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#literally what my brain sounds like when I watch atla
your-royal-momoness · 10 months
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all-lars-bars · 5 months
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Notes for Submas in Rapture so I can empty my brain
Ingo and Emmet with their passion for trains went down to Rapture with their employer Prentice Mill. They both helped blueprint, engineer, and manage the Atlantic Express trains and railways.
When the Express was sold off, the twins went with it, and despite their attempts at contacting their now former employer to convince him otherwise, they never hear from Mill again.
Around the same time Johnny Topside was hoppin around Rapture, the twins, namely Ingo are put under some scrutiny and allegations, I don't really know what but something bad enough that Ingo got sent to Persephone. Because someone's gotta suffer, right.
Anyway, in his brother's absence, Emmet does his damndest to keep the Atlantic Express running in spite of all the splicers and the literal Civil War going on. But eventually he's chased away
Maybe he joins Atlas's revolution bc hey, what does he have to lose at this point, but eh, it doesn't sit right with me. Then again, that could be how Emmet feels about it too. It just generally doesn't settle well with him, but if there's a way to stick it to Andrew Ryam he'll take it.
Back to Ingo, I imagine he meets a similar fate to Topside, Plasmid Test Dummy turned Alpha Series and bonded to a single Little Sister
And that Little Sister is Akari in my mind. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I am a sucker for Pokemon Legends Arceus. And also a sucker for Uncle/Papa Ingo dynamics
I have this scene in my mind where Ingo and Akari are out harvesting ADAM when Emmet sees them and watches them for a bit before realizing this Big Daddy has his brother's mannerisms. It even sounds like a train instead of a whale like the rest (which is also 'cause Ingo's too loud for the BD voicebox so he fucked that up).
Anyways, Emmet immediately makes an assumption and tries to go to Ingo. However, he's still a Big Daddy, one bonded to this little girl.
In my mind, Akari is a special case as a Little Sis, as she's full of curiousity which in the ADAM tainted state of mind means she doesn't see a threat until it hits her and Ingo doesn't hurt anything unless Akari tells him to. Neither of them like it when people get too close though, even if they don't see it as a threat
That is to say Emmet gets pretty damn close before he's pulled away by some of his braver allies. All the while begging for his brother.
Neither Akari or Ingo really hear him, not in their states of mind. But they can see his emotion.
"Who was that, Papa?" Ingo lets out a low whistle. "He looked lonely." Another, higher whistle in agreement. "Maybe the next time we see him, we should say hi! I think he'd like that!" He sighs so softly.
I'd like that too
Back to the storyline, I like to think that Ingo and Akari find Jack after he fell through the vents in an escape from Fontaine, helping Tenenbaum and the other little girls bring him to the Sanctuary
Ingo, seeing all the little girls just being little girls has a moment of clarity, some light through the fog of his mind.
He doesn't want Akari to spend the rest of her life in Rapture.
So he leaves her with Tenenbaum and leaves, both the cure and separation causing him to go into a coma.
The last thing he gives Akari is a hat they had found on their travels that she had him try on. It's a bit big on her head, but she'll grow into it.
Then his little girl is cured and rescued.
Until more little girls go missing around the world and Tenenbaum goes back down to rapture.
Over the eight years of surface life, Akari has been raised by her Uncle Jack and Aunt Brigid, always remembering her dear Papa. She shows interest in the scientific field, so when she's old enough she begins working as an apprentice under her Aunt, learning everything the good doctor does and doesn't teach her
Thanks to her "pursuit of science" mindset she can handle large amounts of grotesque scenery and gore. She has even thought about specializing in Forensic Sciences when she gets the chance
Back to the return, although Tenenbaum insists Akari stays behind, the young girl manages to sneak onto the submersible and didn't get caught until they both had to flee from Splicers
After some reprimanding, Akari stayed with Tenenbaum and their rescued little sisters until Eleanor and Delta come along
Watching her Aunt bring an Alpha Series back to life, it gave the girl hope for her dad
So through more mischief and stubborness, she ends up tagging along with Delta and Sinclair (she calls him Gus, much to his disdain) to head to Persephone. Or in her case, simply to Fontaine Futuristics. If there's anywhere a comatose Alpha Series could be, it's there
At some point, they find Emmet, tug him along, ya know. 'Course, Akari hasn't told him who she is, but she doesn't think that's the best thing to share at the moment
Soon enough they get abducted by Lamb, escape, rescue Ingo and Gus, get outta Rapture via lifeboat and dozens of children, and all live happy on the surface
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Okay wait I wanna make a gift for you but my brain decided to blank so who are your favorite characters from your fandoms? (doesnt have to be just one favorite just like if you were to actively buy something with a character this is someone you would choose) (can also be literally every character too) (also literally no rush on answering this !)
omg hi yes hello reki reki reki reki reki reki reki reki reki reki reki btw did i mention reki did you know that i love reki am i using this ask as an excuse to talk about reki my bELOVED
... i got emotional over reki again today lol - i listened to the clip when he screamed langa's name during langa's beef with joe for like a minute straight and then watched the cindereki project because brainrot and then thought about how he is what brought happiness back to everyone in the sk8 gang by showing them that skating is supposed to be fun bevause not only is reki alluded to being langa's happiness but everyone else's (minus ad*m's and tadashi's well kind of tadashi because tadashi has his Realizations because of reki even if they're slightly skewed aNYWAYS)
ahem. so anyways, i think reki may be my favorite character ever like... ya know it's... idk what i'm even saying who am i trying to kid it's reki. i'm his right hand arm. man. his best friend. his confidant. i'm sorry i cannot call myself his silly rabbit i told grace that i was being a baby the other day but it sounded like i said "i'm baby" so i just. i cannot jokingly call myself a silly rabbit oiugyhujioiuhy
ahem but like. other than reki. like... sokka atla and cole ninjago are also like... The Blorbos... and nobara kugisaki... my love... come back queen... loid forger brainrot very big right now and ofc vanessa the hollow and king sds... nino lahiffe... see, now i'm just thinking about how much i'm love my blorbos... they...
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heliosthegriffin · 3 years
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He’s channeling his energy productively.
Jaune walked down the halls of Beacon backed to his dorm, it had been a long day so far, not a hard day though, just one of those days that kept going and seemed like they wouldn’t end. Making it back to his room would at least let him spend the rest of day how’d like.
The sounds of laughter followed a group of older girls walked pasted him. It was outside of class time so the students could wear whatever they wanted. They wore clothes that were made to go clubbing.
Jaune’s eyes had a life of their own as they stared at the girls walking past, you’d think having seven sisters would make him more respectful wouldn’t you? But, having a lesbian older sister, and a couple others that were bi, all they did was teach him how to peak without getting caught.
That said he’d doubt his friends would call him out for staring, considering some of the girls here had assets that would give Yang pause.
They didn’t notice him pausing and walked by, a fragrant fruity perfume left behind. Jaune couldn’t help but look behind him, watching those girls go, a sway in their step that cause something in Jaune to rise up.
“Dammit,” Jaune cursed as his pants tightened up.
Jaune look around before he adjusted his pants, so that his zipper wouldn’t fly off by accident again, and tucking his erection down his pant leg so that it’d be less noticeable.
Jaune felt frustration well up in him, this had become a reoccurring problem since he started Beacon. The girls here were just too damn hot! It made walking anywhere a damn hassle and a embarrassment, and he had no way to release any of his damn tension in his dorm, Nora had broken the locks to the bathroom and the door; That had probably been the closest he had ever come to killing somebody.
Letting out an other sigh he resigned himself to shuffling back to the dorm as the blood went flowing elsewhere. He should just thank his lucky stars that he’d never popped a boner anywhere near Ruby, Yang would have found out somehow, probably Nora, and then killed him.
Right as he got close to the dorms, Jaune’s blood-flow was back to normal, but he still felt tense and incredibly worked up.
The sound of weights being lifted, treadmills running, and other exercise equipment sounded from nearby.
The gym was only a short walk away from the dorms. Jaune paused for a moment, Nora and Yang always seemed to go to the gym when they go worked up, maybe he should try it, it’s not like he didn’t go often anyway, so what would it hurt to work out so stress?
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Jaune stared at the scroll in his hands, ‘10:03′ where did the time go? He went in at ‘4:26′, went to the weight rack, and then everything seemed to go into a blur, and then the next thing he remembered was a upperclassman telling him the gym was closing in soon.
“Guess, I had more stress to work out than I thought I did.” Jaune said to himself walking to the gym showers, suddenly starting to feel exhausted and wanting to jump into bed at the closest opportunity.
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The next morning was agonizing, his arms felt like they were made of pure, while on fire and being pulled apart! Maybe he went too hard last night.
He was also feeling cavernously hungry. No wonder Nora has an appetite like a black-hole.
------
Jaune’s problem came back in full force during lunch when Yang leaned too far back and the top couple buttons of her shirt decided they wanted a life in the air force.
Leaving Jaune with a delicious view of her cleavage.
Yang looked at her shirt, “Shoot, I actually liked this one.” She then resumed eating.
A hand caressing his leg, brought him out of his vision. “Are you alright, Jaune?” Pyrrha’s warm, gentle voice whispered into his ear
A mildly blush went up his face. “Yeah, just, uh, taking in the view.”
“Oh, ok then, but if your not feeling well, I can take you back to the room.”
“I’m good.” Jaune said a little too fast, as his mind started to fill in the blanks of what his monkey brain wanted to do to Pyrrha.
Pyrrha nodded.
Jaune felt thankful that Yang or Nora hadn’t found a chance to tease him about being alone with Pyrrha. 
Lunch came and went, and Jaune made sure he was the last to get up, so that his problem wouldn’t be seen. He couldn’t exactly fiddle with himself under the table without drawing attention. So with all the swiftness he had, he tucked himself into his pant-leg while getting up.
In hindsight, maybe walking behind his developed female friends, and especially Blake, was a bad idea. His other head disagreed with him.
The rest of the day went by in a blur, combat class was a mess, but mostly cause he can’t being drawn to his friend outfits, they showed so much leg.
He went back to the gym again after class, he went to the treadmill and leg exercise machine. The upperclassman had to tell him to leave again.
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The rest of the week seemed to follow a similar pattern for Jaune, he’d wake up sore, but a little less so each day, go to class, end up aroused, then pent up, then go to the gym when he had the free time, and only when he had free time, going into those workout trances made him lose anytime for studying, hanging out, or training. 
Training with Pyrrha was probably the hardest part of his week, literally and metaphorical, because while he loved Pyrrha like a sister, his body constantly reminded him that they were not siblings! It always made him feel disgusted when ever he looked at Pyrrha that way. No way Pyrrha ever looked at him that way.
After training with Pyrrha though, he still had two hours before the gym closed, and he was pent up again.
The upperclassman had told him to get an alarm or something, cause he wouldn’t always be there to tell him to leave.
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Hanging out with team RWBY was always a... Experience, they were fun, don’t get him wrong, but it was like chaos in a bottle. The bottle was also cracked, and there was no cork either.
Today he and the rest of his team came over to hangout, and Ruby insisted they play twister.
Jaune was forming a bridge with his arms bending backwards to stay on there spot, while Ruby was draped across him with one leg over his shoulder and the other over his arm, with her front laying across his stomach, and her arms going in between and around his legs. While Nora lay under him her chest pressing into his back. It was also a really small mat.
Everybody else had dropped out, or refused to play, while Blake controlled the game, and Yang video taped everything.
Then Nora sneezed into his neck. That was the straw that broke the camels back. Sneeze both tickled his neck and scared the life out of Jaune, as he somehow managed to jump a foot into the air from his position, carrying Ruby with him. They landed on Nora with a thud.
Jaune’s position with Nora’s chest on his back and Ruby’s legs on his chest, really wasn’t going to help with his tension, as his lower-body decided to achieve liftoff.
That said he had managed to get a grip on himself lately,. So Jaune calmly got off Nora, and picked up Ruby, putting her next to Nora. All while hiding his full mast, then went to the gym again.
“You think he’s alright?” Ruby asked innocently.
“Probably just rubbing one out.” Nora said full of confidence. “These sweater puppy's of mine are of a quality most women can only dream of, yet here I sit, my majesty a reality, I don’t blame Jaune at all.”
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Jaune was watching with wrapt attention as Ms. Goodwitch strode across the arena pointing out several flaws in recorded fights she had on holographic videos. Tapping them with her wand to enhance the smaller images at time.
RIIIP
Her blouse broke, showing off globes of creamy white flesh barely being contained by a purple bra.
Ms. Goodwitch paused, a light blush on her face. “Well, Students this should teach us to be prepared for anything.”
Jaune then got up, walking out the door.
“Mr. Arc, where do you think your going?” His teacher asked severely, as several laughs broke out of the room, many people pointing at him.
“To the gym. I don’t think I’m going to be able to focus much today.” “Very well, any others who wished to join him?”
The gym was very packed that day.
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Jaune enjoyed hanging out with Pyrrha, she was probably the best friend he ever had. He just wished she would stop having to bend over so often in front of him, or walking in front of him when she did that he couldn’t help but focus on her swaying hips.
Jaune sighed as he felt a rise tower start to erect. “I’m going to the gym be back later.”
Pyrrha merely looked bewildered. She though she had him for sure this time!
----
The transfer students were interesting people, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of them. They came from all walks of life, all paths, all creeds and kingdoms. From the strictly dressed military like Atlas Academy, to the survival of the fittest types and loosely dressed Shade Academy, or the storied and traditional style of Mistral. They were all interesting, diverse, strong and incredible sexy.
Ever since he ran into that black haired girl and her green haired partner, he somehow kept managing to find them in the most compromising or revealing positions possible.
So, Jaune started hitting the gym harder than ever.
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1 Year later....
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With a slight shaking arms Jaune pushed the loaded bar back up, exhaling. Then he took a slow, deep inhale as he lowered it down to his chest, then exhaled rising it up again. Inhale, exhale, till he finished his rep.
He rose up from the bench with a grate moan, feeling the warm soreness across his body. It hurt, but in a good way. In a way he couldn’t have appreciated a year ago.
Grabbing his towel he wiped the sweat off his face, and then cleaned off the bench. Treat the gym right, and it’ll treat you right back.
Jaune paused as he walked toward the shower, he had gotten into a habit of showering here so he didn’t have to make his teammate's rush to clean up, there was wall of mirror he looked himself over finding nothing of note, beside himself sweaty and his hair kinda sticky looking.
The water was cold, but high pressured, helping unwind any knots on his back and wash off grime better. He had started taking cold showers more frequently as in the field your rarely got to wash off in general, and if you did, it’s not likely you’ll get hot water, so it he thought it was probably best to get into the habit now.
Working out felt good, taking a shower afterword was just perfect. The only thing that would make it better was wearing his onesie, he had a right to comfort! But, it had gone mysteriously missing after he met Coco on his walk back from the gym half a year ago. So, for now he was stuck wearing white tank-top, and a pair of cotton shorts back to the dorm.
He waved by to the upperclassman about to close the gym, and left for his dorm. He may not have started going to the gym for the right reason, but over the course of a year, he felt like he had grown from then. In fact... what was the reason he started going to the gym? Something about women? Eh, must have been nothing. Ever since he started taking his training double seriously during the Vytal festival, it was like he just didn’t feel dating anybody till he around to being a huntsman, like that there was more to life than dating or stuff.
