,” the woman crooned, “you were great last night and sleeping with the Winter Soldier is a hell of a story, but you’re not exactly... relationship material.”
You froze, stunned.
Bucky awkward cleared his throat. “I-I know, and I’m working on that. I just thought—”
“Oh my God, take the hint!” the woman exclaimed and you flinched in time with Bucky’s shadow against the wall. “Did anyone ever tell you how pathetic you are? Clearly all I wanted was a good lay. I thought I wouldn’t have to worry about this clingy shit with the Winter Soldier for Christ's sake. It’s incredible how low my standards were for you.”
“What the hell is your problem?”
You rounded the corner, tossing your workout gear aside as you came face to face with the woman. She was a beautiful as the rest of them were – tall, stunning, probably one of the models you’ve seen on runways or on magazines. But her eyes were unkind, and dismissive.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she spat, shoving past your shoulder and heading to the elevator. You moved to block her when you felt the cold grasp of vibranium curl around your wrist, yanking you out of her path.
“Hey!” you yelped, watching as the woman made her escape into the elevator. You snatched your hand back, massaging at the tender muscle. “What the hell, Barnes?”
“I don’t need you coming to my rescue,” Bucky bit back. “I had it handled.”
You scoffed, the image of Bucky’s form flinching as she called him ‘pathetic’ still fresh in your mind. You’d never known him to back down from a fight. Hell, he’d gotten into a screaming match with a paparazzi for daring to ask how his morning jog went. Bucky didn’t roll over and play dead. But he let that woman wrap a hand around his throat until he choked.
“Sure looked handled,” you rolled your eyes. “She was walking all over you.”
“My sex life is not your concern,” he growled, his voice low as his eyes hooded.
“I never said a damn thing about your sex life, Barnes.” You shook your head, already regretting stepping in at all. It was pointless – foolish even – to think that he might be appreciative of your intervention, of the fact that despite the tense history between you, you would never stoop as low as that woman did.
You bent down and picked up the gym bag you’d let slip from your hands. “If you want to be treated like shit, then by all means, have fun with your next one night stand. I'll steer clear of the fallout.”
You started to head back towards the gym when you heard Bucky groan rather dramatically behind you. You paused, glancing over your shoulder as Bucky hit a fit against the wall.
“What is your—”
“You are so goddamn infuriating!” Bucky snapped and your jaw dropped.
“Are you serious right now? Me? I’m the infuriating one?” You released your bag, letting the weights hit the floor as you stalked back to him. “You’re the ungrateful jerk who just yelled at the one person who bothered to stand up for you!”
Bucky gritted his teeth. “I never asked you to do that!”
He was only inches away. His breath hot against your cheeks. You could see the dark blue specs in his eyes from this close. The blacks of his eyes nearly consuming him whole.
“Maybe that’s your problem, Barnes,” you sneered. “You think you need to ask for help, that it’s earned or deserved, but it’s not! Sometimes people just want to help you, you asshole! Sometimes, people can be good and can care about you without expecting that you—”
Your back hit the wall as Bucky’s weight pressed to your chest. His lips crashed against yours, his hand slipping into your hair. Everything in him moved with purpose, with adrenaline spiked into his veins and fury in his bones – but not his hands. Even as his lips hungrily devoured yours, his hands were gentle as they caressed the nape of you neck, as they slid down your hips.
What surprised you more – was that you kissed him back. Your hand clutched into the thin fabric of his t-shirt, your lips parting for him as he brushed him tongue over yours. It was the kind of kiss that left you feel dizzy – like you’d been under for too long, your lungs aching, and still you had no desire for air.
When he finally did draw back, it was only when he was breathless. His chest panting in time with yours, his forehead dipping to rest against your collarbone. He paused for a moment, even as his fingers gently pressed into the nape of your neck as if upon keys of a piano.
“I don’t know why I did that,” Bucky confessed.
You chuckled. “I do.”
He lifted his head and you smiled when you saw his lips were pink and swollen. You brushed a hand over his cheek.
“Because even when I hated you, I still cared about you, Barnes. It’s not black and white. It’s messy and it’s grey. But I can handle a little mess, can’t you?”
Bucky swallowed, slow to the smile that crept upon his lips, but still—it came. “Yeah, I can handle messy.”
When he kissed you again, he didn’t hesitate.
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Why c!Dream should (and probably will be) redeemed
Hi! I’m bad with intros. You’ve read the title, so, let’s start with the definitions.
In this essay, we are considering the popularized definition of “redemption” instead of the classical one, which is, as per the Oxford Dictionary, “the act of saving or state of being saved from the power of evil; the act of redeeming.” That’s not however the way the word is used in fandom and media.
/dsmp /rp
The definition of redemption I’ll be working with in this essay is not forgiveness by the people who c!Dream has hurt, nor is it removing himself entirely from his past actions, but moreso the decision to change for the better and abandon destructive mindsets for himself and others.
A “redemption” in a narrative sense would be circumstances and a character arc that would allow that kind of healing and betterment.
