#not that i blame her considering her backstory and all but girl had some serious communication issues | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mischiefandspirits · 3 years

Text

Bernard Figures It Out

Was reading through all the comments on @frostbittenbucky's post and all I could think of was that it was Bernard talking to Tim. Then I got to thinking...

"I've connected the two dots."

"You didn't connect shit."

"I've connected them."

Bernard figures out Tim's a superhero... sort of.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tim fidgetted nervously as he waited on the front porch of his boyfriend’s house. Bernard had sounded so serious when he’d called during Tim’s lunch to ask him to come over after work so they could talk about something.

Which Tim had done, after spending an entire board meeting just going over the past week trying to figure out what he’d done.

The only thing he could think of was that he’d ducked out halfway through their lunch date on Wednesday to give Duke some backup, but Bernard had seemed understanding when Tim explained there was an emergency at GRC Labs. It couldn’t have been a tipping point, either, since Tim had managed to only flake on three other dates over the past few months they’d been dating. Kate had been happy to cover for him as often as she could “out of queer solidarity” when she found out Tim was dating a boy for the first time and Tim had managed to trick Bruce into covering a few actual Wayne Enterprises emergencies for him when they came up.

There had to be a reason Bernard was breaking up with him, though. Had he missed something? He definitely wasn’t forgetting an important day. He was good with days and Tam was even better, so she would have reminded him on the off chance that he had forgotten.

What was he missing?

Bernard was smiling when he opened the door, but there was a nervous energy to it that had Tim’s stomach sinking. “Hey, Tim.”

“Hey.” Tim gave his own nervous smile then slipped inside.

They went into the living room and sat down on the couch.

Tim frowned when Bernard grabbed a manila folder off the coffee table. Crud, had he screwed up enough that Bernard had had to make a list? He knew he was new to dating a guy, but he hadn’t thought he’d done that bad. He’d really been trying, especially with how his and Stephanie’s relationship had fallen apart at the end. “What -”

“Just let me speak, Tim,” Bernard said, waiting for Tim’s nod. “Okay, so you know Clark Kent, right?”

Tim blinked as Bernard opened the folder to show a picture of Clark. It looked like one of the employee pictures from the Planet’s website, with his dorky “I’m just a humble country boy” smile and the golden globe from their roof photoshopped in as the background. “Uh, yeah? I think so. He works for the Daily Planet, right? I think he’s worked at a few of Bruce’s events. Not a lot of outside reporters are willing to come to Gotham.”

“Exactly!” Bernard said, snapping his fingers and pointing at Tim.

“What?”

He pulled out the picture to show the next page was an article titled, “DAILY PLANET REPORTER… BATMAN!?”

A wave of relief washed over Tim and he placed his face in his hands. “Were you up all night on the hero conspiracy boards again?”

“No. I mean, I found this on a board and was up all night thinking about it, but I found it reasonably early.”

“One in the morning isn’t reasonable, Bernard.”

“Says the guy who’s always wide awake when I call to infodump.”

“Touché.” Tim leaned against Bernard and gave him a smile. “So tell me, why is some reporter from Metropolis from all places Batman.”

“First of all, living in Metropolis is the perfect cover. Everyone assumes Batman would live in Gotham, no one would consider he could be from anywhere else. Metropolis is outside the GMA, but close enough that the commute is still possible.”

“But it’s Metropolis.”

“And who would think Gotham’s Dark Knight lives in the sunshine capital? Plus, I hear he disappears a lot on the job. There’s gotta be a reason for it!”

Tim made a note to let Clark know he needs to cut back on the disappearing act some since people are catching on.

“And have you seen the guy? He is swol AF, babe.”

“Please don’t call me babe while you’re talking about how hot another guy is.” Especially Tim’s honorary uncle.

“You know I prefer twinks.”

“BERNARD!”

“I’m just saying,” he continued, ignoring Tim’s shout. “The guy is definitely hiding something! Besides, Kent is an investigative reporter. He’s gotta know a lot about cases and the underground and detective work.”

Not as much as he likes people to think, but more than he likes people to know Superman does, Tim mused. “But what about the other vigilantes?”

“Well, Kent has a cousin…” Bernard flipped through a folder and pulled out a picture of Kara. It looked like a screenshot of her interviewing Lena for CatCo. “She’s obviously the latest Batgirl. Look at her hair. And the first Batgirl and the current Batwoman were obviously Lois Lane, the red hair is just a wig. Did you see how she kicked butt at that last event she went to? She’s not as subtle as Kent. That means their son is the latest Robin. He’s exactly the right size.”

Oh, Damian better not hear about this, Tim cackled internally. His youngest brother hated being reminded that Jon was the same height as him despite their two years age difference. Damian definitely took after Talia when it came to body type, no matter what he said.

“And Kent also has a brother.” This time he pulled out a picture of Kon. The clone must have been caught by a reporter out shopping with Ma since he was carrying some paper bags and glaring at whoever was behind the camera. “At least, he’s supposedly Kent’s brother, but he was a teenager when he first showed up with the Kents. A lot of people think he’s actually Kent’s son, that Kent got a girl pregnant when they were teenagers and something happened to the mom so Kent had to take him in. Now the Kents are trying to hide it by saying the two are brothers.”

That was… scarily accurate actually. Especially given Luthor and Clark were close friends at the time that Kon would have theoretically been born.

“And that beef would explain why the younger Kent brother went all crime lord on Gotham for a while before reconnecting with the family.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, Kent Jr.’s got the perfect build for Red Hood.”

Tim bit back a comment on how Kon was shorter than Jason by a good foot. Timothy Drake-Wayne should not know that. Add Jason to the list of people who can’t hear this theory.

“And then there’s this girl,” Bernard picked up a picture of Lois, Jon, and Natasha Irons walking down the street together. “No one’s sure exactly who she is, but she’s been spotted with the Kents a few times. I think the cover story is that she’s Jon’s babysitter.”

“And the actual story?”

“She’s Black Bat, obviously. That’s why she wears a mask that fully covers her face. She doesn’t want to stand out as the only African American Bat.”

“Isn’t Signal also Black?”

“Yeah, but he works in the daytime so he’s already a standout.”

“And who is Signal in this? And what about Nightwing and Red Robin?”

“Well, Nightwing’s just a Blüd who came to Gotham. He doesn’t count.”

Ouch. Sorry, Dick.

“And Red Robin is obviously an older Robin, the one who was Robin when we were kids. Kent wanted to keep him on, and I don’t blame him. As for Signal, he’s got the same backstory as all the other Robins Kent picked up, he just went the Signal route because he didn’t fit the usual Robin mold.”

“Because the female Robin fit the mold,” Tim snorted. Robin Mold, as if he and his brothers were even the same ethnicity. Or even had the same hair color. Jason dyes his hair, Dick’s is brown-black, Tim’s is pure black, and Damian’s is more a dark brown and it’s only getting lighter as he gets older.

“She didn’t, that’s the point. Kent tried to give breaking the Robin mold a chance by letting his cousin have a go at it, but he realized it just didn’t work so she went back to being Spoiler and he got a new Robin.”

Not touching that with a ten-foot pole. “Right, and where does he get the usual Robins? Please tell me you’re not back on the secret government orphanages theory.”

“No, no, no. Kent travels sometimes for his job, right? And a lot of the time he’s going to places that have been hit by disasters or major crimes. So he’ll take in some of the displaced children to train as his robins.”

Tim pressed his face back into his hands.

“You see it, right?”

Honestly, Tim was just wondering how his boyfriend could be so close, and yet so far off. “How would Kent even afford taking care of a bunch of secret -- possibly illegally acquired -- children without anyone noticing?”

“Simple. Bruce Wayne is funding him.”

“Bernard, I love you, but what the heck?” Tim blushed and looked up as he realized what he’d said, but Bernard didn’t seem to notice as he steamrolled ahead.

“It’d also explain how he can afford all the gear and how he’d be able to travel to Gotham or anywhere else Batman goes without anyone noticing. He probably has a secret Batplane or something.”

“Why would Bruce do that?”

“Because Wayne cares about Gotham, everyone knows that, and this way he can make sure someone’s taking care of the city without anyone putting two and two together.”

“And two plus two is?”

Bernard gave him a hard look. “I’m not stupid, Tim. Bruce Wayne is obviously Superman. His face is right there.”

Oh, the others are going to love this! Too bad I can’t tell Damian or Jason. Jason especially would have loved this. “Right. Bruce is Superman.”

“He is. Superman is known for being nice and Bruce Wayne’s basically all that’s keeping the city running at this point. That’s nice as hell.”

Oh my god.

“And Wayne does charity for the victims of cataclysms, doesn't he? I bet he first saves people from them as Superman and then builds them new homes for free.”

Oh my god! Why am I not recording this!?

“And the Wayne’s were rich enough to hide the fact they adopted an alien baby.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “If you’re about to tell me this is why Bruce’s parents got killed, you might want to stop while you’re ahead.”

“It’d make sense. There’re all sorts of unanswered questions about their deaths,” Bernard muttered under his breath, flipping through the folder. He pulled out another picture of Kara. This time she was in full Supergirl attire with a bus held overhead. “So if Wayne is Superman, then that’d mean your ex-girlfriend could be Supergirl. They look a lot alike and it’d explain how she got involved with you all.”

“Bernard, she has a human dad. You know, Cluemaster. The supervillain.”

“Yeah, her dad. But we don’t know anything about her mom!”

“Let me guess…”

Bernard pulled out a picture of Karen. She and Helena were suited up and talking to a group of cops, two goons held over each of Karen’s shoulders. “Her mom could be Power Girl! Some makeup and a wig and she could look just like Crystal Brown! And Damian Wayne is obviously the new Superboy! That’s why his background is such a mystery, right? He had to stay a secret until he could control his alien superpowers. That’s why he’s always so mean. It’s a cover since everyone knows Superboy is super sweet!”

Sure, when he’s not helping Damian pull pranks or using his adorable powers to put the blame on Kon and I. “No, Bernard. Damian and Steph are just very human hellspawn. And Bruce and Crystal are human too. I can’t believe you called me over here just to tell me you think Superman is both Batman’s sugar daddy and my adoptive dad.”

“Well, that’s not exactly why I called you over,” Bernard admitted, the nervous energy coming back. He grabbed Tim’s hands. “Tim -”

Tim’s stomach sank. “You are breaking up with me!”

“What? No! I don’t want to break up!”

“Why are you acting all nervous and serious then!?” Tim asked, pulling his hands away to throw them up in the air.

Bernard shook the folder. “Because I’m trying to tell you I figured out you’re Superboy!”

Tim’s brain blue-screened and his hands slowly dropped. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I know you’re Superboy. The older one, obviously. By the way, you and Damian really need to figure out separate names.”

Forget Jason and Damian, Kon can never find out about this. He’d never let me live it down. “Bernard, you called me a twink five minutes ago. Su-” Shoot, I can not risk getting Kon’s attention! “The older one might not be as big as Superman, but he’s not a twink.”

“Well, yeah, that’s the shapeshifting at work.”

“The what?”

“Obviously you Kryptonians can shapeshift. Why else would you look so much like humans?”

… Why do Kryptonians look so much like humans? Was there some - Wait, no! Break into the Fortress of Solitude for research later! Reassure your boyfriend that you’re not an alien now! “Bernard -”

“And that explains why your step-mom was so hot.”

“Gross.”

“She and your dad were actors hired by Luthor so you could have a normal life! But now Bruce has custody so he adopted you.”

“No.”

“That’s why you and your dad were so weird with each other when I met him.”

“We were weird because he’d just gotten out of a coma not long before to find that his wife was dead so he decided to actually be a dad for once in his life, but overcompensated and became a helicopter parent to a kid who was mostly on his own for his entire life!” Tim blurted out. “I am not an alien, Bernard!”

“Well, not technically since you were cloned from Superman on Earth.”

“Oh my god! You were just talking about Steph being Supergirl! Why would I date my dad’s cousin?”

Bernard blinked. “Supergirl and Superman are cousins?”

Right, Timothy Drake-Wayne wasn’t supposed to know that. “I thought they’d said something like that before, yeah. Are people seriously saying I’m Superboy on the internet?”

“NO! No, I swear I would have led with that if I thought your identity was compromised. A few people have mentioned Wayne and Damian, but not you or Steph or Jason.”

“Wh-Jason!? You think Jason was an alien too!”

“No, not exactly, but a few times when I’ve visited I swear I’ve seen a guy in the manor who looks like Jason. It’s just been out of the corner of my eye and he’s gone whenever I look so I’ve always thought it was just Dick or Bruce or some picture of Jason that my mind was playing tricks with, but it makes sense now that I know Wayne is Superman. He must have been able to heal Jason with alien tech, but couldn’t say anything because that would give away that he’s Superman.”

Damn it Jason! And damn it Bernard! I’m dating the smartest moron in the world! “Bruce did not bring Jason back with alien technology and none of us are aliens!”

“It’s okay, Tim. I won’t tell anyone.”

Tim grabbed Bernard by the jacket and pulled him into a kiss. When he started to feel lightheaded, he pulled back, “Could someone whose skin is as solid as stone kiss like that?”

Bernard blinked dazedly at him for a moment. “How do you know what Superboy’s skin feels like?”

Tim screamed internally. “He’s saved me from a kidnapping before.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I can get you the police report if you want.”

“Huh… And the others?”

“Not Supers. I can stab Damian the next time we’re at the manor if that’ll prove none of us are aliens.” He’d rather stab Jason, but that would probably only confirm to Bernard that Bruce used alien technology to bring him back.

“You probably shouldn’t stab your brother if he isn’t an alien.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I won’t stab him anywhere deadly.”

“That’s not the point,” Bernard said slowly.

“He’ll be fine.”

“If you say so.”

“So do you believe I’m not an alien now?” Tim huffed, letting go of Bernard’s jacket.

The blond’s eyes dipped down to Tim’s lips. “If I say no, will you kiss me like that again?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Tim said, but he kissed him anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Okay, but I still say Clark Kent is definitely Batman.”

“Sure, Bernard.”

#Tim Drake #robin #red robin #bernard dowd #timber #fanfiction

279 notes · View notes

anika-ann · 3 years

Text

Just a Human (S.R.)

Type: mini-series turned one-shot, SHIELD recruit!reader

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader Word count: 8750

Summary: Being a SHIELD recruit was a dream come true, especially with people like Sergeant Barnes or Captain Rogers offering an input to your class’ training.

It was also hard work for many different reasons. One of them being all those guys around; not all of them were exactly fit to become heroes, simply because they were not good people.

Maybe you shouldn’t have pointed it out so openly though. Then again, what would the world turn into if you kept your mouth shut when feeling like speaking up?

WARNINGS: so-so graphic description of assault almost turned sexual, violence and a bit of blood, boys being boys in a real bad way, language

A/N: Steve Rogers vs assholes, round 2. Also, ‘you’ vs. assholes. And Bucky in the mix.

A/N: This was originally posted as a miniseries on AO3, but now edited, I decided to thrown it in as a long, sort-of three part one-shot. Enjoy and mind the warnings.

(gif source dailymcugifs, divider by firefly-graphics)

A Handful of Spite

“Can you believe the fucking nerve on him?!” Henry hissed, punching the bag harder and catching your attention. The statement was followed by his companion nodding grimly.

You tried to ignore the walking testosterone jerks; you never liked either Henry or Jim. The reason was simple – they were, as you loved to remind people, an advertisement on toxic masculinity. Bullies on top of that. The kind of people you wanted to avoid at all costs.

You weren’t that lucky to have that chance though.

So instead, you scoffed under your breath and continued your sit-ups series. You had more important things to do than wonder about what they were talking about this time.

It was your regular training session with the other SHIELD recruits led by Sergeant Barnes – which--- oh my. When joining the academy, you had no clue that the director’s ‘you’ll be learning from the best’ meant that of all things; trained by the more-than-once-believed-late James Buchanan Barnes. Everyone here knew his story – or at least some of it. The brainwashing. The murders. His heroics to make up for them as much as he could. His everlasting friendship and a nickname that was tied to it. Bucky; the very best friend of the oh-so-praised Captain America.

Oh, speaking of which, he joined the sessions too. You were being trained by not one, but two supersoldiers slash war heroes. You couldn’t believe this was your life sometimes, but you were not one to dwell on it. You just accepted it as a fact. An abso-fucking-lutely incredible fact.

“He’s just a fucker, man. Forget about Barnes, you have Cassie in your pocket. Just ‘cause he’s all sticky sweet on her doesn’t mean she’ll suck his-“

You made a disgusting face, pushing harder to tune out the conversation. You wanted to gag and at the same time, your blood was boiling.

Could there be a jerk who was objectifying women more than Jim? A guy who was using his lower brain more frequently than him? Doubtful. You really wanted to throw up at rubbish that was leaving his mouth.

Not to mention that he was throwing dirt on Sergeant Barnes who absolutely didn’t deserve it.

“-he’s like that to all of them. The chicks. And they fucking dig him, it’s disgusting. He makes the poor brainwashed kicked puppy face, reminding the sob story of his and they’re all dropping to their knees I swear…” Jim continued, practically spitting the venomous words.

You squeezed your eyes shut, half furious and half guilty; the sergeant did have a heart-breaking backstory and many girls were making eyes on him, their hearts softened by the tragedy and his bravery, yes. And you couldn’t say it wasn’t moving you as well, filling you with compassion – but compassion only. Obviously, Sergeant Barnes was objectively a very attractive man too, but what they were saying… ugh.

He didn’t deserve these insults; he was not trying anything on anyone, he wasn’t offering his ‘sob story’, actually being rather secretive about it for obvious and no doubt painful reasons. He couldn’t really couldn’t be blamed for the girls fawning over him a bit more because of it, could he? What was he supposed to do? Stop breathing? Stop doing what he chose to be his job?

It wasn’t his problem – and thank god for that – that these two assholes had egos the size of Texas and couldn’t handle a little competition.

Seriously. Walking testosterone-filled jerks. You seriously considered moving from the station you had been given, eyeing Captain Rogers, checking if he would notice.

“Well, he’s not. Getting. Any. From. My. Chick. Asshole!”

The bag swung wildly under Henry’s blows despite Jim holding it. You laid off, taking your fifteen second break.

“I bet he’s fucking them all on side. Always so… so soft on them. I bet he’s leaving all the hard shit for bed,” Jim snorted, somewhere between angry at him competition and amused at his own crude joke.

You were gonna puke. You were sure of it.

“And he’s too hard on us. Showing off for them. I would fucking want to see him holding up against us without that metal arm-“

You had enough. You sat up sharply, panting, your face flushed, unsure whether it was from the exercise or the exchange you were listening to.

“Are you serious?!” you hissed their way, earning their shocked glances.

And then, Jim’s face twisted in annoyance and disgust.

“Oh geez, you’re one of them, aren’t you?” he snarked, rolling his eyes. “The fangirls.”

More heat burned in your cheeks. You weren’t kidding anyone; both the sergeant and the captain had showed up in your not so innocent dreams, but you were only human, alright. There was only so much time you could spend with two very fine men like them in one room, a bit sweaty and rough (or just slightly gentler with the ladies) until your brain reacted. Mostly to the captain. Not the point.

But actually crossing the line? Being a part of the thing they were describing if it ever existed? Waiting in the line until one of them picked you for the evening with a promise to do it again after they… Jesus what, tried all the others? No, thank you. You had some dignity left.

Also, you simply couldn’t imagine them doing such thing. Raised in a different era, tried by war and pain and lost, yet remaining the great men they were? Just nope.

“No! Jesus, are you even listening to yourself?” you hissed, minding your volume. You hoped that the low hum of voice in the room, of others working out, giving each other pointers and the noise of the machines would offer you a cover from the rest of your companion.

“What, you wanna tell me they’re not going easy on you? On any chick, really?”

“Yeah, well, maybe because they don’t actually want to break our bones during training. Supersoldiers. Superstrength. Does that ring a bell?” you pointed out, reaching for your water bottle, hoping either of your trainers would forgive you when seeing you only took a sec to have a sip.

Henry scoffed, leaning onto the bag. “Sounds like someone has a crush…”

You couldn’t help the motion of your hands, inconspicuously throwing them in the air in frustration.

Why were you even speaking to them? You should have kept your mouth shut!

“Oh go to hell, Ulrich! You’re just jealous and scared that your girl whom you treat like a piece of shit will run off,” you murmured, wiping your forehead off sweat.

“Yeah, because they’re sure pulling their punches with guys too,” Jim complained again, rolling his eyes as Henry now watched you, eyes narrowed in anger – oh you hit a nail on the head, alright.

You couldn’t but mirror Jim’s action, deciding to stick to Devil’s advocate, because…. yeah, because it wasn’t fair to either Rogers or Barnes. They were good people and didn’t deserve this.

“So they’re not beating the shit out of us like they do with you, get over it.”

“They’re humiliating us! Showing off their big muscles, trying to impress all the chicks-“

You chuckled incredulously as they actually admitted the real reason behind their bitching so openly; as if you hadn’t known the whole time. Ego. Ohhh, the ego was bruised. Call 911, CPR is gonna be needed! God, how did they even live with ego this big? Compensating for something?

“They’re doing their job. Training. Yes, they go a bit harder on you, because your physiology can take it. Did it ever occur to you that they have bigger problems than entering a pissing contest with you just so they could steal the girls? Jeez… just… maybe try to be less of assholes and the girls will be into you too… ”

You missed the hard look Henry gave you, laying down again, this time on your belly to work on your back.

You wheezed when a knee suddenly dug into your back, violently and painfully knocking the air out of your lungs. Before you could react, one of your arms was twisted behind your back, Henry’s voice raspy right into your ear, low and dangerous.

“Listen, you little bitch, you don’t get to talk to me like that. Understand? Huh?”

He was so proving your point, but you didn’t have the time You tried to breathe in properly, and free your arm while pushing up on the free one, your muscles burning with the effort. Shit, he was heavy. You wheezed again instead of the answer.

“Can’t hear you, sweetie. What was that?”

Peripherally, you could see heavy boots approaching rapidly, making a quick guess of who that could be. You gritted your teeth, tears of humiliation pricking your eyes. You were not about to give Henry the satisfaction of proving his point of your trainers being sweet on all the girls even if this so wasn’t that.

“Screw. You,” you let out with the last oxygen left, grabbing his left calf and sharply tugging to the very same side. A half-second later when his weight of you eased just a fraction, you threw your body to the left as well, adding a jerk of your legs.

Both of you rolled over, him ending up under you and you quickly spun away, gasping, desperately fighting for air. As it burned your windpipe, it was as painful as welcomed. Little spots danced inf ornt of your eyes, but you quickly blinked them away – luckily for you, Henry didn’t dare to attack you again.

You shook your head before pushing to sit up, only to meet with Captain Rogers’s strict gaze.

“What the hell is going on in here?” he demanded, sharp blue eyes flickering between the three of you.

Maybe you were hallucinating, but he seemed to be murdering Henry with his eyes. Uh-uh. You would have been glad he was, hadn’t Henry been talking about favouritism only few moments ago. You pushed up simultaneously with him and you both stood straight, facing the captain.

“Apologies, sir,” you stated mechanically, his gaze immediately shifting to you. Your heart stopped. Oh wow, you would swear the blue of his irises was on fire. You gulped. “We had a slight disagreement with Mr. Ulrich. I’m aware I shouldn’t have been talking to him in the first place. I’ll take whatever punishment is given to me.”

“Yeah, I bet you’d liked taking a punishment from him, wouldn’t you…” Jim muttered under his breath, making your gut twist in disgust.

Was he ever not thinking about sex? You prayed the captain didn’t hear him and you had to stop yourself from shooting Jim a murderous glare.

“I don’t think that’s necessary. Consider it a warning. Mr. Ulrich? You have something to add before you take a few laps?”

You could literally hear Henry’s blood boiling. You opened your mouth to ask for the same punishment, not wanting to have his point proved. You never got the chance to speak.

“No, sir. I only don’t understand why I’m the only one being punished,” Henry questioned innocently and you gritted your teeth.

Maybe because you attacked me, you dickhead?

Captain glared at him for a moment before his gaze shifted to Jim. “You’re not. Mr. Larkin is following your example.”

You pressed your lips together, this time to stop a smile threatening to spread on your lips. God, who knew America’s Golden Boy could get that sassy? You cleared your throat.

“If I might speak, sir, I deserve to run the laps as well,” you noted carefully, earning a curious expression from your superior. You could tell he wavered, a strange spark appearing in his eyes.

You desperately wanted him to let you run too even if you breathing was still a bit difficult; because otherwise Henry would be proved right. Yeah, nope.

“Very well, then. Ten laps around the gym, recruits. Then you move to the station free at the moment. Go. Don’t let it happen again.”

