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#none of my reactions or thoughts to anything feel real. idk how to explain it even explaining it fees fake and like im just making shit up.
pepprs · 2 years
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i am quite literally running away from my whole entire life rn. lol <3
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good afternoon! i'm currently considering being an ENTP instead of an INTP, and i'd like to hear your thoughts. I related to inferior Fe a lot when i was younger since i was a very awkward social outcast. There are some things i've never really related that much to, however: i have never had a problem with reading social cues, understanding other peoples reasonings or feelings or recognizing their expectations of me. I used to just refuse to play the part people wanted of me, but i've never had that "i do not know what people want me to do/say!!" that i sometimes see being associated to inferior Fe. Back then i was pretty happy to just stay on my room without interacting with anyone, but ever since i actually made friends and started to go out i've realized that i actually really do like a lot to be around people and having someone to talk to. I'm the sort of person that is up to anything, even if for just curiosity or being together with people i like. I'm terrible at comforting people and get resentful if they expect me to do it, but do not mind if they vent to me (there's no such thing as TMI to me, i always enjoy hearing people talk about random stuff). I'm usually not a morality minded person at all, but sometimes i get kinda anal about random social stuff? i get pretty resentful when people spoil the mood. One example would be getting mad at people who aren't willing to compromise with friends, or people just showing up to "trauma dump". I'm not confrontational at all, though. When i was young i used to be (i picked fights all the time, and was a "debate me" bro), but since this alienated me from everyone i knew i made an effort to stop it. I used to be very cruel and rude, but never really thoughtless about it? i knew the stuff i was saying hurt. It's actually extremely rare for me to offend people by accident, i'm very much aware of how my words are going to be received by other people. I'm very curious about people's reactions, in the way that is commonly associated with Ne-Fe. I'm pretty decent at mantaining conversations, but i find that starting them is impossible: i simply do not know how to do it. I'm very averse about reaching out to other people or voicing my needs too. I don't have much trouble with like recognizing my feelings, but i do it in a very Logic minded way? like how that ask described about thinking deeply about the "why" you feel stuff instead of just like… feeling it and then thinking about how you will proceed. I'm not averse at talking about my feelings (i actually enjoy it!) but i do it in kind of a matter-of-fact way, like i'm explaining any other subject. My development of social skills feels like it was kinda Ti-driven, though: back when i was younger i had no idea how to talk with people, so i'd observe conversations and follow some sort of mental script. As for Si: i think mine is pretty bad? i have a lot of trouble with differentiating between my sensorial impressions. Some examples are that i can't really differentiate between like… types of beer? people will sometimes ask me for my favorite type of beer and then look at me like i'm utterly insane when i say that they all taste the same to me. I'm not irresponsible or reckless at all, though. At most i take (very much) calculated risks. I'm actually usually pretty cautious when it comes to like spending money or such. Not a very big planner, though. I get very stressed out when i have to plan stuff or work torwards a goal through a long time (being pressured into studying consistently for a long time to get into college was one of the most stressful periods of my life). I struggle a lot with stuff related to motivation: I enjoy exploring different ideas and fantasizing and daydreaming a lot but i have no drive to pursue or achieve real world stuff. I'd be pretty happy to just marry a driven ambitious person and assist them on their objectives since i have none myself. I'm pretty comfort minded too.
Just an addendum: idk if i really expressed how averse i am to reaching out to other people correctly; As i've said i have no trouble with mantaining conversations but i only feel comfortable with initiating stuff if the other person has repeatedly initiated stuff with me (as in i can only manage to hit up other people i they have hit me up already multiple times and i'm sure they do like me). not sure if this is indicative of anything, though, so feel free to ignore this part.
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Hi anon,
I think INTP still fits better - the more cautious/responsible aspects are more in line with aux Ne-tert Si than with dom Ne. I also find that Ne-doms are usually very good at starting conversations and very willing to do so, so I think you've probably developed stronger people skills as you've gotten older, and enjoy a decent amount of socializing, but are still overall an introvert.
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Flirting with the intern (1)
Series masterlist
Word count: 1263
Genre: idk, probably a mix of angst of fluff
Pairing: Natasha x fem!reader
Warnings: None (let me know if I need to add any)
Summary: You’re Tony’s new intern and Natasha seems to take an interest in you when you’re bartending at a party.
A/n: Hi so this wasn't a request but a lot of you seemed to like this blurb I wrote and I was bored and had writer's block so I came up with this series, hopefully you like it! I will try to update fairly often but no promises (I also have no idea where I’m going with this so feel free to give me ideas). Also if you aren’t on my regular taglist but would like to be tagged in this series, or you are on my regular taglist but wouldn’t like to be tagged in this series let me know, I will not be offended. Anyways I hope you enjoy!
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She gets bored of the conversation, eyes wandering around the huge room until she spots you serving drinks to some of the older gentlemen over by the bar. You’re pretty and she admires the dress you’re wearing, noticing with disdain that the men at the bar are doing the same, not at all subtle in the way they leer. You look uncomfortable but handle the situation gracefully, handing over their drinks before walking away, rolling your eyes.
She doesn’t recognize you which is odd. She makes a point to be able to match everybody’s face to their name, a habit formed by years of not trusting others, and there’s no way she missed anyone, much less a cute girl.
“Who’s that?” she asks Steve suddenly, only noticing after she speaks that she interrupted his conversation with Bruce. Oh well, she muses, it’s not like talking about the differences of desserts now and when Steve was born is a particularly important topic over conversation.
Steve doesn’t frown but his forehead wrinkles a little. “I don’t know. You should ask Tony, he probably knows.” Steve pauses, thinking a second. “Or he has absolutely no clue. Either way you should ask him.”
Natasha nods and looks around the room to find Tony. Luckily he seems sober and is pretty close by, talking to Pepper and Rhodney.
“Hey,” she greets as she walks up.
“Hi red,” Tony responds and Natasha gives him a slight glare at the unwanted nickname, being slightly more lenient than usual because she needs something from him.
“Who is the girl working at the bar?” she asks, getting straight to the point.
Tony waggles his eyebrows. “Why? Do you think she’s cute?”
“No,” Natasha half lies (she does but that’s not the only reason she’s asking), “I like to know the names of everybody so if something goes wrong I know exactly who did it. She is obviously an employee of yours but I’ve never seen her before so I would like to know who she is.”
“Spies,” Tony mutters under his breath before speaking louder. “Her name is Y/n and she’s my new intern.”
“What happened to Sarah?” Natasha asks. Sarah wasn’t extraordinary in any sense but she worked hard and Natasha could admire that.
“Couldn’t handle the pressure and started crying in the labs a few days ago saying it was too hard and she wanted to quit, so I told her she no longer had an internship.” Tony explains.
“Which is why you are going to be more understanding and less hard on Y/n.” Pepper interjects, giving Tony a look. “This is your fourth intern in three months. It doesn’t look good for the press if none of your interns like the program or pass it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Tony waves his hand around. Natasha has no doubt that if he is unsatisfied with your work he’ll take away your internship as well, without considering Pepper’s words.
“Well thank you for your help Tony, I’m going to go talk to her and see what I can find out now,” she tells him, starting to walk away.
“Spies,” Tony mutters again, shaking his head fondly as he watches her go.
---
“I’ll take a shot of vodka, neat,” a sultry voice says and you spin around to find yourself face to face with the feared assassin and possibly most beautiful woman to ever exist, Natasha Romanoff.
“I-um, er-” She lifts an eyebrow delicately and you fall silent.
“You do know how to do that right?” she asks sarcastically.
“Of course,” you tell her, more confident after taking a breath. You busy yourself with making the drink which doesn’t take long at all.
“Here you go, um-” you flounder, unsure of what to address her as.
“Agent Romanoff,” she says, sticking out her hand for you to shake.
You lean over the counter and shake it. “Y/n.”
She hums thoughtfully. The view as you leaned over the counter was not bad and she wonders if you were showing off on purpose before brushing that idea out of your head. You seemed nervous early and your body language didn’t suggest anything flirty. Still, she couldn’t help but try her luck.
“A beautiful name for a beautiful girl like you,” she says and you feel heat rise in your cheeks and turn your head away so she can’t see your reaction. It’s useless of course and barely hides you at all but she finds it adorable that you tried and also adorable how flustered you get at one generic pick up line.
“Um, thank you,” you tell her, trying not to stutter. She bites back a smile. Just when she thought you couldn't get any more adorable you do, all cute and shy.
She winks. “Just the truth sweetheart.”
You nearly choke on your own spit when you hear her words. If you didn’t know any better you’d think she was flirting with you. But that is impossible because she is so much better than you that the thought alone is completely ridiculous.
“So how are you finding Stark industries so far?” she asks, switching the subject. As much fun as it’s been flirting with you she can tell she needs to tone it down a little if she doesn’t want you to combust.
You blink a few times at the sudden change before speaking. “It’s been quite an experience so far even though I’ve only been here a few days. Tony is definitely as brilliant and eccentric as everyone says and I think I’ve learned a lot and I’m excited to learn more.”
She laughs, a sound that makes you want to hear more. “Tony definitely is eccentric, but as long as you go along with it he’ll love you. And if you get on Pepper’s good side Tony will be scared to fire you.”
“Thanks for the tips,” you say surprised, “Pepper is definitely scarier than Tony.”
“Oh for sure,” Natasha- Agent Romanoff agrees, “but don’t let him hear you say that.”
“Don’t let who let you say what?” Tony asks, standing beside Natasha and throwing his arm around her. She immediately steps away, brushing him off.
“I was just warning your intern about how utterly stupid you can be sometimes,” she tells him, “I want to prepare her properly so she doesn’t leave or get fired like the others.”
She walks off and you watch her go, not noticing how entranced you are until Tony clears his throat.
“So Natasha huh?” he asks and you look at him wide eyed.
“I’m sorry Mister Stark, I don’t know what you mean.” you play dumb.
He shakes his head. “You’re not the first and you definitely won’t be the last, I can’t say I don’t blame you.”
“Mister Stark?”
He sighs. “Just be careful around her kid, I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
You nod as he leaves the bar as well. The rest of the night you think about the weird exchanges you had with both Tony and Natasha. Everything you had heard about the Black Widow was that she was cold and unfriendly but she seemed pretty nice to you, especially with the weird almost flirting thing she was doing. You know it wasn’t real, you watch as she makes the rounds of the room and has everyone practically falling over her feet, but it felt real and when she smiles in your direction from across the room and makes eye contact you know that you are way too close from catching feelings, which is always a bad idea.
---
next part >>>
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idk how many people would even want to see this BUT i wanna yell about Leela and Brax so here's a list of all their scenes togethr/scenes pertainng to them that i can recall (pLEASE add on if i missed anything/ you have any additional thoughts!! i could talk about these two all day!)
right off the bat in Weapon of Choice when Leela is on the outskirts of the Citadel and Brax goes to bring her back (which is interesting in and of itself, bc usually i would imagine a chancellery guard would go do that so what made Brax decide to instead??), Leela kinda goes off at him bc she's hurting and instead of trying to actually explain what's going on Brax doesn't even try to argue he just says "we need you" which is great bc Leela has that instinctive desire to be needed and to help people and he's speaking right to that -- also as far as we know, this is Leela and Brax's first actual meeting in canon? it's implied that they know of each other, which makes sense, but it doesn't seem like they've ever directly interacted before: Brax seems almost slightly uncertain, and Leela is combative, but when he's gentle with her she's actually quite receptive
the literal next scene after that, where the OT4 is all in one room for the first time (they still kinda hate each other at this point but still !!!). Narvin explaining Gryben and being a real jerk about it and Leela (understandibly!) questions if Gryben is a prison world, and Brax (who to this point has been mostly quiet as Narvin and Romana brief Leela) jumps in to both clarify Narvin's previous xenophobic statements while also maintaining the inherent questionable/negative connotations
(btw it's actually pretty important to note that Romana self-edits herself a lot when talking to Leela, especially in the earlier seasons; you can actually hear her revising the things she says to put it in terms that she thinks Leela will better understand. and i mean she does it out of genuine consideration for her friend associate but it often comes across as varying levels of patronizing. Narvin also obviously "dumbs things down" when dealing with Leela early on, but like... Brax never does that on any level. the only difference i can tell in how he addresses Leela vs how he talks to anybody else is that he seems much more kind with her than almost anyone else???)
their conversation about the Matrix in The Inquiry: this is REALLY important (and if you've ever talked to me on ao3 i've probably gone off to you about it lol) because it's layered. they're talking about the Matrix but they're also not because in answering Leela's question Brax is making a very thinly veiled allegory (which he outright states a minute later) to Time Lord society/politicians/most importantly HIMSELF -- he's actually strangely open about his morals/beliefs in this scene and i'm living for it tbh -- and i find it very interesting that even though he does directly explain what he means ("how do you know all this?" / "because i am a politician.") he also leaves it for Leela to work out the implications. like it's a very nuanced conversation bc there's double meaning in it and most people on Gallifrey seem to think that Leela is tone-deaf and can't pick up on that stuff (even Romana sometimes oversimplifies things to her) but Brax totally just lets her take from it what she will bc he believes her intelligent enough to understand. he doesn't think her any lesser because she's human.
ALSO on a secondary note to the above: the fact that Leela has a question/needed clarification (sorry, haven't listened to this in a while i forget how it actually happened) and actively sought out Brax to talk to about it?? like she knows Romana better she could have gone to her but i feel like Leela kinda imprinted on Brax and someone she can go to for help if she needs it; maybe it's partly bc she knows he's under marginally less pressure than Romana is but also the truth of the matter is that Brax was the most genuinely helpful person to her in the previous stories and that probably means a lot to her (esp. bc he acts like the essence of everything she hates about Gallifrey but he doesn't treat her the way she would expect from that). btw this topic is gonna come up again in a hot minute
that part where Brax gives her that information that might help her re: the Andred thing, even though he really probably shouldn't have done that -- it kinda makes me think about what he must have been like with Theta tbh???
actually this is mostly my own conjecture but there's some neat stuff in Spirit bc during the *waves hand vaguely* bodyswap dream sequence thing, Romana is very "!!!! Brax can help us !!!" which is tecnically Leela brain talking, so like there's the implications of the stuff i've said above about Leela having this idea of Brax where she knows he's someone she can go to for help
can u tell i'm soft for them
Leela sounding really sad/distracted when she talks about how Brax isn't there YES i'm grasping at straws but a lot of this relationship really is conveyed through the voice acting bc of how little direct focus there is on the characters. there's actually several scenes in Mindbomb where she mentions him and she outright says that she misses him during her discussion with Matthias
that implied scene with them in Mindbomb!! i have a Lot of thoughts about that!!! it's all conjecture and fanfic fodder!!! but the reason i mention this is because it seems pretty meta that out of the whole Gally Gang, it's Leela who first sees Brax when he comes back to Gallifrey and in turn she's the first person (besides Matthias, i guess) that he sees upon his return?? idk i just feel like that's somehow a meaningful detail??? also her reaction of utter shock after spending the entire episode missing him and how worked up she is when she tries to tell Romana, like I desperately need to know what happened in this missing scene MR RICHARDS PLEASE TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED
Leela insisting on going with Brax when Pandora starts hurting him and their whole conversation there is just. so good. like they're both just so soft and then when Darkel comes in Leela instantly goes into protective mode. like they just have such an open relationship bc Brax doesn't even try to be all pretentious with her, like he doesn't even try to keep up any facades when he's with her he's just very genuine and it really says a lot about both of them -- Leela is so good at seeing people, like getting down to the core of who people are and what makes them them (which is why she's good for Romana, btw, bc Romana has a lot of identity issues) and Brax is so tangled up in who he presents himself as that he barely knows who he actually is anymore but Leela can see that and she makes it so he can truly be himself and he doesn't have to hide. also she's so gentle with him when they talk about Pandora, she's very caring and empathetic and wants to make sure he's okay and i am WEAK
it's been a hot while since i listened to Panacea but I think i remember Brax being really soft with Leela when he first brings the gang to the Axis, like just sounding really glad to see her
ok other than the fact that Brax is lowkey relatable in Reborn (daydreaming fanfic about yourself/people you know? simping for Mary Tamm Romana? yeah mood, my man) there's that scene where they're first appraoching the Citadel on the alt!Gallifrey and it seems like none of them, and Brax specifically, have seen it from the outside in a good long while bc he's very in awe and he tells Leela that he wishes she could see it and he sounds sO hEcKiNg sOFT oh my word-
and once again with Leela thinking of Brax as someone she trusts for help: in Dissassembled when everything is going to crap she straight-up says that she wants to go find Brax bc he'll know what to do/be able to help
at the beginning of Annihilation when Romana is depressed and questioning if Brax truly was her friend and Leela INSTANTLY, NO HESITATION assures her that he was; i lost where i had her exact lines written down but she actually kinda goes off to make sure Romana gets the point
literally forcing myself to talk about this bc it makes my brain stall out but like,,, the Brax Hound in Annihilation,,, Leela being like "goodbye, Braxiatel... again" she sounds so sad and like UGH i always kinda forget how sad it actually is for them to lose Brax in Dissassembled bc like, it was so sudden and they didn't get to say goodbye and Leela is always losing people and i have many many feels about this scene and how all that emotion is made very clear in how they each respond to the Hound (might make a separate post abt this later if anyone is interested ::eyes::)
Enemy Lines is utter bullcrap about these two and I will never stop being salty about how they not only sidelined the very good, very subtle friendship they had in s1-4, but they??? made Leela acutally not trust Brax??? when literally this entire time she's been the one person who probably genuinely trusts him the most?? what the heck, David
I haven't heard TW3 or 4 yet but i'm assuming there's nothing worthwhile in those with regards to this duo (correct me if i'm wrong tho lol, i would love to be mistaken in this assumption)
TL;DR Leela and Brax mututally imprinted on each other and have probably the most open and healthy relationship within the OT4 and it is an absolute CRIME that nobody besides Gary Russell and Justin Richards cared enough to actually build on it in canon
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moonlit-imagines · 4 years
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Wasn’t Ready for That
Jonathan Byers x male!reader
warnings:
a/n: slightly altered so that reader is just the older sibling of nancy!
prompt: anonymous: “Jonathan Byers x male reader - the reader is the twin brother of Nancy , and he and Jonathan are best friends, Jonathan has a crush on the reader and kisses him but the reader freezes Up and Jonathan runs away before he can say anything. The reader has a crush on him too and ends up buying Jonathan something like candy or a bear idk and tells him he like him to and they end up cuddling and kissing.”
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You and Jonathan had been through it all together, years and years of friendship that could never fade. And now it was like tradition since your younger brother and his were also best friends! Friends.
Sure, you guys were friends. Friends who spent nearly every waking moment together, friends who secretly pine over one another when no one is looking, friends who feel like they could just die when the other is away.
“Y/N, I think Jonathan’s here!” Your mom called up the stairs and almost immediately heard your footsteps as you rushed down the stairs, nearly tripping and tumbling down. “What did I tell you about running though the house?”
“Sorry, mom, just excited. See you later tonight!” You grabbed your jacket off of the coat rack and raced out the door and all the way to Jonathan’s car.
“Miss me?” He joked as he switched gears and began to drive off, you were actually out of breath from your little workout.
“Can’t say I did.” You smugly replied and felt him lightly punch your arm, both of you let out some intoxicating chuckles before letting them fade and sighing. “Where are we going?” You asked.
“I actually heard that the sunset looks really cool from the bleachers at school, wanna head there and hang out while we wait?” Jonathan shrugged at his own idea, it sounded better in his head, but you couldn’t pass up an opportunity to hand out with the one and only.
“Sounds good to me, hit the gas, Byers!” You pointed onward and Jonathan did exactly as instructed, the speedometer quickly rose. Your best friend would honestly do anything you asked him to, he knew it’d make you happy, even the stupidest of things.
You finally arrived at Hawkins High on a weekend, which didn’t exactly have the same mood as a weekday morning.
“This feels wrong.” You told him as you shut the passenger door.
“Yeah, it kind of does.” Jonathan draped his camera strap over his neck and led you over to the bleachers, picking the device up and pointing it your way. “Hey, y/n, smile!”
“Cheeeeese!” You gave the most over-exaggerated smile your face could handle and heard the picture snap. “Did I look good?”
“You always do.” He complimented and turned pink in the cheeks. Nice one, Jonathan. While he was stressing over what may or may not happen tonight, you ran ahead to climb on the bleachers. Don’t fuck this up, Jonathan. He kept repeating that in his mind until he noticed you waving to him from above the empty metal seats, so he decided to snap another photo.
“Come up here, Byers!” You shouted and watched as he meandered over. “Really? Can’t go any faster than that?”
“I could trip!” He argued insincerely and finally reached you on the top steps. “Happy now?”
“Meh, I guess.” You teased, but it was odd because Jonathan didn’t reply, maybe he didn’t catch your joke. But Jonathan was busy with his thoughts.
This is it. Kiss him. Over and over in his head. Your best friend stared at your lips and back up at your eyes. Now. Jonathan leaned forward and quickly pushed his lips into yours and pulled back just as fast. “I-I’m sorry.” You were frozen in shock. “I’m really sorry, I don’t—I thought maybe you were, I don’t know...” He didn’t know how to make up for his actions.
“It’s okay. I gotta go.” You made your excuse and hustled down the bleachers and onto the pavement, Jonathan groaned and called over:
“I can drive you home.” But you just kept walking. He may have fucked up beyond repair. What if he just outed himself for nothing? This whole time he was dumb enough to believe that you two could have been a perfect couple...shit!
You took your walk back home to reflect on what had just happened. It’s not like you didn’t feel the same way. Maybe you were scared? And surprised? He obviously liked you back and you just left him in the dust! Fucking hell. Just keep walking. And then you were home. You didn’t bother saying “hi” to anyone, you just walked right upstairs, nearly making it to your room before running into your sister, Nancy.
“Hey, everything okay?” She asked, noticing you were just a bit tense, which was unusual after a day with Jonathan.
“Perfect.” You snapped, which gave away your mood just like that. She wouldn’t leave you be and she wasn’t an idiot. You were her brother, she knew almost everything there was to know about you.
“Jonathan kissed you, didn’t he?” Nancy quietly asked so that none of the other house members could hear. That question made you freeze up just as much as the actual kiss. “I knew it.”
