#despite all that hes not a bad person. just a flawed guy thrown into a situation so stressful and traumatising that he clinged to the only | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kairiscorner · 10 months

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Could you write an angsty hobie x reader where they both get into an argument? Everything is up to you!

ask and you shall receive anon :> i eat angst up for breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner, and late night snack and dessert. i hope you like this !!

(reblogs are greatly appreciated, it helps get my content out there! if you guys like what you see, please reblog it too <:D)

sometimes, you can't make it all better. — hobie brown x reader (angst)

summary: you loved hobie dearly, and you loved how despite how shitty the world was, he kept trying to make it a safer place for you two. but when you see him beat himself up over almost losing you... you can't recognize the boy you once loved in those frightened, hopeless eyes of his. pairing: hobie brown x gn!reader genre: angst. word count: 2,481 author's note: ok, i feel like i haven't been doing enough with my interpretation of hobie in more daring ideas an prompts, so i've wondered what he'd be like in an angsty situation. i hope y'all like it, and i'm sorry if the british pronunciations/slang are awful 😭😭😭

to hobie, it felt like everything was possible with you; like everything began and ended with you to him, that everything wouldn't be anything if he wasn't there for you, to save you, be spider man for you. he had never wanted anything more than to just be there for you, make the world a little better than how it was before you two were together.

he may appear cool and level-headed, a bit of a jokester as well, on the surface–but deep, deep down, in the recesses of his psyche, therein lies a dark void of fear, irrepressible, palpable fear. that fear being that one day, if he slips up, lets go at a crucial moment when he can't handle everything being thrown at him–when he closes his eyes for even a fraction of a second–you'd be gone.

hobie has seen and gone through a lot of unfortunate things in his life, and every time, he gets through it somehow. some may say he's incredibly tough and fortified for handling all that he's been through, all that he's seen, but what doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger–it makes you question just why it had to happen to you, both the bad... and the good. the good being you, the sole ray of light that shines in his life–the only reason he has to tread carefully and look after himself is you.

to say he was in love with you was an understatement, hobie was completely and utterly smitten, enamored with you. he loves you dearer than dearly, he loves you with a love that doesn't overbear, a love that isn't selfish–he loves you with a love that only he can give you, that nobody else can give quite like he can. he adores you for who you are, for what you can do, for your heart and mind–you were so perfect in every way because you were so flawed and real, and that was the beautiful reality of you that hobie fell headfirst for.

but he can't bear to face that other, pivotal reality that haunts him, that reality being that you were more fragile than him. you were a civilian–an ordinary person that lived an ordinary life; but ordinary people can only do so much to defend themselves from extraordinary threats. he can't stomach the fact that you might not be able to save yourself from a devastating threat that doesn't even want your life, but instead, his. he can't stand to think that you would really be serious about telling him that you'd really die for him.

and tonight... you held yourself to that.

you tried saving him, tried to save him–spider man, who saves others before himself–at the expense of your own life.

it happened in an instant, when he was wounded, vulnerable, and weak. he was going to throttle the villain, but now, it felt like merely throttling the villain who practically pummeled you to the ground would be way too lenient. it was like his heartbeat halted, his whole world stopped, time stopped when he watched you get body slammed by the villain; the villain was doing their job, being evil, hurting whoever they wanted to hurt, to hell if who they hurt is spider man or his partner--and hobie felt like he couldn't even do the most basic job of all that was entrusted to him: keeping you safe.

you couldn't remember a thing after you jumped at the villain, all you could feel now was a complete, total, stinging numbness. it's ironic, isn't it, that when you's supposed to feel nothing, all you can feel is a distraction disguised as nothing; that's what the numbness felt like as you lay there on the hospital bed, incapacitated and immobile. you could still speak, but very weakly, you couldn't raise your arm, nor your hand, nor a single finger on either of your hands. you were still. completely still.

next to you by the bed was a beaten, battered and bruised hobie. he took that villain out, a little more violently than he usually would have, but none of that mattered to him right now except for you and how you were doing. hobie was tormenting himself by looking at you, seeing you stare up at the bright lights above you in a daze, unsure of what happened, why you're here, where you even are... he can barely walk over to you without staggering, not because of his injuries, but out of sheer relief that you're alive.

he was sobbing, and smiling--he was smiling because against all odds, you toughed it out, you lived. "hey, love..." he murmured as he fell to his knees next to you by the bed, clutching your hand that was hooked up to an IV. you weakly glanced over to your side and peered at hobie, who was muttering and kneeling next to you. "hobie..." you whispered his name as you felt his grasp on your hand tighten. he sniffled back his sobs and wiped away the tears in his eyes. he was beyond relieved you were okay, but he felt like this couldn't go on anymore; neither of you could keep seeing each other, it was for your own good. he endangered you, and all because he failed to keep you safe, his mind was a mess right now.

hobie wasn't in the best place when he watched you get thrown into the ground, hearing a loud thud as you hit the pavement below you. you were so soft, so fragile, so easy for his enemies to squash and kill. you couldn't be with him, not anymore, not when your life would always be at stake when he's around you. he clutched your hand and cleared his throat as he shakily got on his knees, his smile now gone from his face as he avoided looking at your face directly.

"i... i have something to tell you." he said as his grip on your hand was loosening, with little strength in your body, you tried to hold on to him, not to let him go--but he let go first. he looked at you in the eyes, and you could see a shadow looming over his eyes as he attempted to conceal all the pain, all the remorse and guilt he was experiencing for as long as he needed to tell you this: "we can't be together anymore. we're done." he murmured, but in that murmur, hobie carried a stinging pain in his heart that merely worsened and ached harder than any wound he's ever received at the hands of his opponents and enemies; or even those of his own allies once.

you stared at him with widened eyes, your eyes were blank but shone with a twinkle, a twinkle that came about when you saw hobie come into your hospital room. now, that twinkle had shone and waned, it died as quickly as it came, and you found yourself in the dark--in an oblivion where light could never enter, where everything that is ever in it gets trapped, confined, bound t never escape. you were lonely, all over again. you were pushed to the side, all over again. you felt an overwhelming grief and pity for yourself, all over again.

"but, h-hobie, i..." you trailed off as you tried to get up, the pain in your recovering wounds prohibiting you from speaking. hobie looked back at you in shame, he couldn't bear to touch you, couldn't even bear to look at you. he loved you, even if you were now scarred and bruised, but he hated how you got all those horrible, horrible marks on you. they reminded him--each and every strap of gauze, every scar, ever bruise, every cut on you; it all reminded him of why you two could never be together. he had to gulp down the rising wails he wanted to let go of in that moment to keep you from worrying any more. he shook his head as he turned away from you. "no. we can't be together anymore." he said with a crack in his voice as he hurriedly headed off to the window and pulled it up, feeling the breeze against his face as he climbed up on the windowsill and pulled his mask down.

"hobie--!" you exclaimed as you tried kicking off the sheets from you to get up and follow you, but instead--in your haste--you accidentally fell off the bed, with hobie's head almost snapping as he sensed you were going to fall--but he still couldn't bear to be near you... what right did he have to be near you again, hold you again, ask you if you were okay when he caused all of this to happen to you?

'they'll be okay... they'll be better off, they'll be better off without me.' he reminded himself internally as he heard you get up on your feet, wobbling and clinging onto the bed frames to support you, feeling his heart break with every sound he heard coming from you trying your hardest to reach him. you rolled your IV with you as you meekly approached hobie. "hobie, please don't do this." you pleaded him as tears started welling up in your eyes. hobie didn't respond, he just sat there, perched up on the windowsill as you sobbed behind him, waiting for him to say something, to do something. "please... this isn't your fault." "don't be ridiculous." he said as he finally made this conversation a two-way one as he turned to face you slightly.

"i'm the reason you jumped at that wanker, wasn't i? if not for me, you wouldn't have... have been confined to that blasted bed, have that fucking thing get hooked up to you, get stitches, wrapped up in gauze, almost die..."

hobie choked at his words when he said that last word, 'die'. his greatest fears, the realities he had put off facing for so damn long were finally realized that moment when you jumped in to protect him, to let yourself be killed in his stead. hobie inhaled, sniffling all the while as he took off his mask and placed his hand over his eyes, trying to concentrate on the right thing to do, parting ways with you. your legs quaked as you walked over to him, but you wanted to be close to him, even when he was trying his hardest right now to distance himself from you.

"love, i did that because i... i love you--" "and that's exactly the problem. you love me. you love me, and because you love me, you got hurt, didn't you?"

he asked you in a sharp tone, one you had never heard him speak to you with before. he removed his hand that was covering his eyes and soon looked up at you. his eyebrows were furrowed, but his eyes carried a different emotion in them. instead of fury and aggression, a frightened hopelessness was seen in those dark brown eyes of his. that fiery passion he had, that brilliant confidence of his had been extinguished; all that was left of him now was a darkness, a darkness that had to be satiated by finally distancing you, 'protecting' you.

hobie put his mask back on and turned back towards the city outside, the city that he would disappear in, hoping to never cross paths with you again--not after this, not after seeing how dedicated you were to him... he can't bear to break you even more, even if you were more than willing to shatter yourself for him. "so that's just it, huh?" you asked aloud as he leaned forward, about to bring his hand out to shoot a web and swing off, far away from you. but he stayed. he listened. he lived in that moment with you for a little bit, let you linger in his life for a few more moments before the inevitable happens. "you're just gonna... swing off, leave me here, forget we were ever together? is this... is this it? do you honestly think you can control what i do? i did that out of love for you, it didn't matter what would happen to me anymore, i promised you that i--" "i'm doing this to save you." he interrupted you as hobie stood his ground and refused to stay any longer.

this was it. this was the fall out. this was the beginning of the end, the entirety of the end between you two.

the tear streaks on your face were drying up, until new tears rolled down your cheeks as you stared at your now ex-boyfriend's back. where spider man ended and where hobie began, you could never find out--and you feared that you never knew the real hobie to begin with, the frightened hobart brown that you had never met before had finally crossed paths with you for the first and last time.

as hobie extended his arm out and shot a web at a signal tower nearby, you spoke weakly in a quieted voice. "you can't always be a hero, hobart. you can't... you can't always protect people like me, no matter how much you want to..." hobie exhaled deeply and slowly nodded at your statement. "i'm well aware." he said in a soft voice as he readied to hop off the windowsill and swing off into who knows where.

"...sometimes, you can't make it all better."

you uttered as you turned your back to him, not wishing to watch him leave you in this cold hospital room. and no matter how painful and searing this moment was for you, you couldn't hate him. even if you got hurt for his sake, got confined to the hospital for him even when he's cutting off all ties with you for what happened after... you can't hate him.

the minute you turned around, he was gone. the wind whistled as it blew a gust of wind into your already freezing hospital room. an orange leaf was left in hobie's stead, must've been carried by the wind and left here. you picked it up as you walked over to it and gazed at the intricate details of the leaf. "it's... nearly fall." you muttered to yourself as you stared off into the distance, trying not to wonder where he could've gone, and instead, think about how different it feels to see orange and yellow leafed trees down the block instead of green.

"change is scary... but i'll get through it." you uttered to yourself as you held the delicate, orange leaf in your hands; a few teardrops fell from your eyes involuntarily, with you being unable to wipe them in your daze. "i'll... i'll get through it... right?" you asked yourself in a croak as you smiled to yourself, with undertones of grief in that layered grin of yours.

tags !! @k4tsu3 @fiannee @luvstarrstruck @toneystank-3000 @ii01vq @maxoloqy @popeheywardssecretgf @arachnoia @solecitoszn @conitagray

#hobie brown #hobie brown x reader #hobie brown x you #hobie brown x y/n #hobie brown angst #spider punk #atsv #atsv angst #atsv imagines #atsv x reader #atsv x you #atsv x y/n #spiderman across the spiderverse #spiderman across the spiderverse x reader #spiderman across the spiderverse angst

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mastersoftheair · 3 months

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Sorry but am I the only one that thought that episode…sucked? Like it was straight up bad. Horrible pacing, no wrap up of all the random characters and plot lines they’ve thrown around all season (the tuskegee airmen, Westgates spying, literally all the guys beside like the main 4). (Seriously it makes me so mad that the three redtails got all of 5 seconds of screen time, almost no lines. Literally what was the point of introducing them other than to pretend the show was iNcLuSiVe) Even at the end of BoB and the Pacific you get a much better idea of what happened to all the remaining guys. In this they’re like what happened to DeMarco or Hambone or Brady or (insert character here) we don’t know! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The concentration camp scene felt shoehorned in compared to how it was done in BoB. Unless that actually happened to Rosie (which i haven’t heard anything about) but it was just like.. ok? It all felt so rushed and emotionless to me. Maybe I’ve just fallen out of love with MoTA but it’s been downhill for me since episode 6 or so.

i already made a little (read: long) post-finale write-up here, where i talk about the use of the tuskegee airmen, l'sandra, and overall editing/pacing issues i felt the show had. but i don't agree with the notion that adding the redtails was in any way insincere or trying to halfass being "iNcLuSiVe", i just think they suffer from this show's obvious time constraints. and to summarize what i wrote in my linked post, there's a limit to what white writers/directors/producers can do when creating a story about black people. there are some stories i'd feel uncomfortable with them telling on their own, truth be told. dee rees wasn't the sole nonwhite director, but she Was the only black one. i think she did her job well given the limitations and i appreciate that they let her direct those episodes, rather than leaving it up to a team of white people trying their best to tell a black story.

the worst i can say about the finale is that it didn't feel like That strong of finale, tho i wouldn't go as far to say it "sucked" or call it "straight up bad". i liked it plenty, it's just the weakest of the hbo war finales imo.

as for the concentration camp scene, artistic license was taken with both shows. unlike what's seen in the BoB, easy company wasn't the first to arrive at kaufering, and there's 0 mention of the all-japanese american 552nd who helped them liberate it). similarly, rosie rosenthal did assist in liberating those camps, though it would've been after the events shown this episode. idk if he saw one in that up-close way seen in this episode, but he could've (i should research this when i have time). plus, it would've felt weird Not having him acknowledge them at all. "shoe-horned" is an odd term to use here imo, as both scenes more-or-less center a jewish character (BoB's liebgott and MotA's rosie). the former show has survivors the characters can help, the latter shows no one left to help. the former has all of easy company there, the latter has rosie there all alone. rosie's scene felt deeply personal in that way. at the end of the day, both scenes are communicating different things. that doesn't make one better than the other when they aren't trying to be identical. (disclaimer, i'm not jewish, so i'd be interesting hearing from the perspective of someone who wrt whether or not they felt it was "shoe-horned")

i can understand if you've disliked the show post-episode 6 (and episode 6 was a very strong episode i'm ngl). eps 7 and 8 were weaker in many ways, even to me, so i get it. everyone's entitled to their own opinion (i'd be a hypocrite saying otherwise). just understand that this blog is run by someone who overall enjoys this show despite its flaws! basically, i encourage you to take this energy and make your own posts.

