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thefanficmonster · 3 years

Text

Rumors

Corpse Husband x Bimbo!Reader (Female)

Warnings: Mentions of Slut Shaming, Swearing

Genre: Fluff, Tiniest bit of Angst, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: When some rumors start floating around, every content creator does their best to either ignore them or defuse the situation. However, sometimes, the fans attempt to do the defusing themselves which only leads to a worse disaster. That’s the case for Corpse whose fans were quick to jump to his protection of some ‘false’ rumors.

Requested by Anon. Hi dear! Thank you so much for your request, it was a joy to write. I’m sorry for how long it has taken me to complete and post the fic but here it finally is and I hope you enjoy reading it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it! Love, Vy ❤

Corpse cracks his knuckles, then his shoulders, then his collarbone, then the his neck. He clenches his jaw as he breathes steadily and rhythmically, trying to control an overwhelming wave of anger that he has never felt before. This is a situation he’s never had to deal with nor did he ever think he’d have to deal with and address on a fucking livestream on top of all, but here he is now, doing his best to count to ten and not go on a Twitter responding spree, calling people out on their bullshit. He wanted to do so, he still wants to, but he was stopped in his intentions and brought to a calm mindset where he was swayed into dealing with this the civil way and not by roasting the fuck out of any and every foul-mouthed person he’s seen on his Twitter timeline.

He can’t really guarantee and civility during the stream either, he’s aware his tolerance is as thin as a stretched out, old rubber band and is a slight tug away from snapping and allowing him to unleash hell on these people because of who he’s been seeing red these past few days.

Let’s not risk a misunderstanding here - Corpse absolutely loves and adores his fans, but seeing this behavior from them is quite upsetting and disappointing. When he uses the terms like ‘assholes’, ‘jerks’ and ‘rude motherfuckers’ he isn’t referring to them. He knows they are good people, but are using the completely wrong tactic of defending him, not to mention he doesn’t even need defending. Even if he did, he’s more than capable of doing it on his own and not getting other people involved.

“Hello everyone, hope you’re doing well.“ He finally settles on saying, officially kicking off the stream. If there’s any indicator of the serious nature of this stream, it’s probably the lack of lo-fi and the lack of even attempted playfulness and cheeriness in his voice. That’s how you know shit isn’t to be messed around about. “I just realized I didn’t specify what I’ll be doing in the Tweet, but I’ll tell you now, so those who aren’t interested in the subject or want to steer clear of the drama can leave. However, I wouldn’t advise clicking off considering this will be an overall, how do I say this, rant, of sorts? It’s meant to knock some sense in the people who have been spreading hate for a specific person on all social media platforms she’s active on.“

The majority of the viewers are already familiar with the subject, some even guilty of spreading the hate Corpse mentioned, but there are a few that are completely clueless - the ones actually not interested in online drama, not just saying they ‘hate drama’. With those people in mind, Corpse takes to addressing the issue from its very beginning.

“So, for a month now, me and this streamer, who’s also a TikTok star, by the name of Y/N have been interacting a lot on social media. She’s an incredibly sweet girl that a lot of people have prejudice towards. She’s very misjudged and misunderstood because people see he solely as her content, if that makes sense. They only know she’s that streamer who wears revealing clothes on her streams and posts risqué pictures on her Instagram. Like, no.“ Corpse cannot even fully believe he has to address this and that slut-shaming people is still a thing in the twenty-first century. He closes his eyes for a moment, fist tightening and his knuckles turning white, “I don’t understand how so many people can be so shallow and just plain jerks towards her in general, but then again - this is especially for my fans, the members of my fandom - I don’t understand the need you guys feel to put Y/N down to defend me from some ridiculous rumors as if it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with people talking shit for attention or to get someone canceled.“ He sighs, reminding himself to slow his roll as to not confuse any viewers who still don’t know the full story, “Anyway, back to the timeline of events. So, considering we’ve never interacted before, all the replying to comments, retweeting, liking posts and whatever sparked some dating rumors. Isn’t that just fucking hilarious - you see two people interacting on social media and the first thing that comes to mind is that they’re in a romantic relationship. Where did the friendship go? Does no one value or consider friendships to be a valid type of human relation anymore?“ He runs a hand through his hair, making another pause to clear his mind and prevent his frustration from overflowing. He promised he wouldn’t lose his cool and would remain calm and collected, but the more he talks about it the tighter he clenches his fist and the faster his heartrate is. His neck and ears are red from the tension he feels all over, almost like he’s physically restraining a raging wild animal and not just his own thoughts and emotions.

There’s layers to his anger, the lower ones - aka the ones he’s yet to get to - will be a nightmarish test of his self-control, he already knows it. Judging by how much of a toll this rant has already taken on him, his patience and control growing thinner and thinner, he’s not sure how he’ll power through the last layers without his voice raising awfully high in volume and his fists searching for some object to punch. To an ignorant eye, his reaction would seem exaggerated and overboard, but little does that ignorant eye know...

“When some of my fans saw those rumors, they reacted very badly. It was quite disappointing to see. Guys, I appreciate you standing up for me even though you shouldn’t do that - I can defend myself, not that this was a matter I needed defending from to begin with. But just the way some of you went about it was horrifically wrong and quite upsetting, to me but especially to Y/N herself.“ He can feel it, the aggravation growing, bubbling up in his chest, “What I saw disgusted me, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. The things some of you were saying...I couldn’t believe you are in fact the same people who are my fans, my lovely fans who I’ve always thought so highly of. Never did I think you could be able of slut-shaming so vulgarly and grossly, I couldn’t believe what I was reading.“

He has every right to be upset - the things being said about Y/N were truly awful and a lot of things being said were meant to defend Corpse and defuse the rumors, doing so while stomping all over Y/N and her content. Rightfully so, many of her fans were outraged and quick to jump to her defense but were unfortunately outnumbered, leading Corpse to believe not many of her fans are actually real or as dedicated as his which only fueled his fury further.

Anyway, let’s take a look at Y/N’s point of view. Being a content creator for as long as she has, refusing to change her style no matter how many people disagreed and insulted her about it, she’s grown quite used to people spitting insults at her on every social media possible. It’s sad how throughout the majority of her content creating career she’s only had haters, creeps and fake fans watching her videos and streams. Rare are those in her fandom who’d actually stick up for her and defend her in ‘scandals’ such as this one. However, no amount of experience with dealing with hate could have prepared her for this outpour of some of the meanest shit she’s ever heard and been called in her life.

Y/N likes the content she makes, she’s comfortable in her skin and loves her body. She loves showing it off too and nor she nor anyone who wants that deserves to be shamed for who they are and what they do, especially when they aren’t hurting anyone and their content is still appropriate. People have always bashed her for all elements of who she is: her appearance, her clothing style, her streams, her gaming skills, her voice on occasion. She can count the instances when she’s received positive feedback on the fingers of her hands which would depress anyone else but not her. She’s always created content for her own amusement and entertainment so people’s opinions never really bothered her. Until now, until this very drama that has hit a specific nerve, an insecurity of hers she’s never talked about. The comments such as:

(Vy Speaking: Comments containing slut-shaming ahead, go to ### if you want to skip)

“Corpse would never date a slut like her“

“Corpse dating this thot? Please internet stop being ridiculous“

“Corpse ain’t a pimp, y’all need to chill“

“Even if they datin they gon break up soon - whore stays a whore“

###

bothered her far more than she’d like to admit. She has no one to open up about it either, she knows what she’ll get in response if she does - she’ll be told it’s her fault. Her fault because of the way she dresses, the way she talks and acts, because she chose this career to begin with. All her fault. The only person she can turn to she refuses to because she doesn’t want to be a bother - not after so many people confirmed her worries that she’s not good enough for him already anyway, the least she can do is avoid bothering him the best she can.

And that is exactly why this has upset Corpse so much.

“Here’s a little message specifically meant for those who claimed I’d never date someone like Y/N or specifically Y/N. You better listen carefully: Don’t you ever, and I mean EVER slut-shame my girlfriend or any other person ever. I cannot believe I have to explicitly remind you that your behavior isn’t ok. You should fucking know that your behavior isn’t right and that you’re a massive piece of shit for saying those awful things about others you judge solely on appearance and clothing. Does it surprise you that I am, in fact, dating Y/N? If you say yes for the reason you think she’s not good enough for me or that I deserve better, please get the fuck out of my fandom. No one disrespects my girl and gets away with it. That’s final!“

Though still under the influence of a flurry of negative emotions, overhearing Corpse literally telling people to exclude themselves from his fandom for being mean to her, Y/N’s taking a step towards emotional recovery knowing her boyfriend will always have her back. He’ll always be there to prove people wrong, defend her and stand by her. He’ll be there to catch her when the hate knocks her off her feet.

But most importantly: he’ll never ask her to change. Not her style, not her clothes, not her personality, nothing. He fell for her the way she is and for who she is, and he will never allow anyone to try to change her either. For someone who’s never had much support all her life, a single speck of support overpowers all the hate within the blink of an eye. Corpse will always be her knight in shining armor, the knight who defeated all the hateful demons by just entering her life. And though she’s still struggling with the ‘Am I good enough for someone so wonderful?’ and ‘He deserves better, doesn’t he?’ questions, with his hand holding hers, she’ll never let those doubts and insecurities overpower her.

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mintymiknow · 3 years

Text

Trust Fall - Ch. 5 | Lee Minho

summary | character profiles | masterlist

Pairing: Lee Minho/Lee Know x Reader

Summary: Chan and Changbin encourage Minho to continue to continue building your trust...or your relationship. And as another task dawns near, your heart yearns to give in; only if your mind would let you.

Genre: Secret agent/spy au, romance, angst, action

Word count: Approx. 6.1k

Warnings for this chapter: None

A/N: Perhaps we’ll have more moments here? Who knows? Maybe you’ll need to read through it first hehe~ Anyway, this is a rather calm chapter that I wrote for the sake of character development and building relationships. Still, I hope you enjoy reading. As usual, don’t hesitate to send an ask if you have any questions or comments!

The unusual tension in his body refused to leave him. Well, “unusual” wasn’t the best term since it was normal for his muscles to tense up especially after missions.

But right now, Minho was antsy - the male couldn’t sit still, nerves in his body buzzing with an unexplainable adrenaline. Maybe he needed to let off some steam. The previous interrogation was a bit vexing on his part, and if Chan didn’t hold him back, he probably would have disfigured the target’s face.

After getting whatever information they needed from the target, Chan handled putting him in the detainment center where he could be captured and locked up. Changbin went to the labs, and Minho, surprisingly, decided to go to his room. He usually spent more time in the main building instead of the living quarters, but this was a rare occasion.

He was filled with tension after that, and he was still filled with it after waking up.

As he relentlessly punched the punching bag that hung on one of the areas of the training center, sweat dripped from his bangs and trailed between his furrowed eyebrows. His punches were stronger than usual, little grunts escaping his lips.

“Go easy on the bag, man.” Changbin lightly chuckles as finishes sipping from his bottle.

Minho lands one last punch before huffing out, “I am.”

“What’s up?” Chan says, taking a seat on the bench next to Changbin, “You seem preoccupied.”

Minho hums nonchalantly, adjusting the bandages that wrapped around his fists. “It’s nothing.” he replies, readying himself to punch the bag again.

As he starts training again, Changbin looks at Chan with a knowing look, to which the elder responds with a nod and light chuckle. He stands up, going towards Minho and stopping the bag from moving on the other side. He tilts his head to peer at Minho, flashing a small smile, “Come on Min. We know you too well. What’s wrong?”

Changbin sing-songs, “You’re not usually this high-strung. You’ve always been the most chill between us three.”

Minho’s jaw clenches, and Chan knows better to not push Minho when he’s stressed. So, he returns to the bench and pats Changbin’s back as if telling him to pull back as well. With a warm smile, the eldest agent says, “Why don’t we head for the target range? It’s been a while since we went, don’t you think?”

At that, Minho stops punching the bag and turns to face the two, “Fine.”

“You just want to show off your sharpshooting skills.” Changbin raises an eyebrow playfully, and to this, Minho lets his lips curl into a smirk.

The three agents then walk towards the inner part of the training center and enter a particular sound-proof room. There, they put on the necessary equipment and select a gun each from the weapon rack. They press a button on each of their shooting booths, and soon, they each have moving targets bustling about in the range. As expected, Minho manages to hit most if not all right in the middle, displaying his skills indeed.

Chan and Changbin aren't surprised and whistle at their friend, causing him to sheepishly wave his hand in dismissal...and embarrassment.

Chan laughs, getting ready to reload his pistol, “So, now that you’re more in your zone, wanna talk to us?”

“What’s there to talk about, Chan?” Minho inquires, eyes already locked onto his own targets.

While he fires away, Changbin returns his pistol and leans against the metal table, “Ever since the interrogation, you’ve been on edge. Even more so when we asked you about Dr. Song.”

Minho fires his last shot and hits the target on the head before calmly putting the pistol down. He sighs, removing the headgear that protects hit ears. “It’s just…” he trails off, leaning against the table beside Changbin, “Her behavior is just...odd. I can’t place my finger on it, but she’s just...you know. I’m usually good at reading people, you know that. With her, I can’t.”

The eldest agent adds teasingly, “I thought you both were starting to get along...you aren’t the most subtle with those fond gazes, Min.”

The agent in question feels heat rising to his cheeks as he shoots Chan a glare. “I do not have a fond gaze. Is your eyesight bad already?”

Chan laughs heartily, crossing his arms as he leans against the wall perpendicular to them, “Is she still annoying you? Being rude? Difficult? ‘Cause besides us field agents, she seems pretty nice with Jisung and Seungmin. Jeongin tells me she was fairly civil with him the other time.”

Minho shakes his head, “I understand the ‘difficult’ part since we did bring her against her wishes. We should be thankful she even stayed and stays despite what we make her go through. It’s just…”

“You don’t trust her?” Changbin guesses, looking at the older agent earnestly.

Minho nods his head before shaking it. He then just chooses to run his hand through his hair, messing up the already messy strands, “I want to trust her. To get her to trust us, we need to show her that we trust her. And...I really do want that, but it’s just...a part of me is giving warning signals.”

“Warning signals?” Chan tilts his head, “How so?”

“It’s telling me to be careful and wary.” Minho tries, “You know?”

“Why though? Besides her hostility towards you in particular - I don’t know why though - what else is there?” Changbin asks again.

The second eldest agent sighs, his sharp eyes closing as if he was exhausted. “It’s just a hunch. I just feel like...she’s deliberately hiding things from us - things that could be useful.”

Minho's mind then brings to light what he felt in the jacket’s pocket when he consoled you yesterday.

Chan hums, chewing on his lip to curate his thoughts and words. After a moment, he speaks again, “Well, we do have to see it from her perspective. As you said, she’s here against her will. She’s here and working, but she doesn’t necessarily like it. People like that tend to be more aggressive and hostile. It’s like cornering an animal, per se.”

“Yeah, and I can only imagine the turmoil and stress she’s under after what happened in the seaport and interrogation room.” Changbin points out.

“Maybe you can take this as an opportunity to get her to open up, Min.” Chan suggests with an amused smile, “As her ‘partner’, go check on her and see how she’s doing.”

“I’m not a babysitter.” Minho deadpans with narrowed eyes, “Dr. Song is an adult; I don’t think - ”

“Do you not want her to be more trusting, Minho?” Chan smirks, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes, but - ”

“You have to build trust, Minho.” Chan says warmly, “We’re field agents, so we’re better at gauging who to trust and not. Y/n isn’t, and she’s closing herself off because she’s vulnerable. With people like that, you need to be the one to reach out and build that trust for them.”

“Since when were people this tiring?” Minho sighs in mild irritation, running his hand through his hair once more.

Changbin laughs, patting his back, “You got this. You’re the one and only Lee Minho, right? Agent Lee is the best!”

“Gee, thanks Bin.” Minho fakes a smile, but the younger agent is very much aware of the warmth in his eyes.

With that, Minho returns his gun to the rack and playfully salutes at the other two, “See you for dinner then.”

“See ya.” Chan waves with a chuckle.

Changibn salutes back, and when Minho leaves the room, the younger agent smirks, “You think he’s like that because he’s much too worried for y/n?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised.” Chan returns his gun as well, “She’s too much like her.”

“You’d think Minho would be totally distant and uncaring after what happened, huh.” Changbin muses.

The older agent hums, looking up at the ceiling, “Well, Minho did make a shell of his own because of what happened back then. That’s why he has the whole ‘cold’ facade going on. It’s nice to see him genuinely caring for someone other than us. He’s probably the best person to be there for her when she needs it. He did it before.”

“I’ve never seen Minho this puzzled over something...or someone.” Changbin chuckles in amusement before his smile fades into a small frown, “Well, at least besides...yeah.”

Chan nods, a gentle smile on his lips, “He’s learning. For all his skill and intelligence, Minho hates dealing with emotions the most.”

“True.” Changbin nods, “So...sparring training today?”

“Sounds good.”

You’re alone in one of the lab rooms, sitting by a table and reading a folder of random files you found in the lab archives. This particular room was empty, no equipment and items in sight - just a typical lab table, some stools, empty shelves and windows. Your eyes are much too focused on the files for you to have noticed a figure walking into the room.

“Jisung said you’d be here.”

You look up from your position to see Minho leaning against the lab room’s door frame, head slightly tilted to the side to display his nonchalance. You gently nod your head, “Yeah, if you guys need the lab tests from the stuff we brought back, they’re with Seungmin.”

“That’s fine.” Minho responds, “We already had Hyunjin bring it up to Jung.”

“What else can I help you with then?” you say, mirroring Minho’s tone of disinterest.

The agent walks closer until he’s standing beside you. He leans against the table, arms crossed as he fixes his eyes on the white floors. You study his behavior and mannerism, taking into account the way he chews on his lip and blinks his eyes repeatedly.

Almost as if he was nervous.

Was that even possible? Someone like him...nervous? You have to bite back the urge to giggle and smile, so you look away and awkwardly cough. “If you’re here to interrogate me about...that time...then I have nothing to tell you.” you say softly, fiddling with your fingers on the table.

Minho clears his throat similarly, “I...I came here to ask you if you’re alright. I mean, if you’ve been doing alright. Since...that time.”

You feel your cheeks blush with a warm, pink hue; you aren’t sure if it’s embarrassment over your behavior last time or flusteredness over his concern. Nonetheless, you take a deep breath and reply, “I’m sorry, I must have caused a ruckus. I’m...alright, thank you, Agent Lee.”

Minho’s body visibly relaxes as he turns his body to face you better. He places his elbow and arm on the table to lean sideways, tilting his head as he speaks. “I do have to ask though...it’s part of my job.”

Of course.

He continues, “That man seemed to have known you. And I know you said you didn’t know him - ”

You cut him off, eyes staring at the files in front of you, “I don’t know him. This I can promise you. I don’t even know how he knows me or my name.”

“This I can promise you”? Minho thinks to himself, but he puts it in this back of his mind to ask, “Then...Dr. Baek? Does it ring a bell?”

At this, you involuntarily shudder and take a deep breath. “One of the former scientists involved with the incident back then...that’s it.” you say softly.