Jaune ran a hand through his hair, he had started growing it out at the beginning of the second year and now Pyrrha and everybody else vetoed him getting a hair cut! 
“Hahah, jokes on them though, they have to brush the knots out of my hair!”
Walking back to his dorm a fruity perfume pasted his nose, a vaguely familar laughter along with it. Then a slightly familar group of girls were walking in the opposite direction as him. They looked like they came back from a night on the town. He liked the way they dressed, it complimented themselves very well.
As he walked pasted them they paused and stared at him, Jaune paused too, but shrugged, giving them a broad smile and a wave before walking back to his dorm.
Jaune failed to miss the women eyeing fucking him as he walked away, all of them red face and heavy breathing.
“Hmm, why do I feel like I’m in danger?”
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Jaune wasn’t sure when, but he had grown into a morning person. It was fun to get up in the morning now, he liked watching the sun rise, seeing the sky change colors on his morning runs. 
Being team leader meant having responsibilities, so being a early riser now meant getting up his team, they were going to be third-years in a not small amount of time. So he made sure that they got up at a reasonable time to prepare for the day. Along with the fact on mission they would have to get up before the sun rise on most days.
Also, he especially liked to watch his teammates get up, it was entertaining in different ways from Nora crashing out of bed, to Ren rising from a blanket cocoon, and Pyrrha’s silly little death threats to any man stealing bitches out there.
He tended to wake them up with a gentle approach putting hand on there shoulders and carefully shaking them awake. He had forgotten how strong he was a couple of months ago when he sent Nora flying into a wall by accident, so had tried to be gentle.
The rest of Team Jnpr had learned a couple months ago that they no longer had a choice in waking up early, the only choice was before the sun was up or after.
Jaune put on his uniform for class, he frowned a little bit, as it was tighter than it was yesterday. Maybe it’s new? Guess it needs to be broken in.
Team RWBY met them at breakfast, Ruby refused to let her other bestie get ahead in the leader game by letting just JNPR get up early! Jaune didn’t notice but he often got murderous glances from Blake.
Eating breakfast Jaune felt a crick in his back so he leaned back.
Pop-pop-pop-pop, RIIIIP!
His buttons on his shirt fired off like a machine gun shattering against the walls of the cafeteria, and then his shirt fell to pieces, revealing his sculpted torso, arms and abs.
“Ahh man, I liked that shirt.” Then continued eating, not aware of the stares his friends, other students, and Ms. Goodwitch were giving his body, eyeing him up as much or more than he used to do to them.
AN: If this Jaune was ever put into a situation where couldn’t exercise for like a week, his libido would come back with vengeance and make him a unstoppable sex monster. That said, what are the odds of that happening?
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rataltouille · 3 years
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FORCE MAJEURE: NOVEL INTRO
[this is my original work, do not use / repurpose / plagiarise in any form]
GENRE: literary fiction.
SETTING: south india, early 2010s.
POV & TENSE: dual pov; present tense + third person limited.
STAGE: prepping for camp nano [my current goal for camp is 10k!]
THEMES + AESTHETICS: fatalism, chance and luck, the duality of everything, corruption, chaos vs order, manipulation, power, sacrifice, loneliness, free will, love vs obsession. the sound of waves crashing against rocks, sitting in an empty house and watching a watery dawn, saltwater seeping into your pores as you swim deeper and deeper underwater; driving through neon cities under a full moon, laughter mixing with the bright sounds of people, the buzz of contact in a room full of strangers.
CONTENT WARNINGS: cults and religious trauma, implications + discussions of emotional abuse, terrible parents, manipulation, gaslighting. [note: this wip is very new so more content warnings may be added as i go]
SUMMARY:
when twins ananya and naveen get separated while escaping their home, they find themselves in completely different places—one stumbling onto a hidden commune by the beach, the other pulled into a group of thieves in the city. this story is a dark coming-of-age where the twins must confront their obsessions with things they can’t control and what they’re willing to do to belong.
aka “i know everything happens for a reason but what the fuck”
CHARACTERS:
omg my children <3 [all picrew credits to @/sagravi’s picrew!]
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ANANYA [pronounced as: uh-nun-yah]
she/they [she’s very non-binary but doesn't have the term for it in the book? so in my head she uses she/they but in the book uses she/her]
looks like she can kill you, will instead make you fall in love and slowly [and unknowingly] break your heart <3
“have you ever seen a woman so beautiful you started crying?”
unintentionally funny. says something mean and people will laugh not realising she actually meant it
carries around a lot of anger about the multiple ways in which people have wronged her and now and then just goes feral [as she should, really]
aroace and has a very longterm, very on screen crisis about it. what i learnt from this is that i cannot write an uplifting aroace story and tbh i don't know what that says about me as someone who’s also aroace.
very emotionally attached to her parents :) very emotionally detached from people in general :) suffering™
does not have a good time
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NAVEEN [pronounced as: nuh-veen]
he/him [also very non-binary]
looks baby, is actually very sad
“i do not have a fake social media personality. i am genuinely this mentally ill in real life”
unintentionally unfunny. he cries himself to sleep at night because his puns weren’t well received [me too honestly]
very queer!! he’s mspec but doesn’t label himself, and honestly king <3 he also gets caught in a bisexual love triangle. the way i was anti-love triangles until this guy appeared🧍
was always the twin who was idolised and seen as the family’s future which not only put a lot of pressure on him but also strained his relationship with ananya in unexpected ways which is just :(
does not have a good time
literally i fell in love with the twins so quickly; they are so cool and are most definitely my genvy. their relationship is very central to the story despite them being separated for the most of it [if the story plays out that way]. i’m excited to actually start drafting to learn more about them + their dynamic!!
SO HOW’D THIS HAPPEN?
so a few days ago my brain said “new fun ya contemporary concept about queer twins in high school” and then within five minutes of its existence my brain also said “contemporary ya my ass it’s now adult litfic deal with it” and at this point i’m just like. okay.
this book is my second novel and also my *bangs posts and pans* camp nano wip! [please as if i haven't mentioned this seventy times already] coincidentally my academic year + finals also end on the first of april so this is such a perfect time to start a new project!!
ALSO i’m jumping on the trend of making a temporary taglist for weekly updates like all the cool, sexy writeblrs who are doing it [read as: atlas fam] so!! let me know [dm/ask/reply/mention in reblog] if you want to be added to the camp nano taglist!! if you want to keep up with the wip after camp, you can ask to be added to my general taglist. heads up that i won't be tagging my general taglist for the weekly updates!!
everything about this project is tagged as force majeure and the writing updates as force majeure update. also here’s the link to the very very in-progress playlist. you can send me an ask / message me if you’d like to be added to my taglist or have any questions about the project. and that’s about it for now!!
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(pt 1) i really enjoy all your atla analyses & you've done a great job breaking down the usual arguments re how eip shows that kataang shouldn't have happened. i'm curious about your take on one specific argument that i just saw today, in an analysis of the show by a zker that was otherwise quite good and respectful (i know you've already talked about eip a lot, so no problem if you don't feel like rehashing). the premise: aang didn't just pressure katara in eip, he threatened her.
(pt 2) they point to when katara joins aang & asks if he’s alright: “aang: no, i’m not! i hate this play! katara: i know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting. aang: overreacting? if i hadn’t blocked my chakra, i’d probably be in the avatar state right now!” the suggestion is he’s threatening her when he says ‘i’d probably be in the avatar state right now’ to describe his anger. i think this take exaggerates and oversimplifies it, but interested in your thoughts on it.
Hello my friend!! It is true I am Old inside and don’t like rehashing dhdlksjslks BUT your comments on my posts are always incredibly kind and insightful so I am more than willing to do a bit of rehashing for you 🥰 Besides! I’ve seen this general take before a few times and it’s always irked me for the exact reason you point out - it simultaneously exaggerates and oversimplifies the situation (and honestly that’s an impressive duality since it’s seemingly contradictory, so hats off to them lmaooo) - and now is as good a time as any to address it. So, for starters, let’s go ahead and get the excerpt they love to focus on so much:
Cut to Aang standing alone on a balcony. Katara enters and walks up to him.
Katara: Are you all right?
Aang: [Angered.] No, I’m not! I hate this play! [Yanks his hat off and throws it on the ground.]
Katara: I know it’s upsetting, but it sounds like you’re overreacting.
Aang: Overreacting? If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!
Here’s the thing about so-called analyses of this excerpt: in a manner extremely convenient to the poster, they never seek to contextualize this moment. (I mean, to do so would deplatform their entire “argument” - perhaps that’s why they avoid performing a full analysis?) So let’s avoid that pitfall from the start.
Firstly, below are some links to related posts; I’m going to do my best to summarize the most relevant parts, but for anyone who desires greater detail, I gotchu 😤
This post explains why EIP (the play, lol) is imperialist propaganda and is intended to belittle the entire Gaang.
This post explains how Aang never acted “entitled” to Katara’s affections, particularly in regard to EIP.
This post breaks down the infamous EIP kiss like Snopes Fact Checker, covering common misconceptions, important perspectives to consider, etc.
Alright. With that out the way, it’s time for some context.
Aang and Katara have this conversation on the balcony after watching 95% of “The Boy in the Iceberg,” a play chock-full of Fire Nation propaganda that demeans the entire Gaang in order to prop up the Fire Nation as superior (hence why the play ends with Ozai’s victory). Here is my general breakdown of Aang and Katara’s treatment in particular from a previous post:
- katara, an indigenous woman, is highly sexualized and portrayed as overly dramatic and tearful, because the fire nation objectifies women not of their own people and views them as less intelligent and less emotionally stable
- aang, the avatar, the sole survivor of the fire nation’s genocide of the air nomads who is incredibly in-touch with his spirituality and femininity, is portrayed as an overly-airy and immature woman. the fire nation portrays him with a female actor to demean him (like, that’s classic imperialistic propagandist tactics) and furthermore writing his character as a childish airhead reinforces the fire nation sentiment that the air nomads were weak, foolish people who did not deserve to exist in their world
In other words, these kids have just watched almost an entire play that preys upon their insecurities and depicts them using racist and sexist stereotypes about their respective nations. It is completely understandable that tensions might run a little high and that their interactions would not be as balanced as usual (Katara and Aang have a great track record of communicating well with each other, as it happens!).
So we have to keep that in mind when examining the aforementioned excerpt. But there are other factors to consider, too! Namely: they are kids. Children. Teens. Aang is 12, Katara is 14.
If we want to be scientific, a person’s brain doesn’t finish developing until they are 25, lmao, and the preteen/teen years are when the prefrontal cortex that controls “rationality,” “judgement,” “forethought,” etc. is still developing. This doesn’t mean Aang and Katara are irrational and make poor decisions 24/7 (obviously not), but it does mean that in an intense, highly emotional situation, like after watching a play that intentionally demeans them and depicts them as inferior, they are more likely to overreact, more likely to be emotional, and more likely to make mistakes. Like, I’m serious, lol. “Teens process information with the amygdala.” That’s part of the brain that helps control emotions! It’s why teens sometimes struggle to articulate what we’re thinking, especially in situations that require instinct/impulse and quick decisions, because we’re really feeling whenever we make those choices. Acting more on emotion. Our brains simply haven’t finished developing the decision-making parts, lmao.
In sum: Aang and Katara are both kids, not adults, and should be interpreted as such. This doesn’t negate their intelligence, because they are both incredibly smart and Aang is arguably the wisest of the Gaang, but they are human. Young humans. They have emotions, and we should not be so cruel as to assume they’d never act on them.
So taking that all together, we can now acknowledge the high stress Aang and Katara are under, understand why they might be upset (*cough* imperialist propaganda is hurtful *cough*), and examine how their youth might play into their emotional reactions. And funny thing - all analyses that come to the conclusion of Aang “threatening” Katara here do not usually bother with this context. I can’t imagine why!
And you know what, let’s add one more piece of context: Sokka states that Aang left the theater “like, ten minutes ago,” which is what cues Katara to go look for him on the balcony. The reason I mention this line is because to me, it suggests Aang knew he was more worked up than usual! He chose to separate himself from his friends so he could process his frustration! He did not take his anger at the play out on them; instead, he purposefully took time and space to be alone.
With that in mind, I don’t understand at all how Aang’s Avatar state quote could be interpreted as a threat? Canonly, Aang is someone who was aware enough of his frustration to separate himself from the others - yet the logical next step is him threatening Katara as a result? He knew his intense emotions were because of the play (which he says himself), so the logical conclusion is that he then pinned the fault on Katara? What?? Sorry, that interpretation has no textual basis, lmao. But I digress!
Aang tells Katara, “If I hadn’t blocked my chakra, I’d probably be in the Avatar State right now!” As you said, this is the line people point to in an attempt to justify their (baseless) conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. So let’s bring in the two key pieces of context: imperialist propaganda and age. Given that Aang is 12, and given that Aang has just watched almost a full play that demeans him and everything his people stood for (and let’s not forget it also mocks his and Katara’s love for each other)…
His reaction is understandable. An exaggeration and needlessly dramatic, but understandable. He feels vulnerable and insecure and Aang is human. He is human and flawed and he overreacts here and I love that A:TLA shows how even our heroes, even people who are truly good at heart and in soul, can get overly upset (especially given the aforementioned circumstances!). Would Aang actually be in the Avatar state at that moment, had it been possible? Of course not! He’s young and he’s hurt and as such he says something dramatic to convey his anxieties and frustrations. The line is not meant to be taken literally, and seeing people do so despite all the factors that should be taken into consideration when analyzing it… Cue a long, tired sigh from me and so many other A:TLA fans.
And to be honest? I cannot fathom how people watch this episode and come to the conclusion that Aang is “threatening” Katara. To me, this episode - besides being a recap episode - is one that humanizes our cast even further. Aang snaps at Katara, kisses her when he shouldn’t (which the story appropriately treats as wrong). Katara pushes down her true feelings and retreats into herself, afraid to start a relationship with the boy she loves because she’s already lost him once before and can’t bear to do so again. Zuko further confronts the hurt he’s enacted upon others, especially upon Iroh. Toph practices being vulnerable and accepting vulnerability from others by conversing with Zuko. Sokka witnesses how others have erased his contributions and labelled him as nothing more than the token nonbender in the group. Even Suki learns that she is not the only person who holds a place in Sokka’s heart and that she can never replace what he has lost.
To watch this episode where our heroes must come to terms with how the Fire Nation deems them inherently inferior, with how they have more fights to overcome in the future with the Fire Nation than a single war, and to come to the conclusion that… that what, Aang is abusive? A monster? Irredeemable? That he would threaten his best friend, someone he loves in every way?
Wow. That says more than enough about the viewer, doesn’t it?