#masters of the air #hbo war #e9 #asks #long post #masters of the air spoilers #mota spoilers #all the hbo war finales are different. i don't think MotA's is as strong but like #my fav hbo war show is still BoB and even Then i don't think it has a better finale than TP. and i dislike a lot of TP! like A Lot!#and Even Then we don't get a good idea about what happens to a lot of the minor-er characters in TP once they leave #anyone who isn't sledge or leckie (rip basilone) is hand-waved-'they went home'-away #not every show needs a sandlot ending w/ a voiceover going:#'[NAME] got really into the [INSERT DECADE] and no one ever saw him again' like they did to webster (rip webster)#and again! i'm mixed about the redtails. but i can Very Clearly See this show getting released without including them #which wouldve left many people (justifiably!) upset that they weren't shown when they were Literally there in the same pow camp #i'll give the hbo war team a lot of shit about a lot of things (despite the enduringly positive energy i try to keep up here)#but i Have to give MotA props for Trying. i don't see faux inclusion i just see it as not quite hitting the mark but an attempt was made #and i think that's worth Something given neither BoB or TP bothered trying #(like i think there was a missed opportunity in TP not mentioning what's happening to japanese americans on the home front)#this got away from me (i'm also opinionated) but while i can agree with you about how the show feels rushed #i do take issue with the idea that they were pretending to be inclusive. i'll blame money time and covid19 before i blame bad intention #maybe that's controversial here but it Is my blog. so.

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lovelylivelyv · 6 months

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Beware This Person

Before we begin, obligatory disclaimer: do NOT harass the person I am about to bring up. I don’t want things to spiral out of control and I am simply here to warn you guys about a potentially harmful person I advise you stay away from. Ok? Good. Also a TL;DR is at the bottom of the post just in case.

It has been brought to my attention that someone I had beef with on Discord took to Tumblr and has been badmouthing me for months. Sidetable-Drawer (also one of the mods on Hottoepecker) and I met in a Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends server though I came across her blogs around the same time. We initially got along well, but then I noticed her behavior would change when it came to disagreements. It got to the point where I felt she was getting extreme, and she blocked me shortly before leaving the server entirely. I thought that would be the end of it, but I find out that two months after she left the server (and two months before the post was sent to me with monthly reblogs), she made an entire rant about two sides of the fandom. However, I noticed for one particular side she seemed to talk less about the side in general and moreso one person, and that person is me. Since she blocked me and made me powerless to defend myself on the post itself, I’m here to warn you all about her behavior.

The post is about how the “Bloo is basically Cartman” and “Bloo did nothing wrong it’s everyone else’s fault” sides of the Foster’s fandom are really annoying. But when she talked about the latter, she brought up multiple things I did specifically, in addition to how her saying she won’t pretend Bloo is an UWU Soft Baby or whatever was something she only started saying after I had the audacity to claim…that the rest of the main cast are flawed individuals that likely don’t understand the weight of their actions against Bloo (ex. excessive yelling, hitting, double-standards; for more info watch The Hidden Pain Of Blooregard Q. Kazoo). For the record, I never claimed “Bloo did nothing wrong”, I only claimed “Bloo deserved better”. But enough about that, I’m going to point out the tip-offs that give away she’s using me to cover up how she’s actually a bully.

“Guys he's just a goofy little asshole who's fun to watch (most of the time) but sometimes needs to be thrown against a wall.”

-She said this a notable amount of times in the Discord server and it sounds unironic. I don’t want to read into this too much, but I firmly believe children don’t deserve to be abused. Yet I’m the demonizer?

“He’s got his own problems…but it also doesn’t justify him being a jerk.”

-I never said his reasons make it ok for him to be a jerk, all I said was he has reasons for acting out. Understanding is not the same as excusing. This is also the same person who thinks Mac was in the right for abandoning Bloo twice but three a fit when Bloo dared to “cheat” on Mac with another kid later on (she can believe it if she wants, but I find it funny that she makes excuses for Mac while having a zero-tolerance policy for Bloo).

“I've seen some people come up with BS takes defending everything Bloo does and throwing every other character under a bus and demonizing them (we had an entire video post about FRANKIE derailed with a reblog about how everyone is "too mean" to Bloo. Please make a new post for your bad takes)”

-As I said above, the first half is not true. Sidetable-Drawer specifically accused me of demonizing them when I explained how leaving Bloo to die in the pilot episode despite mustering the courage to save Mac mere seconds later was the catalyst for his behavior. As for the other…yeah, I derailed one of her threads (because she mentioned Bloo was being a little shit for wanting credit for a rescue), but it was one time. A singular time. This is hypocritical of Sidetable-Drawer to complain about because she’s guilty of doing the exact same thing MULTIPLE times. She not only derailed Bloo conversations to gush about Mac, but also invaded Gloo shipping spaces and constantly called me and others disgusting proshippers over a HEADCANON. Here are some screenshots of Sidetable-Drawer’s continuous derailments, as well as others trying to get her to stop ship-policing: (for privacy sake I’m blocking out all pfps and usernames aside from mine but will put “SD” next to Sidetable-Drawer’s messages)

So much for not burning me at the stake. Imagine calling my opinions bad takes when she’s the one actively harassing others over a ship she can’t accept is genuinely harmless, simply because it doesn’t fit her interpretation of a tweet Craig McCracken made. I’ve talked many times about how the aging thing is not necessarily set in stone for Bloo because of the existence of loopholes (Land Of The Flea) and the implication that Mac’s subconscious reason for creating Bloo was to have the big brother Terrence should have been, so I’ll just leave it at that.

“He's a funny jerk. Sometimes you just have to leave it at that.”

-Mac is a happy little kid, you could just leave it at that too. But you love to dissect how he’s a powerful character for coming out of his trauma a better person and theorizing how Mac’s life used to be before the show’s events. Why shouldn’t Bloo’s complexity be talked about? It sounds like you take issue with the idea that Bloo can be as layered as his peers.

“People are allowed to like Bloo but people are also allowed NOT to like him for these reasons, and you have to deal with it.”

-Then why did you accuse me of demonizing the main cast for saying the others needed to do better too? Why did you harass Gloo shippers to the point of trying to guilt-trip them out of shipping it? YOU’RE the one who’s not allowing people to think differently from yourself.

“(In the tags) Sometimes I remember that horribly squicky ‘Bloo Defense’ video and die a little bit. Sometimes you need to back up and tell yourself…it’s JUST a drawing :p”

-Ship-policing wasn’t enough for you, now you’re policing character analyses just because my view is wildly different from yours. How would you feel if someone told you that for saying Mac deserves better? You yourself are adamant against using “it’s just a cartoon”, but I guess you have no issue using it when someone else’s opinion doesn’t fit your idea of how things should be. Also if you really hated my video that much, you could have left a comment on the video proper instead of dragging my name in the mud for months.

All of this happened over simple disagreements I tried to be polite about despite her ignoring boundaries and shaming others time and time again. Normally I don’t respond to hate comments, but after having to deal with Sidetable-Drawer’s behavior on Discord for months and eventually finding out how she went out of her way to mock me and leave me powerless to defend myself, I knew I had to speak out about all this. If anybody figured out she was actually talking about one person and knew it was me, I could have been harassed. If I can help at least one person avoid being on the receiving end of her bullying, so be it.

TL;DR A Foster’s Home fan vilified me for having a different perspective, disguised a Tumblr post and subsequent reblogs targeting me to be about another group of Foster’s fans, and I’m warning others to stay away from her so they don’t go through the same thing if not worse.

#important #foster’s home for imaginary friends #fosters home for imaginary friends #fandom discourse

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ifjgh · 8 days

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The first character of '78 is my favorite Italian Nerd, Attilio Moretti.

Here's some basic info! <3

Goes By: Attilio Nicknames: Tilly, AM, 4-Eyes DOB: Feb.14th, 1956 Age: 22 (until Valentine's, then he's 23 for the rest of the story) Gender: Male (He/Him) Sexuality: Bi/Pan Ethnicity: Jewish, Italian Occupation: Student (Business Major), Volunteers at the Library, Tutoring, Possible side-job, Possible Waiter at Family Restaurant Socioeconomic Status: Fairly rich family, everyone jokes that it's because of Mafia connections, but his family just runs a genuinely good restaurant Place of Birth: Sicily, Italy Family: Has a younger sister and brother, Mother (Jewish) and Father (Italian), big extended family Height: 5'8“ (5'10” with shoes) Weight: 140 lbs. Disabilities: Extremely Near-Sighted, would be almost blind without his glasses Fashion Style: Soft/Preppy/Nerd, usually sweaters and a button down. Glasses needed (see previous point) Coordination (or lack thereof): Horrible coordination, even with glasses, can't catch a single thing thrown at him to save his life even if it's a pen, always fumbles Personality Type/Trait: Logistician - Practical and Fact-Minded, Very Reliable. Bit of a Know-It-All, and cocky about it. Introvert/Extrovert: Introverted, but can open up if dragged somewhere with someone he trusted and not left alone. Intelligence: Above Average, except when it comes to social situations, smartest out of all of the Main 8 Self-Esteem: Slightly Below Average, doesn't hate himself, but he doesn't think he's good enough for the MC beyond friendship, aka he thinks MC could do better. He does however see himself as an intellectual superior amongst the guys though, and will brag about that. Hobbies: Reading, Studying, Helping Keo with basic Tech Tinkering, Cooking, Collects Rare Book Printings Skills/Talents: Cooking, High Intellect, Good Problem Solver/Mediator Loves: Reading and Learning about other cultures, Helping Others, Being Right, Relaxing Alone, Finding Rare Book Printings for his Collection Phobias/Fears: Being Wrong, Someone loosing Trust in him, Being Alone Forever, Unwanted, Unloved, Large Groups of Water Angered By: Bullying (Syd, in general), Ignorance Pet Peeves: Untidiness, People not Listening to Him Obsessed With: Getting good grades, Being Right, Cleanliness (I'm starting to think he has some type of OCD, very “everything has it's place” type of deal), Learning as Much as he Can about Everything he Can Bad habits: Bragging about how Smart he is, loyal even too a fault, saying ”I told you so!!!“ while not actually helping with fixing the problem, Ignoring people if he thinks they're a waste of time Desires: Life-Long Companionship, Success, to have a Family one day, Intimacy, Experience Flaws: A bit of an Ego with his intelligence, doesn't always think about other's feelings if it means he'll be right, Clutz, Quiet, a bit of a Coward (ex: won't stand up for himself if Syd goes too far), has an outward-directed desire to please others but at the risk of losing his own identity Secrets: The crush he's had on his Best-Friend (MC) since they were kids, he'd practically die if they knew, let alone if they reciprocated those feelings. Anyone finding the ”Adult“ books in his collection. While his direct family doesn't have ties to the Mafia, doesn't mean his extended family doesn't. Has a pretty intense scar he got back in High School thanks to Manzo on his left hip. Regrets: Despite the previous point, he wishes everyday that he could tell MC about his feelings, and that he wishes he told them sooner. Meeting Syd. Not being able to say no to doing BeeDee's homework, because of his more surface level crush for her and need to be liked Accomplishments: Got in on a scholarship, had the best grades in his former High School. Won a local cook-off, and still has the tiny trophy in his room. The rare printings of Kafka's works and "La Divina Commedia" that he has in his collection. Languages Known: Fluent in Italian and English, and is slowly picking up some Vietnamese and 'Ōlelo Hawai'i (from hanging out with Keo) and some Japanese (from being roommates with Manzo)

(Things are subject to change the more I get things fine tuned, I've also kept some things secret for the time being. - Crow <3)

Bonus! Basic Profile Sheet, for funsies! X

#Project 78 #Attilio #honestly he's my fave and the first one I made #character concept

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animebw · 2 years

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What is it with devil part timer? I wasn't ever going to watch it but now i am curious.

Short version, it's an anime from 2013 that's sort of a reverse-isekai: instead of a normal person getting teleported to a fantasy world, a demon lord and a couple of his minions get teleported to our world and have to work at McDonalds (sorry, MgRonalds) to make a living. It's basically a sitcom about super-powerful demons and angels adjusting to the life of a low-wage service worker, with some occasional action thrown in for good measure. I wasn't in the anime fandom when it was released, but it apparently got quite a passionate following. And they suffered for almost a decade with no season 2 announcement until a new studio finally picked it up just this season. So people were excited.

And then they saw what the new season was actually gonna look like.

See, the first season was produced by White Fox, the studio behind Steins;Gate and Re:Zero. And while it wasn't a visual masterpiece or anything, it was very well put together on a technical front. Solid action, solid direction, solid editing from shot to shot, and- and this was the real ace up its sleeve- some of the best damn expression work of its time. So much of this show's comedy works before of just how damn expressive and intense everyone's faces are. It's just the right balance of snappy and over-the-top. And while the studio producing season 2, 3Hz, isn't a bad studio by any stretch, the style they chose to go with was a lot softer, a lot rounder, and a lot less suited to the style of comedy it's going for.

Like, this is how the average punchy expression looks in season 1:

And this is the baseline for season 2:

Like... there's just no personality to the second one. It's the most generic anime face of concern imaginable. Plus now every female character has that godawful perma-blush that way too many female character designs have nowadays, and there's so much less animation overall, and the production quality really sinks as the season goes on, and... look, this whole season just looks so bland. There's no imagination or energy to any of the visual choices, and the first season had both of those in spades.

And unfortunately, once you take away the strong visual presentation, you're forced to confront the fact that The Devil is a Part-Timer... really kind of sucks in the story department. Yeah, it's a neat premise, but the execution of that premise mostly just results in every overused anime trope you were already getting tired of back in 2013. Half-baked lore, unnecessary love triangle/harem, the main guy being somehow completely oblivious to the girls' interest in him (despite one of them LITERALLY TELLING HIM TO HIS FACE SHE LIKES HIM AND HE STILL DOESN'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND SERIOUSLY), groan-inducing fanservice, casual fatphobia, That One Scene From Sword Art Online, you get the picture. But at least the first season had enough energy that you could mostly overlook those things for the sake of a well-produced comedy. Season 2, though? It's so lifeless and aimless that the flaws in the writing become impossible to ignore. This is just not a good story, and it doesn't even have enough style to be passable anymore.

...man, I had more thoughts on this than I realized, lmao.

Anyway, we'll see if the last two episodes turn things around. But in all likelihood, this season is going to end up a 3/10 for me. And even if you're a fan of the first season, I wouldn't recommend it, because basically everything that made the first season work is gone now.

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #tabw q+a #the devil is a part timer #hataraku maou sama!#2013 aniwatch #summer 2022 anime #summer 2022 sr

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nut-in-me-jojo · 1 year

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If I may keep complimenting you, i just wanna say your Gyutaro feels really spot on.

You made him exactly how he should be, his entire flow chills me in all the ways demons should act in their audience's eyes; a demon, someone ruined. Who's only means of coping with abuse is fierce hostility, and in the poor environment Gyutaro was born in, it's not unexpected to turn into a violent and mean individual as a result of extreme abuse and discomfort. Especially when it comes to the ways of survival, the world stomps on the weak and poor masses, it never cared for him and/or his sister. So why should he give a rat's ass?

He's cold, he's cruel, he's mean and incredibly demeaning to the degree where he uses insults heartlessly thrown at him as a youngling on other people (I'd argue it isn't only for evil sadist's sake, but also a coping mechanism). The very people he viewed as monsters, he became worse in canon.