“Then why does he know you? How?”

“We worked on things together.”

Minho doesn’t push. He stays quiet, now his turn to observe your behavior; he takes in how you refuse to make eye contact with him, shoulders tense as if guarding yourself from him. He senses the agitation in your nerves, a clear form of lying. Still, he doesn’t push and instead releases a sigh.

“You know...if I’m being completely honest with you, it was surprising to see you be more talkative back when we were in the car on the way to Gimpo.” he says.

You face him, raising an eyebrow, “Is that why you had the audacity to smirk at me?”

At this, Minho’s eyes brighten, “Oh, so you caught that?”

“I’m not blind or stupid.” you deadpan, narrowing your eyes, “Of course I did.”

“Well…” Minho trails off, resting his cheek and chin on the palm of his hand, “it’s just that you aren’t very talkative and open to begin with. I was just...pleasantly surprised to see you talking about more personal things.”

“What I did in Gongjak as a doctor is hardly personal, Agent Lee.” you say with a purely confused expression, “It’s a very professional topic, if you ask me.”

The male agent shrugs, a small smile on his lips, “Then tell me about this Dr. Kang. Dr. Choi kept mentioning him and about how he looked up to you.”

“Dr. Kang is just a doctor, like I said.” you nearly stutter, “Why would you need to know anything about him?”

“Maybe he can actually give us information about certain things? Who knows?” Minho shrugs.

You narrow your eyes again, “I’m not convinced, Agent Lee. I’m sure you have connections who can do that for you.”

“Hmm. Perceptive.” Minho smirks, “I just wanted to see your reaction when his name is mentioned. When Jisung asked, you seemed pretty flustered.”

“I was not.” your eyes widen, “And why would you do that?”

“To get a feel on what you’re like as a person? To get to know you?”

“You don’t get to know someone like that…” you mutter.

Minho shrugs, “Maybe. But you aren’t exactly willing to let us - let me - get to know you, y/n. Maybe teasing you like this will help you warm up. You’re still closing yourself off.”

“I…” you look away, sighing, “...sorry. It’s just not easy for me.”

“But I promised you, right? That you’ll be ok as long as I’m with you.”

“That’s what they always say, Agent Lee. Lying and deception comes easy for agents like you.” you say in a soft voice, “It’s part of your job, right?”

You remembered all the times Chan, Minho and Changbin came up with lies and excuses while on the field operation with them. Sure, they had to do it for the sake of the mission, but whatever they called it - it was still a lie. And you hated the fact that they got what they needed and wanted with lies.

“Agents and organizations like SKZ are built on trust, y/n.” Minho says calmly, his gaze piercing and strong, “Given that we ‘lie’ when needed, the trust we have with each other is stronger.”

“I can’t say that for myself, Agent Lee.” you look at him tiredly, “I had no one to trust back then.”

“Did you not have Seungmin and Jisung?”

“They weren’t there when - ” you stop yourself, looking away from the man.

Minho takes a step closer, bringing a finger to your chin to make you look at him. His voice is low and almost raspy as he whispers, “Weren’t there when what, y/n? What about the past are you so hesitant to share?”

Your lip trembles in the slightest, and if Minho wasn’t this close to you, he would have missed it. “You can’t trust anyone but yourself.” you breathe out in a whisper, “That’s all I have to say about it.”

Minho knows you aren’t going to say anything, so he takes Chan’s advice and approaches you carefully. He drops the matter at once, pulling his fingers away from your chin. Instead, he offers a small smile and stretches his hand out, “Fine, but will it kill you to put a little trust in us? Or at least in me?”

You stare at his hand and swallow hard. After a moment of deliberation, you take his hand; the male gives yours a gentle squeeze, and you end up looking directly into his eyes. At this moment, the mysterious haze that clouds his eyes somehow disappears. A thin sheet of mysteriousness still swirls within, but it’s a tad bit clearer, and you see a small speck of stars.

Minho can see the ice slowly breaking away in your own eyes. It’s far from being gone, but there’s a small crack he knows will eventually spread out if he played his cards right - if he, in Chan’s words, built the trust himself.

Despite being dull and cold at the moment, he knows your eyes have a dazzling warmth and color to them.

Just like -

He doesn’t realize that he’s staring - peering - into your eyes so deeply until you tilt your head and ask, “What?”

Minho snaps out of his daze, blinking twice before letting go of your hand and shaking his head with a small smile, “Nothing.”

You chew on your lip a bit awkwardly, slowly turning your attention back to the files you were reading. Minho clears his throat, gaze back to being fixed on the white floor. There’s a thick tension in the atmosphere, but it isn’t all bad. It’s just awkward.

Awkward but light as if the universe was saying “there’s potential”.

As if you were in highschool as two teenagers innocently but awkwardly skirting around each other before realizing one was right there all along.

Thankfully, you’re saved from the atmosphere when you both hear a light knock on the wall. You both turn to the source, only to see a smiling agent waving at you. “Hey guys, Jisung said you were here.” he says.

Minho offers a small smile, looking at the said agent with a fond gaze; it kind of makes you melt. Kind of. “Hey Jeongin. What’s wrong?” the older agent asks.

Jeongin shakes his head softly, “Nothing drastic. Just here to tell you that Jung has another operation for you. Technically it’s you, me, Chan and Hyunjin on this one, but Jung is asking if Dr. Song would like to come.” the younger male then chuckles, turning to you, “Dr. Song, if you’re interested to hear Jung out, you can come with us to the briefing session.”

You look to Minho who merely gives you a small smile. You then sigh, nodding at Jeongin, “Ok.”

“Cool.” Jeongin smiles, “Be at the briefing room in 15 minutes.”

With that, he waves at you and Minho before turning on his heel to leave. Once he’s gone, Minho turns to look at you, an eyebrow raised, “What a surprise. You’re interested?”

You half-pout-half-glare at the male, huffing out a deep breath, “Don’t get used to it. I just need to know as much as I can to get this job over and done with.”

“Alright.” the agent chuckles, gesturing towards the door, “Let’s go.”

You and Minho enter the meeting together, and Hyunjin and Jeongin are already inside, seated on the chairs. Jeongin waves warmly while Hyunjin flashes a bright smile. “Nice to see you again, y/n.” he bows his head.

You bow as well, offering a small smile, “Hyunjin.”

“Why are you calling Hyunjin by his first name and not me?” Minho grumbles playfully as he pulls a chair out for you, “Hyunjin of all people.”

You take a seat and look up at him, tilting your head, “Because you’re the agent assigned to me, so I felt like addressing you with ‘Agent Lee’ was more appropriate.”

Minho looks at you un-amusedly as he takes a seat next to you. You look at him with a mischievous glint in your eyes, “Calling you ‘Minho’ is still a bit too personal.”

Hyunjin laughs, eyes wrinkling at the sides as he does so, “Well, Agent Lee, looks like you need to work on that.”

“Ah...Hyunjin.” Minho sarcastically smiles at the other agent, and they both erupt into sarcastic yet amusing laughter.

Jeongin watches, smile wide and bright as he mutters under his breath, “Not again…”

As the two continue to bicker with each other, the door opens and Chan and Jung walk in. Hyunjin and Minho stop arguing in an instant, bowing their heads in greeting. Chan smiles and takes a seat next to you while Jung acknowledges everyone with a wave of his hand; he takes a seat at the end of the table.

“Ah, y/n.” Jung smiles lightly, “Good to see you.”

You only nod, unconsciously leaning towards the side where Minho was seated. The male agent rubs your back, the touch gentle but fleeting; there one second, gone in the next. The head then clears his throat and speaks immediately, “This operation requires you to head to Gangnam. There’s an underground district there, but as per our intel gathered, it’s covered up by a luxurious facade.”

“Undercover mission?” Hyunjin asks, and you don’t miss the sparkle in his eyes.

Jung nods his head, “The previous scout team tells us that there’s going to be a gala of sorts tomorrow in this particular ‘underground hotel’. Keep in mind that it’s a luxury hotel on the outside, but a lot of...things happen in the underground aspect of it. Be careful. Now, the gala is supposed to be for some socialites celebrating the hotel’s founding anniversary, but intel tells us that some Cle members will be there. We don’t know yet for what purpose or reason, but it’s your mission to find out everything you can. Maybe get some data and evidence.”

The agents nod in unison, but Jung notices that you’re silent; he even takes note of your body language - the fact that you’re somehow leaning towards Minho, and the fact that Minho rubs your back one more time.

“Dr. Song,” Jung starts, “I wanted you to hear this because you’re free to join them, but you can also stay behind here if you wish. The only reason why I’m permitting you to go with them is because you might recognize some familiar faces - doctors, scientists, esteemed people, etc. - while there. But again, you don’t need to go with them.”

You ponder for a moment, running all sorts of scenarios and pros and cons in your brain. You briefly glance at Minho before turning to Jung, subtly nodding your head, “I’ll go with them.”

You can see Jeongin smiling widely, Hyunjin making little claps, and Chan mouthing “huh? What did you do to her?” to Minho, to which the latter responds with a surprised expression. Jung smiles warmly, nodding his head as he looks to each person in the room, “Very well. Rest assured, y/n, you are in good hands.”

The man then dismisses the meeting and excuses himself for other matters with the authorities. When he’s gone, Chan rests his elbows on the table and chuckles, “Wow, y/n. I didn’t think you’d want to come after the previous time. I’m glad you’re coming though.”

You clear your throat, avoiding their gazes, “As I told Agent Lee, I’m doing this to hasten the progress of finding a solution so I can get it over and done with.”

Hyunjin leans back on his chair and smiles, “Well, doesn’t matter as long as we get the job done! Y/n, you can count on us.”

Jeongin laughs, tilting his head endearingly, “Don’t mind him, he’s just excited to be able to do a mission where he dresses fancily.”

Chan laughs, “Speaking of which...since this is happening in a hotel, Jung had Felix arrange for accommodations. Everything will be ready for us there, including the attire. I’ll double-check to make sure they have something for you too, y/n.”

You nod and a few seconds later, Chan tells everyone to get ready to leave for tomorrow - rest and up train and do whatever to prepare. With that, everyone leaves the room and goes their separate ways.

Sometime within the day - specifically in the afternoon - you return from the lab and enter your room in the living quarters. As soon as you step in, your eyes land on your bed and the black jacket laying on it - Minho’s jacket.

You forgot to return it to the male the other day, having brought it back to your room; you’re surprised he hasn’t asked for it. With a sigh, you take the jacket and resort to return it, thus heading back to the elevators.

You don’t feel like calling Minho on his phone yet, so you end up asking the other agents for his whereabouts. “In times like this before operations, he’s either in his room or in the training facility” Felix says when you bump into him in the main building’s lobby. He then offered to take you there, and when you both arrived, the freckled male smiled and wished you luck as he made his way.

You navigated the training center nervously, making it a point to ignore all the training rooms and training agents. You check the target range where, as Felix says, is Minho’s favorite, but the agent is nowhere to be seen. Instead, you see Changbin. You lightly tap his back, and when he turns around he offers a small smile. “Chan or Minho?” he asks, “Or maybe Jisung?”

“Huh?” you tilt your head.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Oh, Minho.”

Changbin chuckles, “Over there by the gym area.”

You thank the male agent before heading over to the gym-like area. As Changbin said, Minho is there, having just finished one of his workouts. He runs his hand through his sweaty hair, gulping water from his bottle. He turns his head to your direction just as you walk closer, jacket carefully bundled in your arms. The agent tilts his head, and once you’re standing a few steps away from him, you hand him his jacket.

“I forgot to return it the other day.” you say, avoiding his gaze. There was something about the way his sweaty strands of hair clung to his forehead, sweat dripping down the perfect slope of his nose.

Minho offers a small, thankful smile nonetheless, taking the jacket from you, “Thanks.”

He then puts the jacket on a nearby bench and crosses his arms. He speaks with a playful tone despite the neutral expression on his face, “So, now that you’re here, do you want to learn how to defend yourself?”

He sees the panic flash across your eyes and lets out a light chuckle, “I’m just kidding.”

“I’d rather not do anything physical, thank you.” you deadpan.

“What about the shooting range?”

“I said no.”

“Hmmm...martial arts?”

“What about ‘nothing physical’ do you not get?”

“Physical...physical…” Minho pretends to hum innocently, before his eyes twinkle with a not-so-innocent glimmer, lips curling into a teasing smirk, “Physical - ”

You already know what he has to say, and upon realization, your cheeks burn up. You slap his arm, eyes wide as you yell, “Hey! Not that kind of physical!”

Minho laughs the loudest you’ve heard him since you arrived at SKZ, and if you weren’t so embarrassed, you would have thought it sounded lovely. He brings a hand up to the area you slapped, giving you a small smile, “At least I know you can hit pretty hard.”

“What was that for?” you yell, still flustered.

The agent chuckles, “I don’t have to worry about you defending yourself if things go south.” he then shakes his head, “Though we’ll try our best not to get to that point.”

You scoff in disbelief, cheeks still very much pink and hot. You put your hands on your hips, “You! You really are testing me!”

“And you passed.”

“Agent Lee!”

Minho laughs lightly before gesturing forward, “Anyway, you should have dinner and get your rest. Chan wants us to leave tomorrow morning.

“Whatever.” you mumble, shooting one last death-glare which Minho merely laughs off.

With that, you turn on your heel, almost stomping your way out of the training center. Minho watches your retreating figure, a small smile still splayed on his lips. He notices Changbin approaching, and the younger agent grins, “What’s with the stupid grin?”

Minho shakes his head, fixing his eyes on the jacket you returned, “I’m not sure if I should be amused or unsettled.” he starts with a soft smile that eventually fades into a frown, “She’s so much like her.”

Just as you are about to reach the living quarters, a sudden random yet entertaining idea popped into your mind. You pull your phone out, going to your contacts list. Once you spot the name, your fingers freeze before even getting to tap the call button.

It shouldn’t be a problem, right?

No one ever explicitly said anything about you going out to eat or take breaks right? And technically Minho did tell you to get dinner before resting…

And you did need a little respite after all the stress...

Not wanting to get swayed any further, you tap the call button. The other line rings for a few seconds until someone picks up, a familiar voice responding, “Y/n? Hello?”

“Hey, Hyunbin.” you breathe out, “Are you on duty now?”

“Kinda. I just finished a few rounds and have a short break for dinner.” Hyunbin answers with a chuckle, “Why?”

You shrug, a small smile on your lips, “I was about to go get some dinner for myself. Do you want to...tag along?”

“Sure. It’s been a while.” the male doctor laughs heartily.

“Great. How about the usual cafe near Gongjak?”

“Sounds good.”

And that was how you ended up exiting the headquarters’ compound. Technically, getting out was alright since there were some SKZ members who didn’t live in the living quarters and opted to go to their own homes. Thankfully, none of the security questioned your leaving. However, a certain freckled male notices your figure exiting the gates.

“Oh? Does Minho…”

And so he runs into the main building in search of a certain Lee Minho.

Meanwhile, you’re seated in a cafe with Hyunbin, eating your respective pasta meals for dinner. The male doctor swallows before laughing lightly, “I just heard from the director that you were given an offer to participate in some organization’s research project. Didn’t say much ‘cause it was apparently classified stuff.”

You sigh, offering an apologetic smile, “Yeah...it sort of is. Sorry I didn’t get to say bye and all. The head of the project kind of wanted me in the facility as soon as possible.”

“Well,” Hyunbin smiles it off, “now that you’re here, what’s it like? You don’t need to tell me if it’s really classified. Just tell me if it’s more stressful than what we do in Gongjak!”

You laugh, sipping from your coffee. “Well, it is stressful…”

You trail off when your mind goes to Chan, Felix, Jisung and Seungmin who have been nothing but friendly to you.

To Changbin, Jeongin and Hyunjin who have been welcoming despite you being difficult.

And to Minho who has been mysterious, yes, but also very patient and silently caring.

You sigh, closing your eyes before continuing to speak, “Stressful but you kind of just have to deal with it for the sake of the job.”

“Ah, yeah. Hyunbin grins, “Knowing you though, you’ve got this handled.”

“Ah, I hope so.” you laugh lightly, “I’m going to Gangnam tomorrow for more research purposes. I don’t think we’ve needed to travel to other cities when doing research in Gongjak.”

“At least you get to sight-see.” the male jokes.

“I mean...that is true.” you laugh, “I just prefer staying in. You know me. I hated the monthly parties the director hosted for us doctors and researchers.”

“Ah...all the throwing up from their drinking.” Hyunbin pinches the bridge of his nose, pretending to look distraught.

You smile and laugh softly, “And having to drag them home from the bar...”

After a few more minutes of talking, Hyunbin walks with you for a little more, but you make sure not to let him tag along the entire way just in case. A few meters away from the cafe, you suddenly freeze in your spot, eyes met with another pair of icy, steely ones - very sharp ones in fact.

Hyunbin was talking about a certain senior citizen patient before he noticed you’ve stopped walking, so he stops as well. “Y/n?” he tilts his head.

You gulp, unable to respond to Hyunbin or even move a muscle when the other figure approaches the two of you. Hyunbin also notices the newcomer and goes “oh, your colleague?”

“Minho…” you trail off quietly, wide eyes on the agent.

The way his icy glare is quickly masked by faux warmth sends chills down your spine as he smiles at Hyunbin. “Hi, yeah, I’m y/n’s colleague.” the male agent then turns to you, “I was wondering where you left off.”

You clear your throat and slowly nod, “Yeah, ok, sorry. Let’s...let’s go.”

Minho sends another sweet smile towards Hyunbin and says a quick “nice meeting you” before placing his hand on your back and ushering you to walk away. Hyunbin still has his eyes on you two.

After you and Minho are a few feet away, the male agent hisses, eyes narrowed sharply, “Who gave you permission to leave HQ?”

“Don’t tell me I’m supposed to be locked in there like a prisoner.” you snarl back with a glare.

“Then you should have at least told me.”

“For goodness sake, Minho. I’m an adult. I don’t need to tell you everything I’m doing, do I?”

Minho grabs your upper arm, tugging it so that he can turn your around to face him. He’s a bit closer than usual.

“Under the circumstance that you’re working with us, yes you do.” his voice starts to raise, “I hate to break it to you, but we can’t have people running in and out of HQ as they please. Plus, we can’t risk you accidentally talking about what we’re doing in there.”

“If you want me to trust you, can’t you trust me on this?” you scoff, “What makes you think I’m going to blab about it?”

You would probably laugh at yourself for saying that. If only Minho knew that you took one of the samples from the lab the other day when you returned from the black market and seaport.

No way he’d trust you if he found out.

Minho laughs, his voice a strand of hair away from shouting, “Stop being so stupid, y/n. You know you’re involved with something top-secret. Don’t go meeting people behind my back. Not even with your little boyfriend.”

You grit your teeth, eyes wide with anger, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Before Minho can respond, Hyunbin is by your side, his eyebrows furrowed in concern, “Hey, I heard shouting. Are you ok?”

You look at Minho’s now-calm expression before smiling at Hyunbin, “Yeah, don’t worry. We were just...joking around.”