The three of you nodded dutifully and picked up a pace. For some reason, you could feel the captain’s eyes on you while he walked back to assisting his friend with hand-to-hand training. You glimpsed the sergeant leaning to him, probably asking what was that about, but the blond just shook his head.

Towards the eighth lap, you were being overpassed by Henry and Jim, who ran together; faster than you, whether you liked it or not.

“This isn’t over, bitch,” his hateful hiss reached your ears and you picked up speed stubbornly, not showing them that they might intimidate you even for a second.

They wished.

Even when leaving the room after the session was finished, you would swear there was a pair of blue eyes burning a hole to the back of your head. You hoped that you’d soon be free of the captain’s attention.

You sure didn’t want him to watch too closely. You didn’t need him behind your back to see mistakes you sometimes made just like anybody else. Also, it would be harder to admire and ogle him; you did that occasionally, okay. You were just a human, after all.

A Handful of Mistakes

Shauna, your roommate and bestie from science division of SHIELD, was very patient listening to your lament about guys being dicks; she was awesome like that.

So you vigorously vented your frustration with male population, rolled your eyes when mimicking the silent threat of ‘this not being over’, had a very unhealthy piece of cake at the cafeteria that afternoon and moved on.

You should have known better.

Henry’s words came haunting you few days later; which was too bad, because you had already forgotten about them, until the very moment they had punched you to the face.

…or rather to your shoulder and it wasn’t even a punch, more like one of those bumps people did, especially when they were being jerks, shoving you too hard for you to believe it was an accident.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there,” you threw over your shoulder sarcastically, continuing your way to the women’s locker room.

In hindsight, that was probably mistake number one; ignoring Henry and not starting a fight right there, not to mention being mouthy.

To be fair, you had no interest in further interaction; you were exhausted from the training, you were sticky and sweaty and all you craved was a shower. You would have just gone to have one at your dorm, but Shauna was having a hot date and you didn’t want to step on her toes. So you had taken your toiletries with you, using the showers near the gym.

Using the gym shower; mistake number two. It meant all of the students being gone by the time you emerged in fresh homey clothes, hair dripping water, because you hated hair-dryers and avoided them unless they were completely necessary.

You had spent much longer in the shower than needed, allowing your muscles to completely relax under the spray of water. That was mistake number three.

The fourth mistake was your pride. When you saw Henry, Jim, George (at least you thought, you weren’t sure, not having many classes with him) and Frank in the corridor, clearly waiting for you, since they bounced off the wall they had been resting against when you appeared, you should have probably been smarter and scream for help right away.

But no, you were being Miss Future Agent and you weren’t intimidated by four equivalents of high school jocks. Yep, this one was definitely the biggest mistake of yours.

“Fellas,” you beckoned to them, passing them gracefully, your bag over your shoulder along with the wet towel.

You barely made a few steps before a hand gripped your arm, harshly tugging you back. Your heart jumped into your throat, but you tried your best not to let it show. You turned to Henry, looking at his face, head tilted back just slightly due to his height.

“Is there a problem, Ulrich?” you asked calmly, earning a lift of his eyebrows at your tone.

“You know there is. I told you it was not over.”

You tried to ignore your pulse skyrocketing and the panic rising in your gut. You were not that stupid – you understood the implications. You knew that with four guys slowly circling you, you would have to fight bites and nails if it came to it and probably still lose. Sometimes it was just better to walk away and swallow your pride; a concept Henry and Jim clearly didn’t understand.

You jerked from Ulrich’s grip, still hoping you could walk away and call it day.

“It is over for me. Now if you’ll excuse me…“

Yes, you were being naïve thinking it would work.

The bag was torn away from your shoulder, your fingers automatically letting go to stay attached to your hand. You gritted your teeth, blood slowly reaching the boiling point.

Also, maybe you were more than just a bit afraid. Not that you would ever admit it to them.

Henry’s hand reached for your chin and your snatched it away in disgust before he could even make contact with your skin. Amusement dances in his eyes along with a flash of anger.

“Oh, kitty has claws?”

You felt another hand on your backside, sending a shudder up your spine, so you grabbed it, shoving it away as well.

Jim. Why weren’t you surprised? Pigs. What the fuck was their problem?

“I’ll let you know when I meet any. Now get out of my way,” you spat, your gut twisting as a sly grin spread on Henry’s face and he made a step right into your route.

“Or what? You’ll scratch, kitty? Or you’ll scream? Like a little girl?” he mocked you in high-pitched voice, his face lowering to yours so you were only inches apart.

“Bet you’d like that,” you murmured, narrowing your eyes when his breath with an unmistakable hint of alcohol fanned over your face. “No, I’ll offer you a breath-mint, because honestly you should do something about your breath.”

Yep, that was the mistake no.5 and definitely an enormous one.

You heard one of the guys chuckle, but you never got to enjoy the thrill of victory.

Out of blue, there was something around your neck, the weight of the towel shifting (add that to the mistake list) and your body flew backwards, colliding with a male one. George was it?

Your hands went to instinctively grab after the towel crushing your throat, but suddenly they were wrested down and pinned to your sides by strong arms. Jim had caught one, Henry another. Fucking cowards.

With your breath coming out short with both lack of oxygen and rising fear, your pulse thundering in your ears, you tried to jerk from their grip, but they wouldn’t budge, having an undeniable advantage.

Oh fuck, fuck, you were so fucked.

“Sassy little mouth, aren’t we?” Henry hummed, wry expression on his ugly face. “So dirty, feels like we should wash it with something. Who wants to go first, fellas?”

Loud alarm bells rang in your head, icy shiver running down your spine, stomach turning over.

Oh no, you don’t.

Your knee snapped up on instinct to gain the momentum, followed by a swift low kick to Jim’s knee.

He yelped and let go of your arm, allowing you to send an elbow straight to George’s face; and finally, your airways were free as the assault as the towel trap loosened.

You coughed, fighting for oxygen and mindlessly threw the item away to have at least one arm free.

“Bitch!” one of the men yelled; you weren’t sure which one, but you didn’t waste time thinking too much. Survival instinct took over.

Tears prickled in the corners of your eyes and you barely silenced the scream when Henry took advantage of your hesitation, twisting your arm behind your back. Fuck he really had a thing for that, didn’t he?

You tried to kick him, but someone else’s leg somehow managed to swept their leg under yours and you fell on your knees. Sharp tug on your hair caused you to cry out and obediently tilt your head back. Few tears escaped you, but you pushed up in attempt to get up again.

A kick coming from behind threw your body forwards and you nearly fell on your face when Henry finally let go of you. You tasted blood as you bit your cheek, but you managed to at least land on your shoulder instead of face-planting.

It still hurt like a bitch, but at least you still had all your teeth… or you thought so, not having time to check. Catching a movement from the corner of your eye, you managed to roll over before a kick to your side could hit you with full force. Frank’s foot only brushed you, but you were sure you’d have a bruise as a souvenir anyway.

A punch landed next to your face when you dodged it in the last moment, someone grabbing your legs and holding them together. Between your efforts to free them, you didn’t have time to chase away the body suddenly holding your arms as well.

“Fuck--- she’s a handful.”

A ragged battle cry erupted from your throat as you tried to jerk your body from their grip on pure instinct, every self-defence move you had ever learned flying of the window.

“More fun to break her, don’t you think?” Henry purred, his hand sneaking around your waist under the hem of your t-shirt.

Your head spun like crazy at the skin-to-skin contact and nausea hitting you hard. You wanted to puke and scream and punch and you couldn’t make yourself to do either, tears rolling down your cheeks as your body convulsed in a desperate attempt to break free.

There was ringing in your ears, disorienting you, but aware of the hand suddenly covering your mouth you tried to bite it on instinct holding you down.

“Oh-ho, biting!“ you heard, strangely muffled as if you were under water.

“I like them feisty-“

“Playing hard to get!”

“Shit, SHIT-“

The pressure on your legs eased all of sudden and you immediately kicked with all you had, catching the rising figure in the calf, knocking them off balance.

“Fuck!”

You would swear the floor vibrated, but in must have only been your mind playing tricks on you. George disappeared from your field of blurry vision; you only saw a fist sending him flying sideways.

Yep, your mind was fucking making up things, because there was no way he could have been thrown away like this by a single punch. You weren’t complaining; the relief the illusion provided was almost blissful.

Henry’s body weight vanished as well in nearly supersonic speed as if he wanted to escape the illusion. So you did the first thing that came to your mind; with your hands free, you grabbed his ankle, stopping him from running away. Which, thinking about it, was stupid, because only a moment before, you would have given anything to get him the fuck away from you.

He kicked back blindly, but his sole never met with your body – he was dragged away and… and lifted to the air as if he weighted nothing.

Blinking your tears away, your fuzzy mind cleared.

Only to reveal a very muscled and very much pissed off blond slamming Henry against a wall and then letting his suddenly unconscious body slide down.

You gasped, your eyes catching a glimpse of the fourth figure – Frank – several feet away, running for his life.

“Buck?!” came a shout and before you could question it, a metal arm emerged from behind the corner, stopping Frank dead as he rushed straight into it.

“Yep?!” the dark-haired supersoldier yelled back, sounding almost amused.

What the hell was happening? What the hell just happened?!

You blood sizzled in your veins, loud and rapid thump-thump-thump banging in your ears, face damp with several shed tears, body aching and your mind fucking racing.

You heard a whimper on your left, automatically turning to the sound. It left Jim’s lips, his form crumbled on the floor, struggling to stand up.

The captain’s knee seemed to come out of nowhere, digging into Jim’s back and pinning him down again before you even registered a movement.

“Is it fucking over now?”

“Steve, let him be. Not worth it,” Barnes’ voice tried to reason, sounding rather growly, but not nearly as loud as before. He approached your group in rapid pace and Rogers scoffed and let go.

You gulped at sergeant’s angry grimace, crazily convinced he was angry with you for all the mistakes you made that lead to this; but his expression softened when his gaze fell on you.

“Hey there,” he greeted you almost casually, holding out a hand to help you up. “Can you stand?”

You blinked several times at the suddenly dispassionate tone, even if you still sensed something bubbling under it. You shook off the thought and accepted the offered hand – the flesh one. The detail didn’t escape you, your bran in overdrive. Of course he hadn’t offered you the metal arm. He didn’t want to scare you. He was thoughtful like that-

-or not. The strength he dragged you up with was way too much for you, more so when combined with the speed and your state. You stumbled over your feet, a wave of dizziness messing with your balance.

You awaited the upcoming reunion with the floor, unable to stop the fall, but it never happened. Before you could as much as reel, gentle hands supported you in a firm grip, pleasantly warm against your bare arms.

“Whoa, take it easy,” Rogers’ voice warned you, soothing. For some reason, it felt more like ‘I got you,’ instead of ‘take it easy.’

You took a deep breath, Barnes’ hand letting go of yours as he semi-voluntarily handed you over to his friend.

“You’re bleeding from your mouth.”

Thanks for the reminder, I noticed.

You swallowed the snarky remark, well-aware of the sergeant’s care. You fought against the urge to spit the blood out.

“Is fine…” you muttered, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. “Bit my cheek. I’m pretty sure I—“ you quickly ran your tongue over your teeth just to confirm your theory, “-still have all of my teeth.”

Sergeant Barnes gave you a tiny smile, the worried crinkle that had found its way between his brows disappearing.

“Whatever you say.”

His gaze flickered to something behind your head, probably in order of exchanging a wordless conversation with your still present crutch. Not that you were complaining. The weight of what had happened was slowly settling on your shoulders and you were grateful for any support – and who were you kidding, Captain America made for a pretty reliable support.

“Why don’t we leave you in pu- Cap’s capable hands while I-“ Barnes’ jaw clenched, pale eyes scanning the four bodies on the floor, calculating. “-take out the trash?”

You nearly choked at the choice of his words, wincing. Captain Rogers’ hands squeezed your shoulders reassuringly and you nodded, not sure what else to do.

You didn’t want to look at Henry. Or Jim. Or their loyal companions.

So when the captain carefully spun you on your heels, you didn’t protest and your feet started moving on autopilot in the direction he had set.

“You okay to walk without support?” he asked softly, a stark contrast to the voice you remembered from earlier or from the training sessions.

You knew that if you said yes, he would let go of you. Honestly, his touch felt damn nice, firm and yet somewhat gentle, a pleasant contrast to harsh fingers of the men who had the nerve to attack you – you had to swallow bile rising to your mouth at the awfully fresh memory. Fuck, it had been so close, just a minute later and--- you shook your head mentally and tried your best to erase this memory from existence.

You decided not to abuse the kindness the captain was offering. After several indulging steps, you quietly confirmed he could release you. You found out that sensing his large frame by your side as if he was your bodyguard was nearly as comforting. Nearly.

You didn’t have the strength admonish yourself for basking the light of his protective persona. Future agent of not, you still had the right to want to feel secure at times.

After all, you were only human.

A Handful of Truths

You didn’t realize you were shaking until a blanket was tossed over your shoulders.

You were sitting on a short couch in what looked like a cosy office, hair still damp, body finally registering the ache caused by previous events, just like your brain was slowly taking in what had happened.

Captain Rogers, whose courtesy was to escort you from the hellhole you had been attacked in, had clearly took it as a personal mission to take care of your injuries; it hadn’t dawned to you until you were seated and your mind helpfully supplied you with ‘This isn’t the infirmary’.

He pulled a swivel chair to sit face to face with you, a box of medical supplies left open on the coffee table at your side. You didn’t realize he had moved the chair or dug the box from god-knew-where until the items were simply there.

“How do you feel?” he inquired, attentive eyes scanning your hunched form. You instinctively curled onto yourself, snuggling further into the blanket. You knew you should come up with an answer, but your brain started to hurt with the effort to do so. “I guess that’s fair. Can you tell me what hurts the most?”

You quickly glanced at his openly kind face, his baby blues still watching for any reaction that would clue him. Your throat went dry at the compassion of display and you had to swallow before speaking – and think. What hurt the most…?

You didn’t know what possessed you to tell him what you did, but it came out before you could stop yourself.

“My pride,” you croaked, causing his eyebrows jump just like the corner of his lips.

“That’s probably fair too. Then again, I’d rather know about something I can fix.”

You felt your body relax a little at his informal tone – you might even say a jovial one, but you could still sense too much worry behind it to call it that. You attempted a tiny smile at least to show him that you were more or less fine – you weren’t – and brilliantly failed.

“Landed on my shoulder. Probably gonna have a bruise on my side from when… when they kicked me. Ribs and arms might be a bit tender for few days, ‘cause they were heavy as they--- they’re heavy,” you voice wavered as you saw the muscles on the captain’s forearms clench and his hands curled up in fists. You sheepishly looked up to his face. “I got lucky.”

His eyebrows rose again in a ‘figures’ manner as he leaned back to the chair.

“Nothing else apart from that, your cheek and your pride?”

“I’m a little cold, but you took care of that,” you admitted, taking a deep breath in as you tugged on the blanket pointedly.

Despite what you were saying, you didn’t feel okay, the tremble never quite leaving your body. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. You stared at your knight in shining armour, gathering courage to do what was needed. You tried your best to meet his gaze, feeling so small and embarrassingly weak in front of him.

“Could have been much worse if you haven’t showed up. Thank you.”

He pressed his lips together, shaking his head. He leaned in, his elbows on his knees.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t faster... I should have kept closer eye on Ulrich,” he muttered under his breath, making you wonder if you only imagined it. “Your pride shouldn’t be hurt. You held yourself against them just fine.”

Your heart skipped a beat at the honestly his voice held – and you were honestly grateful for the slight shift of attention. Oh. Had he forgotten how things had been when he had arrived?

You weren’t sure whether you should remind him. You definitely didn’t want to remind yourself, but before you could solve your little dilemma, he clarified.

“You haven’t started training the combat against multiple opponents yet. Let alone four opponents, all of them having both height and weight advantage. You couldn’t exactly go all Black Widow on them if no one showed you how.”

He accented his words with a reassuring smile and you almost believed him. The shivers finally eased, most likely thanks to the warm treatment you were being given in all senses of the word. The inner cold gradually melted and you were left in nothing but pleasant warmth.

Mentally, you patted your pride gently on its head; you couldn’t quite disagree with him. No matter how helpless you had felt earlier and how ashamed for it you were, the truth was you were still learning. You weren’t a finished agent yet.

You breathed in and out, avoiding the gaze that was still on you. It felt like a freaking brand with how intense it was. You couldn’t say you hated it necessarily, you only wished you at least didn’t look so pathetic. No make-up, probably red with a smudge on blood somewhere, perhaps with some bruising already forming, hair wet and messy. You absently ran your fingers through it in attempt to fix it a bit as if it could help.

What had you been talking about? Right… those assholes being cowards and coming at your four against one.

“I… I just fucking hate bullies,” you grumbled darkly, your hand immediately covering your mouth when you realized what you had said. Oh. Language. Still your superior you’re talking to, no matter how nice. “Sorry. Please, pretend you didn’t hear the f-word. I just hate bullies, period.”

“I might have sworn earlier too, so let’s call it even,” the captain offered, one corner of his lips raised. Oh. He had, hadn’t he? ‘Is it fucking over now?’ What did that even mean? “And so I heard.”

“What?” you yelped, your mind racing again in search for the meaning behind his words.

“I mean… I heard you. When you were defending Bucky, in the gym. I’m pretty sure your exact words were about a ‘pissing contest’.”

“Oh god,” you breathed out, your face no doubt set aflame. He had heard you; that was why he had said he should have kept a closer eye on Henry. Oh. Ohhhh.

Also, did he just say ‘pissing’?

“You weren’t wrong by the way. But… neither were them.”

You blinked in surprise. What? “About?”

You knew he didn’t mean the sleeping around with recruits, your gut was screaming that at you, because they wouldn’t, but still, you rather asked for clarification. If he didn’t mean that part, which one then?

“Ladies do fall over for Bucky,” he hummed with a lopsided smile, a playful twinkle in his eyes. It did something to your belly, a strange familiar shift that was very inappropriate, but hell, people needed to cut you some slack. He was impossible not to ogle and you didn’t have the energy to control your reaction after today’s events. “And I don’t really pull my punches when I’m training those two in particular.”

“Why?” you blurted out before you could stop yourself and think better of it.

His gaze bored into yours, burning with intensity and with a glint of something you couldn’t quite put your finger on.

“I don’t like bullies either.”

Did he lean in even more or were you so focused on his face it only seemed closer?

You weren’t able to look away. His blue eyes simply locked you in, not allowing you to escape. The strangest thing was that it wasn’t scary. It should be, he was— he was a freaking captain, your superior, a superior to a lot of people, which you were constantly forgetting ever since he had saved you from falling on your ass in the hallway and you had to remember that.

Before you could though, your racing mind packed up and let your body, your mouth to be precise, act without supervision.

“Not trying to impress the ladies then, huh?”

His tiny sheepish smile cut off the uprising panic in your chest when you realized how bold of you was to say that. He lowered his gaze, giving a subtle shrug. “Guess I wouldn’t want one falling for guy’s muscles and a show-off of dominance.”

“What for then? Honesty? Sincerity? Kind eyes? Strong moral compass?” you heard yourself prying, internally horrified how far you had come when saying that. Your face was drained of colour when it clicked. You were literally naming things you liked about him, absolutely shamelessly putting them in the open. Oh shit. Fix it, fix it, fix it! “…the sass?”

His eyes went wide and he burst out laughing so loud it startled you for a second, especially as he threw his head back with the outburst. Then you reluctantly joined him, covering your face with your hands in embarrassment.

“The sass!” he howled, unable to hold back another fit of laughter and when you peeked at him through between your fingers, you saw his palm resting against his chest as if it could help him stop laughing.

Just like that, blood rushed back into your cheeks.

“Oh god, I made it worse!” you cried out, wishing for the earth to swallow you, frantically looking around for the fastest escape route. “Oh my god, I have to switch schools now… excuse me-“

You hastily got up from your seat, but a quick hand snatched yours, pulling you back.

You stumbled, landing ungracefully right back in your place, this time without the blanket. Captain Rogers was watching you with the corners of his lips high, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

“Sorry for grabbing you like that. But no, please. Stay.”

Your throat closed off when you heard his soft plea, only traces of humour in it. Yeah, you bet he hadn’t met anyone with such big mouth for a while, so he thought it was better to keep the comic around.

“Captain Rogers, I-I- what I said, it was completely out of line-“ you stuttered, only to be interrupted.

“Were you making it up?” he questioned.

You gulped, your mind screaming at you to say yes to save you the humiliation. And yet, with the cerulean irises staring into your eyes, your mouth did the exact opposite.

“No.”

Dammit.

“Then why would you go?” he questioned softly. His hand still didn’t leave yours, only easing the grip into a kinder one. You felt like a brand was being burned into your skin. A pleasant one, so you didn’t retreat. Oh, you’d never. But what on Earth was he getting at? “We need someone honest like you. People who stand up for others, even if only to defend their honour. That is the kind of people who should be in this line of work. The good ones.”

You opened your mouth, no sound coming out as his speech shook you to your core, tickling your stomach pleasantly along with your pride. His words seemed to be coming from heart, genuine, which was not helping your blood pressure and suddenly wobbling limbs.

“Even when they have potty mouth and put their foot in it? ‘Cause I seem to excel in that.”

“Especially then,” he chuckled and you could tell there was no pinch of a lie in it.

Something was in the air, crackling deliciously, and you liked it. You wouldn’t be able to describe it properly, the feeling simply too unique, but it was tickling your fancy so weren’t about to complain.

“O-okay. Thank you, Captain,” you whispered, revelling in the sight of the gentle curve of his lips.

“You started with the compliments, Agent.”

And just like that, you wanted to run for your life again, drowning in embarrassment.

What were you even still doing here? Complimenting him? Enjoying his touch? Flirting with him?

Were you nuts?!

Him, a captain— no, the captain. And you, an agent--- hell, you were not even an agent yet!

The captain whose eyes flickered to not-an-agent’s lips for the shortest of moments, widening a fraction before returning to her eyes.

Oh, now you were definitely going nuts. You were hallucinating. You must have hit your head too. He wasn’t into you and you being into him was very stupid.

You should go.

…any moment now.

…just get off your ass for god’s sake-

“Can I ask you something?”

You blinked yourself back to reality, shushing the voice in your head, curious smile appearing on your lips involuntarily. The softness of his voice felt better than the blanket before and you wanted to cocoon yourself in it, postponing the leaving plans to never.

“Sure,” you replied, the smile remaining on your face despite your better judgement.

He lowered his eyes to your joined hands, his thumb running over the back of your hand in a feather-light touch. You heart positively stopped at the moment, your breath hitching. Holy shit, what was he doing?

“This, does it… do you hate it?” he whispered the question, not meeting your eyes as if he was too shy, which was… ridiculous. He had no reason to be shy.

It still felt like a shot through your heart – a nice one, though, it that was possible. The words combined with the way they were spoken, it stirred something in your belly, warming it up and you couldn’t deny it anymore.

You really wanted this man; whatever this was, it was getting beyond a silly crush. Also, for some reason, it seemed as if he was trying to tell you he was interested too, which you thought was pretty freaking crazy.

“Stay honest, please,” he pleaded when you didn’t answer right away.

Did you hate it? The chastest display of affection if you dared to call it that? Your mind raced, trying to figure out why on earth he would ask that. Because the only reason you had come up with so far was completely impossible.

“No,” you said simply, earning a brief glance up before he looked down again. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Good. That’s good… and would you… I’m aware this is out of line and I—I want you to answer truthfully without fearing the consequences-…“

It was your turn to swallow loudly, because what? What did he want to ask that he considered it out of line? He was your superior – you could think of thousand ways of how you could get out of line, but him? And why should you fear the consequences?! Did he want you to help him to hide a body?

That’s not it and you know it. You know what he wants to ask, you rational side admonished you.

Oh please, shut up. Since when you switched sides?

“O-okay. What— what is it-- Steve?” you stuttered out, freezing when his name left your lips and his head snapped up, his hand giving yours a squeeze. Oh boy.

“Would you possibly say you like it?” he blurted out and your brain went to overdrive at the hope behind his expression.

Huh. He really just asked that. Oh shit. Oh wow. Your jaw fell into your lap – only figuratively, you hoped –, your ears buzzing, your blood bursting in excitement.

Oh yeah, you understood why he mentioned the consequences. Either you could say no and you’d fear he might treat you differently or you could say yes and you’d ‘fear’ he might treat you differently.

The fire in your insides burned hotter at the idea of the latter.

His hand slowly left yours, giving you a simple choice you still couldn’t believe you were given.

Holy shit. What do you even say to something like that? Coming from someone like him? Your brain froze as you only managed to stare.

Did his— did the corners of his lips turn down? Was that sadness pooling in the sea of blue of his eyes?