You know that meme where it says, "when you see a dude write a character differently than how you see them"? I adore writers, as a developing writer myself I maintain a massive respect for them. And i ain't gonna shit on them for their own thoughts and fanon (It's called headcanons for a reason. Bloggers can do whatever they like, it's their blog, their content after all), but when someone makes a society-abused literal demon like Gyutaro all love hearts and sweet like candy for little to no reason it makes me die a bit on the inside.

As I mentioned, it's their blog and all. I won't tell them how to run their shit, as it's not my place. But I never understood why anyone writes or reads OOC!charas. OOC just takes all the attractiveness of that character and...makes them not that character.

When you search up writing for a character you expect to read that character to act the way you've seen them. The reason why people read/follow certain characters it's because their traits are appealing, personality or otherwise. Not to say the characterization and research has to be totally 100% spot on or the writer has to mentally and/or physically understand the character. There are flaws in everyone's writing, perfection only exists in practice. But when I read a character, I do expect the writing to understand what their role was in the story.

I love Gyutaro but from a realistic standpoint, I utterly despise him. Tanjiro gave him and Daki exactly what they deserve, death. Why? Because Gyutaro is clearly written as a terrifying villain. A demon, corrupted by inhuman blood, who takes great joy and excitement from the fear of unfortunate victims. Gyutaro plays with his food, like cats do to mice; he canonly admitted more than a fair number of times he actively enjoys bringing torture and will absolutely give chase if it'll strike even more fright in their hearts. And Daki is only worse because of how picky, entitled princess she is. When I read villainous dudes I expect/want to read villainous things, and when there are lovey-dovey things there has to be corresponding reasons for it. By all means it doesn't have to be justified because in villain cases it almost never is, but it does have to make sense, needs to fit.

Yeah, I know. Love don't need to be complex, but complexity should be expected in characters written specifically as complex, right? KnY is deep in it's subjects. It's a demon-filled world, the demons are the bad guys of its entire story, so when love and demons mix you know it ain't anything normal or easy.

(Douma for example, is canonly stated as emotionless and psychopathic. Love in his demonic state seems down-right impossible, but should he ever 'experience' it, I'm pretty sure he's gonna be real awkward about it in standard Douma fashion. A stream of confusing and whole stage of denial following suit, seeing he grew accustomed and content with "nothing" for so many centuries despite a broken upbringing.)

Connecting love and villains together is fun for the same reason why people adjust their emotional connections for the consideration and comfort of other people. Because villains often want almost nothing to do with it. They are dark, selfish and very unnerving, predictably becoming of their lifestyles. True villains are distant-hearted, to the degree that distance directs how they act to themselves and other people. Unfeeling and unmoving even in front of opposing forces.

Gyutaro is a mega-asshole and romance stories with him are fascinating to explore, as stated above, because he's a villain (And because we all love a sleazy man done right).

So once more, I clap and throw hearts at your story. The gremlin man is green, mean and the proud owner of this poor woman's soul. I'm truly excited to see what you plan next in general. Don't mind me just gonna eat up all your other stuff. I' am more than honored to be a follower (And you're following me too?? Like whATT?) and enjoyer of this sweet sweet content.

so sorry for rambling i just really love your shit ok, just lemme know whenever i get to be too much.

Let me start by saying this is very incredibly sweet and totally made my day. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a nice review! Also, I could never ever ever get tired of people telling me how much they love my stuff, the encouragement is wonderful fuel for inspiration. So definitely don’t worry!!

I’m very glad you can appreciate my take on Gyutaro’s character. Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes to everything you said. You’ve listed off every little thing I’ve always strived for in this series which is a pretty big ego boost ngl lol.

But yes, I watched the entertainment arc as it aired and I got this idea for this story pretty much immediately before there were many fics for Gyutaro at all. But I knew most people who WERE gonna write for him would probably water him down and make him all fluffy like most people do with villains. Which I mean, nothing really wrong with that of course. I’ve certainly been one to enjoy those before.

But I wanted to have a story where he’s portrayed as the monster he really is. I wanted people to remember my fic as, “that one really fucked up one.” Lmao. Because as a reader, I feel like I’m always looking for a fic that has the true villain I actually signed up for, with all or most of their complexities in tact lol. So I wanted to deliver that to my dear readers.

I’m so very glad you’re enjoying the ride. Thank you again for the kind words! Ily5ever🥹

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bugeyedfreaks · 2 years

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Gonna try as be as concise with this post as I can, since I’m sure you guys know by now that I… can talk way too much about the PPG. 🤣 I had heard about the Powerpuff Girls live action leaked script, but I never took the time to read it for myself. People sent me screencaps of different sections and gave me a summary of what happened, but from all of that, I thought it didn’t sound very good, so I didn’t want to assault my senses with the full thing. A few days ago, the PDF of the script popped up on Tumblr for me as a recommended post, so I thought I should take a deep breath and finally take the plunge.

I’m surprised to report that after FINALLY reading it… I didn’t entirely hate it. Is the writing bad? Yes. Are there way too many pop culture jokes? Yes. Do they make the mistake of giving all the girls ice powers when it’s pretty established canon that Blossom’s the only one with that? YES, and that’s really aggravating. You get glimmers that the writers have seen the show, and kind of get the characters, but only to a certain point that borders on superficial.

However, there’re a lot of cool ideas in the script. I kept reading it thinking, “Ohhh, that’s a cool idea, but I wish they did it [insert different way here].” I even went, “Awww!” at a couple points. Yes. I was weirded out. I liked some of the character interpretations (I’m like 75% on board with Blossom’s character, liked Buttercup and Bubbles’ sisterly chemistry, strangely love the weird take of crazy stardom obsessed Bubbles 😂 and her relationship with the Prof, among many other things!), but I was super thrown off by the pointless (and honestly, unfunny and baffling) “adult” humor and pop culture jokes. Those made NO sense. Like Craig McCracken has said in the past, you don’t mix the girls in with whatever’s like hot or trendy, they’re supposed to be evergreen. Despite this type of humor sucking, it makes me sad to hear that the network interpreted the fans’ response as hating any humor, and are changing it to go into a “serious” direction. I think all it needs is some good original humor not so dependent on references to things (maybe even a healthy dose of puns). PPG usually has a good mix of serious fighting and goofy hijinks, and you could totally do that with a live action series. The characters are fun and funny and it would be fun to keep them that way, just… creatively!

There’s also some OOCness that’s just unforgivable. Of course, you need these characters to have flaws that they’ll overcome throughout the run of the show, but some of the additions were weird, like they didn’t track for who some of the characters are at their core. There was one that I thought was interesting but had lousy execution, and that was the Professor being a greedy stage dad kind of character. It made me sad, but the idea of our usually sweet Professor being secretly evil or doing some shady things on the side WAS kind of intriguing. If they were gonna do that, I would have made it a slow build up to like a season finale, like, “…wait, the good dad licensed his kids out of the money instead of for the good of the town?! Evil all along?!” or something like that. Maybe he was forced into it and went against his own moral code. Could it even have been an avenue to introduce Him? Was he puppeteering the Prof all along?! I dunno. But the way they wrote the Prof how they did just made it seem like they had no clue what they were doing, or who his character is even at a basic level.

I think a lot of the ideas presented (childhood stardom, the struggles of adulthood, privacy, the real world repercussions of fighting, mental health, etc.) are really super intriguing, and my mind is like REELING with a lot of potential that seems wasted and lost. The girls have established personality flaws that they could really build off more from (Blossom with perfectionism and pride, Buttercup with anger and jealousy, Bubbles with sensitivity and naïveté) and in a more meaningful way. Same with the villains, like… some of them are more complex than a casual viewer would think, and it would be cool to see that complexity fleshed out even more.

One thing I would really want them to do is to try to, like… distance the show as much as possible from the original canon cartoon. PPGZ is a good example of successfully creating a PPG-esque show for a specific market and demographic that keeps the spirit of the original show and the general designs while making it CLEAR that it’s its own thing. After what happened with PPG 2016, it might have made fans skittish that this live-action show is meant to somehow “fix” things, or continue the cartoon’s official storyline. It shouldn’t. This needs to be, like, more clearly an alternate universe. Don’t even have the cartoon in it as a gag (I’d say the least I’d put in are the cartoon designs of the girls as like… in-world merch mascots or something, and even then I’m hesitant). If you look at this show as a separate entity that’s only based off the original characters, it might feel a little more palatable. …maybe. 😆

Anyway, I could write SO much more, but that’s… my general take on it. Not great, but not as much of a dumpster fire as I was expecting. I dunno if I’m confident that they’ve been making any meaningful changes to the script. Realistically, at the end of the day, they’re probably viewing it as a way to push merch and make money rather than setting out to do a live action PPG series justice. That’s okay. It is what it is. If they DO want to make it good though, I think at the very least it just needs more thought put into it and to be scrubbed clean of all those garbage pop culture jokes. We’ll see what happens though, but I did at least detect some potential hiding in there. Now if it builds on the potential… that remains to be seen. 🙃

#ppg cw #sorry I’m late with my Deep Thoughts on this one #also omg #SO SURPRISED that I like the character of Jojo as much as I did lol I seriously thought he’d be ruined #not even close to perfect but there’s Potential™️#not feeling the dad and son thing but also NOT not feeling it… I have very complicated feelings about it haha #i could write a whole thing about how to properly incorporate mojo into the show but… I feel like it’d be wasted effort anyway so idk #ALSO I will say they should tone down the cringe sex stuff but I AM intrigued by some of the romance aspects #it’s much less cringe since they’re adults here so I was happy that I wasn’t TOO much like… blech… but there were moments #buttercup and bubbles stop being so honry PLEASE 😑

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yumeirochaser · 3 months

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finished all of steven universe (show/movie/shippuden)

okay so stewing on it. this show as a whole is very good. great, even!! i feel like a lot of the criticisms thrown at it online are kinda bullshit, and it is way more nuanced than i remember. it is VERY flawed, but ultimately good.

i'll start with the pros of the whole project:

-really impeccable art direction and music. this show is a feast for the eyes, esp since it's a 2010s project

-very nuanced discussions of complex emotional topics (outside of one big case)

-REALLY good cast, there's only like 3 bad charas, but everyone else is really really good and compelling

-actually really good diverse and lgbt rep. i love yuri fam. we got so much yuri here.

-really good drama and jokes. it's actually very good at balancing both tones

-brisk and nice to watch

-REALLY good complex characters. rose/pink is unironically one of the tragic toxic woman all timers

-the songs rule. lotta bangers here

-i love the character designs a lot!!!!

so yeah it is VERY good!! but also really flawed. here's the cons:

-really bizarre show pacing and episode placing, which tbh i can't blame too much on them bc it WAS CN's fault for making the insane idea of stevenbombs

-the fuck it we ball planning is REALLY apparent at times

-the wide majority of the cast is very underfocused, despite the show constantly setting them up to have bigger roles. i would say the quartet of jasper/bismuth/lapis/peridot were the most prominent victims of this, but it's in general since it is the result of...

-steven himself being a VERY weak lead, with the insistence of everything being in his POV limiting the show and contriving plots more than anything. he is in fact imo, the show's biggest flaw, severely hurting it by the end of future. they really struggle with making him likeable and interesting, and the way the show insists to focus on him makes a lot of major character beats depend on him being on screen or just. happen completely off screen. certain plots also get REALLY convoluted to have him in places and private situations he really shouldn't be in for us to actually see what happens to other characters at all. he's also very one note and not really allowed to be as complex as the rest of the cast, with him constantly being exonerated of any wrong thing he does, by either being right all along or a woobie. this does get real uncomfortable with plots like the lars body swap ep, the lars/sadie ship eps and the entire second half of future bc. he gets reaaaal weird and possessive with the rest of the cast there and it's more or less glossed over. he also kind of is limited to One personality trait per season, being one walking fat joke in S1, fluctuating between funy permachild and messiah complex guy in the rest of the main show and the movie and becoming just walking whump material in future. it's weird bc he DOES improve and develop in S2, esp with the peridot arc, but then they more or less reverse his development for the rest of the show after the cluster arc ends??? it's a bizarre choice. his presence really looms over this show, like a black hole. like conceptually he's really good and he has moments where he can shine, but his execution in the majority of the show is very poor imo. like i get what they wanted to do with him in future and i agree it's a necessary topic to discuss. but also they should have made him like. an actual character people would like for that to work lmao

related to this we gotta talk about. connie. man. she was hit with the shonen jump love interest stick since very early on and she never recovered. her training arc kinda ends on nothing, she kind of only is there to fuse into stevonnie a bunch of the time (with their uh. weird ass early eps. why fanservice the little kid fusion.) and she more or less is just reduced to being steven's loyal emotional support woman by the end of future. honestly it's weird how nobody talks about the way she is treated bc it's oddly bad for a show that usually treats its diverse charas really well. like damn she really got done dirty.

but yeah i wish we were able to have eps with the rest of the cast leading bc they are really good characters. i think my faves are garnet (she actually got focused on the most out of all gems, which i don't really see fans mention either. she's great), rose (she's so fucked. i love it.), amethyst (more femmes should be allowed to be gross weird assholes in tv.) and peridot (rancid moe...). but i love all the gems they are great. the townies are also really fun!! (outside of ronaldo & kevin). i wish we could have actually seen more of the cast's lives, thoughts and interests outside of steven...i just really like these characters a lot

it's kind of a shame the show kinda goes down the gutter with future's second half bc the majority of it is really good shit with really nuanced handling of themes like chains of abuse, unorthodox families, familial abuse, trauma, abandonment, war and grieving. i legit think this show was something special and bold for its time, and i wish it ended in a better way. i had a really good time with it and i still love the cast a lot, but yeaaah they shouldn't have turned steven into the center of the universe. that really hurt it by the end. it's a good show that left me with a really weird feeling by the end. i will still cherish the time i had with it but yeaaah. it is a shame bc i really dig the concept of future, but the execution was like ehhhhhh hmmm not very good. the rest of the show clears in these topics tho we love screwed up girls. objectively tho there is way more good aspects to this show than good ones. it's just that the one big bad thing it has is the main focus of the whole dealio lmao

i wish future didn't screw up at the end but i am glad this show exists and it did pave the way for other shows! so at least there's that!! i will miss the crystal gems and their funky friends a lot....