Wow. Lying came easy to you now too.

Hyunbin smiles lightly, eyes trailing to where Minho was holding your arm. At that, the agent raises an eyebrow in challenge, and it prompts Hyunbin to back down. “Alright, see you around then, y/n.” the male doctor then wishes you a good evening before turning on his heel and walking away.

Minho then clears his throat, letting go of your arm as he mutters for you to follow him. You do, not wanting to anger the agent any further. As the two of you walk back to his car, a thick silence envelopes you two. Even inside the car, the tension is suffocating.

When he stops at a red light, he finally breaks the silence. “I’m sorry.” he says abruptly, “I didn’t mean to call you stupid. That was out of line.”

You carefully glance at him, noticing how flushed his cheeks were. It softens your heart a bit, and you choose to look out the window. “It’s ok. I probably deserved that.” you admit.

Minho hums before replying, “You didn’t, but I need you to understand why we can’t have you going out and meeting people. It’s not about trust - ‘cause I do trust you. It’s about keeping you safe. You might not get why, but - ”

“Minho, it’s fine.” you turn to face him, and though your expression is bland, your eyes are apologetic, “It’s not your fault.”

Minho stares at you, the red light from the traffic light reflecting against his perfect face and painting him in a dark yet soft light. “I’m also sorry about the boyfriend thing. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

You blush, chewing on the inside of your cheek before replying, “That’s ok, I overreacted.”

“Alright.”

“He really isn’t my boyfriend though.”

“And you’re telling me this because…?”

“Nothing. Drive.” you cough, “The light’s green.”

Minho laughs, his lips curling into a genuine smile with you for the first time ever. You look at him warmly before snapping away, leaning your head on the window and shutting your eyes.

Your heart wants to trust him but your mind doesn’t.

And as a scientist and doctor, the mind always prevails.

154 notes · View notes

fanfictiondreamscape · 4 years

Text

First Kisses (Haikyuu - pt. 1)

Title: First Kisses (Haikyuu - pt. 1)

Genre: fluff, tons of it

Pairing: Sugawara/Tsukishima/Yaku/Akaashi/Kunimi x reader (all separate)

Notes: Nothing too unusual, but I thought that I’d start the posting to get something on the page. Whether it gets read, we’ll find out, but I couldn’t help myself. Onto the cliche headcanons. (I may do more of these, but for the time being, this will only consist of my top five characters in the anime). Quick note: some of these may be longer than others.

Only a forewarning, but inspiration hit harder in certain areas, y’know.

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Masterlist

Sugawara Koushi

ok so

hear me out here, but I think that - for this to happen - it’d be with someone very shy.

someone that’s very shy and reserved while also remaining very aloof and observant

(maybe even a little sarcastic?)

like...he’d be attracted to their air, y’know?

as for the kiss...

the kiss itself would be done somewhere fairly private. and a little covered in shadow

someplace like the back row of a movie theater or the hidden corner of a cafe or restaurant. maybe even out in public when nobody’s outside (read: late night walk in the park)

like seriously, just imagine that, i swear-

ANYWAYS

the two of you would be holding hands, he’d be admiring you while you’re doing whatever you do

he thinks everything you do is adorable, and he can’t help but admire you

it’s only when you notice his googly eyes that you let him know that you know he was staring

he’d blush a little, but remain generally composed.

the quiet would be broken very suddenly by suga

“your so cute when you’re focused.”

little did you know, you were pouting.

he found that the most adorable.

he continued to watch you as you turned your eyes to the floor

oH BOY DID HIS HEART FLUTTER-

he couldn’t help himself.

time seemed to slow down as you looked up and he leaned in closer.

eventually, the two of you were staring into each others eyes

and once he peeked down for a millisecond, he kissed you

the kiss itself was very sweet, very gentle, but also had a slight bite to it?

(how am I supposed to explain this? does this even make any sense?)

as it got more passionate, he cupped your cheek with his hand as you gripped his shoulder lightly

as the two of you pulled away from each other, everything around you was a little blurry

even through the shadows, he could see that you were blushing a firetruck red

(little did he know, he was blushing the same color)

overall, the first kiss between you two would be very romantic and very sweet.

considering it’s suga, though, prepare for a little teasing and a tight hug afterwards.

Tsukishima Kei

THIS BOI I SWEAR-

it’s a well known fact that this beanpole is very obnoxious and snarky

so his s/o would be very much the same

maybe not as introverted, but very much sarcastic and witty

in order to last with this smartass, you’d have to be intelligent and have thick skin

good luck

otherwise, the kiss would most likely happen somewhere very private.

like his s/o’s room or his room, or when they’re home alone.

just somewhere very private and comfy

now here’s the thing-

i think the kiss itself would happen in the midst of a debate

something to throw the other off, y’know?

sooo...

the TV is playing in the background, probably some movie with a huge plot hole

it annoys both of you, but the two of you have two different opinions of how the plot hole could be fixed.

like...

you’re claiming that the timeline could be fixed had they found a certain item before a different one

and he’s claiming that the timeline could be fixed without the inclusion of either item

a whole back-and-forth ensues

the kiss itself though

that happens when you are starting to hesitate with comebacks and reasoning

like-

you know you’re right, but he’s pressing your buttons so much

the timeline is heavily dependent on the items that you stand by, so

(though he won’t admit it, he knows that the items are beneficial to the plot, and he’s only doing this to see you get flustered and red)

since tsukki’s not backing down, you decide that you have to do something drastic

something that’ll make the smart mouth speechless

so you decide that the time is now

when he’s looking at you with that smug look on his face, his mouth just slightly opened and about to make some baseless remark

you lean in and kiss him

it’s very short, very light

but now that he is shocked, you’re happy.

except...

he regains his composure and tilts your head to meet him

he kisses you this time

this time, its very passionate, a little rough, and a little messy

but the both of you enjoy it very much

the two of you act like nothing happened, but it’s the little moments like that that make the two of you happy

and you two tend to kiss and get a little more clingy in private-

overall, very short and kind of sneaky.

there’s still love behind it, of course

but there’s no real ‘pause’ or slowing of time until the second kiss

Yaku Morisuke

now-

i believe that this guy would be drawn to someone that’s very bubbly and energetic

not like yamamoto or lev, but very high-energy and outgoing

which also leads to the setting

A VOLLEYBALL GAME!

who tf would’ve guessed, oh my-

so like, the team is going up against a really powerful and notoriously defensive team

and while Nekoma is going HARD

they’re still behind

the sets were even and the odds did not seem to be in their favor

you’re in the stands, next to the mini yamamoto and lev’s sister

cheering loudly, helping lev’s sister understand the game a little better

anyway...

things are getting tough, and they call a time out

when Nekoma goes to their spot to discuss

you make eye contact with yaku

and you send him a thumbs up while mouthing ‘you got this!’

he sends you a big smile

and his upbeat mood almost completely lifts the slowly dengenerating one of the team

so when they are done elaborating a game plan following the slight loss of a flow

the members in play go onto the court rejuvenated.

with the new energy, they’re able to snag the lead

and, with a three-point difference, they win 25-22

a close call, but they’re excited nonetheless.

so are you and the girls that you were cheering with

as soon as they are finished lining up and people start to leave

you immediately run out of the gym and wait by the doors for your boyfriend and the team to come out

when they do, yaku comes out a little after the other team members

it’s your squeal that shocks him

the kiss happens when you jump onto him

(think something like the falling kiss between victor and yuuri from YOI)

kind of rough, slight teeth, but very romantic and passionate.

nothing bordering on lustful, but most definitely NOT shy

it would eventually mellow out to be more gentle and tame

the scene would lead to mixed reactions from the team, but

you can be sure that kuroo would have some smart remark, lev would have a dumb remark, and yamamoto would be fussing that he doesn’t have a girl

overall, while the kiss would be surprising and rough at first, it would calm down a lot

very romantic, very shocking, but also very memorable

ok but on another note, can something like this happen to me please-

Akaashi Keiji

ok now

this guy would probably be drawn to someone very laidback

kind of chaotic (think quiet chaos)

and very outgoing

like, someone like beck from victorious?

oh god, it’s all coming back to me now-

not so flirty and borderline flighty, but they’d carry the same air that beck does

otherwise, the kiss would probably happen when the two of you are in a private area of something

like a friendly outing or something, and bokuto would be acting like a fool with kuroo or another team member

so like-

the two of you would be cuddled up next to each other silently

maybe like in a less-obvious area

someplace hidden

and you’d just be doing your own thing

playing on your phone, reading, maybe even studying with the pretty setter

either way, you’re absorbed in your work

just as much as he is

though he has been taking slight peeks at you while you were doing whatever

it was distracting him

and he was trying to read

just imagine him thinking

‘they’re so pretty when they’re focused’

you don’t realize that he’s staring at you, but you do eventually are made aware of someone looking at you

with this guy being how he is, he’d probably just keep looking if you made eye contact with him

you’d laugh, he’d turn a little red

ultimately, though, he’d lean forward despite the flustered reaction.

he’d pause in front of you, just watching your lips twitch up into a small smile

a little nod would be the unspoken allowance that he was asking for.

now.

THE KISS

HOO BOY

i imagine that this would be magical

like-

the sparks never leave even after a couple hours.

even then, the remaining sparks are like little fairies that won’t leave your side.

it’s slow, it’s soft, it’s romantic

it’s also not the most gentle, not the most experienced, not the most clean (for lack of a better word)

but it’s everything that either of you could’ve asked for

when the two of you pull away, you giggle a little

akaashi smiles a little

(you know the one!)

anyway, after the kiss

you two would be made aware of the people around you

like bokuto

who is screaming “YEAH! FINALLY!”

you full on bust out laughing and akaashi rolls his eyes

(he may appear bothered, but he finds it endearing)

he does keep a slightly tighter grip on you after that though

overall, his kiss, in my opinion would be the best

if not THE best, then ONE of the best (next to yaku’s oop-)

very smooth, but very inexperienced

while also remaining so unabashedly him, y’know?

Kunimi Akira

now, i haven’t seen as much love for this guy

while i may be missing it or not looking in the right place, i thought i’d contribute to the kunimi train

ANYWAYY

i think he’d go for a bookworm

not necessarily quiet or loud, but very much to themselves.

someone whose shell would have to break

kunimi would probably be best friends with his s/o before he even thought of wanting to date them

and much like suga, i think that the first kiss would happen somewhere slightly private

by slightly private, i mean an area that couples would be plentiful

amusement parks, regular parks, you get it

either way, the area wouldn’t change the kind of kiss

since he is so quiet, i feel like he’d find a way to just relax with you

in a place that is ironically romantic (considering he doesn’t care too much)

that being said, i imagine that this would happen on the ferris wheel

cliche, i know, but just let me elaborate

it’d be getting dark, the two of you would have been at the amusement park with your friends

or maybe even upperclassmen

either way, you two have finally gotten a break from the personalities

and you just want time with each other

no talking, just calm and quiet

anyway, on your search to find something quiet to do

kunimi sees the ferris wheel and notices that the line isn’t very long

(perfect for him, seeing as his laziness is a factor written in the wiki-)

he directs your attention to it in a way that involves little words, and you agree to his suggestion

after a few minutes of waiting, you two get seated and just sit in silence

throughout the whole ride (up to this point), kunimi was looking at you

observing how the sunset makes you glow in the light

how the carnival lights reflect in your eyes

and he melts

you wouldn’t notice it since you are so absorbed in the view of the event

and he is absorbed in the view of you

now, here’s where things get odd

he wouldn’t know how to approach the thought of your first kiss when it crosses his mind

all he knew is that he refused to plan it, the idea struck him, and the timing was perfect.

so.

he just reaches for you hand, and when you turn to look at him

he quickly leans in and pecks your lips

short, sweet, but full of love

definitely leaves the both of you flustered, but

you two do end up scooting a little closer to you after it

and spend the rest of the night at each other’s hip

overall, the kiss is very quick

don’t let that fool you, though, especially with kunimi

the kiss is perfect coming from him, and wouldn’t be the slightest bit overwhelming

it’d leave for more calm atmosphere between the two of you

406 notes · View notes

fandomlurker · 3 years

Text

A Ponderous Rewatch: Bubba Bo Bob Brain and Cameo

Can I just say that I think I’m somehow getting worse at keeping the screenshot count down?

Neither the cameo nor the main episode in this post are animated by TMS, so that’s not the reason for the surprisingly high screenshot count. However, the regular episode is animated by Wang Film Production, who are the same folks that animated the very first PatB segment and have done most of the episodes I’ve covered so far, including the previous one. I can tell they’ve gotten a better handle at animating our main duo in the skit we’re looking at today, especially Brain. Wang Film Production is no TMS, but they’ve gotten very, very good at expressions. They’ve also seemed to settle into a rounded and soft design for Brain, something that they’re kind of known for among fans if I recall correctly. Pinky can still be a little…off at this point in time, though.

Moving on, the cameo that we’re starting with is animated by Akom Film Productions. They’re the folks who usually do the animation for the Chicken Boo and Goodfeathers episodes, and they usually do a pretty good job with those characters. As far as our mouse duo go, though, Akom has only done “Opportunity Knox” so far. You know, the one with the oddly nightmarish Brain close-ups. Thankfully we get none of that since it’s only a short bit.

So yes, onto the cameo in “Noah’s Lark”!

So this is actually a Hip Hippos episode, but luckily we don’t have to deal with them at all right now. The premise is the story of Noah’s Ark, obviously, but the character of Noah is done as a parody of the stand-up comedian Richard Lewis, who was somewhat popular in the 80s. The most modern and notable media he’s been involved in that people on Tumblr might know him from (or at least, what I think folks here might recognize, it can be a little hard to gauge that since both millennials and gen z folks are the main demographic of this site) are Robin Hood: Men in Tights where he played Prince John, and Curb Your Enthusiasm where he plays himself.

Noah is rounding up two of every animal to go onto the ark (which is a popular depiction of how the story goes, but is actually false: it’s supposed to be seven male and female pairs of “clean” animals of each species and one pair of “unclean” animals of the same species, but that’s as far as I’m going into that topic). He’s nearly finished the list and has just been mauled by the wolverine pair, and…

“Lab mice?...”

The fact that he’s specifically asking for a pair of lab mice raises a lot of questions that I don’t think we have time to unpack.

The pair of lab mice that he gets is, of course, Pinky and the Brain.

And Pinky is, for the very first time in the series, crossdressing, presumably to pass as a female mouse so he and Brain can survive the great flood by boarding the ark.

…This is also a lot to unpack.

“Check!” they both exclaim, although Pinky does it in a very deep voice for some reason.

Wow, look at the surprise and then hostile suspicion on Noah’s face there!

Their outfits are very 1950s, with Brain even carrying a suitcase. Anachronisms aside, these two really went all out for the “we are a normal, heterosexual pair” ruse, didn’t they? Not only is Pinky in a dress and a blonde wig, but Brain even put on a little bowler hat. Why did he feel the need to do that? Did he feel left out of dressing up otherwise? Was he afraid he wouldn’t look “manly” and hetero enough without it? I have so many questions…

“Whew! These pantyhose are killing me, Brain!”

Wow, for once it’s Pinky physically hurting Brain, even if it’s a relatively minor tug on the ear.

“I think I prefer knee-highs…”

…Pinky, you’re not even wearing pantyhose. What the hell are you talking about?

Assuming that this is just the result of an animation oversight (which, honestly, I’m certain it was), we now know that his disguise went so over-the-top as to include pantyhose which Noah wouldn’t normally see…and also it’s a type of pantyhose that Pinky doesn’t even like wearing, which implies to me that this is something Brain acquired for him.

There is just so much going on in cameos like these if you think about them for even a few seconds.

Also, I agree with Pinky. Knee-high pantyhose are much less uncomfortable to wear.

BONK!

So the mice are allowed to board and the audience is left to think that their little ruse worked, but immediately after the two run off and are out of listening range Noah rolls his eyes and says

“Who am I to judge?”

Heavily implying Noah completely saw through it and let them on anyway. Wow.

That’s the end of their cameo. Who’d have thought that this little scene would be the precursor to Brain having Pinky crossdress to disguise him as Brain’s wife so many times in the series? And who’d have thought that this very first time wouldn’t fool anyone at all?

But now let’s move on to the meat of this rewatch post:

We open to Acme Labs at night, as usual, though I’ve never noticed until now how lonely and eerie the place seems if you ignore our mouse duo.

“Pinky… I believe I have conceived my most brilliant plan to date!”

Oh boy, we have another first for today! Brain is very much a fan of using temporary mind control for his plans. It’s the method he falls back on the most, which is very interesting when you consider his various psychological issues involving having control taken away from him all his life.

“I shall use subliminal mind control to take over the world!”

“…Pinky?”

The hand-on-hip pose here is great.

“Today’s inside story is country mega-star Willie Ray Cypress!”

Uh, Pinky? Considering that this is pretty much the expression you had while looking at Pharfignewton, I am very, very worried about you looking at the Billy Ray Cyrus parody the same way.

“Don’t tell my head, my empty hollow head!~”

“You know I wouldn’t understand!~”

Same, Brain. Same. It’s just like Pinky to enjoy a song as earworm-y as this (not to mention how relevant this parody is to his everyday experience with Brain’s plans), but lord was the real song this is making fun of annoying as hell back in the day. Like, I was a small child at the time this song came out, and I still hated how often this would be played on the radio.

Luckily, Brain pounces on the remote’s off button and puts an end to the nonsense.

But oh, the look of sad betrayal on Pinky’s face is heartbreaking! I’m sorry, sweetie!

“It must be inordinately taxing to be such a boob.”

Heh, Brain said “boob”. /inner six year old

“You have no idea…”

“Pinky, do you know what a subliminal message is?”

“Something you leave on a subliminal telephone answering machine?”

Nice try, Pinky.

“No. It is a recorded message perceived only by the subconscious human mind.”

Two things here:

This diagram bothers me because my mind always interprets the way they’ve drawn the bottom of the cerebellum as the person shutting their eyes extremely tightly.

Brain using his own tail as a pointing stick is very, very cute and I love this detail.

“I have recorded such a message.”

He’s still holding his tail, aaaa!~

“Citizens of the world, you are under my control. You will do whatever I say…”

“Nice mix, but it’s not exactly danceable, is it?”

Oh, Pinky. Only you would sincerely compliment Brain’s incredibly dry mind control message and then immediately point out a flaw that has nothing to do with its purpose. Bless you, you stupid and wonderful little mouse.

I like how Pinky’s interjection startles the hell outta Brain for a moment, too.

“If people heard this message enough times, they would succumb to my control and we could take over the world!”

Notice that despite Pinky being a minor annoyance and despite the fact that Brain claims that everyone will be under his control, yet again it’s still both of them taking over the world.

“What do you think, Pinky?”

And he still wants Pinky’s input. It’s small and scattered and very, very subtle, but in my opinion this is Brain’s most frequent way of showing that he cares about Pinky. Brain likely isn’t even aware that he does it. Pinky might not be aware, either.