“What do I do, Nance?” You eagerly whined, seeing a smile creep on her face. “This isn’t funny!”
“Y/N, it’s obvious that you like him back. Go fix whatever you messed up before it’s too late.” She shook her head at you, leaving your jaw to drop.
“Wait, you know that I like guys?” You scrunched your eyebrows up, she seemed utterly unsurprised.
“I mean, I guess? I figured you liked Jonathan, but it was pretty obvious that he liked you.” Your sister explained. “Doesn’t matter right now, go! Do the right thing!” She nudged you along and you reluctantly returned to the stairwell and down to the front door to sneak out (with dad’s car keys).
You kept beating yourself up on the inside, why didn’t you just sit and talk with your best friend instead of booking it home? You knew that Jonathan would’ve talked about it if you had just let him. On your way to the Byers residence, you stopped by the convenience store that his mom, Joyce, worked in to pick up an excuse and an apology.
“Y/N, it’s good to see you! What are you doing here?” Joyce shuffled out from behind the counter and gave you a hug.
“Just picking up a quick snack!” You put on your mask of lies and plucked Jonathan’s favorite candy off the shelf, setting it next to the register. Joyce already knew who that was for. She rang it up real quick and you handed her a dollar, then swiped the candy off of the counter and said a quick goodbye. “Nice seeing you, Ms. Byers, love ya!” The door shut and you hopped back into dad’s car and drove in the direction of Jonathan’s house, hoping he was home by now. Lucky for you, his car was back in the driveway. You jogged up tonthe door and gave it a good knock before his younger brother answered.
“Hi, y/n. He’s in his room.” Will let you inside and closed the door behind you.
“Thanks, kiddo.” You approached Jonathan’s door and gave it a few taps.
“Come in.” You heard his defeated voice muffle through the door. You slowly pushed it open and surprised Jonathan with your presence in his dark room as you kicked the door shut. “Shit, hi.” He scrambled to sit up straight.
“Catch.” You tossed his candy to him. “That’s my formal apology.” You smirked, your sense of humor was still there. “No, but really, I’m sorry.”
“Why? I was the one that kissed you.” He unwrapped the candy bar and took a bite, diverting eye contact from you, but there was just a bit of light peaking through the window to illuminate a track of tears that had ran down his face. You did that.
“Yeah, but my reaction was a little uncalled for.” You shrugged and sat down beside him in bed, dippinb the mattress just a bit.
“Well, if you’re not gay, then you’re not gay.” He sighed and cringed as he replayed his actions again and again in his mind.
“I came here to tell you that I like you back.” You finally revealed and Jonathan’s neck whipped around to look at you, you weren’t joking.
“You couldn’t have lead with that?” Your best friend swatted with a cheeky smile, reaching his hand out for you to take.
“Oops.” You giggled and took his hand, pulling him close enough for a do-over that lasted just a few seconds minutes longer than the first one had. It was good to have this all cleared up, and it’d be a great story to tell one day. He soon wrapped his arms around you and got you to lay with him for just a while, taking in the fact that this was real.
“So, are we going to be boyfriends now?” He curiously asked, hoping that it was a “yes.”
“Odds are in your favor, Byers.” You brushed some hair from his face and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “But I gotta get going soon, I stole my dad’s car to get here and I don’t know when he’s going to notice.”
taglist: @locke-writes // @queenofthehairharrington // @bonniesbabybunnie // @lotsoffandomrecs // @wolfish-willow // @captainshazamerica // @ravenmoore14 // @purpleskiesstorm // @breezykdilan
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itsclydebitches · 3 years
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Hey there! Admittedly I'm a little bit nervous since this is my first ask, but I'll try to not be too rambly.
So, recently the main subreddit, r/RWBY, made a ban on active users of the r/RWBYcritics subreddit. As a result there's been discussion around bad-faith criticism in the latter subreddit. What are your takes on bad-faith criticism?
For me personally, I think a bunch of people are misusing the term "bad-faith" and using it as a way to shut down criticism, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it.
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Hey there, everyone! We woke up to some drama this morning, huh? And hello to you too, Tortoise! I'm so glad you decided to send in an ask, even if it's following some pretty tumultuous events...
Right, I'd like to start with a story. The story of how I personally don't spend time on Reddit, but I have plenty of friends who will occasionally cross-post something for me to see. Yesterday (or the day before? Idk time is meaningless) a friend told me about a post — which, significantly, I'm now having trouble finding — that covers RWBY's inconsistent writing and the fandom's tendency to try and explain away those missteps. They'd thought I'd be interested because I'd just had a conversation here on tumblr where I made that exact point to someone who, also significantly, vehemently disagreed with me, but in a very civil fashion. Given everything going on, I feel like this side point needs emphasis: we debated, we did so in a sometimes heated, but nevertheless respectful manner, it was clear neither of us was going to sway the other, and the conversation ended. The two "sides" of the community interacted without Armageddon coming about.
But back to the purpose of this tale. I went to take a look at this point and found that it no longer exists. There's just some vague message about it not obeying the subreddit's rules. "What happened?" I asked. "Why'd they take the post down?" "People were getting too heated in the comments," my friend replies. So, given that the comments were still visible, I proceeded to read through them, expecting personal attacks, slurs, harassment, etc. Any number of things that would justify deleting the post itself to put an end to such behavior. Instead, I found a thread of people having a conversation. Was the conversation heated at times? Sure. Did one or two individual posters edge into the realm of petulant, "No. You're wrong and stupid" responses? Yes. Was any of this remotely what I was expecting given the post's removal? NOPE.
"This isn't allowed?" I said. "Well then what is? People were being civil! Or at least as civil as hundreds of strangers ever get when discussing a series they're passionate about online."
Then, this morning, I hear that the entire critic subreddit has been banned.
So to answer your question, Tortoise, I don't actually think that "good faith" criticism exists. Meaning, it's not just that fans are misusing the term "bad faith criticism," but rather that there is no unified, agreed up method of writing criticism that will meet their standards. It's not possible and we know it's not possible because fans have been trying to meet those elusive standards for years:
A fan posts nothing but praise for RWBY until changes make them criticize the show as it is now. Their entire body of work is dismissed as the product of a "hater," despite the overwhelming gap between positive and negative reviews.
A fan posts a review that's a pretty balanced mix between praise and criticism. They're dismissed because it's still too much criticism.
A fan posts a review that's 99% praise with 1% criticism. That's still too much, with fans focusing on the single problem they had with the work and using it as an excuse to dismiss the entire review out of hand.
(As an aside, the argument that critics are "obsessed" with only saying negative things and that the only problem here is that they're "too" negative ignores the argument that... RWBY has a lot of flaws nowadays. Few are willing to acknowledge the possibility that it's not fans insisting on making things up to be mad about/ignoring the good parts of the show, it's the that show is, as of now, legitimately more of a mess than it is a praise-worthy product. If I'd been writing recaps in the Volumes 1-4 days, my work would have been skewed far more towards the positive. The critics' stance is that RWBY has gotten worse, which yes, results a higher volume of critical posts. To say nothing of how criticism takes far longer to explain, likewise resulting in posts focused primarily on that side of the divide. I really enjoyed the image of a crying Jaune reflected in his sword. I did not enjoy that moment's context. Saying that you liked an animation choice is a one sentence thing. Explaining the complexities of Jaune securing emotional moments, the problems with Penny's second death, the hurt many fans experienced watching an assisted suicide, etc. takes a whooole lot longer. Hence, you get massive, multiple posts about these nuanced topics and fewer, smaller posts about the details that are working well.)
A fan talks about a topic that has been metaphorically banned by the fandom as a whole. They have something good to say about Ironwood. They dislike something about Blake/Yang. They enjoyed Adam as a character. They have a problem with Ruby's leadership, etc. There's a whole list of topics nowadays that will result in an automatic dismissal, regardless of the point the fan is trying to make or how well they make it.
A fan talks about the minority representation of RWBY — its black characters, its queer characters, its disabled characters, etc. — and as a result has something to say about the biases and missteps of those writing these characters. This is considered an attack on the writers and, therefore, automatically bad.
A fan talks about how they enjoyed RWBY as it was years ago and is having trouble reconciling the dark, complicated story with the simple, hopeful one we started out with. This is seen as an attack on Monty's vision and an unwillingness to accept that "everything is planned."
A fan does as asked and ensures that their post is meeting all the requirements of "real" criticism. They have an argument to make. They have a point. They provide evidence. They recommend a solution. They keep their tone respectful. They don't attack the creators. They provide disclaimers in every single paragraph about how they do not hate RWBY. It doesn't matter. They're considered too negative.
I have, quite literally, seen every one of the above examples on multiple occasions. I have had many of the above accusations leveled at my own work. When fans say that they're fine with criticism provided it's not "bad faith" criticism, they don't actually have a specific post-type in mind; a checklist of behaviors another fan can emulate and, provided they do that, no hate will come their way. Or, if an individual fan does actually go, "Yeah. That criticism I'm fine with" that response is in no way universal. One person's "They make a good, civil point" is another person's, "Omg stop bashing the show!" Because "bashing" has come to mean everything from curse-laden insults towards everything RWBY has ever done, to posts that just happen to say something other fans don't agree with.
It's a rigged game. There is no way to post criticism about RWBY in an agreed-upon, appropriate manner. This recent ban is proof of that. I think it's incredibly telling that almost immediately after I was going, "Wow. A pretty calm debate about the flaws of RWBY in the main sub. That's great to see," all posters from the criticism subreddit were banned. The main sub literally just had the sort of criticism that they claim to accept — people respectfully posting analysis-based arguments resulting in calm debate — and yet they implemented the ban anyway. I'm not going to pretend that I've never gotten too heated on my own posts, never made snarky comments when I'm frustrated, never used exaggerated reaction GIFs that can come across as insulting... but I'd say on the whole my RWBY work is precisely the sort of "good faith" criticism that other fans are supposedly looking for. I never make an argument I don't think I can back up with evidence. I try to allow for the nuance and differing opinions of complicated topics. I try — even if I don't always succeed — to write in a clear, respectful manner. Yet none of that work has stopped people from telling me I'm a "bitter... raging asshole," a "deranged, delusional psychopath," telling me to set myself on fire, threatening to smash my head in, or just messages to straight up kill myself. If someone like me who legitimately works hard to create fair, defendable criticism and who only ever posts on a personal blog that people can easily block, who never engages in debate until someone else starts it first, never seeks out other fans I disagree with to harass them about what they like... if someone like me is still a "bad faith" critic who "deserves" that kind of hate mail... then what kind of criticism do people want?
Nothing. That's the answer. No criticism whatsoever, of any kind, no matter if it's delivered respectfully, is making a good point, whatever. That's why "RWDE" was created. That's why the critic subreddit was created. The community at large has demanded a complete separation between Praise and Anything That's Not 100% Praise, which has now resulted in this ban. Any other explanations we see are excuses, which becomes glaringly obvious when you look at the mods' supposed reasons for implementing the ban:
"Constant arguments with r/RWBY users" - As opposed to the arguments surrounding things like shipping that never, ever happen?
"Vote manipulation and comment brigades" - The subreddit with 3,000 participants, with around 200 on at a time, is manipulating the votes of a subreddit with 155,000 participants, with over 1,000 on at a time? Those numbers just do not check out. If a positive post is downvoted, or a critical post upvoted, maybe that's because large swaths of the community actually agree/disagree with that assessment, not because the incredibly smaller group is somehow manipulating things.
"Attacking and harassing those they disagree with" — Again, as opposed to those non-critics that never, ever harass people? This is an individual problem, not a community problem. Both critics and non-critics have their sub-groups acting in ways they shouldn't. If anything, the main sub will have more individuals harassing other fans, simply by virtue of being so much larger. As the above examples attest, it's not other critics who have told me to light myself on fire and, just to be clear, the asks I've responded to are a miniscule number compared to the amount I've received. I delete the lion's share for my own sanity and to save my followers from reading the really graphic threats.
"Months-long NSFL spam brigades" — I am, admittedly, not sure what this is referring to. Spamming of NSFW content? If so, that's also an individual problem.
"Homophobic, transphobic, and racist attacks towards our users" — See the above points. Again. If someone is being homophobic, transphobic, or racist, then yes please, ban them. Don't ban an entire community for the actions of a few. It's like walking into a store and banning a customer for causing a scene... but then also banning everyone else who happened to be shopping at the same time. It's guilt by association.
The silver lining to all this? The community as a whole isn't pleased. At least according to the main subreddit comments and a few individual voices like MurderofBirds. Despite the increase (from my perspective anyway) of critical voices post-Volume 8, criticism of RWBY is still very much seen as taboo. As this ban showcases. But it's really reassuring to see so many fans, critics and non-critics alike, going, "This was a mistake." A community is meant to include all aspects of engagement: praise, criticism, and the gray area between. If anything, fans like the mods of the main subreddit should be creating a separate subreddit that is specifically for praise. In the same way that there should have been a tag for RWBY praise, rather than trying to eliminate any and all criticism from the main "RWBY" tag. The majority of fans, even those who claim to hate critics and all they (presumably) stand for, recognize that a blanket ban of all criticism is not the way to go, especially when "criticism" has come to have such a staggeringly broad definition. If you want your RWBY experience to be nothing but sunshine and roses (ha), then cultivate your own internet experience to reflect that. Create your own pockets with rules about how this is the space for praise and if you're not up for praising RWBY right now, don't interact with us in this particular space. Don't try to make the entire community — the main tools used to discuss the show online — conform to your preferences. As established, there is no "good" criticism that everyone in the fandom will accept, which just leaves a fandom with no criticism at all. I'm glad to see I'm far from the only one who, when presented with that extreme, is going, "Nope. No thank you."
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seattlesea · 3 years
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✨My (maybe) Unpopular Heroes of Olympus Opinions✨
(maybe part one??? idk)
-I don’t really ship any of the main canon ships in HoO. None of them had any chemistry and most of them are either pedophilic, forced and rushed, or toxic in some way
-Most of the characters that were shoved into relationships (Leo, Nico, and Hazel especially) really did not need a love interest to complete their character arcs and their relationships ended up boring and flat cause Riordan just wanted everyone to have a love interest and it never went deeper than the skin
-Piper took advantage over Jason’s amnesiac state and manipulated him. She really went ‘But what if he has a girlfriend he can’t remember 👉👈 it would be wrong to start a relationship with him while he still has amnesia 👉👈 and cause it was based off lies and fake memories 👉👈 lmao imma just jump all over him and make him fall for me while he’s still amnesiac 🤪’ as if that’s not taking advantage over someone’s mental state
-And then she blamed her relationship being forced on Aphrodite and Hera saying they ‘forced her into a relationship’ and ‘arranged their relationship’ even though Aphrodite never said anything about or did anything to them and Hera gave Piper fake memories of them being a couple but it was Piper’s conscious choice to act out on those memories she knew were fake and her relationship was in no way influenced by anyone (especially Hera and Aphrodite) other than herself
-Shelper and Solangelo were way too rushed and forced (inside and outside of the books) and were only added for publicity, plus it seems like most of the fandom only like them cause they’re LGBTQ+ ships
-I hate Pipeyna and Pipabeth. My girls (especially Reyna) deserve better than some manipulative little girl who went ‘we were friends? no weren’t ❤️’
-The fandom portrays the characters really inaccurately (tweaking them a bit for humor is fine, but changing their entire personality is a different thing)
-The movies actually aren’t that bad when not compared to the books (I mean, you gotta admit- it’s pretty good effects for 2010)
-And speaking of the movies, they did a better job at portraying Thalia and Annabeth’s relationship in one movie than Riordan did in 5+ books
-Speaking of which, Riordan wrote pretty much every platonic friendship that weren’t Thalia/Nico and Reyna horribly and most of them shouldn’t have been friends and wasted all the potential for the good friendships
-Calypso should’ve joined the Hunters, not Reyna
-Annabeth and Piper are horrible friends lmao (separately and together)
-Silena is a hero and deserves redemption, but Luke doesn’t despite most of the fandom agreeing he does (he was a pedophile y’all)
-The fandom over-exaggerated the Tartarus fall, it wasn’t really that bad tbh
-Reyna is stronger and a better leader than Annabeth
-Annabeth’s intelligence is more tell than show (and quite a few characters including Leo, Reyna, and Octavian have shown more intelligence than her)
-Riordan over-glorifies and overpowers Percy way too much. Just cause he’s the main character doesn’t mean he has to be the best of the best after barely 8 months of training (four years at CHB only in the summers is 8 months total)
-Speaking of which, Jason can beat Percy (8 months versus Jason’s twelve years) and so can Annabeth, Reyna, Thalia, Hylla, Luke, Hazel and maybe Frank and Nico. Percy’s skill is overrated and unrealistic
-And I feel like most of the fandom knows that Jason can beat Percy but just doesn’t want to admit it cause they like Percy more
-Same thing with the Greeks and Romans- the majority know the Romans are stronger and can easily beat the Greeks but they don’t want to believe it cause they favor the Greeks more
-Percy and Annabeth shouldn’t have been part of the Seven, they already had their chance to shine. Riordan should’ve brought minor characters into light instead
-And Piper shouldn’t have been part of the Seven either. Riordan really expects me to believe that she’s stronger, more powerful, and a greater/better hero and deserved to be part of the Seven more than Reyna, Nico, Clarisse, Thalia, etc.?
-Riordan’s women line-up of Reyna, Annabeth, Hazel, and Piper was really cheap and boring (Avengers: Endgame women line-up who?)
-Percy (in HoO) and Piper are easily some of the worst, most underdeveloped characters Riordan has ever written
-Annabeth got really bland and weak in HoO and couldn’t do shit for herself without others (especially newbies) having to help and/or save her. She pretty much became exclusively Percy fangirl
-As much as I like them, Frank and Hazel don’t have what it takes to be Praetors and Reyna and Jason should’ve stayed as them
-Jason’s whole ‘am I more Greek or Roman’ arc was dumb af
-Riordan’s bias towards the Romans is also dumb af (the Romans could beat the Greeks in an instant)
-Jeyna is and always will be 1000x better than Jiper
-Hazel is the most powerful demigod (way more than Percy and even Jason)
-My hot take on who should’ve been the Seven: Reyna, Nico, Thalia, Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Clovis (son of the god of sleep puts Gaea back to sleep who?)
-Riordan confirming Piper bi was a cheap move to make her more likable. It didn’t even make any sense. A character is confirmed LGBT only after they become a minor character despite being a main character before and kisses some random unnamed girl only three months after her ex-boyfriend whom she still loved dies??? girl what??? Kinda obvious it was just for publicity. Like- Riordan, honey, the LGBTQ+ community is not a circus you can plop your characters into to make them more entertaining❤️
-The PJ series as a whole isn’t that creative. It’s legit just a copy of exactly what past mythological figures have already done and a bunch of character tropes and clichés shoved into one book
-And in general it’s not even that well-written (like HP, it’s over-exaggerated a lot)
-All of the romantic relationships and platonic friendships are extremely unrealistic. Like they never argue/fight, disagree, etc. (then grow stronger from those fights) at all??? Even if they’re complete opposites???
-Reyna is the best-written character in the whole series and a queen she deserved better and y’all sit on her too much
-Theyna is ✨amazing✨ their dynamic and chemistry was just *mwah Pansexual Muslim blessings to you* and people are allowed to ship them even though they’re Hunters and swore off love
-Rachel doesn’t deserve all the hate she gets. Y’all hate on her cause she crushed on Percy when half of you are doing the same thing and then y’all go and ship Percy with Nico, Jason, Artemis, Athena, etc. 
-If y’all want to hate on Jason for ‘not having a personality’ you’d also have to hate on most of the main HoO characters except Reyna, Nico, and Leo (and maybe Hazel) for the same reason cause they have the exact same problem tbh
-Zoë and Bianca’s deaths weren’t actually that sad. We didn’t get to see them enough nor did they have enough development for their deaths to have a real impact. The only sad thing about them was Zoë’s last words and Nico’s reaction
-Thalia needed more time in the books
-Reyna was the only main female character in HoO that wasn’t a boring, bland Mary Sue that all the other characters automatically loved. She was the only one with real flaws and distinct personality traits she’s my queen
-Piper, Annabeth, and Calypso did have flaws but the fact that they weren’t called out by other characters or even noticed are what makes them Mary Sues. It doesn’t matter how many flaws a character has, if they’re not called out by other characters (more specifically, other protagonists who actually like them) they don’t count as real character flaws
-Riordan can’t write female characters for shit
-Clarisse, Drew, and Octavian deserved better than being completely antagonized for no explained reason other than to make the protagonists seem better and to make the readers root for them. Those three had more potential than most of the Seven combined
-The whole ‘Aphrodite kids don’t train’ thing is bs. It’s specifically stated that all the demigods follow a strict schedule and have to follow it or they’ll be on stable duty or smth and the Aphrodite kids shouldn’t (and can’t) be excused from that
-Therefore, Drew should be way more powerful and skilled than Piper, at least enough to not back down automatically from a duel by a newbie who hasn’t even learned how to fight (Drew can control an entire cabin of people at once and Piper can barely control one person at a time, who’s more powerful again??)
-Also I have no idea why Riordan portrays all the Aphrodite kids as weak and girly in the first place. ‘Femininity’ and ‘weakness’ are not synonymous and ‘love’ and ‘beauty’ don’t equal ‘feminine’
-Speaking of which, love is actually really powerful but Piper doesn’t stand for love or ‘inner beauty’ and all her ‘thoughtful/insightful’ quotes in ToA/TBM about love were complete bs
-Riordan using the LGBTQ+ community for the sole purpose of making Piper seem more likable and ‘special’ was disgusting and proves he thinks that straight is the default- “...Or Hera’s ideas of what a perfect couple looked like. Piper finding her own way, not the one people expected of her” my ass. In other words, he’s saying ‘The expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are a heterosexual relationship, and anyone who 'finds their own way instead of the ones people expect’ are different’. ‘Different’ and ‘default’ are antonyms, so if you think LGBT people are different, then you think that straight is the default. Aphrodite is the goddess of love not heteronormative bullshit. Like Riordan, honey, you’re the one who thinks that the expectations for love and the idea of a perfect couple are heterosexual couples, not fictional gods from a fictional mythology. Remember kiddos- an author writes their own beliefs
If you don’t agree with some of these that’s fine sis it doesn’t matter if you have different opinions than me❤️
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whump-town · 3 years
Text
A Cumbersome And Heavy Body
Chapter One: Tired Of This Body
Summary: Stubborn until the very end, Aaron Hotchner isn't going to go down without a fight. It's just getting hard to tell the difference between fighting them and fighting the cancer.