Oh no, you don’t.

“Y-yes,” you admitted sheepishly, closing your eyes at the heaviness of your confession.

You could feel the weight on your shoulders as silence fell, only interrupted by your soft breathing that sounded ominously loud.

Your fingers twitched when his warm palm covered them again, your lips parting in surprise. You kept your eyes closed, indulging the strange moment. His free hand caressed your other as well, the gentlest of touches, tender, contrasting with rough callouses on his fingers.

“I like it too.”

At that, you gathered enough courage to look at him, only to see him inspecting your face closely, observing your reactions. It shocked you that it wasn’t uncomfortable as you would expect; must have been the kindness and wonder in his gaze. You forced your lips to curl up in a tiniest smile. Steve smiled back with same hesitance, his face lighting up.

He looked like a boy next door (making it to a modelling agency), shining eyes and happy grin forming on his lips. He was more gorgeous than ever.

Still keeping your hands, he raised his right one, his knuckles brushing your unharmed cheek. The gesture was so tender it brought tears into your eyes, causing him quickly retreat.

“Sorry-“

You shook your head with a self-deprecating chuckle, squeezing his fingers before he could let go of you completely.

“It’s not you—I mean… it is you,” you babbled nonsensically, taking a breath to gather your thoughts. “It’s just— that was really sweet. No, that’s not-“ Not the right word. “It was beautiful. I swear I never felt so…” loved “-cared for in my life.”

He frowned, a shadow of pain running over his face. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I know that today was… unpleasant.”

Seeing his reluctance and discomfort, you went for the first thing that came up to your mind. You straightened up and pressed a light kiss on his cheek, withdrawing much slowly because once you were in his orbit, it was hard to leave.

His breath hitched, his eyes glued to you intently, flickering to your lips again.

“You didn’t upset me, Steve. That’s the last thing you could do with that,” you assured him, face still inches from his. His name rolled off your tongue easily this time, even though it still left your heart fluttering.

“And if I asked you to have dinner with me?”

Your stomach twisted in a pleasant knot at that suggestion, your lizard brain already thinking about having a dessert for a second; and you weren’t thinking cake or ice-cream.

Yeah, barely. This was a guy ready to treat you right, you were sure of it. He certainly wasn’t about to kiss you now, not afar what happened today, he might go for it after the dinner and that was only if you got lucky enough. You swallowed the disappointment at the idea, quickly shaking it off.

Make up your goddamn mind, woman. You should be glad that men who weren’t thinking with their lower brain still existed and one of those was clearly interested in you, which… yeah, what the hell, that might take a while getting used to. Add the fact that he was being incredibly considerate of how you might feel after being assaulted and you had a winner of your heart. You realized you were actually happy he wouldn’t try anything even nearly ‘funny’.

You were fine with hand-holding and brushes of his fingers on your face, which honestly, the tenderness behind that gesture made you toes curl. You didn’t care much if that made you a freaking sap.

“Still not upset,” you gave an answer at last, deciding he probably liked when you were a bit cheeky.

He offered a closed lipped smile in response, confirming your theory.

“Does that count like a yes?”

You shrugged, the corners of your lips twitching. You had no idea when the change had happened, but all you wanted now was to giggle. And maybe snuggle, but you weren’t about to say that out loud.

“You tell me.”

He licked his lips and shook his head as he retreated. Before you could protest – or have a heart attack, because the motion of his tongue attracted your gaze like a magnet, setting your core on fire –, he sat beside you, leaving enough space in case you didn’t like it.

You liked it, subtly moving an inch closer to his side. Damn, he radiated warmth. Maybe just a bit closer…?

“Cheeky dame, aren’t you?” Steve more stated than asked, reaching for the blanket pooled around you to cover you again.

You didn’t realize you had goosebumps before his hands gently tugged you in, careful not to touch you where you could consider it inappropriate.

Yeah, forget about any funny business any time soon.

You huffed. “Clearly. It did get me into trouble before.”

His eyes darkened a bit, his face noticeably falling.

No, nope, bad move, miss not-an-agent.

“I should walk you back to your dorm,” he remarked, already rising to his feet.

You first reaction was to say no, because you weren’t ready to say goodbye yet. Your second was to say no also, because Shauna probably still had her hot date.

Instead, your hand shot up to catch his, effectively stopping him. He froze before returning to his seat, tiny question mark in a place of his face right next to his soft smile.

You cleared your throat, deciding to give him the latter reason.

“Uhm… my roommate has a date. If I go there, I’ll probably find a sock on the doorknob,” you admitted, biting your lip when he raised an eyebrow and relaxed to the cushions.

“People still do that?”

You chuckled, the fact that not only he was a captain, but also Captain America, which meant he was about hundred years old, hitting you like a train.

“Yeah, people still do that,” you assured him, amused.

He pouted, which you found unfairly adorable and… kissable. Nope, later.

“Sure, make fun of the old man…” he uttered, but a spark of laughter lighted up in his irises, so you assessed he wasn’t too offended. He was most likely used to the teasing.

As an idea of interpreting his words differently popped in your mind, you grinned.

“Is that a permission to make fun of Sergeant Barnes?” you pried playfully, sending Steve into another surprised fit of laughter, not unlike when you had complimented his sass. Your heart swelled at the joyful picture of him and the prospect of seeing more of it in future.

Due to his laughter, you didn’t hear he knock on the door if there was any n the first place. The door simply swung open, revealing the other supersoldier. Speak of the Devil…

Seeing his friend, Steve burst out laughing once more. Sergeant Barnes closed the door with a puzzled look.

You just shrugged in response, opening your mouth without a sound coming out and he took in the scene in front of him again, a smirk appearing on his lips. Under that gaze, you felt your face heat up. You could only imagine how that looked like, Steve cosily close to you, laughing, your hand right next to his thigh as his outburst had sent it sliding from his hand.

The smirk on the supersoldier’s face only deepened when he noticed how flustered he had made you.

“Punk?” he questioned and Steve wheezed once more, raising a palm in the sergeant’s direction, turning to you first.

He offered you a hand to shake. Confused, you accepted as his eyes twinkling in mischief bored into yours.

“Deal,” he mouthed, sending your lips twitching, and only then he shifted his attention to his friend. “Buck?”

The supersoldier had his eyes narrowed, watching you suspiciously.

“I’m gonna regret sending you with her instead of doing it the other way around, aren’t I?” he stated, not actually asking as his gaze flickered between the two of you.

His expression pushed you over the edge and the giggle building up in your chest for the last few minutes finally broke free. You simply couldn’t contain it anymore despite having two superiors in the room. Steve gave you a warm smile as the sound left your lips, clearly not bothered by it.

You hoped you’d be forgiven by Sergeant Barnes as well. After all, you were just human.

“Yeah, Buck, I think you are.”

S.R. masterlist

Sorry for the cavities at the end. Or should I say ‘you’re welcome’? Whatever works for you :))

Thank you for reading!

464 notes · View notes

androgynousblackbox · 3 years

Note

What the fuck has lily orchard done thigh?

I’ve kept hearing she did things like this:

Do you think Lily Orchard pretending to be someone else, using that persona to try to pressure that person into sending them nudes, having her other persona tell someone 'you're making Lily suicidal', etc. (that whole drama saga is TL;DR I can't fit into one ask) is something people should still hold against her?

And more and I just have to know, what the hell has she done? Eva use this only seems like the tips of the iceberg

OH BOY, where do I start? Well, that message you are quoting refer specifically to Tara Callie. Who is Tara Callie and what that has to do with Lily Orchard? A long time ago, before Lily came out as trans, she made up this fake girlfriend named Tara, that had a whole backstory about how she had a romantic relationship with her younger sister that died during a snowstorm by trying to reunite with her and also raped some homophobic girl until that girl accepted being a lesbian. Tara also supposedly had sex with dogs, if I remember correctly. This Tara person would frequently talk with this other person, that since then I think doesn’t want to get involved with the whole issue, so let’s call her B. B was friends with Lily and Tara. Tara was the instrument through which Lily gain access to nudes from B (by being accepted into a very small group of queer women) and Lily guilt tripped B more than once into performing sexual acts or engaging on sexual roleplaying for Lily’s pleasure, despite how uncomfortable B felt about the whole thing. B was a lesbian and Lily was still presenting as masculine at the time, so use another woman’s encouragement was the only way to get her to comply. B didn’t felt attracted to Lily on that way at all so even after Lily came out as trans, so Tara was still useful. This continued on for a long while until Lily realized that B wasn’t going to play WoW with her as she wanted because of not having the right equipment, so Lily just ended the friendship with B, leaving her hurt and confused. Great fucking reason to just abandon a friend But Tara was still around for some time more until Lily suddenly said that Tara had died and everyone close to Lily cried for her. Then Tara came back. Then Lily told everyone that she had been arrested for possesion of CSEM (and obviously Lily had nothing to do with that). Then Tara came back. And then I think she died or something, but if you ask Lily about her she will deny ever knowing any Tara or will say that she was a violently abusive person that she is glad to get rid of. Now, how do we know that Tara was a sockpuppet of Lily? Besides the fact that they talk the same way about the same topics, the fact that the father of Lily came out saying that he has never seeing any Tara while Lily was living on his house, there was other red flags such as: -Her profile picture literally just being a random picture you could find in google. -The online activity of Tara still being active even after supposedly being send to prison. -All the online activity of Tara revolving around Lily’s online presence. And I mean everything, from defending Lily in arguments, editing pages for her (again, even after being send to prison), speak for her, about her, without having any other social media, hobby or anything at all that wasn’t about or included Lily., -Lily is infamous now for creating sockpuppets account to try to circunvent blocking or fight her own battles whenever someone either tries to bring her past up or disagrees with her. You can usually tell because Lily is actually very lazy setting them up: they are going to be newer accounts with either no images on the profile and header, or the most generic ones possible, with literally no other purpose than to send asks, reblog from Lily or otherwise defend her. But that is not all, my dear anon! Because this was shitty, right? Very shitty and questionable and horrible. But then Lily pulled a similar shit at least two other more time with different people in different ways. With an artist, Lily would pay them extra on each comission in order to recieve bestiality porn that the artist was incredibly uncomfortable doing but had to because, you know, money equals food and all. When this artist finally said enough and told what happened, Lily, who before was all too happy to defend said artist, now turned around and said they were a junkie alcoholic liar that nobody can trust because you can’t trust addicts when they talk about being abused, can you? Then her ex wife, Lizzy Orchard, who at this point have been villified by Lily and her audience to hell and back for at least a year, harassed so horribly that she had to get out of tumblr, told her story on twitter about how Lily would manipulate her into, again, either accepting things Lizzy didn’t want to accept sexually or drawing sexual material for her despite how uncomfortable that made her. Since then Lily has tried to spin to tale to make it Lizzy’s fault for not making clear she didn’t want that, for saying that she was fine when she wasn’t (you just have to love that victim blaming language, I swear, this is almost textbook example), but also accusing Lizzy of being the actual sexual predator who lies to cover herself up. One story would have been bad. Two stories is... eeeeh, this is reaaally not a good look on you, maybe consider step away and reflect or something. But three all different people telling a similar thing? On different time periods? Having different relationships with Lily but all being manipulated for the same purposes? Yeah, not. This is the doing of someone who knows exactly what she is doing and will do it again the moment she thinks she can get away with it. That is a predator. So yeah, until Lily properly adresses and apoligizes for ALL of this bullshit, until she does some fucking serious accountability, which I don’t see happening any time soon, people have every right to still hold it against her, especially when Lily is STILL shittalking those people to this day.

21 notes · View notes

buck-nialled · 4 years

Text

Two Million Minutes (8) - N. Horan

NOTE: we made it! here is the final part of two million minutes! to the anons who sent the following, i tried catering to each as much as i could so i hope i do not dissapoint :) huge thank you once again to everybody who liked and supported this, it truly means a lot to announce this as my first, completed fic <3

PLAYLIST // PART ONE // PART TWO // PART THREE // PART FOUR // PART FIVE // PART SIX // PART SEVEN

It is strange looking back at certain points in time and noticing things one never did notice before. Veronica finds herself wallowing in every dinner, outing, and event she joined the band on and finds a new clarity shining a light on each of them. Each time she and Jake bickered and it was brushed off as simple teasing a sly smirk would perk the corner of his lip up. She could remember him sending glances her way every so often, but could now understand it was a searing stare into her profile that nobody paid notice to. In each group photo, she always managed to be sandwiched in between both him and Niall.

The thought of seeing his face now makes Veronica queasy. Because of this man, she had certainly lost all of her progress with Niall. Any slim chance there was to continue their relationship and lives together, side by side was crushed beneath Jake’s lips landing on hers. It was a labyrinth to rewind her thoughts to that night and work her way through what Niall told both of them as tears streamed down her face. What had Jake told Niall that made him stare her down with an evil flame burning in his eyes? What had the woman supposedly been accused of for Niall to never want to remember her again?

Jake left her messages. She left Niall messages. All were left unanswered. It was understandable for why Niall would refuse to reply, considering the scene he stumbled into at Jake’s apartment. It seemed so macabre and twisted when she had put herself in Niall’s shoes. She would not blame the man if he never forgave her and chose not to speak to her again. He was doing a fine job at it so far.

And Niall was. Isolation seemed like the easiest way to escape the situation, at least temporarily. So Niall sped home in his anger, nearly ripping the steering wheel off of his car as he drove through the backstreets he somehow recognized to his home. Fashion sense was not that large of a concern as fleeing, to Niall, which left him living in tees and sweats for the days to come.

So far, that had been three. Three nights he slept in a hotel a few miles down the road to clear his thoughts. But the yearning he still felt for her made that close to impossible. The hotel bar was very stocked and very generous for Niall’s stay, which in turn left him in an incredible stupor one night. He stumbled up to his room grumpily after being cut off, and when he entered the small space, it seemed like his phone was the most important thing to attend to.

Even more, notifications had flooded him the last few days. Some were more texts from family and friends wanting to check-in, but most were from Veronica. All her texts were pleading for him to listen to what she had to say and trust her. But Niall was not even sure if he could remember how to do that.

He does not reply to any texts, and rather, finds his photos. As much as he hated the feeling of wanting Veronica beside him while he looked through his albums, he did. He wanted her hand on his shoulder, light and comforting yet keeping him grounded. He needed to hear her laughs and giggles when a particular photo comes up and holds a hilarious backstory. He wanted her voice narrating all of the adventures he went on so she could be a part of them.

He finds many photos of the two, which have a range quite longer than Jake made it out to be over Skype. His eyes still on the photo of a familiar piece of jewelry, but he does not know why an engagement ring would be necessary to take a picture of. He checks the date of the photo and figures it could not have been too long after that he visited his family for Christmas.

He scrolls some more and finds a screenshot of a few text messages shared between him and his mom.

Its got our birthstones on top. Customized it myself because the woman helping said the colors would compliment each other nicely and look elegant.

It’s gorgeous Ni, she is going to love it! When are you planning to ask her?

Not sure yet, but it’s gonna be her first time seeing snow when we come down to visit, I figured I’d make it even more special and do it some time then?

That’d be lovely, we can have someone film it to keep and look back on later. Just give us a day and we’ll help you with whatever

Thank you, mum, love ya

Love you too, fingers crossed Veronica will say yes!

A vicious migraine begins drilling into Niall’s temples. He and Veronica were not just a fling they were serious. They were planning a future. A future the woman might not be interested in ever again…

He tries thinking back, and more spaces are being filled in. So, so many more than he thought. After joking about that one drunk friend in need of cotton sheets on the guest room bed, the word “nursery” was thrown into the court of their conversation. When Niall had her trapped against the kitchen counter wearing his hoodie, they stayed there for fifteen more glorious minutes making love. One night, recently in Ireland he was just kissing her before exiting his mother’s house and venturing into the chilly, pub-filled streets with his mates from school, that same hoodie donning his figure.

“Don’t black out too hard!” He recognizes Veronica’s figure waving from the door.

“If I do will you take care of me t’morrow?”

“Always will!”

How long would she have kept up with her façade before running into Jake’s arms? How much longer would there relationship have lasted until Niall did pop the question and have Veronica reject him right in front of his family, before running away into the sunset with one of his best mates? Or, what he thought was one of his best mates, at least. A knock on his hotel door drew him away from his temper-raising thoughts. He never ordered room service…

When he wobbled over to the door and swing it ajar, he swore his visions were coming to life right before him. He held his hand tight on the knob, but his muscles froze, unable to slam the door in her face no matter how badly he wished to.

“What do you want?” He slurred in the gruffest tone he could muster. It made him sound sickly, which worried Veronica to some extent until she smelled the pungent alcohol wafting from his breath.

“Don’t you want to know how I found you?” She asks, slightly worried by the lack of Niall’s bitterness toward her. “You left your laptop open, and I saw you booked this place.” She was stalling and doing quite horrendous at it.

“I don’t care.” Neither did. Veronica drew in a few deep breaths, trying to steady her thoughts and rethink her approach.

“I know. I’m…I’m sorry. But…what you saw at Jake’s wasn’t—“

“I know what I saw at Jake’s. You were kissing. Pretty impossible to mistake that.” Niall rolls his eyes.

“But I didn’t kiss back. He initiated everything.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Look,” she starts, “I don’t know what he told you—“

“It doesn’t matter what he told me if you really felt differently about me you should’ve just come out and said it! Not run off to a different guy's place, to hell if he’s known me forever. I’ve known me forever.”

“But you believed what he told you about me?” Veronica challenges, crossing her arms.

“Well, it seemed better than the girl who lied about our entire relationship!”

“I didn’t want to lose you! Back then, the years you couldn’t remember; you were so independent. You weren’t into the dating scene and I was scared you would fall back into that mindset once I’d told you. I was terrified you were going to leave me alone.”

“Did you think I’d hate you?” Niall asks after she finishes. Veronica shamefully nods.

“What do you think I think of you now?” She looks up to him, eyes swimming in tears she tried not to let escape.

“I think…you hate me.” She concludes, voice breaking in the process.

“Well…guess it wouldn’t o’ worked out anyways, huh?” The slurred question had Veronica releasing a shaky breath, before pivoting to make her exit.

“Guess not.” Her voice trembles, before her left hand, grabs the knob to shut the door behind her. As she does, Niall’s eyes become transfixed on the lustrous object snug on her fourth finger.

“Wait, wait V!” Niall calls out, chasing after down the hall.

“I just want to know why. Why-why do you hate me so much to let me explain?”

“Why?” Niall scoffs.

“Yeah, why? What are the reasons?” Niall becomes aggravated when she crosses her arms, making him lose sight of her hands and the ring that adorned a particular finger.

“Okay, let’s start with the fact that you lied to me about who you were and how you felt about me and my friend. Yo-you’re too stubborn, and persistent like you need to get what you want! And,” Niall scoffs, “what kind of person knows every line to Goonies? Seriously,” His words stung, and also made Veronica’s brows furrow. Her fists began to clench from the degradation, and she gasped at the feeling of a sting on her thumb.

“Ah,” She hisses, bringing her left thumb away to notice a small line forming red droplets on her skin. She brings it to her lips to suck and ease the ache and notices the ring on her fourth finger. Her mind flashes back to the moment at Jake’s when his lips tainted hers and forced the ring on her finger.

“Are you alrigh’?” Niall questions, eyes also darting to the sparkling object.

“M’fine. Keep going.” She insists. But Niall’s chest was bouncing from his short pants as he found himself losing his drunken courage and sobering up. Another flash appears before his eyes, and he recalls the late-night in his bed, Veronica beside him.

“What’s your birthstone?” He asks her with a lifted brow.

“That’s random,” she snorts. “Why the sudden curiosity?”

“Don’t know. Just tell me.” He nudges her side with his shoulder, keeping his phone screen dimly lit as he texts the ring customizer.

“I don’t know what it is. But you can google it.” And Niall does, while Veronica’s eyes stay transfixed on the Animal Planet show currently airing.

“Peridot, the crystal of positive power…honor’s the creator’s frequency of love…the source of all abundance…whoever holds this birthstone is a real looker.” He murmurs the last bit of the description into her neck between arbitrarily laid kisses, making her giggle.

“Who’s your source? That last part doesn’t sound too credible.” She remarks, grabbing ahold of his scruffy cheeks. They lightly tickle her palms as she does so, making her smile grow wider. a

“Can’t argue with the internet, baby.” He states, slinging his arm around her shoulders.

“Mm, then your birthstone must mean you’re sexy as fuck with a beard,” Veronica replies, bringing her lips up to his for a slow, lazy kiss. Niall moans into her mouth and glides a hand down to rest against her bare hip that her tank top slid above.

“Really? And how far can ‘sexy as fuck’ get me in the bedroom, tonight?”

“Let’s find out,” there were no further words exchanged between them when they began utilizing their lips for more important activities.

“Niall…” Now, he stood in front of Veronica, hand blanketing her injured one as he slides the ring off of her finger.

“Before we met, the only song you knew by The Eagles was Hotel California. You can’t whistle but still, try. I had to introduce you to Nando’s for our third date, which should be a crime. You—you care too much. You’re too forgiving.” He slowly bends down, until he finds himself sunken onto the carpeted hallway, supported by a single knee.

“Niall—”

“You somehow, still have me falling for you. I hate you because you knew what to say this entire time and, shit, I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore.” The last five years kept building in Niall’s brain, to the point that he swore he could feel it expanding inside of him. “I hate that it took me so long to remember everything, like how what Jake told me…wasn’t true.” His eyes dart to the floor as he furrows his brows. “You never liked Jake. You always argued and lashed at each other…you hated him!” Niall exclaims, glancing up at you.

“Always will.” You nod, voice crackling.

“And those were the words you said to me before I left and lost all my wits. I had this ring in my back pocket because I was just waiting for the right moment to ask and I don’t know how the hell you got hold of it—”

“You don’t want to.”

“But I don’t want to wait any longer, because this feels incredibly overdue. Veronica, please for the love of god just marry me already.” Warm tears raced down your cheeks. For the first time in what felt like five years to her, too, they were all happy.

“Yes, I’d love to.” She whimpers elated, finding her hand sticking out once more. When Niall’s hand grabbed hers, it felt right. The cold steel meeting her knuckle made the good kind of chills run down her body, and she acted like it was the first time she’d seen the jeweled beauty.

Though it took close to two months for Niall to recollect mostly all of his memory, it felt way more like the two million minutes he had lost to Veronica. But, as she would come to quote in her wedding vows the following Christmas, with snowflakes dancing around the chapel and mirth dancing in Niall’s sapphire eyes, she would do it over and over and over again.

81 notes · View notes

kimamanitranslate · 4 years

Text

Filled It With My Feelings Text Translation

Sorry it took so long, but I finished the text translation of Filled It With My Feelings, the Senyuu 10th anniversary book! I didn’t translate the Season 1 Episode 1 redraw though because I’m sure we can all recite what happens in there by heart at this point.

As it’s an illustration book, the translation is meant to be read along with the pictures - you can purchase the digital PDF of the book at hiaruron.booth.pm/items/2329424. You should be able to purchase it through PayPal or some international credit cards.

I’ve included the text under the cut, but you can also read it on the Google Docs here.

Please note I do not give permission to anyone to use this translation for scanlations. There’s a reason why I’m posting this as a text translation rather than as a scanlation - it reads perfectly fine along with the raw book.

However, feel free to use this for text-only translations to different languages, just send me a message about it.

Page 1

Title: Filled It With My Feelings 10th. senyu.

Page 2

Page 3

[Panel 1] SFX (Slime): *squeak* SFX (sword): *slam*

[Text Paragraph]

The story of Senyu first arrived on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 12:39 PM. Naturally, at that point, the name “Senyu” didn’t yet exist - a email was sent to my inbox entitled “A discussion about a new project.”

It was a rather vague email with few details, but at the time, I was working as a day labourer in a certain distribution centre in Tokyo’s Ota Ward. As I hauled around boxes, my days were filled with uneasy thoughts of my future- I gave up on becoming a mangaka, I started work at an anime company but I quit there too, what am I going to do from now on? So I pounced on that vague email- Maybe this will shine some clarity into my life!

Senyu. was the product borne out of that email, and to my great appreciation, it really did shine clarity into my life. My future, which had been dark and uneasy, was illuminated bright by the light of Senyu. I would like to say that was why I made the protagonist’s name “Alba” - which means dawn - but unfortunately, that isn’t the case. I only learned the meaning of Alba’s name later - it was a total coincidence.

Anyways, a lot has happened, but it’s now Senyu’s tenth anniversary.

Thank you very much. I never thought that I could continue for this long. This is all thanks to all of you, for supporting me all this way.

Senyu. is a part of my life at this point - I don’t plan to end it any time soon, so I will be counting on everyone for their continued support.

Haruhara Robinson.