“I think I’m getting dizzy and I rather like it! Ahahahahahoo!~”

“Sometimes you hurt my head, Pinky…”

And yet, Brain. And yet…

“The only problem: How to get this message repeated worldwide airplay…?”

Offscreen, Pinky turns the TV back on and startles Brain again, but only for a moment.

Another great pose and expression here: Mildly annoyed, but interested and on the verge of an idea.

“I just adore Willie Ray!”

“I listen to his song twenty times a day!”

I…really don’t know why they chose to have this shot done with Brain walking over the “camera” towards the TV so we get a brief close-up of Brain’s mousey behind. It made me laugh, though, so I thought I’d share.

“Pinky… Are you pondering what I’m pondering?”

I’m also kind of obsessed with this brief expression of Pinky’s I unintentionally managed to capture. It’s a bit of a smug, knowing, and yet endeared look. I’m sure it’s completely unintentional on the animators’ part, but I love the idea it gives me of Pinky knowing exactly what Brain’s thinking but purposefully saying something entirely unrelated to playfully tease him.

“Well, I think so, Brain, but burlap chafes me so.”

To be fair, Pinky, I think burlap chafes everyone. And were you thinking about doing a potato sack race? That’s the only connection to burlap I can think of that would be in any way relevant...

“Country music, Pinky. I will go to Nashville and become the biggest country music star of all time! Everyone will hear my record and my subliminal message and I will take over the world!”

In all honesty, that would probably be easier to do in the early 90s when this takes place since country music wasn’t such a…well, “dead” is a bit of an exaggeration, but country music as a genre is incredibly unpopular nowadays with the occasional notable exception. In the early 90s? Not so much.

“Egad, Brain!”

This is the most enthusiastic swoon I’ve seen and heard from you yet, Pinky.

“Oh! But no, no… It takes people years of hard work to become famous, Brain.”

Well, that or they’re born into a famous family. Or they’re just rich.

“Why, take Kathie Lee Gifford for example: She did community theatre, and—“

I actually can’t find anything via Googling about Kathie Lee doing community theatre before she became famous. She seems to have studied music and drama in university, and had a folk music group in high school, but the only reference to theatre I can find is professional musical theatre in the late 90s.

It’s possible Pinky’s right, though.

BONK!

BRAIN! …Wait, where did you even get that tiny club?

“Stop talking, Pinky, I must think.”

You… Brain, I think I’m starting to see why some fans believe you may be as neurodivergent as Pinky is, but in a different way. I can’t in good faith elaborate on that myself, since I haven’t been diagnosed as such and it would be completely disrespectful of me to do so, but if anyone wants a good little theory on that, try here.

“I have calculated every ingredient necessary to become a country music mega-star. Read me the list, Pinky!”

He’s typing by hopping from one key to another, aww!

Eeeh, the lettering work on that computer is pretty bad, though.

“A cowboy hat.”

“Check!”

“A southern dialect.”

“Check, ya’ll!”

“Nice, Brain.”

The way Pinky says “nice” here reminds me of this meme. Also, aww, Pinky’s always ready with the compliments.

“Working class values…”

“I enjoy beef jerky and the comedy stylings of Gallagher. Check.”

His visible cringe at having to say he enjoys Gallagher is wonderful. I first heard about Gallagher through My Brother, My Brother and Me, but for anyone that doesn’t know, Gallagher is a frankly terrible prop comedian whose most famous act was smashing things on stage (usually fruits of increasing size) with a large mallet that he called the “Sledge-O-Matic”, ending with smashing a watermelon. It was apparently a mildly popular bit of comedy in the south. Does that sound entertaining? No? Yeah, that’s…that’s why Brain is cringing so hard.

“A song.”

“Check!”

A song titled “A Song”. Brain, sweetheart, I think you’re going to need to put in a little more effort than that.

“A name consisting of not less than three words.”

“From now on, I shall be ‘Bubba Bo Bob Brain’. Check.”

I would make fun of him for this name, but honestly it’s kind of genius in its bland simplicity.

“And…a height of at least six feet!”

“Aaa--guebuh…”

Whoops. Forgot about that one, huh?

“Drat!”

“There must be some way for me to increase my height…”

Gee, if only you had a fully operational mechanical human suit just laying around.

“Hmm, let me think…”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Pinky.”

He is trying his best!

“Faster, Pinky! Faster!”

…Why does Pinky have to spin the thread? The whole point of sewing machines like this is that they’re powered electrically, Brain. Are you just making him do this so Pinky feels included?

Oh. Oh no…

Brain’s “WTF?” face is great. He’s surprised and yet not at the same time, because things like this just happen when you have Pinky around.

“You amaze me, Pinky.”

“I do my best…”

A very cute exchange.

So instead of using the mechanical human suit they usually fall back on in times like these (maybe it’s under six feet tall?), the mice instead come up with…this.

“Proceed, Pinky.”

I have to give them some credit, regardless of how ridiculous this is, as sewing denim to make a very bizarrely thin and tall pair of jeans must have been an absolute nightmare.

“Ki-yi-yippee-yi-yo. How do I look?”

I’m getting flashbacks to the similarly deadpan singing of “Camptown Races” from last episode. Brain’s really on a western kick lately, isn’t he?

“Oh, very nice, Brain!”

Your finger-framing may be focused on the back of Brain’s head for some reason, Pinky, but your pupils are definitely pointed a bit…lower.

“It’s ‘Bubba Bo Bob Brain’.”

“You are my manager, Colonel Pinky.”

This is a reference to Elvis Presley’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who was honestly quite the bungler when it came to managing Elvis’ career. I honestly don’t think Brain’s making a subtle jab at Pinky’s competency here for once because Brain’s grasp of pop culture he’s not already interested in is surface level at best most of the time.

“You discovered me playing the guitar on the front porch of my humble pig farm. Any questions?”

“Oh, just one: When you farm humble pigs, how far apart do you have to plant them?”

“…If I could reach you, I would hurt you.”

Hey now, you’re the one that asked, Brain.

“But for now, on to Nashville!”

“On to Nashville!”

BONK!

“This is a pain that is going to linger…”

That’s what you get for rolling your eyes at Pinky’s enthusiasm.

No perilous car trips this time! Instead, the boys are getting bus tickets to Nashville.

“Two tickets to Nashville, please.”

“Ooh-wee!~ You’re a tall drink a’ water, aint’cha, darlin’?”

…Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am? Ma’am, are you flirting with The Brain?

Like, sorry, that “tall drink of water” saying is not just to point out that someone’s tall. It’s specifically for flirting with someone who is tall and gorgeous and a refreshing sight to see, like a tall glass of water on a hot summer day.

This lady is flirting with a mouse on stilt legs.

I know that Brain’s disguises are prone to inexplicably work even when by all rights they shouldn’t, but…

“Actually, I am a lab mouse on stilts.”

Brain does his usual bold and plain truth shtick and I’m a little surprised that he didn’t react to what she said beyond that. Then again, this is Brain and he’s quite terrible when talking to women in general, so maybe we dodged a bullet here.

“…At least he didn’t ask me to pull his finger.”

I’ve worked in retail and food service for years, ma’am, and if that’s the extent of your experience with unpleasant men, consider yourself lucky.

“EGAD, Bibby-boo-bop-Brain! Round trips are so exciting!”

“It’s ‘Bubba Bo Bob Brain’, Pinky.”

“Right! Sorry. Zort!”

Honestly, Pinky’s version is much cuter.

“Concentrate, Pinky, concentrate!”

BONK!

“YES! This pain will definitely be with me a while.”

Brain out here looking like a bad Minecraft texture.

Hello again, Warner Siblings! Gosh, that little fringed western skirt on Dot is cute.

“’The Rowdy Ranch Nightclub’… What are we doing here, Boobie-baa-baa-Brain?”

I checked the official subtitles for this and yes, that is exactly what he mistakenly calls Brain here. We have had both of these two call each other “boob” or some permutation of it this episode.

Pinky and the Brain sure is a show that exists.

“…It’s ‘Bubba Bo Bob’ Brain. And according to statistics, and inordinate number of country western superstars have gotten their start at this very establishment.”

You probably didn’t need me to tell you this, but there’s no Rowdy Ranch Nightclub in real life. There is, however, “The Rowdy Ranch”, uh, ranch in Texas.

“Egad! [gasp] Do you suppose Minnie Pearl performed here?”

“One can only hope…”

Man, Brain, you are really laying the sarcasm on thick this episode. Come to think of it, he’s been slightly more sassy towards Pinky than usual this episode as well. I suppose he’s still sore about the end of the last one. You know, for reasons.

BONK!

At least he’s getting some karmic punishment for it, I guess.

“I am a telephone repairman from this area!~”

This little ditty this man is singing has bugged the hell out of me for quite a while, as it certainly sounds like it’s a reference to something but I never knew exactly what it was referring to until just now thanks to an old Animaniacs Usenet group from way back in the day: It’s a parody of the song “Whichita Lineman” by Glenn Campbell. The writers are really giving it their all with the pop culture references this time.

“When I give the signal, play the subliminal message tape.”

“Right-o, Bippie Bebop Balloola!”

“…Sometimes you frighten me, Pinky.”

Why, though?! Despite it being a mistake it’s honestly a goddamn adorable one. Why must you fear affectionate, innocent, unknowing malapropisms, Brain? Pinky’s still going to do what you told him to.

Anyway, Brain is ushered onto the stage as a newcomer and he’s…not exactly any more eloquent than Pinky was just now.

“Howdy, you all. Here’s a little…ditty I wrote. Hope you enjoy it…you all.”

Here’s the thing: Brain’s not one to get stage fright, and while he’s not the best actor he’s still usually better than this. He was saying “ya’ll” and getting the country-isms perfectly fine beforehand, although he was still doing it in his deadpan Brain way.

Now, suddenly, after hearing Pinky cutely screw up his fake name and going on stage he’s starting to mess up. It’s like Pinky’s error is still in the back of his mind and flustering him enough to throw him off for a bit.

He gets back into the swing of things when he starts singing his song, though.

“I am a lab mouse, I escaped from my cage

Never had a job, never earned minimum wage.~”

“He ain’t half bad.”

“Ain’t half good, either.”

OUCH. That’s a little harsh. Sure, the lyrics are kinda blah but he’s a decent singer here. Really, it’s just not a genre of music that his voice fits very well.

Also, lady? You’ve got a suspiciously busty doppleganger in the back there. That’s got to be a bad omen for you.

“But you will respect me, YES, once my plan is unfurled!~

You will call me your leader, I’ll be king of the world!~”

Careful, Brain. Your complicated emotional complex is starting to show in those lyrics.

There’s some more nice facial expressions here too. I can’t really capture it with still images, but Brain’s got a very tender demeanor when he sings about being king of the world.

“Now, Pinky!”

…I just noticed that Pinky’s wearing a completely different outfit here at the nightclub than he was when boarding the bus to get to Nashville. He was previously in an all-white colonel outfit and now he’s in a more generic yet very sweet cowboy get-up. Did you make yourself an entire wardrobe, Pinky?

Another minor detail is that while Pinky’s cowboy hat is a generic tan colour (although before, it was white), Brain’s hat is completely black, which as per western film traditions marks him as a clear villain.

You and I know he’s not really a villain and is, at worst, an anti-villain…but I thought this was worth pointing out anyway.

“Citizens of the world, you are under my control. You will do whatever I say.”

I love how he does this completely unneeded strum on his guitar in the middle of his subliminal message. It's for the drama!

“Buy my record and listen to it twenty times a day.”

Corporations be like…

Who am I kidding? Corporations nowadays would have you pay a fee monthly to have a song on your phone playlist and you would never really own a copy.

“Let’s buy his record…”

“And listen to it twenty times a day…”

Lady, that doppleganger is still over there. Do you need a distraction while you sneak out the back?

This smug lil’ jerk. Gotta love him, though.

And so Brain’s cassette tapes fly off the shelves at record speed.

Man. Cassette tapes. I feel so fuckin’ old…

“I don’t know ‘bout ya’ll, but I can’t get enough of Bubba Bo Bob Brain. Let’s hear it again!”

JFC, that spittoon. Blegh! And just what do you need that rope for?!?

“Well, he’s the hottest thing to hit Nashville since my mama’s jalapeno grits! Here’s Bubba Bo Bob Brain!”

Having just recently learned what exactly “grits” is, I am very disturbed by the idea of jalapeno grits.

“I’m your biggest fan! What d’you say to that?”

Hi, Dolly Parton! I’ve gotta say that the animators nailed the caricature of 90s Dolly here pretty well. She’s instantly recognizable, unlike some other celebrity parodies Animaniacs does. It’s not just because of Dolly’s, uh…most renowned physical characteristics, either. That’s a very Dolly Parton smiling face.

Not much to say here other than that Dolly’s a sweetheart of a woman, from what I know about her, especially for a celebrity. She’s a staunch supporter of Covid relief and Black Lives Matter as well.

That said, she’s sadly—both in the 90s and now—most well known for…

“I’d say puberty was inordinately kind to you.”

BRAIN!

Well, yeah. That.

I guess now you can see what I mean about Brain not being very good at talking to women. Like, he’s definitely not ogling her here. In fact he’s just kind of…stating something he’s noticed and looking absolutely done with this whole celebrity thing. But Brain you don’t just make a joke like that about a woman’s bust size no matter how deadpan you do it, you ass!

“Haha, go on.”

She takes it well, though, just like Dolly seems to in reality.

Still, though! Brain, you retroactively deserved all those run-ins with doorframes.

Continuing on the buxom southern women thing this episode has decided to run with (seriously, what’s going on here?), we now have a brief parody of a Hee Haw skit.

“Hahahahaha!”

“Hey, Bubba Bo Bob Brain, I just got back from France!”

“How’d you find it?”

“I used a map.~”

“Hahahahaha!”

Yeah, that’s an accurate depiction of Hee Haw style humour.

“And the Country Tune Award for best male vocal goes to…”

“Bubba Bo Bob Brain!”

Here we have Garth Brooks and Crystal Gayle emceeing this awards ceremony. I had to look up who these two were supposed to be, though, since the caricatures are pretty vague this time.

“EGAD! YIPPEE! Narf! Ah hahahahahaha!”

Aww, he’s so happy for Brain! And oh, is that yet another outfit I see? And a much more appropriately sunshine-y yellow and flamboyant one at that! Pinky really went all-out for this.

Again with the tongue hanging out too, except this time it’s more understandable.

“You’re embarrassing me, Pinky.”

And you’re continuing to be a jerk, wow. Someone needs a nap or something.

“Pardon my effervescence, but your accolade is more than any bucolic mouse merits.”

“What’s he sayin’?”

“I don’t know.”

Yes, Brain just used the word “effervescence”, much like in that one Tumblr Twilight meme. To those reeling from the fact that this compares Edward to Brain via their shared pretentiousness: You’re welcome.

Also, a Brain-to-common English translation: “Pardon my bubbly enthusiasm, but your award is more than any countryside mouse deserves.” Would that have been so hard to say, Brain?

“…I’d like to thank my mama and Elvis.”

I wouldn’t thank Elvis. He was an asshole. But that’s probably not wise to say at a 90s country music award show, so I guess it’s understandable.

“Oh, how nice!”

“Well isn’t that nice!”

“I’m outside the Grand Ol’ Opry, where tonight’s concert featuring country music sensation ‘Bubba Bo Bob Brain’ is being televised worldwide.”

“In two words: Bubba is hot!”

I… That’s twice in this episode where a human woman thinks a tiny, big-headed mouse on stilts is hot.

Furries, come get these poor, confused women.

“You gotta know how to cut ‘em

Know how to shuffle

Know how to deal the cards, before you play Fish with me.~”

Hello, Kenny Rogers. I only know the song parodied here, “The Gambler”, again through “My Brother, My Brother and Me” and the long and hilarious conversation about it.

It’s kind of weird to have a song that was made famous by Rogers in 1978 sung like it’s a recent hit in an early 90s awards show, but ehh. Maybe the shelf life of hit country songs is a lot longer than songs of other genres.

And then you die in your sleep~

“Do you realize what will happen if the world hears my song just one more time?”

“An angel will get its wings?!”

If only, Pinky.

“NO, Pinky!”

I think all this country stuff is really getting on Brain’s nerves. He’s being snappy and irritable and lashing out an abnormal amount ever since arriving in Nashville, and there’s not a lot of joy in the minor successes he’s had so far. Like, compare Brain smiling and praising Pinky for his work during the alien encounter spoof they did together, the last episode with Brain cheerfully singing to himself when he was certain he’d win the race…to now where he’s yelling at Pinky for minor mistakes that no one but himself is aware of and being joyless and faking pleasantries and rolling his eyes at the country stars he’s surrounded by. This mouse is crabby as all hell, and I don’t think it’s just because he finds the whole country western thing stupid and below him. This is a mouse who’s done and will continue to do degrading things to achieve his goal of world domination without this much jerkishness.

I think he’s still fuming about the whole Pharfignewton and Pinky thing, and the current plan being a very rural, country-focused plan like the last one with the Kentucky Derby is just exacerbating it by reminding him of it. Like, you don’t even have to take it in the gay way I am and instead take it in a “how dare that goddamn horse take the complete attention of my friend/world domination partner away from me and my plans, this sucks and I can’t believe Pinky’s just being his usual dumbass self like everything is fine and the same” sort of way.

But the gay way makes way more sense, fight me.

…Okay, don’t fight me, I’m tired and old and I really don’t want to get in internet fights about cartoon mice.

“My subliminal message will take permanent hold, and the world will be under my control!”

Ooof! We’re back down to “my” control and not “our”. Jeez, Brain. You really are spiraling right now, aren’t you? Your attitude has quickly devolved from the beginning of this episode...

“Oh, that.”

And dang, even Pinky’s enthusiasm is starting to get deflated.

“Now, do you remember what you have to do?”

“Yes. I need to make a dental appointment. I have horrible plaque buildup!”

Pinky, you do realize that unlike a regular, non-sapient mouse you can just brush your teeth, right?

“The tape, Pinky, the TAPE!”

“Oooh, right! When you give the signal, I play the tape.”

“And now, I’d like to introduce…”

“This is it, I’m on.”

“Good luck, Booba Bip Bop Brain!”

Folks, I swear to you that I tried to get a decent screencap of Pinky slapping Brain to figure out if he slapped his back or his ass and for the life of me I could not get it. The slap goes by just that fast and I’d honestly have to go frame by frame if I wanted to get it, but my video player will not go that slow.

Either way, Brain is certainly startled by the contact but is fixated more on the continued mangling of his fake name.

“How many times do I have to tell you, my name is--!”

Uhh, Brain? Getting a liiiittle close there.

“—Bubba Bo Bob Brain!” exclaims Kenny Rogers. And oh boy are these screencaps exploitable. Again, you’re welcome.

“Yee-haw! Let’s start this hootenanny!”

Better than last time you came out on stage to sing at a show, at least.

This time the crowd even sings along with him, and they’re not even hypnotized yet. Much better.

“Now, Pinky!”

“You are under my control, you will do whatever I say…”

“I will do whatever he says… Whatever he says… Whatever he says… Whatever he says…”

A confusingly consistent detail here: Every woman in the crowd has swirly red hypnotized eyes and every man in the crowd has swirly green hypnotized eyes. Why? Who knows!