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staylavendertea · 3 years
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music, ya know
this is a complete impulse of lying in bed middle of the night thoughts that i don’t even know if anyone’s gonna see that have been stemmed off the experiences of the past couple days, topic of 1:41 am mind boggle:
music and it’s aesthetic and importance in literal every sense cause it’s just that important to me
first experience of realizing this, i’ve always loved film scores and listening to music and the orchestral pieces from movies and shows, but it really seemed to hit me recently, like the fact that this week’s new LOKI episode, no spoilers, has the most badass score and a badass scene with such a perfect mix and musical atmosphere. i literally had one of my best friends over, who has a very small interest in comics, cinema, marvel in general, especially a show about a norse comic god that they know nothing about, and whilst they sat there for my own regard, watching the show like a normal human being would, i sat there clinching their hand, watching in awe as our music is louder than actors talking tv speakers spurted out the most spine tightening world building story and just wandered “jesus that was good” and whilst i will always think about the superior acting, cgi, the amount of different people that just went into those few scenes and like what was physical set and what was computer image and what the hell did i just watch that has my brain running olympic marathon circles right now?
the thought that said brain kept going back to was that fucking score. it was literally tearing apart of every corner of my head and why was it doing that?
second experience, another marvel one, but i digress. black widow (no spoilers i promise), thursday night, movie theater for the first time in i can’t even remember how long now and we set through so many previews just for fucking boss baby to start playing and the reaction of the theater to make me burst out laughing.
however whatever works in that little projection box, gets fixed and the movie is pushed to just a little before it starts, a nice small pepsi ad, the regal rollercoaster intro (if you go to regal movie theaters ya know what i’m talking about), and then i hear it - the marvel studios logo - something so musically engraved into my head that my ass that can’t sing for anything, can harmonize with the sound and makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up around movie theater surround sound. but i can’t think of that now, i’m here to watch black widow, a movie on hiatus with the rest of the world for so long now, a character i didn’t know much about it or truly, didn’t have the most connection with in the first place. yet through that one movie, i seemed to build one of those.
ofc though scarlett johansson’s beautiful acting and world building, but it isn’t until the end of the movie that i even realize why. it was the fucking score again. when i think about it, the beginning of the movie felt like all of black widows scenes in the avengers movies for me, kinda just, there. not really emotionally tugging, not bad ofc either, but just, there. in the present, watching something cool in motion. but then it hits, what i can only describe as a theme that somehow tells the entire black widow movie in one singular composition. something so badass, story telling, but also just singularly black widow-esk. i can tell you that i walked out the movie theater rambling about the composition and looking up composers.
third experience, the most recent as it was literally like 20 minutes ago and sprung one train rail of a thought process that immediately tugged me into typing this brain vomit into a tumblr post. i have playlists. for everything. and when i say everything, i fucking mean everything. i’m a writer and a reader, i have playlists mostly for the young avengers, my most utter comfort characters, and their stories i’m writing. i also have playlists/genre/specific song for about every book i read.
when i read red white and royal blue when that came out, i noticed i listened to one of the drunks by panic at the disco the entirety of the ending of the book and the words and music fit together like puzzle pieces, not only did it make the reading experience better, but i was so fucking emerged in my over hyper-imagitive brain that when i finally actually finished the book, i still never left. rewind present day to the beginning of this past june, one last stop comes out, ofc i get it the day it comes out with my anticipation building like wildfire. i start reading that night and i put on my recents on my liked songs playlist (true to true spotify user) and i slowly over the next day as i read and finish the book, windle down to the genre, then the band, to the album, to the exact song that feels like the carbon copy of the words i’m reading. that song was only ones who know by the arctic monkeys. now go back to this past week, anyone who reads the carry on series knows, anyway the wind blows came out this past tuesday. i waited till wednesday to buy the ✨pretty special addition barnes and nobles copy✨ so that the dear friend that indulged me by watching loki that same day could buy it at the same time and make a cute book date or whateva. i started reading that night and something just felt ,,, off. i didn’t know what it was, but i was living off the pure joy that simon and co give me so i ignored the feeling. until i realized why it felt off this morning. i wasn’t listening to any fucking music, literally nothing, not even queen. motherfucking. queen.
i looked for the snowbaz playlist i made when i read carry on for the first time back in 2016/2017 when i was still a freshman in high school just to remember i deleted that literally forever ago. so i made a new one. like an hour and a half ago. very inspired on how i made the playlists for the young avengers and all their stories. letting the music talk.
the fact that all these rambling thoughts have led to this conclusion makes my head hurt, but for me at least in my own experiences. music talks. a two way conversation. a radio broadcast, turning the peg until you match the same frequency thats being put out and you can hear it and understand it. it’s like when you see comedians on stages or actors on panels, they talk, you have reactions, you talk back, and so forth the loop continues until the last voice, last note, rings out. music and songs and orchestral pieces and bands and composers and lyric writers are telling you the stories in reverse. they don’t know their doing it, obviously they meant something entirely different in their creations, but it’s like literature and any work of words and storytelling. interpretation. to me, the notes, pianos, violins, guitars, drums, singers, cellos, and anything that can make sound you can think of, is telling you something. whispering in your ear as you watch or read. facial features, emotions the characters dont say out loud, outfits, they way their standing or talking or moving or interacting with anything and everything.
when i just made that carry on playlist, i played it, decided to try read some good almost 2 am fan fic as you do, my hanging on by a thread sleep brain telling me words aren’t recognizable right now, and tighten myself into a blanket to see if i can sleep at all. the playlist still plays and my never shuts up head thinks it’s own daydreams, stresses out about anything it can, that is until the song plays. the one that just speaks the carry on trilogy language. the one that i found whilst i was reading wayward son and then would play whenever i re read carry on. the one that started this whole way too long ass post in the first place. cant be alone tonight by atlas. i heard just the first sound and i saw them, as if i were in the same room, like i never even put the book down in the first damn place because i’m actually terrified of finishing it. i could see simon in his oversized hoodies, baz in an outfit that was way too good just to be sitting inside, agatha looking as pleasantly pretty as ever, penelope poking fun at shepherd, and shepherd poking fun right back; bickering, laughing, saying the dialogues i try to remember so i can write them later, existing.
in a way music doesn’t just talk, but it lives. it lives and breaths. a three way conversation you could say. characters, stories, plot, and settings talk to the music, then the music delivers us listeners the message, so that we can send one back. this literally took me over an hour to write and i should point the important note that i do have synesthesia where colors and sounds and colors and words do the association so this entire thing might be me being entirely biased, but alas, i love sound so much and if there is anyone else that feels the same ways as i do as just a simple good film score and song makes anything ten times better, feel free to talk, i will totally be awkward, but i need some music freaks like myself around so feel free to hit me up, also if you love movies and cinema also feel free to hit me up as i need movie buddies and now it’s 3 am and i will be going to bed - peace out 🛸
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nightcoremoon · 3 years
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it's evident people haven't watched enough kids media to adequately understand just what constitutes a kids show as opposed to a show that kids can watch and be entertained by
when I was a kid I watched king of the hill and blues clues (among other things). king of the hill is NOT a kids show by any stretch of the imagination; it is an adult animation, replete with fairly heavy subject matter, sexual themes, political humor, cultural references that kids won't understand, discussion of religion in the modern day, depression and suicidal thoughts, adultery, puberty and sexual awakenings, body image, propane, propane accessories, and ultimately above all else what it means to be family. and blues clues is a show about a man who plays with a shovel & pail, talks to his condiments and mailbox, and sometimes he teleports into the felt dimension, all while playing Sherlock Holmes hercule poirot with his dog, and teaching kids how to count and draw and recognize colors and learn their ABCs. do you see the fucking difference? no? then I'll make it more clear.
dora the explorer & go diego go, mickey mouse clubhouse, handy manny, octonauts, bob the builder, super why, wild kratts, zoboomafoo, jojo's circus, wow wow wubbzy, stanley, doc mcstuffins, max & ruby, wonder pets, bubble guppies, ni hao khai lan, backyardigans, little einsteins, caillou (ugh) and p*w p*trol (double ugh), these are all undeniably kids shows. their audience is children (and the occasional adult by age with severe intellectual disabilities) and maybe the parents whose brains are too fried to care what's on the tv. these shows main purpose is to educate while entertaining on subjects one would encounter in preschool and kindergarten. counting 1-10, ABCs, basic color, basic language, basic intrapersonal skills, basic emotional literacy, problem solving, using your imagination, what sounds do animals make, breaking the fourth wall to ask the audience to answer what's 2+2 or tell them a lesson they learned today like I LEARNED TO NEVER JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER or some simple message like that. it's always light, there's no edgelord grimdark "what if they were dead the whole time" bullshit. it's just good clean simple wholesome [except for paw patrol] programs for kids to be distracted for a little bit of time, while also letting them walk away having said they learned something. at least half of the time dedicated to every single one of these shows is devoted to the same shit over and over again. I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map WE FUCKING GET IT YOURE THE MAP! backpack backpack I'm the backpack loaded up with things and knickknacks too, anything that you might need I've got inside for you. we did it we did it we did it HOORAY! come on vamanos everybody let's go, come on let's get to it, I know that we can do it,
WHERE ARE WE GOING
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
THESE SONGS ARE BURNED INTO MY BRAIN AND THEYLL BE STUCK IN MY HEAD UNTIL I DIE
say click take a pic, the hot dog dance, CAN HE FIX IT???, pizza! spaghetti!, THE DOC IS IN AND SHELL FIX YOU UP, max & ruby ruby & max max & ruby ruby & max MAX & RUBY RUBY & MAX MAX & RUBY RUBY & MAX, wonder pets wonder pets we're on our way to help the friend and save the day, we're not too big and we're not too tough but when we work together we've got the right stuff, goooOOO WONDER PETS YAAAAY~, yoooour backyard friends the backyardigans (weve got the whole wide world in our yard to explore, thATS WHY EVERY DAY WEEEEERE BACK FOR MOOOORE), were going on a trip in our little rocket ship SOARING THROOOOOUGH THE SKY!!! little einsteins!
I swear to god I've been forced to watch so much children's television in my life it's no wonder there's no room left for serotonin executive function or the ability to speak to morons
point is I know my way around kids shows. my sisters were born in 98, 02, 05, 06, 10, and 18, I think, I don't even know because they're all a blur, I'm literally closer in age to my parents than to my youngest sibling, I never stopped being exposed to kids shows. I know what is and is not a kids show.
adventure time? not a kids show even though kids watch it. it's a "for everyone" show. it's got a target audience of 100% of the planet. steven universe? not a kids show even though kids watch it. miraculous ladybug? not a kids show even though kids watch it. scooby doo? not a kids show even though kids watch it. I'm not discussing the history of adult acceptance of animation, adult animation, or anime, so don't ask. dexter's laboratory. the grim adventures of billy & mandy. codename kids next door. teen titans. fairly oddparents. kim possible. invader zim. AVATAR THE LAST AIRBENDER. totally spies. courage the cowardly dog. the proud family. SPONGEBOB F*ING SQUAREPANTS. powerpuff girls. foster's home for imaginary friends. oh yeah you know what's coming next. my little goddamn pony friendship is mother fucking magic is not. a. kids. show. even though kids can watch it. it is a cartoon. it is an everyone show. that's why it's disingenuous and fucking stupid to decry any fan over the age of 7 as a pedophile and a weirdo creep; it participates in the infantilization of femininity. why is it ok for 20somethings to keep watching aang and squidward and finn & jake and zim and "return the slab" and everyone's totally fine wth that but when it's twilight sparkle suddenly everyone's like whoa you're a huge fucking loser for watching this girly wussy baby show for girly wussy babies. oh some bronies are sex crazed perverts? I'm sorry have you seen just how much porn there is for spongebob? oh some bronies are cringe? I'm sorry have you met half the steven universe fandom? oh some bronies are fascist rick sanchez kinnies with fedoras and katanas? BREAKING BAD FANS, HELLO!?!?!?
this is such a stupid tiring boring argument. maybe magic talking horses being friends and turning their friendship into magic rainbow nuclear fucking arms and blasting the evil out of a demon and turning her into the coolest fucking half-unicorn biker lesbian in the world is something that brings me, and adult, pure wholesome joy, in between bojack horseman and dark souls and breaking bad and deftones and fallout new vegas and jojo and cannibal corpse and other bleak depressing edgy shit that also brings me comfort. and MAYBE me at 16 starting to watch MLP:FIM becoming finally comfortable with the outward public expression of "traditionally feminine" interests is the main reason why I realized I was a girl when I did, and MAYBE I just like how pretty the colorful ponies look, AND MAYBE I KIN WITH ONE OR TWO OR EIGHT CHARACTERS, WHAT OF IT?
AND MAYBE ITS LITERALLY THE BEST LONG RUNNING FANTASY TV SERIES ON THE MARKET RIGHT NOW* SINCE GAME OF THRONES FUCKING SUCKS
but whatever, kids watch it sometimes so it's illegal for anyone who's not a kid to enjoy it, but only if it's something girly because liking girly things is bad because girliness is inherently bad, and the only things that are good have predominantly male casts*. right? right??? wrong, fucker. g4mlp has so much more in common with adventure time & atla than with blues clues or dora the fucking explora...r.
but keep in mind I'm saying this while hugging a blues clues plushie my grandma gave me for valentine's day because it reminds her of when I was a baby because I may not watch blues clues but it still means a lot to me for nostalgia and is 50% of the reason why I love ray charles. kids media isn't necessarily bad. I still do enjoy watching it with my little sisters. all this is is me being anal about categorization because I'm autistic and I LIVE for categorizing everything.
*besides atla obviously
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dappercritter · 3 years
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Once More Unto the Bre-er, Black, I Guess:
Quick Thoughts on that Pacific Rim Anime
Having given into my curiosity, I have decided to start watching Pacific Rim: The Black.
While, I am still skeptical of the significantly darker tone and how much farther they’ll take it before it becomes unwatchable, I am pleasantly surprised that that’s not all there is to it. The series is going to some bleak places, make no mistake, and this will no doubt turn off those who want lighter and more uplifting fare from their Pacific Rim content. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the series has a good dose of heart and wit—with colour to boot! So far the series feels like an enjoyable blend of the pathos and heart of the first movie, with the escalated stakes and saturated colour and sense of humour of the sequel.
In a way it feels like a welcome change of pace and a course correction of sorts: It learns from the mistakes of Uprising while building on the foundation the original set in place.
The characters and story already have me engaged. Right from the get-go, you get a sense of how dire this fight is, being plunged right into the action at its most intense. You feel the stakes even before anything that serious has happened yet. The Travis family already shows a healthy balance of resolve, charm, and angst that even at it’s earliest, you can’t help but care for these folks. Hayley already strikes me as my favourite for her spunk and her soft-heartedness. Taylor is a bit rougher around the edges and can feel bit like a jerk at times, but he’s got just as much of a heart, and you quickly learn why it’s hardened.  Loa is already stealing the show, as you can imagine a snarky mecha AI would. The first training scene gets special mention just for how hilariously inspired it feels.
When the tragedy does strike—and believe me, friends, it strikes fast here—you will be caught off-guard. I won’t ruin the surprise because I don’t want to overhype it or spoil it for anyone who wants to watch it too, but in short, you are lulled in a sense of secure tranquility. You get the feeling that things aren’t so bad where the story starts off. You get to know the other characters just a little bit, but you get a real sense of connection between everyone. Then just as when things seem to be getting fun, things take a drastically dark turn. There is a shocking loss, that while sterile in some ways, makes it clear right off the bat, that no one is safe in this world and it sticks.