#stuff happa watches #not tagging the show bc i don't wanna be jumped lmao

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slytherinsnekxvii · 3 years

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let's talk about lily evans and the marauders, aka moony, wormtail, padfoot and prongs. given that i didn't use their actual names, i think you can figure out where this is going. it's also long as hell, so. canon vs fanon, marauder edition, except snek is sleep deprived.

now, before we begin, i don't dislike the marauders. or lily, tbh. if I'm being perfectly, genuinely honest, i still go back and forth sometimes but they've been growing on me for a while now. the canon versions, at least. fanon does them real dirty, and that's part of why i'm writing this, because i'm genuinely tired of it. it's an injustice.

you can at least make excuses for james and lily, who were so undeveloped that jkr practically dropped a fill-in-the-blank sheet of character information in our laps, but sirius, remus and peter were around long enough for y'all to get real acquainted with them.

in canon, sirius black is an unhinged mf. genuinely. this isn't to say he's a bad guy, in fact, we see that he's still capable of doing good things, still capable of love, still capable of all the things that prove he's actually not bad at heart, just,,, severely traumatised and very steeped in negativity from his time with the dementors. what i'm saying is that this man is absolutely, no questions asked, no holds barred demented, and how could he not be? the guy sat wrongfully imprisoned in azkaban for twelve years, a good portion of which he spent as a dog in order to protect himself from the dementors. he certainly wasn't completely insane, but you cannot tell me that he was all there. he got out of azkaban fuelled almost solely by the intent to get revenge on pettigrew, tried to commit murder in front of three witnesses who were also children—one of whom was his godson—ate rats and was also malnourished, which i'm certain did not help the situation any. this man is off his goddamn rocker, and you know what? you love to see it. good for him.

oh, but, snek, that's what he's like as an adult. what about when they were at school? before azkaban? my guy, the reaction he has to grimmauld place is not the reaction of someone without trauma. i don't believe that walburga and orion were the type to physically abuse their children, but whatever happened in that house helped to fuck him up enough that he skipped the joke of part of practical joke, and pranked snape by telling him how to meet a werewolf that he knew would be fully transformed and dangerous to humans. more than that, the werewolf was remus, whom he's friends with, and who—best case scenario—would be facing a trial if james hadn't stepped in. you can say that maybe he didn't think about or understand the gravitas of his actions, but at the end of it, that's not how properly sane people react to people they dislike, and that's not how they treat their friends. if anything, it reads like he was in the middle of a breakdown and absolutely losing his shit and he wasn't thinking at all.

my guy went through some serious shit, and was in no way completely mentally stable. we can see pretty clearly that he's got a serious dark side to him that probably would have gone unbridled had he not disagreed with his family, and yet, fanon took one look at him and went, "teehee, uwu bad boi go vroom."

fanon said padfoot is a pretty boy with nice hair who is tastefully traumatised from his horribly abusive household. sirius rides his motorcycle and plays jokes and flirts with anything that moves, but he can do no real wrong and always comes back to his soft, bookish, chocolate-loving boyfriend remus, who will laugh about his lycanthropy and quietly disapprove but secretly laugh at his friends' antics while hiding his smile in his cardigan.

respectfully, what in the absolute fuck.

i'd put that meme in here if i could, the one that's like, "well done, you've broken _______ down to its bare essentials," but no. i can't bc it doesn't even apply. this isn't a meme, it's theseus' fucking ship.

fanon broke it down, and replaced the pieces one by one until we got to this point, where we need to sit down and ask ourselves, "is this even the same character?"

the answer is no, by the way. it isn't. when people talk about woobifying characters—you know, taking away every flaw they have, romanticising everything they do and making them only capable of doing good, wonderful, lovely things?—this is what we mean.

and it'd be one thing if it was just the one character, but, no. fanon went all in and made them all squeaky clean and boring, especially peter, who draws the shortest of the straws.

remus got fucked, too. not just because fanon insists on sticking him into a relationship with sirius. which, we'll tackle wolfstar in a bit, but that's not even the worst of it. here, we have yet another example of blatant, rampant woobifying. again, is he a bad person? no. we know he's a good guy, we know he's generally kind and well-mannered, we know that he wants to fo the right thing but hey, fun fact. did you know that you can be nice and a coward? did you know that you can be benevolent and good and kindly and have the greatest of intentions and still be shady as fuck? no? ask dumbledore. the man played people like chess pieces when he needed to, and he was a twinkly grandpa. these are things that can coexist.

teenage remus is a coward who, understandably, does not stand up to his friends, likely for fear of being ostracised, and doesn't uphold his prefect duties as he should and takes part in their bullying of snape as a result. he lets them romp with him in werewolf form while they are in their animagus forms and then, he lets them continue to do so even after they have multiple close calls, which, again, had anything happened, would have resulted in a trial in the best case scenario.

grownup remus is still a coward, he tells no one that sirius can move about the school in his animagus form despite wholeheartedly believing that he's a mass murderer, he tries to run out on his wife and unborn kid. he isn't deliberately making attempts to harm anyone, but he's content to sit back and let things happen to him and around him so he doesn't rock the boat, although he is capable of action, which we see when he is more than willing to help sirius merk pettigrew in the shack. he can be careless, he runs out to the shack knowing he hasn't taken his wolfsbane and ends up transforming in front of the students he, as a teacher, is meant to be protecting. of course, this doesn't negate his good qualities, it just bears repeating that his flaws do exist, and they're pretty serious.

fanon moony is always pleasant and kind and soft-spoken and bookish, and he always has to have his chocolate. he knows when to tell off his friends, and he'll do it, even if he's secretly amused by everything they do and laughs about it with his best friend, lily evans, who coincidentally spends all her time with them so he and sirius can go on double dates with james and lily and no one has to remember peter exists.

why. theseus' ship 2.0. does the actual character still exist or is this something entirely different thing bearing the same name?

as for peter, who needs peter pettigrew, the actual, legitimate, fourth marauder when you have lily evans? canon pettigrew is opportunistic as fuck. he's latching himself to the biggest bad on the block and he's going all in. for teenage peter, that was james and sirius, and for adult peter, that's voldemort. canon peter is good enough at transfiguration to master the animagus transformation, just like his friends, and he's good enough at potions to brew the potion that gives voldemort a body. and honestly, you can't say he wasn't brave. he could've run off somewhere and died, or changed his identity or something after he faked his death and framed sirius, but, no. he goes and resurrects voldemort. that's fucked up, yeah, but it happened and honestly, i respect that it. he stuck to his guns.

fanon wormtail is lucky if he exists beyond being a spineless sycophant for james and sirius, or an evil conniving little rat who's looking to toss his entire friend group to the wolves at eleven.

of course, this isn't meant to negate his bad qualities, he still murdered people and framed sirius and sold out the potters to die, but his good characteristics do exist, and james, sirius and remus genuinely were his friends.

and now, we get to lily and james.

we have hardly any information on either of them. they're a pair of cardboard cutouts that we can paint and stick flyers to and colour outside the lines however we want. we can do whatever the fuck, as long lily is brave and smart and somewhat kind and james is brave and willing to die for his family. we were essentially handed a pair of ocs.

and yet.

what little bits of canon we have are thrown out of the window regardless.

james is privileged and rich, and he throws hexes for fun. he's willing to hex lily when she disagrees with him, and then, he goes behind her back to continue hexing snape after she believes that he's stopped doing so. and that's all we know about him until he dies for his family at twenty-one years old. once again, say it with me: this does not negate his good qualities. he definitely had them, he took sirius in when sirius ran away from home, he became an animagus to keep remus company as a wolf, and he saved snape in the shack, thereby saving remus and sirius by extension. him having flaws does not make him a bad person.

fanon prongs is a feminist. he fights for equal rights for women everywhere, and he constantly treats his girlfriend, lily, like an absolute queen. he's the hottest boy in school and everyone claps when he walks through the halls. mcgonagall and dumbledore are always patting him on the back and making jokes with him. he has a built-in dark detector that helps him sense when someone is a evil and needs to he punished.

give me a break. the dude's cool and all, but was the gary stu treatment necessary?

...oh, he needed to match fanon lily? right, right.

canon lily is a contradiction unto herself. she's supposedly a great friend, but since we see her at a point where they were already drifting apart, we see her putting little effort into keeping their friendship afloat. she victim blames based on rumours, she doesn't seem to care over much about what snape has to say about the people who have been tormenting him since day one. and she's justified, of course, she doesn't have to stick around. canon lily is a bit of hypocrite, she says that snape calls everyone of her birth mudblood, but then that begs the question why she still hangs around with him if that's the case. he calls her mudblood, she retaliates by calling him snivellus, and finishes up with a dig about his underwear, which, sure, it's kicking a man with a rusty spoon and pouring salt in the wound, but she's, again, justified. i get where she was coming from. and then, of course, she dies for her kid after marrying the guy who relentlessly bullied her quote-unquote best friend for their entire school careers. but, like i said, canon lily is, in many ways, a contradiction.

lily is basically a plot device. she pushes everyone's narrative but her own, and does little else.

of course, this trend would continue in fanon. fanon lily exists to be the perfect girl who gets really angry over the slightest injustice, and of course, she gets to be one half of one of the oldest enemies-to-lovers "it was just sexual tension" cliche pairings in the book. she's just,,, a mary sue. in so many fics, so many headcanons, she's just pettigrew's stand-in, a girl to form a gang with marlene, mary and dorcas—who happen to be more undeveloped ocs who also get the woobify mary sue treatment—to parallel the marauders. there is nothing compelling about her character when she's presented as a saint, and even less when she's supposedly the other moral compass for the marauders that doesn't actually work because she thinks that james is cute.

and this brings me to the next topic. jily. what, why, how. this was supposed to be a healthy, happy relationship that would have lasted in the long run? absolutely not. even for its time, i can't say that i see it lasting.

first of all, jkr presents james' crush on lily as just that: a crush. a mildly obsessive one, but a crush nonetheless, which she tries to liken to the pulling of pigtails. and then, we see that james' way of getting her to go out with him consists of blackmail, and when that doesn't work, he resorts to threatening her. this could have been set aside if he had actually, genuinely changed when they started spending more time together, but as we're told by sirius and remus, he didn't. he just got better at hiding what he was up to. and it has to be that he hid it, because if she knew, this further damages the character that she's set up to have and paints her out to be either unable to stand up to him or an enabler.

regardless, they get married. and while i have trouble believing that it was out of genuine love, there are scenarios that could make some semblance of sense. it's wartime, after all, and maybe lily is worried about her stability in the wizarding world, so why not marry into an established family whose son is already showing interest? or perhaps, she falls into the trap of every bad boy cliche ever, and she thinks to herself, well, i got him to be better then, maybe i can get him to do even better in the future. or maybe, she doesn't get into a relationship with him immediately and sees him on and off, until eventually, she accidentally gets pregnant and they scramble to have a shotgun wedding so as not to leave lily alone at nineteen with a baby. or maybe they marry each other because they're there and sure, neither of then is ready and they don't know what love even is but what else is there to do when there's a dark lord about? anyways, the point is, they get married.

and then what? if we count pottermore into canon, he goes on to further damage her relationship with petunia and vernon, to the point where she ends up crying. if we don't, she fades into the background enough that nobody has anything to say about her. she's harry's mum, she's james' wife, lily potter, she was kind and smart and brave and that's it. her agency is gone, anything else we have of her personality is gone.

jily just,,, wasn't built to last. and, yeah, this,,, this is a hill i'll die on.

same with wolfstar, honestly. there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work, but fanon has made it so fucking prevalent that it's literally everywhere no matter where you look.

first of all, i've said it before and i'll say it again. sirius is more likely to get with james that he is to ever end up in a relationship with remus. their chemistry is just,,, underdeveloped. net zero for a relationship.

secondly, sirius instigated the werewolf prank, and lupin would have paid the price for it. this could have been overlooked, but he doesn't seem the slightest bit guilty about any of it when it's brought up in poa. he could have been responsible for lupin losing the security of his place at hogwarts in the best case scenario, and in the worst case, his life. and he seems to look forward to full moons, even though they clearly aren't pleasant for remus, which,,, yeah, you're going to have fun, but like, maybe be concerned about the fact that your friend undergoes excruciating pain and it isn't a pleasant time for him? read the room, my g.

thirdly, they don't trust each other as much as fanon seems to think they do. they were both willing to believe each other the traitor before ever suspecting pettigrew. sirius thought remus gave away the potters, hell, he thought remus was a spy for voldemort, and remus was convinced that sirius was a mass murderer. neither of them needed to be convinced.

fourthly, maybe i'm reading too much into it, but like. sirius had money. remus had no money, since, yk, he was a werewolf and struggling for cash and still, sirius,,, did not leave him any money. i feel like if you had money to spare, you would give to your friend who is literally poor. but, again, maybe i'm reading too much into it and this isn't as valid a point as i think it is.

and ehh, the fifth reason is that it's,,, actually very much not the representation for the ltgbt community that fanon says it is but y'all aren't ready for that conversation.

anyways, just,,, even when you set the couple shit aside, the power dynamics between everyone here is fucked. like, james and sirius are clearly at the top of food chain calling the shots and egging each other on. then there's lily, who isn't even a marauder, but is always ever-so-slightly above remus but still not on their level, because, well. neither of them actually listen to her. remus is the novelty friend, the friend who's,,, alright, i guess, but you keep them around specifically because they're funny or they can dance or they have something that you can either show off to other people or keep as your little inside joke, your little secret, yk? and peter is just sort of there. like, yeah, he can do what we can but does that make him as good as we are? no. does he have a funny little something about him that we can exploit? nah. therefore he sits at the bottom. and like, yeah, james and sirius are on the same level, but james is yanking sirius' chain, not the other way around. anyways, like i said. power dynamic's fucked and it bothers me that we were given all of this, and fanon decided to take it all and throw it away so they could give us flamboyant!badboi!sirius black x softboi!motherhen!remus lupin going on double dates with feminist!trustfundbaby!james potter and saint!lily evans while ignoring peter pettiwho?

theseus' fucking ship, indeed.

anyways, this needed to be said. it might not make as much sense as i want it to, considering it's 4:12 in the morning as i'm posting this, after taking a break from writing to do some research and coming across way too much content about fanon marauders, but it's here and it still makes enough sense that you can read it and understand what i mean. and like, at the end of the day, you can go ahead and headcanon whatever you please, you can write fic and make art and do whatever you like, just,,, remember that they're exactly that. headcanons. stop presenting fanon as canon. please. i'm literally begging. we actually have evidence against it. just,,, acknowledge that they're headcanons and stop putting them forward as though they're able to fit into canon. please.

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fucktheroyals · 4 years

Text

You know after reading and reading and reading peoples theories and the meta from before the spn finale aired and the meta writers reactions to the finale I think I have a theory of my own. We don't have any answers tho, so this is pure speculation. If you wanna add something to support or discredit any of this that's cool but there's too many things floating around. Know I dont have proof for this conclusion at all. A lot of what I say is just guesses based on previous facts.

This all came together in my head when I realized how much this finale REEKS of the original producers and who the show was originally for. It REEKS of Robert Singer. Like if the execs started saying they didn't want it, Robert Singer was the one pushing that the story was about the brothers. That kinda thing.

Then, I was thinking of the problems in this episode and it struck me these are all of Supernatural biggest issues and to be honest all of it feels completely deliberate.

Take the sexism for example, Supernatural in it's later seasons largely out grew this, we have Jody, Rowena, Donna, Charlie, Mary, Claire (and even a wayward sisters pilot with MORE women/girls) all making regular appearances. They're mainly good characters and mostly aren't there to hurt our boys. Rowena, of course, is the one outlier being very about herself but it's clear she still cares for them, I mean its part of her development. But they're all real, with character flaws just like everyone else. (And we have Death too and she was POC 😭 THANK GOD)

Now look at the earlier half of Spn, we have Ellen and Jo, who's appearances were far in between. There's Bela in season 3, recurring for quite a bit (5 eps), but she is a character that is only there for herself, definitely not found family (unlike Ellen & Jo), and she's got more episodes in season 3 than Ellen and Jo in season 2 who aren't seen again til season 5. The "fans" send in hate mail after hate mail to try to get these characters off, and eventually they are. Then there's Ruby who's character stayed for a whole two seasons and was a largely recurring character. Why does she get to say so long? She's a plot device. She's supposed to be there to betray Sam. She has to stay (plus Jared obviously likes her). But she's not just a character the writers like writing about. Same with Lilith. Obviously not as recurring but still a plot device. Did they get hate mail tho? You can bet on it. Why? because tHeY'rE gOnNa PuSh ThE bOyS (Dean and Sam) aPaRt ThE sHoW iS aBoUt ThE bOyS oNlY. Without even thinking about the hate mail, just notice how large the difference is from how women are seen in the earlier seasons to the later seasons. Misha got tons of hate mail too for being a character that could split up the boys (probably only being allowed to say because he a man, thanks sexist producers and execs).