“Way to go, Blubber Boo Bean Brain. Narf!”

Heh, that hand flip.

It looks like Pinky is trying hard to suppress his verbal tic here for some reason? Or maybe he’s just realized that he’s messed up the name again and is cringing in anticipation of Brain yelling at him? Either way, poor guy… You really don’t deserve any of what’s coming.

And what’s coming? Well, given Brain’s heightened pissy attitude and his mental issues with not having things go exactly the way he wants them to, plus his obsessive need this episode to correct Pinky on this one thing that doesn’t need to even be addressed because no one else hears it, plus other repressed emotions…

“Do me a favour and forget my name. While you’re at it, forget you ever knew me!”

Holy shit.

…Now you fucked up, Brain. Now you fucked up.

Man, I hate the one thick facial hair on the dude in the middle. It’s so unsettling.

“Hey, who’s that skinny guy on stage?”

“Who is he?”

“Get him off!”

“Boo!”

“We wanna see someone famous!”

Yup. Look at what you did. You messed this up all because you were having a temper tantrum about Pinky messing up your stupid false name. You hang that head in shame. And you apologize to Pinky.

Later...

“Tonight’s inside story: A complete unknown somehow made it on to the stage at the Grand Ol’ Opry.”

“…Turn that off, Pinky.”

You know what? Keep it on for a bit, Pinky. Let Brain wallow in this humiliation just a bit more. He needs to have the lesson set in.

“I’m trying to concentrate on a better plan for tomorrow night.”

“Why, Brain? What are we going to do tomorrow night?”

“Same thing we do every night, Pinky:”

“Try to take over the world!”

Hey wait just a minute! You can’t just reuse this excellent ending from “Win Big” on this episode! Brain doesn’t yet deserve to get back to being cocky and determined after being such an ass!

Ahh well. He does get better, folks, I promise. This is just a rough patch. Brain is… He’s going through some things, I think. He’s not processing his emotions in a healthy way and it’s really coming back to bite him.

Listen, I understand this whole thing with Brain being extra grumpy and hostile after the whole Pinky dating Pharfignewton thing is largely coincidence. We don’t actually know what order these episodes were made in, after all, and the Animaniacs writers were not big on continuity.

Here’s the thing, though: I still find it fascinating that these episodes were aired one after the other…especially with a random cameo with Pinky and Brain disguised as a married couple in between. It makes for the beginning of a strange sort of arc that occasionally reminds us that, hey, these two mice are a duo and something is amiss when that duo is broken up or there is a strain put on that relationship.

I’ve read that after a while, network executives at the time tried to push for these mice to settle down and have families and for the skits and the eventual spin-off to largely abandon the whole world domination thing. They wanted it to be more sitcom-like to rival and imitate shows like The Simpsons.

That obviously doesn’t work. It can’t work. The writers, especially Peter Hastings, very much pushed back against the idea. When you have a duo of characters who fit together and play off one another so well, when the basic premise of a story is of a pair of characters working together to achieve a goal, and when those characters just mesh so perfectly and basically complete one another…trying to add another main character just puts the entire story completely out of wack and/or changes it into something unrecognizable. You can add reoccurring characters off to the side, sure. You can have a nemesis or two pop up and return every now and again. But with something like Pinky and the Brain where the main story is a small pair against incredible odds working towards a singular goal, disrupting that core relationship is going to cause a domino effect that will ruin the whole thing.

All this to say that I like this approach that’s going on here much more, even if it was completely unintended by the creative team: There is the element added of Pinky, off-screen, dating someone. It’s not something that’s brought up a lot and whenever it is brought up, Brain is irritated. We’ve seen at the end of the last episode where this development was introduced that Brain is unusually snappy, and now in the next episode he continues to be angry more often than he was before. It’s a more subtle and smooth way of seeing how these characters react if something or someone threatens to come between them, in a way that doesn’t immediately break the entire premise to pieces. Of course, it helps that Pharfignewton is…largely absent for all this and is only brought up every now and again. It’s not a perfect way to explore this kind of thing, but it’s preferable when compared to something like Pinky, Elymra, and The Brain.

However, after this episode Brain’s temper begins to de-escalate, and we won’t pick back up on this accidental “arc” for a few episodes. So to folks who are maybe a little bit bummed out about his behaviour here: don’t worry. We’re getting quite the breather next time with a very odd alternate universe skit courtesy of the Warner Siblings messing around with character placement, as well as an entire Animaniacs episode devoted to a Pinky and the Brain skit…fantasy style!

#Pinky and the Brain #PatB #Bubba Bo Bob Brain

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psalloacappella · 3 years

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show me how

Pairings: SasuSaku Fandom: Naruto Rating: M Genre/Tags: AU; in which Sasuke is a driver, Sakura plays no games; also has an underground fight club; sexual tension; dominant Sakura; Uchiha bros being bros Ao3 | twt

In which Sasuke is the new driver for the Haruno heiress — and therefore, prey.

[In the words of Rihanna, You look like you can handle what’s under my hood // you keep saying that you will, boy, I wish you would.]

❦

His mother would say he’s aiming a bit above his station, lip-chewing, worrisome; his father would disapprove, thinking the new client spoiled.

Itachi, greyish eyes twinkling with some genial but teasing expression, shifts to let his ponytail tumble down his back. Women adore the look; Sasuke likens it to a horsetail well within earshot every chance he gets. Brothers, you know.

Pinching the photo between thumb and forefinger with hesitancy, the lack of commitment stark as a first app-date gone sour and seeking escape, Sasuke knows he’s pouting and he knows Itachi’s amused.

“I’d have taken her,” he consoles softly — Sasuke hates that tone too, like he’s chivvying a hot-tempered horse into his stable, oh gods, fuck Itachi for this — “but out of the two she requested you. Very taken with your photo.”

“Itachi.” The given name comes through gritted teeth, and Itachi struggles not to smile. Sasuke hopes the effort’s absolutely killing him. “This is the Haruno heiress. Pink hair, red temper?”

“Funny, I do know. Almost as if she’s famous, dear brother.”

“Infamous. For killing her last driver.”

“Oh, come now.”

“Running him off. Driving him to insanity.” And here Sasuke jabs the finger of his free hand against the photographed face: smiling, with a sharp gleam in her jade eyes. He punctuates each syllable against her cheek, “Take—your—pick!”

Itachi’s tongue clicks continue to conjure pastoral images of horses and other farmish animals, and Sasuke thinks this unasked for, supernatural form of punishment is a right divine kick in the mouth.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sure the talk is mostly nonsense,” he soothes. Bending to behold the portrait shot further, he rests his fingers against his mouth. Pensive. People often adore that too. “After all, she’s cleaned up her image quite a bit.” Itachi extends his hand, counting off her improvements: “Issued apologies for the yacht incident—”

“Pretty sure she’s banned from the piers now.”

“Recovered brilliantly from her very public and messy breakup with the Hyuuga heir—”

“A piece of shit, granted, but she still keyed his car, and then his face—”

“Even had a great photo-op of visiting Uzumaki Naruto in the hospital—”

“That she put him in.”

“She even disbanded her underground fight club,” Itachi added, plucking the photo and folder from his younger brother’s hands, a final that’s that!

“Her what?”

“Bad optics. Oh, and you start Monday.” He pats a stunned Sasuke gently on the shoulder; not one to easily manage particularly happy or buoyant expressions, he prays to whatever forces or deities exist that he’s been passed over for the coveted yet dangerous position of personal driver for Miss Sakura Haruno.

Driver — ah, the term is misleading. A position often including, but not limited to: Chauffeur, personal assistant, event planner, bodyguard, bookkeeper, and occasionally dragging paparazzi out of the bushes by their lapels, testing meals for poison, and smuggling her short-term affairs in and out of back building doors.

A skittish attendant is the only witness to the moment in which he meets her in person.

Sunshowers, an unnatural brightness like daylight thunderstorms; a presence difficult to face head-on. Slender and swagger, something in the way she walks suggesting she’s aware of exactly who she is and what he’s probably heard, keen eyes plucking his thoughts from his soupy skull by slice and piece only to toss them aside, limp, discarded.

And she’s gorgeous. Beauty in lethality, the inherent quality pined for in mythological Olympian goddesses and well-crafted guns and dangerous and unwieldy luxury cars. The wreckage left in their wake easy to augur with plain eyes if anyone can resist the siren song.

Sasuke’s hands are clammy when they shake. She notices, with a gaze like whetted glass.

Fuck Itachi. Fuck this. Fuck me.

“How do you like to be addressed . . . Miss Haruno?”

A smirk plays on her lips. “Not like that, for damn sure. Sakura’s fine. Let’s go.”

She’s opening her own car door and about to lower herself in before he snaps to — the tyranny of her heels against the cobblestones twists him into impossible nautical knots.

“I don’t care if you get the door,” she says, “but Tsunade’ll have your head.” With a jerk of her chin, she indicates she’s ready to go.

“Won’t happen again,” he says, dipping his head in apology and settling into the driver’s seat. “Where to?”

“Oh, wherever.” Flicks a dainty wrist, yet he catches the brushrust scrapes smeared across her knuckles. “You’re a driver, after all; I want to see you drive.”

Easing the car into gear, they pull away from the curb in silence. Eyeing him caddy-corner from the back, she folds her arms and crosses her long, impossibly long legs at the ankles.

“So.” The word’s sharp as a blade, scratches him without warning. “What do you know about me?”

He makes a noncommittal noise, hoping to avoid riposte; when he catches the slight flare of her nostrils in the mirror, he settles on the bland and stupid, “I’m not sure what you mean, Mis— Sakura.”

“Don’t play coy,” she says. “Tell me what the quidnuncs on the street say, gossiping over their limp salads and lackluster lives.”

“I’ve heard you’ve run every driver out of town.”

“Yes, that’s fair. The last one quite literally; he was terrified, in the end.”

“I’ve heard you . . . play with your food.”

Another careful peripheral glance in the mirror: He sees her uncross her arms, grip the edges of the seat. Leaning forward, eyes bright and something, essence or woven narrative or tangled web undulating, unraveling. She exposed; him, encroaching.

Voice low, lean, and throaty when she affirms,

“Yes, sometimes I do.”

The click! of a released seat belt latch, and she’s sliding over to the backseat behind him.

Sasuke’s mouth runs dry, parched as desert sand, sunbaked stone. There’s a first time for everything, including this unsettling feeling to which he has nothing to compare.

Leather moulding to her shape as she leans against the seat, her gaze seeking refuge and scraping at any weak spots in the back of his skull.

“If you were hoping for a shy one, you’re driving the wrong car for the wrong girl.”

He scoffs, but it sounds nervous, bad for business —

she’ll devour him.

“Of all the things I’ve heard,” he says, “shy was definitely not one of them.”

He doesn’t know when his voice decided to do that, slide into a low bass with the ease and thrum of rich regal rhythm; he doesn’t know when he even had a breath to release, the way it manifests as a pant in the hot shared air of the car.

“Lest you be misinformed,” and still her tone is grainy, the stret-scratch of extempore acoustic guitar, “I don’t act this way with all my drivers. Any, in fact.”

“Ah.”

“Don’t, with that aloof disbelief.” She presses her foot against his seat and he feels a jab right in the middle of his back, the equivalent of a flirtatious swat at the arm. A bit more intimidating than that, he supposes.

“Everything is so public for me,” she continues. Pauses. “I’m almost never alone. Drivers continue to disappoint me, pretending to be my confidant but in reality reporting my behavior to sleazy paparazzi. It’s never about the money; they love divulging. They can’t help themselves.”

He would be willing to debate the “drivers” label, but he now understands why the last one and many before have been dealt a particularly heavy hand in the method of released employment.

“So.”

This time the word’s triumphant, and Sasuke manages not to startle as her heel settles on the shoulder of the driver’s seat. Skin close enough to press his lips to, swirling floral scents of jasmine and others unidentified, salient sweet cherry. Glancing at the tempting slope of her calf, he keeps his eyes firmly on the road even as the dark corners of his mind lead his mouth marching up her pliant skin, bound by siren song, and into what surely is the most sacrosanct and calamitous temple of them all.

“You have this chance to quit,” she whispers. “Right now, no fuss.”

And he betrays himself a second time, scoffing as the suggestion of course is mirthful, ridiculous, knowing somehow he’ll never do so. He’s never been one to shirk duty, and untangling from this, whatever this is, already bids the trappings and fixation of an addiction too virulent and electric to leave.

“I’ll take that as acceptance,” Sakura says, now all joy and sparkle, wiggling her shoe near his handsome face.

Though his hands are clammy on the wheel, his words manage to gloss over the catch in his throat as he asks, “Ah, where to?”

In the mirror he watches: Another layer of her falls again, as crêpe layers, as petals. It’s the first time he notices the lambent green of her nails, and she nibbles on one before responding, in a way so deliberate he’s distracted by the way her lips form the words:

“Show me how you drive.”

#psalloacappella #sasusaku #sasusakufanfic

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thesunnyshow · 4 years

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Name: kelsie Writing Blog URL(s): @lovingyong

Age: 22

Nationality: american

Languages: english, some sign language and spanish

Star Sign: libra

MBTI: INFJ

Favorite color: pink

Favorite food: taco bell (lol)

Favorite movie: pride and prejudice, kill bill, gone with the wind, or the handmaiden

Favorite ice cream flavor: green tea

Favorite animal: otter

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? tea or hot chocolate. never coffee because i’m allergic

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): human rights attorney or writer

Go-to karaoke song: never gonna give you up - rick astley

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? teleportation

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? mmm hard to say bc i enjoy my rights as a woman so i guess probably the 90s

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? Only starting at the summer before high school

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? horse sized chicken but i could not explain why. It’s just my gut instinct

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? I was the floater/nobody for sureeeee

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? yes aliens allll the way lets go

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? I only type with two fingers on each hand but can still type 60 wpm

What fandom(s) do you write for? nct but i want to also start writing for haikyuu soon

When did you post your first piece? july of 2018

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? I like a good combo. Life is never completely fluffy or totally angsty. It’s good to have a balance to make it all seem more realistic and immersive

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? x reader right now but when i write for haikyuu, it’ll be ships

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? I think it was just… there and available. Ao3 is fun but there’s not a lot of chances or opportunities for interaction so i decided to go back to the hellsite

What inspires you to write? Oh goodness, anything and everything. Oftentimes it’s music. I hear a song and i’m immediately like i need a story for this asap

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? Mafia and crime. It’s such a guilty pleasure of mine

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? I just want it to be a temporary escape and provide at least some form of enjoyment

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? Read more or watch anime just because both of those are enjoyable things for me but can also give me the inspiration to create again

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? you may regret this is literally my baby. It’s not my favorite, but i think taeyong’s spin off story, a way out, is because it's everything i wanted for ymrt, i just didn’t have the same skills at the time. Another favorite of mine is hanakotoba because it’s literally my heart and soul in a story and i’ll always have that deep personal connection to it. My most successful is white knuckle tight which is truly still fascinating for me because it was an idea i got on a random tuesday during christmas break and i just ran with it. I think it’s an alright story but it’s far from my favorite. I lack the emotional attachment that i have to other pieces.

Who is your favorite person to write about? taeyong. Writing him is almost like second nature to me. His character is always the easiest for me to construct and i think people will find he’s the most consistent character throughout stories. There’s not as much variation.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? Yes and no. i think writing kpop fanfiction is much more similar to original prose because you don’t have a world to build around. You only have a person. In fact, you don’t even have that. You only have an idea of a person to construct into a character. I think the only difference is that you can get away with a lot more unreasonable plot lines.

What do you think makes a good story? Good characters and enough emotion to create an attachment to the plot. I want to care about what’s happening and the best way to do that is by leading me to some sort of connection to the characters

What is your writing process like? Very chaotic and sporadic. I’ll come up with ideas at 3 am, make a random note about it, and then do my best to bring it to life when i’m actually awake. I don’t plan. I just have snippets of scenes i would like to include. So much of it is just writing whatever comes to mind while im writing it

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? I’m doing so with one right now, though 8-% of it is getting scrapped and changed. There’s nothing wrong with that though. Having good bones is what matters and i think this story has exactly that

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? I love enemies to loves if it’s done right. Exes to lovers is another classic. Mafia is a given. Hanahaki and soulmates always does something to my heart. I can’t stand hybrid and a/b/o fics idk why i just have never been able to get into them. Yandere like tropes are also really hard to do right so i usually avoid those as well

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? It means a lot. I’m sure any writer can tell you that but it’s truly the reason i still write fanfic and haven’t just given up and written only original prose.

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? Timing. It’s always about which member is really getting to people at the moment and which trope is gaining traction. 85% of writing on tumblr is kind of just dumb luck

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? Yes. i think it just comes from lack of understanding

Do you think art can be a medium for change? Without a doubt. Art pieces as well as writings have made significant impacts in my life in a variety of ways. It’s a medium of awareness and recognition

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? Not really because i kind of just do whatever the fuck i want (sorry for my language lol) but i usually come up with totally self indulgent ideas and then just do it.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times? No… not yet. I expected someone to with shattered memories but it seemed to do and say what i wanted to

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? My roommates. My friends know i write they just don’t know what

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? I’m doing my best and i wish i could put stories out more often

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? Just go for it. You have to try if you want to see any sort of results. Plus these people don’t know you so what’s the risk

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? nah

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? Kai, jewel, and abbey for sure. They were some of my closest mutuals when my blog really started to take off

Pick a quote to end your interview with:

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go… - dr. seuss

#@lovingyong #feature author #thesunnyshow #nct #episode 49 #haikyuu

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nezumiismissing · 4 years

Text

Authoritarianism Without Leadership and the Formation of Spatial Identity

I think at this point I have probably brought this up in every single one of my analyses, so it’s about time that this topic gets its own breakdown in a full length post (or 2 or 3). There’s a lot to cover and it’s going to get way out there, but hopefully you can find something useful here. And if not, maybe it can at least be entertaining. More exploration of this topic to come at an unspecified time after the convention when my brain decides to enter the No.6 zone again. (and yes it is over 3000 words so, you know, plan for that)

So if you couldn’t tell, the No.6 anime does not have an antagonist, at least not in any traditional sense of the word. The opponent our characters are facing off against, it turns out, is not an evil scientist or an organization or a military, but instead it is the city and its systems that must be either destroyed or reformed by the end of the story. And while those other characters exist within the world of No.6, and all take actions that go directly against the desires of our main characters, they are not fought against especially directly and within the anime have no real identity, instead only existing as part of the whole. But what is the whole exactly? I think the easy answer here is to say that the whole is society, the culture we live within that shapes everything we do in life and that must have some amount of force placed upon it to change in any significant way. But when we say that “society is the whole”, and therefore the antagonist of No.6, what do we mean by that? And how does our perception and interpretation of what it means to be a society impact how we read and understand the story of No.6?