Ordinarily, I’m not one for tragedies, but after Polygon’s last giant monster-based sci-fi tragedy, the infamous Godzilla Earth anime trilogy, it feels like a drastic even welcome improvement. In Gen Urobochi’s controversial high sci-fi take on the King of the Monsters, you got a barebones story where everything was either inferred, vague, or explained in an almost unbearable level of technical detail. You never got to see things at their best, or got an idea of what there was to care about or fight for. There was virtually no sense of connection between anyone, or a feeling that this universe was lived in. The characters had no real personality, defined almost entirely by their archetypes and positions, and some looked almost indistinguishable from one another. Here, the writing, art direction, and character design, all come together to create an undeniable sense of life. That’s right: not only is this an improvement over a Pacific Rim movie, but it’s an improvement over three whole Godzilla movies from the same studio. (Although having a Western writing team who is more accustomed to character tics and interactions probably helped in that regard.)
That said, the art and animation do leave some things to be desired. Again, while Polygon is clearly improving in some areas, this is pretty standard fare for them. While the character designs are nicely made and the cinematography easy on the eyes, with some shots looking beautifully rendered that I mistook a CG character for a 2D one at least twice, there are still some framerate and composition problems that stick out like sore monster thumbs. While only momentary, I did notice that sometimes the framerates for character movement would jump from smooth for a shot or two and then return back to Polygon’s normal stiff one immediately after, and while the backgrounds are beautiful sometimes it easier to tell there are CG characters walking on 2D pictures than others. Especially when it looks like the they are literally walking on a flat service at an angle.
Moreover, while the kaiju and jaeger design continue to impress in Pacific Rim fashion, they do feel like they suffer from similar problems as Uprising had. The jaegers you see in the opening and the main jaeger, Atlas Destroyer included, continue the trend of smoother and more vibrantly coloured mechas in the vein of Striker Eureka and G Danger/Avenger than the more characterized, robotic designs of the original, and if not for Atlas’s striking colour scheme and unique status as an unarmed training jaeger, probably would not stand out from any of the others. The kaiju are all looking good—and come from rifts that open on the mainland rather than the ocean this time—with distinctive new outlines and even new species for some added peril, but they do lack the monstrous alien aesthetic of the original movie’s monsters in some places, but not enough so to bother you. Although you will be wondering when the Precursors (or whoever made them, because Boy, does this show raise some questions fast) thought straight-up giant shrink-wrapped Dobermans were they way to go when it came to picking off humans, or when they decided to experiment with their colour palette. Most jarringly though, while the show does it’s best to regain that sense of weight and scale Jaegers had in the original film, they still feel lighter and faster like in Uprising, but with Polygon’s suddenly fluid framerate and stiffer range of motion, it might just stick out more here.
The music is alright. I’m not a fan of the subdued opening title music. I get it supposed to set the mood for the dire and dramatic tone and while it does, it also feels strangely too serious for a show from a franchise with as much punch as Pacific Rim. The main titles themselves are alright too, but they’re nothing too special. There’s some cool imagery and the stills of kaiju fighting jaegers remind me of the opening and end credits of the first movie, but some of looks less rendered than other parts and a lot of it feels just bland. (In short, my thoughts have improved since I first saw it, but not by much.) The series soundtrack itself is fine—it has a somewhat similar feel to the films’ scores but it’s also has some stock cues sprinkled throughout. So not much to talk about at the moment. The end theme is pretty good, since it reminds me the most of the original movie’s main theme. Hopefully we’ll get more of that.
I think my biggest gripe is one that simply cannot be overcome. The name: Why is it just “The Black”? Race-related jokes and unfortunate implications aside, it is just dumb. Bland. Uninspired. It reeks of trying too hard to seem nuanced and dark, but it just makes sound like it will be generic grimdark pretentiousness. Which is especially damaging when that is clearly not the case here. Even in the story, it makes no sense. From what I can tell about the plot and world so far, there was literally nothing stopping them from calling it “The Blackout”, which would have just been so much more appropriate. And don’t tell me “Pacific Rim: The Blackout,” wouldn’t sound even cooler.
(Or perhaps “The Mucky-Muck,” but maybe that’s just my Tenacious D fan-brain speaking.)
TLDR; the show definitely has it’s flaws and I’m concerned how far they’ll take the darkness with the series, but it’s pleasantly surprised me in a lot of ways. I look forward to seeing where it goes.
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idunnowatimdoin · 3 years
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There Are Only Three Steps I Care About and Love Isn't One of Them || Chapter 1 (Snippet)
So I started writing a medical school AU of our two favorite bois. Here’s a small preview of what I’ve got so far. Lmk what y’all think!!
“You’re joking.” The acerbic tone of his voice would make weaker men cower in fear – has done so on many occasions in fact! 
It doesn’t even phase Qui-Gon’s serene smile. “Of course not, my young padawan. Why would I joke about something as important as this?”
“I told you to stop calling me that. We’re not in a fucking movie, Qui. And this is serious!” Obi-Wan growls, slamming his hands down on the table where Qui-Gon sits calmly and flipping the folder he’s holding open and around so the other can see. “When I told you I wanted a non-traditional student as a Little, what in the ever loving fuck possessed you to think that this is what I meant?”
Qui-Gon glances down at the folder as though he doesn’t know exactly what’s inside it – as though he isn’t the (former) president of the Big-Little Club mentorship program and in charge of setting up all the first year medical students with their second year mentors. The bright beaming smile of one Anakin Skywalker shines up at him. The older man takes a few long moments of silence to skim over the file before looking up at the other, fuming, man with an arched brow. “I don’t see what the issue is.”
“The issue,” Obi-Wan snarls, “is that I was looking to get someone more like us non-traditional: older, coming into medicine as a second profession, struggling to get back into the swing of studying after years away from academia. Instead you gave me a twenty-two year old, fresh from college, pretty boy. He skipped grades because he was that smart, Qui. He didn’t even take a gap year! He’s as traditional as you get!”
If anything, Qui-Gon’s brow arches ever higher. Obi-Wan gives serious thought to shaving it off while the man sleeps. “Perhaps if you looked closer, you’d have seen why I picked this one for you. I assure you, my young apprentice, he is far from traditional.”
Groaning, Obi-Wan makes sure to drag his chair back with a loud screech against the tile of the floor just for the satisfaction of watching Qui-Gon’s involuntary wince. Good. He slips into the chair opposite from him and spins the folder back so he can look at it, eyes scanning over the document with new intent. If Qui-Gon says there’s something there, there has to be. The guy may be a right git, but he’s not an outright liar. Most of the time. 
Anakin Skywalker. Age: 22. Hometown: Tatooine, Arizona. Undergraduate Degree: Mechanical Engineering, B.S. from Cal Poly Pomona. Hobbies: Taking things apart and putting them back together again, fixing things, building things, cars, racing ♡♡♡, baking Interesting Fact About You: I built my first robot at the age of nine. He was really dumb, but Mom loved him. His name was C3PO and he shorted out any time you tried to get him to do anything, but Mom kept him around anyways. Why Did You Go Into Medicine: While I was away at college, our house got broken into. Some thugs beat up my mom and stole everything we owned. I barely made it to the hospital before she died. I remember standing against the wall while she coded, feeling absolutely helpless as the crash team tried to resuscitate her. I never want to feel that helpless again. What Do You Want Out of This Program?: To learn how the fuck to study medicine. I have an engineer brain so I feel like all this stuff is a foreign language to me? Like I’m running Python but everyone else is over here using C++. Poor analogy because that’s more c-sci than engineering, but whatever. Basically I need help. Please. The academic advisors didn’t do shit and the teachers and office hours aren’t useful at all. So… You’re my only hope. 
And on second reading it seems less infuriating and more… endearing? Maybe. It might just be because he’s gotten the chance to rage at Qui-Gon out of his system so he can look at the application with clarity and see just how non-traditional this Anakin Skywalker really is. 
For one thing, he’s young. Younger than most applicants. He had to have skipped at least two grades to be here at twenty-two. And he’s an engineering major. That’s about as non-traditional as Obi-Wan’s philosophy major, as Qui-Gon’s MBA. The rest of it builds on his overall image of “non-traditional student,” but it’s the last question that really gets Obi-Wan, that seals his fate. Qui-Gon fucking knew it would, too, the asshole. It’s probably why he picked Anakin to be Obi-Wan’s Little, because he knows Obi-Wan’s weaknesses too well after a year acting as his Big. That bit about learning how to study? And it feeling like everyone else was speaking a foreign language? Feeling completely lost and helpless because all the other resources that were supposed to help you just weren’t panning out and this mentorship program was your last hope? Obi-Wan had been there last year. So he knows what Anakin’s feeling, what he’s going through. And it’s why Qui-Gon knows he’s going to accept, going to take Anakin on. 
He sighs, pinching his nose in frustration before looking back down at the smiling face of one Anakin Skywalker. “Did you really have to pick someone so attractive?” he finally sighs, looking up at Qui-Gon in resignation. 
Qui-Gon – the bastard – just chuckles. “If you’re going to spend the next year mentoring him, he might as well be someone you enjoy looking at. It’s part of why I picked you.” Then he has the gall to wink. 
The poor crowd of first years eating their lunch in the common area really have no idea how to react when Obi-Wan upends the table and launches himself at the third year student, Qui-Gon laughing the whole time. 
-
In the end, it takes Obi-Wan two days to actually reach out to Anakin. Not because he’s scared or anything because he’s not. It’s because Dr. Che’s GI anatomy review lecture had reminded Obi-Wan just how much he didn’t remember from first year anatomy-physiology lab and he’d deep dived back into his old anatomy notes and panic-blacked out midway through flipping through his Thieme “Atlas of Anatomy” textbook, only surfacing back up when Bant literally tugged him by the ear away from the dorm study space back to his room. So two days later, his under eyes are a bit darker than normal (but that’s pretty much a given in med school and no one even spares him a second glance) when he shoots Anakin a text.
[Message: To: Anakin Skywalker] Hello, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi. We were paired as part of the Big-Little program. I am reaching out to ask when you would be available to meet so that we could discuss further what you would like to get from this program and how best I could assist you to succeed in medical school. Please let me know at your earliest convenience.
Message sent, Obi-Wan tucks his phone away and makes his way to his locker so that he can grab his other notebook for Professor Koon’s physiology lecture. The man tends to like more… hands on demonstrations and Obi-Wan has taken to storing all his belongings except the essentials in his locker for the duration of Professor Koon’s lectures just in case. 
His phone buzzes in his pocket, cutting off a second later to start buzzing anew. This continues again and again before he finally pulls it out and flicks it to life. 
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] Omg!!
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] I didn’t think you were ever going to text me
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] Hi!!
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] Wow your text sounds so formal like an email
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] Are you free for lunch today??
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] Sorry for the rush but like
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] We have a quiz Friday and
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] I have no idea how to study for it
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] So if you could help me that would be 
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] AMAZING
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi
[Message: From: Anakin Skywalker] You’re my only hope!!
Obi-Wan stares for a moment at the veritable wall of texts that completely blocks out his original message. He feels a migraine coming on. This is looking like it’s going to be a very, very painful year indeed.
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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years
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hello arthur!! tbh people are being terrible in your inbox and the last ask killed my brain cells so this is your free bingo card to talk about anything you like. also sometimes googling sharks with human teeth (exactly what it sounds like) helps!! much love <3
oh my gosh I’m OBSESSED with these photos they’re so cute!!!! and thank you for the bingo card Effie I appreciate it so much. I’m gonna rant about Deadly Class (a show I definitely don’t like and thus don’t run a fan blog for....smh) bc it’s on my mind and it looks like it’s just going to go quietly into that good night instead of being made fun of and dissected and I think that should change bc goodness gracious that show does not deserve a dignified death. also I’m gonna put this rant under a readmore bc this is gonna be long and it has nothing to do w atla. warnings for discussions of racism, callous mentions of murder and death, swearing, discussion of Nazis, discussion of gore, abuse ment
Okay so for those not in the know (which is probably everyone considering the show was on Syfy and it’s being canceled due to low viewership) Deadly Class is a teen murder drama set in the late ‘80s starring Lana Condor, which makes it sound like it was engineered in a lab to appeal to me. Literally my friend and I were in the middle of watching Schitt’s Creek, which I adore, and she was like “well I heard about this show called Deadly Class” and described it and I was like fuck Schitt’s Creek we’re watching this. It had a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, which usually makes me nervous, but I was literally like “I don’t care because I know I’m going to love it.” 
And well. I did not love it. 
I truly do not understand how one fucks up “teenagers (mostly) of color go to murder boarding school in the late ‘80s” that bad (I mean the Russo brothers are involved and they fuck up everything they touch so perhaps it was just that). I haven’t read the comic the show is based on but it does appear that a *lot* of the issues of the show stem from the comic, which is...disappointing. Basically, our MC, Marcus, starts off the show homeless after his group home burned down (and it’s heavily implied that he was the one to do it) and gets hunted down by these elite teenage murderers who invite them to their murder school. 
Already, numerous problems are starting to show themselves. First of all, Marcus is Latino, which, yes, it’s very cool that the MC is Latino, except he is literally the white-passingest man I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve seen my dad. I didn’t realize that he was Latino until they showed his extremely stupid backstory in a shitty animated sequence and whoever was voicing his dad did this really, really thick Nicaraguan accent and I was like wait a damn minute. So then, I looked it up, and the guy playing Marcus is named Benjamin Wadsworth, which immediately made me think that they had pulled a Noah Centineo and made me think this fully white actor was half Latino (and yes, Latinos can be white, but I think Marcus is supposed to be a nonwhite Latino, and I thought Benjamin Wadsworth was both white and non-Latino). But you know, as an light skinned ethnically ambiguous mixed kid myself, I thought I owed it to him to dig a little deeper, and turns out our pal Ben is mixed (also, he’s like six months older than me and married, which is a trip). And like, okay, I guess I’m glad they didn’t get a white non-Latino man to play a Latino character, but they literally got the whitest looking Latino they could think of to play him. He originally auditioned for Billy. Billy’s the token white. And the producers were like “wait you have Latino ancestry?” (how they found that out I don’t fucking know) and let him go for Marcus. And like. Okay. The character in the comics is light-skinned but he does not look white, and Benjamin is not a good enough actor for them to just pass on the actors who surely auditioned for that role and were more visibly Latino but like. Okay, I guess. 