Word count: 7,883
Author’s Note: ugh... well, here it is. Don’t be afraid to send me hate mail or leave a comment. I love it when I make you guys sad (in a loving way of course) :)) good luck you little shits and may the odds be ever in your favor (FYI, they’re not)
Warning: the subject of this fic is cancer and it’s treatment, cursing, maybe out of character (idk, man. hotch is weird)
I've grown tired of this body Cumbersome and heavy Tired of this body Fall apart without me
“I understand you’re here with concerns of a mass you found—”
He was shaving. The mirror fogged from his shower and the room heavy with steam. Leisurely, he’d wasted time getting ready. That particular morning, he’d gotten up before his alarm and he was happy for the distraction of the near-boiling water pouring over his back while the cold tile bites into his shoulder. An easy stress-reliever before the day fully starts.
Dragging a cool rag over his face he’d caught sight of a slightly swollen place on his chest. He’d dropped the rag in the sink and gently probed the area. He’d expected the sting of a bruise, not a knot of hard lumps.
It wasn’t a bruise.
“I regret to inform you—”
He hadn’t even known there were lymph nodes in the chest.
“Can you take your shirt off for me, sir?”
There’s a whole staff of people fluttering and dodging his eyes. A blur of motion as they work around him. Of them all, Hotch has already developed a soft spot for. Dr. Fitz and the glasses that are too big for his face despite his attempts to make them fit his face. There are rubber bands wrapped around the earpieces to push them tighter around his head and a piece of tape holding one of the lenses in. It’s strangely endearing.
No matter how many times Hotch tells Dr. Fitz that Aaron works just fine, he still nervously throws in the courtesy. He’s just like Reid and it’s that thought that makes him both comfortable and so unbearably alone.
With a nod, Hotch tugs his shirt out from where it’s tucked into his pants. The cold air hits his bare chest and he holds his breath for a moment, shivering slightly before he takes control once again. Foyet’s scars are on broad display for the whole room but, to their credit, none of them blink. They’re not here to dissect the scars covering his body or take stock of the weight he’s put on.
He just goes where he’s pulled. If he flinches when they touch him, no one comments. It’s for the better, mostly.
“The tattoo is going to guide the external beam radiation at your tumor,” Dr. Fitz explains once again. His hands tremble slightly as they hold the little needle in his hands. “It’s just three dots.”
Hotch nods, his mouth a little too dry. This whole process a little too much. He nods his understanding, fists clenched at his side to force himself to show no outward reaction. It doesn’t bother him as much as it should those dots are going to be with him forever. His first and last tattoo.
Forcing a steadying breath, he glues his eyes to the ceiling. It stings but it’s not unbearable. The needle digs into his chest, pushing the ink in. It’s the second and third dot that get him. His skin is getting hot, sore enough to make him gunt as the last one is placed.
“Not nearly as fun as a normal tattoo,” one of the other doctor’s observes. Hotch, blinking back tears, looks over at his other doctor. A woman whom he’d never have figured the “tattoo” type. His brain is a little preoccupied, worn down. He’ll get over not profiling her very well, he just might not forgive himself for the slip-up.
Hotch just… grunts. Not a real answer but the easiest.
He’s offered a hand up but he doesn’t take it. Shoulders sore and arms weak, he pushes himself up. Leaning to the side when his head starts to pound, his mouth really, really dry.
“Alright—” a cold gloved finds his shoulder. “You’re just panicking,” he’s reassured. “You need to breathe. In through your nose and out through your mouth.” The hand squeezes his shoulder but he keeps his eyes squeezed shut. It feels like he’s going to pass out. But… he doesn’t. He breathes as instructed and slowly, the room calms back down.
As he peels his eyes open, chest tight and hands trembling, he finds the room still every bit as busy as it was before his little fit. The world really doesn’t stop.
“Are you sure—,” Dr. Fitz twists and worries his hands. Obviously, he’s worked himself up too. Probably blaming himself for Hotch’s reaction. He should have let him take a break or warned him a little better. “Most people find it helpful to have someone here,” Dr. Fitz observes. “Do you— Do you want to call someone?”
His eyes drop to the floor, his mind-- Haley. She would be here. Cracking jokes and poking at his side. Things used to be so much easier with her around. There was this magic about her, a drug her presence doped him up. She would light the room up and hold his hand. She’s not here, though. She’s dead and he’s having a hard time convincing himself this isn’t some sort of penance.
Snuffing out a light like her, it was bound to have its consequences.
They’ve marked him and with his advanced stage, he’s got an aggressive treatment plan, and the radiation starts tomorrow. So, no. No, he doesn't want to call anyone. He just wants to serve his time. Besides, who would he call?
JJ? With two children of her own and a painfully busy schedule.
Reid? His mother occupies his mind as is.
Morgan? He’s grappling with a relationship with Savannah, attempting to salvage all of the complex things life has thrown at him.
Dave? Hasn’t he already lost a child? The last thing he needs is to sit here for any given amount of time and watch this.
And he’d never, never put Garcia through this.
“No,” he rasps, laying back down. “I’m okay.”
He closes his eyes and when a single hot tear runs down his cheek, he doesn’t wipe it away. I’m okay.
I’m okay.
There aren't immediate side effects and he’s not sure if that’s a relief or worse. He’s anxious, nearly sick with nerves. Would it not be simpler to just get sick already? To throw up or get sore or just— anything.
The machine hurts his ears. Fifteen minutes of lying perfectly still gets hard after about two minutes. The whole process exacerbated by the way the low hum of the machine makes his head feel like someone’s digging at his skull with an icepick through his ear.
He’s assured he shouldn’t start feeling any symptoms for a few days. Likely not until the second week of treatments.
It takes five days for a stitch in his side to take his breath for a moment, doubling over as he struggles to breathe for a moment. Chest tight and head fogged. They just add another pill bottle to the other whole collection he’s accumulated on his nightstand.
It feels like there’s an elephant sitting on his chest. A hand gripping a fist full of his hair and dunking his head back under the water. Ties binding his wrist to the bed. A knife buried in his side.
It feels like the ground he’s standing on is rumbling, shifting beneath his feet and at any given moment it’s going to pitch him forward. A free fall and he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to land on his feet.
He’s staring at the ceiling. Fists gripping the sheets as his stomach twists and churns. Swallowing around the uncomfortable burn in his throat, he turns his head to the side. Watching the movements just outside his bedroom window. Jack’s outside, kicking his soccer ball, and waiting for Daddy to come to join him. Hotch, will have to join him sooner rather than later. Even with the yard fenced in, anything could happen out there.
Funny. Just a few weeks ago, anything could have been blown under the rug with “at least it’s not cancer”. Now he’s plotting his will out in his head, making sure he covers every little thing. Who will lead the team? Where will Jack go? Can Jessica handle arrangements and should he start preparing the comfort letters now?
In the face of it all, he’d thought he could accept this. Life goes on. Things happen. He doesn’t want to die. All of those poems, the books, and the lies. “Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep.” Well, that’s right shit, in his opinion. What comes next? Not light. Not hope. His body will succumb to cancer leaving behind the carnage of his actions.
Hodgkin's Lymphoma…
He’d known, in that morbid way his thoughts tend to twist, that he shouldn’t get his hopes up. That it would be silly for the doctor to smile, sympathetic to his plight, and advise him to talk to his therapist about this new progression of paranoia. For a pat on the back. Instead, he got the cold examination table under his back, and the nurse giving his trembling hand a squeeze as the needle had plunged into his chest.
It’s all been a haze since that phone call. Since the confirmation. Now he’s got more blood tests scheduled for Monday. That’s what his life is now. Radiation for fifteen minutes for four days a week. On the fifth day, he gets blood work drawn. They check for enzymes and cells. He doesn’t really care to understand.
He should. Don’t mistake the careless, numb ache thinking about all this gives him for complete inattention to detail. It’s just a little much for one person.
Hotch finds himself wondering what Reid would tell him about the whole process. Statics that would knock the wind from his lungs and odds that would make him feel just a little better. That he’s too old and too stressed out. That radiation aimed at his chest can harden his arteries and increase his already high chances of a heart attack. That he should have seen this coming-- his father died at 47. Lung cancer. A heart attack.
He should have seen it coming.
“Daddy?”
He has to lean into his nightstand as the ground warps beneath his feet. “I’m coming,” he manages, closing his eyes and blindly hoping that his door is shut and Jack can’t see him. He wishes he’d smoked more. Indulged in Dave’s cigars. Gone drinking with Derek. Danced like Penelope. Fuck, smiled more.
He didn’t even know there were lymph nodes in the chest. He’d gone to law school. Spent his early adulthood learning to read complex course material and how to cry softly in a room with another person less than five feet from him. Maybe he should have studied Biology… but then he’d just have to come to terms with the fact that this whole mess was bound to happen. Predisposed. Genetic and environmental.
His fault.
--------------------------------
Six in the morning is not a typical time to be fielding calls from concerned police officials. “He—Hello?”  Which, now that phone is tucked under his chin, and the call answered, he realizes that he should have checked the caller ID. As stated, is it six in the morning and he doubts anyone too important is calling him at this hour.
Unless, of course, his luck has finally run out and yet another political disaster has occurred. Leaving him to clean the wreck.
The other end makes a strange noise before he’s greeted with, “--finally! I was almost worried you wouldn’t answer!”
Oh.
Emily.
“Morning,” he greets, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. He’s a little too grumpy for this right now but she’s obviously called for a reason, her happiness seeping into tone, and he’s not going to purposely ruin that. How many hours ahead is London, again? Why is she awake?
“I was worried,” she admits. He can hear her working, the drag of her pen across paper, and the shift of the leather chair she’s sitting in. Even her keyboard clicking away as she multi-tasks. “Your last letter was nearly two weeks ago. Is everything good at home?”
Home. He smirks, she’s been overseas now for several years. Yet, she still refers to Virginia as home. The thought makes him shake his head. He’d never draw the conclusion out loud to her but he can imagine that little slip-up is one of the reasons that her on-again-off-again boyfriend Michael grows frustrated with her. It’s not her fault. It’s an understandable mistake but it certainly reflects a certain tone for her affections of London.
Her preferences.
“They’re fine,” he answers, evenly. “Jack’s doing well in school. Dave’s stopped hounding me about potential love suitors.” He pauses to splash water across his mouth, preparing to wash his face. “Garcia enjoyed last month’s tea flavor, what was it-- raspberry?”
He places his phone on speaker and sets it on the shelf above his sink. Ducking his head, he listens to her while he washes his face. Going about the habitual process of shaving. A comforting thing he’s always done. He’s got no preference when it comes to facial hair. A beard is just as easy as a clean face. It’s about shaving. It’s soothing. It’s one of the few things that’s remained constant in his life.
She’s talking-- he thinks about how the weather in London has hit a point in the season that she doesn’t particularly like. Raining and cold. That she wants to come home but she isn’t sure she should. Will she really be able to tear herself away from the Virginia weather? From them?
He’s half-way done shaving when his eyes drift to his shirtless chest.
He wonders how many times he shaved, how many mornings did he wake up before he realized-- before he saw the tumor or the lump or mass or whatever the hell the medical term is. He lowers his head, sighing in defeat but mostly anger. How’d he let it get to this?
“Anyways,” she sighs. Sounding every bit as tired as he feels. “How is home? How are you?”
He looks at himself in the mirror. His head is absent of reason. No logic or forethought.
“I have cancer.”
-------------------------------- Everything about Aaron Hotchner is traditional and simplistic. It’s not a bad thing. In the years that she's known him, she’s grown fond of that. It makes him predictable and reliable. Something that happens infrequently in people the older that she gets. A part of her does feel wrong for clinging to that, to him, but she cherishes his friendship. Through the ups and downs.
Their means of communication are letters. Once a week she can expect to find two to three pages of neatly written updates on her family across the pond. He’ll ramble about anything in those letters and that’s what she enjoys about them the most. There is no hesitation to tell her what he thinks. In those letters, she can find Aaron. Incredible soft, thoughtful Aaron.
It’s been two weeks since he’s sent a letter. Not to sound clingy but she’s kind of hurt. More so, she’s nervous to find out what’s taking up so much of his time. He’s routine with his responses. Almost every Thursday night she can curl up with his newest letter and a glass of wine and read about the BAUs newest adventure. It’s always a bonus when throws in his subtle little “I” statements. I miss you’s come rare but when they do happen it’s nice.
Sighing, she caves. It’s Friday, she hasn’t heard from him in two weeks, and she misses him. By the time she has his contact picture pulled up and the ring tone dialing-- his goofy picture from his badge grinning at her-- she realizes that her eleven am is his six am. Just as she’s starting to think he won’t answer it goes through.
“H--Hello?” he sounds like shit. Over the course of the last year, she’s managed to forget what he sounds like. His voice is startlingly deep which does surprise her just a little.
“Finally!” she mumbles. “I was worried you wouldn’t answer!”
He yawns and it makes her smile. “Morning,” he grumbles and she can hear him scratching tiredly at his face. She feels guilty for waking him up for only a moment. That is until she remembers he gets up at six. So it’s likely she called right after his alarm clock went off.
Tucking her phone between chin and shoulder, she turns her computer on. Settling in behind her desk and getting to work. “I was worried,” she tells him. Not sure if she’s meaning to sound mad at him for not sending his “everyone’s alive and well” letter or mad that she doesn’t know how he is. He’s thrown her off her routine. “Your last letter was nearly two weeks ago. Is everything good at home?”
Her worry bleeds into the statement but he’s too tired to feed it or make fun of it.
She can hear him huff softly, an almost laugh.
“They’re fine,” he answers softly. His voice is drowsy, “Jack’s doing well in school. Dave’s stopped hounding me about potential love suitors.” She hears the tap run, he pauses, and she can hear him splashing water on his face. “Garcia enjoyed last month’s tea flavor, what was it-- raspberry?”
She smirks, it was raspberry. Although, she doubts Garcia liked it as much as he says. She’s not a huge raspberry fan. Besides, Emily had sent that tea with one specific tea drinker in mind: him. The thing about Hotch is, he’s traditional, but he’s also complicated. That’s just Hotch for “I enjoyed the tea you sent”.
Really, she’d just wanted him to be introduced to more teas than his just his simple black tea. Be more creative. Have some fun.
“I’m glad Garcia liked the tea,” she says with a smirk. “She’s been texting me all week.” Pictures, texts, and a few Snapchat. Emily doesn’t entirely know how to use Snapchat yet but she’s getting the hang of it. “You guys being grounded is relaxing, I’m sure, but that woman’s got way too much time on her hands.” Emily shakes her head at the thought. Lovingly, of course.
“Anyways,” she runs a hand over her face and she lets out a sigh. “How is home? How are you?”
There’s a long pause on his end. All his busy movements coming to a halt. It makes her heart pick up its pace, her gut twisting. Suddenly, that knee-jerk thought, that stupid thought that something might be wrong feels true. She’s just about to say his name when his voice cuts through.
“I have cancer.”
Her first reaction is oh. At least she was right.
That is immediately followed by-- oh fuck.
“Are you…” she swallows thickly, work forgotten. “Have--” Where does she even begin?
He clears his throat, “Hodgkin's Lymphoma.” He answers without her actually having to ask. It feels to get it off his chest, literally. To tell someone. “I guess--” he makes a choked sound like the shock of this news is setting in again. “They have to put, uhm, ink to locate the right place. So, I… I have a tattoo of sorts now.”
She laughs a half-pained sound. “I’m sure Morgan doesn’t consider it to be a tattoo,” she manages around the tightness of her throat. She cringes at the thought, ink and a needle just digging into his flesh. Cancer invading his body.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment but when he does, she understands the silence.
“I haven’t told them.”
As much as she wants to be mad at him, she shouldn’t really expect anything different. He’s painfully shy and private. God knows if she hadn’t found him half-dead in the hospital after Foyet, he’d have gone as long as possible without telling them. He certainly wouldn’t have told them while still hospitalized.
It’s the same lack of forethought that goes through them, a moment of blindness. He’d felt the weight of restraints pulling his limbs down when the admissions had left his lips. She feels only conviction, “I’m coming home.”
It catches him entirely off guard.
She winces when he starts coughing. His first symptom since starting radiation. It’s a horrible sounding dry cough that makes her lungs ache just to hear.
The coughs fold him over, the force at which they leave his mouth is painful. What is it that makes coughing so painful? That’s never made much sense. It’s just air, right?
“Hotch?”
He rubs at his sternum, trying to externally soothe the muscles. “I’m okay,” he chokes. Shakily, his right-hand bears his weight as his left turns the faucet on. With his palm, he manages to sip a few mouthfuls of water. It just doesn’t stop the coughing. “I’m okay.”
She highly doubts that. There’s not a single thing about what she just heard that sounds “okay” by anyone standards-- certainly not his. “Are you going to work like this?” she asks. It’s hard to believe he’d allow himself to be seen in any state that isn’t tip-top shape. On that note, she also knows that way too good at putting on a show, and, for profilers, the team sucks at making that distinction.
The anger that evokes in him is undue. Admittedly, he overreacts. “I said I’m fine,” he barks. “I don’t need you checking in on me, Prentiss. I don’t need you here, too!” To watch. It’s bad enough, okay? That he’s going to have to tell his six-year-old son that he’s dying. Each morning a little more than the last and some days feel like he’s already half-lowered into the ground.
And the others. Reid and those sad eyes. The way Morgan won’t be able to look at him, just avert his gaze and storm out of the room. Dave’s crushing hug and JJ’s silent tears. Garcia… He can only imagine the raging in-betweens of what the news will do to her. Stress baking cookies he won’t be able to stomach. Knitting him hats, sweaters, and blankets with feverish vigor that he won’t be able to escape.
He could use one of Garcia’s love knitted blankets right about now.
Forcing himself to take a deep breath, he relaxes his tight grip on the sink. Knuckles paled and fingers aching.
“Sorry,” Emily finally manages after the long moments of silence.
Hotch hangs his head, biting his lip hard to stop the flow of emotions trying to work their way up. “No,” he rasps, thickly. He sniffles, scoffing when he rubs his eyes with the back of his wrist, finding tears. “That was… inexcusable. I’m so sorry,” he leans down, body in half as he rests his forehead against the cool porcelain of the sink.
This doesn’t even feel like his body anymore.
“Aaron?”
There are tears streaming down his face, he’s too tired to fight them off. “Hmm?”
“I’ll see you soon.”
He hums in agreeance, unable to trust his voice.
“Take it easy, okay? I love you.”
The line dies before he can hasten out a reply.
--------------------------------
She’s been waiting on a reason to leave London for longer than she’s willing to admit.
Her dying friend proves to be reason enough.
Clyde has obvious mixed feelings but he can’t hold her back. He and Hotch had gotten set on the wrong foot. The rivalry between the two men is childish but endearing. Almost nothing has made her feel as loved as the proud smiles they both wear when she greets them. Clyde overwhelmingly pleased he’d won her back to London and Hotch smug she’ll travel hours to come to see him (she hadn’t done that for Clyde).
Almost nothing beats that.
“Emily!”
Her eyes are scanning the crowd before her, searching for her mismatched ragtag family. Sore thumbs, bobbing up and down in the crowd, they wave her to them. She notices he’s not there immediately.
“Princess,” Morgan sighs her name into her hair and she turns her face into his shoulder. Drawing in the strength she can feel wavering with a new wave of anxiety washing over her. It helps that they’re here. Derek’s arms wrapped around her after what feels like a lifetime away.
It’s only taken her three decades but she’s found her family and she’s not letting anything drag her away this time.
Garcia pushes at Morgan, causing a choked laugh out of them all. “Stop hogging all the Emily-lovings!”
Morgan smirks, trying to hide the relief swelling in his eyes like tears. He gets one more good look of her, eyes combing over her before parting with a sad smile. Relieved.
There’s a blur of motion. She’s pulled to each of them.
Garcia hugs like she’s trying to crush ribs and Emily lets her.
Hugging Dave brings tears to her eyes. Fuck, she’s missed them.
“Don’t make me chase you,” Emily threatens when she spots Reid near the edge. Pulling him close she rests her head against his shoulder, happy when he squeezes her back. “I’ve missed you, boy wonder.” Her genius. Just as scrawny as when she left him. She doesn’t want to do that again anytime soon.
Dave claps his hands together, grabbing one of the three bags she’d dropped. “Let’s get lunch, kiddos. We can talk about London.” He winks at Emily and she knows that this is going to spin into a conversation about potential love interests. She hasn’t had love on the brain in a while.
London… not everything she wishes it was. Cold and rainy. Relentlessly.
For the first month, she was over there, all she wanted was to come home. She just kept waiting for the rain to ease up. Then there should be that wet, hot humidity that clings to everything. She’d hated that before but now she’d just give anything to have it. For Reid to drag her out for coffee and the sun to bring out the chipper inflection in Garcia’s voice.
How the sun looked on Jack and Henry’s little head when she’d run around the park with them.
Fuck London, she’s just glad to be home.
“So,” she’s allowed them their fill of questions. Things about INTERPOL and if she’s still leaning heavily on take out food or if she’s managed even the faintest bit of finesse concerning cooking (she hasn’t). Leaning onto her elbows, she asks the question that’s been bugging her for hours. “Where’s Hotch?”
Dave leans back in his chair and JJ’s the first to crack. Of course, her poker face just isn’t that great. Her eyes move to Dave, concern written across her face. They might not know but it’s not that hard to figure out they know something isn’t right.
Reid shifts uncomfortably, averting his eyes, and focus.
“Your guess is as good as ours,” Dave informs her. He settles back in his chair, arms crossing on his chest. “He’s…” he sighs tiredly. For a moment he just shakes his head. Rubbing a hand over the coarse hair on his face and then rubbing at his eyes. “He’s Aaron,” Dave mumbles. “Complicated and… reserved.” He looks at her now, zeroed in on just her. Just them.
Her heart races at just the thought of them knowing.