Only after Castiel was killed off and then Castiel fans successfully (thank you guys) got him back on the show did the hate mail largely simmer, which means female character's were allowed to stay! Which has lead us to a show with a good amount of female characters. But can you imagine having to kill characters off time and time again because people keep complaining that the show is "only about the boys." Fun times really.

So now we get to this final and we see sexism. But it wasn't just the plain old regular sexism you find in the earlier days of spn. Because now, there ARE women to talk about, talk to. But this episode was DESOLATE women wise, unless they were used for plot (which is also sexist!). Small scenes, they're barely there. Women gets her tongue cut out. Random women from s1 gets killed. Sam doesn't SPEAK of Eileen. Nothing. No mention of any female characters from the boys mouths unless they were from/in this episode itself. That's WIERD. I know we've all said it. But that goes beyond forgetting about characters. I mean its SAM'S GIRLFRIEND for Christ's sake. There is NO REASON they couldn't have said Eileen's name. Notice how Sam's wife is just... faceless. This is literally an age old sexist trope. Like... one of the things about bringing Mary back to life for s12+ is that it takes this trope... of basically a generic mother, and gives her life and feelings, whether you like them or not, they're real feelings. They said Mary isn't just a mom she's a person. Mary's existence in the later half of spn is to fix this kind of female tropes that fall upon her character, to not let these her stay a 2 dimensional character. They said we should know she's more than just the mom who tried to save her kid. Do that is the exact opposite of Sam getting a nameless, faceless wife. The sexism of the old spn wasn't just brought back, it was completely amplified. It wasn't just accidental or some exec "fixing" the story it was DELIBRATE. Whoever wrote that, didn't do ALL OF THAT by accident. Because an exec or a producer who doesn't see the flaws in old supernatural isn't going to write it that deliberately.

Let's bring it back to s10 when Charlie was killed (singer was mainly to blame). Dead in the bathtub, age old classic of burying ur gays. If you were here you know people never let Supernatural live that down. THEY KNOW what bury ur gays means. Hell, Robbie Thompson left because of Charlie's death and you think the writers don't know what it means? I mean both Bobo Berens (especially) and Steve Yockey's careers are centered around LGBT+ storytelling and you think they don't know? They know. They know.

And Dean wasn't just apart of the bury your gays trope, it is so far BEYOND that. Dean being killed on a rusty nail/screw, the tongues ripped out, things that seemed to be meant for other people. Jensen's acting in the last two episodes was giving us "DEAN RECIPROCATES" but no one ever actually saying it. I think it's clear that Dean was killed for being Bi. They didn't address it for a reason, they just silenced him. His narrative was supposed to be about letting him be HIM for the first time, to say what his feelings are instead of having them miscommunicated, and instead of doing that, they just silenced him. And the more we look at this scene the more horrific it gets. The more it's a complete slap in the face and it's supposed to be. Some guy who knows nothing about the LGBT can't write a scene this horrific.

Some guy who knows nothing about Dean couldn't write a scene that deconstructs all of Dean's character development and gives Dean his worst nightmare. I MEAN DEAN WANTED TO LIVE HIS LIFE! THEY DIDNT HIDE THAT JOB APPLICATION (or whatever job related thing that was) IN THERE FOR SHITS AND GIGGLES THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST SITUATION. Dean isn't Barney from HIMYM. If you watched HIMYM then you'll know Barney went from being a stereotypical ladies man and treating women terribly to being in love with a women and treating her right and working hard for it. The last episode of HIMYM (why its so bad) Barney's character development is thrown out and he's back to being a stereotypical ladies man. You don't need to know Barney's character very much to do that.

To kill Dean during a hunt his father never finished, to not have anyone at his funeral, to have Dean die young like his life didn't matter. Those are Dean's worst fears and you'd only truly know that if you watched the gin episode in s3, where they are basically laid out for you. You HAVE to know Dean's character to tear him apart like this.

This episode took all the core elements of the show and did a complete 180° the name of the episode itself is "Carry on" and Dean and Sam very much did not carry on. Sam grieving his entire life so that he good get to heaven and see Dean again. Dean being ready to live his life, despite the enormous pitfalls and learning to love himself only to be killed. "Family don't end with blood." Um.... it did in that episode either literally with Dean's death or you know BECAUSE NONE OF THEIR FOUND FAMILY WAS THERE. Not Jack, Not Cas, Not Eileen, Not Donna, Not Charlie, Not Jody, Not Claire... on and on we go. No one was there, nobody was even mentioned. Dean's funeral, no one even called that we know of. It was just Sam and Dean. Sam and Dean. And Bobby. Don't forget Bobby. But yeah Sam and Dean.

That's what the show is about right, the brothers.

Except it's not anymore. It hasn't been for years.

Cas not being there was deafening but it brought us to a major point. Becky. Becky's telling us about the terrible ending.

And many of us are wondering why would they literally tell us this is the worst ending and then... make it the ending.

Now before we move on, it very apparent many of you think Dabb doesn't ship Deancas. And Dabb doesn't care about the characters.

Say what you will about any plot holes in his writing, the point he is VERY GOOD at writing the characters, and giving us good ones.

Why do we know Dabb ships Deancas? (ill say when its cowrote, other wise its not) cowrote ep 8.02 - purgatory "I prayed to you, Cas, every night" "Cas, Buddy, I need you." "I have a price on my head, and I've been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to – to keep them away from you." 8.08 Hunteri Heroici - Cas helps them hunt! 😊❤ Dean & Cas have a serious convo about why Cas doesn't want to see/go to heaven. 8.22 Dean's mad at Cas. Sam's explanation of why Dean should be easy on Cas: "It's Cas." Dean then points out how he'd knife anybody else if they did what Cas did. 9.10 - Cas comforts Dean when Dean can't take seeing Sam (Gadreel) being tortured anymore. Also tons of Cas. 9.20 (bloodlines) - Canonical couple parallel "I was there, where were you" 9.22 The angels make Cas choose between them and killing Dean and he "gave up an entire army for one guy" 10.09 Claire's reintroduction. Cas heavy ep. DeanCas date. 10.22 THE PRISONER - u know the ep where Dean beats the shit out of Cas but loves him enough to not kill him.

We COULD keep going but I think I've made my point. If Robert Singer is the guy that is like "the show is about Sam and Dean only" Andrew Dabb is the DeanCas shipper. And you could even say a Cas stan.

Notice! How in s13 for SEVEN episodes we have a story that revolves around Dean's grief about losing Cas. Notice! How often the stories in all these seasons have a focus on their relationship. THAT is Andrew Dabb. If it weren't for him doing that, we wouldn't be able to easily say after Dean's lack of a response to Cas' confession, that Dean reciprocates.

To me, when I was (binge) watching s12 for the first time, I thought damn this is really got a lot of DeanCas. So I went to look at who was in charge, who was writing. I saw Andrew Dabb, associated him with Deancas episodes, saw all the new writers, Bobo, and then I saw that Yockey is known for same sex stories and it clicked. Dabb assembled a team to give us Destiel. THAT WAS IN SEASON 12!!!!!!!!

The amount of people saying he's homophobic flabbergast me. Open your eyes! That isn't what's going on.

Imagine making a show and trying to right all the wrongs of Supernatural. Imagine trying to write the greatest love story ever told and you have the entire season planned out for it to end off beautifully, it may possibly be your greatest achievement when it's done and then boom. someone comes in and tells you you aren't allowed to make Dean bi or make destiel endgame, after he was most probably already given the go ahead.

Sure. You could imply he's bi or into cas still in a way. Still make nice-ish ending. just give everyone what the kinda want.

Or you could scrap the last season, nothing close to a canonical bisexual Dean Winchester or Deancas endgame in site. People can be done with it be happy with the show, continue to live their lives in ignorance as to how close they were to Canon destiel.

OR you can lead everyone to the very closest you can get them to what you were aiming for and then show everyone the ugly truth and reality. Light it all on fire. Burn the show to the ground in your wake. Try your darnedest to making these people's (the people saying no) pockets suffer. Show us, the audience, what happened. Show us what this show really is.

I've seen people talk about the ending being changed during covid but I dont think that happened. I think what happened was Dabb already had this season planned out before it even started. Obviously the details were wobbly but it was all lead up to this ending. Destiel endgame, Canon Bisexual Dean, whatever it was. They were ready to write the greatest love story ever told and then someone shut it down.

Imagine the pain that must have caused them to be told no when they already said yes. They must have been so excited to give this to us.

I think someone (some producers) told him what this show is "really" about. The brothers. Can you imagine, after being told no, some kinda bullshit like this is said to you: "Why aren't you bringing it back to the brothers, Andrew? that's what the shows about. What with all this homosexual stuff, you know the audience won't like that. Not really." Imagine the original producers pushing this kind of view on you. "You know when we started it was Sam and Dean. It should end with Sam and Dean." That kinda sounds like someone huh? huh.

So why give us a nice acceptable finale, when you can take every problem Supernatural's had either up front or behind the scenes and create a finale so incredibly bad that people don't want to watch it anymore.

Someone made a good point about how Sam was originally supposed to be the main focus (this isn't to put any hate on Sam or Jared). Dean and Sam are the main characters but Sam was supposed to be the focus and for Dean to have become the focus, must have annoyed the producers because... well here we are. They wouldn't listen to Jensen. The producers liked this ending. Jensen's opinion didn't matter to them.

In some ways, if this is really what happened, it can be seen as childish from Dabb. To hurt all of us like that. Yes, he's hurting the producers, the execs, the cw. But to hurt us? Yeah it stings.

But in other ways, if this is really what happened, this is Dabb showing us the muck and gunk under the shiny surface. The hate for Misha. The hidden hate for Jensen. The underlying sexism. The underlying homophobia. The people REALLY in charge don't care about us, they just want our money. He needed to open our eyes and free us, at least free the people that he was writing for. The people he sees that care about this show.

This is the ending the powers that be wanted and its a big fuck you for a reason. I dont think this is Dabb spitting in our faces for loving this show, I think this is him trying to get revenge for us.

But from here, you can see it how u want it. If this is really what happened, I'm not in charge of your emotions, if you wanna be mad be mad if you wanna be grateful be grateful. And you don't have to believe me either I said this is speculation.

Also, as for all of the rumors like there being shots to the confession scene that we didn't see, which Jensen himself implied, I think that might have been a last ditch effort to canonized DeanCas but obviously it was cut. Like the name change was pretty clear. As for Misha possibly having shot some stuff for 20 I dont know what to tell you. If it's true I dont know where the blame would lie.

I do think however, that if all this was the case, the writers were prepared to become villians here. I mean they told us the writers were villians with Chuck right? So. Who knows what went down so they could give us such a vile ending. It could've been the producers or the writers, who truly knows. I do think tho that people we "trust" did some pretty shitty things to push the narrative in certain directions so now one would see this as the actual ending that was coming.

So again do with my SPECULATION what you will. This was in no way meant to put Dabb on a pedestal or anything. Just meant to give a bit of perspective.

(Also Jensen didn't unfollow Dabb recently he was already unfollowed for years)

#15x20 wank #spn finale wank #spn finale meta #15x20 meta #Andrew Dabb #spn #supernatural #castiel #dean winchester #destiel #deancas #misha collins #jensen ackles #long post #sorry im on mobile #this is the longest post i have ever writen

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

Note

After that gorgeous sequel rant, would you be willing to share your thoughts on reylo?

Ugh.

Once again, that is the most succinct, easiest, answer I can supply. But it's so short, and that just won't do.

I mentioned in a recent post that Dramione comes in a myriad of disguises. Every fandom usually has at least one Dramione ship, you can usually guess which characters the ship will consist of, and while you might not be able to articulate exactly what about it makes it so damn similar to Dramione you will recognize it on sight.

Usually, to me, a Dramione ship features a strong, independent, female lead who may be varying levels of sexually empowered, varying levels of intelligent (Hermione loves to tell us how smart she is but it's not the heart of the ship), is strong, courageous, and noble who depending on the story du jour might slide into depravity. The real give away is her love interest, always a man, usually a young man of comparable age, who has the bad boy appeal that's not too bad boy where he often is redeemed to the good side for 'reasons' in the course of the story.

Reylo is such a Dramione pairing.

You don't believe me? Look at the authors who write it, I haven't done this too often myself, but I guarantee you that a not small majority of them will either write Draco/Hermione or will have it all over their favorites and bookmarks. It's the same damn pairing.

But worse.

Because Kylo-Ren and Rey aren't really characters.

"Whoa, hold up!", you say, "That's just slander and uncalled for!" Well, change my mind. Rey Palpatine and Kylo-Ren are a series of character tropes and archetypes thrown to us by Disney screaming "LOVE MY CHARACTERS".

Rey is our noble, very Luke like, hero who is a scrappy desert rat with overwhelming mystical powers only acknowledged when the movies feel like acknowledging them (guys, admit Rey kicked Kylo-Ren's ass every time they fought with 0 training, come on, it's not hard).

However, there is nothing underneath her surface. Her hero worship of the resistance feels dull and given to her because it's expected. Of course Rey likes the resistance! The resistance is great! Sign her up! Rey has been living in the desert at the edge of nowhere for presumably 15 years, I'm shocked she's even heard of the new republic let alone the resistance. Despite essentially starving and only having a home that's a broken down old fighter, Rey saves a random droid. We're not really given a compelling reason of why she would do this, that she has a deep respect for droids/is horrified by their use, really really really hates the random trader she sells things to, or really really really hates the empire (if she even realizes it's them behind the bounty). She does it just so that a) the plot keeps moving b) to show Rey is... noble... I guess?

Remember that even Luke (who I have some problems with as a character) started his journey with more backstory and personality than this. Luke loved the empire and desperately wanted to become a pilot. He was very put out that his aunt and uncle kept saying, "Uh, no, bad idea." Luke was ready to skip town and sign on up for flight academy, he just got distracted by pretty women, er, his sister.

So, Rey is never given a compelling reason to do any of the things she does in the series. Just vague feelings of hero worship. And, of course, the drama over her parents. Just... I feel like Disney took out a hat, put a bunch of pieces of paper with words on them, and drew out the one that said "orphan angst about parents" and said "See, now she's conflicted! What a character!"

So yeah, Rey is your cardboard generic hero who is so generic she's not even a person. She has no hopes, no dreams, no fears, just these vague things we're told as an audience she cares about but never shown in any legitimate manner. Rey likes the resistance and rando droids, Rey imprints on Han Solo as the father she never had, Rey has this thing about her parents, Rey is attracted to Kylo Ren.