Second of all, this show is mega racist and it starts to reveal itself when you look at how the murder kids are styled in literally their first appearance. What struck me the most was the fact that the Latina (whose name is fucking Maria, for heaven’s sake) was wearing a sexy red dress and Day of the Dead makeup, which, I’m sorry, huh? That just so happens to be the Mexican girl’s murder outfit? I’ve tried to give them the benefit of the doubt and speculate that maybe she wears it to like, subvert people’s expectations, but at this point idk how this is subverting anyone’s expectations nor why she’d be so invested in that. Also, she’s supposed to be a teenager. It’s fucked up to sexualize any of your child characters but it really hits different when it’s your Latina character (and yeah, I know the actress playing Maria isn’t a teenager, but still, it’s the principle of the thing). And then of course, the Black guy, Willie (no he’s not related to Billy they were just like yeah two guys with rhyming names in our main cast sounds legit) is a gangbanger dude who talks the way that white people think Black people talk. I keep waiting for this guy to have one line that’s not complete garbage, but I’m five episodes deep and so far nada, which sucks so bad because there’s like, kernels of an interesting character buried in this horrible racist trope. Also, they had him sleep with a N*zi. I hate it here. Lana Condor (her character’s name is Saya) gets off fairly okay, at least in this first shot (they don’t have her wearing a kimono to go murder people, thank fuck), but the way she behaves is super weird, like kinda flirty towards Marcus, kinda badass but not enough to actually do anything, etc. Billy’s white so they couldn’t make him a racist caricature or anything but I have no idea why he’s here. See, instead of talking about the real politics of the real world, Deadly Class makes up fake prejudice that honestly makes the lok bender/nonbender bullshit look sensible. Maria, Willie, and Saya are Legacies, which means that their families are established murderers (fun fact: the N*zi girl is also a Legacy, because her father murdered hundreds of civil rights activists. And the characters of color align themselves with her. I don’t understand.) Billy, and later Marcus when he decides to go to murder school, are Rats, meaning they have no affiliation with established murder groups. So, in this show, the people of color have privilege over the (mostly white) Rats. Make it make sense. Further, this means that Maria, Saya, and Willie should have absolutely no reason to hang out with Billy, and yet they do because the Russo brothers have heard that the kids these days like the found family trope, so they put five unlikely friends in a room together and insinuated that they could all be besties. I swear, this show is the La Croix of found family tho, in that there is absolutely no flavor whatsoever. None of the characters develop into a found family. Saya is bound to care for Marcus for reasons, Maria is using him, Willie is also using him, and Billy is only his friend because they’re both Rats. Saya and Maria are already friends (and honestly their friendship is the most compelling thing in the whole show). There are no other connections between the characters. But they’re totes a found family!!!!/s
Also, they don’t let Saya be mean. Every character says “oh Saya’s such a bitch” but do we ever see Saya being a bitch??? No! Saya is literally just a nice girl who is kinda quiet sometimes and murders people and has a tragic backstory. There’s an argument to be made for Maria being more bitchy than her tbh. And like, fine, if you want Saya to be nice, she can be nice, but stop telling me she’s mean then!!! If you’re gonna tell me that I’m gonna get to see mean Lana Condor in a leather jacket in this show then deliver bitch. 
There’s truly so much more I could talk about (Chico??? What the fuck is Chico’s arc???? What in the actual hell were they thinking when they were writing anything to do with Chico????? my DUDES WHAT IN THE SAM HELL. also making Billy straight was so fucking stupid he’s literally gay come on now, also Master Lin is so fucking useless what is he even doing here) but instead I’m going to outline the version of Deadly Class my friend and I have been talking about while we watch the inferior real Deadly Class. 
lots of things are the same actually because there are some elements of the show that have potential. Marcus is still homeless at the beginning, everybody still thinks he burned down the group home but he didn’t, Willie is still a pacifist, he and Marcus are still partners for their first murder school assignment, Saya’s mean (but like actually), Billy still has green hair and is the token white of the group (although a Billy of color.....thinking), and they all hate Reagan
in an ideal world Willie and Maria would have different names (Willie bc his name rhymes with Billy’s and that’s fucking stupid, also Willie is just a terrible name in general, Maria partially because it sounds way too similar to Marcus and I don’t understand why the guy who wrote this couldn’t make his characters have different sounding names, and partially because no Latina character of mine is going to be named fucking Maria), but for the purposes of this outline I’ll keep their names the same for clarity.
Marcus doesn’t initially have his rep. He’s on the streets when he sees a girl his age (Saya) come out of this elevator in the back of a restaurant brandishing a sword, and decides to go into the elevator, sees the stash of weapons, and decides to steal one so he can fend for himself better. 
also keeping the detail of Rory murdering a bunch of homeless kids, but now Marcus knows that Rory is actively hunting him down. 
in the process of robbing the school’s weapons collection, Marcus figures out that it’s a murder school
Master Lin catches Marcus robbing the school, they fight, Master Lin overpowers Marcus and ties him up. He says the weapons are for students only, and Marcus says he’s applying. Lin asks what his qualifications are, and Marcus says “you know that group home that burned down three months ago? all the kids that died? I started the fire.” 
(also no shade to Benjamin Wadsworth but in this version he is not playing Marcus. Marcus is not white-passing)
Master Lin initially doesn’t believe him, but Marcus presses on and eventually convinces Master Lin that this is really what happened, and so Lin welcomes him to murder school. 
Marcus’s first class is Poisons, and his lab partner is Billy, who takes a shine to him and shows him around school. There’s no Legacy/Rat nonsense, but you do have normal high school drama adapted slightly for murder school. Maria is the prettiest and most popular girl in school, Saya is the mean girl/valedictorian, Willie is the jock, and Billy’s the punky weirdo. 
Marcus is, of course, the new kid with a reputation to live up to. 
Things kind of fall apart when Willie and Marcus are paired up for an assignment: to seek revenge on somebody. 
also Willie’s backstory is extremely different. his dad was a Black Panther, and he was murdered by the FBI when Willie was a kid. distraught, his mom moved to Texas, where she started working a corporate job and rose really high in the ranks. To maintain her status in the company, she had to do some really horrible things, including working with the FBI to take down other civil rights activists. Willie found out about this and was absolutely horrified. his mother insisted she was doing this so that he could have a better life, but he refused to listen to her, and ran away, and ended up at murder school. 
Willie got into murder school because Lin knows who his mom is, and assumes that Willie is just as cutthroat as she is. he gains a reputation as well. 
also, Willie’s extremely wealthy, and this shows in the way he dresses (preppy jock vibes)
you don’t find out about this backstory for a minute tho bc unlike Albert Kim and the Russo Brothers, I can wait until the right opportunity presents itself for a backstory drop. 
ok anyway back to what I was saying earlier
they have to seek revenge on somebody. Marcus asks Willie if there’s anybody he wants revenge on, and Willie very sincerely says no. Marcus scoffs at him and says he’s clearly had a very easy life, to which Willie replies, “Well, who do you want revenge on?” 
Marcus immediately says, “Rory.” 
So they track Rory down, and since Marcus hasn’t actually killed anybody, he hands the weapons over to Willie. Willie frowns and says that he has nothing against this dude he’s never met before, so Marcus should be the one to hurt him. Marcus says that this is a group project and Willie’s got to pull his weight, and they get into an argument
the argument gets loud, and Rory hears them fighting and starts chasing them. 
in the midst of the chase, both of them divulge their secrets to one another. Willie laughs hysterically and says that they deserve each other bc they both lied to get where they are, and now they’re going to die because of it
Rory backs them into a corner, and Marcus uses one of the swords he tried to steal earlier to shank Rory
They throw the body in a dumpster, and after this, they’re friends, and Marcus decides he’ll fit right in at murder school. 
ok so that was only one episode but things to look forward to in the version of Deadly Class that only exists in me and my friend’s heads: Marcus dealing with the emotional and moral fallout of his first murder, Willie trying to figure out what it means to be a pacifist in a world so hellbent on doing violence towards him, Saya being mean to everyone except Maria, Maria convincing Saya to relax and have fun, the gang bonding in a Breakfast Club style situation adapted for murder school and making a joke about how this is like the Breakfast Club because it’s the 80s and the movie just came out, Saya and Maria falling in lesbians, Marcus and Saya being depressing edgelord besties, Billy being gay and fighting his abusive father, Marcus and Billy being uncool weirdo bffs, Willie and Maria rolling their eyes at Marcus and Saya’s cynicism, Billy coming out to Marcus and talking about his experiences being gay, which makes Marcus think “hang on, why do I relate to that?”, Willie seeing Marcus make a sarcastic comment about kissing a guy and having a crisis, Marcus and Willie falling in love, the gang taking a road trip to Vegas to murder Billy’s dad and giving Billy a gnc thrift store makeover on the way, and eventually the gang murdering the shit out of Ronald Reagan. 
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coredrill · 3 years
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alright here are my rwby8 thoughts now that i’ve had a few days to sit on ‘em!! spoilers for the entire volume under the cut
so if anyone happens to open this and is like “wow this is more words than i’ve seen you use ever” lol yup! it’s probably the most words i’ve written since high school lmao. feel free to read through if ya really want but this is mostly just my own way of organizing my thoughts for this kind of stuff rather than making a million different posts on random parts of it. this way if i want to look back in the future and say “haha wow can’t believe i thought THAT” it’s all in one easy location! i don’t expect anyone else to be reading all this shite lol
thoughts on the volume as a whole:
honestly i loved it!! there’s very little that i would’ve changed and most of that is nit-picking stuff. i’m very impressed that this volume was made in quarantine lmao. the animation in and of itself was STUNNING (shout out to the finale’s water animation...the aura break particle effects...the cinnamon topography of the amity scenes...all of the facial & body expressions...the whale disintegrating...)
i’d honestly say that it’s probably my second favorite volume?? volume 4 is still my beloved but v8 was so good. i’ll probably need to watch it through a few more times but god. i LOVED IT.
honorable mention cause idk where else to put it: some of the scores were breathtaking!!! i tend not to notice background music on my first watch unless it really sticks out to me and there were quite a few scenes where that happened in a good way this volume. the ones where cinder breaks into the atlas control room and the one at the end when atlas is flooding are probably my favs!!! also there was this one part where it was just screeching over ironwood and it worked really really well.
okay so now for individual characters. let’s start with ruby:
i would like to fund her therapy
very surprised that she didn’t “break” this volume! i was sort of expecting it to happen--between ironwood, the amity plan only kind of working, the hound, the virus, and the fact that she was separated from her usual support system (qrow, yang, and jaune), i was definitely expecting her to. i’m glad she didn’t though cause it’s gonna be so much harder when she actually does (probably when she finds out that cinder has the relics and penny’s dead...)
massive shout out to lindsay jones for managing to make squeaky-voiced ruby still sound like ruby even while going through a whole host of emotions we’ve never seen ruby go through before!
god. that scene where crescent rose fell into the drink and ruby scrambled after it. my heart dropped lmao.
also. this is likely because i’ve got an engineering degree (which came with a free stick up my butt when it comes to technology in media) but the line where they say “mass no longer matters” wrt her semblance??? WHAT??? bro splitting mass up into smaller chunks doesn’t change the actual mass of the material itself what is going on here 😭😭😭 (this isn’t a real criticism of any kind i just yelled WHAT after they said that line lmao)
weiss:
i have one single weiss criticism and its that, in the scene where she’s leaving whitley to go fight the hound, she says “we still need to work on your attitude” and for whatever reason, the voice track doesn’t sound like it was quite mixed right? like it sounds like she’s just standing there rolling her eyes but my girl is BOOKING it out of the room lmao
other than that: weiss you are PERFECT. she really spent this entire volume saving and taking care of the people she loves!!! and i loved every second of it!!!
i would’ve liked to see more of her and klein/whitley/willow. i think there’s a lot of great stuff in that dynamic (not me crying when klein showed up at the manor...) and especially between weiss and her mother. i hope we get one big schneeuinon in vacuo once they + winter are all in the same location (but that’s gonna be a while i think lmao)
it’s been said a million times before but weiss?? shaking and crying but using gambol shroud anyway?? even though she thinks her teammates are all dead?? giving ruby the staff and pushing her out of the line of fire and pulling blake back to safety??? fighting cinder, a fucking wholeass maiden, with no aura because she needs to protect penny?? only unable to get up and keep fighting after she watches gambol shroud (the last physical piece she has of her teammates) go over the edge??? bro. BRO. i’m legit tearing up just TYPING THAT. god she’s gonna find her team at that island resort and never let them go. gonna be like v4 jaune all over again huh??
blake/yang:
not as much here since they didn’t get a whole lot of focus this volume, but i enjoyed all their scenes! yang just fuckin going at salem was 1000/10.
i will say...i think blake’s gonna kiss yang when they meet up in tropical paradise. and good for her!! (especially if this volume’s been planned since the beginning, it makes sense that this would be the writers’ idea for where they wanted their first kiss to be)
jaune:
going from ren saying “he has no fear. he believes that we can do this” about jaune to, five chapters later, forcing jaune to deliver a killing blow to penny was just CRUEL
the fucking dissonance of jaune haha!-awkward-renora-moment-exit vomit-boy-through-the-portals hit-in-the-head-with-a-rock arc being the one that penny asks..............bro. don’t hmu.
it’s going to be such a long time until we see him smile again.
also. the moment when crocea mors snaps in half...again, my stomach dropped.
but it’s okay! he’ll be fine without a weapon! he’s the ~strategist~! *breaks the fuck down*
it hurts so much too to think about, like oscar mentioned.....even if/when he does reunite with ren and nora, he’s not gonna be the same person he was when they last saw him. he’s not gonna be their goofy, wholesome, soft, snarky, healer team leader anymore. he just got his shit sorted out, he just stopped being actively suicidal, and tbh i think this might affect him worse than what happened with pyrrha. especially since they were compounding in his brain--what he did gave penny more of a choice than pyrrha ever got, but GEEZ.
pain. just. pain.
nora:
NORA MY BELOVED
okay. OKAY. so like she was passed out for half the volume but what we did get of her was fucking amazing
nora’s mom i am going to find you and have some words. i’ve mentioned this before but this woman has the same energy as the mom from grave of the fireflies who was like “i know we’re actively being bombed right now but i’m going to abandon my children and get myself to safety.” SQUARE UP BITCH. i hope we never see nora’s mom in the show because i will become filled with rage
but nora herself??? flawless. perfection.
i really did love her journey this volume. realizing that she wants to become her own person apart from ren, and then telling him that when he says that he loves her?? nora sweetie that was heartbreaking but i am SO SO PROUD OF YOU.
nora putting herself first for once and being told that people love her WE FREAKING LOVE TO SEE IT
except NOW that’s all gonna go haywire 😭😭😭
like...the moment in the finale where you can see she’s hesitant to leave jaune to to go vacuo but she goes anyway because he’s her leader and he doesn’t like splitting up either and she loves him and she trusts him only for her to get STUCK ON THE OTHER SIDE BANGING ON THE PORTAL. that scene fucking BROKE me. you just KNOW she’s gonna be hating herself for going through and leaving jaune (even though nobody knew it was one way!!!) and when the portal dissolves and he doesn’t come through........
she really thinks that she’s lost TWO teammates now. that’s TWO teammates that she wasn’t able to save. she saved ren from the nuckelavee but pyrrha’s dead and as far as she knows jaune’s dead too
and jaune’s her fucking family!!!!!!!
and like. when we see her on the vacuo side of the portal, we see that she’s got the happy huntresses behind her. she did her job and she gathered them but now she can’t get back through and AHHHHHH. FUCK. when she drops to her knees because she realizes.........that fucking killed me. i’m tearing up now just typing this sdmndbm
and like. the worst part is that she just realized that she wants some time away from ren. but everyone else is gone and just like when they were kids he’s all she’s got and they are gonna lean on each other harder than ever because this time they both lost EVERYTHING. not just jaune, but ruby, who was their teammate for a while too. weiss, who took such great care of nora while she was injured. penny, who nora helped with blake’s advice. yang, who ren had time to bond with this volume. FUCK
it’s gonna hurt so bad to watch but i cannot WAIT to see what nora does next and how she moves forward. god. this is gonna kill her. it’s killing ME and i’m just a viewer lmao
ren:
remember that one week where neath went on twitter and was like “i love renora and i’m gonna make that everyone else’s problem”??? yeah. that was a good week lmao
speaking of neath. MASSIVE PROPS TO HIM FOR HIS WORK. he managed to give ren every single emotion in the book this volume and none of it sounded ooc despite ren being such a repressed character before. he did incredible!!!!