Page 4

Alba

While this may be obvious, the character I’ve spent the most time with in this work no longer feels like a mere “character” to me.

He had a beta design with bangs. But since I thought he might seem more cheerful with his forehead showing, I settled on his current design. I intended to give him a haircut that was similar to characters like Kirimaru, but my lack of artistic skills at the time ended up giving him a hairstyle with a bizarre composition.

I struggle now with how to draw his hair well.

Hero Symbol

I’ve always liked the idea of accessories that had the symbol of a hero, so wanting to have the same concept in my own work, I did my best to think up a design. I was really happy when it came out as merch.

Page 5

Ros

His backstory is really something!

I feel like he carried the entirety of Senyu’s serious plotlines on his back. I thought of Senyu. as like a story that uses the protagonist Alba to give the completed story of Hero Sion a happy ending?

There were times when I was drawing things out that I thought, He feels kinda pitiful? But then in the story, Ros says, “Don’t judge people as pitiful by your own standards,” so then I thought, I-I’m sorry.

His equipment at the start was supposed to be like a machine that let him whip around his heavy sword like it was nothing, but everything ended before I explained any of that.

Page 6

Rchi

At the start, I just thought of her as a cute little girl. But gradually, she grew darker and darker, and by now, the dark aspects of her personality are a part of what makes her unique as a character.

Her hair accessory often disappears. Near the start, there was the explanation that it was confiscated when they were arrested, but beyond that it’s just because I forgot to draw it.

There was an explanation for why she was naked under her cloak during her first appearance, but I’ve forgotten it. I believe it was because since she was camping outside, she washed herself outside as well but her clothes were blown away by the wind - so she wrapped an old cloth around herself…?

Page 7

Foyfoy

The name “Foyfoy” was decided by an audience poll. At first, I was planning to make him Chinese-inspired, but before I realized it that concept had disappeared. His mark is leftover from that original idea.

Foyfoy’s hairstyle is one I drew often when I was a student. I often gave rivals or secondary main characters this hairstyle.

I’m glad I could draw a design like this in an official work.

Page 8

Alles

A character drawn specifically with boobs that a Haruhara who was too embarrassed to draw boobs drew because “I can’t run from boobs!” The reason why I stopped drawing her midway through isn’t because of my embarrassment, but because I wasn’t used to drawing them, so since I never practiced it, I forgot how to.

Princess-chan

TL: This is written with the kanji for “Princess” rather than the katakana for “Hime” as her name is usually written.

She was meant to be a cute, elegant girl, so it shocked me when she immediately ended up as a violent character from her first appearance.

Since I hadn’t decided on a name for her, in the anime her name was listed as ???. I caused trouble for the anime staff.

Page 9

Rudolf

I can’t help but feel that eldery soldiers are cool. When I was doodling for fun, I often drew eldery soldiers.

Himendam

I thought of a development where a cute girl pops out from a nice big suit of armour, so I created the Himendam.

At the time, I thought, “This is a pretty unusual development, it’s great!” but now that I think back on it, it’s actually pretty common.

Slime

The first monster to appear. The first monster you fight should be a slime! Slimes should be blue! I’ve been influenced by Dragon Quest in that way.

I had this child of mine show up as your standard old monster in order to increase the impact of the panda who would show up right after.

Page 10

Minister

While I honestly have no idea why the minister is always standing next to the king, usually that’s the case in RPGs, right?

So I had him stand next to the king in the same way. I feel as though his overall image is influenced by Magical Circle Guru Guru’s Kaya. While I hadn’t realized it while designing him, Kaya’s design affected me unconsciously.

The King

His whole thing was “a super serious old man that makes a stupid face during funny scenes,” but before I realized it, his stupid face became his default expression.

He just may be the nastiest character in the series, considering he wrapped up the entire world in his schemes for his own personal desires.

Mob Characters

The mob characters in my work tend to have this face. I like how they tend to make cutting comments while having non-descript faces.

Page 11

Suit

When Ros’ design went from complicated equipment to this thing, I was shocked at how much easier it was to draw.

I think this thing was what triggered me striving for easiness in my work. Can I blame everything on this thing instead of me?

Just kidding, it’s all my fault.

Fake Foyfoy

If you don’t make careful enough observations, you can’t make a perfect disguise, and you end up in an idiotic costumed-character-like disguise. I wanted to use this plot device a few times more after this, but I didn’t have any chance to use it at all.

Mii-chan

Haruhara happens to have had a stuffed animal for as long as he can remember, and he still has it since he’s never been able to throw it away. I feel as though that stuffed animal served as the model for Mii-chan. In terms of his colour and overall atmosphere.

But my stuffed animal isn’t a pervert like him!

Page 12

Samejima

A delinquent overflowing with manliness. What’s with his hairstyle, I wonder. It’s actually pretty easy to draw.

He just might never lose against anyone so long as he thinks, “There’s no way I can lose.”

Januar

I stuffed in everything my little sister likes into his appearance. “Straight-cut bangs, black-haired, one-eyed, droopy eyes.” But it isn’t as though I went and got her feedback directly so she might just tell me, “He’s not my type at all.”

I chose his personality based on my tastes- “A kind idiot.”

Page 13

Teufel

I thought of a “butler who doesn’t obey orders” around the same time as a “soldier who doesn’t listen to what you say.”

I wanted to have him appear at some point in the future, but then I saw a book called The After-Dinner Mysteries in a book store, which made me think- “M-m-m-m-maybe this book has a butler who doesn’t obey orders as well?!” So I panicked, ran back home, and drew out the head butler’s story.

That’s why the head butler’s story was shoved in out of nowhere.

I read The After-Dinner Mysteries after I wrote in all the butler plot devices I wanted to use, and it was interesting.

At the start, Ros had his three burrs hairstyle so his design was differentiated from Teufel’s, but from Season 2 forwards I struggled with differentiating them.

So Teuf-kun has been going through some small design changes, a bit at a time.

Page 14

Nisepanda

Before Dwango reached out to me, there was a manga I thought up with the plot “a zoo with an easily deceived curator.”

I planned to have a nisepanda appear in that work. The plot device was, “They thought it was a panda, but they were given a mysterious lifeform instead.”

Death Hot Dog-kun

A character that was born during the enthusiastic atmosphere during a meeting with my editor.

We happened to be eating hot dogs during the meeting.

I barely ever have these meetings for my other works, but for Senyu, I’ve been having meetings like this for years. So through sheer enthusiasm and cheer, things like mysterious characters and plot devices end up being created during the meetings.

Page 15

Page 16

Dezember

Mysterious characters in manga often show up with their face cast in shadows. Dezember was born because I thought, “Why not make those shadows real?” But he ended up as a cooler character than I expected, using his shadows to attack and such.

I wanted to base him off of a toy for future plot developments, but I’m really glad I decided to based him off of dice. He became a really good character.

August

I think he’s actually a really nice person.

My editor for Main Quest really liked August, so whenever they got the chance they tried to push for more August.

Avril

A character that’s rather rare for Senyuu - one that just genuinely does bad things for bad reasons. I planned to draw her as really evil so you could tell she was a bad person, but she ended up just casually munching on bread - it really surprised me.

Neun

Back when his only appearance was a silhouette, I just wanted to make people think of that character at first. But now that I really think about the design I thought up for him after - isn’t he pretty cute?

Juli

Just like Foyfoy, I often drew characters with this hairstyle back when I was a student. I usually gave it to trustworthy ally characters. I like his design and personality quite a bit - sorry I haven’t used you much…

Page 17

The Shadows

It’s super cool to be able to split your body for each die face. I also feel like it’s a great character setting that each split has his own personality. A thought just crossed my mind - couldn’t I draw a manga just based around the Dezembers’ home life?

...I guess it would end up like Osomatsu-san...?

Page 18

Zwei

I wanted to use the concept that she was old despite her looks because she was a demon, so I had her dentures fly out - but now that I think about it, there’s other old demon characters, including some characters older than Zwei. So that would make her dentures a result of her own problematic lifestyle, not because of her old age…

Wanna Stab~

A mob among mobs, who ranked high in a popularity poll. I shall now grant him a name - “Phoenix the Rich”.

Mortmome

The stuff on his shoulder does some mysterious things, preventing his body from turning as well when the drill turns.

Page 19

The Great Mage

The cape he wears is very warm. His research assistants gifted him the cape as a present for his birthday sometime in his later years of life, as they were worried about his health. That’s why Alba always wears the cape.

Elf

He’s meant to be someone who knows the secrets of the world - but I can’t count the number of times I considered whether it would be better to just make him a regular old funny character. Good on you for surviving through all that, Elf!

Alf

While I did want there to be a “Elf’s best friend” character, I hadn’t thought about his name at all. So when it came time for him to appear, I really struggled with it. I wanted to make his name like Alba and Ros (Albatross) or Salt and Lake (Salt Lake)…

I may have struggled the most with Alf’s name among all my characters, considering I usually just pick names on instinct.

Page 20

Salt and Lake and Lym

The Hero Academy trio. At first, I planned for Salt to become the Demon Lord, but when I sat down to draw everything out, Lake ended up in that role - it really shocked me.

I had always planned for the story to shift from the adventure setting of Seasons 1 and 2 to the school setting of Season 3. Though the end result is completely different from what I imagined.

Season 3 was really fun to draw since it defied my expectations at every turn.

Page 21

Lyman

I wanted to draw a pathetic older man. I also want his scar to be because of some pathetic reason like “He tripped at a bar.”

Elmer

I reused the soldier design I thought up prior to thinking up Alba and Ros. He’s a little older than Rchi.

Justice

Justice is her ally. In other words, I wanted to make a character where no matter what she does, “I’m doing it, so it’s just!”

But it was too difficult to figure out how to deal with a character like that, so I ended up just making a regular old hotheaded reckless character.

In the end though, she ended up as a character I quite like.

Page 22

Grandpa

A character who loves money. Since I love characters who love money, he’s a character that’s fun to use. It doesn’t actually have to be money, I like characters true to their own desires in general.

Hasegawara-kun

He was originally meant to be a silent character, but I got the urge to make him talk right before I was going to send in the manuscript. Since I wouldn’t make it if I typesetted his speech, I wrote his lines myself. By writing his lines in a way that can only be expressed through handwriting, I made it seem like I planned that from the start.

I made his speech typesetted again after I did that plot where he speaks super eloquently.

Rib Man

He requires no explanation!

It was funny when he moved in the anime.

Page 23

Sochi and Co.

There’s a game called Medabots - in that game, a character called Samantha leads a three-person team called the Screws. I’ve always liked that team since I was a kid. And then, I learned that my editor for Senyu was close with people who were involved with creating the original Medabots. So I had my editor tell them, “I want to put in characters I respect! Please leave it be!”

Please google the Screws that I respect, I respect them.

Lucop

I had vaguely thought up what was going to happen until the end of season 4 of Senyu. But since I’ve done everything I originally thought up, F5 - which I’m drawing now - is all based on plot developments I thought up in +.

-I’ve been saying that for a while now. Lucop as well was just a throwaway joke at first. But as I started moving him around, amazing developments like “Huh? No way… you had a past like this…?” burst out of him, and so he became the current Lucop.

Page 24

Midnight

A travelling doctor. As he treats his patients, he’s also searching for a cure to Mom’s mysterious disease. He’s a completely normal person with no special powers. He wanted Alba to become strong through his own power, not through familial connections.

Cecily

A mother who adores her children. I think it’s pretty amazing that she managed to raise Lake up herself and send him off to school despite being blown off to a mysterious place out of nowhere.

Page 25

Rchimedes the Second and his wife

Rchimedes the Second and his wife. (T/N: Yes, it’s written twice.)

Daromeon-san, who’s currently illustrating Kengan Ashura, was the one to draw the ridiculously beautiful backgrounds in the flashback arc in Season 2 when the Second was imprisoned. When I complained that I couldn’t draw it, he drew me amazingly beautiful.backgrounds.

The Second’s design is based off of a mysterious preconception I have that “Demon Lords should wear raggedy capes.” Mama’s design is based on those soothing, kind moms you often see in anime.

The Mana Maker that he holds in this picture isn’t any particular Mana Maker. I just wanted to let a Mana Maker show up in a group picture.

Page 26

Rchimedes

While he’s tremendously evil, he ended up being quite loved. The Senyu characters I designed near the start wear clothes that I would never design now - I really think it’s amazing. Why did I dress him up in a jumpsuit when I decided to draw a Demon Lord?

On a side note, I imagined that the white part of his clothes peels off smoothly like tape if you pull at it from his neck.

Crea

Since he took back his body from Rchimedes, his height shouldn’t have changed, but for some reason he mysteriously shrunk.

Page 27

Page 28

Originia

In a way, the story of these three marks the start of Senyu. Originia comes from me messing around with the the word “Original”.

Rchimedes' scariest era just might be when he was living alone with Sion in Originia. Even though at first glance, it seems like he was living a peaceful, cheerful life with Sion, though occasionally getting beat up by him. But in reality, just what was he thinking deep inside, as he lived out his life, watching Crea and Sion?

Since I’m the author, I can generally imagine what my characters think just by thinking about it. But when it comes to Rchimedes during this time, all that comes to mind is “Scary scary scary”, and I can’t really think any further in detail.

I’m often asked “What’s Rchimedes’ original eye colour?”, but I think it was probably blue. I feel like I drew his eyes as blue somewhere, but I can’t remember…

Crea’s clothes slung around his shoulders that don’t fall off for whatever reason are actually sewn on - that’s why they don’t fall off. Crea sewed it on himself. While his threadwork is rough, it’s very sturdy. I think it’s wild and cool.

I showed a bit of what Sion did in the main story, but he generally did things like hauling supplies for hunting, looking far in the distance since his eyes are good, and going shopping in far-off cities for the village. Things like that.

Page 29

The two from Season 4 Episode 0

The two from Elf and Alf’s universe. Since Rchimedes’ magic research hasn’t progressed that much, they mostly fight with brute force. Since Crea never had his body stolen, he’s doing well. (He’s not doing well at all.)

Page 30

Creasion

When I was a kid, I read in a manga, “‘Hero’ isn’t something you call yourself - it’s a title you’re granted by others.” I remember thinking, “I see, that certainly makes sense,” and agreeing with it. I also thought, “While you generally think of heroes as being brave and splendid, the person who’s actually adventuring might not be able to stand expectations like that sometimes.”

Creasion may be a character borne out of those feelings of mine.

Ros, please have tons of sweets and smile tons as well.

Page 31

Page 32

Sleepiez

When I thought of the name “Sleepiez” in Senyu+, I didn’t think much of it except “There’s an anti-Alba organization”. I also planned for Boss to be a new character. But after I took the time to think about it properly, the Sleepiez in their current form were born.

Thanks to the current Sleepiez being created, F5 was able to start even though I thought before “I’ve already done everything I want to do with Senyu, I can’t make another proper season.”

If there was no Sleepiez, I feel like + would’ve lazily continued, then at some good cut-off point, I feel like I would’ve been told, “Do you think it’s about time to end it?”

A tenth anniversary for example… it would’ve been a good cut-off point… how scary!

Boss

I can’t write about most of the Sleepiez members just yet, so I’ll be talking about Boss as their representative.

Boss is an alternate universe’s Alba, so despite being Boss, he’s still Alba, and so I want to make him feel like Alba still. But since he’s Boss he can’t retort or make jokes, since it would ruin his dignity. So at the very least, I gave him Alba’s fashion sense to keep his Alba feel. Since his heart stained black and he became evil, his fashion sense naturally became eviller as well, but he’s still Alba, the base is still Alba. He’s wearing clothes that kinda feel like a middle schooler who just discovered fashion for the first time, like he hasn’t managed to go full evil in terms of clothes just yet.

Now I can keep Boss as Boss while still giving him an Alba feel! ...is what I thought, but… does he actually still have that feel…?

Page 33

Alba with Mana

It made me happy that my wish for my protagonist to become the strongest at the end was granted. I thought up a lot of reasons for why only one of his eyes is red, like how it’s because his awakening is still incomplete, etc., but the number one reason is “it’s cool.”

A single red eye is cool, right?! It’s cool right?!

Now that he can use his mana to some extent, he controls his overwhelming mana to hold it back, so his eyes are both back to black now.

Page 34

Page 35

SQ Senyuu.

I had this conversation once-

Y-san from Dwango told me, “I want to take Senyu to a magazine to have it serialized!”

I thought it would be awesome if it actually happened, so I approved it. Then I was like, “If you do take it to a magazine, where would you take it?”

Then Y-san responded, “Well, if you say ‘magazine’, you think Jump.”

And I was like, “Nah nah, Jump would be impossible, ahahaha.”

I never thought that Y-san would actually bring me an offer for serialization in Jump - Y-san was way too capable. Since my personal experience with Jump all started from there, I’m really grateful!

Pages 36-43

Page 44

Afterword

Since I’ve remade Senyu Episode 1 many times before, I thought that I would never remake it again. But then I thought- why don’t I remake Episode 1 at the exact time it was originally released ten years ago, as celebration! So I ended up remaking it again.

But I think it may be my first time remaking it without changing any of the jokes or content.

#senyuu #senyu #senyuu spoilers #haruhara robinson

22 notes · View notes

rabbitsparklez · 4 years

Text

Explaining the red rocks + Eugene’s and Rapunzel’s TRUE worst fears

I was rewatching Be Very Afraid and I developed a headcanon about the red rocks and characters' worst fears.

I am not a writer of this show, nor is my logic infallible, but I put together my theory on how the red rocks read people, and the possibility that they can misread people

This is my longest post yet, so grab some snacks.

Rapunzel said that her worst fear was the things Cassandra could do to Corona, and losing her as a friend, but unlike everyone else, she didn't actually see visions of her fears and wasn't screaming in terror, as Eugene observed and pointed out. Maybe the rocks only work when the victim chooses to acknowledge their fear, and if they choose to avoid thinking about their fears, the rocks won't sense their feelings.

In the previous episodes, we see that Rapunzel is obviously trying to push her thoughts about Cassandra to the back of her mind so that she can focus on her life in Corona. She's clearly still upset about it all, but she has always had the tendency to be optimistic and cheerful, even when she's upset or scared. Rapunzel chooses not to acknowledge her feelings, but others do, like Varian and Lance. Of course Varian was having visions of losing his father because of his recent traumatic experience, and he chooses to acknowledge that fear, having every reason to be afraid. Not to mention, being a teenager, Varian must think about his emotions and feelings a lot, and the rocks could easily sense that. What would be giving him nightmares and swarming his mind every day more than losing his father again? Throughout the episode, Varian had tried to keep his mind off of that so he could focus on helping Rapunzel, and mostly it worked. He didn’t see anything related to his fears until he and Rapunzel reached the chamber where the rocks originated, and he had to use the amber to eliminate their power. Varian was scared of the amber because he knew what it was capable of doing, and it was in that moment that he started seeing his fears. We see another example with Lance. He showed that he had stage fright and fear of clowns and spiders, and while he didn't openly admit that, he didn't try to push it back into his head either. When Lance decided to stop letting his fears overcome him, they shrunk and ran away, because he no longer had that fear. It appears that the person doesn't need to confess that they are afraid, but all they need to do is allow themselves to be afraid, and let those negative emotions stick in their minds.

Realizing this, I became very incredulous about Eugene's worst fear.

The episode said that it was a cowlick, but......No. No way. Why do I think that Eugene's biggest fear wasn't a cowlick if that's what he saw? Because he allows himself to make a fuss about the way he looks. He acknowledges the fact that he hates imperfections in the way he looks, and doesn't try to push that away. His true, deep emotional feelings, on the other hand, are a different story. A while back, @timid-izzie wrote an essay that went over the possibility of him having post-traumatic trauma and the fact that he tends to hide his own fears and negative emotions, covering them up with humor. Eugene doesn't acknowledge his negative emotions and fears, and I think, similar to how Rapunzel wasn't seeing visions of Cassandra, the rocks didn't sense any of Eugene's greater fears because they are pushed into the back of his mind. Deep down, Eugene has very unbearable fears, but pushes them so far back that he doesn’t realize how badly he has them.

A few people have compared his worst fear, being a cowlick, to the scene from “The Quest for Varian”, where he mentions the fact that he had a cowlick before Rapunzel hit him with the frying pan and it was fixed after the blow. Basically, the fact that he doesn’t have a cowlick signifies the fact that he met Rapunzel and became a better person. I agree that this theory makes sense, and it doesn’t exactly disprove what I’m saying, because the cowlick is also related to imperfections.The writers wanted a cheap way to brush him out of the picture so they can focus on Cass, so why not use vanity as an excuse to do so? With or without the significance of the frying pan, the rocks could easily sense Eugene’s discomfort regarding imperfections. But they only show his reflection, not anything related to the origin of having that fear. The rocks sense his “fear of cowlicks” as a vanity-associated thing, because they can’t read the rest of the story. They don’t know why he hates cowlicks, but only the fact that he does. Considering this, I believe that Eugene has more deep fears than just the cowlick.

What are the rest of his worst fears, then? There are many things that Eugene has likely had negative feelings about that might be a lot worse than what he convinces himself to believe. If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. He spent a good 23 years trying to find himself and escaping his identity, having no family, no friends, no home, and no money - until he started stealing. There are many things that can go wrong there. When he grew older, he made a lot of enemies and must have gotten into a lot of conflicts. He worked with and for very bad people who wanted to use him, and almost married an abusive and manipulative girl who only wanted him for his thieving abilities (Not to mention was way to young and naive to get married). Several notably traumatic things happened to him only in the last three years. In one day, he was sentenced to be hanged, witnessed the abuse of the woman he loved, and was stabbed and killed. No matter how much you think of others, there’s no person who can thoroughly escape such horrific events that happen to yourself. I think that Cassandra's taking the Moonstone was just as traumatic for Eugene as it was for Rapunzel, but in a different way. Remember that Eugene’s ancestors dedicated their entire family legacy to destroying that stone because it killed people, including his own mother. The Moonstone is directly the reason he was sent to an orphanage, became a notorious criminal, and received a death penalty. He forbade Rapunzel from entering the castle because he was so afraid for her safety that he didn’t want to risk losing her. Minutes after he built up the courage to let her grab it after remembering his faith in her, Cassandra took it like a piece of candy and ran away with it. He turned his back on the woman he loved to protect her and felt terrible about it, only for the stone to be stolen by someone who resented and wanted to kill her. Later, the unseen events or “No Time Like the Past” apparently forced him to stop resenting her because “friends don’t leave friends behind” (which, let’s face it, completely abolishes Flynn Rider’s persona and I hate it). But no matter what happened in that episode, I highly doubt Eugene immediately came to forgive Cassandra. The objective was to show that Cassandra was still redeemable, but it was poorly written, as a comment in “Flynnpostor” about Flynn Rider leaving people behind basically confirmed that either the events of “No Time Like the Past” never happened, or that he came back to his senses. Either way, there is no way Eugene’s (completely justified and understandable) resentment towards Cassandra just disappeared.

It should be clarified that Eugene was not completely okay in season 3. He wanted to support Rapunzel and keep her hopes up, but logically, he would have serious problems deep inside.

We get an example of this in "Return of the King", when he's irritated at Edmund for suddenly wanting to be part of his life after abandoning him. I've seen a lot of people point fingers at Eugene and call him rude for his hostility toward him in that episode, but honestly, I don't blame him. That was the first time he'd seen him since "Destinies Collide", and in his defense, Edmund didn't exactly welcome him with loving fatherly arms. When Eugene met his father, the first three things he had to do were accept his tragic backstory and identity crisis, dedicate himself to destroying the moonstone, and break his beloved girlfriend's heart. In actuality, Edmund is really a sweet and loving father, but Eugene didn't see that at first and it's not his fault. It wasn't until he found out that his father had kept track of him by reading his favorite books and bringing his childhood toys home that he realized just how much his father thought about him. In the finale, he admitted his resentment and confusion towards him, but that he had come to understand his motive. Until that cursed episode “No Time Like the Past”, he was very worried about Rapunzel’s behavior and the fact that she was thinking about Cass despite the fact that she almost killed her. The point is, Eugene is not immune to having emotionally painful feelings, and the writers didn't fool us when they claimed that his worst fear was a cowlick. It's an absolute pity that in a show where one of the morals is "you should never bury your feelings", one of the main characters has no story whatsoever relating to his very much real trauma.

If my theory about the rocks misreading peoples' feelings is correct, based on my observations, I don't think Rapunzel's worst fear is what she claimed it was either.

It was not losing Cassandra as a friend. You might say I'm contradicting myself by saying this, because my original point for this theory was based off of that, but remember that Rapunzel generally does not express negative feelings. I believe that the rocks couldn't read Rapunzel's fears because she didn't allow herself to think about her fears. Perhaps losing Cassandra as a friend is one of her fears, but not her worst fear. Although she thought a lot about her, she thought in a hopeful sense rather than a miserable, negative sense.