And that last one, oh boy that last one. It sold me less on the attraction to Kylo Ren than... oh... I don't know... Palpatine's secret Sith planet of doom. I mean, we all saw it coming, The Last Jedi it was very clear where that was going and then Abrams went for it even harder. But what we had was a series of skype conversations where Rey went from "Gr, you killed my pseudo father!" and Kylo-Ren responding, "Yeah, well he was my real father AND HE WAS SO MEAN" to "Oh Ben, I will fly to you through space and we shall save the galaxy together!"

I am given no reason to believe Rey's change of heart. Han Solo's death just suddenly... doesn't really mean much to her anymore (the man was murdered by his son in cold blood so that his son could feel better about himself). She believes Ben Solo is good now because Luke is a dick (never mind that, no matter what a dick Luke is, Ben Solo still murdered dozens of children and then went on to gleefully massacre his way through the galaxy). We're told there's a Force Dyad, which is um... not this thing the writer's made up because they were too lazy to convince me that Kylo-Ren and Rey would end up together in any organic way.

So, yeah, why does Rey like Kylo-Ren? Because the Force told her too? Because it was somehow all Snoke's fault in a way that's never properly described? (Indeed despite us spending quite a bit of time on Kylo-Ren's decision to remain Kylo-Ren being a very internalized thing) Because we saw him shirtless in yoga pants this one time?

It's bad when that last is actually the most legitimate reason I can think of out of the whole lot.

Now let's go to Kylo-Ren. If Rey is boring and nonsensical then Kylo-Ren is a dumpster fire and non-sensical. The guy reminds me a lot of Commodus from the film "Gladiator", the man is cowardly, vile, and murders his father in despair that his father never will be capable of loving him/passes him over for the throne. Kylo-Ren's murder of Han Solo is extremely similar to the murder of Marcus Aurelius in "Gladiator". Han Solo is a flawed father, trying to make his peace with his son, who approaches him unarmed and Kylo-Ren decides to murder him in order to solidify his place in the dark side.

Only, the films never acknowledge that every action Kylo-Ren takes is horrifying.

We're told "oh, Kylo-Ren exists because evil Snoke corrupted him" but also shown repeatedly that Kylo-Ren chooses the darkest path again and again and again. He "struggles with the light" but I don't see it. His opening scene, he has massacred a village and is torturing a man for information (this is presumably a daily routine for him). In the same film he later tortures Rey for information. He serves on a Death Star which wipes out billions in an instant. He murders his father to feel good about himself. He dresses as a man who was reviled and feared throughout the galaxy, a man who murdered countless children, and a man who dressed the way he did because he was barely hanging onto life, because Kylo-Ren thinks it makes him look like a badass. Think about it, this is like if a fully abled Kylo-Ren is wheeling around in a wheel chair, perfectly capable of walking, because he thinks that Professor X is so cool. Now, replace Professor X with Hitler, this is what the movies gave us.

Yet, the films seem to take it for granted that Kylo-Ren is a redeemable character. He's just lost and misguided, he's really struggling with the light and dark side! They don't just tell us this over and over again (which they do) but also just assume we know it.

And base the entire Reylo pairing off of it. Reylo believed Kylo-Ren could be redeemed, they battle Snoke together, then Kylo-Ren stabs her in the back and continues the assault on the Resistance and asks her to be his Dark Queen (TM). Reylo is shocked and appalled, I'm just wondering what movie she thought she was watching, because that was coming a mile away.

Later, when Kylo-Ren is redeemed, we're never given a reason why it happens. Leia just gives him a nagging, one word, phone call and then Han Solo shows up to go, "Ben, are you going to do the right thing?" and Ben goes, "Mumble, grumble, fine" because there's only an hour left in the last film.

Kylo-Ren, like Rey, is the writers' desperate attempt to create a compelling anti-hero with all the anti-hero sauce we love. They just won't admit they made an overgrown genocidal toddler.

Wow, this turned into why I hate both Rey and Kylo Ren, but, uh, back to the ship. Basically, the films give me 0 reason to ever believe it, and even if I wanted to, even if I said "Alright brain, let's make these characters real people for once", I still wouldn't like it. Because the ship itself is just as flat as the characters. It's spicy but not too spicy bad boy gets together with strong female lead.

I know a lot of people enjoy this, and I won't say it's any less legitimate than any of the weirdness I ship, but I'm not one of them. And the whole thing just makes me go "ugh".

#ask #anon #anti reylo #anti kylo ren #anti rey #anti star wars sequels

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fearlessjournalism · 2 years

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hi hello 5x19 the first duty makes me feel certifiably unwell it is still occupying all my brainspace over 24 hours later because like... They Fixed Wesley Crusher. like. there’s always been dissonance there for me in that I was fond of him, he’s just a little guy doing his best and I would’ve defended him against legions of grown ass adults who hated this kid with a frankly concerning passion, but I also recognized that the character wasn’t well written. and this... i honestly think this is the first truly good wesley episode. so I’m gonna talk about it at so much length because like. holy shit

the primary issue with this character was always that he was never allowed to fail. if I had to guess about reasons, potentially they didn’t wanna risk the audience hating him in the beginning for ruining things (w/any sort of permanence at least), so he couldn’t fuck up, which I think ultimately backfired and was part of what annoyed people. I also think it was partially so that when he got promoted prior to going to the academy or anything, they could be like “no, picard’s not just promoting him bc he feels bad about getting his father killed, he’s Just That Good.” it.... doesn’t work. he never feels like a person with meaningful flaws, and therefore doesn’t really feel like a person (that’s why i wouldn’t necessarily count 4x9 as a Good Wesley Episode, despite the fact that i DID cry about it—he still does everything right all the time). 5x19 is such a massive break from that, and I think it really really works.

wesley fucks up in this episode. plain and simple. he is not the one who fucks up the most, and he ultimately chooses to do the best he can to remedy it, but that doesn’t change the fact that he 1) helped talk a member of his flight squadron (who he was implied to be very close to, meaning that wesley’s attempt to talk him into it probably had a very significant role) into an incredibly dangerous banned maneuver that ended up being fatal, and 2) initially participates in the coverup operation despite his doubts. sure, he’s not the worst person in this episode morally, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has committed some incredibly serious errors.

and it keeps going, from a character standpoint! not only is he finally flawed, he’s flawed in ways that make sense! there have been episodes where characters need to be Wrong, so something’s just thrown in there (like when worf is wildy sexist out of nowhere two episodes previously because they need someone to prove wrong, which is not part of his character most of the time and feels racist, but holy shit is that a whole other rant huh). this wasn’t that. each of the times wesley fucks up in this episode, it feels like it logically follows from what we know of him and his experiences.

i’m going in reverse order for a sec, but when he lies about the events of the crash, it works for a couple different reasons. as the youngest, it makes sense that he can be pressured in the first place, especially when we’ve known since, like, episode 2 that this kid has a desperate need to prove himself to/please authority figures. he’s not lying to save his own ass, because I don’t think that would be consistent, but lying to save the careers of three people he’s close to in addition to his own feels well within the bounds of what we know of him. his past as part of the core enterprise crew means that he knows how valued the bond between crewmates is, and in both cases, these are people he’s used to trusting with his life every day. yes, you’re supposed to break that bond if a fellow crew member is doing something morally reprehensible, but that doesn’t make it easy. given the potential consequences for the rest of the squadron, this is an understandable choice, even if it’s not the right one.

[I also. okay. this is Mostly a tangent but there’s always been a disconnect between how wesley’s social life is shown versus told to us. when they need him to have friends, like when dr. crusher returns and is concerned about him being alone, of course he’s got a whole friend group and a girl who likes him! when the narrative needs his friend to steal a shuttle so picard looks good for helping that kid, or when the narrative needs a second kid to help spread a respiratory illness, of course he has friends! but that’s not the impression we’re given any other time imo. like, we see him alone a lot in ten forward, and when he’s not alone, he’s with one of the adult crew members. they like him, but they still see him as a child. but then he’s also got way more responsibility than kids his age and spends a ton of time on the bridge, so i can’t imagine he’s all that connected to them either (not to mention that i kind of suspect there would be some rejection due to jealousy, but that’s more speculative). i think what they show us, rather than tell us, is that he’s friendly and eager to bond with other people but ultimately kind of lonely. this is another thing that I think would impact his willingness to cover for the team—these are people that he spends a lot of time with, who respect him, and who are actually his peers and see him as an equal. if you accept my interpretation, you can see how that’d be a terrifying thing to lose]

the other failure is the one i’m genuinely obsessed with, though, because I actually think this is the first time we see the repercussions of everything he’s been through. the fact that he was willing to try a maneuver that’s been banned for a hundred years and to help talk his friend into this in the first place i think is representative of how badly being on the enterprise has fucked up his capacity for risk assessment. yeah, part of it’s that he’s like... 19? 20? either way, a godawful age for risk assessment in general, but i do think it’s more than that. like, on the enterprise, you’re in a near death situation with an insane degree of frequency, BUT you somehow always make it out of that near death situation alive at the last possible second (and like, yes, on a show level that’s for the drama, but we’re just talking in-universe).

I genuinely think living like that between the ages of 15 and 18 would absolutely wreak havoc on your ability to appraise dangerous situations. one one hand, I think you’d become desensitized to that sense of danger, because you’ve lived so much of your formative life with it. on the other hand, when you ARE so used to miraculously making it out of these impossible to escape, no-way-out situations alive, I suspect you start to subconsciously believe that The Bad Thing won’t actually happen, even if you know that logically that’s not true. if you have that kind of fucked up relationship to mortal danger, i think that would put you into a position where you’re willing to talk your really good friend into something potentially deadly, because you’re personally used to that kind of risk and because some subconscious part of you doesn’t actually believe the worst can happen. you can argue wesley also tends to be overconfident, but the thing is, he’s been backed up on that until now. yes, sometimes he comes off as cocky, but he’s always been right.

and then, holy shit, there is fallout from all of this. actions have consequences, and ones that last, too. he’s lost his flight privileges, he’s being held back a year, and he’s got a strike on his permanent record. as a result of trying to do the right thing, he’s lost the friendship of his squadron, which seems to have meant a lot to him. most crucially, someone he was close with is now dead, as a result of something that was partially his fault (and like, thus far, i have tried to hold off on my own opinions, but like... fuck nick. if you’re in charge of four younger students who would follow you anywhere, holy shit, you have a duty to them. i don’t give a shit if they all agreed. fuck this guy). all of which is uhhhh devastatingly traumatic, someone PLEASE get this kid in therapy, but it gives this episode weight in a way that most wesley-centric episodes completely lack. he makes mistakes that exist in the show’s real world, ones that descend logically from what we know of him and what he’s gone through previously. he experiences consequences that exist in the show’s real world and will affect his life significantly going forward. for the first time, he feels like an honest to god actual character. in-universe, i wish the circumstances were better and im very sad for my boy, but on a narrative level, i love it.

#yknow what this is an Essay it's going in the regular tags not my me fucking around tags #star trek tng #wesley crusher #tng #suppose i'll also hit it with #santhoughts #santhoughts (tng)#if any of yall were smart enough to blacklist dkjhfdkj #edit: I borg finally snapped me out of it but I do not remember almost anything from the ones in between

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mac-darf · 2 years

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I'm wondering, ik Wanda has a crazy amount of fans that view her as perfect and without flaw but is she a villain/anti-hero within the MCU?

Like. Okay. When we first meet her she's working with Nazis, to try and kill superheroes. That's bad. Especially since these heroes had literally just saved the world two years earlier. You can bring up her parents being killed, and yes while that is insanely tragic and anyone else might do the same in a quest to kill Tony Stark, he did become a super hero? Tony has sins and him being Iron Man doesn't automatically make up for it, but he's trying. It's not like he killed Wanda's parents, laughed evilly and then killed an orphan. He wasn't aware of how his weapons were actually used to, ya know, kill people bc he's rich and he's never seen conflict. As soon as he does he shuts that shit down and saved the world. We as an audience should be on his side, therefore, Wanda is a villain in Age of Ultron.

But near the end of the movie she realized Ultron plans to kill all humans and she turns against him. Does this make her good, or does his just mean she has basic self-preservation? I'm going with self-preseevation. However at the end when she becomes an Avenger she clearly has made a jump to hero, so yeah. She's good then. Despite working with Nazis, Hawkeye thinks she's cool so she joins the band of heroes.

Then in Civil War she throws a bomb into a building and kills several Wakadan officials. Many have and will continue to argue that their is no where else she could've thrown the bomb. If you truly believe this you are insane. Her actions are the final straw with freelance superheroes. However, while this was completely stupid of her, it was a mistake and she was doing it as a hero. She takes her punishment for being stupid and killing a buildings worth of people well, until she decides to beat up her boyfriend and that she doesn't deserve to be punished. The movie treats this like a hero moment, but if this happened irl she would be a terrorist who escaped prison. Not good. Anti-hero at best.

Then in infinity war she just wants to protect her boyfriend, despite her kicking the shit outta him in the last movie because he was worried she'd stupidly bomb another building. Her wanting to protect him is just what a normal person would do. Her willingly killing him to save the universe is heroic af. She's a real hero in this movie.

She's barely in endgame so I'm just gonna say she's acts like a normal person in it. Because she does.

Then in Wandavision she commits the greatest act of domestic terrorism the world will ever see, because she was sad. She tortures an entire town and locks children in their rooms for several months just because she really missed her boyfriend you guys! This is true villain shit. Plus she steals dark magic book. Dark magic isn't a good thing.

(Now were getting into NWH post credits)

Wait nvm the whole Wandavision thing didn't matter because Doctor Strange asks for her help?? Maybe it's taken out of context and Strange will care more about in rhe movie but based off this teaser it seems like no one cares about what Wanda does, regardless of how selfish and evil it is. Wtf.

I think she might be an anti-villain? Since she isn't a villain according to the heroes but does some seriously intensely fucked up shit even after she rejects the Nazis, which was supposed to be her turning point from hero to villain. But in the universe no one seems to care about what evil acts she does so. Anti-villain. Ig. Idk. I can't wait for the herd of Wanda's fans to misunderstand this post and think I'm attacking this literal Nazi terrorist when I'm just trying to understand how the writers want us to view her.

#wanda #Wandavision #wanda maximoff #wanda maximov #mcu #doctor strange #Hawkeye #Spider-man no way home #marvel

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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The whole Robyn situation is bizarre because honestly, it DID help for a little bit (Robyn is the reason they captured Tyrian and Watts). But there were ways to do that without going behind Ironwood's back for it, especially given what her semblance was.

But you also have the issue of having Yang, the only one of the four who actually did express doubt in lying to Ironwood, go along with it. In that same scene she's still adamant that going behind his back is a bad idea, refutes Blake's arguments for why it is, but then it ends with her saying "Sure let's go behind his back some more" just because Blake got sad?????

I've seen numerous RWDE blogs (Just-RWBY, Ironpines, etc) say that it was arguably out of character for Yang to go along with Blake on talking to Robyn and that it should have been someone like Nora instead, with Yang being vehemently against the idea and more pro-Ironwood along with Ren. And I agree, it'd play into everything better and keep the characters more consistent.