I LOVED REN SO MUCH THIS VOLUME GOD. i mean i love him in every volume BUT HE HAD SO MANY GOOD MOMENTS AND SUCH A GOOD ARC
i’ve already talked about it at length but the scene where his semblance evolves is one of my favorites in the whole show. he’s so fucking full of love that it’s literally tearing him apart and when he finally accepts that fact his ENTIRE SOUL levels up!!! he looks at himself and there are pink petals falling off of him because he can’t contain the love in his body anymore!!! it’s there in a literal, physical manifestation and it’s so. fucking. GOOD. FUCK.
and also my obligatory remark about how he was thinking about oscar and pyrrha and his parents in that moment. people he loved platonically and familially. rwby goes so fucking hard for platonic love and i can’t ever thank them enough. to see ren have this realization because he was thinking about oscar.....god i’m gonna cry again LMAO
and then after that the way that he just. looks at jaune in every scene with the biggest fucking heart eyes. i’m gonna fucking combust he loves his  leader SO MUCH. (which. as i mentioned in the nora section. pain now)
and the nora stuff........JUST AS GOOD
another thing i’ve talked about a lot but to see him apologize, be emotionally open, listen to what nora’s saying and what nora needs, TELL HER THAT HE LOVES HER FIRST, not holding a single thing against her, agreeing to wait for her to be ready.........literal perfection holy shit
romance is normally not one of my favorite aspects of any media but i will make an exception for whatever the fuck ren and nora got going on
basically as a ren stan / jnpr stan i was thriving this volume and then that finale hit me and i know i will be in pain until they reunite again
i have a handful of jnr gifs that i was planning to make during the hiatus but now they’re all PAIN aksjhdasjdh
oscar:
deeply worried about the quickly approaching merge. i’m really hoping that oscar and oz stay separate but i also love seeing all the animation/voice acting nuances that indicate that they’re getting closer to the merge.......AH
this volume really hammered home just how strong this kid is. he stands up to SALEM and does the right thing even despite the torture cause he’s so BRAVE and STRONG and when he trusted hazel with the password DESPITE IT ALL. ugh. so good.
i love oscar so much and i’ve loved seeing him grow!!!
penny:
serious stuff coming in the next bullet point but. GOD. her model’s head is so big and i don’t know WHY but this stuck out to me every time she was standing next to someone else. it might be because of the volume of her hair (but yang’s hair also has a lot of volume, and her head is normal sized)??? idk it just threw me off a lot. every time she was like, talking to ruby or something, all i could think about was how her head was bigger than ruby’s ENTIRE TORSO lmao. (also why didn’t they give her human body shoes skdjhaksjh)
that said.........oh, penny 😭😭😭😭😭
i’m surprised that she died but only because i thought her plot armor was pretty thick LMAO. narratively it makes a lot of sense and i’m glad her story ended the way it did.
i’ve seen a lot of people interpreting her actions in the finale as “choosing to die,” but i don’t think that’s the case?? penny’s friends all saved her every single time that she presented her own death as an option. that’s what makes this so tragic, is that they successfully saved her every time she offered that, and that in the end, she still died. she was gonna die anyway. she was impaled by cinder--jaune didn’t have enough time to heal her before cinder defeated weiss (who had no aura!!) and turned on them again. penny made her own choices when 1. she asked to die at the hands of a friend, rather than by cinder’s soul-sucking grimm arm and whatever horrible fate that includes and 2. to choose her successor. and i don’t blame her for making either of those choices! she wanted to die with as much dignity as peace as she could and to choose whose life she would be intertwined with. and while it’s very sad, i’m glad that penny finally got some sense of control over herself and her legacy.
and like...she was so happy when she met up with winter!! she was so happy to have full autonomy for once!!! that scene was both heartwarming and heartbreaking!!!
i also think that penny’s death reinforces the idea that remnant is gonna be very different by the time rwbyjnorqe is done with it. now not one but two kindhearted girls have gotten killed because they got tangled up in the maiden powers—which were originally meant to be a gift!! and i’m very interested to see what the resolution is gonna be!! (i know it’s gonna be in like. volume 52 or something alsjfndnx but still!!)
also, if nothing else, i am very glad that whole “pietro sacrifices the last of his aura to revive her” theory is gone. i hate that theory lmao
i will say, while i enjoyed penny’s role this volume, i do think that maybe some of her screentime could’ve gone elsewhere. i get that there needed to be a lot of focus on her, so that we would be attached when she died, but i think it would’ve been beneficial to spread that screentime elsewhere just a bit, especially since she wasn’t really developing at all. hitting the same point with her like seven times did start to feel a bit repetitive lol. my vote would be for extra time with the schnees, or the jn(o)r reunion at schnee manor, or maybe a scene checking in with pietro and maria!!
emerald:
EMERALD MY BELOVED
YOU DEFECTED!!!! GOOD FOR YOU GIRL!!!!
i hope we get a LOT more time with her in the future. she’s still gotta work out the cinder thing of course but i also think it’s gonna be super interesting to see how she acts now that she (alongside oscar, ren, nora, the hh, and winter) is one of the closest things their group has to a “leader”
also like........good for her for being one of the LEAST traumatized people this volume despite being THREATENED BY SALEM
somebody give emerald a nice long hug
i love her
that is all
winter:
WINTER OH MY GOD
seeing her struggle with her emotions all volume.....only to finally accept them and save marrow’s life.....and because of that choice she realizes how long overdue it was and goes all in on helping the heroes.....and is eventually chosen to become the next winter maiden by the girl who challenged her to accept her emotions in the first place......😭😭😭 chef’s kiss
“you chose nothing. this was a gift.” *demolishes ironwood but doesn’t stick around cause he’s not worth it* *fights cinder* POETIC CINEMA!!!!!
also i cannot wait to see her schneeunion with willow, whitley, and klein.......even if she does have to be the one to tell them what happened to weiss 😭
cinder:
CINDER I HATE YOU BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE SUCH A GOOD VILLAIN
her backstory was pretty self explanatory but i think this was a good time to spell it out especially while we were in atlas. the culmination of that, her consistent failures to achieve her goals after v3, and watts dragging her really all just came together to make her so much more intimidating and efficient and i loved watching it.
like i know there’s people who don’t like her as a character but she’s always so fun to watch and her va does AMAZING and she’s just. so INTERESTING
also. i cannot wait for her to find out that ruby and neo are both alive (and especially when salem finds out they’re both alive LMAO)
also also her line to ruby about never being born feels.......awfully specific??? i wonder if it’s a hint at some other part of salem/cinder/ruby/summer lore (like her “and i refuse to starve” line from last volume)
also also also CINDER.......lying to salem is gonna backfire on you at one point or another.......HM
salem:
gosh i love salem. she’s such a good villain and i loved all her scenes (especially the fight scene...SO COOL).
very interested in whatever she does next!! since the only remaining lackey she has is cinder (who is now starting to try to manipulate her) and tyrian and mercury, who are in vacuo, i’m curious about her next steps. is she gonna keep recruiting, now that people know who she is?? is she gonna come to vacuo herself?? she could definitely do a WHOLE LOT OF DAMAGE with the refugee situation there, so i’m super excited to see how her next moves play out!!
hazel/tyrian/watts/merc/neo:
rip hazel. glad we were able to get an INSANE fight scene out of him before his death BUT ALSO WHAT’S WITH YOU BEATING THE SNOT OUT OF A 14 YEAR OLD HUH
listen. listen. i know merc-rescues-oscar was never a possibility BUT i still love that idea. it lives in my mind rent free!!!
i feel like mercury’s gonna be so insane after the worst road trip ever in a confined space with tyrian that he’s gonna be immediately redeemed by team sssnn and the power of himbofication upon landing in vacuo LMAO
real talk though, i am VERY interested in what happens when mercury sees emerald again and learns she defected. like, this is his friend, who he’s tried to keep safe the only way he knows how (by keeping his head down and not angering their abuser) and she got out but he didn’t. GOD. AND in the first fight she was in after defecting, she used the move that she learned by watching him!!!! that’s gonna be SO GOOD and i can’t wait to see it!!!
neo is a wildcard and i love watching her fight and i think it’s SO INTERESTING that she went over the side with rwby and jaune and i CAN’T WAIT to see what she does next.
WATTS MY DUDE. what a GOOD volume for him. like the stuff where he yells at cinder was SO COOL to see and it was so funny that he thought that wasn’t gonna come back to bite him LMAO. i think this was super fitting for him and while i like him as a villain, i think this was a good place for his story to end. i had a lot of fun watching his scenes this volume.
qrow/robyn:
I LOVE THEIR SIBLING ENERGY. robyn talking qrow down and them bonding over their semblances together was so great.
i also loved qrow’s semblance...evolving?? changing?? idk what exactly happened yet, but i know that if i too hung out with robyn hill for 48 hours straight my outlook on life would improve dramatically.
i do hope robyn makes it to vacuo soon because she will be invaluable at handling the refugee crisis there.
on the other hand, if qrow gets to vacuo and finds out that ruby and yang (and three more of his adopted kids) never made it........PAIN. oh my god it’s gonna be like summer all over again 😭😭
aceops:
did not expect to get teary-eyed when vine died. and yet i did. that “themes of death” cw on the finale was CERTAINLY SOMETHING HUH
hell yeah marrow!!! what a good boi!!! i loved his defection ofc and him going off on ironwood...chefs kiss
i hope marrow sticks with the main cast. he’s my favorite and he deserves to see his friends again!!!
as for elm and harriet, i’m not sure?? i think harriet still has a lot of work to do before she’s redeemed in my eyes. maybe they can be dropped off at beacon to help glynda fight the grimm/rebuild so that they can be back for the show’s ending but the cast is somewhat trimmed for vacuo lmao
also. i know they’re not aceops. but WHERE ARE FLYNT AND NEON ARE THE MEME KIDS OKAY
happy huntresses:
may marigold is literally perfect in every way
loved them! would’ve loved to see more of them lmao. maybe even just cutting back to them in the crater reacting to some of the stuff going on.
i very much hope we get to see them in the future! i know the vacuans aren’t gonna be happy with the atlas/mantle people showing up unannounced but i feel like if there’s anyone who’s gonna be able to earn their respect, it’s the organized-and-saved-the-lives-of-those-downtrodden-by-atlas-happy-huntresses.
maria & pietro:
okay. SO. my thoughts are either that they made it to vacuo (penny did see where amity would touch down, so it’s possible that a portal was placed in that location and they made it through) or qrow picks them up.
either way, i hope we get to see them again. I LOVE THESE TWO GEEZERS!!!
oh, pietro......... *cries*
ironwood:
not much to say here except that i loved it. i loved how he got more and more paranoid, i loved that he vaporized jacques schnee, i loved that he only went cartoon-villain at the last moment, i loved that he died unceremoniously surrounded by the thing he thought would save them all. i love that cinder got in one final chess reference beforehand. 10/10
the hound:
it feels like a lifetime ago that this guy died but holy shit. holy SHIT.
i want whitley to summon the hound!! it was an enemy that pushed him to grow, i think it would be neat!!
ambrosius:
LOVED THIS DUDE. i LOVE how his powers work!!! like, even though it’s magic, it’s so realistic because that’s how creation works!!! you gotta design the EXACT thing you want or else its gonna be fucked up!!!
like. okay. so (back on my engineering bs again lmao) for example. let’s say i’m writing a program where the user enters a number from 1-10 and it’s displayed on the computer screen. so i write whatever code i need that says “take user input and put on screen.” that’s what ambrosius did when he created the portals and the pathways between them!
and then let’s say i also put a warning to the user that says “only enter numbers from 1-10.” that would be ambrosius saying “do not fall.”
but...the user can still enter whatever they want. what happens if they put in the number 100? what happens if they type a letter? this program only puts numbers from 1-10 on screen, so who knows what’s gonna happen. and that’s what happens when people fall off the railings!!!
“oh, but you told them what numbers to enter” yeah but humans are unpredictable and ya gotta account for the human element when doing stuff like this!! team rwby didn’t account for people falling off--because why would people fall off if they were told not to? but the human element messed that up anyway!!!
anyways i’m a fucking nerd apparently but it was super cool to see that reflected in ambrosius!!! i’m a big fan!!!
like whenever people call him tricky or sneaky...no!!! he was just doing exactly what he was told to do!!!! so good!!!
also i wanna see him hang out with his sister jinn lmao
alright and here’s my thoughts/predictions for v9:
first off i just wanna say that this entire section (this entire post really, but especically this section) is just me spitballing lmao. we literally have ZERO clue what’s happening next or where they are, i’m just throwing out some stuff that’s crossed my mind! whatever crwby gives us is gonna be infinitely better than whatever i come up with lmao
that said, i have two ideas for what could be happening in madagascar.
option one is the one i’ve seen other people toss around, which is the whole wonderland-land-of-the-dead thing. i’m kinda torn on this because i think it could be good for penny’s storyline, but not really anyone else’s?? sure, yang and ruby could see summer, but weiss would see...jacques?? and blake would see...adam?? i’m not sure what weiss and blake would have to say to them/learn from them the same way ruby and yang would.
on that same idea, jaune could definitely see pyrrha, but again, i’m wondering what purpose that would serve? obviously jaune’s actions in the finale were guided by pyrrha (or specifically her mom, and realizing that pyrrha never had a choice either), but it’s clear that that’s the case for all of team jnpr, and it will be probably forever. their scene together at pyrrha’s memorial felt like they were closing the door--specifically--on their grief. on the other hand, those actions are super relevant right now and i will never turn down the chance to see pyrrha!!! it’s just free waterworks babey!!!
neo also has roman, but i can’t really see roman admitting to anyone that he got swallowed by a grimm 😭😭 just seems too embarrassing for him LMAO
for penny, i think this could work nicely. all she ever wanted was to not have her life controlled by others--kind of like alice in wonderland (the disney movie version because i am fairy tale illiterate lmao). if penny gets to exist after death in a land where she gets to choose everything for herself i think she would be very happy!
again, if this ends up being the case, crwby could 100% make it work! (and i am 0% opposed to maya model pyrrha.) i just personally am not as sold on this being the case as some others are.
option two imo is vacuo but in the past. which i know seems kind of weird BUT i have reasons!
so we know a few things about vacuo. one, it used to be an oasis and was considered a paradise until atlas and mistral destroyed it for the dust. two, it has giant motherfucking crabs that people like to eat. yes this is all i have to go off of BUT both of those things are in the end credits scene we got!