JJ clears her throat. She distracts her worry with rubbing her nail at the glass. “He says he’s at meetings,” she tells Emily. “Says--” she shakes her head, flustered. Upset. Pulling in a breath, she shakes softly as it comes in. “Every day, he sends me an update email. Just a list of things he expects to get done for the day or places he might be.” JJ tucks a strand of her hair back from her face. “Our jobs circle around each other, a lot. It makes my life easier if I can find him without running all over the place.”
Morgan turns his head, away from the conversation. Wishing to be uninvolved but unable to escape.
“He’s lying,” JJ concludes. She worries her lip with her teeth. “His lists are…” her eyebrows furrow as she struggles to say exactly what she means. “Last week,” she says with a nod, having come up with her perfect example. “He said he’d be in a meeting. Didn’t tell me where, he always tells me where.” Her eyes scan over the table, looking for more. “Something’s wrong and he won’t tell us.”
Morgan huffs, shifted now so that his arms are wrapped tightly around himself. His legs crossed, even. Distant. “I don’t see why we don’t just let him be.” His tone betrays what he’s really feeling. That anger and the vulnerability. His words are reflexive. He’s always pushed away when things get tough.
Emily wants to rise to his defense or to say anything but she can’t.
“Reid went into his office yesterday--”
Reid flinches. The memory or the feeling, he draws himself in. Shielding himself from whatever is being said.
Garcia looks down at her lap.
“He was asleep at his desk,” Dave finishes, despite seeing just how uncomfortable Garcia and Reid look. “Out like a-- Asleep like he hadn’t rested in a while. It took-- I had to shake him awake. He was warm to the touch and shaking.” Dave looks down to the table. “Shaking. He was weak and I’d known,” he looks up, frowning sadly. “I’d known something was wrong before but whatever is, we’ve got to get to the bottom of it.”
The bottom of it… God, they’re going to be devastated.
Lunch brightens. It’s forced to when the conversation shifts to the children. To Henry starting fourth grade and Jack’s in middle school now. Since when did those babies grow up?
Sooner than maybe she’s ready for it, she has to leave them. She’s too tired, too jet-lagged.
And maybe… Maybe she’s ready to bother Hotch. To reacquaint herself with his grumpy, silent nature. Isn’t it silly to think she’d hated him once?
Now she knows where his house keys are hidden.
The key hits the lock and she realizes how this might not be as great of a plan as she had planned it to be. “Hotch,” she calls into the dark. She peaks around, hoping if he’s home he’s not on edge. She’s seen him hypervigilant, she knows this is an awful plan. Even calling ahead might not have been enough. So, it’s more than brave for her to just come barging in.
She puts her back near the coat rack, still hunched into herself in case he comes barreling around the corner. He doesn’t. “Aaron?” His car is out front, despite the darkness of the room suggesting the house is empty. The blinds are drawn shut, blocking all-natural light into the house. The air is cool. “Aaron if you’re here please, please don’t shoot me.”
Shutting the door behind her, she progresses into the living room. The creaking of floorboards draws her attention to the other side of the house and she spots him.
He comes around the corner of the hall, from the direction of his room. Tired eyes move up to find her, his lip quirks into half a smile. “Emily,” he greets under his breath. He’d heard the door open but the binds weighing his wrist and ankles to the bed had been too much for him to lift. Pained and slowed, he’d made his way to figure out who was home.
Certain it’s not Jack, he should have had a little more trepidation about coming out here to investigate.
She approaches him slowly, soaking in every line and angle of his body. The way he’s favoring his right side is a new thing but the crescent moons under his eyes are a comforting familiarity. Pulling in a breath, she drags her eyes all the way up to him. He’s lost some weight and it just makes his cheekbones that much more hauntingly sharp. It draws attention to the scars on his face, thin and aged.
With a smile, she shakes her head at him. “Just as ugly as when I left,” she informs him.
He smiles tiredly, sighing at her playful taunt. It makes the hug she pulls him into relieving. The aches and chills he’s felt all day lessen as she wraps her arms around him. Something about the way her hand cups the back of his neck while the other rubs his up along his spine.
She’s standing on the tips of her toes, stretching to get to him. He leans down into her, closing his eyes. She just holds him that much closer. Against her, she can feel the beating of his heart. The way his nerves had amped his heart rate up and now, as the beat slows, the way he calms under her touch.
“How are you?” she asks quietly. They pull apart and she feels the absence of his warmth immediately.
He pulls in a weak breath, one he lets out a strangled cough. Shakes his head and offers a shrug. “I’m okay,” he assures her.
She doesn’t fail to notice how his right hand shakily reaches out to steady him against the wall. They’ve never agreed on the definition of okay and, so, it’s not that surprising they wouldn’t now.
Burying a cough into the elbow of his arm, he starts to tremble. His breathing takes a heavy quality as he stands there. It takes only a moment for him to draw himself up to his full height,  swallowing down against the pain and forcing his body to bend to his will. If she didn’t know better, nothing would look wrong at all.
“Can I get you anything,” he asks, clenching his teeth to keep steady despite how exhausted he feels. “How long are you staying?” He knows she won’t actually answer that first question, so he steps by her and lets her follow him into the kitchen. Hyper-aware of the way he moves his body. Trying to look normal instead of stiff.
She follows him, watching for clues in the slips of his armor. One of the many benefits of having known him so long and knowing him well is that he can’t get much past her. “I’m staying for as long as I’m welcome,” she replies. It’s better than the truth, that she’s staying until he’s better.
He appreciates her choice of wording even if the truth is still there underneath it all. Leaving him the burden of the situation, which is considerably worse.
He sticks with a simple hum of understanding, knowing she’ll understand it as such. “Staying where,” he asks. Suspecting he already knows the answer. “Here?” He fills two glasses with water, desperate to soothe his dry mouth. Turning to her, he offers the first glass.
She accepts the glass without comment. “I didn’t think about where,” she lies, smirking over the glass rim at him. He shakes his head but doesn't comment. “Here would be good though.” She looks up at him and he shakes his head with a smile. “It would!” she defends. “I know you miss me and I could help around with Jack. If you won’t admit to it, I know he will.” Her smile twists mischievously, “besides, he’s my favorite Hotchner and I’ll make time to spend with him regardless of where I stay.”
He shakes his head but he’s already formulating how to move the guest room around to accommodate her. There’s not much in there. A bed with some regular looking sheets and two or three boxes of random things.
Putting her glass down on the counter she sighs. “We don’t need to worry about that right now.” Nodding her head back towards the hall she says, “you look miserable. Go to bed.”
He realizes that while she was talking he’s slowly started leaning more and more on the counter. Accumulating a lean to ease the aches wracking his body. She’s right. He looks miserable because he is. He’s exhausted.
“Do you need to take any medication?”
He shakes his head, not letting it bother him when she tucks herself against his side. Allowing him to lean into her. He doesn't but the warmth her body brings is pleasant enough to keep him going. 
He took everything he needed this morning. The medicine for the radiation rash he’s developed across his chest, the preventative pills for the fibrosis that might build in his lungs because of the radiation, and a whole other list of things he can’t really remember. He just has the bottles on his nightstand and knows that most require two dosages.
His bed is warm and soft, his eyes closing against his will. Logically, he knows he shouldn’t let her see him like this. This is his battle and he doesn’t want to burden anyone else with it. There’s a comfort in sharing, though. Rather it be the brush of her fingers on his forehead, pushing back his crazy or the kiss she presses to his temple before whispering “get some sleep, Hotch”.
And, honestly, he’s tired of being alone.
“Emily?”
She turns in the doorway.
“Thank you.”
Someone has to be here. She wants to be here. “You’d do the same for me.”
--------------------------------
Legs crossed, hair pulled into a half-assed knot atop her head she watches him curiously. He’s up an hour later than she’d expected. No coffee to go along with the egg he has for breakfast. Between them, they have an entire morning spent without nearly a word. Just a simple, “do you want an egg?”
He gets ready but not for work.
“What’re you doing?”
She gets ready too. For what, she’s not sure, but she’s interested none-the-less. Even if she thinks she knows the answer. It’s very interesting, she thinks, to step into the living room and find him staring dumbly back at her. No, not interesting. It’s fun.
Stepping around him, she pulls her coat off the rack. “Isn’t it obvious,” she asks, slipping her feet into the boots. “I’m coming with you.”
Flannel and jeans aren’t his typical go to but it’s a relaxed look. One she finds she doesn't hate.
He crosses his arms on his chest, eyebrows furrowed and a stern frown in place. Startlingly in control for a man she watched choke down half an egg before calling it quits. He hadn’t even had coffee. Now he shifts his weight, left to right. “Emily this isn’t--” he just stands with his mouth open. After a moment he shakes his head. “You don’t want to come.”
So it is treatment.
She pulls her jacket tight around her shoulders and without comment pulls his down too, offering it to him.
He takes it with a sigh, shaking his head, but pulling the sleeves over his flannel. With a sigh, he grabs his keys off the counter. He points a finger at her, looking every bit the father scolding a troublemaking child. “You’re not coming inside the hospital. It’ll be an hour. You’ll drive someplace else. I’ll text you when it’s done.”
She smirks, pleased she’s won this round. Placing two fingers to her temple, she gives him a mocking salute. “Aye-aye captain!” Today, she won’t push. He’s come this far, weeks into his therapy. If he needs some time, then he needs time. Just so long as he knows she’s here now.
Leaving him is harder than she anticipated.
She takes his seat, half-listening as he stands at the door.
“There an outlet about five minutes North,” he says. He watches her move the seat around. Trying to drag the seat closer to the steering wheel so she can actually reach the pedals. “It’ll give you something to do. There’s a bookshop up there too. I-- I take Jack there.” He runs a hand over his hair. “A coffee shop and a smoothie stand and--”
She catches sight of the grey through his hair. Looking away, she clenches her jaw. Worry the edge of the steering wheel. “Aaron,” she finally stops him. “I can take care of myself for an hour. I’m a big girl.”
He shakes his head, ducking to so she can’t see the blush creep up his cheek. “Right,” he manages. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
She nods, “an hour.” She waits until she can’t see him. Those doors closing behind him. Swallowing him whole. It’s just an hour.
She was gone for an entire year. More than that really. Years. What are years to a single hour?
The coffee shop is quant. She can imagine him here. Tucked away within the stacks of books. Reid would like it here. The covers are old but, she thinks with a smile, he’d find something, not to date. Seeking a classic and turning away when it’s not in its original translation. That’s where Garcia has always been his balance. She’d pull him from a rant and sit him down with a cup of tea.
How had Emily ever left them?
Her hands tremble as she runs a finger over those old book backs. Mostly, she wonders what Hotch must be thinking. Heaven or hell. If all the work they’ve put into this job will account for anything at all in the end.
If it’ll hurt.
Her phone goes off. Done. Simple enough.
“I brought you a smoothie!” She’s got his sunglasses on when she pulls up. Not even offering to get out of the driver’s side.
He’s hurting more than he cares to admit. Tired and the rash on his chest burns. Seeing her pull up, he’s glad she doesn’t do more than hook her finger into the sunglasses and peer over their edge at him. Climbing into the car he takes one look at the smoothie and shakes his head. It’s dark green and even if he were hungry he’s sure that isn’t very good. “No thank you,” he mumbles, leaning back into the seat. He tilts his head against the rest.
She’s not really in the mood for arguments. More so, he’s just gotten out of treatment and all he’s had is an egg. “You’ll drink it,” she informs him, putting the car in drive. “Maybe not now but eventually.”
He grunts. Doubt that. If he’s going to manage to stomach anything, it’s not going to be that. Besides, he’d got plans: take a nap. That slowly goes down the drain.
Emily turns up the radio, humming along to a song he doesn’t recognize.
Turning his head, he watches her drive. He hasn’t told her yet but he’s very thankful she’s come back. Even if he’s slightly tainted the return with… She’s here taking over his life. Worming her way into his spare bedroom. Force-feeding him weird green smoothies. He doubts she’ll stop there.
“Hotch?” He doesn’t wake up when she shuts the car off. From there on, she’s gentle. Careful as she extracts herself from the car. “Aaron,” she rubs his shoulder.
He pulls in a small breath, turning slowly to her. Half-lidded eyes find her, confused.
When they left the house he’d looked better. Better than now. Not so exhausted.
“You fell asleep,” she informs him, backing up as he sits up. He has to use the seat to get there but he makes it happen. She waits back for him, letting him take his time getting out of the car. All while holding that damn smoothie she’s convinced she’s going to make him drink.
He’s rubbing the sleep from his eyes when his phone goes off in his pocket. She turns at the door, waiting. He motions her on with a wave, taking the call. “Agent Hotchner speaking.”
She stops for a moment to watch him pull in the whole persona. Not Aaron who just fell asleep in the car but Hotch the rock. It’s sad, really, how quickly the one consumes the other.
She’s reading on the couch when he comes in.
He doesn’t say anything as he slips past, going back towards his room. He comes right back out. The loosely buttoned flannel is forgotten, replaced by a suit across his thin shoulders. Once, those suits had pronounced the sharpness of his body. The way his shoulders sit strong and straight. Now, that jacket doesn’t even look like it belongs to him.
“Where are you going?”
He only glances at her, ducking his head back to the task at hand-- putting on shoes.
She gets up off the couch, flipping the book text down. “Aaron,” she comes around the side. “You can’t go out there.” To work. It’s not healthy to go out there. He had fallen asleep on the ride home, not even twenty minutes ago. He won’t manage out there.
He turns to her as she steps into the room, scowl in place and a look of indifference pulled between them. All the protection he can garner for himself. “It’s not up for debate,” he replies. As if this is out of his control. He just can’t help but think it would be easier this way. It would hurt less, dying out there. A coherent death. He’d feel it. Quick and overwhelming.
But coherent. He’d know.
Not in a hospital. More machine than man. Unable to speak or too weak to think.
It would be better to die a hero.
“Aaron,” she calls, he’s just walking away. “You’re being unreasonable.” She wants to scream. To shout at him or grab him the collar of that oversized dress shirt and shake him. Force him to realize that he’s being stupid. Does he think she’s stupid? They both know this is self-destruction. Skipping treatment. Going into the field. All for this stupid image that he’s convinced himself is necessary. For who? Huh?
It’s better to suffer around people you love than to have them bury you. The only burden is the weight of your casket across their shoulders.
He turns, teeth clenched. Jaw set. “Am I?” he asks. His face has darkened, his cheekbones drawing his cheeks in. “I’m going,” he informs her, “regardless of whatever it is you have to say.”
He won’t look at her. That’s how she knows that no matter how illogical he’s being, he knows exactly what he’s doing. Back turned to her, he stops for just a moment. He knows this isn’t what he should. That this is neither his best option nor the right choice. Still, he opens the door. Stepping out he turns his head, eyes cast to the side. “I--” he shakes his head, he doesn’t know.
Before he can shut the door she calls his name out, fear overriding the anger. “Aaron,” she clenches her fists at her side. “Please be safe.”
His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows thickly. Glancing at her, he nods his head. At least he has the decency not to lie to her. To pretend this is anything but foolish and a death wish. He shuts the door behind himself without another word.
Leaving her standing there.
Waiting.
She’ll still be waiting that night when Reid calls her. Incoherent.
“I-- I don’t know what’s wrong Emily! He won’t-- He’s bleeding and I--I… He said to call you.”
She shouldn’t have let him leave.
@laiba-the-person, @emily-hottie-prentiss, @unionjackpillow, @clockedstar, @baumarvel, @blakeprentiss, @qvid-pro-qvo, @aaron-hotchner187, @ssalavellan
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franniebanana · 3 years
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CQL Rewatch - Ep15
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I forgot this guy’s name, Yao or something? Honestly, I don’t care enough to research this, like, at all. I hate this guy. My friend and I now refer to him as the Hype Man, so I might just call him that from now on. But I wanted to say that I didn’t realize he was in it so early, so when I saw him, I was like, “That fucking guy!!” And I also totally missed that the point of Jiang Fengmian leaving was to take this worthless piece of trash somewhere. I wish he’d died haha. But then I guess there’d be less reason to hate him, and I enjoy hating him.
I can’t believe this is the first paragraph that people are going to see. If you’re reading this now, you’re like, why do I want to read this crap? And y’know what, I can’t blame you. The next few episodes are gonna be rough. I don’t even know if there will be much to say on my end. My friend, after watching these few episodes commented something like, “Huh, that really dragged.” I could only agree, pulling my hair out from the headache these few episodes were giving me.
Okay, but seriously, Yao is so pathetic here! Talking about how he never thought they’d end up like this, and, “Oh, we were just a small clan, woe is me!” It’s amazing that he turns into the biggest prick, always right there hyping up the scapegoat-blame game rhetoric. Sorry, I hate this fucker.
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A rare nice moment from Madam Yu. It was sweet having her show a caring side, packing medicine for her husband, snacks for her daughter. But of course, it was because Jiang Yanli had come to say goodbye to her earlier. Jiang Cheng is really like his mother—they can’t do anything for kindness’s sake, there’s always an obligation to the kindness.
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I hate Wang Lingjiao, but I love her, and I love hating her. I’m conflicted. She’s just such a fun, evil character, more fun than Xue Yang in my opinion, probably because she actual interacts with the main characters in the story. It will forever annoy me that Xue Yang gets so much attention for appearing in a long-ass flashback (via empathy) and what should have been a flashback (Chang Clan) but wasn’t because they wanted it to be padding, I guess.
Anyway, Wang Lingjiao. She’s fun, she goes completely nuts—what’s not to love about her? She’s also someone who is so similar to Madam Yu, but because she also is ambitious and wants to take over Lotus Pier, Madam Yu wants her dead. Haha!
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While Madam Yu is, objectively, a horrible person, I actually really like how her bodyguards aren’t treated like servants. I like that there’s mutual respect there, as there should be when you’re talking about protecting someone. Unfortunately, I think Madam Yu treats them better than her own family in most cases. It’s cool that the Jiang Clan doesn’t rely on servants to get food and tea and whatnot. These are things that the disciples and leaders must do for themselves. By contrast, the Jins have so many servants—it’s almost obscene by comparison.
Also I want to point out how hot-headed Jiang Cheng gets here, while his mother is just cool as a cucumber. It really shows you how unready he is to actually lead (which she points out). He’s so emotional, quick to anger, yet he has none of the foundations to really lead a group of people. Even when the disciples are explaining to them what happened to the kid and the kite, it’s Wei Wuxian who is keeping everyone calm and asking the questions.
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I love that his first reaction here is to insult Wang Lingjiao’s intelligence. We’re basically getting a parallel to how he reacts to Wen Chao, which is fun because you can see how his behavior hasn’t changed at all. He uses his wit in both situations and is easily able to outwit both Wen Chao and Wang Lingjiao. What’s kind of interesting is that Jiang Cheng will speak up now when he wouldn’t before. And I wonder is it because he is guilty for being silent earlier with Wen Chao, or is it something else? I think ultimately Jiang Cheng blames Jin Xizuan, Lan Wangji, and Wei Wuxian for what happens to his parents and to Lotus Pier. Even though, logically, it would have been destroyed anyway, he still wants to place the blame on someone who he can reach. All this is to say, I don’t think Jiang Cheng regrets not speaking up at the Wen Indoctrination. So I think he feels superiority over Wang Lingjiao really because he thinks she’s a stupid woman. And duh, she is not that clever. But she is smart enough to be able to use what talents she has to get ahead. She apparently is favored over Wen Chao’s own wife (who knew he was even married—not me lol), and you have to be ambitious and have some smarts to get that far. That’s not to say that Jiang Cheng wouldn’t treat a man this way too—I think he would. I think he picks and chooses who he’ll stand up to. He’s on his own turf, she’s an invader, she’s a woman—she only brought a few henchmen, right? He’s also been charged with watching over Lotus Pier in his father’s absence. Maybe he just wants to look big for once. Just a thought. Take it or leave it.
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So, I think Madam Yu is enjoying this. She’s getting two things she wants: the Wens are going to leave and she gets to beat the shit out of Wei Wuxian. She doesn’t even have to be prodded to punish him, right? She barely waits until Wang Lingjiao has finished speaking. This has something she’s wanted to do for a long time. I think she’s hit him before, yes? But she can go all out right now, since Jiang Fengmian, his only real protector, is gone.
Also Jiang Cheng! Man, he’s torn apart! He hates to see this happening to Wei Wuxian—yes, he blames him for all that shit, but he doesn’t want to see this happen to him. It’s actually harder to watch Jiang Cheng in all of this than Wei Wuxian, who mostly remains as stoic as he could possibly be while she’s whipping the shit out of him. And again here, we get Wei Wuxian telling Jiang Cheng not to interfere, because the last thing he wants is for Jiang Cheng to be penalized too. He’s fine receiving this punishment because it’s a “better me than him” kind of a thing. It’s harder to watch someone else suffer than to suffer ourselves, right? I’m like that, idk if you readers are, but I think a lot of people are like that. I mean, I’ve always been that way, but it’s been amplified since I became a parent. And not only is he accepting of being whipped by Zidian, he’s ready to lose his fucking right hand. The hand that he wields a sword with. His dominant hand. He is ready to lose it with absolutely no fuss. That’s how much Wei Wuxian cares about Lotus Pier. His response is, “I’ll have to learn how to use my left hand.” It’s a passing line, a line when you can’t even see his face—but do you get how big that is? Jiang Cheng is up there losing his mind, completely emotional, crying, yelling at his mother to stop—Wei Wuxian is just silently gritting his teeth and taking it. They’re both brave (I would not want to stand up to Madam Yu), but different kinds of brave, y’know?
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I do love this part. I’m not gonna lie. Seeing Madam Yu slap Wang Lingjiao around is something that’s deeply, deeply satisfying. I guess it’s just nice to see Madam Yu’s anger turned towards an actual villain, since up until this point, it’s been directly mainly at Wei Wuxian and her own husband. I think this part is forever tainted if you know how the story goes, because Madam Yu is just on fire! But if you’ve seen this series before, which hopefully you have (otherwise spoilers abound), you know it doesn’t end well for her. I like this plot device here, making you think that the good guys are going to come out on top, and then reversing it so quickly as soon as the Core-Melting Hand shows up. One minute, you’re cheering, the next, you’re…not.