Now, having society be the antagonist of a young adult dystopian series is not something that No.6 came up with, obviously. It's basically a necessity of the genre. But within that structure, although not always apparent at first, there is a lot of variance. These worlds are almost always authoritarian and hierarchical, the result of some massive war or natural disaster that we have been unable to fully heal from, but outside of that, the way in which these worlds are built and understood are vastly different. Some are pretending to be utopias while others give us no image of what it means to be at the “top” and only show suffering. Some take place in over-crowded cities and others have sparse populations of people constantly searching for each other. There are social (and human) experiments, revolutions of all shapes and sizes, monsters and aliens and governments that are all in one way or another trying to reflect the very real events that are taking place in the real world in a way that is perhaps more comprehensible, or at least entertaining. Society as it currently exists is very much the antagonist of these stories, and at the center (and everywhere else) of a society are individual people making decisions that may or may not be good and may or may not have good intentions. So it is easy to see how, when it comes down to it, while society is implicitly understood to be the antagonist, most of these stories focus their energy on the removal of a tangible threat, usually a person or group of people who are determined to be “in charge” of the society and therefore responsible for much of the misery of a dystopia. The No.6 novels also fall into this group, as does the manga. But the No.6 anime, for whatever reason, decided to do something completely different, and something that is arguably much more terrifying.

From here on out I will just refer to the anime as No.6 and will specify if I am mentioning the novels/manga.

In No.6 things do not happen because someone says they need to happen, but they instead happen for…. what reason exactly? We see the mayor referenced briefly in the first episode, so we can assume that he is the one in charge of decision-making, but he makes no actual appearances. The military is clearly shown demolishing the West Block, but who is giving orders? Who is watching over the scientists at the Correctional Facility? Deciding where the wall will expand next if at all? In most stories you would see questions like these answered either near the beginning of the story or revealed at the end, and if it's neither of those then they’ll probably still show up at some point in the middle. But in No.6 there is none of that. There is no one or no group clearly “in charge” of what is happening at any time in regards to the city and its surroundings. Instead, it seems, the city has reached a point in which the details of how these things are occurring are unimportant, and that for the most part, things will unfold with or without the input of an individual or group. The implication of this being that No.6 is somehow separate from its people and government, and is, in a sense, alive.

I think this is largely why the anime is able to be so effective, despite its many other issues. On a surface level, the story lacks any kind of antagonist, making it unclear where exactly it's going. But the existence of the city as an independent entity fills in these odd gaps, creating the image of a society that has, quite literally, lost control of itself. It also makes more concrete the theme of “society vs nature” that is kind of hinted at for most of the story and then kind of shoved in your face at the end with Elyurias and Nezumi’s backstory. But with Elyurias being the physical embodiment of nature, what exactly is it that she is opposing? But before we get into that, some framing and questions (or maybe just one very big question).

What does it mean for a city to be “alive”? Not in the sense that things are happening in it and people are living there, but in the sense that it thinks and feels on its own and makes choices about itself that are not the direct result of human or other external input? Clearly people were responsible for its creation, and took care to create systems that would hold it together. But those systems were not created for the city itself, but rather the survival of the people living within it, with the city and society simply being a result of our need to be social. The city, if we are to see it as a living thing, doesn’t really gain anything from this arrangement so long as we are in control of it, and so will seek out ways to separate itself from us. It does need us to continue existing, however, and so it can’t truly create anything new on its own, and will instead make use of what we have already created. It will warp itself in unexpected ways, or cement systems that otherwise would change or disappear over time, so that it will better serve itself and maintain continuity while still appearing as though run by people. Different people will have varying amounts of control over how this all unfolds, but at a certain point there will be things that can no longer be changed through “traditional” means, at which point people will have to create and impose systems on a large scale that do not fit into the current form the city is in. And this is the point at which No.6 finds itself.

Now, there is a lot of my thinking that I’m skipping over here, especially in regards to how this applies to the real world and the implications that has, but for the purposes of No.6, this is a good starting point. The city that existed before No.6 was “killed”, restructured, and brought back to life as the result of a world war, and at the beginning of the story, we are already at a stage in which this new city has separated itself from its people and become a conscious entity. We see this process from a different perspective in the novels, with characters questioning how everything got to this point as they come to realize that the things they thought they were doing were never in their control in the first place, and that something else had made the city what it was. By omitting these characters entirely though, the anime makes their point clear, “it doesn’t matter who thinks they’re in charge of things, the city will function just fine with or without them”. I would argue that much of this is made possible through the advanced technology available in No.6, making it possible to automate systems in a way that keeps people entirely out of the process of dealing with massive amounts of vital information. You could probably even say that the “essence” of No.6, its identity as a sentient being, is mostly made up of these computerized systems and algorithms that determine everything about how a citizen will live their life.

This is, of course, similar to the way in which Elyurias is understood to operate, the main difference being that she is made up of natural, rather than man-made and technological systems. As sentient, omnipresent beings, they make use of small parts of their greater existence in order to convince different components to act in ways that are beneficial to their continued survival, reproduction, and expansion, with the survival of the individual components being far less of a concern as they are perceived as being easy to replace. Elyurias uses the parasitic bees to infinitely self-replicate, allowing her to endlessly alter and maintain the natural world as she sees fit. No.6, on the other hand, makes use of social and technological systems to convince its citizens to keep things as they are, or expand the limits of the city, or any number of other things it cannot do on its own, but are seen as crucial to its continued existence. Within the context of the story, there is no one person that needs to be “in control” of these actions, since the city is acting in what it sees as its own benefit, but it is also aware that in order to maintain itself, someone must appear in charge, and may even be influenced to believe that that is the case.

The problem with No.6, of course, arises from its desire to continue expanding while otherwise maintaining society as it currently exists. A static city is one that is destined to fall apart, or else have control returned to the people until a new form of stability can be achieved. So in order for No.6 to maintain its identity as an independent entity, it must change in other ways, and thus views expansion and increased complexity as a path forward. When it comes into contact with Elyurias as a result of this expansion though, it is clear that their goals as entities are incompatible and cannot occupy the same space. For Elyurias this necessitates the destruction of No.6, since the city has already been responsible for the damage and destruction of large areas of her “realm”, while No.6 sees her as an opportunity to improve its own systems through the assimilation of her powers into its “realm”. This assimilation, as the city sees it, both expands its power through the elimination and subsequent exploitation of a competing entity, as well as further automates its own processes through the combination of technological and natural systems. None of these benefits are seen by the citizens, of course, and in fact the result would instead be an almost complete removal of their free will, but for No.6’s purposes those effects are inconsequential so long as the people continue existing.

This formatting can also be extrapolated to describe Shion and Nezumi’s roles and understanding of the world, which clearly play a much more prominent role in the outward text of the series. Shion has a difficult time understanding and accepting No.6’s absolute corruption not because he has no experience with the suffering it has caused or or the inherent problems with hierarchy. Clearly he has been subjected to both of those things quite early on in the series. Instead the issue arises from the fact that while Nezumi, who learned about Elyurias in his childhood and has an understanding of “sentient” non-human systems, Shion has no basis for comprehending this, and is therefore unable to see how No.6 could have become so awful without anyone noticing or intervening, and cannot understand the true nature of the issue without first passing it through the filter of human decision-making processes. Nezumi falls into this as well on several occasions when he claims that the citizens are the ones at fault for the city’s problems. But unlike Shion, this comes from a lack of understanding of the specific systems that make up the city and a need to have a concrete place of blame rather than a belief in complete human control over society. Through this lens, the story of the human characters of No.6 in the anime is one of coming to understand the nature of both human and non-human systems, where they may intersect and overlap, and then determining how change can be brought about when we do not have control, or even meaningful access, to those systems.

So when a city has separated itself from its citizens, when it has become functionally “alive” and begins to behave in ways that no longer benefit or sustain our conception of humanity, what can be done to regain control? Can a city that has become independent be brought back under human control, or must it be destroyed and rebuilt, its structure completely altered so that little if any of what was originally there remains intact? The answer that No.6 seems to give is much more in line with the latter idea (at least in this fictional instance). Because of No.6’s rapid development, there was never a chance for people to fully grasp what they were really doing, and if anyone did realize what had happened, it was far too late to alter the city in a way that took away its power. The city is authoritarian to the point of self-inflicted genocide in an instance of internal social destabilization, and the faulty addition of Elyurias’ power makes this self-destruction incredibly easy. The fact that her assimilation into No.6’s system is incomplete only exacerbates the issue, and is ultimately what leads to its destruction.

The destruction of the wall as a physical presence has any number of meanings, some of which I have written about before and others that I may or may not write about in the future. But within this reading of No.6 as “alive”, what stands out the most is the fact that what ultimately gave the city its independent status was its refusal to even interact with other systems. Its purpose, its role, as an entity was entirely one of self-preservation, born from the paranoia that inevitably followed the war responsible for its creation. By destroying the wall, and allowing people access to “others”, the city cannot remain isolated and reinforce a singular concept of society, therefore losing almost the entirety of its power over people. Without the wall, there is no No.6, and without No.6, people are once again free to build something new.

Just to bring this all back around to where we started, and maybe simplify all that down to something manageable, what does it mean to have an antagonist that is alive, but not human or otherwise sentient in a way that we understand? In No.6’s case, I don’t think it is enough to say that society is the problem, or that by removing a government and installing new leadership, all of the problems can be solved. Unlike in the novels and manga, the anime does not even give us the second option, since there functionally is no government to oppose for the most part. Instead, we are given a city that people have not had influence over for a significant amount of time, one in which “society” is not a single thing shaped by the people that make it up, but is also a social system that is imposed upon people by a non-human force. No.6, as an entity, needs its citizens only to the extent that they are useful to it, namely as a mechanism for expansion and self-defense, but exists as such that the people living within it are completely reliant upon it in every aspect of their lives. Something so simple as putting someone else in the arbitrary position of “leadership” is meaningless when that person has no real power, and so in order to reclaim human control over the entirety of society, an inaccessible entity must be destroyed. In this sense, Nezumi is not wrong to say that No.6 needs to be destroyed completely, and is instead only misled as to what that actually means, mistaking the people living within the confines of the city for the city itself. The defining feature of the city, the wall, also acts as the source of its power and independence, and thus its destruction is functionally equivalent to its death, leaving behind only a loose collection of systems and beliefs that are no longer upheld in any physical or tangible way.

Society is made up of people, that is clear, but what is less obvious is that people are also made up of society. We can recognize that society impacts us and shapes who we are and how we think, but it is perhaps the case that to an even stronger degree, society is operating outside of our own individual or even collective input, and is, in a sense, self-sustaining. Rather than our own beliefs being imposed upon an ever-changing society, it is a preexisting society that imposes itself upon us, deciding when, how, and if things will change. It does change over time, and that of course is due to people’s existence within it, but what No.6 makes clear, to me at least, is that while people are unable to survive without the construction of a society, even if that society is destructive, the society at a certain point will no longer need people to maintain itself outside of the basic definition of its existence, and it is at that point that it becomes much more difficult, and dangerous, to change.

#no.6 zine #no. 6 shion #no.6 meta #not sure how i ended up feeling about this one!#on one hand im in love with the concepts introduced!#on the other hand i sound almost entirely unhinged for half of this!#my brain processes do not translate well to the written word sometimes and thats just how it is!#anyways i watched the entirety of an anime today that i think i may be falling in love with the more i get into its themes #so im going to get back to daydreaming about all the ideas for writing i want to do for that!#edit #forgot to add this in the original tags #but this whole concept was inspired by a very specific youtuber and a couple specific videos of his #so thats fun!#gonna try and keep being a bit experimental with these in the future!#originals

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lechevaliermalfet · 4 years

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The Tip of the Spear – A Long Look at Mobile Suit Gundam Wing

Note: Some spoilers ahead

When it comes to the general anime fandom, I was here before the rush.

I don’t say this to be some kind of hipster, to brag that I was into anime before it was cool (I mean I was, I guess, but that’s irrelevant). I’m just establishing a context. I was here for the rush, and I got to watch it happen. It was pretty interesting.

For myself, I came in during the Fox broadcast of Ronin Warriors (known in Japan as Yoroiden Samurai Troopers), somewhere back in the mid-90s. I don’t recall exactly how old I was, maybe 13 or 14 at the time. At any rate, I was at an age where I was starting to get the impression from other people that I should be done with watching cartoons, so I was very self-conscious about my interest in the show. But something about it grabbed me despite that. I caught most of the episodes out of their proper order, as I dipped into it here and there as I could throughout its multiple runs. Meanwhile, my friend Josh taped the whole thing; those tapes are either gathering dust in his parents’ attic, or more likely lost by now.

It wasn’t technically the first anime I’d ever seen – that honor goes to the hacked-up 1980s American version of Voltron – but it was the first one I ever saw while explicitly understanding that it was Japanese in origin. (When I was watching Voltron at age five, I probably didn’t even know what Japan was). From there, I got swept up into the uncensored and uncut stuff: Ninja Scroll, Macross Plus, Ghost in the Shell, and a whole host of others. Back then, everybody was talking about Ranma ½ and lamenting the absence of Rumiko Takahashi’s earlier classic, Urusei Yatsura, in English; there were arguments and flame wars about which of the three different Tenchi Muyo! continuities was best, and perpetual laments about how the OVA series at the time remained unfinished and with no ending in sight; the classics of the day were movies like Akira and the original Vampire Hunter D, and I was developing a weird soft spot for Fist of the North Star; I was recording shows like Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, Galaxy Express 999, and Green Legend Ran from the Sci-Fi Channel, movies which tend to be forgotten today for one reason or another.

I was new to the fandom, I was excited to explore it, and I was at that stage of fandom involvement where I was beginning to build up a store of experience and my own knowledge regarding what was out there, while at the same time having little enough of said knowledge that everything was still new and exciting. It might have been my favorite time as an anime fan.

If you were at that stage of the fandom – progressed past just watching whatever was on TV to buying stuff at stores and looking up new things online – then Gundam was something you just kind of heard of. It was hard to really get into at the time, given that none of the various series (and there was just over twenty years’ worth of series by the time Gundam Wing began airing Stateside) had yet been licensed for U.S. release. Anything you were going to get, you had to get via fansubs, and this was at a time when those were pretty much exclusively viewed via VHS cassette (which had been copied from laserdisc and sent by mail). You were aware of the show, and its influence could be felt throughout the medium, but for the average fan who only had access to what was licensed for U.S. release, it was basically never more than the background radiation of the mecha genre, and of anime in general.

That all changed in 2000 with Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.

The Crest of the Wave

There were a lot of factors that led to the anime boom of the late 90s and early aughts, and I don’t think you can single out any one of them as being solely responsible. But if there’s one that was mostly responsible, it would be Cartoon Network’s afternoon Toonami block, and a bit later on, the late-night Adult Swim block. At the time, Toonami seemed to be largely dedicated to shows that had been popular in the 80s – Voltron, Robotech, and Thundercats, to name a few – whether this was the general intent, or just happened to be the schedule when I first tuned in just prior to the boom, I’m not sure. But there were two shows that appeared later which launched Toonami into the stratosphere of popularity. One of them was Dragon Ball Z. The other was Gundam Wing.

Of the two, Dragon Ball Z showed up on the block first, in August of 1998. It had aired on network TV before this, but Toonami was where it finally took off. It was (and remains) the more popular by a fairly wide margin, having introduced Western audiences to the long-running shounen fight shows that have been a staple of the fandom ever since. Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and countless others all probably owe their success in the U.S. directly to Dragon Ball Z’s run on Toonami. And its popularity makes a lot of sense, when you think about it. There’s a large cast of characters with easy-to-understand motivations and personalities that are expressed in their dialogue, their actions, and the way they fight. Really, it’s like pro wrestling, just with a different aesthetic.

Gundam Wing, which originally aired in 1995 in Japan, began airing in the U.S. about a year and a half after Dragon Ball Z, in March of 2000. It catered to a very different mindset than Dragon Ball Z’s martial arts fantasy. While it also had a crew of varied and easily identifiable characters, it coupled this with a convoluted plot, complex and changing motivations among its cast, moral quandaries, philosophical soliloquies, and giant robots. And it is a fundamental law of the universe that you can almost never, ever go wrong with giant robots. Basically, it zeroed in on the audience that likes their anime complex, weird, and melodramatic.

Of course I was a fan.

And while it didn’t quite enjoy Dragon Ball Z’s stratospheric success, it certainly did well enough. Bandai supposedly sold out of Gundam Wing model kits in the wake of its Western debut, and they were so impressed at how Toonami handled the series that they borrowed some of their promotional materials when it came time for Bandai to give the series a home video release.

For reference, this was around the time that Bandai was entering the Western market directly, and Gundam Wing (produced by their subsidiary Sunrise, Inc.) was part of an impressive opening salvo that included, all in the span of about a year, Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop (two of the three “cowboy shows” that were huge at the time), The Vision of Escaflowne, and of course, Gundam Wing itself. When it came to the American market, Bandai came out swinging. The strength of these shows contributed to the rising popularity of the medium. With its position in the Toonami block and an additional late-night broadcast, Gundam Wing was probably the most prominent of all of these.

Now, you can argue that other shows from around that time were better, certainly. I’d personally argue that Cowboy Bebop is a better show, and certainly a more consistent one. Escaflowne might also be in the running, though it lacks the weight of cultural phenomenon, doesn’t quite stick its landing (thanks to being greenlit for fewer episodes than originally planned), and its soap-operatic melodrama might be offputting to some. And The Big O was more of a cult success in the end.

But Gundam Wing was in the sweet spot.

For one thing, its content was the most TV-friendly. Cowboy Bebop couldn’t really be aired in an afternoon programming block, on account of the violence and mature themes of the show; it would either be inappropriate for or uninteresting to the younger-skewing segment of Toonami’s audience. It was popular right out of the gate in the U.S., but it was popular with the usual anime crowd, which meant home video only, which sort of precluded it from being a gateway show in quite the same way. Outlaw Star, for its part, had to have some footage removed here and there, including an entire episode late in the series run which was essentially just a half-hour of cheesecake (but also, frustratingly, host to one very important plot point). Escaflowne likewise needed some censoring (and had been grabbed by Fox, anyway), and The Big O was a little too cerebral to have universal appeal. Gundam Wing, meanwhile, was very TV-friendly, with most of the censoring needed for afternoon airing amounting to a few tweaks of dialogue here and there.

But in addition to the above, its qualities came together in a way the aforementioned shows’ didn’t, or at least not as visibly. It had a complex plot that kept its viewers guessing, and it reached for a certain sense of depth (the level of success it achieved is debatable, but…). Yet I think what it really comes down to is how it portrays its characters.

All of the main characters are what I can only describe as “catchy”. On a superficial level, they are all immediately distinct and iconic. Their designs are simple and basically distilled down to something that’s instantly recognizable (even if it’s as ridiculous as the main character’s usual outfit of bike shorts and a tank top). Their personalities are likewise distinct, with each one embodying certain archetypes and tropes. At a glance, with a superficial or “zoomed-out” view, you can get a basic handle on the characters. Their design, body language, attitude, and way of speaking immediately marks each of them out as a particular “type”. At the same time, they have some actual nuance to them when you look closer. It’s not super deep, but it’s there. And they play off each other well, once they meet and start interacting.