In “Cassandra’s Revenge”, Rapunzel seemed to be completely over Cassandra, wanting to settle down and appreciate her surroundings. I’m not going to elaborate, but I’ve always regarded Cassandra’s and Rapunzel’s relationship as unhealthy, and it was especially bad for Rapunzel to keep wanting Cass to be back because Mother Gothel, her former abuser, was the motive. I saw this episode as a way to show that she was over her - she even painted over the pictures of her on her wall. But afterward she still seemed to care a lot about bringing her back, and even sang a song about wanting to do anything for her (which I don’t believe, seeing that she would use an incantation on her to save Eugene, showing that she wouldn’t give him up for her). Part of me sees this as another poorly written, contradictory scene that tried to cram in Cassandra’s potential to be redeemed, because, for her own mentality, Rapunzel should be over her. But I don’t think all of that was thought out in that way. Rapunzel still continued to pine onto Cassandra and bringing her back, but that came from her compassion for her rather than a deep and serious emotional feeling. The entire “Cass is still redeemable” arc was aimed to show that Rapunzel has compassion for everyone and won’t give up. It was not a matter of having a truly passionate fear of losing Cassandra, and I highly doubt that that was Rapunzel’s worst fear.

Similar to Eugene, I believe she has certain trigger fears that are buried deep down inside of her.

I'm specifically thinking about "Rapunzeltopia", when Matthews controlled her dreams. According to Matthews, the things that he showed her were her worst nightmares. She saw Mother Gothel restraining her, Corona acting hostile, her fear of touching the rocks, and.... Cassandra. But it was not in a "afraid to lose her as a friend" sense. Cassandra was attacking her and blaming her for her problems. She tried to kill her and take revenge for getting her arm burnt. These visions must have had a more valid representation of Rapunzel's fears than the rocks did, because Matthews had entered and taken control of her mind. The rocks (again, if this is correct) merely read peoples' visible feelings; Matthews went inside her head and brought out her traumas, her true fears. A lot of people seem to think that Rapunzel has completely forgotten about Mother Gothel and what she did to her, but that is not true. I believe that Rapunzel’s fears are masked by her positive attitude, and this precisely was why the rocks couldn’t see through her, similar to Eugene. When she saw Mother Gothel keeping her in the tower, she was chained up. There was one time ever when Mother Gothel chained Rapunzel up. That was the day Rapunzel found out her life was a lie, was almost buried in a dungeon for life, saw the love of her life get murdered before her eyes (and might have partially thought it was her fault), and experienced other dramatic changes in her life - especially the part about losing Eugene. Throughout the series, Rapunzel has shown a particular weakness whenever she thought she would be separated from Eugene or lose him. He is her first friend, aside from Pascal, and an infinitely close and beloved one. He was the first person to ever show compassion towards her and care about her, which was the thing she never received from Mother Gothel. Whether she’d realized it or not, she had always craved that sort of attention and love, and Eugene gave it to her. She holds him especially close, not just as her lover but as a friend, because he repaired her life. Whenever his life was at risk, Rapunzel became especially desperate: He was what sparked her to use the Reverse Incantation on Hector to defeat (and possibly even KILL) him. Similarly, she used another potentially dangerous incantation to fight for him when Cassandra threatened to kill him (proof that she would not give anything for her). She stopped and dropped in the middle of a fight with Zhan Tiri because she saw him lying on the ground, possibly thinking he was dead (True, anyone would be concerned for someone they love if they saw them on the ground, but I can’t help but notice they were in a very similar position that they were when he died) Eugene has always been Rapunzel’s #1 priority, and I have a strong feeling that besides loving him above all else, she has the fear of revisiting that traumatic moment in which she lost him. Maybe she even felt responsible for letting that happen to him, especially since Mother Gothel made everything her fault.

I believe, among the other things she saw in that episode, Rapunzel's true worst fear was that day - that fateful day in which she found out her life was a lie and lost the one person who truly loved her.

Well I might be seriously overthinking this and be completely wrong, but from my POV it makes sense. People take trauma in different ways, depending on how seriously affected they are, who they are as a person, and their capacity to rise or fall from their demons. I truly believe that despite their natural optimism and resilience, both Rapunzel and Eugene have deeper fears and traumas than what is focused on in the show. We know as a fact that this show isn't afraid to let the audience know that characters suffer mental afflictions, such as Frederick and Varian, so why wouldn't characters like Rapunzel and Eugene, who have been through so much, suffer the same?

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and if not I thank you anyway.

Note:

I’d love to hear what you think, but please, if you have any questions or comments regarding this theory of mine, do not message me with the chat. I will not be active on Tumblr for a while. (You may use my ask box)

#TTS #Tangled the Series #RTA #Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure #Rapunzel #Eugene #rabbitsparklez #This is a LONG post fyi

81 notes · View notes

streets-in-paradise · 4 years

Text

Women of Troy appreciation post

I realized i kinda started a small series of posts about this film because of my excitement about it and the big lack of content there is about it. I’m trying to make my small contributions to fill this gap. Since i already did one fangirling about the men i want to make other a bit more serious to talk about the female characters.

I have only three ladies to talk about here, the female characters were very few and in their story arcs they condensed the roles other women had in the original story. I understand a bit that, since they already had a three hours long film, they needed to cut some stuff. Even when i understand that, i would had liked to see at least a few more women. To be fair i think the character cut is not gendered, for example, the rest of the very extense list of brothers of Hector and Paris were cutted out in the same way of their sisters. We also don’t see a lot of important greek captains that are not mentioned, in the same way we don’t see other greek queens besides from Helen. I think it was an issue of lack of time for development of more characters.

For this post i will talk from the movie’s perspective and i will add some of my personal headcanons for this version. Since Troy is pretty much Wolfgang Petersen’s Iliad fanfiction i will ramble from that perspective. In the dvd extras he said he read the iliad in greek , what makes me think he basically created his own fanfict in this movie and,as flawled as it is, i’m here for it. The characters, the costumes, the locations, everything gives you an amazing scense of inmersion. In that spirit, i want to talk a bit about the trojan princesses.

I don’t own the images i will use.

Sorry for my terrible english

Helen

I had to start with her since she is the first woman we are introduced to in the film and she is the most famous female character of this story. I like the approach her story has, she is never blamed for the war.The film picks sides and a moral compass, the narrative is with the trojans and it assumes Priam’s morals. In the context of this adaptation is pretty much impossible to blame Helen. How could somebody blame her for wanting to scape from that husband? Even in the case of her not being sure of her love for Paris she saw a chance to scape and took it. She was a prisoner of a husband who didn’t cared for her, as she clearly states in the talk with Paris “ Before you came to Sparta, I was a ghost”. She was forced to marry a man who didn’t cared for her, she felt invisible and unimportant. Despite being the queen of the damn city, she felt worthless.

Having this in consideration i also believe that, in this approach, the reasons of why Helen could had fallen so fast for Paris are more understandable. He is not only a man that shows interest in her, Paris is such a non threating guy. I can imagine him as this womanizer who is used to win over all the ladies wherever he goes but, when he meet Helen, he fell so hard that he ended up as a dorky mess at least at first. I think he was very different from the sort of guy she used to see in Sparta. Being used to all the rough warriors there Paris is a literal dork in comparison and i think that’s exactly what she liked of him. The tenderness and softness of this non threating reckless dork absolutely head over hills for her.

Most of her story arc is setted by this romance, i would had liked to see more of her in the city once the war starts. Did the trojans blamed her for the war? Did they support their king’s choice of letting her stay? How was she like as a princess? Did she ever felt like a princess of Troy? She supported the people in any form? How did the rest of the trojan elite recieved her?

The only hints of interactions we see of her without Paris are with Priam and Hector. The closesness in which they always are makes me think she got close to Andromache as well. I would had loved to see how Briseis reacted to her. Was she upset with Paris for it? Did they got along? I can imagine her yelling at Paris when she found out, not upset with Helen but with him.

I love the friendship she has with Hector. We saw only a few interactions of them but i think they developed a frienship and it’s nice how he makes her feel part of the family once the fate of war is decided and there is no chance to avoid it. Priam seems to make efforts as well and i think that she eventually felt part of the family at least with them.

I would had loved to see at least one scene of actual interaction between Helen and Andromache. I picture them bonding over all the shit arround them and comforting each other but i would had liked to see if they actually got close as i imagine by the hints in the movie, how was their relationship like.

I would had wanted to see more of Helen’s relationship with the trojans and her story arc expanded besides from her love for Paris and the role it had in the war. Besides from that i love and enjoy her character, i empathize with her and i would protect her against anyone who could dare to blame her for the war.

Briseis

Storywise speaking she is a mix of story arcs from different women of the original. She assumes the roles of the original Briseis, Chryseis,Cassandra,Polyena and (at the end) Clytemnestra. Despite this fact I have to say I love this girl. From when I watched the movie for the first time as a child I remember how much I used to love the scene where she is taken to Agamemnon and, while Achilles tries to defend her, she calls everyone out on their bullshit even when her own safety is at risk. Briseis is so unapologetically herself, even in the worst possible context, and I love that.

We already see something similar in her meeting with Achilles. Let’s think about it for a second, she is there as a captive, her freedom was taken away and all she knows is that she is going to be a slave owned by the most fierce greek warrior in the entire army. Instead of being terrified she confronts him,she raises her voice at him like it’s nothing. Briseis is so used to speak her mind that she does it without hesitation.

Right after, she stops Achilles from fighting Agamemnon’s men because she doesn’t want to see another bloodbath. To me it’s such a powerful moment because, if we remember that to every man in that room she is nothing but a slave, that action is so fucking brave and awesome. The first time i saw it i was shocked, Briseis calling them out was super badass to me. Also, whatching her killing Agamemnon at the end is so satisfying.

Since her backstory is not detailed much i have a few headcanons.i can mention. Her parents are not there, i can imagine her growing up raised by her uncle and being very close with her cousins. I would had liked to see more of her relationship with her family but, since her part of the story gets a startpoint with her capture, we didn’t had much time to see her in Troy.

Some interaction between her, Helen and Andromache before or after her time as captive would had been great to see, specially because this three women are awesome and it sucks to never have time to see them interacting. I can see Helen and Briseis having at least a small bonding moment after she comes back. I can imagine her being the bridge between Briseis and Andromache after Hector’s death. Briseis must had feel so terrible and guilty. The man she fell in love with killed her cousin.Andromache’s husband. I think she would have a hard time in procesing her own grief but at the same time she would find hard to approach Andromache because of how guilty she feels for what happened. In that context, Helen would help her to get close to her again. At the same time, nothing is mentioned on how people reacted to her return. What if her reputation got questioned? Rumours about her and Achilles affected her life there? I can imagine that, in the case of her getting questioned or judged by some people, Helen would had encouraged her.

Other character i would had wished to see her interacting more with is Patroclus. I think the would get along very well considering that both are morally calling out Achilles all the time. He is such a sweet boy, his presence could had been comforting to her. That would make everything more tragic. if she cares for Hector but also for Patroclus then the war upon them would had made her witness how her cousin killed her friend, then the man she loves killed her cousin and got killed by her youngest cousin afterwards. I can see Patroclus and Briseis being friendly to each other and maybe being friends. It hurts like fuck to think about it but it is something that could had been.

Andromache

My favourite female character in this film. Andromache is the best, I love her so much. She is such an empowering character despite being the most traditional woman on this list. Actually that is something I love, she is a traditional mother and wife character and a strong female character as well, a proof that one doesn’t exclude the other. Just by seeing how her husband asks for her advice all the time you can think that, if Hector would have been crowned king after Priam, this lady would have been the actual ruler of Troy. She is so clever, an amazing strategist Hector himself is impressed by. When he says to her that she would be a good general you can see it’s totally true. She’s amazing, more clever than lots of trojan noblemen in Priam’s council.

All the family moments between Hector, Andromache and their son warm my heart. They are such a cute family. Hector and Andromache are perfect for each other. In this version I headcanon them being friends or knowing each other long before marrying, Andromache as the woman Hector always knew he wanted to marry and when he finally does he feels like the happiest man alive. That’s the vibe they give me, a couple that has been in love for a very long time and they know each other better than anyone else. Hector is the best husband ever, so loyal and loving to his wife. They are a lovely couple.

I had already described a few of the interactions I would have liked to see between her and other characters. As I said, I can see her getting close to Helen, bonding and becoming friends and I would have loved to see that explored. Since Clytemnestra is not in this version we don’t know if Helen had any siblings and I imagine Andromache adopting a sort of older sister role to Helen, even without realizing it directly and more towards acts than words. As we see in hints of the few city scenes they must have spent a lot of time together and, since Andromache has the same caring nature of her husband, I can imagine her ending up caring for her more than what she may had expected at first. Regarding her relationship with Briseis and what i said before i think she didn’t blame her for what happened, Briseis felt guilty about it and may have tried to avoid her because of that guilt for a while until Helen helped them to get close again.

My biggest complaint to the movie in terms of this character is that I would have appreciated to see more of her interacting with the other women. Also, more of her clever badass self involved in the war like from a tactics perspective or something. Honestly, Andromache should had been in the council of Priam. She and Hector would had been awesome calling out that old priest giving always the wrong advice. Also, i can totally see her leading the group of trojan survivors we see at the end in the director’s cut.

This is all for now, i hope you enjoyed this very long post and my headcanons for this awesome women in the universe of this movie. If you want to add more i’m always open to discussion.

Thanks for reading this long ramble

@hrisity12 I tag you since you already told me you are interested in this post.

#my weird rambles #troy 2004 #women of troy #helen of troy #briseis #andromache #diane kruger #rose byrne #saffron burrows #women of troy appreciation post #female characters appreciation post

39 notes · View notes

theadorablespderman · 5 years

Text

Everything to love about Far From Home not in this order:

Literally seeing that opening with all our loved avengers that are no more.

Whitney Houston “I will always love you” made me cry because damnit Tony’s face was right THERE! NOT OK!

The blip footage was pretty damn funny not gonna lie.

Peter’s cute ass plan to tell MJ how he feels.

MJ’s favorite flower being a Black Dalia because of the murder. Literally a girl I can relate too. Murderinos for life sister. Idk but it just made her sooo relatable!

The fact that Brad is a kid grown up from the blip and that made him seem all the weirder for MJ.

Jealous Peter was so freaking amazing! Oh my gosh! That face he’d get. I’m a sucker for jealousy and they did it so good.

Making MJ this awesome character she was before but also obviously has this softer layer where she does have flaws and insecurities and she’s really sweet but also so badass. That was amazing.

The starting relationship between Peter and Beck. It was cute and so I was sad knowing that Beck was somehow going to be the villain.

Also let’s talk about how Beck is basically Syndrom from the incredibles.

That scene with Peter and Brad....the pure terror when he snapped that picture

Also seeing how big of a dick Brad is and how unhealthy jealous he was.

“Nick Fury” getting ghosted, showing up in Venice, tranquilising Ned (don’t touch him you monster) and then promptly highjacking Peters Summer trip.

Showing the emotional trama Peter is going through. The anxiety, the greiving. It was very reminiscent of Iron Man 3 when Tony suffers from PTSD after the battle of New York. I loved that they showed Peter reacting as any kid would, many adults too, which is to just try and forget anything happened but being faced with the reality every day. So well done.

Happy and May’s relationship. Enough said 😂😂

I feel cheated we didn’t see Mr delmore again.

Addressing all the problems the Blip/Snap created. High school aging, school, drinking ages, homelessness and housing issues. That’s just the start of it I’m sure but they covered those pretty well and I love that.

The technology that made Beck into Misterio was so well done. Instead of some frankly, kinda far fetched story that he came from an alternate earth (which I was willing to believe but felt it was a cop out in terms of plot and character) they showed the real world issues that superhero’s can create. The Enemies that have a real deep rooted hatred for hero because they’ve personally been betrayed or wronged by them. Because marvel has always made clear, everyone is not on the hero’s side.

Steeping Misterio’s powers in tech which is classing marvel but again, so brilliantly done in this movie. I loved the development. Because at first glance, half way through, I was thinking “wow this is really kinda weird and unexplained and too witchcraft for what marvel usually brings to the superpower backstory” I know it’s weird to say after everything marvel has done. But it seemed just a tad out there without being too hard to grasp. Which again was brilliantly done because that was the whole point.

The nod to Misterio’s helmet even when Beck was in the hologram suit watching everything play out. I guess it was his screen? But I loved the staple of even without his big over the top suit he still had the trademark helmet. Great costume design.

Peter’s soft gazes towards MJ. Nearly gave me a cavity they were so sweet! Ahhh sooo cute

Mr. Harrington’s marital problems nearly made me pee my pants....we all knew here in the fandom that shit like that would half to happen but my god lol

The opera scene was sooo freakin cute and that one step Peter took when he saw Brad move in was so freaking cute and hot!

MJ running after him and finding the critical peice of information to crack the case wide open. Loved it.

Betty and Ned’s Sicily sweet romance that you knew couldn’t possibly last. They really nailed the realistic high school romance. But I still ship it.

The bus scene was epic. And when Peter knocked Flash out...god it was amazing.

Mj obviously having love eyes towards Peter same as he does for her.

THE FACT THAT HE ACTUALLY BOUGHT THAT NECKLACE FOR HER OH MY GOD! I CANT GET A GUY TO TEXT ME BACJ LET ALONE BUY A NECKLACE LIKE THAT WHICH PROBABALY COST A GOOD CHUNK OF CHANGE IT WAS SO FREAKING AMAZING AND CUTE AND TOUCHING.

All the iron man images got me feeling depressed as hell

“are you being serious because I was only like 67% sure?” That was amazing. Seeing MJ get so excited and trying to keep that hidden was awesome

The fact that she was so pleased with herself but also played it hella cool when Ned walked in and she said she figured it out. Literally that is me.

The shirtless Peter trope that we all wanted and freaking got! So freaking cute how she tried to peak at his abs. Like understandable girl.

The fucking illusions. Turning our sweet trusting Peter into a ball of mess. I was too.

God when he had to tell himself it wasn’t real but it still totally feels like it is.

Him trying to save MJ when she’s “thrown off the Eiffel Tower”

Every traumatizing thing Beck shows and tells him during the illusion. So shitty.

Seeing Tony’s grave, seeing iron man come out. That was awful and we all felt it in the movie because we’ve lost him too. We could FEEL that slap same as Peter.

Beck telling Peter that Tony’s death was his fault. I was abouta hurl myself at the movie screen.

Every illusion done in a way that just when you think it’s over, it’s never stopped. You forget what’s real and you feel trapped in it same as Peter does.

WHEN HE GETS HIT BY THE TRAIN!!!!!!!!!! Nearly had a damn heart attack!!!! My mom had to look over and ask if I was ok because I literally stopped breathing for a solid 30 seconds.

Showing gradually just how insane and evil Misterio was.

HAPPY BEING CONCERNED FOR PETER! LIKE SINCERELY AND HONESTLY CONCERNED! It’s good to know he’s got Happy to take care of him and May but that Peter still has a father type figure he can count on after Tony. Because you know Tony wouldn’t have put up with any of that getting hit by a train shit.

Also where the hell was Karen? We missed her. We got Edith but Karen wouldn’t have let Misterio take her over. WHERE WAS KAREN!!

Peter crying and needing to know Happy was real. Broke me heart

That hug between them was so sweet and you can see the concern on Happy’s face

Happy and Peter opening up to each other was so awesome considering their relationship in Homecoming.

ALL THE TONY and PETER PARRELLS! All of them!!!!!!!!! Not the people saying “Spider-Man’s the next Ironman” no the actual hints and glimpses at how similar him and tony actually are. The hologram gauntlet shot, a straight parallel to Iron Man when Tony is building his first real suit. Obviously “Back in Black” by Led Zeplen (formally known as AC/DC) playing. Another obvious hint toward Tony. The Stark sunglasses. Peter falling with the parachute and it literally looks like Ironman with his jet stream behind him from a distance. There’s so much more I’ll do a whole other post on.

Of course: “I love Led Zeplin!” Hahaha it’s such a kid thing to say! I’ve said it before I knew the big differences between AC/DC and Led Zeplin. It was so freaking perfect.

Peter making his suit and Happy’s face. Bittersweet and I live for the affection he holds for Peter now.

The Netherlands Holding cell...must I say more?

Brad’s downfall and MJs amazing comment about him taking pictures of people in the bathroom. Ep-ic. Even flash was like “bro that’s so weird”

Mr. witchcraft was hilarious and I loved his aside with Brad “I’m gonna be the cool teacher and tell you you can’t do that anymore.”

Flash is definately Gay or Bi and I’m so here for it. That wink he makes to Peter proves it.

All the near death truths in the vault of the tower.

MJ BADDASS COMES SWINGING WITH THE MACE AND IT WAS LEGINDARY OH MY GOD! YES GIRL! She’s my idol I love her so much.

Peter and his “Peter Tingle” And while we’re on the subject the banana he gets to the face while packing.

Important. His amazing skills at the end trusting his instincts (which is great because May says in regards to MJ, but it applies to this too) May tells Peter to trust his instincts and don’t think too much. And that’s what he does when he defeats Beck.

The bad ass “you can’t fool me anymore” after redirecting the gun away from his head at the end. Literally was so intense and well done.

Peter and MJ’s kisses! I loved how awkward it was at first and the slightly less awkward one. They really accurately captured the awkwardness of teenagers in love. Like that’s what it’s like guys.

Show me MJ’s parents you cowards, or show me something. Anything. I just want to know the nature of the situation.

Ned and Betty’s breakup. So funny and honestly not surprising at all. But still I ship them.

The hand hold. So cute.

May and Peter still being the cutest aunt and nephew duo there ever was.

I totally thought Peter was going to end with telling the world he was spiderman....BUT SOME OTHER ASSHOLES DID IT FOR HIM AND MADE HIM INTO A VILLAN AND IM PISSED. LOOKING AT YOU MR JAMESON YOU PEICE OF SHIT.

The movie ended and I have no idea what’s next.

Mid credit of MJ swinging through New York. Home girl doesn’t like and neither do I. Looks full on terrifying we don’t blame you hun.

After credit where the skrulls have been playing Maria and Nick fury for the whole movie. Honestly it made more sense because Nick fury seemed just a bit off. ALSO WHERE IS THE REAL NICK FURY at and I’m so psyched to see where this new movies are gonna go!

Alright that all for now folks!!!! Everything about the movie was great!!! I will have to watch again ad see if anything more pops up. Sorry for any spelling errors I’m on my phone.

#peter parker #marvel #spiderman #mcu #michelle jones #spideychelle #spider-man #spider-man: homecoming #avengers #tony stark #ned leeds #spiderman far from home #spider man: far from home #far from home spoilers #spoilers

1K notes · View notes

meimi-haneoka · 4 years

Text

Comments on Chapter 43 of Clear Card

What’s the most appropriate GIF for this chapter?

Let’s see...

Yes. Yes I think this is the most appropriate one!

Ohkawa last month must have drank something good, really good. Stay with me and you’ll find out why! Spoilers under the cut!

Momo’s backstory

The chapter starts with Momo’s backstory, told by Kaito while he’s taking her measures. We kinda anticipated who-knows-what kind of majestic true form for Momo, but actually, it seems pretty simple? She had longer and beautiful ears in the past, and....that’s about it ^__^” it’s so underwhelming that it makes me almost doubting this is her final form at all! XD

We find out that Momo was born together with the white book, and that book is capable of granting a special kind of time magic to those who make a contract with it...unfortunately, as we CLAMP fans well know, messing with time is NEVER a good idea (glaring furiously at TRC) and this book is no exception: whoever tried to use it before didn’t end up happily...and Momo, out of guilt and tiredness for seeing so many people ruin themselves, almost decided to shut everything down and not allowing the use of the book anymore. Until....a single asshole came into the picture and showed interest in using the book regardless of all the risks...We all know who I’m talking about, right? XD

It’s at that point that we go back to present time, and Momo bashes Kaito for telling her past story in such a sloppy way XDDD We switch to the girls at school, and apparently Akiho decided to challenge herself with a new hobby: starting with plushie clothes, she plans on making an handmade outfit for Kaito. ^___^ you really don’t deserve her, jackass... Tomoyo takes the chance to offer herself as a teacher for both Akiho and Sakura, who needs to do something for SYAORAN’S BIRTHDAY!! Yes it’s coming up and it’s the first time it’s mentioned in canon!!! I’m seriously excited for that....the least we can expect is some tragedy happening. LMAO.