I’d like to start this off by the fact that being “irredeemable”, in this sense, also doesn’t exist; redemption is a thing of conditions and choice, not of being allowed by someone else. You can’t gatekeep healing from people who seek it, just to be clear, and that even goes for people who have done terrible things.
Since I understand there is a lot of concern for c!Dream’s past actions, here is a post from people who are much more fit than me to speak on the matter, about the way in which they see a possible c!Dream redemption arc.
Another disclaimer, I am not going to be considering c!Dream only from the perspective of c!Tommy in this essay. c!Dream appears in other people’s perspectives and he himself has his own, unseen perspective. As a character, he is an individual person in his own right rather than just the antagonist of c!Tommy’s story, and so I do not have much concern for their narratives intertwining too much should this writing choice occur.
I’d also like to note that redemption is, in this sense, always a positive thing for everyone involved - someone who’s been prone to doing bad things in the past deciding not to do them anymore and try to change, or just simply heal enough to consider it, isn’t going to have a long-term negative effect in any of the characters, but rather the other way around. Healing is an unlimited resource, and the victims do not have to heal first for the person who hurt them to consider being better.
Here’s a well-written thread on Twitter that elaborates a bit to finish off this point, and let’s move on to actually talking about redemption in the context of the Dream SMP, and c!Dream specifically.
Why a c!Dream redemption arc is not only a good writing choice, but in this case the only good writing choice;
c!Dream, as we all know, has been subject to mental and physical abuse to the point of straight up torture by both c!Sam and c!Quackity (to different extents). He has been in indescribable amounts of suffering for the past 74 days at the time this essay will be published. That is six and something times the duration of the entire exile arc in canon.
Whatever the interpretation of his words in prison is, what is undeniable is first of all the fact his mental stability is absolutely crushed at this point, second that no human being could possibly ever deserve to undergo this, and third, his stay in the prison is showing off his humanity and making him out to be sympathetic.
Now, consider this; how would it feel if c!Tommy died at the end of the exile arc? Empty, there would be no catharsis to such an end, especially because of all of the hurt he’d gone through. Objectively, a bad writing choice.
Let’s compare, narratively of course, this situation to the prison arc. Even though I would never say one of them is “better” or “worse” than the other, since both are terrible and undeserved, c!Dream’s current state checks off all of the boxes that would make his death unsatisfying in the storyline; even if people want him gone, there would still be the dissatisfaction at the current build-up and why they even did it in the first place (it really wasn’t necessary to anyone else’s story to make him out as a victim, and yet they did) if they were planning to kill him off anyways. And since the prison arc is naturally meant to induce sympathy, even from an angst perspective it would simply not make sense within the themes and writing of the plot.
So, c!Dream can’t die, and he also can’t stay in the prison forever - the build-up must lead to something, which is logically a breakout. Great… what now?
Well, the Dream SMP prides itself in accurate representation of trauma and mental instability, specifically cc!Tommy and cc!Dream who have pulled it off incredibly during the exile arc.
Now, undoubtedly, after the prison, c!Dream is going to be just terribly traumatized- considering the writers’ past creative decisions, would it make sense for him to play the role of a dangerous, heartless villain in other people’s stories, while completely ignoring the logical fallout of what he’s been through?
In my mind, no. The most possible result is that cc!Dream is going to rightfully portray someone who’s been hurt so much he is broken, scared and tortured into submissions over months of agony and slowly stripping away of his agency, his dignity, his humanity. And that is… not going to be pretty, nor is he going to be in any way the same as before.
After everything, I’d be surprised if he can properly look at shears without shaking. That’s not villain behaviour, that’s the behaviour of someone who needs help.
Which leads me to another point, which is relatability. Believe me or not, there are people out there who heavily relate to c!Dream because they have been through things that allow them to see themselves in the character - abandonment, mental illness, etc. - or who have had destructive mindsets they have struggled to let go of in the past.
To them, as well as to the viewer, redeeming c!Dream could actually be a very good example, showcasing that anyone who has done bad things or has been hurt in the past can learn that it is possible to be better, to move on, to not be stuck in a loop but to actively seek help and then use that support to find the path to healing.
Making c!Dream a better person, who in a way, wins over his past, over his trauma, over the hurt he’s caused, and manages to actually get better… is inspiring, in a sense. It shows that you can abandon unhealthy mindsets, you can find a support group of people who care about you, you can make your life better simply by deciding to be better and then sticking to that, no matter how difficult the process.
This is why I believe that redeeming c!Dream would not be bad writing, but quite the opposite, and that the prison arc is an obvious set-up. Alright, but how does that work with the character? How could someone so widely hated mentally improve in such a seemingly violent and terrible environment? Would it even make sense within the context of c!Dream’s character so far? Well,
Why c!Dream has the capacity for healing and the Dream SMP the ability to provide it;
First of all, let’s remind ourselves that through c!Dream’s entire spiral he wasn’t ever directly given a chance to change. He was regarded as someone to defeat in order to accomplish a happy ending, or as someone who needed to be removed in order to achieve power on the SMP. Ever since the 16th, which is when the corruption of the character is the most obvious, there have been no attempts to reach out or to help him. I do not blame the characters for this - I am simply pointing out that since it has never happened before, we do not know how he would respond, and that, after everything he’s been through, any bit of kindness or compassion towards him will be a new concept he will have to learn to deal with somehow.