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I also want to point out how quickly things reverse here as well. Jiang Cheng is trying to protect and comfort Wei Wuxian throughout this whole scene, which is something we’re definitely not used to seeing. This has always (and I mean always) been more of Lan Wangji’s thing. But in kind of a nice twist of fate, we actually see Jiang Cheng caring for Wei Wuxian. But then, boy, do things change! We see a complete reversal of this behavior—first Wei Wuxian has to be there for Jiang Cheng’s emotional state, and then his physical one. And the man does not complain about it at all.
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I want to say that I didn’t cry in my first watch of CQL until episode 50. That is 100% the truth, so help me God. However, when I watched this scene in the donghua, I cried like a little bitch. Cried probably isn’t the right word—how about sobbed. I sobbed. I think because I knew it was coming when I watched CQL, it didn’t really affect me (plus my husband was right there, not paying attention, but still on the couch with me, so I tend to not cry as much when he’s around. I like to cry on my own, okay?). Having said that, the second time I saw this scene, I fucking cried, and I really didn’t stop until after they told Jiang Yanli, because that sweetheart crying makes me cry, okay? I have a really hard time watching things about children and parents, because I always think about my own parents and my own kid, so it just makes me really emotional. The idea of never seeing your parents again, especially in such a traumatic situation, at the age of what—17? That’s something I can’t even begin to imagine. In a word, horrific. Traumatic isn’t even a strong enough word to describe the emotional and mental turmoil that a teenager would be going through. But I can probably ramble about that later.
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And my heart breaks for Wei Wuxian here too. Even though she hated him, even though she treated him so poorly, I’m sure he still thought of her as something akin to a mother. She was the only mother figure he had in his life who was still living, so there was definitely an attachment there (and this is proven later). Even being acknowledged by her here must mean something to him. She may hate him, but she trusts him to keep her children safe and to protect them. It’s honestly so sad.
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Ugh, this is hard to watch. As a mother, the idea of sending your kid adrift when you know you’ll probably never see them again is so heartbreaking. The connection you have with your children is something that no other relationship can match, whether you physically bore your children or not. They are a part of you. Like, let’s be real, raising children is difficult—they can test your patience, make you angry, make you sad and hurt (toddlers don’t care about you, yeah, I said it)—but you love them in spite of it all. And for me, I can never really hate Madam Yu. I can find her attitude and treatment of certain individuals deplorable, but at the end of the day, she loved her children. Was she a good mom? No, probably not. But I don’t think Jiang Fengmian was a good dad either (although I think he tried a bit harder). But I think she loved A-Cheng and A-Li, and I think she trusted Wei Wuxian to protect them. I think she gave him that shred of respect at the end.
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In case you’re wondering, I fucking cried through to the end of this episode. I mean, Jesus, Yanli just gets immediately thrown into another boat and tied up with her brothers, after finding out that her mother might be dead already, and then her dad abandons them too. I just can’t.
I’m sorry this was short (maybe I’m not sorry, depending on how much you like the episode). I’m going to try and knock out more than one episode per week because I just don’t have a lot to say. These are mainly getting through the plot episodes, if you know what I mean.
Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
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morwensteelsheen · 3 years
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I might have just hallucinated this but at some point i saw something (maybe it was a fic? Idk) exploring Eowyn meeting Glorfindel. Just for fun do you have any thoughts on how that might have gone? I always thought it was an interesting little detail that so many elves were present in Edoras for Theoden's funeral/the trothplighting and wonder what they might have made of all that. It seemed to me a changing of the guard in a way as the age of elves was ending and the age of men began ascending
Oooh, fun question, and that's really such a beautiful way of putting that, I love the idea of it as a changing of the guard.
You definitely didn't hallucinate that fic, I'm trying to find it now — will update when I do!
So I think there are a few main factors that go into deciding what Éowyn would have thought about meeting Glorfindel, and vice versa. I’ll start with Éowyn because that’s what I’m more comfortable with.
The three main questions to answer here are: 1) Éowyn’s thoughts on the Elves generally 2) Éowyn’s awareness of the prophesy/the lore surrounding the Witch-king and 3) the extent to which Éowyn is impressed (or not impressed) by impressive things.
We’ll start with 1. Which rocks because it’s the one we have the least textual evidence for — classic! Legolas is almost certainly the first Elf she’s ever interacted with, and we see basically no interactions between them. So we have to look to the next Elves she sees which are… Elladan and Elrohir. And on those fellas, she’s got nothing particularly interesting to say:
The Lady Éowyn greeted them and was glad of their coming; for no mightier men had she seen than the Dúnedain and the fair sons of Elrond; but on Aragorn most of all her eyes rested.
So, she (rightly) thinks they’re pretty and strong, but really has nothing much else to say beyond that. This is mostly because she’s focussed entirely on Aragorn, but you’d think if she was going to have any strong reactions, now would be the time. Textually this is all we get, so now I get to dive into my HC. I think she’s basically unimpressed by them generally. Not outright hostile, because she’ll have seen what part they played in the war and have tremendous respect for them for that, but they’re not really a thing that exists in her life, so to speak. Plus, the first person she really talks to for any extended period of time who’s going to have any strong opinions on the Elves is Faramir and he is, objectively, deeply ambivalent (see: his takes on dealing with Galadriel and the Elves in Two Towers. King of Not Giving A Fuck).
On the Elf Question, she’s probably going to come to them with a general level of ambivalence and, maybe, some scepticism, and maybe some feelings of discomfort. They’re just very, very outwith her ken.
Okay onto 2. The prophesy and the lore. Yeah, Éowyn almost certainly knows jack shit about this. Not because she’s dumb, but just because it’s, again, not really part of her world. The Battle of Fornost is a somewhat significant battle, all things considered, but it’s so far before the establishment of the Mark that it’s unlikely they’re going to be dealing with the specifics of it, and certainly even less so with the airy-fairy shit some twunk is spouting off afterwards. Going into her fight, she’s really not going to know why it should matter that she’s not a dude, she just knows that the Witch king is bad and she wants him gone. She might not even know who Glorfindel is, to be honest! Which is also going to be funny because for those in the know, Glorfindel is, like, literally Jesus Christ Superstar. The question really is how many people know? The Gondorrim fo sho, I struggle with the extent to which the Rohirrim are versed in this sort of stuff. Éomer, maybe. Certainly he’s going to be briefed, being the King of the Mark and all that, but how much gets passed along to Éowyn? I’m not sure. My heart says all of it, my head says basically none.
And 3., how much is Éowyn impressed by impressive things? Well, that can go either way. She’s obviously very impressed by Aragorn, but that could be/is as much an emotional response to the act of heroism she sees as it is to his general impressiveness. The next impressive thing we see her deal with is the Witch king and, again, this is coloured by emotion, but she really does not seem impressed At All by him. So unimpressed, actually, that where braver men turned tail and hauled ass out of there, she starts monologuing lol. The next impressive thing is Minas Tirith, Gondor generally, and Faramir. She’s very iffy on all of these things, she’s certainly not much impressed by the power or majesty of it all, and it takes a lot of concessions on Faramir’s behalf before she’s out and out ready to deal with him. So, yeah. Not easily impressed our Éowyn.
Glorfindel, by comparison, is an absolute delight of a character who is almost certainly deeply, deeply impressed with Éowyn. And, I think importantly, is not liable to get bogged down into the hooha about whether or not it’s Merry or Éowyn who fulfils the prophesy. I think he’s going to be fucking thrilled to death (in his own, neat and tidy way) about Éowyn being who she is. His approach to this is going to be much less complicated than Éowyn’s — he’s seen fucking loads of great heroes in his life, no matter how cool she is, she’s just another one of them, so he’s not going to be starstruck.
I think their actual meeting would be fairly lowkey, particularly if it’s at any sort of major event. I might even go so far as to say that Éowyn’s not really going to differentiate between him and any of the other Elves that are cutting about unless someone either 1) explicitly gives her a heads up in advance or 2) he goes out of his way to explain who he is and what their implicit relationship to one another is. For my part, I’m not certain he would.
Part of the problem with dealing with this question is that Glorfindel is Tolkien’s hero’s hero. He’s a hero nonpareil, basically so heroic that he lacks any real distinguishable personality beyond inherent nobility, goodness, and courage. In any interaction between them, Glorfindel would sort of being fulfilling the role of a character trope, and Éowyn would be providing the bulk of the personality. Given that, I think I’m pretty comfortable in saying that Glorfindel would probably approach Éowyn as a warrior equal, and would compliment her on her feat, but would not, I think, necessarily be hanging around to chat complex history with her. If anything it’s probably going to be a drive-by conversation. They’ll meet, he’ll congratulate her, he’ll go on with his life. I don’t think she’s going to be starstruck by meeting him.
I also think she’s going to be at a very specific point in her life at any point where they could reasonably meet where she’s probably not going to be all giggly/happy/proud of herself for having killed the Witch king. It’s still going to be a really sore, traumatic moment in her life that’s going to be wrapped up in so many other negative emotions (not least of which is her stunted catharsis — which I am intending to write about later) that she’s probably fine acknowledging it but is maybe a bit emotionally ehhh on it. If he, say, swings by Emyn Arnen in TA 3021, maybe she’ll be a little more up for chatting happily about it and swapping war stories. But I think at Théoden’s funeral or Aragorn and Arwen’s wedding she’s just not going to be in the right place for big hype over it. And I suspect Glorfindel would recognise that and be respectful of it — he, too, has seen some shit.
What would be fucking fun is everybody who’d be trying to watch that interaction, especially if it’s going on at an event or in public. The rubbernecking would be absurd. For all his Elf ambivalence, I’d put a decent amount of money down to say that Faramir would be hauling ass over there to be a part of that conversation — mostly out of a detached academic interest, it’s not often you see the heroes of your childhood stories/Tolkien Jesus come walking up to congratulate your wife on being radge as fuck. If Aragorn’s around/aware, he’s definitely got some level of pride going on over it, and would probably try to see it from afar, if not being around for it. Éomer’s definitely hyped even if he’s not really got the full significance of it down, there’s no way he’s not going to be impressed by Glorfindel’s biography. Everybody else, even those without a personal connection to either of them, is probably watching because it’d be a cool as shit thing to see. I don’t fully understand the significance of, like, public marriage proposals or whatever, but if I see one happening I’m gonna watch it. That sort of thing.
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mythykl · 4 years
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UNSPOKEN,, *todoroki x (f) reader
Genre : fanfic, smut *aged up* (shoto is imagined to be 21yo or something,, and reader as 19yo)
rating : explicit, NSFW, 17+
Warning : fingering, oral?? todo is pretty horny overall. starts w a pretty intense bg story, so you gotta read through all that to get to the good stuff. cool.
words?? idk, it’s pretty lengthy tho.
our todoboi is a pretty lovin’ bf in here.
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————————-
“I’m really sorry for yesterday, Y/N. I-I did’n-”
You clench your fists as you sit on the couch beside him, and interrupt, “Whatever it is- save it, I don’t blame you to begin with. I-I’m just mad. I’d spent almost a week for that chapter, to give justice and bring perfection in what I wanted to put across to the readers. Well- its not even about the time; I had thought through it so much, and atlas thought of typing it out yesterday- I mean- whatever crap that I had even written, I was proud of that- until,, your ignorant ass decided to show up in the room and fuckin’ switched off the computer assuming it’s already logged off, o-or whatever. You could’ve at-at least- fuck-” yup ya ass is livin’ in the worst nightmare of a writer, stay steady
You of course cried, and even threw a tantrum for an hour or so once you realized what had happened. But primarily, you were just mad- mad at yourself for not saving that damn file, and even at him cuz ofc. 
Todoroki certainly didn’t take it well, since he is sad at present, and can’t even look in your eyes. He apologized multiple times since last night and had even prepared a breakfast for you before leaving for work; on the other hand, you haven’t even answered to his appeals yet with clarity.
Out of the blue you just cup his cheeks, making him instantly look up- at you, and then get up with an audible sigh, “Go get ready, I’ll prepare our dinner by then.” That gesture somehow took him aback. 
He gets up instantly and blurts out in confusion, “I d-didn’t expect you to prepare a dinner for me, and on top of it- wait for me so we can have it together. You should’ve ate already, it’s almost midnight.”
You turn back to him, walking towards him to hold his hands, "I honestly don’t know what to reply. My heart- just thought it is the right thing to do that; one mistake isn’t enough to just hate you all of a sudden, Shoto. Moreover we are talking about this, it’s not like you’re being arrogant or things are left unsaid- and you’re genuinely sorry. I can see that in your eyes. I’m just- I don’t know. I’m depressed a bit- yes, but it can’t be helped now. I need some time to think, maybe.” 
Little did you know that your kind words pricked him like thousands of tiny needles against his skin. He loves you, and however seemingly ‘small’ mistake this might be, he hates himself for hurting you- the person he loves so dearly. He thinks of his mother, his complicated family life- which had made him seemingly unemotional. You were one of the people to break through that forged cold wall. He had finally accepted you as his reality than his mere escapism and live with you, but here he is- bringing tears and fueling anger in you, like a good for nothing- just like his father.
After a slight pause, he just busts his arms open and pull you close to him, in his warm embrace, “What did I possibly do to deserve such an angel?” He almost whispers in his beautiful voice.
An angel? 
“So talented, pretty, wonderful, real and warm. Remember. I love you. No matter what. I always will. And I respect you- your passion, interests, talent, likes and dislikes, freedom, strengths-weakness, your work, happiness- everything. Throw all the tantrums you want and cry all you want- more than just agreeing and being there for you- I’ll always make sure I understand you first. I’m sorry for being so ignorant lately.”
It may seem as if he’s crying, but he’s not. He said all that with a tough stance and gratefulness in his tone, a faint disbelief of having you as his significant other. While you just stood there, in surprise. You aren’t oblivious to his past and his journey through it. Is he blaming himself? or Is he again thinking that he doesn’t deserve happiness?- you’re at the loss of words and a mind fumbling all over the place. You simply subside the chaos, and hug him back. 
“We’re definitely working, Todoroki. Understanding each other more than just being in love- something that many fail to do. Isn’t this great?” You at last blurt out.
“Yes. I guess,” he says as he detaches himself from you, “I’ll be right back- until then, read what I’ll send you as you have dinner. Gonna sound stupid of me- but I already had dinner at office. I assumed that you’d not prepare a meal for me and- would be asleep by now as well.”
“Wow icyhot, I’m mad at you even more now,” you say playfully as you walk towards the kitchen.
“I-”
“Save it. You would be saying that for the millionth time now,” you chuckle as you grab your phone, lying on the dinner table.
Before serving your food, you decide to see the text, only to find an attachment with a rather strange message- ‘Hey, here’s an headcanon for chapter 37, that I wrote. Enjoy.’
Wait-
Headcanon??
Wait did he- read your wattpad book? And moreover, came up with a theory to what might happen in the ne- next chapter.
Nice. jk. Ofc you lost your shit
For the sake of getting back to senses, you legit do the deep breathing shit- which your therapist always recommended you to do.
Now what?
You serve yourself some noodles instantly, since you don’t feel hungry anymore, rush to the dining table and start chomping on the cold noodles as you open the attachment.
What made you almost throw up was that the mention of word counts. Which is 3k by the way, though no where near how much you usually write.
Shoto is definitely not the kinda guy to have read any wattpad books, or more specifically even have come across the word 'headcanon’.
He probably noticed how you mention it as well at the end, but decided to put it in the beginning,, for god knows what reason?? Or, he did decide to go through the fanons- which your readers’ posts on tumblr. This eases your nervousness, you clearly urge for more.
You swipe down, reading furiously fast, yet scanning every word and sentence- atleast twice. The chapter, honestly, was mediocre. He had ideas but couldn’t put them across- with excessive repetition of words, but he is almost close to-
“Honey, are you done?” Todoroki’s voice almost scares you. You look at your bowl ready to grab another bite- but you had already finished the meal.
“Earth to Y/N. Don’t tell me my words were that mesmerizing,” he says with a smile as he rubs his hair with a towel.
“Let’s be honest, though you don’t have the talent of a writer, your idea was- kinda similar to mine. What I’m sayin is that you almost. GOT. IT. RIGHT. Well, kuro did spy on KAORI’S house that unfaithful night, and he didn’t have any sources as such, which does mean that he is hiding his real quirk- but, no- I’m not telling you more than that.”
“Since you already know that I read all your chapters, and did like the book- I certainly can’t wait to understand why KURO would possibly do that.”
You just smirk off his curiosity; “You gotta wait boy,” you say as you as you walk back to kitchen counter with your bowl. Todoroki marches behind you to grab the cleaning cloth to clean the table, as you do the dishes.
“Put that towel in the washing machine, please.”
“Yup,” you almost feel an ounce of happiness in his reply. After he closes the machine’s door, you at last ask, "So what are your thoughts?“ It has never been one of you expectations for the people to you read your books or even, praise you for writing, but a review wouldn’t hurt, would it?
"Uhh- well, I love how everything is now just coming together, as one can foreshadow that the book’s gonna end. The use of words was elegant, and the plot is bewitching. Has been a while since I even read anything in thriller, that too- this good. Fuck. Reading kaori’s point of view just the day before the murder was- unbelievable. And characters, they all are just great.”
That is indeed a Todoroki kinda explanation. 
“Wow you did read all of tha-” but before you could complete your statement, shoto just grabbed your hips and stood tall behind you, now speaking in an extremely low tone, “And not to mention- the first sex between Kaori and Braun, it literally was like the depiction of ours. Except, they were awkward and slow, we weren’t.”
You pause. what took over him all of a sudden?
He continues, “That gave me a whole another perspective to what sex really means, and moreover what intimacy mean to you. It was.. surreal. Reading it, was as if- I’m living through that afternoon again, but with more emotions, and a bit more of you.”
“It’s not like I’ve explored much to actually wri-”
 “Oh, is that so?”
“I’m not complaining, of course, but these are the moments I believe must be left to cherish and our intimate times just feel more- sacred to me like this??” Sigh, “Ugh. Now, how do I explain?” Well, that is true, even though Todo and you’ve dated for almost two years now, it was just four months ago that you lost your virginity with him, on your nineteenth birthday. 
He had already lost his with the previous girl he was with. Though he never implied, it felt as if you were obliged to do it for him, due to your own insecurities. Once he got to know that, his reaction was nothing as what you had thought. He said that he loved you, and such things are nothing related to love; that sex is overrated, and continued on saying dorky yet adorable stuff like- cuddling was much better and what not. Since then, you had sex with him just thrice. None of you were really against this unspoken agreement, to not have-
Wait, an unspoken agreement?
Unspoken.
You instantly feel like an hypocrite, since you had just claimed to have nothing unspoken between you both.
Sudden a sharp pain in the skin of your neck brings you back to reality. Shoto is sucking on your skin, kissing ever so lightly. As if marking you.
An audible morn escape your parted lips as the bowl just falls on the kitchen sink. Todoroki leans forward and simply closes the tap and whispers, “So you do like to be 'submissive’, don’t you? Had this discovery while reading one of your books, 'Starless nights’.”
The exact book for which you had to watch vintage porn to make the chapters with intercourses more sensual and intresting.
Again, taking you by surprise, he simply turns you around as you continue stare at the ground with your hands wet, in front of you like dog’s pow.
“So I assume you liked my headcanon.”
“Yup; was much better than the crap I write, let’s go to-” but you’re interrupted-
“Now baby, we both know you’re the better writer, and that you just lied.”
“That was sarcas-” but he just pulls you closer and spanks you hard. You hiss as the pain spreads all over your butt cheeks.
“Never interfere, Y/N.” Wait wut-
Your immediate reaction was biting your lips- is he saying the words from the book? Not exactly inacting them but attempting to set a similar atmosphere, which you lowkey craved for in your wildest dreams.
“Since I’ve anyways taken this unspoken, unofficial oath of keeping you happy and stuff, now why not help you with some satisfaction- with all those juices flowing down your-”
You suddenly push him back and blurt while blushing hard, “Stop with this teasing and aw- awkward co- conversations todoroki! Fuckin’ juices, seriously? I’m not co- comfortable with-”
But then, you notice his right hand in your shorts. Or more like the sheer coldness against you clit, almost like there’s ice against it. When did his hand go in there? You end up clenching his T-shirt, as you jolt up on your toes.
“You. Clearly. Want. This. Don’t. You.” Suddenly, he pulls his hand out as he grabs your ass tight as he pulls you even further. Then, he brings his hand up to the height of you face and simply starts stares at the dampness on his fingers, “Wetter than I suspected." 
Now behold the unbelievable.
He keeps staring at his fingers, opens his mouth as he places his fingers into them and suck it as you watch this piece of art in awe.
"Can’t believe that I had you like- just thrice before this. You do live up to what I usually call you, honey.” He continues, “I hope you’ve noticed my creativity as well, as i used my coldness to.. nudge it.”
“You’re being quite quirky today, aren’t you?” This statement just makes him go still, and the next second he’s found laughing. His deep voice, almost reverberating in the silent room. He steps back, brings one hand to his face as he looks down and continues to laugh. The mere sight of him in this way gives you so much warmth, this is the moment you realize that this is the true home. With him.
When he finally looks up, the mere sight of you blushing so hard makes him lose his composure again, but this time it’s a nervous laugh. 
Approaching closer, you set your hands on his torso and continue, “That was quite execrable pun to chortle at, we were doing excellent just now-” but in reply, he simply cups his hand around your cheeks and say, “Shit y/n. You’re going to be the death to me,” and continues grinning like an airhead.
Why is he being annoying now? After so much sexual tension, how can he stop? In midst of you cursing yourself in your head, he leans at your height and kisses you.
Finally being out of patience, you look at the ground and stutter, “Ca-can we do i-it al-alrea-”
“Quite frankly, I’d like if you stay quiet, you shall take what I’ll give you, right?”
You look up immediately into his beautiful heterochromic eyes and say without any further doubts with a smirk, “Go ahead, Shoto, who am I to deny?”
“Sedective. umm, I like that.” he smirks too.
“Know that I love you,” and that’s it. Within one second, his hands are in your hair and his face is buried in your neck, digging deeper into you, as if uprooting releasing your soul from your body.
Skin glistening on your collar bone now and colours warming up on your cheeks, you whimper under his dominance, as he squeezes your waist and lightly nips against your shoulder. You shiver, with pretty evident  goosebumps, in spite of the heat you both bear at this point. 