Creepiness intensifies

However, Tomoyo wants to try something out. She takes Akiho’s measures, and she states that not only their height, but also all the other measures of Sakura and Akiho are exactly the same. Okay. Okay this is definitely getting TOO CREEPY to be considered cute anymore. And the girls realize this too, their realization face isn’t really excited in a positive way. Who's got the feeling that Tomoyo might have a theory or two about what is going on? Because it’s definitely not normal for two human beings to be this similar. But thanfully Naoko comes in to interrupt the disconcerting mood, as she’s got something to announce... We find out what that is from Syaoran and Sakura, walking back home: their school is going to participate to an exchanging event with all the other schools of the city (or at least that’s how I understood it), and Tomoeda Middle School will do a school play for the occasion.

No more Sleeping Beauty

Syaoran loses ABSOLUTELY NO TIME in clarifying that he will ONLY be a stagehand XDDDD Sakura lowkey tries to convince him, but he’s even more on fire XD more than 2 years later and he still didn’t overcome the embarrassment of playing as a princess in the Sleeping Beauty play, of which Sakura gently provides us with a memory...

But then...the unexpected happens...the scene that made me say, at the beginning of this long ass post, that Ohkawa got drunk...

Sakura and Syaoran pass by the Penguin Park, and when she sees the swings of the park, she suddenly remembers one of the most painful, heart-wrenching and yet romantic scenes of the whole Cardcaptor Sakura story: when Sakura confessed to Syaoran that she was turned down by Yukito. Sakura reminisces both what Yukito and Syaoran told her, on that day....and Syaoran doesn’t let himself be caught unprepared: he remembers every single word he told her. And, while he recites the same words, which back then were powerful like a magic charm, he’s so serious. I loved how Mokona decided to make him go suddenly serious and solemn in this part. Because his love for Sakura, and the mission he took on himself when he went back to Hong Kong, are like a sworn oath to him. He’s absolutely, without fail, serious about this.

Thank god I found you

Sakura happily states that yes, she finally found The One she loves the most, and who loves her the most in return. Syaoran was right, and the thing she was hoping for was in front of her the whole time. Sakura also sounds so “mature” in this scene, with that “I didn’t understand very well what Yukito-san meant, back then”. My kids have grown up so much, and they still will, from now on T___T

This scene of course caused a ruckus in the fandom, because it recalls all too much another infamous scene in Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicle...actually, more than one. Even the concept of not being able to touch eachother (this time not for a ritual but because Sakura risks to electrocute Syaoran on the spot) is the same, and I am particularly worried for what this will entail once the final showdown will be happening. Cause of course, at this point, it’s pretty apparent this won’t be resolved until the end of the manga... Still, the two lovebirds managed to turn the scene into one of the most beautiful ones, even without touching eachother. That’s the power of their relationship for you. That’s how evocative are CLAMP’s manga panels.

Scene changes to Yukito’s home, of course Nakuru is there, but Sakura came over and she brought Kero and Suppi too. There’s a HILARIOUS scene of Kero yelling all of his frustration for having to witness that sappy scene inside of Sakura’s bag...Nakuru is having the time of her life, but when Sakura comes in and sits down at the table to eat the snacks, she suddenly asks Yukito:

“Have you done something?”

aaaaand this is the moment when the whole fandom went...

I have to give credit, CLAMP are particularly GOOD at this. At throwing stuff from left field at the less expected moment. And it’s completely useless to even start theorizing, because the wording is so VAGUE and the timing is SO OUT OF THE BLUE, that one can’t really help but feeling confused. At first I thought (blaming the English translation for this) she was asking him to confess if he was the one casting the spell that is making SyaoSaku unable to touch. But no, the Japanese line is actually very vague and it could be relating to the thing that happens right after: Sakura feels “something”, runs outside, and finds out that it’s already night. Even though it should be, like, 3 pm? (saying that Touya would be back for 4 pm was done purposedly to tell the readers what time was at the moment).

And all we are left with is an intense cliffhanger in our faces, which are more or less like this:

I’ll have to say this, though: SAKURA IS A F*CKING QUEEN.

She’s the sweetest girl, she might seem naive and oblivious to stuff, BUT NO, DAMN SHE’S NOT, SHE’LL SHOW YOU RECEIPTS WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT. She did it with Syaoran before, and now with Yukito. And judging by his face, she definitely caught him red-handed. I will never, never get tired to praise her for this.

What else to say, I really enjoyed the lighter tone of this chapter, especially considering what is going on in the world right now, but I also expect next chapter to go back to creepy atmospheres and anxiety. I feel the finale might be near...we’ll see.

Thank you for reading and let me know your thoughts on this chapter!!!

#Card Captor Sakura #cardcaptor sakura #clear card arc #clamp #sakura card captor #ccsakura #ccs spoilers #chapter 43

46 notes · View notes

dessiekarma · 4 years

Text

My Harem is Entirely Bad Boy Types (Kirisaki Daiichi x Reader) Pt. 11

Warning for mention of assault and abuse.

Chapter 11: I Guess Her Type was the Cute-Type All Along…Not That it Matters Anymore…

“(Y/N), please I really need to talk to you.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk to you alone.” (Y/N) said keeping her head down as she jogged ahead of Yamazaki and into the school building.

“Please, don’t be afraid to talk to me. I know I was so wrong but I would never physically hurt you! I never should have told Mei any of that stuff.” Yamazaki caught up with her and watched her tug off her outdoor shoes. “I was jealous because I really like you an-”

His words were cut off as (Y/N) gasped. Out of her shoe locker spilled what was probably 100 pregnancy tests; marker used to make them appear positive. A note stuck to the door of the locker read:

Not your first experience with these huh?

Yamazaki didn’t know how to react to the situation, but he didn’t need to as his former friend turned quickly towards him and lashed out with her words.

“This why you were waiting outside my house this morning? What were you supposed to film me to show Mei?!”

“(Y/N), no! I didn’t know anything about this. I really just want to apologi-”

“No, cut the bullshit! You’re so fucking fake.” (Y/N) tried to keep her face firm but Yamazaki saw the obvious quiver in her lips. Everyone around was staring. “Tell Mei she wins. You deserve her and besides…I wouldn’t want you anymore anyway.”

Not even giving him the chance to reply, the young woman slammed her locker shut and made her way further into the school ignoring the points and stares.

Every now and then someone directed a comment at her but she kept her head down just focusing on getting to the gym. She could feel Yamazaki hot on her trail and his own voice was mixing with everyone else’s.

“Hey (Y/N), who woulda guessed the sugar baby has her own baby huh?”

“Another illegitimate child? No wonder your family’s been hiding you.”

“Do you even know who the father is?”

“You’re not just easy but stupid too!”

(Y/N) was so close to the gym, she could hear the squeak of tennis shoes. The words of others kept coming into her brain despite there being nobody around anymore. She could feel her head spinning and a nauseous feeling in her gut before a sense of floating overwhelmed her and her knees gave out from under her.

Yamazaki, who had thankfully been following her closely was able to hook his arms under hers before she collapsed. Quickly slinging an arm under her leg, the male was carrying her past the gym and towards the infirmary.

Walking straight passed the open gymnasium door didn’t go unnoticed by a certain brown-haired basketball player.

“Hey!” Seto called out quickly taking in what was happening. The other team members looked up at the sound of his voice. “What do you think you’re doing!? What’s going on!”

Yamazaki didn’t blame him for the accusatory tone in his voice and shook it off.

“(Y/N) was heading in here but she collapsed. I don’t know why, I think she might have had a panic attack or something!”

“Well, don’t just stand there.” Hanamiya replied coolly though his eyes never left (Y/N)’s flushed face. “The main infirmary is too far and she’s heavy as shit. Bring her into the gym’s.”

The orange-haired male nodded and followed everyone through the open doors. Needless to say it was tense. Seto was already preparing a cold damp cloth, Hara was prepping the small cot refusing to even look in Yamazaki’s direction, and Furuhashi sounded as if he was making a call for a doctor visit.

Yamazaki took special notice that Hanamiya hadn’t left his side. But not for him…no. One of his hands was rested on the top of (Y/N)’s head, his gaze checking for any reaction she would give.

“So, what exactly did you do to her, to make her pass out?” Hara spat out, still not looking up as (Y/N) was lowered on to the cot.

“Mei put a bunch of pregnancy tests in her locker. Everyone kept taunting her in the hallway. I don’t think this is just poking fun at her…experience. (Y/N) was more upset then I’ve ever seen her. Like maybe it’s true.”

“Maybe what’s true?” Furuhashi asked.

“I don’t know maybe she’s pregnant or something?”

An awkward silence hung throughout the room. There was a look in all the guys’ eyes, but it was hard to tell which were looks of suspicion and which were looks of possible guilt.

“Don’t worry I’m not pregnant.” Came a whispered voice from the cot.

The whole team turned to see (Y/N)’s face looking scrunched in pain, her eyes closed tightly. Even with her eyes closed a tear still managed to escape down her temple.

“Its not a rumour either….He wasn’t supposed to tell.” The break in the girl’s voice echoed to fill the small room.

“I know Mei was planning on going to Touou…do you think your ex told her something?” Yamazaki asked sounding like he legitimately felt bad for her.

The young girl nodded before lifting both hands to press over her eyes. None of the guys knew what to do as she started sobbing. This whole time whether her eyes were closed, covered, or averted she refused to look at any of them.

“Why would he tell her THAT if all things? He promised! Did he really want to hurt me that badly?! We didn’t even let most of our team know! It was between me, Ryo and Shoichi.”

“(Y/N), no matter what happened…I’m going to be here for you.” Furuhashi said, suddenly by her side trying to pull her hands away from her eyes. “Do you have a baby?”

Five sets of ears were listening, prepared for any answer.

“No.”

“Did you give it up for adoption? Is that why you left Touou?” Seto pressed on. “…Did you lose-”

“No! I was in highschool and pregnant…and I didn’t want to be. That’s all.”

“Did he make you choose that?” Hanamiya sounded gravely serious. “Is that what YOU wanted?”

“We decided together. It wasn’t what either of us wanted but it was what was best. I have so much I want to do, I don’t know that I’d have been able to do that with a baby. And him…he has big dreams too, he wants to be a famous mangaka. I knew that he wouldn’t be able to do it with a family right out of high school. I couldn’t do that to him, or to some poor kid that we dragged into this world only to feel like a burden to their parents.”

“Well then that’s that.” Hara said sitting heavily onto the cot besides his manager. “What’s in the past can’t be changed. If you aren’t bothered by it then it’s not really a big deal.”

“My mom had the same operation done once.” Furuhashi chimed in with a shrug of the shoulders.

“Joo-Won’s ex-girlfriend did too.” Seto threw in casually.

(Y/N) finally sat up and opened her eyes. They were red and glassy from crying. But what scared them the most was just how much the light behind them faded. In the past their words and encouragement would rekindle that spark. Now it was almost as if none of that mattered.

“Thank you for carrying me in here.” The girl addressed to Yamazaki, who had been hanging back just far enough.

“It’s no problem! Really I just want to talk with you and apol-”

“Not right now okay? We have a game against Fukuda Sogo tonight and we should be preparing for that.”

“We aren’t just gonna brush your situation aside to play a game!” Hara exclaimed only to be taken aback by (Y/N)’s smiling face.

“Of course, we are. If everyone already knows what else can I do? Honestly, I’m upset because I thought I could trust a secret like that with someone I consider my first love. I don’t care what people are saying.”

“Well now I do recall once telling you ‘Three can keep a secret if two are dead.’” A smooth voice called out from the door.

All six turned their heads only to be filled with confusion, anger or surprise. Imayoshi was frowning deeply as he looked at the girl lying in the bed. Surprising everyone there it was Seto who made the first move, walking up to Imayoshi and grabbing him by the collar of the shirt.

“You’ve got some fucking nerve showing up here!”

“Well after what’s happened, I had to check on my darling (Y/N).”

Furuhashi turned to gauge (Y/N)’s reaction and was unsurprised by the tears but was floored when she opened her arms up to the intruding male. Imayoshi pushed past Seto and sat beside the girl, embracing her tightly as she sobbed into his shoulder.

“He told, Shoi-chan! He told, when he promised me! Why would he do that?”

“Shh it’s okay. I know, Momoi called to tell me what happened.” The dark-haired male was stroking (Y/N)’s hair and finally getting a glimpse of his eyes the guys could tell he was just as furious as they had been over the situation.

“We thought it was Imayoshi who told Mei about…you know.” Yamazaki said trying to get some clarification for all involved.

“No! Why would he even have done that? It was my stupid fucking ex!” (Y/N) wiped at her eyes and sniffled a bit seeming to switch from sadness to anger.

Five different brains lagged for a second, fighting their assumptions and the narrative they had created in their minds for the better part of the school year.

“We thought Imayoshi was your ex!” All of them exclaimed loudly.

“He even said he was!” Hara pointed an accusing finger at the bespeckled male who was now fighting a smirk.

“I don’t quite recall making that statement. Though I do remember you boys making that assumption and perhaps I saw no need to correct you at the time. Undoubtly I am one of the most important people in her life and she was in fact mine before anyone, here in Japan.” Imayoshi chuckled and turned to (Y/N). “See even your team thinks we should date. So, what do you say?”

“I say the same thing I’ve been saying since you were ten! ‘Gross, you’re my goddamn cousin!”

“Yeah but I’m your first cousin. You know you have your ‘cousins’ and then you have your ‘first cousins’ and-”

“Wait so this guy is the cousin you always talk about.” Hanamiya interrupted. “Shoko’s son right?”

“Hold on who’s Shoko?” Furuhashi questioned.

“My late aunt and yes, he is.”

“How does Hanamiya know that?!” Hara exclaimed again. “Did she tell you her tragic backstory after all!? No fair!”

Imayoshi’s face was unreadable but inside a heavy weight that had been sitting in his stomach suddenly deflated. When he’d heard about what (Y/N) was going through he feared that she was dealing with it alone but it seemed he might have underestimated her support system at KiriDai.

“So then who is your ex?” Furuhashi asked. “Since only one other person knew then your ex must be-”

“Sakurai Ryo, the reason I’m here.” Imayoshi interjected. “(Y/N), he’s been calling me all morning saying he can’t reach you.”

“Of course that asshole can’t! I blocked him after….look I blocked him a while ago. What’s he even trying to reach me for!? He already told all of Tokyo that he got me pregnant, what else does he want!?”

“I’d assume to apologize. Momoi and Aomine have been filling me in. Apparently, he said that if he can’t contact you by the end of the school day that he’s coming down to KiriDai to find you.”

“Who the hell does he think he is!?”

“Sakurai? I don’t even know who the fuck that is.” Hara said finally processing all this new information.

“Timid little brown-haired kid, always apologizing. That being said, (Y/N), maybe you should hear him out. Ryo doesn’t seem like the kind of boy to do something like that without some sort of manipulation or maybe it was an accident.” Imayoshi explained.

“Fuck that.” Hanamiya finally spoke up. “Sure manipulation is a thing but that doesn’t erase someone’s personal responsibility. The point isn’t WHY he told it’s the fact that he DID. Lots of things sway people and manipulate their choices but in the end you’re the one that makes the decisions and you’re the person who deals with the aftermath of those decisions.”

“Hanamiya’s right and right now all I want to know is (Y/N)’s decision.” Seto added turning towards the girl. “Do you want to see your ex? Do you want to call? Do you want us to go down to Touou and beat his ass? Because all of these options are on the table right now.”

“I want to get through the day. I want to go to our game and win. I want to move on to the next round of the Winter Cup.” For just a moment the guys thought they saw the sparkle in her eyes rekindle. Looking up at all of them that sparkle quickly pooled on her lashes and slid down her face. “I want everything to be the way it was a few months ago.”

~~~~~

“I mean hiding a pregnancy, sure. But she had to have had an abortion, no way you can hide a whole kid.”

“From the sounds of it her mother hid her. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“Hey shut the fuck up!” Hara hissed at the gossiping pair in the back of the class.

“Ahh see I told you he was the father! Pay up!” One of the girls smirked at her friends like it was all some funny game.

“It was last year, so before I even met Kazu-chan.” (Y/N) voice whispered in a deadpan tone, as she flipped through her math book.

“So then it must have been with one of your paid dating guys, right?!”

“It was with my ex at Touou.”

“(Y/N), you don’t have to answer to anybody!”

“If they don’t get the real answer from me they’ll just make up one of their own.”

“Okay class, have a nice lunch and hopefully when you come back you’ll be feeling less chatty.” Their teacher announced with a glare directed at (Y/N) and Hara.

The girl didn’t flinch or falter as her dead eyes bore into the teacher’s, until it was him that turned away. She began gathering her stuff and lifted her phone to see what seemed to be 20+ missed calls from her mother, no doubt having heard about this incident at school.

“Hey come on, the guys are probably already waiting for us at the table.” Hara said as the room cleared out. (Y/N) smirked as she saw him fiddling with the bolts on the legs of the gossipers’ chairs.

“You go on. I need to call my mom.”

“Yeah about that…not really fair that only Hanamiya knows your story, don’tcha think? I mean it would make more sense to all of us. Imayoshi didn’t really give us more info before you sent him back to his university. We’re not trying to be nosy at this point but I think it would help us understand you a little better.”

“Fair enough. I’m more than sure Hanamiya is willing to fill you guys in with what he can. I guess I don’t really have anything to hide anymore.”

(Y/N) continued to force her smile until her friend was out of the room. Nails tapped nervously on the desk as the phone in her hands rang over and over again.

Maybe if she was lucky her mother wouldn’t even want to speak with her right now. But it would seem the only luck she had any more of was bad.

“I already spoke with your mother. She knew, said you came to her when the incident occurred. I can’t believe you two were stupid enough to think you could have kept something like this from me.” A harsh male voice whipped through the phone. “I told her from the very start that she couldn’t be the mother Shoko asked her to be! But she insisted on keeping that silly deathbed promise and tried to be in your life. Had I raised you alone none of this would have been an issue! She was trying to prove something to me but all she’s proved is how incompetent she is!”

“Grandfather, it was quite some time ago. We handled it.”

“No, child. Handling it would have meant it was never heard of again. I should have handled your mother and she should have handled you!”

(Y/N) flinched at the man’s raised voice and she couldn’t stop the tears from coming yet again.

“Though I give credit where credit is due. I’m grateful you are more aware of your own body than your mother was. In spite of the social faux pas, you were at least smart enough not to bring another unwanted child into this world.”

UNWANTED.

Those words echoed in (Y/N)’s head over and over drowning out anything else the man was saying to her. She really had been unwanted. By her mother, her grandfather, her classmates, apparently her ex.

Her father accepted her but…truthfully he hadn’t wanted her either. Even this team had more or less been forced to accept her because of the assignment with Hara. When she’d first become the manager said male, had made it abundantly clear that he wanted another partner. Hanamiya was never shy in saying he never intended for her to stay.

UNWANTED, UNWANTED, UNWANTED

Her body was shivering, and she could feel her breath growing more and more shallow before the phone was pulled out of her hands. Looking up she could see Furuhashi glare at the screen.

“What a disgusting way to speak to your family.” The male retorted loud and clear before hitting end. Shoving the phone into his pocket the male extended his hand out to (Y/N). “I assumed you’d come to lunch with Hara but when I saw him walking alone in the hall, I knew you’d still be in here. Come with me.”

“Where?” She said, taking his hand anyway and following him out of the classroom.

“The roof.”

“The roof? What the hell are we going to do on the roof? Hey if this is a Hara roof joke, I don’t really appreciate it at this point.” (Y/N) said with an annoyed expression but continued to climb the stairs with her friend.

“No joke. Confessions should happen on the roof.”

“Yeah I guess if you’re in an anime….wait confession?”

“I mean it shouldn’t be a surprise, right? With everything we’ve done and been through?”

“Well I guess not but you really don’t seem like the type of guy to do the whole love confession shtick.”

“No but I am the type of guy that is used to getting what he wants. And if this is how I get it then so be it.” Furuhashi squeezed her hands gently and (Y/N) could feel a blush form on her cheeks. She continued to let him pull her to the final door but both were drowned in an awkward silence as the male jiggled the handle.

…

“It’s locked.”

(Y/N) couldn’t help but let out a giggle at the look of genuine dismay on the guys’s face. He blinked at her unamusedly.

“I’m sorry Furu! It’s just that these anime tropes haven’t really worked out very well for any of us!”

“…Why don’t you call me Kojiro? You call Hara by his first name and I’ve even heard you called Seto, Ken.”

“Huh? Well I guess it’s because first names are like really personal right?”

“Then do you feel closer to the other guys than me? You called me Kojiro once…it was nice.”

“I just…the other guys are more laid back than you. It’s not a bad thing though I promise! You’re just really hard to read and I wouldn’t know if you were okay with something like that.”

“I’m hard to read?”

“Honestly, yeah a little.”

“Then maybe everything I’ve done til now has been pointless. If that’s the case let me lay everything out here and now and be sure I’m clear.”

(Y/N) noticed how he moved closer to her slowly as if gauging her reaction. One hand moved to lean against the wall beside her head and the other moved under her chin to tilt her head up. She could push him away at any point if she wanted to.

But did she want to?

“I have never met anyone quite like you. Everyone has either told me things were black or white. I’m either supposed to follow my mother’s every whim or reject every suggestion. You understood just how difficult that truly was, being the sole heiress to your own company. And even being so similar to me you never made it about yourself or about what you would do. You cared about what I wanted and how my decisions affected me.”

(Y/N) was looking into Furuhashi’s eyes and for the first time realized how much emotion they could truly hold.

“It’s going to be hard because I won’t give up my company for anyone. But…(Y/N) I won’t give you up for anything either. Your grandfather was wrong. You’re wanted…I want you.”

Furuhashi felt almost a static shock as his lips brushed against her softly. Almost as quickly as he felt their touch she turned her red face away.

“I…I need to think about some things. I have a lot going on right now and-”

“I understand.” Furuhashi gave her a tiny but genuine smile. He rested his hand on her head softly. This didn’t feel like a rejection, she probably really did need some time to figure things out. “You have some time…just try to give me your answer before it turns into an objection at my wedding.”

~~~~~

“I can’t believe you confessed to her without telling us, bastard!” Hara scowled Furuhashi as the team walked into the stadium.

“Not my fault you guys were all busy stuffing your faces while I was moving the chess pieces further along.”

“Ugh so you get the first confession, Hara has first guys status of knowing her before us and Hanamiya knew her backstory. What advantage does that leave me exactly?” Seto grumbled sleepily.

“Well technically, according to (Y/N), Yamazaki confessed first. But I’m pretty sure he’s been dropped from the harem.” Hanamiya commented before the sight of his manager walking ahead of the group. “Hey!”

The girl turned her head and smiled widely at the boys before seeming to wince and suddenly grew sheepish. Sprinting over to them she tried to put on her best game face.

“What’s with all the makeup?” Hara asked noticing she had a full face on that she didn’t have this morning. “Don’t tell me your emergency stop at home was just to get all pretty for a basketball game?!”

“Mind your own business!” The girl snapped with just a little more fierceness than sarcasm would intend. “My face looked really gross from crying earlier.”

“Aww babygirl, I doubt a sexy girl like you could ever be described as gross.”

Could a voice be described as greasy? Because this was it.

(Y/N) turned with an unimpressed look on her face. Sure enough she recognized the guy as Haizaki Shogo, the ace and pain in the ass of Fukuda Sogo. Not wanting to deal with any bullshit the girl rolled her eyes and turned an ignoring back to him.

It came as no surprise but was still plenty annoying when an unwelcome arm was slung around her shoulder.

“Come on princess that’s a bit rude. You looked mixed, must be American right?”

(Y/N)’s face grew red out of anger and embarrassment as he began spewing lewd words and phrases at her in Japanese.

“I can speak Japanese, you dick! Which you obviously knew considering you heard me speaking it when you walked up to me with your bullshit!”

“Hmm? Awesome you can teach me to talk dirty in English then.”

“Yeah thanks but no thanks, Post Malone.” (Y/N) ducked under his arm and sauntered inside the building, not bothering to look back. “Come on guys.”