From what I can remember (it's been a while now), I think I'd actually argue against Robyn being the reason for Watts and Tyrian's capture. Ironwood captured Watts, solo, and sacrificed his arm to do so. Did Robyn standing beside Ironwood help sell the lie that Amity was complete, the thing that brought Watts to Ironwood? Maybe, though I'm not sure why it would. Her semblance wasn't used for that part of the speech - it couldn't be, it wasn't true - and Watts has no reason to trust her word over Ironwood's. He just bought into the lie because it was a decent one. Robyn's assistance during that speech was primary to reassure the people of Mantle, to show them that one opposing side had joined with the other, and she absolutely managed that. But... did it matter? Mantle was briefly invigorated by the hopeful Salem speech, but nothing came of it. These were never people capable of fighting the grimm on their doorstep and we didn't see their positive emotions doing anything to lessen the tide. They were just a little hopeful for an hour or so while still freezing/getting attacked by grimm until the group came back together, split from Ironwood, Salem herself arrived, and suddenly everything was thrown back into chaos. Even worse than before.

As for Tyrian, yeah, Robyn absolutely helped to capture him. But was Robyn needed? RWBY has a problem of making characters interchangeable. Usually it's in terms of their views and dialogue - why is such-and-such saying this? Shouldn't it be someone else? - but in this case I wonder if Ironwood had sent another Ace Ops, or one of the group, or even a couple of average army fighters, if the result wouldn't have been the same, given that it's still three (or more) on one. Clover and Qrow do the heavy lifting in that fight with Robyn shooting the occasional arrow. She gets the aura-breaking blow in at the end because Tyrian is nuts and decided to catch the last arrow with his teeth... which turned out to be a bomb. So yeah, nice job! But that was also a hell of a lucky shot that Tyrian brought on himself. Given how the fight was going and the fact that Qrow and Clover were the ones keeping Tyrian occupied most of the time, it feels like Robyn didn't need to be there, just another fighter to tip the scales.

And then, of course, her benefit is called into question when she turns on Clover, agrees with Tyrian, and winds up freeing him. It kinda cancels itself out in my mind. Yay Robyn helped capture Tyrian, the super dangerous criminal... and then was the reason he escaped, knowingly starting a fight on his say-so. She didn't even benefit the group for the time it took to fly back to Atlas.

To me, Robyn feels like a character whose usefulness to both the characters and to the story simply can't compete with the messy morals of trusting her. We see her framed as an antagonist to the group (baring them from taking supplies to Amity), she's positioned against Penny by thinking she attacked the party, she steals supplies (undermining the group's goal) which we then never see going towards keeping Mantle safe, then suddenly she's an ally when Blake and Yang decide to trust her, she yells and throws a chair, reassures the people, helps capture Tyrian, gets Tyrian released, is knocked out, and spends the next volume sitting around in jail. Robyn is a character who needs a lot of work imo.

And yeah, Yang's motivations there are equally underdeveloped. I could see her pulling a stunt like that during the Volume 5 days when she was loudly opposed to any secrets and was having Ozpin promise her he wouldn't keep anymore... but that was before keeping the Spring Maiden quiet and agreeing with Ruby that Ironwood doesn't need to know the same info. That's always been the issue. Not that they told Robyn, but that they told Robyn when they didn't tell Ironwood. It invites a comparison that continually falls flat. It's a problem that would apply to any member of the group, really. Yeah, I agree that Nora would be a good choice given her pro-Mantle stance, but even then the story would need to investigate why Nora trusts Robyn's claims, especially when pit against Ironwood's less satisfyingly, but more realistic approach. As Jacques' brief plotline attests, what the would-be politician says is not necessarily the truth and even if Nora were to have been blinded by Robyn's promises of fixing all these problems, at least one other character should have been like, "I know you personally like her, but we can't go blabbing secret war info to everyone who says they're our friends. Because the bad guys have pretended to be our friends before. And we even have trouble trusting friends who have already proven themselves. So you've gotta acknowledge that you potentially endangered us all here and also, you know, made a HUGE decision without the input of the 8+ other people involved in all this. That was a shitty thing to do because your personal convictions are not the sole, driving force of this world-endangering war."

It could have been a really good arc if all sides were given weight and there were clear, understandable reasons for why our secret-blabbing character felt compelled to do that despite all the reasons not to. The characters should have flaws, or even just characteristics that are arguably flaws depending on if such-and-such occurred. As it stands, Yang was the most vocally anti-secret, started keeping her own, agreed to keep more on Ruby's say-so, wasn't interested in trusting Robyn, didn't like keeping things from Ironwood, and then suddenly decided to both trust Robyn and keep something else from Ironwood because... Blake doesn't like the awful situations created by a war? Yeah, it doesn't add up.

#rwby #mymetas

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asphora · 4 years

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Marigolds | csc

wc: 5,569 | angst, hanahaki disease, seungcheol x reader, f!reader, non-idol!verse, cursing, character death, tw:sickness, tw:death

a/n: I’ve been in a slump and in a really bad place recently, but out of nowhere this came to me and somehow writing it made me feel better? idk. Also, I recommend listening to Yiruma’s Prelude in Gm. It’s such a beautiful piece. Anyway, thank you.

Love can often look like so many things that don’t seem like love.

The night the world stops spinning is the night you see her for the first time. You’d known of her existence long before you’d even had the misfortune of laying your eyes on her, from stories and various retellings enthusiastically recounted to you by your group of 13 male friends. Their words had made her something of a phantasmagoric collection of enchanting and enigmatic quirks and traits, something otherworldly; brave and spontaneous, fun but equally intelligent. But for all their praise, you figured their words were just that.

Nodding along as Seungcheol prattled on about her ardently, you silently listened, finding some semblance of solace knowing that there was no person without flaws. To you, she seemed more like a Monet than anything; something beautiful to behold, but only from a distance. The closer anyone got, surely the more the cracks would start to show and for all her magic and mystery, you figured soon enough the boys, particularly Seungcheol, would soon realize the truth: that there was no such thing as magic. Only real people, with their flaws and undone seams, haphazardly strewn together.

That night the music blared in your ears, despite coming from the next room where Soonyoung was drunkenly DJing. Around you were throngs of people, a mix of strangers and friends alike, bodies danced intoxicatedly moving to the beat reverberating through the walls of the frat-house.

When you see him, you can’t fight the smile that spreads on your lips. Your hand is already raised, ready to wave him down and wrap him in the embrace you two always shared. You don’t know it yet, but that night is different from all the others; the beginning of the end.

It only takes him few steps more for you to see that his hand, which is usually stuffed into his pockets, is prettily decorated by her dainty one; milky skin seemingly unmarred by the harsh yellow lighting in the crowded living room and her ring finger ornamented by a big bright rock you recalled seeing at Seungcheol’s apartment a week prior.

Immediately your hand falls to your side and you take a step back, disappearing effortlessly into the crowd as your watchful eyes are trained on the couple. She with her red silk dress that seemed to accentuate and hug her body in the most complimentary way, and him in his usual all black ensemble that definitely did not betray the senses, showcasing his toned body through the fabric. They looked more like they belonged on the front of some expensive travel or style catalogue.

You would have described the pair as one that stuck out like a sore thumb, but that wasn’t the case. As they waded through the waves of people—his arms wrapped gently around her, never faltering in their protective hold on her—they seemed to put everyone else to shame. It wasn’t that they didn’t belong at this party, it was that they made everyone else look like they shouldn't have been there.

As you watch them laughing and dancing, whispering, faces always close to each other’s, you realize that she is not the mirage you had made her out to be in your head. She’s everything they said she was, and even more, she bore his heart.

“Seungcheol!” the bellowing voices of 13 other boys pull you from your thoughts and suddenly, you go from a passive by-stander simply basking in the glow of the couple, to the forefront of all the excitement as Mingyu finds you in the crowd and pulls you by the arm to where Seungcheol and the others are standing.

Dark chocolate irises that you’ve known all your life and have practically memorized at this point meet your own and that’s the last color you register along with the sounds of cheering and shouting of joyous congratulations, before everything becomes a blur of motion as your legs will you through the halls of the frat house you practically lived at. After that all you see is orange—bright, fiery, blazing orange.

As you sink onto the floor of Jihoon’s bathroom, vision bleary from the pain, you press your cheek onto the tile taking whatever comfort you can from their soothing coolness.

‘Marigolds,’ you chuckle at the irony of just how fitting it is, the sound coming out more of a garbled cough than a laugh due to the burning in your throat, 'in the language of flowers, it meant despair, grief and jealousy.'

As you shift in and out of consciousness, the alcohol in your system working too well with the pain in your chest and throat, forcing you under, you reach your hand out, fingers trying to grasp at the orange blossoms. You hadn’t even made it to the toilet.

‘Sorry Woozi,’ you think in your last moments of consciousness, ‘promise I’ll clean it later. It just hurts too much right now.’

And that’s how the said male finds you.

Once the party is done, Jihoon retreats to his quarters only slightly tipsy since he wasn’t much of a drinker anyway like the rest of the guys. There you are, passed out in the middle of his bathroom floor, lying in what at first glance seemed to be clouds of fire.

If he hadn’t know exactly what he was looking at, he would’ve thought the sight to be beautiful, immaculate even; your limp form swimming in a sea of marigolds, hands outstretched and gripping some of the fresh blooms in your hands, dark hair splayed out across the flowers in stark contrast to the vibrant orange beneath, and your face though tearstained was adorned with loose petals sticking to your skin.

His bathroom had never smelled so nice, he thought despite knowing you’d vomited these flowers. Never in his life had he seen Marigolds as vibrant as these, so alive and in full bloom, as though spring had come in the middle of winter to take up residence in his bathroom; the sight would put Demeter to shame. But he knew the truth of it; this sight was anything but that of life. You were dying.

***

“You have to get the surgery, y/n.” Jihoon sighs the words onto the skin of your forearm where there are various tubes sticking out of you, seemingly the only things keeping you somewhat alive.

You can tell by the way he says it that he’s beyond exhausted, that these are words that he’s tired of saying, that this is a plea he and all the other 11 boys from your friend group are tired of begging you for. You don’t say anything, and your silence only makes him more irked.

“If you aren’t going to get the surgery, at least tell him the truth,” Jihoon attempts to reason with you, “he deserves to know the truth, or even just the chance to save his best friend. You can’t avoid him forever, and you sure as hell can’t just suddenly die and leave him wondering how the fuck that happened.”

Jihoon’s crass words make you laugh, a breathy quiet chagrin that slips from your lips sounding more like a cough than mirth. He’s so fed up with you that he doesn’t even bother to choose his words wisely, not like how he was when this all started a month ago.

“He hasn’t even tried to visit me.” At that he rolls his eyes.

“Because you won’t let him. You won’t even let us tell him that you’re in the hospital. As far as he knows your back home with your parents getting better, not here in Seoul, in a hospital, fucking dying.”

This time, it’s your turn to roll your eyes and admonish him, albeit weaker compared to his display. “I get it Woozi, I’m dying, I don’t have much longer to live. Tell me something the doctors haven’t, I get it—”

“No, you don’t!” His booming voice suddenly cuts you off. For the first time in your long friendship with him, he raises his voice at you.

“You don’t get it,” you watch him as he shakes his head, “you say you get it, that you know you’re dying, but you don’t. You’re acting like this is a small thing, that it’ll go away sooner or later, but it isn’t. It’s either you get the surgery or you’re dead, done, gone forever. There won’t even be anything left of you to love that oblivious, unworthy asshole you call your best friend.

“A real best friend would be more worried about you, would be here, breaking down doors and begging me and the rest of the guys to let him see you, he’d at the very least, demand to be able to visit you and not be running around having fun with his whatever-she-is while you’re dying.”

Tears fill Jihoon’s eyes as he paces, arms angrily flailing as he rants to and at you. That’s when Wonwoo, seemingly forgotten in the corner, ever the quiet spectator and your next closest friend after Jihoon and Seungcheol, steps in to place a calming hand on Jihoon’s heaving chest.

“Jihoon,” Wonwoo’s thick baritone pierces through the sound of Jihoon’s angry breaths, “that’s enough. Look at her, she’s crying.”

You hadn’t realized it until Wonwoo had pointed out, but your face was hot with moisture, and your patient’s gown was soaked down the front with the tears that had run off your face. Jihoon seeing this seems to snap out of his trance, his stance relaxing and his eyes growing soft.

“Sorry, y/n, I-I didn’t mean, I—”

“It’s okay Jihoonie,” you hadn’t used that nickname in a long time, not since Seungcheol had practically thrown a fit, banning you from calling any of the others by cute nicknames, “it’s okay, don’t be sorry, I get it.”

Giving him and Wonwoo the warmest smile you can muster in your weakened state, you open your arms out for them, their strong sturdy forms quick to bend to fill the tiny space of your arms, wrapping your frail form in their own warmth.

“Don’t worry,” you whisper the words onto the tops of their heads, petting the hair there, “I get it, I do. You don’t have to be sorry. I’m scared too.”

The admission of your own fear wracks a brand-new sob through your chest that you hadn’t known you were holding back, and immediately you’re crying a fresh batch of tears onto the fabric of their shirts.

“I don’t want to die,” you wail despite the scratching of your throat as you clutch the fabric of their shirts into clenched fists, “but I can’t, I don’t want to—I can’t do it. If I get the surgery, I’ll forget, and I can’t—

“I can’t live in a world where I don’t know Seungcheol, where I don’t know his smile or the sound of his voice and his laughter, where I don’t know that he’s a cry baby and that his favorite kind of movies are romcoms, even though he’ll never admit it to anyone but me.

“I’m scared too, but it’s not just dying,” you sob, “what kind of life would it be if I stopped knowing him? If I couldn't even remember the only love I’ve ever known?”

***

Weeks pass in a blur of burning orange speckled with blotches of vibrant red; hospital bins filled to the brim with orange marigolds drenched in bile and blood; nurses carrying and disposing more and more beautiful bright bouquets of marigolds each passing day.

“The marigolds are really pretty, at least.” Soonyoung absentmindedly remarks as he watches a nurse file out of the room, two trash bins in hand, brimming with freshly puked flowers.

Seungkwan who stands beside him gives the hin a look of complete outrage, nudging Soonyoung’s side a little too harshly with his elbow, making the blonde yelp in pain. Jihoon who’s sitting at your bedside only rolls his eyes at the insensitivity, while the rest of the boys stand around awkwardly and apologetically.

The tense sight of almost all your closest friends standing around as if they were at your funeral rather than just your hospital room only makes you laugh into the receptacle on your mouth, cursing the restraining contraption despite it being the only thing that’s managed to help you breathe throughout this whole ordeal.

Shifting up weakly, you move to sit up in your hospital bed to get a better look at the boys. Jihoon’s hands are quicker than your frail body though, as he tries to keep you lying down.

“C’mon, Hoonie, I’m dying, not losing my sense of humor,” you shrug his hands away and Mingyu’s takes their place to sit you up, “what Soonyoung said was funny.”

“I’m not offended, it’s funny. I mean, they are pretty, right? It would suck if I was dying and the flowers exploding out my gut were fucking ugly as shit. Could you imagine puking roses? Ugh, how generic,” you chuckle, upping the dramatics and giving Soonyoung a wink along with a mirthful grin which he sheepishly returns.

You glance at Seungkwan who’s trying to bite down his smile and you offer him your own wide one, “bet you never had a flower shop for a friend, huh?” And at that, the others who’d spent most of this time awkwardly standing around, the same way they did every week when they came to visit, finally let out their laughter.