Your breath gets hitched in your throat as he moves inwards below your collarbones. while his hands rest on your waist. You involuntarily climb a bit on him, intending to close the gap, but more to feel his manhood against you. Your hands firmly on his shoulders, almost pushing him back- maybe because it’s too much pleasure to feel at once. 
At another rise of your hips, Todoroki places his hand on your waist and pushes you back down, “Easy, easy princess,” he mummers before getting back to fiercely kissing me. You run your fingers through his hair, as you body slowly commences to accept an indeed new experience bombarded at you. 
Suddenly, you remember something. In heist, you shove him back and say, “Wait! We need to wash our hands- I- I mean we have just did chores. Well, at least partially and I need to wash myself- I mean I’m clean,” but then you stop to look at him just to find him in utter shock. 
“Shoto! I mean I want this but hygiene is impor- fuck. I’m. Such. A. Boner. Killer. Ain’t I?”
“Point made.” Todoroki picks you up in bridal style and rushes towards the bathroom.  for some reason i thought of adding this,, lmao
“Wait what-?”
“No time to waste.”
This makes you giggle a bit. You wash yourself while he as well washes his hands, and you practically pull him out of the bathroom, grab him by his collar and kiss him deeply as his hands slowly move up and down, feeling your torso- flesh untouched due to s mere knit. 
His hand unapologetically moves to the hem of your sweater, and further inside; but within one move of his, you stood there shivering, exposed. 
Immediately, you move forward in order to close the distance between you and shoto out of nervousness. His eyes drop down to your heaving chest and you’re painfully aware of that.
“Don’t. Don’t hide,” he mutters, grabbing a hold of your hands and locking them behind with one of his own for you to stay still; as he slides his other in your shorts. You feel his gentle hand running down the slit.
“Honey you’re dripping wet, what have i done to this innocence?” It seems that he expected a reply, but you didn’t. You just couldn’t. He then pulls the other hand to you face, diving in for yet another passionate kiss- accompanied by a battle of tongues this time. You are going breathless, but he refuses to move away.
The creasing in your folds level up to three fingers now,. He isn’t generous anymore, with aggressive circles in there, he finally commands, “Say my name.” 
“Sho-shoto.” Your moans only fuel in his lust and desires, his want, an indeed selfish want to have you all for himself, to offer the utmost satisfaction.
He pushes a finger into you as you instinctively let out a small breath hold his busy arm with both of your hands. This makes him push you against the wall with his free hand.
“M-my legs, it’s going numb,” on hearing this, he removes his own shirt and slightly repositions himself, with one hand now on the waist and the other back in there. He kisses your forehead as you look down, unable to keep up with his pace.
That’s when the coldness returns.
 “I- ah- can we ge-get to the bed first?” Your stuttered words only results in a widened smile from him. He is enjoying the sight, clearly in love with the effect he has on you. His head shakes, further sliding another finger inside you, “You can do it baby. You’re taking it all in without questioning.”
You nod quickly, as you start climb up a bit again. In return, he slowly curls his fingers- more and more with each passing second making you almost cry out this time, “Please n-no, this is too intense for me.”
“Yet my princess didn’t make Braun stop after that, I read in somewhere that Kaori secretly wished for him to not stop even if she said so. Just go on.”
You didn’t know how to come back at it, because it is true. You want your Shoto to push those limits you’ve set for himself, and you’d as well be fine if he simply throws off you cliff at this point. 
“Now now, spread your legs y/n.” 
Did he say something? You couldn’t listen. With eyes rolled back, you can’t comprehend anything to begin with.
“SPREAD YOU LEGS or else I won’t play nicely.” You’re eyes shoot up, and find his already searching for yours; before leaning in and gently kissing you. Your legs not being shut anymore, todo takes the opportunity, making his finger get stuffed deeper. His two digits start moving faster and harder, pounding against your walls- all while he feels you squirm to slow down.
“You can take it hun’,” he definitely knows what he’s doing, and you’re totally in for it. “Y-yes,” you moan softly. This is when he slides in a third finger, now really making you scream.
You attempt to gasp and struggle to stand, but then he says,”Stay,” as you unknowingly slide down the wall. Your nails dig in the skin of his back as you try to stable your stance on your tip toes yet eventually, your legs give out on you.
Suddenly, you feel him hit a spot which just pulls something inside your stomach. Todoroki on the other hand, notices your unusual hitched breath and starts hitting the SAME. EXACT. SPOT.
His free hand goes to the back and around your waist, holding you evermore tightly so that you won’t hurt yourself.
“I feel- like that- again-,” you manage to blurt.
“Like what?”
“Like pe-peeing, b-but different. Just like th-the last time we-”
He simply smirks, “We what?” He sighs and growls in your ear, “Is princess gonna squirt for me?”
Your body shudders against him as you moan his name, again and again, “Shoto, I-I-”
“That’s it. Squirt for me y/n,” with that he removes his hand entirely for one second, only to push two digits inside again, now thirsting harder and curling tighter; with his thumb against you slit. His hand grows even more colder, almost stinging down there, making you restless. 
“Now.”
He watches you open your mouth and moan loudly, as his hand only gets wetter, feeling you squirt against his hand. You shake hard in his hold. He doesn’t let you go. A tear escapes you eyes, but simply doesn’t seem to care,”Shoto, for some reason I-I feel s-so great wi-with yo-,” but you are interrupted as he shoves you further against the wall , sliding down your shorts and undergarment, again with three fingers in.
“That’s my good girl,” he praises you while curling those fingers inside and then removing them together. He further continues, “seems like you’re ready,“ as he rubs the wetness inside the slit, giving special attention to your clit.
Saying that, he kneels down, now facing lower abdomen and plants a kiss over there. You simply look down at him, still struggling to balance, searching for even a slightest hint to know what is there to come.
Maybe he’ll stand up an carry you to the bed? or How about making him feel better this time?
But then, his face smashes his face on your dampness; almost attempting to bury in it as he holds you up and pushes. your legs apart. You clearly know where this is going, todoroki will be showing no mercy whatsoever.
"That wasn’t even the start honey,” he confesses in midst of you moans and begs for him to go slow. It doesn’t hurt anymore as much as it gives an unbearable form of pleasure.
You moan and whimper, yet he continues to suck in your clit. You can feel a finger inside, or maybe two, as they go in and out. Practically shattering you all at once while fusing you once for all.
Your hand travel its way to his hair. Ruffled enough to make the red and the white parts almost indistinguishable.
Oh dear.
Though your eyes are close, hands are fumbling around for support and legs are strictly held in place by Shoto, yet you can feel his tongue moving. As if in patterns, not that you could figure out. It either went in for an eight or just licked off entirely as one does while eating an icecream. You moan his name again and again, the same sensation building up block by block as he paves deeper and denser.
“I can’t take this anymor-”
“What makes you think that’s gonna stop me from eating this pussy.”
Little do you know that shoto can’t hold back anymore, it’s not just that he is in control but he has lost control. At the sight of your dark flushed red cheeks, delicacy and vulnerability, he only gets faster and tougher on you. His other fingers reach around and grips your ass, with his fingers slightly grazing across your unused hole.
That’s it, that was enough for you to go stagnant again, in your mind atleast. Your legs start shaking, with your mouth parted yet again. Shoto quickly stands up, with fingers still inside, to help you stay stood up. You feel yourself about to pass out, but in actuality are fully awake and aware. He kisses you, now moaning with you as well, as he fingers you until you cum.
His teeth take in your lower lip as your eyes flicker up at his unmatched ones.
Shoto, with one hand against the wall, halts for a minute. He stands tall in front of you, while holding you as you struggle to stand.
In midst of huffed breaths, you manage to say, “I- I, I mean- can I make you feel good as well?” On listening thise words, he goes still, “Baby, you can barely stand.”
“Still-” but again, before you could say anything, he picks you up in bridal style and dropping you on the bed; letting you lay back while he removed his left over garments.
This is when his erect manhood is finally exposed, refilling your memories of your first time when you had simply wondered how would you take all of that in. You did, though it was painful. But this time you refuse to be scared by the length, you know this is going to feel the best and you’re willing to take him in, deep inside you.
Shoto sighs and walks to the bed, “No-”
“Shoto?”
“Tonight is about you. Let ME explore you.”
“I wa-wanna hug you,” you blurt out.
He giggles, “sure, all that my y/n wants shall come true.”
But when you attempt to get up, your legs just fail to response. Even the slightest movement feels like a bolt of electricity run through you. At the sight of you falling back on the bed, Shoto simply smirks and says, “By the looks of it, I think I did a pretty good job at pushing your limits.”
“Don’t- I can’t even walk.”
“Wait,” he climbs on the bed beside you, sitting with back against the headboard while you lie against him, still breathless, still attempting to move.
“Don’t move princess,” saying this, he carefully pulls you up, with your head on his thigh. He helps you sit up slowly, while embracing your body against him, and finally hugs you, like a child clenching onto his teddy favourite bear.
“You are so beautiful,” he says as he gets up, while eyes glued on you. He moves to the end of the bed and pulls you towards him as he climbs in again. His two digits reenter your dampness, almost making you hiss at first but it’s soon replaced with moans.
Your back arcs as you mumble, “Sho-shoto, I’m very sensitive ri-right n-now. ah-”
While on his part, he receives it as a signal to level up to the next stage. He slowly penetrates in, soon pacing up. Warmth filled in your hearts and sweat glinting the lustre. He repostions you both a couple of times, giving you different forms of pleasures with each go. 
You as well witness his fire quirk leaking out at times. He kisses you deeply and claims you as his own as he repeats the words, “I’ll never let you go.”
Now it’s past 3am, as your exhausted bodies lay next to each other; that’s when he whispers, “I love you.” Maybe he thinks you are already asleep, but you are not. He clearly can’t leave anything unspoken.
i hope this has left you baffled 
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springfieldblues · 3 years
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my long ass review for S32E03 Now Museum, Now You Don’t
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warning: LONG because i rambled about history more than i thought i would
id been looking forward to this one because i like art history, especially after seeing how they tried their best to stick to historical accuracy in the previous episode I, Carumbus. this time however….they didnt try that hard. i dont know why i thought theyd go through that sort of trouble again LMAO
but its okay, i dont really expect the simpsons to be the paragon of historical accuracy or anything. especially in anthology episodes told through a particular character's lens (in this case, lisa, whos already feverish so whatever)
first i just wanna say that this is, i guess, less of a review and more of an accidental list of history fun facts. so im just gonna get my general thoughts out of the way first.
the episode was fun! to me at least haha. i mean it got me to think and do a lot of research on my own so that must count for something. besides a couple of really weird ones, the jokes were good. anthology episodes tend to be….not that good but i thought this one was one of the better ones so far. idk.
anyway on to lisanardo da vinky its the renaissance! jesus christ the italian accents in the beginning of this segment were annoying as hell but i also feel like that was the joke lmao. ill be real i kind of tuned out for a second there when grampa started rambling so idk what he said.
i told myself i wouldnt get nitpicky with historical accuracy if the jokes were funny (final edit: so that was a lie) but this meh bit with the pizza guys and mascots was really not worth ignoring the fact that its impossible for italy to have any tomato-based food in the 15th century (tomatoes were brought to europe from the americas in the 16th century, and pizza as we know it today—flatbread, cheese, tomato—originated in the late 18th century)
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oh this next part was kind of legit tho. lisanardo, like the real leonardo, became andrea del verrochio's apprentice at his workshop. i loved this next bit:
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"Whoever paints the sweetest cherub will have the honor of having MY name signed on their work. That's what great artists do!"
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SO YEAH as it turns out, lisanardo painted the sweetest cherubs. the painting here is called The Baptism of Christ, and the real leonardo assisted verrochio in finishing it. specifically, he painted the cherubs in the corner.
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this causes verrochio to quit and go someplace with less talented people: a music school (yes, verrochio did quit painting after getting owned by young leo and his mad angel painting skills. he never did anything with music tho, he was more of a sculptor)
alongside lisanardo, in mr largo-verrochio's workshop we have barticelli (botticelli bart), dolphatello (donatello dolph), ralphael (raphael...ralph) and mediocrito (no one that i know of. sorry milhouse) (and kearney i guess but they dont refer to him by name). botticelli and donatello are said to have also been apprentices at verrochio's workshop, but raphael came a couple of decades later so he couldnt have been there. and donatello was too old so that claim is a bit questionable. but anyway
it IS true that leonardo's peers envied him, to the point where he was anonymously and purposefully accused of being gay (a major crime punishable by death in 15th century florence) while he was still working at verrochio's workshop
we are then treated by what im pretty sure is the fourth time the show has used 'at seventeen' by janis ian, this time sung by a dejected lisanardo (man they really do keep making yeardley sing these days huh) who only wishes to be appreciated and not envied.
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"I'll show them all! I'll show them all in a secret diary that no one will decipher for 400 years!"
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some of lisanardo's future inventions. who wouldve known
so after barticelli, for some reason (revenge??? or something?? what was his plan here idgi) steals lisanardo's diaries full of blueprints of her inventions and takes them to mr burns who i have to assume is pope alexander VI here, they decide to use her inventions for war.
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"With these, we can kill the most evil people in the world!! ....Slightly different Christians."
leo actually did this of his own accord. im surprised this is what they decided to do with lisanardo instead of talking about leo's love of nature and vegetarianism (not a single mention of that in this episode? come on...) then again, trying to do good only to end up indirectly making things worse is a very standard lisa storyline. i guess they didnt want to miss the chance to have evil pope burns (very fitting, especially for that era since they were all about money and controlling the people)
so lisanardo decides to leave for france, unlike the real leonardo who was more or less persuaded by his ultimate fanboy king francis I to move to france.
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"Lisanardo, I have many questions. Why are you hitting yourself? A nerd says 'what'? And how is it possible that I am rubber and you are glue? Et cetera, et cetera."
that line may seem a little random, like hes just nelson saying nelson things (and i mean, obviously he is) but the real francis also "had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experimental knowledge. He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works to why the moon shines." so yeah, he did have many questions and lisanardo, finally being appreciated for her intellect, was happy to answer them all. its very interesting how lisa assigned this role to nelson in her retelling of da vinci’s life :^)
and so she lived the rest of her days in france, nat king cole's 'mona lisa' plays because duh, and they make a da vinci code reference because duh. and the segment ends. and not a single time did they show the actual mona lisa painting. the fuck?
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(ngl i was fully expecting bart to say 'leonardo da vinky' for a second here)
so this next segment is about french impressionist painters, most likely the batignolles group, a name adopted by the early representatives of impressionism. its much more vague than the lisanardo segment since no one here is referred to by name (except moe, more on him in a sec) but i dont feel like it really matters in this case. bart is prrrrooobably claude monet but its hard to say, this segment is kind of a mish-mash of a lot of things. also i gotta say i really liked how lisa introduced the story to bart with an 'if you hate the formal study of art' and not 'if you hate art' because thats exactly my headcanon. i LOVE the concept of artist bart and whenever its referenced it just makes perfect sense to me.
anyway the segment opens in 1863 at the école des beaux-arts (back then it was actually known as the académie des beaux-arts), preserver of traditional french art styles. skinner reviews his students’ paintings one by one. praises the plain, unimaginative paintings depicting your typical european countryside landscapes. very run-of-the-mill (haha get it...cuz theres….a windmill) (although the real académie didnt approve of such basic stuff, they wanted artists to draw epic historical and mythological scenes) then he gets to barts painting and he gives him an F- because the painting made him think.
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(the paintings in this scene arent real famous paintings as far as i know but they are inspired by real paintings enough to get the point across)
in comes barney dressed as bacchus as a model for the students to sketch, which i just loved:
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barney: “You prefer robe open or robe off?” skinner: “Just cover your privates with this walnut shell.” barney: “Whoa!!! So roomy!”
skinner gasps in horror at bart’s sketch, which “looks nothing like him” and bart explains that “it shouldn’t; we’re making the art that we feel because we can’t compete with a camera.” damn, you go bart. take that, realism. draw what you feel!!
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(also no, you didnt need to hold still for 17 hours for a daguerreotype. 30 min tops.)
nelson haw-haw of the week: FOIE-gras!
so here they are at the moulin rouge (“enjoy it before baz luhrmann ruins it” hey shut up. i love that movie), which wouldnt be built for another 26 years, but it is the most widely known gathering place for bohemians in the public consciousness so i can understand why they went with the moulin. nelson delivers this anachronistic line:
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“This époque keeps getting beller and beller!”
which alludes to la belle époque, the golden age of france usually dated from 1880 to 1914. made me snort so ill let that slide
and heres moe! as henri de toulouse-lautrec, who was actually born a year after the year this segment is set in. yo moe szyslak he was just 1
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toulouse-moetrec introduces himself as the chronicler of the demimonde (not an actual job). an iconic figure associated with the moulin rouge (largely due to his affinity for alcohol and prostitutes), toulouse-lautrec was also a painter, having illustrated a series of posters for the moulin himself. he simply had to be in this segment, anachronisms be damned, just because they decided to include the moulin. cant have one without the other.
and yes he did have a walking cane where he kept his liquor.
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i love how everyone drinks absinthe in this place. theyre bohemians what else would they drink
toulouse-moetrec points out that barts paintings are the greatest thing hes ever seen (and hes seen like five things!) and that hes a genius. milhouse realizes that they should stop doing what the teacher says and use their own minds to instead...start doing what bart says lmao. to the easels!
next we have skinner hyping up chalmers about the art his students made for the salon de paris, an art exhibition that the emperor of france will attend. he assures him that none of these paintings will encourage debate, provoke thought or be out of place at a dentist’s office. when they unveil the art, theyre both SHOCKED at how scandalous the paintings actually are.
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this reaction was kind of accurate. impressionism was severely rejected at the salon de paris, due to paintings not looking finished enough to them, they thought they were ugly and vulgar for depicting nudity in a contemporary setting (historical and mythological nudity was fine). these impressionist paintings were sent to the salon de refusés, which is. yeah. the place where they sent the rejects. the salon de refusés does not make an appearance but this scene makes a reference to it when the artists get expelled from the royal salon. also:
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“What about our student loans?” “Oh they’ll be refunded. We are not barbarians, I mean, come on.”
(god if only)
so the painters are down because they want the emperor to actually see their paintings. toulouse-moetrec pipes in once again with an idea.
“There is one thing the emperor loves more than anything.” “France?” “No, he hates France.”
apparently the emperor really loves cheese, which makes sense since its napoleon III (who loved cheese) and homer (who loves cheese.) so the painters roll into the salon inside a giant wheel of cheese (obviously.) as lenny said, “Eh, you know French cheese. Very runny.” napoleon III chases after the wheel into a room, where the wheel falls apart after getting chomped on by the emperor. now that they got his attention, the painters proudly show the emperor their impressionist art, which he couldnt be more indifferent about because he just wants to eat his cheese dammit, and he awards them with the royal medallion just to kind of get them out of his way. skinner immediately starts kissing ass (as he does) until marge’s like ‘hey wait a minute. you expelled these students from the royal salon’ and an executioner immediately starts ominously measuring skinners neck.
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“Uh, sir...is your tongue sticking out because you’re dead or because you’re mad at me?”
and thats the end of that lmao (gore in this episode, gore in the last episode, and next week we’re getting gore too cuz its THOH, what the hell is goin on)
we get a short intermission with maggie, who wants a story for her too! lisa tells her that renaissance artists loved to put babies in their paintings, especially baby angels.
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here she is showing her The Triumph Of Galatea by raphael:
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King David Playing The Harp by peter paul reubens:
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and a very simplified version of pretty much any depiction of hell by hyeronimus bosch lmao:
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not much else to say about this one, really. but i really liked that sky!
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the last segment is about frida kahlo and diego rivera. or as bart puts it ‘the one about a fat guy whos wife is too good for him.’ i was REALLY looking forward to this one because i love frida and i thought itd be a cool opportunity for animators to go bonkers and do really cool shit with her art as inspiration…..but the segment is not about frida, its about diego and his selling out to capitalism. and its also yet another story with homer and marge drama. no funky cool animation here. sigh i guess i’ll take it
the story begins in 1929 at la casa azul, frida’s home (now museum dedicated to her life and work.) frida and diego are getting married. this courtyard definitely did not look this way yet back in 1929. also theres something very cringy yet funny about lovejoy saying spanish words the way he does, i honestly cant decide how i feel about that one
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the writers know theyre being cringy with their gringoness so they go along with it.
moe: “Spanish for ‘best wishes’!” mel: “Spanish for ‘congratulations’!” bumblebee man: “Spanish for ‘muy bueno’!”
OH YEAH BUMBLEBEE MAN this is his new voice actor, eric lopez! hes not mexican but its still great to finally have a latino actor voicing a latino character and hes very excited to be part of the show so i hope to hear more of him!! im rooting for him
el barto/zorro makes an appearance which i am very confused about. he has jack shit to do with frida and diego and mexico in the 20s-30s. el zorro was set in the spanish california of the early 19th century. their use of the original theme song makes me think they just wanted to flex their disney privileges tbh
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lets not talk about that that whole scene was bad
anyway diego announces he and frida are going to new york, without even asking her first. frida is obviously pissed.
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“Don’t worry, as a woman, you’ll be treated with much more respect in America.”
so in new york, diego is having a bit of a business meeting with mr burns as one of the members of the rockefellers, who is commissioning him to draw a mural for the rockefeller center. its kinda funny how he refers to him and frida as socialists even though they were very much communists lmao its okay you can say it. ok so far, but then frida says ‘yes, we hate the capitalists! right now, a young socialist is being born who will take them down! mr. bernie sanders. i hope hes quick about it’ and that was a simple enough joke and couldve been left at that but then its immediately followed by this weird as fuck family guy-esque cutaway gag to bernie as a baby:
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“Getting a cootie shot should not cost your lunch money. And if you don’t listen to me, listen to the Bernie Babies! What? Everybody’s got goons.” *larger babies start beating up this other baby* “I disavow that, and welcome it.”
this confused me so much that i had to ask one of my american friends to help me understand, but even she was like ‘uhhh yeah thats a weird joke,’ especially now that hes been out of the race for months (then again these episodes take almost a year to produce. i guess they couldnt be bothered to replace it with something more relevant.) whatever that was weird and confusing and unfunny moving on
frida is pretty irked that diego is going through with this deal. after all, it goes against everything they believe in. im not sure how the real frida felt about diego doing the mural, but she did feel a bit of rage during her visit to the united states, especially the obvious disparity between rich and poor. she hated having to interact with capitalists and found americans very boring. in this segment, frida seems to be acting more like the american communist party, which diego got kicked out of for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons. in any case, frida is pretty upset about this whole thing.
and finally we get the first and only kind of surreal frida moment. kinda. maybe. its more cartoonish than anything but im desperate ok
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interesting how they felt like they had to add a “don’t smoke” in big letters after showing patty and selma flying away on their giant cigarettes. i wonder if this is something theyre making them do now? i remember hearing something about them toning down patty and selma’s smoking
diego comes home to frida, drunk as hell, followed by the marx brothers. i cant believe they didnt make a marxism joke come on it was RIGHT THERE. THE MARX BROTHERS. KARL MARX. COME ON
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frida paints her feelings.