Haizaki practically growled as the girl before finally taking notice of the team she was walking with. He smiled to himself and decided he was going to head inside too.

~~~~~

“Ahh Ken-chan what are you doing here? You need to be warming up!” (Y/N) said trying to usher the man out of the locker room.

“I know.” The taller male knew she didn’t really have a chance of moving him an inch and in defiance slumped into the locker room bench. “I just uhh wanted to talk to you.”

His voice was trying to find its footing in not sounding accusatory, angry, upset or any other tone beyond casual.

“Huh me? About?”

“It’s just uhh Joo-won called me earlier.”

“Oh! How’s he doing!? Good I hope!” (Y/N) responded back excitedly, unknowingly making Seto’s heart clench.

“Yeah good. Anyway, he said that he hasn’t been able to reach you all day but wanted to tell you ‘yes’?”

“Oh my gosh really!? That’s amazing! Oh my god Joo-won is the best!”

Seto would have been happy to see the girl’s eyes light up had his brother not been the reason for it. He didn’t even know that Joo-won had (Y/N)’s number. And what exactly had he agreed to? He knew deep down it was a bad idea to introduce her to his more attractive brother. It wasn’t the first time it happened, so it was his own fault really.

“(Y/N), I need an honest answer!” His voice came out as firm and commanding as he could will it.

“Sure, Ken-chan.”

“Do I have a chance or don’t I?”

“Uhmm what?”

“I just…that night when we…you confuse me. It’s like sometimes I think that you’re still in love with your ex, the next I’m sure you’re gonna run off with one of my teammates. And finally, when I start thinking that maybe I have a chance you’re secretly talking with my brother.”

(Y/N)’s face grew red and warm all over again.

“I’m not talking to Joo-won like that! It’s just a business relationship I promise!”

“Yeah but still… at the risk of just straight up asking ‘what are we?’ I need to know your feelings for me. I know that isn’t fair to ask you right now when you have everything to deal with. And after two of my teammates confessed to you and undoubtedly the other two will soon. I just need to know if I’m even a contender in whatever the hell this is. I don’t like wasting my time or energy. Not that caring about you is a chore or something.”

“You care about me, Ken-chan?”

“Well that should have been obvious. Come on (Y/N) I like you because you’re not an airhead so don’t start acting like one. You know I care about you.” Seto stood up and stretched a bit before turning back to her with a small smile. Cupping her face softly he knelt down and was seemingly about to place a kiss on her lips but pressed his mouth to her forehead. “In fact, I suppose I care about you enough to not demand an answer from you right away. But I do expect one eventually.”

The young woman watched her friend make his way out of the locker room and smiled to herself. However, the ringing in her pocket pulled her from any thoughts she was having. With the knowledge that Joo-won had been calling all day she decided to finally look at her phone.

Momoi Satsuki

“Hello?”

“(Y/N)! Please don’t hang up! I went searching at Kirisaki Daiichi but they said your team had already taken off! I’m so sorry and if you just let me explain-” Sakurai Ryo was cut off.

“Don’t fucking call me again.” With that the girl hung up.

“That was harsh, babygirl.” Haizaki’s voice came from the doorway.

“Who fucking asked you? And don’t call me babygirl.”

“You American girls like that though, don’t you? I prefer Onii-chan but I think I can get used to being called Daddy.”

“Well not from me.” (Y/N) said trying to move past him and get to the door. She felt her heartbeat quicken as he stepped in front of her. “Excuse me.”

“Oh cute you’re getting nice and polite for me now? I should warn you I don’t have much money. Though I can probably pay you with good sex, I’m much better than all those old men you whored yourself out to.”

“What did you say to me?!”

“Lots of people have heard of Kirisaki Daiichi’s slutty little manager. I’m kinda jealous of them.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” (Y/N) made a break for the door only for the much bigger and stronger male to trap her against it, one hand restraining her wrists the other clenching her throat.

“Don’t worry babygirl, I’m not judging you for it. In fact, if you were my girl, we could make lots of money together. You got the goods and I know just how to market it.”

(Y/N) glared at the male as he drew closer to her. Hacking loudly, she spit right in his face.

“Like hell I’m gonna let some wannabe Miracle, ‘Emergence’ me!”

“What the hell does that even mean you, stupid bitch!?” Haizaki grabbed a fistful of her hair and (Y/N) screamed out. “You should be thankful someone even still wants your used-up ass. I’m not asking you to do anything you haven’t already done a hundred times before. You let your team take turns, what’s one more guy?”

“Get off me!”

It seemed to happen so fast. One-minute Haizaki’s lips were on hers, then the door was being pulled open making them both fall. She could taste blood in her mouth, she could hear a familiar voice shouting, and felt a familiar embrace tugging at her.

Fighting out of the restraint her fists were quickly pounding into her attacker’s face. Blood was pooling out of his mouth fast, letting her know she’d bitten his tongue deep enough to need stitches. Unlike the last time this guy was fighting back. But also, unlike the last time this wasn’t simple rage.

“You think you fucking know me because of some rumours!?” The girl shouted as a flash of orange was quickly trying to pull the male off of her. “Do you know how many times I went along with stuff I didn’t wanna do because I was too young and naïve to realize their threats were bullshit?”

She could hear the male scoffing at her and knew he didn’t give two shits about her sob story. But telling it right now, it was almost as if she could picture the faces of everyone who had ever taken advantage of her. When he punched at her cheek, she bit down on his hand harshly, relishing in the snap she felt.

“Hara, Makoto! Guys come in here!” The voice attempting to hold her back called out. The sound of shoes squeaking grew louder and suddenly more hands were on her, pulling her away.

“And when I finally stopped letting these things happen to me do you think that stopped anyone from trying to use physical force instead!? Do you think I would never learn how to fight off assholes like you!? I hate men like you!”

Almost as quickly as all the fuss began, did the room suddenly go still. Finally letting her eyes focus the girl could make out the faces of her team as well as the sport complex’s security. The person still holding her was giving the security guards a brief description of what happened.

Everything around the girl was still blurry and a high pitched whistle was drowning everything out. Haizaki was screaming something at her or about her as he was removed from the locker room.

“(Y/N)! (Y/N) can you hear us? Are you okay?”

Finally looking at the person holding on to her she was surprised to see Yamazaki’s concerned face.

“I came to see the game but when I was walking by I heard you yelling and opened the door. I guess you really didn’t need my help beating the guy up but I flagged down the team and security. They got that guy out of here but oh god are you okay? Who am I kidding of course you aren’t okay! This is all my fucking fault!” Yamazaki was ranting and to (Y/N)’s surprise crying. “I heard what that asshole said! He attacked you because of the rumours he heard! Rumours I helped spread. I’m so sorry! I never thought something like this was going to happen.”

The girl was listening but not quite. It had all been building up to this. She didn’t even have it in her to cry anymore.

“God look at this bruise on your face.” Furuhashi said kneeling down to examine the girl. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

“That one wasn’t Haizaki.” The girl deadpanned.

All the males looked at each other in concern and question. That was the real reason she showed up in so much makeup? She wasn’t safe at school and apparently not even in the comfort of her own house.

“(Y/N), what do you need?” Hara asked, now crouching by her side. “What do you want us to do?”

The girl swallowed a thick lump in her throat. It was a long time coming but with recent things falling into place the way they did…her mind thought to a private conversation she had with Imayoshi earlier.

“Is your team going to take that well?”

“Makoto told me I should do what’s best for me.”

“Probably because you haven’t shown a track record of doing so, he doesn’t believe you actually will.”

“Shoi-chan, please. I need to know before I make this jump. Are you all in or not because I can’t do it without you?”

“I never have been able to tell you no. I’ll willingly be your pawn in this game so long you’re sure you can win.”

(Y/N) was shaking at the thought of stepping away from everyone. But if she didn’t…maybe she would stay in the same place her whole life.

“I wanna go home.”

“I’ll call my driver.” Furuhashi began only to see (Y/N) shake her head.

“No…my real home.”

83 notes · View notes

arcadianambivalence · 4 years

Text

Babylon Berlin, S3Ep8

Fall in the Great Outdoors. (Remember when we could go outdoors?) What’s not to love? Beautiful colors, crisp air, forboding fog, and a murder...

Following the cult of fitness as usual, Wendt is out riding a horse until he happens upon a distressed Richard. He confesses that Rath has found his real identity and wants a favor to get away. If the police found him, surely everyone else will be implicated next, right?

Really leaning into this Bond villain thing, Wendt casually offers Richard a cigarette and asks if he told anyone else. No, Richard replies, he came straight to Wendt. Satisfied, Wendt pulls out a gun and shoots Richard twice.

A reporter at Tempo delivers the updates to the movie mystery over a nice montage. Walter is unconscious and in police custody. Gereon is recovering, too. It almost feels like the end of the season. Things are wrapping up rather neatly...too neatly.

Ester can’t believe Walter did it, but Edgar is quick to pin the blame on his partner. To convince Edgar of Walter’s innocence, Ester shows him a one-sided coin that Walter had tossed with Edgar over who would go to prison last year. It does open Edgar’s eyes, not to Walter’s innocence, no, to something else entirely...

Where did you get this coin?

Gereon (with only a little bandage on his face and a few broken ribs) discusses the case with Lotte. Seeing she is distraught but not quite understanding why, he tries to comfort her.

Helga enters at the wrong (right?) time and sees this. Lotte quickly scuttles off so Helga can tell Gereon her news. Far from excited about the pregnancy, Gereon immediately suspects Helga has been unfaithful. She reassures him of her fidelity. Gereon shoots back with the memory of Anno. And on that ugly note, the relationship is irreparably over for good. Helga storms out.

As serious as this scene is, I just want to remind you: this is a shared ward. There are other patients in the room watching this entire argument! I’d love to know what they think is going on!

Helga considers getting a back-alley abortion from none other than Lotte’s neighbor, but she begins to change her mind. Abortion was illegal at the time, and Helga’s Catholicism also makes her hesitate. For now, the two women will simply talk about the procedure as Helga makes her decision.

Like in the first season, the nationalists are out hunting deer. Moritz can’t bring himself to shoot the deer and misses. The boys taunt him for going soft until Moritz gets into a fight with one boy in particular. Otto interrupts the fight and tries to convince them that they have other enemies (cult pitch number two). He makes them swear allegiance.

We know it’s wrong.

Moritz should know it’s wrong.

But he is desperate to feel like he’s capable of more, and it gives him the sense of purpose missing in his life.

Greta, too, thought she had a purpose. Now with the date of her execution set, she resigns herself to the end. She finally confesses to Volker that the communists were not behind the murder plot. Volker seems like she’s about to deliver her own admission of a backstory when Greta interrupts.

Nothing could have prepared Volker for what Greta does next.

She asks for a hug.

(And we all started crying).

But there’s little good the truth can do for Volker or the rest of the communists in the prison. There’s little good the truth can do for Katelbach, either, at the moment. Now that his article is out, he lives in fear or reprisal.

The political police have called him in on charges of treason. Elisabeth dismisses the treason charge as nonsense. Katelbach hasn’t done anything wrong. She tries to make him see the bright side of the situation—he has all the peace and quiet he could possibly want and plenty of time to write while staying inside all day.

(I picked a bad time to watch this episode.)

But something more serious slips into her tone. Hiding in fear is no way to live, and neither is living in a mess of a room, smoking all day. He’s getting a little old for the bachelor style.

And then a switch goes off in Samuel’s mind. She’s not...proposing, is she? “Think about it,” she says, leaving Katelbach to process this information. He immediately moves to put his cigarette out and tidy up.

Malu and Wendt run into each other during lunch. (I guess if we’re given the gift of Samuel and Elisabeth, we have to suffer through some unsavory couples...) It seems he has taken Nyssen’s speech into consideration. He asks Malu about her opinion. She comes to the same conclusion as Nyssen, albeit from a different angle.

This talk convinces him to give Nyssen another try. All Nyssen has to do is get collateral from his mother.

But while Nyssen has millions to throw away on a theory, Lotte and Ilsa can barely save up enough to secure an appointment for surgery. The doctor’s assistant points them in the direction of a relatively cheaper doctor who can take Ilsa soon, but the operation still requires more money than the two women currently have. Lotte knows only one way to make a few hundred grand in one night.

(What this episode says about poverty...)

For all that Lotte is doing to help her older sister, she is unaware of the danger her little sister is about to face. Left alone while her sisters are at the doctor’s, she talks to a character I think we’re supposed to recognize, but I can’t place him. (The bird seller from a previous episode? One of her brother-in-law’s friends?).

It becomes clear to everyone but Toni that this man does not have her best interests at heart. He plays on her sympathies, trying to invite her home to “read to his uncle.”

(I wanted a reference to Fritz Lang’s M, but I was thinking of a sweeping city shot or a music motif, not this! Never this...)

With Lotte unaware of Toni’s plans and Toni unaware of Lotte’s plans, the girls see a movie with Betty Winter. While Toni stares at the screen, transfixed, Lotte begins to weep. It’s Vera’s face she sees on the screen.

(This is the second time she’s broken down sobbing in the middle of a movie...)

After the show, she goes to earn the money for her sister’s operation as fast as she can—by going back on the game. But this isn’t lady’s choice like Moka Efti. She emerges from the session with tears in her eyes.

She really can’t catch a break, can she?

Meanwhile, Gereon wakes up in the hospital with Edgar sitting by his bedside. He wants to make absolutely certain that Walter is responsible for betraying him, but he also wants to intimidate Gereon into agreeing to work with him once again. Referencing Helga should do the trick.

“She’s not my wife,” Gereon replies. Edgar shrugs. Far be it from him to criticize a stranger for their love life, especially when his is about to get stranger.

But this entire conversation turns out to be a distraction as Walter is abducted.

It’s time for...

FRANKENWALTER!

Dr. Schmidt hooks the unconscious Walter up to an electroshock machine for revival and cranks the charge up to a dangerous level.

Walter reveals that he was tricked. The Phantom pulled the old two costume switch-a-roo to fake his own death and dispose of Vera. Before he can reveal the identity of the Phantom, Walter begins to recede into unconsciousness. He revives for one last confession: he loves Ester.

Edgar storms home to confront Ester about her supposed infidelity when the police arrive with a warrant to search the premises.

Notes:

For failing to kill the deer, Moritz is taunted and called Bambi, the eponymous character of the 1932 novel by Austrian author Felix Salten. (The animated film came out in 1942.) Like many of the authors referenced in this show, Salton was hated by the Nazis because he was Jewish. His books were banned, and he fled Austria soon after the annexation in 1938.

Moritz gives his age as fourteen. (I know some kids grow faster than others, but it’s still hard to believe that this kid grew an extra foot over one summer.)

Continuing the trend of horror references, Walter’s revival is one big allusion to James Whale’s adaptation of Frankenstein in 1931.

Helga walks by a kiosk that includes some nice expressionist art. It looks like a copy of a woodcutting. I can’t tell if it’s Karl Schmidt-Rottluff or Otto Dix or someone else entirely. Does anyone recognize it?

#babylon berlin #long post #babylon berlin spoilers

14 notes · View notes

traincat · 5 years

Note

i don't ask this with intention of being like One is Better that the Other, but more like understanding them better; how would you say peter's relationships are different form each other, in a nutshell? (or just with gwen and mj?)

That’s a valid question because they are very different relationships and while I don’t like talking about them with the view that One Woman Is Better For The Man Than This Other Woman, Therefore Other Woman Is Terrible, I do think it’s important to acknowledge those differences and they’re interesting to talk about.

Here’s the thing: in 616, I think it’s very important that Peter and Mary Jane aren’t each other’s first relationship. We don’t know as much about her relationship history as we do about Peter’s – we know she’s seen other people, including Harry, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that for the majority of her life, since she was fourteen years old in canon, she’s known Peter was Spider-Man and for a long time kept that secret to herself. (We also know as per ASM #259 that serious relationships justifiably scare her – but I’ll get to that in a moment.) But Peter seriously dated Betty Brant when he was in high school, and, though I don’t think it gets talked up enough in discussions about Peter and Gwen, before Gwen’s death she and Peter were very much planning to get married.

(Amazing Spider-Man #103)

Cut for length.

(Peter had also briefly thought about proposing to Betty Brant at the end of high school. He’s a marriage monster.)

If I had to use one word to sum up Peter and Gwen’s relationship it would be “passionate.” And not always in a good way. They have a very fast connection in comics, but initially, they don’t really like each other that much.

(Amazing Spider-Man #35)

They’re on the same wavelength – that wavelength just happens to be “this hot person pisses me off so bad.” But then John Romita sweeps in and things get romantic as opposed to Ditko’s more prickly, vampier Gwen take, and Peter and Gwen start to get closer. That Mary Jane enters the picture and is seeing Peter probably doesn’t hurt Gwen making a more aggressive move on him. One thing I want to clarify that in modern day the word “dating” conjures up, first to mind, a serious image when we talk about fictional relationships, but Peter and MJ were very casually seeing each other after they first finally came face to face, something that seemed to annoy Peter actually:

(Amazing Spider-Man #44) In Webspinners #1′s backup story, The Kiss, Peter describes MJ at this point in time as mercurial and indirect, and says that’s one of the reasons he was more attracted to Gwen at the time. Gwen’s very direct, very passionate, and very open with her emotions, whereas Mary Jane and Peter both have their own secrets. It makes a certain amount of sense that Peter would be drawn to that openness. Peter and Gwen also have a keen interest in the sciences in common, which I also think is a pretty important factor in their early courtship when you consider part of the reason Peter felt isolated in high school was that his classmates didn’t share his interests:

(Amazing Spider-Man #53)

Once Peter and Gwen are together, things get pretty serious pretty quickly, with lots of sappy love declarations and both of them bringing the other around their parents.

(Amazing Spider-Man #68) Like I said, one of the things I often see overlooked in discussions about Peter and Gwen is just how serious the relationship was at the time of Gwen’s death. They were if not officially engaged then definitely pre-engaged and making plans for marriage. Peter had even wrangled his way into a staff position at the Daily Bugle specifically with his future marriage to Gwen in mind.

(Amazing Spider-Man #99) Peter used to be super good at this whole responsibility thing, in both his costumed and uncostumed lives.

This isn’t to say Peter and Gwen didn’t have problems – while people paint an image of the college days before Gwen’s death as being some big MJ/Peter/Gwen love triangle, that’s not really true. MJ had a tendency to flirt with Peter, especially in front of Gwen and also Harry, who MJ was seeing at the time, but it was Peter who was at times irrationally jealous of Flash’s flirting with Gwen.

(Amazing Spider-Man #72)

(ASM #80) Poor Flash really suffered as the least dramatic member of this friend group. It’s a little ironic that Peter got so heated up about Flash of all people because, while Flash does at one point profess more than friendly feelings to Gwen, he’s exceptionally gentle about it and never actually tries to threaten her relationship with Peter.

(Amazing Spider-Man #107)

On Gwen’s side of things, Peter’s frequent disappearances troubled her, and she often begged him to stay with her in times of danger – when he was trying to slip out and discreetly change into his Spider-Man costume – so that Peter would prove to her that he wasn’t a coward. (Look, it was the 60s and 70s in superhero comics and machismo was a big deal.) She could be insecure – Peter’s disappearances sometimes made her think he didn’t love her anymore, a feeling which was compounded when she accidentally lost her temper and yelled at Aunt May about her tendency to coddle Peter, causing May to put some distance between them, and after the death of her father, for which she initially blamed Spider-Man.

(Amazing Spider-Man #91) It was that hatred of Spider-Man that made Peter hesitate proposing to her initially, and she briefly left to stay with her uncle and aunt in England thinking that he didn’t care for her as much as she did for him. All those are, when you get down to it, far more serious issues in the relationship than the notion that Mary Jane and Gwen were constantly fighting over Peter.

I said if I had to pick one word for Peter and Gwen’s relationship it would be “passionate” – but I think that’s in part because Gwen herself is a very passionate character. For all her emotional openness compared to Mary Jane’s at the time party girl facade, Gwen felt very deeply about everything, especially about her relationship with Peter. I don’t doubt that if Gwen had lived, she and Peter would have gotten married – it was the natural progression for their relationship at the time. However, I’m not sure they would have stayed married, and not for any “selling the marriage to the devil” reasons. I’m sure they would both have tried very hard to make it work, and I don’t think separating would be easy for either of them, but I’m just not sure if I see them as a successful long term relationship. (Which, for the record, doesn’t make me ship them less.)

With that in mind, I also don’t know if I think PeterMJ happens without Gwen’s death – at least, not in the specific way it does in comics. While he was definitely initially attracted to her – it’s a running joke before Mary Jane appears on panel that Peter desperately tries to avoid meeting her because he thinks that, because Aunt May approves of her and says she’s a nice girl, that she’ll be ugly, which is where Mary Jane’s famous “face it, tiger” line comes in when she reacts to his surprise at the door – the further in love Peter falls with Gwen, the less intrigue Mary Jane seems to hold for him. Before Gwen’s death, he’s even disapproving of her advances, and dislikes the fact that she hits on him in front of Harry when she and Harry are dating.

(Amazing Spider-Man #97)

(ASM #106)

At the time of Gwen’s death, Peter’s impression of Mary Jane isn’t the most favorable in the world: he thinks she’s a flighty, irresponsible party girl – which, to be fair, is the impression Mary Jane has put some serious effort into cultivating. This changes with Gwen’s death with one very important scene that signifies – not necessarily to Peter, who is lost in his grief at the moment, but to the readers – that that’s not who Mary Jane is at all, and it’s the door scene from Amazing Spider-Man #122.

I’ve noted before that Peter has a tendency to lash out verbally towards the people in his life when he’s in the depths of grief, and he can be very good at hurting people, like here when he accuses Mary Jane of not caring that Gwen’s dead and telling her to get out.

And she doesn’t. If I had to pick a scene that I think is the most pivotal turning point in any Marvel comics relationship, it would be this one.

Peter and Mary Jane have a more complicated build up to their romance than Peter and Gwen did. Unlike Gwen, who was very much a heart on her sleeve girl, Mary Jane has secrets of her own, something Peter doesn’t really seem to realize when they do launch into a romance of their own, and when Mr. Marriage pops the question to her the first time Mary Jane ends up turning him down.

(ASM #183)

Mary Jane’s commitment issues are seated deep-seated. Gwen, as far as we know, had no reason not to believe in true love. Mary Jane has many.

(ASM #259)

I love Amazing Spider-Man #257-259 because they totally recontextualize everything about Mary Jane and throw all her previous actions into a sharp and different new light that just makes the most perfect sense. ASM #257-259 reveals two very important things. The first is that Mary Jane knew the whole time, since before Peter ever laid eyes on her, that he was Spider-Man, and that she’s been walking around the whole time carrying this secret.

(Spider-Man: Parallel Lives)

The second is that, with Mary Jane having told Peter she knows his biggest secret, she makes it an even trade and tells him her own, letting him know the details of her childhood that shaped her into the person she is. It’s really worth reading for yourself if you haven’t already and in my opinion it’s one of the best backstory reveals ever written.

(ASM #259)

Peter and Mary Jane enter into a weird stage in their relationship at this point in time. Mary Jane is, essentially, the only person Peter can confide in once he learns she’s known his secret all along. Mary Jane, on the other hand, finds the nitty-gritty details of Spider-Man’s life difficult to deal with, even as she tries to be there for Peter. One thing I see a lot in Mary Jane vs Gwen discourse is that while Mary Jane loves Spider-Man, Gwen loves Peter, which is a completely movie-based fabrication – in 616, Mary Jane frequently wishes Peter wasn’t Spider-Man and worries about him risking his life. They have a very strong emotional – and physical – connection at this point, but they’re not officially romantically together, and during this point in time Peter is still involved in a tumultuous on-and-off relationship with Felicia Hardy.

(Spectacular Spider-Man #116)

“I’ve just ruined a perfectly good lie.” (Spider-Man vs Wolverine)

They don’t officially get together again until Peter proposes marriage – again. Although Mary Jane initially turns down his offer again, she later calls him from her sister’s home in Pittsburgh asking him to come down and help her.

(ASM #291)

Hearing about Mary Jane’s past is one thing, but Peter’s confronted with it when he finds himself supporting Mary Jane as she tries to figure out what to do when her father’s schemes have landed her estranged sister in jail. It’s a really great lead up to the marriage: Peter has to learn to trust Mary Jane to make decisions, and Mary Jane takes the reigns when she needs to help out in a Spider-Man fight. At the end, in the airport, she agrees to marry him.

(ASM #292)

It’s not magically perfect after that – in ASM Annual #21, the wedding issue, Peter worries about Mary Jane’s more lavish lifestyle and how she’ll handle his more staid one in addition to his fears over what his enemies could do to his new wife, Mary Jane struggles with the concept of committing after so many years of running from that, and the ghost of Gwen still hangs over them both.

They do both end up making it down the aisle, of course, though:

(ASM Annual #21)