You laugh along with them as much as your lungs will allow and you shake Jihoon’s shoulder, as if the gesture will shake the frown off of his face as you whine, “C’mon, please don’t be mad, Jihoon. I’m dying, you’re not allowed to be mad at me.”

“She kinda has a point, Hyung.” Vernon, feeling more relaxed after your joke, takes a seat at the foot of your bed and shrugs at the older male.

“Dying friend trumps angry friend,” you shrug, smiling brightly at Vernon who just pets your leg affectionately. Despite his irritation, Jihoon watches the exchange and visibly softens, patting your head just as sweetly and giving you half a smile. “Whatever, you’re stupid.”

“By the way, where’s Wonwoo?” Mingyu asks, changing the topic effectively, “isn’t he supposed to be here, too?”

“He said he’s running late,” Jihoon checks the clock, noting that the male is never usually this late, “he said he had to pick up something before—” as if on cue, the male in question rushes through the doors of your hospital room, panting and sweaty.

“What the heck, Woo? Did you run all the way here?” you laugh at his disheveled state, “don’t you have a car—” just as quickly as he makes it through the door, your words die on your tongue, finally seeing just what it was he had to pick up, rather who.

“Seungcheol.” The world seems to stop for a moment when your eyes meet his, and everyone in the room becomes as still as statues, the playful mood from earlier quickly dissolving into wordless tension.

It feels like eons before someone breaks the palpable stiffness in the room, but it’s Wonwoo’s voice that slices through it and breaks the trance you and Seungcheol are locked in, “I’m sorry, y/n.”

“What the actual fuck, Wonwoo!” This is the loudest your voice has ever managed to be since you arrived at the hospital and the strain burns your throat so much that you start coughing violently, gasping desperately for air as a fresh wave of nausea hits you and the rest of the boys can tell right away by the panicked look in your eyes.

Vernon, who’s closest to the new trash bin is quick to grab it, placing it in front of you on your lap, while Mingyu’s hands efficiently remove the breathing receptacle from your face. Jihoon reacts like it’s his second nature to pull your hair out of your face and hold it behind you, while Wonwoo moves to your side to gently stroke your back, cooing soft encouraging whispers into your ear as bright orange starts to assault your senses, blurring your vision and filling the room with sickly sweet scent of marigolds along with the sounds of your violent retching. Soonyoung and Seokmin are quick to leave the room, saying they’ll call a nurse for an extra bin while the rest sit to the side, not even an inkling of panic on their faces.

It all happens so fast, with such lighting precision and rehearsed accuracy that Seungcheol is sure that this isn’t the first time his closest friends have been through this. He realizes quickly that he’s the only one who hadn't known.

Once you're done unloading your flowery guts into the bin, Minghao is already ready with a moist towelette to wipe away any dribble along your lips. Your weak gaze manages to meet Seungcheol’s confused but visibly enraged ones, but you don’t speak. Not for lack of ability to, but because there was nothing left to say. The jig was up, he knew.

“What the fuck, y/n?” Seungcheol’s voice is booming and you almost laugh at how often you’d heard those words in the span of time you’d been in the hospital, but his next words cease any coherent thought you might have, “who is he? Tell me, y/n, who the fuck is he, I’ll kill him.”

Confused, your eyes dart from the angry eyes of the subject of your affections, to the bespectacled ones of your other best friend who was still standing beside you, hands unwaveringly rubbing gentle, soothing circles onto your back.

“Woo?”

“I thought you should be the one to tell him.” He explains, eyes apologetic.

“I swear to god, y/n! Is this where you’ve been the past two months?” Seungcheol, ever the impulsive and quick to anger person he is, doesn’t even register the moment that passes between you and Wonwoo, “Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell your best friend! We’ve been through everything together, and I would do anything for you but you were just going to go through all of this, all alone, without me?”

You only laugh at how he was exactly the same Seungcheol you’d always remembered. Two torturous months had passed and while the time had seemed to trudge on slowly for you, the time feeling like eternities without him, it had flown by for him and he had emerged from the other end practically unscathed; you were dying, and in a way, he was literally killing you with heartbreak but all he could think about was how you could have the audacity to leave him out of your own illness and death.

Classic Seungcheol. It might have seemed unbearably selfish of him, but this was also part of why you loved him so dearly. He was so innocent, so caught up in his own heart that he barely registered anyone else’s, but it also meant that once he treasured someone, he would do anything, sacrifice anything for them. His one-track mind and heart would never let him be or do anything less; if Seungcheol had to give you the world just so that you might live, he would die trying to get it.

It was exactly why you had wanted to leave him out of it. You knew that he was too kind, too self-sacrificing to the point of selfishness, too caught up in his own emotions that he would never understand your choice to not have the surgery—to die.

“Sorry, Cheolie,” you try to smile despite the sob that gets caught in your throat, “I just thought it would be better this way.”

At your words, he immediately unclenches and finally all the anger that wracks his body seems to dissipate from him until all that’s left in his irises is confusion and hurt. "You don’t have to do this. You can just have the surgery,” he coaxes, walking over to your bedside where he takes your hand in his, gently rubbing the skin there with his thumb before gently pressing it to his lips, closing his eyes as he does so.

“But I can’t, Cheolie, I can’t forget—” you almost slip up and say ‘you’, but you swallow it down and Seungcheol is quick to take the reigns of the conversation again.

“You can! You can forget that bastard! Whoever he is, he doesn’t deserve you, your love, or your death.” He pleads, tears pricking the edges of his eyes.

“You don’t know that Seungcheol,” the first time in a long time you’d used his first name, “he doesn’t deserve me, he deserves better, you just don’t know—”

“I don’t want to know! If he really loved you, he wouldn’t be letting you die here all alone—”

“But I’m not alone!” you try to argue, but Seungcheol isn’t having any of it, he’s too riled up again, too in his pain to let you explain anything to him.

“No, y/n! For fuck’s sake, listen to me! If he can’t love you when you’re fucking willing to die for him, then he’s not gonna love you even after you’re dead! And there’s no use dying just to remember someone who doesn’t love you!” he heaves, “isn’t it better to just be alive not remembering someone who could never love you?”

Everyone stood around you, eyes wide and tensely watching, awaiting your response with bated breath. His words hurt. More than anything, they felt like a death sentence, an indirect confirmation that Seungcheol could never and would never return your feelings. Fighting the marigolds bubbling in your chest threatening to spill out, you can only shake your head, smiling at him as tears finally spill from your eyes.

It takes everything in Jihoon not to punch the lights out of Seungcheol as everyone watches you cry, but Wonwoo’s firm grip on Jihoon’s arm is warning enough that you wouldn’t want them fighting with each other.

“It’s okay,” you finally manage the words, and everyone but Seungcheol knows that the words are more for everyone else in the room, “I know you don’t understand, and I don’t expect you to.

“You’re not meant to; it’s not for you to understand. This is mine.” Seungcheol meets your eyes and in them he sees a finality that he has never seen before, a certainty unmarred by fear or sadness. “So, I don’t care if you’re mad at me, or if you don’t agree. You don’t have to, you just have to be my friend and sit this one out, okay?”

Your eyes scan through the room, meeting the eyes of all your closest friends, asking for their silent agreement to both keep your secret but also to no longer question your decision. “Just be my friend and sit with me till—”

“Till the end.” Wonwoo finishes when you’re unable to, voice shaky from overuse and the emotions.

The night the world ends is the day your heart finally stops. For three days prior you’d been in a medically induced coma, the doctors explaining to Jihoon and all your friends that it would be too much, too painful to keep you awake while your body slowly failed; your lungs slowly filling with blood, fluid and marigolds, its roots constricting the far too weakened organ tighter and tighter until your system would eventually crash from the lack of oxygen. Ultimately suffering from a long and arduous suffocation.

When you go, it isn’t peaceful or serene like the books or the movies often say it is. Your body is a mess of convulsions and painful retching fits. Despite being sedated, you're gasping for air; your body seemingly clawing onto life and fighting to preserve itself despite your heart telling it to let go. As the last of your struggle and life dissipates from your body, you’re surrounded by the same friends who’d kept you company throughout this whole ordeal.

Till the end, even on the days you could no longer talk, or wake up to even see them, they had stayed. Some talked to you, sometimes telling you stories, reading you your favorite books, and even saying their goodbyes one by one. Even Seungcheol, who despite his bursts of anger and frequent tantrums that had him walking out, always returned to keep his promise and just sit with you.

That night, there were no marigolds like when Jihoon had first found you, it was not beautiful or immaculate. There was no portrait of you sprawled in a field of bright golden flowers. Instead, there were only bloodied, wilting petals scattered at your bedside and sticking to your skin and robes, the orange barely visible through the blood that stained them. Your frame was the smallest they’d ever seen it and you were completely pale, the only color on you was the blood that had caked and dried at your lips and wherever else it had splattered, along with the mess of withering petals.

When the flatline finally echoes through your tiny ICU room, with 13 cramped bodies, not including the doctors and nurses, no one says anything. Wonwoo is the first to crack, taking your limp hand in his, pressing the lifeless limb to his lips then falling to his knees and finally breaking down completely for the first time. Everyone else follows suit.

Your distant relatives had settled the arrangements for the funeral, deciding to have it in Seoul where you would be surrounded by all your friends and most beloved ones. They are kind and understanding, despite not having been close with you and they thank everyone who attends graciously. All your friends attend, Seungcheol even brings his girlfriend for moral support and she does just that. You would’ve been happy that he had her shoulder to cry on, Jihoon thinks as he watches them.

The night Seungcheol’s world stops is a week after your passing. Jihoon invites Seungcheol to go out with him and Wonwoo. When he meets the pair at the park, sitting on a bench, all three of them almost laugh at how much of a similar state they’re all in; eyes puffy with dark circles underneath to match, and faces swollen from sleepless nights spent crying.

“If y/n were here, she’d laugh at how bad we look,” Wonwoo laughs, the first to break the silence, “she’d never let us live it down.”

“I miss her.” Seungchol breathes out the words into a puff of cold exhalation. At the words, Jihoon feels his fists clench, a sudden rage washing over him, but Wonwoo is quick and takes it upon himself to perform the difficult task at hand instead of Jihoon.

“You should know, Seungcheol,” Wonwoo sadly meets the gaze of his friend, forcing the words and choking down the tears in his throat, “it was you.”

“Y/n didn’t want us to tell you, she was kind that way,” Jihoon runs a hand through his locks, fighting the tears, “but we’re not as kind.”

“We thought you deserved to know.” Wonwoo clarifies, not letting Jihoon’s anger cloud their actual purpose.

“She was in love with you, she always has been,” Jihoon sighs, recounting the conversation he had with you a few weeks prior to you being comatose.

“There’s still time, y/n. I know I said I would drop it, I’m sorry, but you can’t blame a guy for trying to save his best friend, right?” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“It’s okay, Hoonie, I understand.” Till the very end, you were kind despite your pain.

“You know why marigolds?” your eyes look to Wonwoo sitting by Jihoon then trail off to the view outside your window. “When I first arrived in Seoul, he was my first friend. I met him in a field of marigolds. I’d fallen and scraped my knee. It was really bad actually, I had to get stitches after. I remember trying so hard not to cry, because I was a big girl and this was the big city and I just felt like there were no room for tears here, y’know?”

You laugh at the memory, “out of nowhere this big kid comes running at me asking if I’m okay. While I tried not to cry, telling him I was okay, he took one look at the gaping wound and all the blood on my skirt and he started crying so loudly.

He was so dramatic that it almost made me forget how much it hurt, and I could laugh even just a little at him. So overly emotional, that boy.” You shake your head. “Anyway, I ask him why he’s crying, and this obviously much older and taller boy bawls at me saying ‘it looks like it hurts, doesn’t it hurt? And you’re not crying so I’ll just cry for you’.”

“He cried so much that his parents eventually found him and me, and brought me to the hospital to get stitches. I’ve been with him ever since. We were so young back then. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember…”

Finally looking back at Jihoon who now sees the fresh tears in your eyes, “but I-I don’t want to forget, Jihoon. I don’t want to forget him or who he helped me become.”

“And I knew, you know?” chuckling mirthlessly, your eyes shift to Wonwoo’s sad eyes as they watch your sadder ones, “I knew he couldn’t feel that way about me, I knew he didn’t love me, but I adored him anyway. There were times I thought, maybe, maybe he’d finally see me...”

Turning back to Jihoon, you could only shrug, “but we all know how that turned out.”

“She always loved you, Seungcheol,” Wonwoo interjects, ending Jihoon’s retelling and watching as the older male’s eyes fill with tears.

“But why didn’t she—why couldn’t she just have told me? She could’ve just been honest.”

“We all know that wasn’t an option,” it’s Jihoon’s turn to interrupt this time, “you were engaged, and she wasn’t going to ever let herself get in the way of that.”

A silence passes between them at his words. It was true. No matter how Seungcheol looked at it and flipped it around in his head, you were far too selfless to do anything so cruel, and knowing you, the last thing you’d want was to make it any harder on him. You were no angel, but you were a good person, the best he knew, but he also knew you could be selfish to a certain extent. Instead of just going through with the surgery, you suffered painfully till the very end, and all to preserve memories of someone who he now knew didn’t even deserve to be remembered, all because he was too blind and too wrapped up in his own heart to see it, to see you.

“I love you; I’m waiting for you unbearably.” Wonwoo’s eyes are closed as he whispers the words into the emptiness of the starless night sky. The two males stare at him wordlessly as if waiting for an explanation and after taking his time, letting the moment pass, he does.

“It was a quote y/n really loved, from a book she recommended to me a while back.” He smiles fondly at the memory, “during her last days, sometimes she’d whisper it in her sleep.”

They sat there in silence for what seemed like hours, wordlessly comforting each other by just being there. As they stayed there, basking in the stillness and calm that seemed to envelope the rest of the universe; your death felt like the world had ended, but here it was, continuing to spin through the vastness of the cold October night sky; blissfully ignorant of your passing. Even in that emptiness, there was comfort and somehow, they could almost feel you; just there, sitting with them till the end.

Seungcheol is the first to stand to leave, whispering a hoarse thank you to the two before turning to head to his car and driving off, home to his fiancé. Wonwoo and Jihoon don’t say anything more. It’s Jihoon who decides when it’s finally time to leave. He turns to Wonwoo, beckoning to the male with a nod.

“Let’s go, Woo.”

“Do you think it will hurt?” Jihoon doesn’t look at him as he drives, but quirks his brow, confused by his question.

“What, the surgery?”

It takes a moment before Wonwoo can respond. He’s perfectly calm, looking out the window at the streaks of passing light as he shakes his head, “no. Forgetting.”

The words take Jihoon by surprise, but he doesn’t show it, not wanting to worry him any further. Instead, he gives him a comforting smile, the first hint of sincere softness on his face since you had been admitted to the hospital, and shakes his head.

“No, I don’t think so. I think it only hurts when you know you’re forgetting. But once you’ve forgotten, then there has to be some relief in that, right? To be able to be a blank slate. A new start, she would have wanted that for you.”

Wonwoo only nods, closing his eyes as he takes in the younger’s words.

“Don’t worry, Wonwoo,” Jihoon’s hand is a comforting warmth on his shoulder, “even when you can’t remember her anymore, I’ll remember her for the both of us.”

Fin.

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