also, them landing in past-vacuo makes sense on ambrosius’ level. their “one way ticket” probably didn’t include all four dimensions of coordinates--so i could see them landing in the same x, y, and z as the official doorway, but at a different time. the creation would still do exactly what it was asked to do--drop them in vacuo.
there’s also a couple other things. “vacuo” means “in a vacuum” which i’ve heard v9 is supposed to be. also in before the dawn, sun saw some bigass magic tree that awakened his semblance which this one definitely could qualify as
(okay. side note. when i first saw the tree i thought of the glowy tree from james cameron blue people avatar. IDK WHY, i haven’t seen that movie in years??? i also had to google it to make sure i wasn’t making it up and apparently it’s called the “tree of souls.” which would also make sense if it helped sun awakened his semblance. i don’t think rwby based something off of blue people avatar, it’s probably more likely that blue people avatar is based off of some fairytale/mythology that i don’t know anything about LMAO)
i don’t actually think option two is gonna happen, but it was fun to think about!!
also either option opens the opportunity to time not passing 1:1 in current vacuo & rwby’s island getaway which???????? AHHHHH
alright so now to the actual characters lmao. i mentioned wby earlier. i honestly have no clue what neo’s gonna be up to, she’s such a wild card and i LOVE IT.
ruby and jaune is gonna be...........PAIN. NO MATTER WHAT. i have no idea how ruby is gonna react--she might just be so overwhelmed by everything that she snaps/yells at jaune which. PAIN. but she also might not?? which. ALSO PAIN. i feel like no matter what ruby does, jaune’s gonna blame himself anyway. god. i love their friendship SO MUCH and this is gonna HURTTTT
and on that, he doesn’t have ren and nora this time to pull him back from the ledge. this dude’s guilt complex is gonna go crazy especially since he doesn’t have his team and double especially if ruby/rwby blames him for what happened. god it’s gonna HURT TO WATCH.
on a wildly different note, i hope we do get to see vacuo/qrow throughout volume 9. if i go a whole volume without ren and nora i WILL cry lmao.
also it’s gonna be super interesting to see how their group fares!!! vacuo’s fuckin nuts and i’d love to see winter just destroying the grimm there (3 headed giraffe my beloved) and see how the atlas/mantle refugees handle the climate--and how the vacuans react to all of them LMAO
ALSO!!!! THE SULFER FISH WERE THERE!!! very glad to see that they’re in vacuo too because from the concept art it seems like they have super unique abilities and i’m excited that we may get to properly see them, instead of just cameos!!!
team cfvy pspspspspspsps theodore and rumpole pspspspspsps team sssnn pspspspspsps
and, of course, i gotta mention that any possible jnr reunion WILL tear my heart out and i will probably cry for days. i gotta start emotionally preparing now LMAO
alright and that wraps it up!! if anyone makes it down to the bottom props to you!! i don’t expect anyone to actually read this mess lmao. tldr: INCREDIBLE volume and i’m so hype for v9 already!!!
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sortavibing · 3 years
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hello , i was wondering if it was possible to ask for a matchup! if so here’s all my info !!! sorry if this is really long :/ i feel so bad i literally wrote u an ESSAY. 😰
my name is lizelle, i don’t really have any nicknames except for zellie (but that’s reserved for specific childhood friends and family members). my pronouns are she/her and i am bisexual. my personality type is enfp-t. i love writing, i’ve been doing it since i was in elementary school. i’ve also been dancing for ,,, 12 years now i think (i’m 17 :)) i also love listening to music, i could sit and listen for hours. i value trust more than anything in a relationship, i also enjoy someone who has a good sense humor. like rolling on the floor laughing type beat :) i LOVE baking, i stress bake. i also love reading and watching tv (my favs are game of thrones atla and aot) . i hate seafood, absolutely despise it, honestly i’m basically a vegetarian lol. i’m pretty short standing @ 4’11. i’m black and i’m a lil bit pudgy but i’m learning to accept it. thick thighs save lives bb 😌 so do big titties but u aint hear that from me 👀 i am a very secretly insecure person. which means i tend not to bring up my insecurities unless absolutely necessary or they’re forced out of me but they are DEFINITELY there, you just gotta be a little patient. my stomach, boobs, thighs, hair, skin color. growing up in a white town did wonders for my confidence as a kid 🤩 . i definitely use humor and fake confidence as coping mechanisms if you couldn’t tell LOL. and i would say i am the funniest damn person i know, nobody compares. when i get really exited or passionate about something i could go on for literal HOURS and i’d talk to anyone who will listen. ANYWAYS
i would like a romantic relationship ship please and thank uuu! you are an angel for writing these 😌 again i apologize for the length but heres my fucking dissertation.
i don’t know how to add onto another request ,, but i really forgot to add my zodiac sign 😐 anyways, IM A GEMINI! have a beautiful rest of your day and i cannot thank you enough for these. godsend 🙏🏾
i hate this legitimately what is my god damn problem. my love language is touch and i am also obviously the most forgetful person ever. i promise i’m done now 🥺 i am so sorry my brain is like …evaporatorating or some shit. also i hope you are receiving these OMLLLL.
ack hello lizelle! thank you so much for requesting! you seem like such a sweet person, and no worries about the separate asks, i got all of them :) please the talent to be able to dance for 12 years- that’s so amazing! anyways, here’s your matchup!
generating matchup…
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matchup: complete
i match you up with osamu!
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what first drew osamu to you was just how pretty you were- like he saw you while he was walking to class and just had to do a double take because he was internally thinking “holy fuck i need to talk to her”. atsumu saw his awe struck face, and made fun of him for a solid 3 days, but he didn’t really care, because he just wants to get to know you. 
he knows you are basically vegetarian, so he’ll surprise you at school with homemade vegetarian meals. he will always steal a little bit, because it looks so good, and he can’t resist, and you’ll pretend to get annoyed, but you still will let him take food every time. everyone on inarizaki is lowkey jealous of you because they want some of osamu’s cooking, but he only gives it to you.
on the weekends, you guys will bake together, and whatever you are making with him turns out super well, and you guys take so many pictures of the finished dessert. osamu loves to sample things while you guys are baking, so you always have to make sure he won’t eat all the ingredients before you finish. after you guys finish, atsumu will always try to take some, and if he tries, both of you literally attack him because no way in hell is atsumu going to get the first piece :)
he loves to listen to you talk, and you guys like to just vibe with each other, soft music playing, as you cuddle and he listens to whatever you want to rant about at the moment. sometimes he will put his opinion in, if you want him to, but he usually is just content to hear the sound of your voice, and learn more about you while you talk.
if you guys are taking a bus or subway, he will rest his hand on your thigh and trace circles on it, and pretend like he’s not doing anything, but you know he’s doing it just to get a reaction out of you. he will always subconsciously grab your hand if you guys are walking somewhere together, because he loves being around you, and lowkey showing everyone that you are his girlfriend.
osamu really likes to watch you dance, because he thinks you look like a true angel when you are dancing, and he’s just hypnotized by your graceful moves. the first time he went to one of your recitals, he was just amazed by your skill, and after it ended, he literally didn’t stop telling you how beautiful you were for a solid 30 minutes.
one weekend, you convinced him to binge alta with you, and he became lowkey obsessed. his favorite character was momo and the cabbage man, and whenever the cabbage man’s cart broke, he got lowkey annoyed and started insulting aang, which was really funny. his insta bio was #justiceforcabbageman for a solid week and you thought it was so cringey but cute at the same time, so you let it slide.
if you ever get insecure, he will be sure to shut it down quickly, because no one is going to slander his girlfriend, not even herself. osamu will immediately start telling you everything he likes about you (which is everything), and how lucky he is to be able to date someone as pretty, funny, and sweet as you are.
one of the first dates he took you on was a trip to a nearby city, where you guys spent the day just going to different small bakeries and trying the pastries, is arm around your shoulder or waist the entire time. the entire trip was so cute and aesthetic, and you both got so many ideas of what you wanted to make with each other next.
overall, you guys are such a cute couple, because it’s very obvious that both of you care for each other very much, though osamu tries (and fails) to be more lowkey about it. he is still surprised that you wanted to go without him, and he will do anything he can to keep you happy in your relationship.
i hope you enjoyed!
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25 more things I learned during a global pandemic from your Local Teenage Train wreck :) (Pt. 2)
1. Gaining weight is okay. Losing weight is okay. Bodies fluctuate and are inconsistent. Just make sure that you’re trying your best to be healthy, whatever that means for you. 
2. School is hard, especially during a global. freaking. pandemic. Don’t beat yourself up if it’s harder to get up in the morning or your grades aren’t as high as they usually are. It’s hard right now. 
3. You’re mental health comes above all. School, responsibilities, and personal projects are not worth your time if it’s affecting your mental health. If your gut is telling you to take a break, take a break!
4. If you feel lonely, get a plant to keep in your room. Do some research as to that plants do best with the type of lighting in your room, and figure out some basic care instructions. Have someone to take care of besides yourself. Name your plants, and take care of them. 
5. Even if you’re not good at writing, I suggest you keep a journal during this time. It kept me sane over the summer, and even though I eventually stopped because of limited time with school starting back up, it helped to keep me sane in the worst of the pandemic. 
6. If you’re spiritual (or even if you’re not) learn how to do shadow work. This isn’t anything that has to be spiritual or done in just one religion. It’s basically giving yourself a chance and a space to be open and honest with yourself and to learn what you might need to work on through writing. If you google it, you can find a more in depth explanation, and prompts to start doing it. You basically give yourself a prompt. They can be questions like “What’s the biggest lie you’ve told someone else or yourself?” or they can be a little less heavy like “What are five non physical things that you genuinely like about yourself?”. This can be pretty heavy, and can dig up some unwanted emotions, but that’s the whole point; to deal with the emotions you may have been repressing and letting fester inside of you. 
7. On days when you’re not feeling well mentally, take a break. It’s okay to drop everything and get an extra hour of sleep, read, or do something else to make yourself feel better.
8. After hard days, I know the last thing you want to do is get up and continue on, but here are some ways to do it:
- lay out an outfit that’s put together, but not as over the top. No sweat pants or crappy clothes, but it doesn’t have to be your usual put together outfits with a full face of makeup. A nice crewneck and a nice pair of black athletic leggings can go a long way. 
-wear your comfort jewelry. I wear my beaded necklace that I bought for myself,  the silver ring my grandma gave me and the gold cross ring that my mom gave to me when I got confirmed. 
-eat breakfast. A handful of cereal will do. Anything. But eat something. I like to make oatmeal. It sounds boring but if you make it right, it tastes just perfect for mornings when you don’t feel hungry but know inside that you are. Recipe is next on the list :)
-go to school. I know you want to lay in bed. I know the last place you want to be is a crowded building full of pubescent teens that aren’t nice, but go. Go to learn. Go to absorb knowledge like a sponge, and don’t worry if you fail and lose some of the water, because you can always soak it up later. 
-if you have practice, rehearsal, a game, whatever, be gentle on yourself. Today might not be your best day physically, because the brain controls everything. Forgive yourself if you can’t land that double pirouette, get to the high note, or make that assist. You’re abilities are stagnant, and they’re going to change depending on how you feel
-When you get home, turn off your phone. Friends, social media, etc. can wait. Set a timer for one hour. Do work for just that hour. When the timer rings, finish what you were doing and then stop. Now have a 20 minute break and do something that’s not screen related. Read a book, draw something; heck, stare at the wall for 20 minutes and space out. When the timer rings, do another hour and repeat the same process until it’s all done. 
-have a playlist you listen to to heal you. Sad boi hours are ok, just make sure to have a playlist of songs that get you moving again. 
-Sleep. Even if that means putting off work for tomorrow. It’s ok. You really need it. 
9. Oatmeal seems gross until you know how to prepare it. When you do, it’s revolutionary. It’s a high volume, low calorie food, so you’ll stay full for a while without overeating, all while consuming less calories than you would with a traditional breakfast cereal. 
The right way to make it: 
-measure out half a cup of old fashioned oats. Not steel cut. Those aren’t as good. 
-MOST IMPORTANT STEP: add half a cup of water and half a cup of milk of your choice. I personally like almond milk because it’s kind of sweet already even when it’s unsweetened. 
-SECOND MOST IMPORTANT STEP: add a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of cinnamon, and allspice, and a teaspoon or two of maple syrup. This is what makes it taste palatable. It’s less sugar than store-bought, and tastes amazing. 
-Microwave that shit for one minute and stir. It should look kind of lumpy, but not a ton. Then, put another minute on. Stir at every half increment. (After 30 seconds, every 15 seconds, and then every 7) This is so it doesn’t boil over. Then, take it out, stir it one last time, and let it sit for a second. 
-Wash up some berries to put in it. I love blueberries and or blackberries. 
perfect oatmeal every. single. time. Feel free to add more toppings like nuts or if you wanna treat yourself chocolate or substitute the spices, but this is honestly one of my favorite breakfasts that keeps me full throughout the day. 
10. Learn a new language. Yes, Duolingo is annoying, but do it. Find one that you’ll like to learn and that’s easy for you. Try them on like old clothes and find one that fits just right. For me, it’s French. Expose yourself to that language. Listen to music, read books (or try to) and watch movies with subtitles. Soon enough, you’ll be eager to learn more. 
11. Learn how to use notion.com. It’s super amazing. You can literally keep track of your entire life there. It’s pretty fun to use as well. I made schedules for each day after school, a reading log, a want to read list, a personal habit tracker, etc, and they’re all extremely helpful. 
12. Make a list of things you weren’t allowed to do as a kid and do one every day. Heal your inner child by finally itching the spot that may not have been scratched for years. 
13. Learn how to make origami stars. They’re really easy, and I can’t recommend Maqaroon’s (Joanna’s) video on how to make them enough. Once you’ve got it down, get yourself a nice big jar and write down things you’re grateful for on the slips of paper you’re going to fold. Fill up your gratitude jar and make a wish once it’s full. It will come true. 
14. Have 30 minutes a day to put your phone down and read. Yes. You will have to sacrifice something to do this, but it’s so important and good for not only information retention and learning, but for mental health as well. Even if you have to get up half an hour earlier to do it, it’s worth it. 
15. It’s okay to be alone, but learn to recognize the difference between alone and lonely. If you’re lonely, here are some things to do:
-write a letter to a friend. It’s something nice you can do for yourself and others, and it’s not feeding into the toxic instant reply culture that we live in
-read a book or watch a show that gets you to connect with the characters, even if that means (I've said it before and I’ll say it again) rereading a favorite ya series or binging atla for the fiftieth time. It’s good for the soul.
-take a walk and smile at the people you see coming past. Again, it’s good for the soul. 
-go to the coffee shop and ask the barista to make you a drink that tastes like “_____” (insert whatever you want there. It could be a color, song, feeling, etc.) It’s weird and uncomfortable, but it gives you a conversation starter and 9.9 times out of 10 a really good drink. (Also helpful for when you think the barrista’s cute)
-Reading in general. It opens up so many new worlds with the turn of a page. 