In addition to all of the above, Wing also helped kick off the Cartoon Network’s much-loved and fondly remembered Adult Swim block late at night. Very little of the material shown in Gundam Wing could be considered really objectionable, but some of the dialogue wasn’t quite fit for an after-school cartoon block whose target audience included children and young teens. It might be fine for Japanese audiences in that demographic if the main character made repeated and explicit (and guaranteedly ineffective) death threats to various people throughout the show, or if another character gleefully proclaimed himself to be the God of Death, but American audiences had (or were perceived to have) different ideas. But since most of the objectionable material was a matter of dialogue, the problem was as simple as making a few key alterations to the script, all of which were ultimately inconsequential. The one character now threatened to destroy people, and the God of Death was now the Lord of Destruction.

So the Cartoon Network got to have it both ways. They got to air the slightly bowdlerized dub during the day to access the younger audience and build popularity, while at the same time earning credit with the purist crowd by airing a more true-to-the-original version of the dub late at night, during what they then called the Midnight Run. I will bet cash money that this was directly responsible for the birth of the Adult Swim block not much later.

Overall, Gundam Wing served as a more complex, slower-paced, and character-driven yin to the bright and colorful slugfest of Dragon Ball Z’s yang. The two together propelled the popularity of Toonami, and helped add momentum to the building anime boom.

The Times They Are a-Changin’

The greater Gundam franchise is comprised of a multitude of TV shows, OVAs, and movies

Gundam Wing positions itself as an alternate continuity to most of the preceding Gundam series, with the lone exception of Mobile Fighter G Gundam (which was itself another continuity).

G Gundam aside, the multiple classic Gundam anime that had come before Wing were set in what’s known as the Universal Century timeline, with several different series belonging to it. Per Wikipedia, we have:

Mobile Suit Gundam (43 episodes, or a trilogy of compilation movies)

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (50 episodes, or a trilogy of nigh-incomprehensible compilation movies)

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (47 TV and 2 OVA episodes, and no compilatio movies, because fuck you, I guess; also the “ZZ” is sounded out as “double zeta”)

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (theatrical film)

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket (6 OVA episodes)

Mobile Suit Gundam F91 (movie)

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory (13 OVA episodes, or a compilation movie)

Mobile Suit Victory Gundam (51 TV episodes, and once more no compilation movies, because fuck you still, I guess)

That’s… kind of a lot, really. You can tell where the people who say that Gundam is Japan’s answer to shows like Star Trek or Doctor Who are coming from. And this is just the Universal Century stuff that came out before Gundam Wing, running on and off through a period that lasted from 1979 to 1994. Wing was followed not long after its initial Japanese airing by a twelve-episode OVA titled Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, which – you guessed it – resumed the Universal Century timeline.

Anyway.

You can probably understand how it might be difficult to keep existing fans tuned in and also draw in potential new fans. At some point, you start to see diminishing returns. You’ll have fans who love Gundam… but how many are hardcore enough to follow it through the literal dozen-plus various TV series, OVA series, and movies that have been made up to the present in order to be able to make sense of the next thing that comes down the pipe. Each new show will inevitably see you shedding some of the fanbase as more and more people hit their limit for Gundam and tap out. And that’s just talking about the existing fans. Try to imagine bringing new fans into this increasingly byzantine saga. And yes, they are in fact making more Universal Century series (and have been the whole while).

Intimidating really is not the word.

So that’s another reason Gundam Wing was perfect to open the American market up for the franchise as a whole: accessibility.

The older Gundam shows wouldn’t have found much of an audience in 2000. The first Mobile Suit Gundam series is very much a late-70s product, and it shows in every frame. Even for the standards of the day, production quality wasn’t always up to scratch, with one episode forbidden by series originator Yoshiyuki Tomino from ever airing again. That’s not to say that there would never be a market for it in the States, just that there wouldn’t have been enough of one in 2000 (or before) to keep the series going. The timing was wrong. Mobile Suit Gundam looked old and stilted because it was old and stilted, and that wasn’t going to fly at the time. I suspect that for a show of its vintage, you’d ideally want a considerably larger fanbase than what existed at pretty much any point before the turn of the century, so that you could actually rely on a large enough number of people within it to be interested in older anime, and turn a profit by selling it.

Gundam Wing, meanwhile, was only about five years out from its Japanese airing when it hit the Toonami block. This was in a day when most anime came to the U.S. a year or more after their original Japanese release in the first place. It wasn’t quite the best-looking anime out there, but it was up to the lower end of the standards of the day. And it stood alone, so there was no need for the audience to try to understand everything that came before it.

So it came to pass that America’s introduction to Gundam – and the West’s in general – came not from Amuro Ray and Char Aznable’s battles in the wide tapestry of honor and brutality of the Universal Century setting, but from a team of five handsome and improbably young terrorists sent to Earth with little more than the initial objective to fuck shit up but good.

The Bishounen Who Fell to Earth

With high expectations, human beings leave Earth to begin a new life in space colonies. However, the United Earth Sphere Alliance gains great military power, and soon seizes control of one colony after another in the name of justice and peace...

The year is After Colony 195…

So begins almost every episode in the front half of Gundam Wing, outlining the uneasy and uncertain unity between Earth and the space colonies. Earth’s seizure of the colonies involves, among other things, a communications blackout between them in an effort to divide and conquer. But Earth’s will is more directly imposed by their military, which occupies most of the colonies. Prominently featured in its arsenal are the intimidating mobile suits. These large, single-occupant, generally humanoid manned robots strike a balance in military terms between the mobility and maneuverability of infantry, and the strength and firepower of artillery. A sort of metal gear, if you will, connecting these two parts of the overall military machine...

Hang on, I’m writing about the wrong giant robot-featuring anti-war franchise.

Anyway, the mobile suits render most conventional weaponry trivial, and the expertise and training needed to pilot one ensure that no scrappy resistance movement is likely to be able to get their hands on them and use them effectively to meet the Alliance on an even footing.

But the colonies have had enough. Acting separately according to a previously agreed-upon plan, five of the colonies develop mobile suits called Gundams, so named for their construction from an alloy called gundanium, which can only be made in space – as opposed to the “mere” titanium or neo-titanium of the rank-and-file suits – and send them to Earth disguised as meteorites. This is the opening phase of a larger resistance plan called Operation: Meteor. The Gundam pilots’ purpose is to destroy a variety of military targets and generally wreak havoc, ultimately to distract from the real final objective, which remains a mystery for much of the series.

Each of the five pilots of these Gundams is initially unaware of the others. They are, in effect, terrorists, each operating as a cell of one.

The five pilots are very young, with an average age of about fifteen. When I watched with @squeemcsquee, she joked that they make up a sort of “boy band of mecha anime”. And, really, I can’t even be mad, because she’s not wrong. Even the show’s creators acknowledge it:

Heero Yuy: the Leader or “face” of the band. Interestingly, though he’s the main character, he’s not really the strategic leader of the group. Easily the most damaged, and probably the most completely dedicated to his mission, to the point that he attempts self-detonation two separate times during the first half of the show (one of these being the first episode) with zero hesitation. He deals with his emotions by essentially denying that he has any. He pilots Gundam 01, “Wing Gundam”, which has an overwhelmingly powerful beam cannon, beam saber, and shield, and transforms into a jet mode for optimal aerial combat maneuvers.

Duo Maxwell: the Funny One. Easily the most personable of the group, and the one whose reactions are the most consistently like a sane and normal person’s. He jokes, he flirts, and generally has a positive attitude the whole way through. In contrast to his generally upbeat outlook, he frequently calls himself the God of Death (or Lord of Destruction if you were watching the daytime dub). In keeping with the grim reaper/shinigami aesthetic, he pilots Gundam 02, “Deathscythe”, and its later rebuilt version “Deathscythe Hell”.

Trowa Barton: the Cool One. Cool both in just generally being cool and in his constantly calm, collected, and logical approach. Despite his detached demeanor, he’s one of the more compassionate pilots. Extremely acrobatic (the show gets a lot of mileage out of that stock footage of him twirling through the air). He also has a knack for infiltrating enemy organizations so convincingly that the other pilots worry that maybe he really is with the enemy. Pilots Gundam 03, “Heavyarms” and the upgraded “Heavyarms Kai”, with a fighting style that basically amounts to “stand there and fire all the guns”, and let me tell you: Heavyarms has a lot of guns.

Quatre Raberba Winner: the Sensitive One. Probably the leading (or at least most frequent and consistent) candidate for Innocent Cinnamon Roll status. Quatre is a rich kid whose inherited wealth somehow hasn’t gotten in the way of his sense of justice and his compassion for others. He frequently asks his enemies to come to their senses and surrender before the fighting breaks out, and feels immediate remorse over the consequences when they inevitably don’t. Has a tendency to ask “Oh God, how did I fuck up?” whenever anything goes wrong, even if it isn’t his fault, and even if that really shouldn’t be the first priority. Despite blond hair and green eyes, is understood to be Arabic (it’s been pointed out that there are Arabic peoples that can have this appearance). He also has a small private army at his disposal, known as the Maguanac. Pilots Gundam 04, “Sandrock”, which has a pair of shotel sickle-swords as its main weapon, and virtually no long-range capabilities to speak of.

Chang Wufei: the One Nobody Likes. A martial artist whose picture should be at the top of the TV Tropes page for Arrogant Kung Fu Guy. He is obsessed with his idea of justice, and of wiping out evil wherever it may hide; naturally he’s the perfect arbiter of these qualities. He has a hard-nosed and overly simplistic notion of honor, preferring to engage his enemies face-to-face, and perpetually (and loudly) agonizing about how battles against weak opponents leave him feeling unfulfilled. He’s willing to resort to a variety of dirty tricks if needed (at one point proving one character’s assertion that their soldiers are so well-trained that they’ll never die in combat horrifically true, by blowing up their barracks while they sleep), but angsts about it severely whenever it becomes necessary. Pretty blatantly sexist at various points in the story. Pilots Gundam 05, “Shenlong” and its rebuilt version “Altron”, both of which he calls “Nataku”.

But although the pilots are the focus of the story, their Gundams are also a vital part of the show. Cynically, you can easily point out that the various mobile suits make for countless merchandising possibilities – and you’d not be wrong. One of franchise creator Yoshiyuki Tomino’s longstanding headaches whenever he was at the helm of a series was balancing his own need to tell a serious story and convey a message against the producers’ demands for more robots to help sell model kits. And Gundam Wing certainly didn’t disappoint in that regard. Off the top of my head, I can think of ten different distinct mobile suits featured in the series (if we count upgrades), not including the rank-and-file mobile suit models. But the appearance and abilities of the Gundams are important in how they help express the personalities and natures of the characters who use them.

Wufei’s Nataku has the greatest agility and maneuverability of the lot, with a high enough degree of articulation and focus on up-close combat that it can replicate Wufei’s own martial arts skills. More to the point, it emphasizes his need for face-to-face confrontation. Its primary weapon is a spear, with its ranged capabilities limited to its “Dragon Fang”, an extendable arm on the right side that can strike quickly at unexpected distances. After the Shenlong version is scrapped, its mid-season Altron rebuild has two dragon fangs with improved reach, and more ranged weaponry, but these are essentially in place to supplement the close-combat capabilities that his fighting style favors.

Quatre’s Sandrock Gundam, meanwhile, is also focused on close combat, but in a different way. It lacks Shenlong/Altron’s speed and maneuverability, instead relying on careful planning and a deliberate approach to combat, reflecting its pilot’s more methodical and careful nature. Its lack of ranged weaponry makes it impossible for the pilot to distance himself from combat or the effects it has, preventing him from deadening his response to the horrors of battle by repeatedly exposing him to them. Its largely defensive capabilities hint at it being better-suited for a commander rather than a front-line fighter, and Quatre eventually emerges as the natural fit for this role among the five pilots. It also is designed to allow the pilot to escape when put into self-destruct mode, making it unique among the five.

Trowa’s Heavyarms and (and the minor Heavyarms Kai upgrade), meanwhile, are all about long range, to the point that its one real close-combat option is an arm-mounted knife. It’s instead designed to use overwhelming firepower to obliterate foes at range, which seems superficially fitting for the pilot’s detached, hyper-pragmatic approach to fighting. This also allows it to act as long-range support for the other Gundam units when they’re fighting together. However, its overwhelming force seems in some ways to be at odds with the pilot’s personality. Trowa himself is highly acrobatic where Heavyarms is very much a “stand and shoot” kind of machine, and he’s much more subtle than his Gundam’s design might suggest, with highly developed skills at infiltration and espionage which come in handy throughout the series. However, when it’s eventually brought to light that there was a different pilot intended for Heavyarms – a man whose limited camera time suggests a personality perfectly in keeping with the Gundam’s sheer force – this begins to make much more sense.

Duo’s Deathscythe (and the later Deathscythe Hell rebuild) is the fastest of the five, though it lacks the maneuverability of the Shenlong/Altron. It compensates for its lack of ranged options with stealth capabilities which include radar jamming and, later, outright cloaking. To the extent that any giant robot might be capable of going undetected, Deathscythe manages it nicely. Its capabilities allow it to sneak into the middle of enemy territory and then wreak havoc with a suddenness that matches the spontaneity of its pilot.

And finally, the Wing Gundam piloted by Heero Yuy is, like the pilot, the most balanced of all models in terms of combat ability. Equipped with a powerful beam cannon for long-range work, a beam saber and shield for up-close battles, and the ability to transform into a jet mode for aerial combat as well as its anthropoid form for fighting on the ground, the Wing Gundam has an answer for every problem, a perfect match for its pilot’s own adaptability. Both the pilot and the machine are best suited out of all of the five for operating entirely on their own.

The Gundam pilots’ real enemy is not the United Earth Sphere Alliance, but rather the Organization of the Zodiac – OZ for short. OZ serves as the military arm of the Romefeller Foundation, which is a sort of openly acknowledged illuminati. Romefeller is operated by aristrocrats and other assorted obscenely wealthy oligarchs who all dress in military uniforms that, in the real world, went out of fashion sometime before World War I, and these elites run pretty much everything that happens within the Earth Sphere. But OZ is the tail that seems, by the time Gundam Wing opens, to be wagging the dog.

OZ is headed by the improbably young and impossibly charismatic Treize Khushrenada, whose number one soldier and sort of personal champion is a young man with long, platinum-blond hair going by the name Zechs Merquise. Known here and there as the “Lightning Baron” (and later on, “Lightning Count”), this enigmatic masked figure is a warrior among soldiers, obsessed with battle and with the notion of fighting with honor and principles. But his sense of honor has plenty of room for ruthless efficiency, and he’s known for this as much as anything else. Zechs is Treize’s ace in the hole, the only soldier in his ranks capable of meeting the Gundam pilots on an even footing. In fact, he makes his introduction taking on Wing Gundam with nothing but an OZ Leo and essentially coming out on top, a truly remarkable feat given that the Leo’s defining characteristic is the way the audience becomes rapidly accustomed to seeing it blown up again and again (and again, and again, and…).

In the middle of all the fighting, though, there are those with more high-minded ideals. Enter Relena Darlian, a young lady of an age with the Gundam pilots, and the daughter of the Alliance’s Vice-Foreign Minister Darlian. The elder Darlian pushes for peace and disarmament of the Earth Sphere Alliance, and reconciliation with the oppressed colonies; naturally, he isn’t long for this world. But upon his death, Relena learns that she is his daughter by adoption, not by blood. Before he was the vice-foreign minister of the Alliance, he was a member of the senate of the former Sanc Kingdom. Said kingdom was ruled by the Peacecraft family, who, as their name somewhat implies, were dedicated to total pacifism. The kingdom was wiped out some years ago by the Alliance military for opposing their expansionist policies. Relena, as it turns out, is the daughter of the now-dead king of that nation, orphaned and adopted upon the Sanc Kingdom’s destruction at such a young age that she can’t remember it.

She’s also in the awkward position of having witnessed Heero and Wing Gundam making landfall. Since she’s seen Heero and can positively identify him as a Gundam pilot, he’s obligated to kill her. Yet he’s interrupted by the ambulance she calls (thinking him to be just a regular downed pilot at the time), and ultimately escapes. When they meet again – because of course they would; it’s that kind of show – he promises to kill her, marking the beginning of a pattern we’ll come to identify as the show goes on. To wit, that any named character Heero explicitly states he’s going to kill is guaranteed to live. Unaware that she’s protected by narrative contrivance, and perhaps due to all of the recent turmoil in her life, Relena actually invites Heero to make good on his threat more than once, and repeatedly protects him from other dangers even as he’s sworn to end her life.

As a divisive character in an already-divisive show, Relena takes a little getting used to. Her behavior in the beginning of the series is… erratic, let’s say. But strangely, it didn’t seem as bad on my most recent watching of the series as I had remembered from the first broadcast. Perhaps she just came across wrong at the time the show was made, and values (or at least opinions) have changed. At any rate, she evens out as the series progresses, and it does seem fair to attribute her strange behavior early on to the fact that she’s definitely going through some things.

In the meantime, the Gundam pilots go about their mission of destroying OZ targets in an effort to cripple Earth Sphere’s war machine. Enemies who go up against the Gundam pilots get wrecked over and over again. The audience quickly grows familiar with panicked shouts of “It’s a Gundam!” followed immediately by the enemy getting obliterated in curb-stomp battles. The Gundams’ durability and strength makes them more than a match for the run of the mill mobile suits fielded by OZ.

Then Zechs Merquise gets his hands on a prototype Gundam named Tallgeese, whose design inspired the more standardized and mass-produced OZ suits seen throughout the series. You can even see the Tallgeese’s “DNA” in the Leo, which is ultimately a kind of stripped-down and simplified take on the elder mobile suit’s design (this is more obvious in a brief shot of the Tallgeese with its “helmet” removed). Once Zechs gets his hands on this prototype, the odds are considerably more even.

Each of the Gundam pilots, having been given no information about the larger plan, are initially wary of the others when they eventually meet, occasionally coming to blows before they manage to sort things out. Gradually, friendships emerge, and the fandom in due course promptly launched fleets upon fleets of ships. However, the weakness of the colonies’ approach of sending their pilots without any view of the larger operation becomes horribly clear when the pilots are manipulated into sabotaging a burgeoning peace effort within the UESA by decapitating their leadership in the mistaken belief that they are eliminating OZ’s leaders instead. The resulting coup allows the Romefeller Foundation, and in particular OZ, to essentially take control of the entire Earth Sphere government.

The result is a shifting of alliances, where OZ position themselves as peace-bringers after the UESA effectively collapses, and the Gundam pilots are painted as terrorists, which... isn’t exactly wrong, but certainly lacks some nuance. With their actions now disavowed by the very people for whom they fight, the pilots are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Further complicating matters is the introduction of mobile dolls, a new variety of mobile suit guided by limited artificial intelligence rather than human pilots. OZ’s wide adoption of these mobile doll units seems a humane move in the short term, sparing the lives of soldiers who would otherwise be at risk in combat. But in fact, this merely means that now the only people who die in war are almost always those caught in the crossfire and collateral damage. In fact, this problem threatens to grow worse. The perceived humanity of using the mobile dolls instead of human pilots encourages the elites to more readily embrace war as a tool of statecraft, ignoring the harm done to noncombatants since that has no impact on the elites’ bottom line. Waging war becomes an almost trivial, rote affair.