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this makes diego realize that frida is a genius and he is not half the artist she is. he proclaims he will now show his awe of her by sleeping with other women, starting “an hour ago.” to which frida replies, “and i will start sleeping with other women, starting two hours ago.” yes this was pretty much their relationship. though im just wondering how the hell did diego not know frida was this kind of artist until now? i know homers an idiot but jeez. art was how frida and diego met, diego knew from the get-go that frida was an incredible artist. i guess the fame got to his head or something. again, homer just being stupid.
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“well enough already, while the art is still deco, okay?”
its time for the mural diego painted, Man At The Crossroads, to be unveiled:
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rockefeller examines it. good and great so far, and then...uh oh
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“Who’s that fellow…? With the beard, and the bolshevik smile…” “That’s the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin!”
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“B-b-but he’s a communist!” “Oh he just attended a couple of meetings.”
rockefeller will not have this communist in the temple to capitalism that is the rockefeller center, so he orders diego to paint over it. diego stands his ground and refuses. despite rockefeller’s threats, diego says that theres only one person he wants to be proud of him no matter what and in true homer & marge fashion, frida is touched by this. they happily leave the rockefeller center.
now, the real story of Man At The Crossroads and the rockefeller center was actually not that different. as soon as the rockefellers found out diego had snuck in a portrait of lenin into the mural, they ordered him to paint over it, to which he refused. diego even offered to include abraham lincoln and even american abolitionists in the mural as a compromise, but the rockefellers simply did not want any references to communism whatsoever. they did not complain about the hammer and sickle, though. yes, they did know diego was a communist and hired him anyway. what did they expect? lmao. diego said:
"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."
so they decided to destroy the mural before it was even finished and they never talked to each other again.
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diego then repainted the mural at the palacio de bellas artes back in mexico, this time known as Man, Controller of the Universe. this new version included even more communist leaders and a depiction of john d. rockefeller jr. drinking at a nightclub, right underneath a depiction of syphilis bacteria. cue nelson haw-haw:
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this was the version they used in the episode also, since the original was, well, never finished and also destroyed. only a black and white photograph of it exists, taken by diego before it was destroyed so he could remake it.
right so, homer!diego then pulls a Barthood and finishes the episode with a large mural summarizing the entire episode. he says some rick and morty thing i didnt get because i dont watch the show idk idc
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the end
ALRIGHT NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STORY OF VINCENT VAN MOE
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thatnamelessbutler · 3 years
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(OoC: So, what's the AU thing about?)
((ooc: Okay so basically I got an idea form a song completely unrelated to the fandom and long story short, Bi n Bu are no longer able to escape from the Egg except through a very specific method, and then Karl comes back along and bippity boppity your body is now our property!
So, yeah. Body-swap AU except Karl kinda dies because to get the swap to work everyone's body had to die. Karl's gets healed afterwards through magical time shenanigans-
So Billiam and Rune(Bu's new name in this AU) wake up in the library, in our current DSMP present, in the weird body of this weird guy who's apparently a weird color-shapeshifter.(yeah, i'm going with the cryptid creature Karl for this one because. it's cool as heck and I never see this anywhere)
a little while after they wake up in the present, karl wakes up after being dormant because he literally died and it's like "HEY WAIT WHAT THE HECK YOU STOLE MY BODY" and everyone else goes "shit shit shit shit"
p.s if you're wondering where hubert is he's dead. the egg killed nearly everyone except billiam and butler because bi is its main caretaker and bu will never leave his side
(more under the cut please there's so much and i actually love this au so much)
Now I'm not a system but I imagine these four(yes, four; Billiam, Rune, Piam(Billiam's Piglin side), and Tune(Bu's Other) operate kind of like one. They have an innerworld and everything, they aren't just all constantly crammed into the front. That would get confusing, stressful and difficult to manage overall. Bu's usually the one fronting because no one else wants to; Billiam doesn't wanna do it because he doesn't wanna mingle with the "poor", Tune doesn't wanna do it because it always gets tripped up with literally everything about the body, it's not even dangerous enough to protect now, and Piam doesn't wanna do it because he's kind of scared of the Overworld someone that doesn't know how to be a Human Person
Oh yeah and I've also talked about all this and more with my bestie so here's a copy-paste of that conversation-
I think an encounter with Sapnap and/or Quackity would go terribly too, until they sit down and explain things as best they can wait no actually "So basically, we killed your fiancée so we could inhabit his body and escape from a really bad situation. sorry" Acid Sapanap would go feral and I can't even begin to conceive what extremely destructive thoughts Quackoty would start having Me MHM Sapnap probably pulls a sword on them and they automatically reach for their own before remembering "Oh shit, we don't have it. OH SHIT-" and then they just gotta r u n Butler's trying desperately to teleport but without a pearl, eeeeeh that's not gonna do anything buddy I'm not sure if Karl has armor in his inventory or not but either way they wouldn't have the time or coordination to equip it Acid they just immediately die it'd be so funny Me "NOT AGAIN, WE JUST GOT FREE- death" Now lets hope either Karl has some extra canon lives, or those lives Billiam bought carry over Acid PFFFFT, BILLIAM'S LIVES GET CARRIED WITH THEM AND IT'S JUST revives ok listen we don't gotta dies revives please let's just dies revives why do you do t dies revives this is just gonna last forever isn't it? dies rev- Me wheeze YEAH "GET OUT OF KARL'S BODY!" "We can't!! It's already been done!! dies" "WHY WON'T YOU DIE!!?" "We are!!??" ohhh, bonus angst points if every time they die, Butler goes a little more dormant- Butler was only meant to have one life, he never got any Totems and his soul cannot take this in the way Billiam's can After about 15 deaths, Billiam gets Sapnap to stop for about five seconds, and in those five seconds he realizes that he can no longer hear or feel Butler Acid oh god Me If he manages to get far enough away and find someplace to hide(perhaps the library again), he dips into the headspace and finds Butler just gone. He looks around for a while and finds them far away from where they were, collapsed on the ground, flickering slightly, and entirely unresponsive. And no matter how much he tries, they just won't wake up, and their Ender half has disappeared completely. He can't do anything except wait for them. Acid fjsjdj oh my god imagine Billiam just goes feral after that he's like "what did you do to m y B u t l e r" and just jumps on Sapnap with his bare hands Me Oh absolutely, he will Murder Sapnap without a second thought and he doesn't care how many deaths he has to go through to do it even though dying more will make it take longer for butler to wake up, and then afterwards he'll be pacing around random areas stress-stimming intensely and waiting for his child to wake up Acid yeap Me Somehow he finds his way to Kinoko Kingdom and is like "oh, this looks like a good place for a walk" and then spends the entire time not actually looking at anything and drowned in anxiety
AND THEN THESE WERE LAST NIGHT'S THOUGHTS, SOMEHOW LATER ON THEY END UP AT SAPNAP'S PLACE CAUSE THEY TECHNICALLY DON'T HAVE A PLACE TO STAY Unless you count the library but I don't think that would be very comfortable-
Anyway, Rune was fronting when they fell asleep and then their chronic nightmares came back. Sapnap wakes up(or was he ever really sleeping?) to some almost animalistic gasping in the other room and runs in to find Karl Karl's body curled on the bed, barely humanoid and random flashes of color spiking over him in waves and clawlike hands digging into his head
So he tries to wake him up, and when he does Bu's first reaction is to scramble away in pure terror because he's not fully out of the nightmare yet, there are even tears running down his face that just get absorbed back into the mass of color. Sapnap tries to calm him down, and eventually succeeds enough to ask him what the hell happened, and who's fronting once he remembers that that is a thing-
Thing is, Bu's gone nonverbal, but hey at least Karl was some sort of shapeshifter so they can just shift blobs of color into the air to answer Sapnap's questions
He very quickly learns only to ask yes/no ones because he can't read Galactic which is the only thing Bu can respond in, but that whole night ends on a pretty good note :3
Acid IS KARL IN THE SYSTEM CANON? HE'D BE THE MAIN FRONTER IF IT IS I THINK Me After that nightmare Rune finds himself trusting Sapnap a little more but also not as able to front, he's just so tired of it. No one else wants to front, he always has to stay there and he never gets a break. At least before, Tune had control during the night and he got to rest some. Now his sleep schedule is just as abhorred as before and no one else even comes near the front. He tries as long as he can, for everyone else's sake, but after weeks of fronting alone he just can't anymore. So he finally leaves the front and just collapses face-first into idk a patch of grass in the innerworld or something, and he's so exhausted of being a person that he can't even think straight, He doesn't want consolation, he doesn't want promises, he doesn't even want cuddles he just wants someone else to take over for a bit. Me OOH MAYBE He wakes up and wanders around the innerworld figuring out what the heck is going on and wondering why he can't see the outside anymore and oh god is he dead, are they all dead maybe they're all dead and none of them know it, and then Rune comes out of front and practically begs to not have to be a person anymore, he tells Karl "please i just want a break, just go out there or get someone else to go out there for a while please" and, well, Karl takes a chance and goes out to front and holy shit is this the real world, holy shit are those his fiancées, holy s h i t Acid THAT'S THE BESR OUTCOME ACTUALLY Me YESSSSSSSSS MASQUERADE SYSTEM + KARL THE MAN HIMSELF JACOBS Acid YESSS Me Karl and Rune are now host and co-host, because. no one else wants to front Acid Karl tricking Billiam into fronting.mp4 Me GSHDFGBSGDHFBSF Rune and Karl lock him into front and Rune proceeds to lean against the nearest flat surface, slide down and then dissociate for the next couple/several hours Karl makes sure no one disturbs him, even if Tune and Piam are Very Worried about their exhausted Human hybrid Acid them taking care of Rune (affectionate)
Acid OK WAIT I WAS THINKING AND IN SYSTEMS PEOPLE USUALLY MANIFEST SO I WAS THINKING HOW THAT'D WORK IN THE MASQUERADE SYS AND I REALIZED THAT EVERYONE IN THERE IS TECHNICALLY DEAD IN A WAY WHAT IF THAT'S THIS AU'S LIMBO? ONE DAY WILBUR POPS UP AND COMMITS MULTIPLE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY Me HOLY SHIT OH SHIT EVERYONE THAT PERMA-DIES JUST ENDS UP AS AN ALTER IN KARL'S WEIRD COLOR-SHAPESHIFTING BODY XDDD You can always tell who's fronting by the colors, as long as you actually know them enough to know their colors- Acid Wilbur: hello Quackity, I am BAC- Karl: oh my GOD Wilbur shut the FUCK UP we understand it you're gay now please get out of front I have a date in 10 minutes Acid OOOOO YES Me Like Rune is purple/pink(mainly pink) gray-red/dark purple/orange/green eyes(right/right/left/left, respectively), and then he has some other colors sifting through, like a dark indigo-blue and a yellow the color of Endstone Tune is all of that but some of it is darker(the pinks/purples and Endstone color), some of it's the same(the eyes, except they have a light pink shine over them) and some of it is inverted. Clouds will waft around the body when it's fronting and whenever you look through the clouds you'll see the colors inverted Billiam is solidly pale pink except for his eyes(maroon) and his hands and feet(gold, with veins streaking out and tapering off at about the elbow) Piam is a slightly redder pink, with spots of a Netherrack color here and there, and his gold is more orangey, like there's fire reflecting off of it karl is just. karl. Of course he's got the signature swirls in bright violent and teal but other than that he's just a smorgasbord of color, usually bright and neon. When he's near/thinking about Sapnap and/or Quackity, little hearts start popping off him
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cassthecringe · 3 years
Text
OKAY IVE ACTUALLY PLAYED TWO SESSIONS SINCE MY LAST POST SO IM GONNA COMBINE THEM HERE SORRY FOR THE LENGTH BUT,,IVE COME SO FAR I DONT WANNA STOP NOW
this is gonna be very messy cause i WILL be jumping back and forth as things come back to mind so uhh pls enjoy this absolute ramble <3
anyway. i continued playing omori and boy do i have some Thoughts
so first session; i went through the pyre(something i forgot the full name sob) forest/sprout mole village/sweetheart’s castle in one go and let me TELL YOU. DOING THAT WAS FUCKING INSANE I WENT NUTS holy shit.
so anyway.
pyre forest!!!! the lil race against the big spider coming after u for disturbing the smaller spiders mechanic was very fun i had a lot of fun figuring out the best routes to take. i know normally mechanics like that lead to ppl getting frustrated cause u have to keep retrying but i had a lot of fun!!!! sum annoyance but good natured type, th kind that just makes u try harder u know? i just enjoyed it JKFN;FN; candles in the foggy forest....now That is an aesthetic
the rare bear scared the fuckin shit out of me i remember it didn’t attack me straight away so i was like “aw (:” but then when i press x on him it takes me to a BATTLE SCREEN AND SUDDEN THAT MF IS TERRIFYING I WAS LIKE WHWHWHWHWKJDNJ. very funny i honestly wished i recorded my reaction
also omori is afraid of drowning...................................i am breathing heavily. i think whatever happened to mari is related to at least one of the things omori is scared of. so either heights, spiders, or drowning it seems. spiders doesnt seem super likely as a contributor to her death, and while falling from a height is more realistic, such a senseless way of dying doesnt seem to rlly fit ? with the vibe i get from the kiddos in the real world. which makes me think maybe drowning/otherwise suffocating is how she died...but we’ll see. also due to the forgotten library part, we know omori explicitly feared spiders/drowning before mari died so it’s also probable im jus talking out my ass here but still,,,,thoughts
also this motherfucker?
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literally fucking terrifying. IT’S BODY IS MADE OF SUCC’D SPROUT MOLES...i still have no idea what exactly it was doing to them but jesus h christ!!!! evil and fucked up. do not feel bad for curbstomping it
sprout mole village!!!! very cute, im v excited to send that one dude his brother’s care package. i like how, when theyre not lost, sprout moles can be real endearing lil guys,,,theyre not my fav lil enemies but (:
also for some reason omori is the first game ive played where i really care about getting achievements ? so i literally did the back and forth on my save file just to get all the season sprout mole achievements JKDJFJ;. i ended up sticking w spring tho before moving on for real cause spring is my fav season irl (:
also i felt SO BAD for cutting down that one sprout mole’s chistmas tree he was just trying to celebrate but i wanted to see that present and coincidentally becoming a christmas ruiner was an achievement so all’s fair in love and war i suppose
ALSO. th fuckin plant monster thing under the scientist sprout mole’s room. major little shop of horror vibes from the design, absolutely adored it!!!!! originally i did  just cut the wire holding the piano over it, ending it in one go, but i was very curious abt it so i reloaded a save file to actually fight it and
i know it only spread that gas to make the kiddos happy cause being happy reduces attack i think ? it decreases attack/defense but seeing the kiddos smile so much was nice (:
however
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omori...sunny....son boy.........u good ?
and now. sweetheart
the way the sprout moles completely adore and depend on sweetheart gives me such awful evil vibes and combined with such a luxurious background was fucking incredible
sweetheart herself, speaking of. bitch (sorta affectionately, certainly not derogatory)
i talked to every sprout mole in the audience before taking my seat and i literally dont know why. even when i picked up the pattern of where the unique dialogue could be found (usually the sprout moles farthest right) i still talked to all of them......just in case ? i have no idea. i dont know why i did that. i feel it’s important that i note it tho
LMAO SO WHEN SPROUT MOLE MIKE DID THE MINUTE OF SILENCE FOR YE OLD SPROUT MOLE
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I LITERALLY FELT SO FUCKING BAD LMAO I WAS LIKE OH MY GOD NO!!!!!! I DID THAT!!! I KILLED HIM!!! OH MY GOD!!! I WONDER HOW AWKWARD OMORI KEL HERO AND AUBREY FELT IN THE AUDIENCE HOLY SHIT THEY HAD FRONT ROW SEATS TO SPROUT MOLE MIKE’S MOURNING!!! MY GOD FJKFN;;
also sprout mole mike describing 3′7″ inches as ”towering” was the FUNNIEST shit i have ever seen. also i have to wonder, since sweetheart made up the whole show of sweetheart’s quest for hearts in the first place, if she was seriously down to marry a sprout mole if one suited her fancy. jus v funny to me honestly. SPEAKING of sweetheart’s dating patterns I NOTICED THOSE FEM SKELETONS IN THE DUNGEON!!!!! BI SWEETHEART!!!! SHE’S JUST AS DOWN FOR GIRLS AS SHE IS BOYS
i know TECHNICALLY not everyone is in the dungeon for failing to be a good enough suitor but STILL...COME ON. THIS WAS BEFORE WE KNEW THAT. SWEETHEART BI I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL
anyway
when the lights when out and lightning struck the third contestant, i knew Immediately something was gonna go down. and when the mustache sprout mole was like “oh yes!! u!! in the striped pjs!! u absolute beast ur perfect!!!” i KNEW hero had just been selected as the replacement i was goign completely fucking nuts i was like OH MY GODNFNG; HIS HEART IS ALREADY TAKEN BY MARI!!!!!!! STOP
i ended up taking so many screenshots during this part cause i was going feral so here take a glance just cause i love, uh, hero
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OUR HERO IN SHINING ARMOR DJLBH;KFJB
also GOD FUCKING DAMMIT IM SHORTER THAN HERO
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hero shaking on the stage when he was introduced...oh my HEART....IM SO FOND FOR THIS BOY WTF!!!!! DKJDN;N
this is not really NEWS to me since it’s implied hero is tall but like come ON..... sorry just every time i find out a character is explicitly taller than me i need to huff about it, moving on,
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HERO FUCKS
sorry i just have so many screenshorts during this aprt cause i was going fucking crazy but
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literally terrifying! sweetheart bathes in that shit!! christ!
is blood good for ur skin? i imagine, so long as like...gore isnt in it and it’s solely blood it cant be BAD necessarily......but good ? regardless very fucked up. besides the fact that well, uh, BLOOD, blood is also sticky as hell. ur telling me sweetheart willinglhy bathed in that shit? disgusting. at least thin it out
anyway I HAD SO MUCH FUN DOING THE PUZZLES AT SWEETHEART’S CASTLE....FROM THE DUNGEONS TO THE KITCHENS TO THE BALLROOM TO THE LIBRARY TO THE GARDENS JUST EVERYTHING!!!! IT WAS SO FUN I ENJOYED FIGURING IT OUT SO MUCH IT WAS LITERALLY DELIGHTFUL...I LOVE THIS GAME SO MUCH THE GAMEPLAY IS SO FUCKING EPIC I LITERALLY HAVE SO MUJCH FUN.......OH MY GOD I JUST. INCREIDBLE!!!! FUCK
also the lil sir maximus bit.........i honestly felt really awful over having to kill them ): i think i even tried running once but it wouldnt let me...it hurt man ): they were just a family....
um but anyway,
i think it was rlly sweet how aubrey protested to the wedding cause she was worried abt sweetheart,,,like i cant rlly explain it idk how to put it into words,,like sweetheart is clearly not mentally well and having an episode, and aubrey being the only one to say “hey what ur doing is self-destructive and isolating” just mmmh. she cares a lot,,,and *i* care aubrey
also sweetheart’s battle theme fucking SLAPPED...SO GODDAMN HARD IM STILL QUAKING OVER IT....FUCKING BANGER YO!!!!!! INCREDIBLE
ah but alas
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BASIL........I NOTICED THAT IT WAS HIS GHOST/SHADOW DURING THE EXIT FROM OTHERWORLD AS WELL BUT JUST FUCK
im so worried about basil ):
and it being so obvious that none of the others can see...........them asking omori if he’s okay.....oh my god. i go nuts
and then...the forgotten library part
i literally cried, again, oh my fucking god
these kids loved each other so much they ADORED the time they spent with each other and im QUAKING to know WHAT HAPPENED TO MARI......HOW DID THE FALLOUT GO. I NEED TO KNOW I NEED TO KNOW I NEED TO KNOW
i know there are multiple endings to this game and on god i am not QUITTING until i get the happiest ending there is for these kids im literally a goddamn fuckign mess oh my god
MARI SHWOING UP IN THE LIBRARY AT ONE POINT AND LEADING OMORI...........IM LTIERALLY GOIGN INSANE OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HE LOVED HIS SISTER SO MUCH HE’S SO CLEARLY LOST WITHOUT HER I CANT FUCKING DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. I NEED TO KNOW I NEED TO KNOW I NEED TO KNOW
GOD
okay sorry i just. ive said ti before but the grief in this game is so real and palpable and it aches, it aches so bad. also the white egret orchids in the library...i see u
but regardless.... session two real world electric boogaloo
LOVE that kel is like “so i need to run errands but u wanna come with me right? of course u do!” like fuck i rlly do. kel is just so delightful i would literally do anything to spend time with him
ALSO i noticed u can just refuse to open the door both times kel’s knocked now and it makes me wonder....if u could choose to ignore kel ? and then venture out urself or just ? i wonder what would even happen if u chose to not open the door. im CERTAINLY not doing it myself at the very least not this playthrough but i am curious...i bet that’s how u get a bad ending, by not talking w kel
but anyway....
aubrey and her gang not saying anything in the pizza parlor........i jus think abt that is all
ALSO!! pet rocks!!!!!!!!! LOVE this lil thing it’s so cute. jus rock paper scissors it babey
speaking of lil bits, love all the mini quests in the real world...it’s just rlly fun and builds up this cute lil town........it also makes me think that whatever happened to mari cant have been anything except an accident, bc no one comments on what a tragedy it was to omori. like if it was murder, there’s no way such a horrific situation wouldnt engulf the town for a bit and sweep over it for weeks at least, but that just doesnt seem to have happened. this is def me reading too into it tho;; point is neighbors nice (: also i got the seashell necklace and i go apeshit
ALSO......THE FUCKING...........CHURCH. I VISITED WITH KEL ON A COMPLETE WHIM CAUSE I WAS CURIOUS IF THE PASTOR WOULD TALK MORE ABT AUBREY BUT NO. INSTEAD HE TALKS ABT THE WEIRD VIBE FORM THE GRAVEYARD HE’S GETTING!!! AND THE DUDE WHO CHILLS IN THE GRAVEYARD SAYS SHIT ABT THE SPIRITS GETTING READY FOR SOMEONE TO JOIN THEM!!!! BITCH WAHT THE FUCK
THERE’S NOF UCKING WAY THIS ISNT ABOUT BASIL. THERE IS NO!!! WAY!!!! I SWEAR ON GOD IF BASIL DIES I WILL LOSE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ESP CAUSE THERE IS LITERALLY NO OTHER WAY HE COULD DIE EXCEPT SUICIDE THAT’S WHAT IT HAS BEEN IMPLYING OVER AND OVER I GO NUTS I GO APESHIT NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUCK
OKAY SORRY I JUST. HHHHHHHHHHH
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baby has acquired baby
kel’s family is rlly cute,,,,v heartwarming. i trust them
i do worry abt like...the stark difference between recognizing kel’s accomplishments and hero’s...i just idk. i just keep thinking abt that bit in kel’s story abt hero’s depression when his parents focused on hero and ignored him, and i just. kel’s family is good People but i worry if kel has a good support system...i jus........): i am watching
ahh THE BASIL MISSING PART MADE MY HEART LITERALLY FUCKING DROP..I WAS SO FUCKING PANICKED I WAS LIKE OH MY GOD THIS IS IT BASIL IS DEAD
THANKFULLY HE WASNT BUT HOLY GOD HOW THAT WHOLE SITUATION PANNED OUT MADE ME GO NUTS!!!!!!! BASIL...AUBREY...HER GANG.......FUCK OH M YOGD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD
THANK G O D I SNOOPED AROUND KEL’S HOUSE BEFORE LEAVING I WOULD HAVE H A T E D TO FIGHT THEM ALL AT ONCE IM GLAD I WAS ABLE TO JUST PEPPER SPRAY THEM JESUS CHRIST
oh my god kim like asking for aubrey all concerned before deciding to trust her and leaving.....kim i diagnose u with lesbain
the whole fucking. basil almost drowning scene. i seriously feel like ive changed like as a person over it. i am thinking . i am thinking. i am only evee thinking about mari and how omori just loved her so much and how the thought of her gave him strength. th pic of her ghost holding omori’s hand in the water made me cry
MMMM BUT. HERO!!!