16. Monitor your food intake. No, don’t restrict your food intake, monitor it. This means first seeing exactly what your putting in your body and altering it to gradually improve to a clean diet. Humans weren’t built to process all the preservatives, additives and sugars found in most processed food (cereals, chips, anything in a foil bag that’s either really sweet or really salty) and it’s important to cut down and if possible eliminate as much as you can of it out of your diet. Food is fuel, and you truly are what you eat. You’ll notice that by increasing your vegetable intake, reducing white processed sugars and carbs*, and cutting out sodas/extra sugars, that you’ll feel better. This isn’t a weight loss thing, but you may start to trim down a little bit once you go more intense with it. You don’t have to eliminate anything fully, and please enjoy your favorite “bad” foods! Everything in moderation is perfect! Just make sure that you’re getting the good stuff in there too! *Side note, do NOT cut out carbs! See my post on how I’m losing weight to get more into depth on this. 
17. Buy fresh flowers for yourself. Who says that you have to wait for someone else? That’s completely false, and you should totally treat yourself to a nice bouquet on occasion, especially in the dead of winter. 
18. The whole idea of self love is flawed. Loving yourself has nothing to do with the way you look. Loving yourself comes with genuinely loving your life. If you don't love the way you’re living, change it. Make and set goals. Fail at achieving those goals. Get back up and try again until you finally get it, but make sure that whatever you’re doing, you’re doing to love the life you live. Life doesn’t live you. You live life.
19. Have candles and incense. (Or a diffuser if you’re not allowed to burn stuff) Making your environment smell good makes a huge difference
20. Once you turn 18, get a tattoo. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Pick something small and get it behind your ear, on your ankle, wrist, fingers, whatever. You’ll love having the memory when your old. 
21. Realize your worth. We often put ourselves down because we think that valuing ourselves is equivalent to selfishness. It’s not. At all. You are just as important as everyone else. Your voice matters too. 
22. Go to art museums
23. Go to free concerts in the park
24. Expose yourself to new art, ideas, and literature
25. Life is gonna suck sometimes. It’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean a bad day’s gonna last forever. As cheesy as it is, keep your head up :)
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aro-aizawa · 3 years
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suprisingly not that many people ship them, but the thing is. the "&" is literally in the top 3 relationships!! i have not been in a fandom where a "&" is one of the most popular rships. (im not exactly.. against them? i prefer brotp in general but there are a lot of uh racist antis against that romantic ship so i like it on principle for the ~spite~)
i think theres a difference between a ship fic and a ..normal fic(?). like. usually in ship fics the plot and the focus would be their interactions/getting together. whereas for regular fics u can kinda balance plot and rship, but the main plot isnt actually getting together. do u kinda get what i mean haha
no no feel free to rant! its kinda funny that they taught u to swear in yr6 but rip for not being able to censor urself. and also. broke up. over facebook??? better or worse than text lmao.
the only rship ive had started off... not great. like it was an online friend from south america, and they asked me out literally the day i rejected my friend. so... i said yes out of guilt for rejecting my friend bc it didnt look like my friend was taking the rejection well ^^; not a wonderful start rip. went well for 6-8 months then we broke up bc the honeymoon period wore off and i havent talked to them since! ✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻✌🏻 it was fun tho, but it felt honestly just more online friends tbh (....interesting decisions all around yknow? )
it be how it be. i was still id'ing as panromantic ace at the time. but still. im wondering if i could eventually "work" with someone? or is that just. allonormative asgsggshshd
i see enemies to lovers but what i Rlly want is enemies to friends to lovers. the friends is necessary!! at least in a long fic haha. ...and love at first sight sounds really fake to me? it sounds just like a hyperbole tbh. like maybe it was first wow u seem like a great person and then u like, get to know each other and then fall in love, etc etc
(👀 oop i type a lot. Rip)
oh yiiiikes i hate when fandom gets those racist fans. i’m kind of,,, dense?? about that kind of thing (abt a lot of similar things too), so whenever i see it, it’s like. mega bad. but nice! i don’t ever pay attention to what’s the most popular in terms of ao3 because when i get into a fandom i’ll blacklist every thing i’m not comfortable seeing in said fandom and then save that for when i’m gonna check out said fandom. for example [here is my atla filters], [here is my mha filters] and [here is my ml filters]. (i also use an extention called ao3rdr which has a blacklist function and my blacklist is SO LONG. but it’s an essential so that i don’t feel like my brain is going to rot by trying to find good fics.)
ye!!! i always think abt it in terms similar to genres. i hate watching films and regular books because genres are so....stilted? and ridgid in what it involves? so in fandom terms i think there’s two main kind of genre categories that have sub categories. there’s ship fic, then there’s genfic. no clue if these are wide spread terms i’ve just kind of understood it that way lol. but within those two categories, there’s sub genres like canon divergence that focus on said ship but with a focus on the plot as well so there’s two plots going on rather than just the main plot. usually there’s always equals in both sides. i think that’s what you’re thinking of. the difference is how the authors approach their fics, whether they think it’s a ship fic explorating the how do they get together of relationships or if it’s the genfic of exploring the relationship itself.
lmao yeah it was like. the only way we’d communicate in non-irl fashion because we were both like. 12/13 so we’d have like. pay as you go plans for our phones so i at least, hoarded my credit and primarily used alternate communication methods. so idk if this is wide spread but at the time we never got into the habit of communicating via text. it’s why still to this day i never ever contact my irl friends via texts, and always through social media (the only time i ever use facebook nowadays is to message my friends tho i’ve been,,,, rather lax abt that. i need to respond to one of my group chats but i’m,,, procrastinating). and we were both awkward people, so i wasn’t bothered by the online breakup, if he didn’t break up w me that way i’d have guessed we just,,, wouldn’t address the relationship ever again and still technically be together but not at the same time lol
oh man that sounds rough. never had any experiences w online relationships, but i can definitely see where it could feel like an online friendship. because,,, idk maybe it’s just me but there doesn’t??? seem like there’s much?? romantic-esque stuff you can do exclusively online?? it’s why long distance relationships are hard, and they only fit certain couples. and lol i deffo understand that feel of internet friends dropping out of your life suddenly. i still think of nearly all my internet friends fondly...except for the bad ones. yeah some of those ones ten years ago were p bad.
it is!! i think that people always shorten it to just enemies to lovers though because it’s easier to say lol. i’m MUCH more interested in the genfic varient of enemies to found family because it goes from “god i want to kill you so bad” to “god i need to kill for you like rn”. it’s just,,, *chef’s kiss*
(dw i type a LOT too lmaooo and sorry it took so long for me to reply, i didn’t feel like talking to anyone for a few days ahah i just get those kinds of moods sometimes. as evidenced by my also ignoring of my friend group chat of over seven years, that i’ve been meaning to reply to for over 24 hours and i haven’t yet. yay.)
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imagine-loki · 4 years
Text
Atlas: Space, Moon
TITLE: Atlas: Space
CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 5/12
AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump
ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine narrating episodes of Loki’s life with the Avengers based on the songs from Sleeping At Last’s “Atlas: Space” album. 
RATING: T-M
NOTES/WARNINGS: Welcome to my Sleeping At Last’s Atlas: Space challenge, aka Another writing project I do not have time for, but my brain insisted on doing.
This series will be less like a multichapter fic and more of a one-shot compendium, but that they all interconnect in one way or another. It will revolve around Loki and Becca’s relationship (Taking Turns, Glow, Helmet Heists–don’t worry, more Loki-Charlie stuff will be along) and I will use those one-shots as reference to the timeline. Each chapter will be one song, used as inspiration for the story.
Chapter 5: Moon
Summary: Hell hath no wrath like an out-of-the-loop Tony. Are you ready for this to get kinda soft? Because it gets kinda soft. (Happens previous to Taking Turns.)
Warnings include: Language. Loki wishing heat-stroke had taken him, soft and vulnerable frost giant fluff, and two idiots who just need to fucking kiss already.
=
[Instrumental track-really good reading music, btw]
Loki groaned pitifully as he awoke. His whole body felt like it had been dipped in lead and tossed to the bottom of the deepest ocean where he fell into an ever-deepening trench. Except he wasn’t dipped in anything. He wasn’t in the ocean. He was in the Med Bay, after, most likely, being pulled out of the mission, and, after the humiliation of passing out, he just wished he was drowning.
He tried moving his fingers first, opening and closing his fists tentatively to gauge the ache. He found the dull throb a reminder that he was, indeed, an idiot. His skin looked pale–well, paler than usual–and several lines seemed to have been placed directly into his veins with fluids. He wondered how Banner had even managed to get the needles to pierce his skin, but that was neither here nor there.
A noise of pages turning beside him, rustled. Loki bargained with the universe to end his miserable existence now, rather than have to face the person he knew was occupying the chair beside his bed. The universe denied his plea, as it always did. He wondered why he even bothered asking, anymore.
Becca looked about as tired as he felt. Though her hair was tied up in a sleek braid that was draped over her shoulder, and her clothes looked fresh and kempt, her eyes had dark bags beneath them. They were also rimmed in red. She had been crying. Surely it had not been over him, had it? With a groan, he sat up.
“Welcome back.” Her voice was soft, though hoarse and her face was littered in small, half-healed cuts. He must not have been asleep for too long. He was almost hesitant to break the calm quietness of the moment, though that was quickly solved. 
The sound of Bruce repeating Tony’s name in a plea echoed in the empty medical facility. A second later Tony, red in the face, was in front of Loki’s cot, pointer finger gesturing the Prince.
“Do you have any idea how fucked we could have been because of your little stunt?” Loki had the good sense to look down in shame, hair forming a dark curtain around his face to hide the flush creeping up his neck. “If Becca hadn’t been in position to get to you, we’d be retrieving your corpse right around now. Do you understand that, Loki? Dead! You would survived every other fucking thing the Universe had thrown at you and you would’ve bowed out because of fucking heat stroke!”
He growled, seemingly no longer capable of speech and knocked over a tray, making both Becca and Loki start.
“I had to pull Thor from his assignment because I had no idea if he was going to pass out, too. We had to scramble the whole roster to finish the mission because you weren’t bothered to tap out when you reached your limit! We nearly fucked this whole op because of you. You are in such deep shit, Mischief. I swear to God!”
With that sentiment hanging in the air, Tony turned tail and stomped his way out of the hospital room.
Loki turned to Becca, his eyes looked pained as he took her in. “I’m so–” She raised a finger, wordlessly telling him to hold his thought before she pointed back at the Med Bay entrance where Tony was rushing back in. She seemed almost amused by the man’s predictability. In reality, she was just used to seeing this song and dance routine being done with Peter.
“A frost giant in 110 plus degree heat? Really? You should have told us, Loki!” He roared and Loki stilled as his blood ran as cold as his species name. “You should have told us the second you started working here. Let me be clear. I don’t give a shit what the hell you are. You can be an ice giant, a fae princess or a goddamn opossum–you don’t keep that from us!” He raked his hair frustratedly, trying to swallow the rest of his yelling and barely succeeding. “I would have given you a different beat on mission. I would have given you both a different beat.” Loki opened his mouth to protest, but was promptly cut off. “Do you think I don’t know you went on that mission because of Becks? What kind of a moron do you take me for?”
“Not a damn word, Loki,” Becca warned, smirking. “This is not the moment to be clever.” Loki pressed his mouth to a thin line, glaring shortly at the woman for denying him his only defense mechanism at present. 
Tony rolled right through the joke, too keyed up to be amused. “You are grounded, do you hear me? Grounded! No more missions until I decide that you’ve learned your damn lesson. No more leaving the compound for pizza in the city. No special passes to Asgard. Completely grounded. Am I understood?”
Loki surprised himself by nodding effusively to the demands, back pressed against the headboard as though he intended to meld into the wall behind him. Tony stomped back out, muttering out loud about idiots who were going to give him a heart attack. Loki glanced back at Becca, who was sitting crisscross, book abandoned on the portion of her thighs left bare by her shorts. In the scratchy paper gown Loki felt entirely out-of-place in her presence. Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to want to leave.
Despite her neutral expression, he could see something akin to hurt lurking behind her eyes. “I didn’t tell–”
“It’s fine,” Becca cut in, waving him off. “It was none of my business. I get it.” She sniffed delicately, her eyes dropping to the checkered floor of the hospital as if it help some great secret.
“Rebecca…”
She glanced up and unwound her legs, reaching forward to ruffle his hair. “I’m glad you’re OK.”
When she made to leave, Loki wrapped his fingers around her wrist and held her still. “It wasn’t because of you or because I didn’t trust you.”
The woman looked like she debated not arguing but thought better of it at the last moment, letting the frustration pour out of her every pore. “That doesn’t change the fact that I was the one who watched you almost die without knowing the reason.”
“I didn’t want it to change how you saw me,” he explained for reasons he could not comprehend.
Becca scoffed, leaning down to get eye level with him. He could feel her breath on his face and at any other point in time, he would have celebrated being in this position. Something in the back of his head told him he shouldn’t cheer this time around.  “Literally no one gave a shit what you looked like as we dragged your giant-ass, blue body onto the jet. We only prayed you wouldn’t die before we hit ally airspace, you fucking moron,” she explained slowly, voice trembling and eyes watering. “We work with a bioengineered, sentient gem–you’re not that fucking special.”
Loki swallowed thickly, suddenly terrified of the burning rage reflected in her warm eyes. It was bright, beaming, smoldering fear that fueled it. Fear that she would lose him before they managed to land somewhere that might have been safe to intervene on him. Fear that she would lose a colleague, a friend. Fear that she would never make him pay for keeping her in the dark for so long. Loki felt every last bit of that fear, magnified tenfold to become his own.
He leaned his forehead onto her clasped hand. “I didn’t want you to know who I really was and chance scaring you off.”
“Are you dumb or what?” She snapped, gritting her teeth in an effort to contain her tears. “Why would I judge you over something you have no control over? After all we’ve done? All we’ve lived? I thought I showed you who I was a little better than that.”
“It wasn’t about you–”
“Evidently it was or you wouldn’t care if I saw!” She snapped before sighing, brushing his tangled hair back with her free hand. “You worried me a hell of a lot.” There was so much held back in her voice, he could tell, but he was not about to try his luck and pressure her into revealing her secrets. 
“I’m sorry, Rebecca.” Loki had never apologized for a damn thing in his life, but he couldn’t help but let the words slip now, as she watched him with worry in her eyes and hurt in her soul.
“Scoot over, Evil Smurf,” she teased softly, and the words landed as painfully as if she had called him my love. He wanted this. He wanted this playful pain, but he couldn’t reason to himself why. 
Swallowing a groan, he shifted over in the hospital cot. Becca clambered in easily and draped her arm around his shoulders, feeling him tense momentarily. After a second, the warmth of her digits seeped into his skin, and he melted into her side. When he let out a small sad whine, she pressed a kiss to his temple and allowed him to hide his face into the crook of her neck. Whether their silent agreement to shelve their discussion was due to shock of their mutual vulnerability or pure exhaustion, it was unsure. They merely accepted the conditions and sat tangled up, with only the sound of their breathing.
That’s how Bruce found them, asleep, an hour later when he went in to change Loki’s IV bag.
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