This point is especially driven home by the fact that both c!Quackity and c!Sam would often tell him he is a monster who deserves nothing but to suffer, and that what he’s going through is never going to amount to all the hurt he’s caused - basically removing any possibility for ever getting better (because by this logic, he doesn’t deserve support, and he doesn’t deserve to get better) from his line of sight.
He also hasn’t had a support system since shortly after the 16th, when his friends left him over c!George’s dethronement and made no effort to mend their relationship afterwards. c!Dream isn’t used to having allies and people on his side, but to being hated; again, wouldn’t that mean positive reinforcement could very well be all he needs to make the choice?
His bad mindsets - attachments are weakness, ends always justify the means, people will consider you a bad person no matter what you do - have been continuously proven right by his environment, even in prison. Any kind of subversion, plus an explanation as to why they are wrong, could be of great help to c!Dream.
Just another disclaimer; I do not believe c!Dream would change thanks to the treatment in prison, but rather despite it. His mental stability is non-existent at that point, and in order to get better he needs genuine emotional support from the people around him as well as to heal before he can redeem himself.
Alright, but… c!Dream has hurt a lot of people. Who would be fit to help him?
Let’s start off with the worst option and why it’s impossible the writers would even attempt this; c!Tommy.
c!Tommy has no responsibility to help or ever forgive c!Dream - not to say he could. The two, as it is, would drag each other down instead of helping in any capacity, and only make matters worse. The two of them shouldn’t even interact in the best case scenario - the best thing for both of them would be if they got enough healing and support individually that they could live around each other and not get their trauma or toxic habits triggered when interacting for whatever purpose of the plot.
So, if not c!Tommy (and c!Tubbo neither by extension), who could redeem c!Dream?
Well, he can’t do it on his own for sure. Being in nature with animals is nice, but further isolation from other people would merely help with the prison trauma, not with the state of his tendencies when interacting with others. He, once again, needs positive reinforcement from other people for him to heal properly.
There are two main options for this in my mind, and then there’s a few individuals he could also find comfort in, including people from both groups or those unaligned.
1) Kinoko Kingdom
From the people of this new country, c!Dream has never negatively interacted with c!Karl before, he has never hurt c!George and he hasn’t directly harmed c!Sapnap. Although the relationship with his old friend group could be difficult to rekindle, none of them have grudges against him that are too personal, and they have been canonically close friends since the beginning of the SMP, so it would be very much possible to rebuild burnt bridges. They’d be familiar, and with the addition of c!Karl they could be a good source of comfort for c!Dream after he either breaks out or is released from prison - just gotta convince c!Sapnap not to kill him first.
2) The Syndicate
From the Syndicate, c!Dream has never directly interacted with c!Nikki, and from what I know of her character she never seemed to be very affected by his actions - even doing his work for him when he was planning to burn down the L’Mantree. c!Techno is an ally who doesn’t have anything against him, and as for c!Ranboo, here is why I believe c!Dream being in the Syndicate could be positively influential on his character arc as well;
c!Ranboo and c!Philza have had a conversation about change, during which c!Ranboo made it clear he thinks everyone can change except for c!Dream; who, in his mind, is “too deep down the rabbit hole”. c!Philza replied that he thinks anyone can change if given enough time.
… you see what I’m getting at?
c!Dream has been implied to be an ally to c!Ranboo’s enderwalk state (or the state when he has access to his full memory), and hence would most likely not behave negatively towards him at all. While it might make it more difficult for c!Ranboo to deal with his own issues, it might also give him more motivation to get to the bottom of it as well, especially since he now has access to the person who, presumably, started this all. While this is going on, c!Dream would show himself in a much different light than c!Ranboo sees himin, which could lead to confusion, realization of the flaws in his own logic, and hence, positive character development.
Here’s a great post about why c!Techno as a character could be a great asset in c!Dream’s healing process & redemption, and why there is not much need to worry about him not knowing or finding out about c!Dream’s actions.
Of Kinoko Kingdom and the Syndicate, as far as I know, neither c!Tommy nor c!Tubbo have ever been directly involved with these groups, nor are they planning to.
Another important point to make is that, while c!Tommy needs to be kept away from c!Dream in order to heal properly, the same goes for c!Quackity and c!Sam in c!Dream’s case. While c!Quackity has high chances to interact with either Kinoko Kingdom or the Syndicate in the future, there’s an even higher chance, in that situation, that c!Dream would be offered protection, which is also important; there is no healing from trauma without the knowledge of safety, to some degree.
So, this was an essay as to why I think c!Dream’s recovery and redemption (one needs to come before the other, naturally) is not only extremely possible but also could be pulled off well and have a positive impact on both the characters, and the audience.
#dreblr#dream smp#c!dream#c!dream sympathetic#c!quackity neg#c!sam neg#dsmp analysis#tw torture#tw abuse#long post#i really should start writing longer essays#i need more material#anyways#hope y'all liked this#just joining the debate#:]
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