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I DIE I DIE I DIE HE’S SO PRETTY FUCK ALSO HIM PICKING UP BASIL WOOOOOOOO THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT YEAHHHHHHHH
god i feel so bad about leaving aubrey tho. shes so clearly not okay and she so clearly did not mean to push basil in and oh my GOD I JUST...PLEASE....PLEASE CAN WE JUST TLAK TO HER I NEED TO TLAK TO HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEED TO FUCK
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the ghosts of omori and aubrey on the swings made me cry out like i had been physically assaulted
AHH BUT THEN TAKING BASIL HOME AND WHILE HE’S IN HIS BED HE JUST SAYS “oh sunny...there’s not way out of this...is there?” I LITERALLY GO BUCKWILD APESHIT INSANE STUPDI!!!!!! BASIL YOURE PUTTING UP A LOT OF ALARMING FLAGS HERE!!! PLEASE DO NOT FUCKING DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!
FUCK. CHRIST. HELL. SHIT. THIS GAME IS DRIVING ME FUCKING CRAZY
GOD
oh my god but the day ending with hero and kel sleeping over at omori’s house...im kdnd im jkdim im not uhm okay THEY BUILT A BLANKET FORT PLEASE..I LOVE THEM
goddd hero going into the piano room....playing sum........and then asking omori abt the song he and mari used to play on violin...and then THE TITLE SCREEN MUSIC STARTS PLAYING....HI. HI HELLO HI YOU CANT FUCKIGN DO THAT HI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK YOUFBJFGJNGN;EJNE; IM GOIGN NUTS
also the name omori comes from the piano.............interesting...i wonder why sunny likes being called omori in the dreamscape...
god but omori not having a srs hallucination cause he’s w his friends and he feels safe...im gonna sob
However. i did glance into the bathroom mirror. AND INSTEAD OF THE EYE MF IT’S A DISTORTED AS HELL GHOST MARI???IM SO FUCKIGN SCARED. IM SO SCARED. WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE FUCK? CREEPY AS HELL!!!
ohh my god this GAME
so finally i ended up in whitespace again. do NOT like that omori is completely alone in the world!!! what the FUCK!!!!!!!! I AM SO SCARED AT ALL TIMES. im literally about to go play sum more tho after dinner so i will see what happens. god i jsut......this game is so fucking good it has me by the balls dude. SO glad i decided to play it bruh
anyway thanks for reading all of this if u did, it’s an absolute monster ik and ur a real one
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schrijverr · 3 years
Text
To be or not to be
Brian has an existential crisis about whether he is real, The Toy Soldier helps him. Later The Toy Soldier is questioning itself and goes to Brian, they find solance in the other.
On AO3.
Ships: none
Warnings: idk, this might not be for you if you are prone to existential crisis. Tell me if I missed anything or if you want me to tag something!
~~~~~~~~~~
Brian was panicking, he didn’t even know why he was panicking, but he was. Well that was a lie, he knew damn well why he was panicking, but the reason only made him panic more.
He had woken up to no sound.
It was very unusual for life on Aurora to be silent, so Brian had immediately become worried. He had hurried out of bed and to the common area, only to find multiple members up and running, shouting and shooting at each other. But he couldn't hear a thing.
The others had noticed him standing there, confused and panicked. They had asked him what was wrong. He had tried to explain, seeing them cringe and lean in as his volume switched between too hard and too soft according to their reactions.
They quickly figured out that a wire had disconnected in his sleep, something that was easily mended, but it left Brian with a sour taste in his mouth. Well, it would have if he’d had any taste buds, which he didn’t, because he was a robot.
He wasn’t real.
And there it was, the real issue that was making him walk through the halls disorientated as he tried to calm down and not spiral. It wasn’t working out for him so far, though.
Brain was about to just sit down and curl into a ball when he ran into The Toy Soldier. It was whistling a tune as it marched, but it fell still when it saw Brian. It cocked its head to the side and asked: “Are You Quite Alright, Old Sport?”
“Yeah.” Brian tried weakly, unsure why he was even lying.
“I Am Not Sure That Is Correct, But I Do Not Think I Can Tell You Your Feelings Are Not Real.” TS replied.
“Maybe you just can, TS. After all why would I be real?” Brian sighed sadly.
The Toy Solider frowned, then carefully said: “I Might Be Understanding Your Tone Wrong, But You Seem Upset About That Fact.”
Brain scuffed his foot on the floor and looked down, before he shrugged: “I don’t know, you know? I feel I should be real, but then my body reminds me how not human I am and it freaks me out and then I wonder why I’m even trying to be real when I’m so obviously not. I mean, my morality is controlled by a little switch, who am I even fooling?”
“Not Being Real Isn’t The End Of The World.” The Toy Soldier said in an attempt to cheer him up.
He smiled and said: “I know that, TS. Sorry, if I made you feel like you not being real is dumb or something, I just want to be real, but I don’t feel like I am, you know?”
“I Do Not Feel, So You Didn’t, Do Not Worry.” The Toy Soldier assured him, “And You Are Quite Real.”
“Really? How do you know?” Brian asked, glad to have someone there to tell him that he wasn’t fake and he existed.
“Well, When I Feel Particularly Real, I Will List Things That Real People Do That I Don’t. You Do A Lot Of Real People Stuff.” The Toy Soldier explained.
“Can you tell me some of them, I kind of need that right now.” Brian told it.
“Of Course.” it replied cheerily, “Here Lets Sit.”
It sat down on the ground in the middle of the hallway, motioning Brian to follow its example. Brian shrugged and sat down next to it as he waited for it to start. It pretended the think for a moment, then began: “Well, For Starters You Sleep.”
“You don’t?” Brian couldn't help but asked confused.
“No, I Tried To Pretend A Few Times, But It Is Dreadfully Boring And I Can Use That Time For Much More Productive Things.” The Toy Soldier said.
“Oh, I didn’t know that.”
“That Is Because You Sleep Like A Real Person.” The Toy Soldier smiled, earning a small smile back, “Another Thing Is Your Eating.”
“I would hardly call drinking oil eating, TS.” Brian protested.
“It Is Something You Consume For Fuel To Keep Your Body Going, Correct?” TS asked.
“Well, yes, but-”
“Then I Do Not See How It Is Anything Different From Eating.” The Toy Soldier said firmly, “You Also Feel Pain, I Have Been Told That Is A Very Human And Real Experience.”
“You feel pain too, don’t you?” Brian asked.
“No, I Am Made Of Wood, There Is No Nervous System Running Through These Limbs, Old Sport.” The Toy Soldier smiled.
“But I heard you complain when Jonny stole your arm the other day.” Brian was still a bit confused about this new revelation.
“Just Because I Cannot Experience Pain, Does Not Mean It Is Not Uncomfortable To Function With A Limb Less.” TS explained.
Brian shrugged and made a ‘that’s-fair’-face. He had calmed considerably in comparison to earlier, his shoulders had relaxed and the fans in his chest weren’t working on overdrive to keep him cool and functioning anymore.
“Thank you, TS. I really needed that.” he smiled to the wooden soldier.
“No Problem, Old Sport. Here To Help.” The Toy Soldier saluted, standing up, helping Brian up as well, before it went on its merry way.
After that life had continued with only to normal, minimal amount of existential crises from Brian and he was quite happy for it. He would replay parts of the conversation he’d had with The Toy Soldier to make him feel better about himself, which usually worked.
Then, about a week or so later, he got woken up in the middle of the night by a frowning TS. He knew it had stayed behind with Jonny and Ashes, who were playing cards and being mean to their own health, which was something for another day, but he had no clue why it would be here.
“What happened?” he therefore asked, groggily and confused.
“I Am Questioning My Fakeness And I Would Appreciate Input Of Someone Who Has More Understanding Of The Topic Than Ashes Or Jonny.” The Toy Soldier explained.
Immediately Brian was more awake, he sat upright and blinked the sleep away, before he asked: “What caused this?”
“Jonny Insulted Me And I Pretended To Be Upset, Before I Had Realized, I’d Done So. Now I Am Questioning If I Am Even Fake Or If I Am Faking My Fakeness.” it told him.
Brian thought about that for a moment. The Toy Soldier had been there for him during his identity crisis, so he would be there for it. Then he said: “That just means you’ve gotten good at acting, TS.”
“But It Was So Quick, Almost Like It Was A Response.” The Toy Soldier replied.
“Well, some actors start to become so used to playing their role, if they have for a while, that they start thinking and acting like that character, since they absorbed them so much. It is probably the same for you.” Brian reasoned.
“Isn’t That Different? They Already Have Emotions, Those Can Change.” TS tried to debunk Brians argument.
“No, no. You’ve been playing real for centuries now, some reactions were bound to become instinctive after so much time. It’s just a well trained reflex.” Brian was becoming more sure in his thoughts as he went on, “You aren’t about to fall over and sleep or eat or do other real stuff, right? It was just a reflex, like starting to walk when someone does, that doesn’t make you real.”
That seemed to cheer The Toy Soldier up as it chirped: “Thank You, Old Sport. You Are Quite Right, I Have Merely Mastered My Craft.”
“Yeah, you did.” Brian smiled, suppressing a yawn.
“Oh, Right. You Need Sleep. I Should Be Going.” TS said apologetically.
“It’s alright, TS. I don’t mind.” Brian said, but The Toy Soldier was already backing away, saying a quick thanks as it saluted before it disappeared out of the room.
And after that it had become a ritual for one or the other to appear whenever they were sad or not feeling like their reality fit.
Brian learned all the reason The Toy Soldier was fake because every difference made him real, while The Toy Soldier did it for the opposite reasons. And Brian was not going to lie, having TS use him as a case study of what real people did, was pretty fucking validating.
He didn’t know if the other had caught on to the new camaraderie between the two of them and frankly he didn’t care. The tea parties with inedible cookies and the late night talks about philosophy TS would back out of when it got too much by claiming it was something for real people and it was done pretending for the day, made life bearable.
It made life good.
TS could be fake and Brian could be real and both could exist together, because even though they were opposites, no one got it better than the other.
On the days when TS didn’t feel like pretending, it could be fake in Brians presence and he would make sure none of the others messed with it, while on days when reality felt beyond Brians grasp he could rant to it about being real or fake and it would listen and not complain about him making its head hurt.
It was nice, Brian decided, it was nice to be understood.
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fuzzbuns · 3 years
Note
Can we get your ramblings on comphet Nyaa-chan?
idk why I keep getting anons who wanna open up the Pandora's box that is my mind but like I would literally LOVE to talk about comphet nyaa so I will!!!!
(under a read more tho cuz this is gonna be long once again)
Before I start I just wanna say: I’m a lesbian and I'm gonna be talking about from my own personal perspective/ experience so obviously there is gonna be some bias and projection going on (Also I’m assuming everyone who is reading this knows what comphet means/is but if not comphet stands for compulsory heterosexuality). I don’t think Oso staff was literally making an episode to comment on comphet (I refuse to give Oso staff more credit than they deserve) so this is probably all accidental but I'm obsessed with reading the episode this way because I think it just fits so well and also totonyaa.
So let’s start with when Nyaa notices Oso. When we first see Nyaa interacting with Oso she honestly seems pretty guarded. She is glad that he saved her baby but she quickly pulls her kid away from him and gives him an awkward nod as if she is saying “ok thanks but now you can go”. However, the second her baby seems to show an interest in Oso (reaching out for him because his big brother charm is just so strong...) Nyaa’s reaction shifts. She keeps and eye on Oso while they are at the park and when he leaves she laughs to herself. 
This is the first aspect of comphet I want to dive into. From personal experience, I found that a lot of the “crushes” I developed on men usually stemmed from the thought “omg he is so funny lol”. To this day, the only fictional men I end up interested in are ones that make me laugh. Nyaa seems to be doing something really similar here. When she and Totoko are talking about Osomatsu she says:
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In the beginning the only real opinion she can form about Osomatsu is that he is funny. When Totoko presses her for more Nyaa isn’t able to offer up much other than “you know”. She is interested in him because he is funny and she wants to get to know him more because he is funny. It’s really easy to mistake these feelings of thinking someone’s funny as endearment and attraction even when it isn’t that deep. You can tell it’s not that deep because Nyaa can’t explain to Totoko what about him is so great. And lets be real... its not like Osomatsu is a super hot guy and Nyaa is just being superficial...... she’s not infatuated with him because of looks.... Whatever it is that is attracting her to him has to be his personality but she doesn’t know much about him outside of him being good with kids and funny. She just runs into him now and then and is interested in knowing more.
Totoko goes on to tell Nyaa that he has issues to which Nyaa pretty much responses to with “epic. I like him,”. We end up seeing Nyaa do this a lot. Totoko and the others will point out undesirable things about Osomatsu to which, in response to, Nyaa will just re-affirm that she likes him. We will get into this more later when its more relevant but liking unattainable men is textbook comphet. Also the way she says “I like him” kinda sounds unsure. Like as much as she is trying to convince Totoko, she is also trying to talk herself into it. It’s ok if Osomatsu has issues because she has already decided that he was going to be the guy she likes. 
Totoko goes on warning Nyaa and we see on Nyaas face that she is getting annoyed. If you wanna go full totonyaa here then you could argue its because Nyaa is wondering why Totoko won’t just say “date me instead” but like.......... i would never argue that lol..... me??? no..... haha.........................................unle-
So Nyaa is getting annoyed and starts bickering with Totoko like they usually do and from here on I would argue Nyaa is purposely trying to piss Totoko off. She says she was “just sort of interested in him” and goes on to say you dont know what kind of person they will be unless you date them (not true at all queen). Totoko tells her that’s stupid and this REALLY upsets Nyaa. It almost feels like Nyaa was trying to make an excuse for why she should date Osomatsu even if she wasn’t totally into the idea. Comphet makes you think that maybe if you try hard enough, even if you don’t feel anything now, eventually you’ll have to feel something romantic for a guy. Totoko shooting this idea down is essentially ruining that excuse for Nyaa. So she angrily says: 
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Which......... if I were... like a totonyaa....... enthusiast... I could say like.... This is Nyaa basically doing the classic “why do you care about who I date” thing...... that would be crazy tho haha.............................unles-
I also think Nyaa saying “choose” is interesting (tho I'm aware I'm going off translations and she might not actually be wording it like that) because with comphet you literally are choosing who you fall in love with. 
Totoko responds: 
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And its clear that Nyaa is escalating her attraction to Osomatsu out of no where. In this scene alone we have gone from “he is funny” to “I like him” to “I was just sort of interested” to “love” even tho nothing has happened to change her feelings. She is escalating because Totoko keeps shooting her down and in order to reaffirm her feelings she has to make them more intense. She is also pissing off Totoko in the process. We see it again when she goes:
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I’ve been joking about it but like... totonyaa goggles on... she is clearly doing this to annoy Totoko and get her attention. The way this line is delivered makes it so clear that she is not actually interested in getting Osomatsus number. She wants Totoko’s attention. The next frame is literally her smirking at her phone as Totoko starts panicking. Nyaa likes having Totoko’s attention and the best way to get it is to bicker with her. She is choosing a guy Totoko clearly does not like (I mean I think Totoko and Osomatsu are pals but like she knows he’s a P.O.S) and continues to egg her on about it to keep having Totoko telling her to not date him. Another key aspect of Comphet is trying to constantly get the attention of other girls. Plus, speaking from personal experience, talking about a “crush” you have on a boy with the girl you are actually interested in and having them tell you no feels nice and when I was little and the ceo of comphet I would do it constantly. 
So Totoko gets the brothers involved and Nyaa seems uncomfortable and less into the conversation (probably cuz its no longer just between her and Totoko but that's just me). Her tone is less confrontational and more just confused. It’s almost as if she feels the point of the conversation isn’t there anymore. None of these opinions matter to her. What she said to Choro was harsh but she had a point. She doesn’t know these people!! She wanted to talk with Totoko about this. However, she doesn’t seem to keep that same attitude with Osomatsu? Like what makes Osomatsu any different from Choro? 
She ends up asking everyone to leave and saying:
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Once again she is using the word “chose”. She is stating she loves him despite not knowing anything about him besides his crimes against humanity (Which she agrees to that being vile so????). It really feels like she is just being stubborn. She said she likes him so stop confronting her about it because the more holes you poke in her story the more she has to try and convince herself that she genuinely likes him despite her knowing deep down that she doesn’t.
So fast forward to the night they all get together. That part about her liking a man that is unattainable is showcased here in full force. 
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She loves the idea that he does not give a shit about her. The idea that he isn’t interested just makes her like him more. I can not overstate how textbook comphet this is. When the guy you picked to like turns out to not be interested in you; that is the best scenario a closeted lesbian could imagine. You get to keep “pinning” over a guy and playing the part of a straight girl without the pressure of acting on it. He isn’t interested so you are never put into a situation where you have to prove that you are. All the things he does that show that he isn’t even considering her (like not fixing his bed head and literally going after Totoko instead) are things she loves. The more disinterested he seems, the more perfect he is. This reaches its peak when Oso literally doesn’t even remember her and she says:
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The idea of Osomatsu not even being bothered to remember the moment they met literally has her rolling on the ground lol. 
Osomatsu jokingly askes Nyaa if she is interested in him. She gets really quiet. Obviously this could be read as embarrassment and its probably what was intended. However, continuing with the comphet theme it could also be her realizing that she has to make a choice. She’s interacting with Osomatsu now and he’s (jokingly) flirting with her. She can’t keep acting like he is unattainable at this point so she prepares herself. He jokingly asks her out and she says yes without hesitation, confirming that she would like to date him and even adding a “please”. Because... this is what she wants right? She has been arguing for this the whole time and she was finally given the chance. Why should she say no? This is the beginning of the end.
We see Totoko and Oso having a drink (and she looks so pretty in this scene I fall to the ground and die). Totoko leaves and her body languages looks so emotionally exhausted. If I were a totonyaa enjoyer I would say “she told Osomatsu that she loves Nyaa but wants to see her happy”............... oso staff DIDN’T PUT ANY DIALOUGE IN SO ITS MY CITY NOW-
We see nyaa excited for her date and picking out clothes because!!! this is what she wanted!!!!! she fell in love and got a date! everything is going perfect!
Then she wakes up.
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She is startled. Whatever she realized in her dream it was a lot to unpack. mayhaps... a dream about toto-
She sits up and you can tell from her body language that she is really reevaluating. Her feelings vanished over night. She can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. Even though everything is going right and she should be excited and happy, she isn’t. Something is wrong. It’s like the second it hit her that she actually has to go on the date and that Osomatsu is showing interest, she loses any interest in him that she had. She liked the idea of going on a date but the second it starts looming in and becoming a reality she can’t do it. 
When Nyaa apologizes and turns Osomatsu down you can tell she is embarrassed. 
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She runs away, unable to face him, knowing that its her fault. See, if she woke up and was like “oh shit he IS a P.O.S” I don't think she would be so apologetic. But she is. She is apologizing for leading him on and knows that she can’t keep up the façade anymore. She knows she caused him a lot of trouble feels miserable.
So to sum it up: Nyaa was in love with the idea of having a guy to pine over. She liked that Osomatsu was an unattainable guy and that being interested in him annoyed Totoko and made her pay attention to her. But the second things got real and she actually had to go out with him, she couldn’t follow through. This can all be explained by comphet and I would even argue its like one of the only explanations for the ending that makes sense but I might just be bias. 
also I think Totoko and Nyaa should just make out...... Happy Valentines day!
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