One of the things I love about Peter and Mary Jane is that, while I truly do think the characters are soulmates, they’re not perfect – they have relationship problems as big as Mary Jane worrying Peter’s identity as Spider-Man will get him killed or about what effects his irradiated blood might have on any children she might have, to as small as Peter having a crisis over Mary Jane paying his bills for him:

(Web of Spider-Man #37)

And of course Peter and Mary Jane have a much more complicated and complex relationship than Peter and Gwen did, but that’s because Peter and Mary Jane had hundreds of issues over which it develops and deepens, even after their marriage, whereas Gwen Stacy wasn’t even in 100 issues after her first appearance before she died. So I think Peter and Gwen have much more of an instantaneous love connection, which is aided by Gwen’s own emotional openness, whereas Peter and MJ are more of a slow burn, with a lot of stops and starts along the way that end up being the foundation for a very strong love.

#peter parker #mary jane watson #gwen stacy #marvel comics #*replies #long post/#traincat talks comics #petermj #petergwen #this ended up just being gwen and mj because if i tackled everyone it'd be sooooo long

132 notes · View notes

mobius-prime · 4 years

Text

139. Sonic the Hedgehog #78

Though it's not really relevant to the plot, this just so happens to be the first issue released in the 21st century! You'll notice the little jokey announcement of this fact on the cover above. It's also worth noting that at this point, it's been just over a year since the first 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure, was released in Japan, and several months since its international release… I wonder if this will have any effect on the comic?

Changes

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: FRY Colors: Frank Gagliardo

We open with Sonic kneeling in front of the king, who is giving a speech in front of the entirety of Knothole about Sonic's bravery and heroic actions. He touches a sword to Sonic's shoulders, and knights him as Sir Sonic the Hedgehog! Sally gives him a medal and a kiss on the cheek, and amidst the celebration of Sonic's new title the king makes another announcement.

It's about time he officially recognized them! While this is going on, Robotnik seethes in his headquarters in Robotropolis. While he's finally managed to rid himself and his computer systems of the virus Nicole and Sally planted, he had to dump a lot of old corrupted files, including the hidden location of Knothole and start from scratch. This is kind of convenient for the larger plot, seeing as since this is a different Robotnik from the original, it might be too easy for him to concoct a winning strategy if he was able to simply access all the old Robotnik's info from the get go. He vows revenge on Sonic, as he still has millions of roboticized slaves, including Sonic's uncle. Speaking of, Sonic isn't as caught up in the celebratory mood as everyone else. He's quite depressed, actually, as he finds himself having to move all Uncle Chuck's old belongings out from his house for Nate to move in instead. His parents, entering the house, move to comfort him about the situation.

It's been so long since Sonic has had parents to look after him that this is a very sweet sight. Aside from Sonic Underground and an old obscure manga only ever released in Japan, I know of no other Sonic media that actually addresses the topic of Sonic's parents. When the series was rebooted in the future, one of Sega's weird new rules for the comic was that they couldn't include any references to family members that weren't already defined within the games, but I always found that to be restrictive and detrimental - considering Sonic's very independent, cocky, cool-guy persona, it's fascinating to me to see how he ends up interacting with parents who care about him. There's this clash between his rebellious teenager attitude, and the side of him that wants to be taken care of by the parents he was separated from for so long, and I find his attempts to strike that balance very interesting.

Speaking of family and parents, Sally and Elias have joined their father in the building which has been hastily retrofitted to serve as Queen Alicia's new "storeroom" of sorts, the temperature brought down to freezing levels to maintain her cryotube. Apparently Dr. Quack is still trying to work out why, if her past injuries have healed, she's still in her coma, and they all resolve to continue to hold onto hope as a family. They turn away to help Nate carry a Super Emerald (still no real word on what these are or how he came by them, but eh), which conveniently means they miss the queen's hand twitch within her tube…

And here, we have our second space interlude!

Hmmm… who could be in these strange spaceships? Clearly they know where Mobius is…

Back in Knothole, Mina is wandering around, depressed from losing her family during Robotnik's takeover. She actually considers letting herself be captured to be with her family again, but before her thoughts carry too far she finds herself approached by Rosie, who has a special request for her.

As Mina heads over to watch over the children, Bunnie and Antoine pass by, chatting together. Bunnie asks Antoine why he's seemed so distracted lately, and he responds that the knowledge of his father being the roboticized sub-boss of Robotnik in Mercia has been weighing heavily on his mind. As that moment Sonic, Sally and Tails show up, and when Bunnie and Antoine congratulate Sonic on his new title he suggests cheekily that they call him Sir Sonic from now on.

Now this is something I am very pleased to see. This is the moment where Geoffrey starts to become less of an asshole, and become a whole lot more likable. I really prefer his rivalry with Sonic to be more about their respective attitudes toward life, with Geoffrey being all about duty and serious discipline, while Sonic is more of a free spirit who leaps into things without thinking to be a hero. It's much more interesting than the whole love triangle thing Penders tried to push for so long in eras past. They begin to discuss how the king apparently wishes the Freedom Fighters and Secret Service to begin working together more closely, but they're unaware of Elias watching from afar, thinking quietly to himself. Turns out all of this - the reinstatement of the Freedom Fighters and their working together with the Secret Service - was all at the suggestion of Elias to the king, as he sees Sonic as a hero who deserves to be on the front lines after observing him during the mission to rescue Nate. He walks obliviously past a group of heart-eyed girls ogling him (and really, can we blame them? He is very attractive), wishing that he could be more involved in the adventures and dangerous missions the others go on, that he didn't have to be a prince in line for the throne. However, he finds himself shaken from his thoughts when he hears his father and Dr. Quack speaking through the window of the queen's storage building…

Well, that's not good… Perhaps even more concerning, Robotnik back in his HQ has once again turned his arm into a terrifying mass of robot tentacles and plugged it into his now-cleansed computer system, and discovered a tidbit of information that he believes could cement his ability to rule over the planet! What is this information you ask? Well, all we know so of it so far is what's displayed on his screen as he orders his troops to march out - the outline of a continent that looks very much like South America, and the word "Chaos" emblazoned across it…

So you remember how I pointed out how the Sonic Adventure game had just recently come out at the time of this issue? Yeah, I didn't bring that up for no reason - much like Sonic X did several years later, the comics did their own adaption of the game! Unlike Sonic X, however, which was able to follow the script of the game fairly closely with only minor modifications to be made for the setting and characters, the comic adaption differs significantly from the plot of the game due to this world's vast differences from the games' canon - for example, humans and Mobians aren't exactly friendly with one another, the Master Emerald didn't even exist until recently, and perhaps most notably, the history of the echidnas has already been explored in a very different context from how it's portrayed in the game. This was perhaps the thing I was most interested in to see how the writers decided to resolve the discrepancy when I first read the preboot. After all, it wasn't until the 3D games that the Sonic franchise began to expand its worldbuilding and create storylines and characters that had a rich backstory. Up until then, the characters and story were barely given any backstory beyond quick blurbs within game manuals, backstories which were so fluid and indeterminate that they differed greatly between localizations of the games in other countries. Sonic Adventure was the first real attempt to add some depth to the world of Sonic the Hedgehog, and suddenly the Archie comics found themselves having to contend with this new reality being explored in the games, a reality which is extremely different to the one they themselves already created with the limited base they had to go off from the Genesis era. Now, not only do they have to find new roles for all the characters which simply don't exist in the games such as Sally and Bunnie, but they have to find ways to fit even very simple concepts such as Station Square and Chaos into this universe. As we'll see, there were quite a few workarounds implemented in the plot to explain these things away… but it will be several more issues yet until we reach that point, as we have the final arc of Knuckles the Echidna to tackle first!

Tales of the Great War (Part 6): What Really Happened

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Chris Allan Colors: Frank Gagliardo

We're getting close to the end of this arc. We head back to the campfire around which Jules and Bernie are telling their story of the Great War. Jules was on life support due to the extent of his injuries, and Bernie and Uncle Chuck decided to hide this from the infant Sonic for the time being to avoid upsetting him with information he was too young to process. Chuck, with Bernie's blessing, took Jules to his prototype device within the palace lab, unaware that Julian had been making some, let's say, unauthorized modifications.

Chuck, unwilling to wait the time it would take to run preliminary tests on his device for fear of losing his brother, stuck Jules in and hit the button, and was promptly horrified when a mindless, fully-robotic Jules emerged, unresponsive to anything he said to him. He blamed himself and became severely depressed, not realizing that it wasn't his fault at all. Around this same time, the Great War was coming to a close. Julian had suggested something he figured would give him a potential leg up in conquering the world - that King Max should duel the Overlanders' overlord in a winner-takes-all fight to the death, his hope being that whoever won, he could easily take the place of to conquer the war-weary world for himself.

Despite his disappointment in the outcome, Julian was somewhat gratified that shortly thereafter, Chuck left all his equipment to him and resigned from being the kingdom's foremost scientist. Bernie attempted to convince him that it wasn't his fault, and that despite Jules' state she was grateful to him for trying, that Jules would be dead if he hadn't roboticized him. Chuck merely retorted that he might as well be dead with how the experiment went, and despite Bernie still trying to reason with him, he left, leaving her wondering how to explain everything to the young Sonic…

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 78 #writer: karl bollers #writer: ken penders #pencils: james fry #pencils: chris allan #colors: frank gagliardo

4 notes · View notes

isuzukuretsuki · 5 years

Text

Ikemen Revolution - Edgar’s Route

Sirius | Lancelot | Fenrir

aka the sexiest man in the entire red army the entire cast. the hottest stud in the military. the most gorgeous boy in Alice’s harem. the man who will satisfy your wishes and desires, the man who will make your hopes and dreams come true.

THE SMOOTHEST TALKER EVER

it’s been over a month since I finished Edgar’s route but here is his long awaited and very delayed scream fest. I wrote this up bit by bit over the course of two months but I never had the time to sit down and proof read it until now because of school and I didn’t want to post something half assed because it’s Edgar! Also this is uhh... really freaking long LOOL. As usual, if you you want my actual serious final thoughts on the route, just skip to the final blurb.

Now with literally every red army route so far (except Jonah), OF COURSE the Black Army mofos send Alice off with more NAMELESS, FACELESS soldiers who can’t do shit in the face of kidnappers, and end up getting their ass kicked, leaving poor Alice completely defenseless. This time around, the kidnappers make off with Alice’s belongings into the sunset so Alice can’t return home.

That is until our dashing gentleman aka Edgar comes in going like hey baby I’ll help you find your stuff so won’t you please come home to bed with me and of course Alice accepts because he’s a damn hot stud.

Aw Kyle don’t say that ;;;;;.

SO PRECIOUS.............

I’m going to say it right now but Edgar is ADORABLE. Literally the first half of his route is just him and Alice bonding over their love of candy and playing with animals. Edgar even takes Alice out to see a family of ducks he takes care of and he refers to them as his own family and fucking named them “The Creeks” JUST HOW PRECIOUS CAN HE GET???? Considering how Edgar is portrayed as that “evil scheming asshole here to ruin everyone’s day” in everyone else’s route, I didn’t expect him to be so sweet BUT HE IS SUCH A GOD DAMN SWEETIE as you can see I’m infinitely biased towards LIs who like animals.

What... a .... fucking... dork

lmao @ Lancelot trying to act like a do-s when he’s the complete opposite of that. This man doesn’t have a single sadistic bone in his body... he’s just a big mushy teddy bear.

WHAT A FUCKING BIG MUSHY TEDDY BEAR, BOTH OF YOU.

The red army boys are a bunch nerds you just can’t help but fall in love with after going through their routes... especially Edgar’s! I love them all so much.

OH NO MY BABY DON’T SAY THAT PLEASE.

lmao I love the blatant acknowledgement. But also mood.

Anyway after Zero zeros in on Edgar being a sketchy prick, Edgar mopes around some more because “shit Zero is exactly right” and he has a realization that he has Feelings In His Chest. Of course Alice catches on so she bakes him some super unhealthy cookies to make him feel better (ღ˘⌣˘ღ).

I MEAN... I DON’T BLAME HIM, BECAUSE SAME.

Edgar starts disappearing into the night to do “”family business”” for his totally-not-evil-uncle and I SWEAR to god at the time I was like “this mofo’s deadass going around murdering people” and now I’m just like .... ha ha.

One day Alice stumbles across Edgar coming home from “”family business”” and rushes out to greet him, only for him to freak the fuck out and hide his hands behind his back. SERIOUSLY I THOUGHT HIS HANDS WERE BLOOD SOAKED. Alice’s like wtf you doing and yanks his hands out only to find them freezing cold BECAUSE HE WAS BUSY WASHING THE BLOOD OFF OF THEM.

This is one of my favourite scenes JUST.... WARMTH... THE TENDERNESS.... THE FONDNESS.... THE SHEER AFFECTION SHE HAS FOR HIM IS SO MAGNETIZING. The god damn romantic connotations is overflowing it’s practically on the same level as a damn love confession without the actual confession of love.

I love that sort of duality between their relationship being built on fake premises, but is actually very genuine at its core. Edgar may have saved Alice with ulterior motives, but his kindness towards her both when they first met and their interactions after that was very real. It’s through little things in the writing like Alice commenting on how Edgar’ hands were warm that makes it all the more endearing and heart wrenching.

AGAIN--OH NO MY BABY DON’T SAY THAT PLEASE.

lmao never change, Jonah. Never change.

narrator: she was not fine.

look everything in this game may be a rip off but those LI-perspective side stories are just..............IT’S OKAY MY HEART IS ALREADY MADE OF DIAMOND.

Anyhoo the war between the two armies are starting to get Heated Up™ and Edgar requests Lancelot to go scouting in enemy territory alone, but Lancelot refuses bc it’s dangerous. Honestly idk what’s so dangerous about it considering how Sirius’s route was pretty much Edgar vs Black Army and the Black Army still had trouble but ANYWAY. Alice finds out and gets pissed and they end up arguing, to which everyone starts celebrating and clinking wine glasses in toasts because “holy shit Edgar actually has emotions?!” 😂😂

MY GUY LOL WHAT IS THIS.

In Edgar’s route, you don’t say “I love you”, you say THIS. SERIOUSLY MY HEART HURTS SO BAD ESPECIALLY WITH THE CONTEXT OF EDGAR’S CHARACTER AND THE STORY OF THIS ROUTE.

After Edgar’s leaves on his scouting trip Claudius decides it’s a good time to come out into the limelight and ruin some people’s lives for fun so he sends Alice a letter going like “yo here’s a plot convenient key to Edgar’s safe where he keeps his weed stash so you can see the truth that your boyfriend is a PIECE OF SHIT”. And Alice is all like “ay Edgar isn’t a piece of shit, I’m sure this is just a prank!”

too bad it isn’t.

Zero takes Alice to Edgar’s safe and seriously I was on the edge of my seat wondering wtf was in his safe. I suspected it was gonna be her belongings but with the suspense they kept building in this part I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were fucking dead bodies in that locker.

So on the bright side, there were no dead bodies in the safe. On the not so bright side, Alice finds all the letters she wrote to the Black Army, as well as warning letters from them she never received so it turned out Edgar was fabricating the letters she was exchanging with the Black Army all this time. OH GOODIE.

GAHHHH NO EDGAR.

SERIOUSLY can we talk about how good the writing in this route is?!? All the dialogue and monologues are just structured in a way that gets to my emotions. I fucking cried during this scene because Alice’s emotions and despair was so raw and powerful and the way Edgar just silently took all her verbal abuse because he couldn’t defend himself but he was breaking with every word she said ...... ABLHEAJTARTHEATHJAEKHT.

Anyway Alice miraculously somehow escapes the Red Army Headquarters and races back to the Black Army in one piece seriously girl did you run an entire evening without stopping to black territory??? Adrenaline mixed with terror is something only for the surprise plot convenience robbers to make a reappearance. Fortunately, our MVP Luka dashingly swoops in and saves her. He brings her back to Black Territory and cooks her dinner and is there to comfort her MPH...BABY BOY IS SO SOFT AND SWEET...................

Alice completely breaks down and ME FUCKING TOO. She can’t really say much other than a strangled sob of “You know Luka, I had a lot of fun at the Red Army. Edgar treated me really, really well” or something like that and honestly that’s also she really needed to say to convey her heartbreak and betrayal.

lol I can imagine Edgar doing that.

THANKS I’M FUCKING DEPRESSED NOW.

Luka reveals that he and Edgar were long time friends and muses to Alice on what he’s known about Edgar throughout the years. He drops this information on Alice not to necessarily tell her how to feel, but just as food for thought for Alice as she sorts out her feelings.

THANKS I’M EVEN MORE FUCKING DEPRESSED NOW. Also this is hands down the most powerful admittance of love this game has given me.

lmao never change Seth, never change.

Anyhoo Claudius McDoucheMuffin gets into contact with Alice and is all like “hey girl I got your purse.” And for some reason, Alice thinks he’s perfectly trustworthy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯¯.

ALICE....ABOUT THAT....

OH NO.

Well yeah what do you know ha ha, Claudius kidnaps Alice because THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS EVERY FUCKING TIME THE BLACK ARMY SENDS A NAMELESS BODYGUARD OUT TO PROTECT HER.

Claudius takes Alice to outside Amon’s sex dungeon where Edgar is there lovingly waiting for her. Edgar is slightly surprised to see Alice and is rurl pissed over his daddy uncle manhandling her so he makes Claudius give them some alone time in the carriage while he removes Alice’s ropes and dresses her wounds. Alice isn’t keen on it but she realizes that “holy shit Claudius may be a bigger piece of shit than Edgar” so she lets him spill his token tragic backstory to her.

This is so god damned painful.......

jesus christ this puts the whole “In the Bright family, loving people is practically forbidden” into context.

This makes me wonder what would become of Edgar in the other routes where his pact isn’t abolished-- would he really marry if this was the fate he knew his wife and children would go through, or would he just stay single and let his lineage die with him?

Unfortunately, their touching reunion doesn’t last long because Claudius is pretty much banging on their carriage door going like

“time’s up bitches we got work to do” and pretty much barges in and yanks Alice away from Edgar.

Bring it, asshat.

Claudius unceremoniously marches Alice straight into the thick of Amon’s sex dungeon while Edgar reluctantly dallys along with the Concerned Kermit Face the entire time. Amon pretty much ditches Lance for his new buddy Claudius so they can TAKE OVER THE WORLD HUR DUR. Him and Claudius cackle about their evil plans and Alice realizes that Edgar was more or less being manipulated by them and he’s not the Actual Worst. Amon then orders Alice to be thrown into his Personal Chambers™.

Jesus christ, YOU ARE SUCH AN ASS, CLAUDIUS.

DON’T MIND ME I’M JUST BEING EMO.

We cut back to Amon and Alice and Amon does his typical evil villain monologue, takes off his hood and....

(屮゜Д゜)屮(屮゜Д゜)屮(屮゜Д゜)屮 HE HAS A CHARACTER DESIGN?!?!?!?!

I KID YOU NOT THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME I SAW AMON WITHOUT HIS HOOD AND I WAS SHOOKED TO MY FUCKING BONES. I DIDN’T THINK HE’D ACTUALLY HAVE A PROPER CHARACTER DESIGN. It was three in the morning when I played this and I literally just put my phone down and laid in my bed staring at the ceiling as I contemplated my life choices after that.

After that shocking revelation, Amon throws Alice into the dungeons for Edgar to dashingly swoop in and save. It’s the full moon so he takes her to the gates of hell Hole That No Player Ever Wants To See. Now if this was a black army route, the suitor would have thrown Alice’s sad ass straight down that hole but this isn’t a black army route so we’re spared from that. Instead we have Alice CHUCKING ALL OF HER POSSESSIONS INTO THE HOLE ((((；゜Д゜))), effectively sealing her fate of ever going back. I get it’s supposed to be a power move but my only thoughts were “WHAT IF EDGAR DIDN’T ACTUALLY RETURN YOUR FEELINGS LMAO?!” I mean it’s an otome game so of course Edgar loves her back but can you imagine how awkward it’d be if Alice was like “I’m not going back because I love you!” and Edgar’s just like “...but I don't feel the same”. YEESH.

On a less superficial level, I was still really sad because didn’t they make a promise to go to London together one day? ໒( •́ ∧ •̀ )७ I know it wasn’t really a promise but still! Chances are all gone now.

Edgar: Alice, I’m an actual murderer. Alice: NAH, YOU’RE JUST A WEIRDO, EDGAR! (´∩｡• ᵕ •｡∩`) ♡

I AM SO FUCKING EMO.

Also!!! HE’S THE ONLY BOY SO FAR WHO HAS A KISS CG IN HIS ROUTE. (haven’t played Ray’s route yet so idk about him). You have all these Spicy CGs of the boys and Alice in sexually compromising positions and you have Actual Sex Scenes and yet this game barely has any kiss cgs LOL?! What gives?!

He’s so romantic (ఠ్ఠ ˓̭ ఠ్ఠ).

Since Edgar’s officially betrayed Claudius, he pretty much duels him and kicks his ass and arrests him. Unfortunately, arresting Claudius doesn’t absolve Edgar of his crimes and he’s still put on trial with Lancelot and Ray as the judges. This scene kind of weirded me out because Edgar says some mumbo jumbo about how he’s going on trial so he can “become a man worthy of Alice’s love” like uHHH boy you being worthy of her love ain’t gonna mean jack shit if you’re in jail. Unless you want a nice steamy serving of this ending.

Okay I’m not trying to sound like I’m justifying murder but akjheakthake just FLEETING THOUGHTS YA KNOW. This scene was hella predictable and played out exactly like we’d all know (Edgar doesn’t go to jail hurray!) but even still the trial made me SO EMOTIONAL I STARTED CRYING LMAOO.

Oh Jonah, I know a game you’d love.

Romantic Ending:

Now that things finally calmed down, Alice and Edgar go on a date with Luka tagging along and Jonah acting as the fourth wheel, much to Luka’s chagrin. (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) ♫･*:.｡. .｡.:*･

NEVER CHANGE JONAH, NEVER CHANGE.

Out of all the pet names my fictional boyfriend could give me, being called an angel is my number one favourite IT’S JUST SO SOFT AND MAKES MY HEART GO DOKI FUCKING DOKI YA FEEL.

is it a sin that I imagined Edgar going full blown chokemedaddy yandere jealous.... not exactly a romantic thought in the romantic ending, bUT FLEETING THOUGHTS, FLEETING THOUGHTS.

LUKA IS SO GOD DAMN PRECIOUS KILL ME NOW.

AHHH WHY ARE YOU SO CUTE.....

-------

Honestly I’m not even gonna mince words-- I loved this route and everything that came with it.

Before I go on my rampage, shout out to Luka for being the MVP supporting character in Edgar’s route. It’s hard to imagine them being friends considering how clashing their personalities are but their friendship was surprisingly heartwarming and endearing.

I don’t even know how to articulate my thoughts on what made this route so perfect. For starters, Edgar and Alice have amazing chemistry and their personalities compliment each other well. Their bonding and budding friendship was really endearing and felt very believable. From little superficial antics like sharing candy and taking care of animals and going on silly dates, to more blatant portrayals of the depth of their love like Alice cupping Edgar’s hand to her cheek when he was vulnerable, or Edgar straight up betraying his only family to save her.

Alice’s circumstances of being someone from another world really complimented Edgar’s character. Edgar is a character who lived in a gilded cage his entire life--trapped by his occupation and bound by dirty blood. He’s never once known freedom or has ever had any agency over his life, but Alice shatters that equation. Alice is completely unrelated to the Red Army, or Cradle entirely. She knows nothing about his occupation or his history, and so Edgar is drawn to her because there are no division of titles between them. To her, him being the Jack of Hearts is irrelevant.

He says that without her, he gets “bored”. In the game, he complains that he’s “always bored”. Using “bored” to describe a character usually makes that character seem fickle and that they can’t be serious about anything because everything is just a means to kill time. But in the context of Edgar’s character, “bored” really means “dull”, “lifeless”, or “forced to find happiness through short lived and temporary means”. He copes with his oppression and lack of freedom by chalking up all of his feelings as just boredom. And he’s not wrong-- a life where you can’t make any of your own choices or choose your own path is indeed, very boring.

He constantly calls Alice his “special guest” which on top of being an adorable nickname, carries really heavy connotations. She’s an ethereal guest from another world, from outside of Edgar’s tiny world which he always wanted to expand. I LOVED the scene where Alice says she would like to take Edgar to London with her one day, because it’s the first time you see Edgar start to doubt his world. He’s accepted that his world is small and oppressive, but the first time, it’s almost like Edgar entertains the idea of breaking free from his bird cage.

I want to compliment the relationship development between the two, which was WONDERFULLY paced, something that pitifully cannot necessarily be said about in some of the other routes. Them falling in love felt very natural and the writers did not have to rely on shallow monologues like “he breathed in my direction, what is this feeling in my chest?!” to convince me that they were in love with each other. And when the admittance of love finally happens, it happens at very pivotal moments in the story that just makes the scene so much more emotional.

Freaking 3k+ words and I still don’t think I did Edgar’s route justice. His route was amazingly written, and Edgar is an amazingly multifaceted and endearing character. Best boy truly got best route.

Anyway I’m almost done Loki’s route; Ray is next. After that, the routes I’m REALLY looking forward to and hope do not disappoint are: Harr, Seth, Kyle, and Luka.

#ikemen revolution #edgar bright #ellie plays ikerev terribly #ellie plays

115 notes · View notes