But there is a faction within OZ which finds this to be abominable, and which views the risking of human lives to be absolutely vital to warfare. There is a matter of honor, but perhaps more than that, a notion that it is the commitment by soldiers of their very lives that ensures wars are not lightly waged. And so the true nature of the conflict that emerges is less about why this war is fought, and more about how and why wars are fought at all.

And the Gundam pilots, and Relena, and even Zechs Merquise in his way, all struggle against this backdrop to find a path to peace through some means other than conquest.

“The Three Beats of War, Peace, and Revolution Continue...”

Set about a year after the end of the TV series, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz serves as a sort of coda for everything that’s come before. It was originally made as a three-episode OVA series, then recut with added footage into a movie.

I watched it recently for the first time in a decade or more (I had the original Bandai release on DVD from years back), and it’s much more entertaining and interesting if you have a good working knowledge of the series. It doesn’t stand alone very well, unfortunately. There’s a ton of fanservice – not the cheesecake kind – for people who have seen the series, and it relies on the viewer’s prior knowledge of people and events involved. So of course, it all kind of falls flat without the benefit of familiarity. The budget has also been ramped up, to the point where I found myself thinking that this was what the original series had always seemed like, in the rosy view of fond memory.

Notably, the Gundams have all been redesigned with a much greater amount of detail (and with some details changed, always for the more elaborate), though this is presented as being the way they’ve always really been meant to look. This is reinforced by later materials (mostly released in Japan only) which showcase them in their new designs during the events of the TV series.

Endless Waltz is set around Christmastime, with the wars between Earth and the colonies over and a new age of peace dawning. Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a Gundam movie if this was really the end of things. So we see that a new faction of soldiers have risen up under the guidance of one Dekim Barton, head of the Barton foundation which originally funded the construction of Trowa Barton’s Heavyarms Gundam.

Their “real” leader is ostensibly a young girl named Mariemaia, presented as the illegitimate daughter of Treize Khushrenada, who had orchestrated the conflict that played out during the TV series. Whether she really is Treize’s daughter is questionable, a situation made all the more worrying because of her youth and the malleability that tends to come with that. Of course, Mariemaia is a figurehead and nothing more, but she exists as a powerful symbol for her followers. She proposes to finish carrying out the desires of her late father by reigniting the war between the colonies and the Earth, recently unified as the Earth Sphere United Nation. The soldiers following her are those who feel cast aside; having fought in the wars prior to this point, they now find themselves without a place in this new world of peace, and are filled with resentment.

For added political power, the Mariemaia Army also kidnaps Relena. She is once more going under her adoptive father’s surname as Relena Darlian, rather than Peacecraft, and, as he served the UESA before her, she now serves as the vice-foreign minister of the ESUN. She mirrors Mariemaia in a way. Both were used as political symbols to help unify the world during a major conflict. The difference, of course, is that Relena was perfectly aware of what was happening, and was able to turn the tables on her manipulators. Mariemaia, at seven – young even by the standards of this show’s movers and shakers – isn’t.

Interestingly, Relena spends most of her time talking to Mariemaia as if they’re on the same level. Whether it’s an act or an honest attempt to engage her as an equal, either way it ensures that Mariemaia is more willing to listen, though she usually ignores Relena’s advice in favor of her own dangerously black-and-white view of things.

Meanwhile, there are also the Preventers, a group dedicated to putting out the fires of smaller insurrections before they break out into a conflagration of rebellion. But the Mariemaia movement seems to have popped up without their knowledge, and they find themselves ill-equipped to handle it by the time they become aware. Thankfully, the Preventers are led by Lady Une and Lucrezia Noin – capable figures from the TV series who worked closely with Treize and Zechs, respectively, and who are very familiar with the shenanigans of the Gundam pilots – and they know just who to call…

Naturally, it can’t be quite so easy. The Gundam pilots have chosen to send their Gundams into the sun for final disposal, feeling that there is no purpose for such fearsome weapons in an age of peace. Or at least, four of them have. Chang Wufei, proud warrior that he is, sympathizes with the Mariemaia soldiers’ feelings of being cast aside, and joins their cause. The remaining pilots, then, have the difficult task of trying to infiltrate and sabotage the Mariemaia Army while also retrieving their mobile suits before they reach their final destination. And in so doing, they discover the true final intent of Operation: Meteor, of which their deployment to Earth was the first phase, in what seems to be another age.

If Endless Waltz has a greater theme or purpose, it’s to highlight that peace cannot be given, and must not be taken for granted. It must be earned, and it must be maintained, often at no small expense from those who seek to enjoy its benefits. It’s a simple message, and it tends to get a little lost in all the giant mecha battles and explosions, of which there are very, very many, all highly enjoyable. For the most part, it often feels like “The Boys Are Back In Town”: Gundam Wing Edition.

Of course, that means it’s still a lot of fun to watch, with its embellished Gundam re-designs and much improved animation. It’s a little like a victory lap for the series.

The Glory of Losers

Gundam Wing had and continues to have its detractors, and they are nearly as loud (and often as obnoxious) as the worst of its fans. This is pretty standard in any kind of geek circles once a thing reaches a certain relative threshold of popularity, and Gundam Wing definitely hit it.

Among other things that set Wing apart, there’s the fact that the show’s planners and creators have been open about the fact that they wanted to target more of a female audience than previous series had (and previous franchise entries had a surprisingly large contingent of female fans in the first place). The cast isn’t full of very pretty boys and young men who occasionally take rose-scented baths just because, after all. So it’s tempting, in light of this knowledge, to point out the phenomenon of how we generally tend to view media marketed at girls and young women. But beyond pointing it out, that line of argument goes a little outside my areas of expertise, I think.

That said, there are valid criticisms to be leveled at the show.

One of the most common ones has always been that Gundam Wing is primarily focused on five overpowered bishounen (six, after Zechs Merquise gets his own Gundam and takes his mask off) who get into frequently pointless over-the-top battles in a borderline-nonsensical plot involving characters whose personalities seem at times almost like satires of popular mecha anime tropes and archetypes, and whose allegiances can and do shift seemingly at random. Then you top that off with some very awkward acting from the English dub cast (largely the fault of direction rather than the actors’ ability; most of them have done much better work in other shows before and after this), and that doesn’t help.

There’s some truth to this. Gundam Wing was designed very commercially at least in part. Any time a show is engineered specifically to capture a particular demographic, you should ask yourself why. (Spoiler: The most frequent answer is so that the show’s creators can sell them shit). And the Gundam pilots (and Zechs) do seem a little overpowered compared to the rank-and-file OZ soldiers and other conventional military types who spend most of the show getting blown up.

But despite the truth of the above, that criticism does somewhat gloss over the fact that despite being ostensibly overpowered, the main characters frequently lose the battles they fight, to the point that Duo mentions during the course of Endless Waltz that they’ve gotten pretty good at fighting losing battles. It also ignores the fact that, well… I want to say that the villain wins, but it’s more nuanced than that.

Gundam Wing doesn’t really have an overarching villain in the strictest sense. There absolutely are villainous characters, but they all wind up being pawns of some kind. Many of them, almost always the most prominent, come to a sticky end, having been given exactly the right amount of rope with which to hang themselves. As for the chessmaster orchestrating all this, the closest thing the series has to an overarching villain, he wins. He gets absolutely everything he was working for, and the heroes basically fit themselves – unwittingly, perfectly – into his grand plan.

In that way, it’s strangely reminiscent of Watchmen.

So while the main characters come off well in battles – their arrival pretty consistently inspires an immediate collective pants-shitting on the part of their enemies, followed by a decisive and comprehensive beatdown – the net effect of their actions hovers so close to zero that you’d need some high-precision instruments to measure it.

Their victories are moral, and mostly immaterial.

Another criticism has often been that Gundam Wing isn’t really representative of the series as a whole, which prior to this tended to be more sober and down-to-earth in tone, more focused on the nitty-gritty of warfare. And perhaps it was difficult for most of Gundam Wing’s fans to see how it was out of keeping with the broader messages and themes of the overarching franchise, since it was the first part of said franchise ever to be licensed for the Western audience. And being set in an alternate continuity from those series, it was self-contained enough that there was nothing obviously “missing” that anyone felt a need to go looking for in search of a more complete understanding, or a better idea of “what Gundam is really about”. So for a substantial part of the Western anime fandom, especially at the time, Gundam Wing was Gundam, full stop.

There’s some truth to this criticism as well, but as more and more time has passed, my answer to that has increasingly become summarized by three simple words: So fucking what?

The existence of Gundam Wing as some kind of aberration from the main or “true” Gundam series does not in any way detract from the larger franchise’s messages. It does not somehow render all of the previous series nonexistent or irrelevant, or misrepresent some crusty neckbeard’s notions of What Gundam Is Really About (tm). It’s just a Gundam show that’s different from the pre-established norm. Most of this criticism reeks of either “Liking the ‘wrong’ parts of Gundam” or “Liking Gundam in a way I disagree with”, either of which amounts to the same ugly, ugly thing: fandom gatekeeping. That’s a shitty attitude to have about anything, and I say this knowing that I’m just a poor sinner like everyone else, and have been (and probably am now, and certainly will be in future) guilty of this exact thing about something at various points in my life. But that doesn’t make it right, and doesn’t change the fact that good, bad, or otherwise, there’s no harm in just liking a thing.

If anything, the broader-scope Gundam nerds should be thankful to Gundam Wing. Its success opened the door for more of the franchise to come westward when it would have been largely unable to do so on its own merits, thanks to the combined problem of age and complexity that I mentioned earlier. From a business perspective, Gundam Wing was the perfect stepping-stone to get the rest of the franchise some exposure in the West thanks to its broad appeal and self-contained nature, the lever to wedge into a gap and pry it open.

So what do I like about the show? Well, I’ve had a fair amount of opportunity to think about that recently.

As a brief aside: One thing that jumped out at me as I watched this time around – the first in literally twenty years – is that there’s little to no detectable cheesecake fanservice throughout. Nobody in this show is designed to titillate, save perhaps for the pilots. It’s a breath of fresh air compared to a mecha show like, say, Darling in the Franxx, which is shockingly dull for an anime that is so blatantly about sex that I keep being surprised when it doesn’t transition into flat-out pornography.

While the cast is overwhelmingly male, its focus on male characters was (as previously mentioned) designed to appeal to a female audience. So the characters’ relationships take precedence over any notions of power fantasy – a fact further reinforced by the previously mentioned tendency of the main characters to regularly lose battles. And the women in the show all give a good account of themselves when they’re the focus of the action. Sally Po is a competent operator who always has a level-headed approach to whatever situation she finds herself in, fighting smarter rather than harder, and never getting in over her head. Lucrezia Noin, Zechs Merquise’s right-hand soldier, is a ferociously skilled mobile suit pilot who could probably go toe to toe with the Gundam pilots themselves were it not for the fact that she never gets to use anything but the bog-standard mobile suits which, in less capable hands, spend most of the show getting blown up. And even then, she gives far, far better than she gets. Lady Une might be an absolute bastard in the beginning, but she has a plan and sticks to it, and let’s be honest: Anyone who eliminates a man who’s outlived his usefulness by throwing him out of a plane midair and then shooting him in the head on the way down is a special kind of badass.

And then, of course, there’s Relena. Poor misunderstood Relena, who spent the entire early aughts in the anime fandom being the butt of multiple jokes and memes that all essentially boiled down to “Durr hurr, she’s crazy!”, expressed with varying levels of cleverness. Relena, who spends the show’s 49-episode run going from inviting Heero to kill her as a way of getting his attention and trying to get him to open up, to being perfectly willing (and surprisingly able) to personally take down her father’s assassin, to becoming an absolute badass pacifist. When she’s maneuvered into a position of absolute power in order to act as Romefeller’s puppet late in the series, she neatly manages to turn the tables on her manipulators, and shows that she holds more of the strings than they think.

And people wonder why Gundam Wing was “inordinately” popular with a female audience at the time.

All that aside, there’s the show itself, taken as a whole, to consider.

At AnimeIowa in 2019, I actually won a copy of the deluxe Blu Ray boxed set in a raffle at the Right Stuf panel, which was one of the highlights of the convention. I’d been wanting to get the series on DVD or Blu Ray for years by that point, but that’s never exactly been a cheap proposition. So the windfall was a very pleasant surprise. It was also a nice bit of synchronicity, as that same convention, nineteen years prior during the height of Gundam Wing’s popularity, was my first ever.

More pleasant still was @squeemcsquee ’s interest when I won it. Not that we differ hugely on the things we enjoy, but there are a fair number of places where the Venn diagram of our interests has no overlap. Shows about giant robots have been traditionally a bit outside her wheelhouse, though she was game to go with me down the rabbit holes of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann (themselves a kind of yin and yang of mecha shows), and enjoyed them both. But I was worried when it came to Gundam Wing. It was rougher around the edges in some ways than either of those two shows, and that made me anxious to show it to her.

(Evangelion is weird and awkward, no question, but its weirdness and awkwardness are, however questionably executed, entirely premeditated).

I was nervous about her reaction to the iffy dub, the occasional ridiculousness of the characters, the way the show tends to take itself very, very seriously, even as it borders on the absurd…

Eventually, we started watching the series together, and I remained nervous for a while, and occasionally touchy when it came to her jokes about the characters.

I have always been highly self-conscious about the things I like when other people are around to see them, and perhaps judge. And although I knew better than to expect judgment in this case, the part of my brain that ramps up the anxiety doesn’t, and never has, reckoned with such trivial concerns as reason, logic, or the lessons of more recent experience. And I suppose it doesn’t help that I come from the tail-end of a generation whose reaction to most media of any kind was deprecation and ironic detachment. The reaction I was used to getting from Gundam Wing, even from its fans, was “Oh, that show with the five pretty boy robot pilots and the crazy chick,” accompanied by much snickering and rolling of the eyes. But that kind of thing tends to go down easier for me when I know it comes from someone familiar with the item in question, from a place of real appreciation. This is partly because, for myself, I tend to enjoy things sincerely. I’ve never quite gotten the hang of liking things ironically.

And as we watched, I was rapidly reminded that I liked Gundam Wing sincerely, while she was still feeling it out, and so her jokes came across wrong.

To be honest, a certain amount of my liking Gundam Wing has nothing to do with messages or storytelling craft, and instead comes down to a matter of pure nostalgia. It was a big deal to the fandom at large, at the beginning of a time when anime fandom in general was an especially big deal for me. I can’t recall any particular aspect of the show that especially impressed me when it was new in the U.S., except maybe for “Rhythm Emotion” by Two Mix, which is used for some of the more momentous battles in the back half of the series. The nostalgia is more a matter of a sort of general warm, rose-tinted memory of the times. I remember friends hyping it to me, and I remember sitting downstairs at my parents’ place watching it late at night, or else having it on in the background while I tried to teach myself how to write – really write. I remember catching the episodes all out of order, having a very, very general idea what was happening, while still being foggy on basically all of the particulars.

I remember buying Gundam model kits at that first AnimeIowa in 2000, which at the time was a small convention that Wikipedia tells me had around 300 attendees. Which is really, really weird, because I would swear blind that there were at least 500 Duo Maxwell cosplayers alone. Later still, I remember playing RayCrisis: Series Termination on the PlayStation when I came home to my parents’ house in the winter of 2000, and realized some of the sound effects from it had been lifted from Gundam Wing (or perhaps both things lifted from a common source).

All of that was very positive, and when I started to hear @squeemcsquee‘s jokes, all of it felt in some obscure way like it was under attack.

But as we pressed on through the series, she went from interest in it as a kind of historical artifact to enjoyment of it for its own sake. We shotgunned the last dozen episodes or so, and if I had any doubts about her disposition after that, the cheesy grin that greeted the reappearance of a presumed-dead character in Endless Waltz put them to rest. And that made it easier to joke about the show, knowing that the teasing came from a good place. And that, in its turn, made it easier to just plain enjoy it, and like it for what it was and is.

There is a core of real quality to Gundam Wing. Buried under all the questionably telegraphed character turns and out-of-nowhere plot developments are the twin messages about how, win or lose, wars must be waged with a certain decorum, and also about how war is terrible, perhaps the most terrible thing there is. And it is because of these things that, perhaps paradoxically, the human factor must not be removed from it. We risk cheapening it, otherwise. And this is not the cheapening of something great and noble into something tawdry – though noble acts can and do occur on the battlefield, and they say something important about humankind – but rather the trivializing of something horrible to the point of forgetting its horror, and thus risking the pursuit of it to our own lasting harm.

And this is no idle message. It’s a rare work whose ideas are more relevant to later generations than to those contemporary with it, but Gundam Wing, of all things, finds itself in that unlikely position. In an age of increasing drone strikes killing civilians and failing to kill their targets, it seems as though Gundam Wing’s message about the automation of war is more relevant than ever. And so once again, we see Treize proven correct, that – good or bad – war is perhaps a fundamentally, unavoidably human thing, and it is only fitting that humans should fight in it.

#Gundam #Gundam Wing #Heero Yuy #quatre raberba winner #chang wufei #duo maxwell #trowa barton #relena peacecraft #bandai #zechs merquise #toonami #anime

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marueonmain · 4 years

Text

WINDFLOWER

part three ~ without the dolphin ~

(part one) (part two) (part three)

A/N: Thank you all so so much for reading! I never thought people would care about my writing and I am so appreciative. I’ve got messages/asks open for comments or questions.

Summary: Y/N warms up to Alex. George advises him to not be an idiot.

Pairing: imallexx x reader

Warning: Secondhand Embarrassment. Mild Language.

Word Count: 2.3k

There was no music in the lift. There was no music to interrupt Alex's music blaring into his ears. If there were someone around, they would have heard his questionable song choice for the four-minute trip from his apartment to meet the deliveryman and back again. Not that that trip required music.

However, consider that the brain could think thousands of thoughts in four minutes, and the chances of those all being pleasant thoughts are minuscule. Why take that chance? Why not drown them all out?

DING the sliding doors opened. Alex stepped out with a bounce in his step set in-time with the backbeat of the chorus playing in his ears.

Coming from around the corner where the mailroom was, Y/N brushed past him in a flash of blue clothing. She did not seem to see him.

But he saw her, like a Where's Wally game he was not aware he was playing. He took out one of his earbuds, slipping it in his pocket. Alex was determined to be normal: to make up for the initial awkwardness of their first meeting.

Y/N walked past the lift and started for the stairs. She was on the fifth or sixth step.

"Red!" called Alex.

"Hmm? Oh, hello," she said, smiling.

"How are you doing?" It was uncomfortable for him to be on a lower plane than to whom he was speaking, but Y/N was not moving, so neither was he.

"Tired."

"For tired, you don't look too bad. No I didn’t—you don't look bad. You look good!" Amidst recovering from his slip, Alex noticed how different Y/N was then last time. Different in appearance, with her softer expression and relaxed shoulders, and in her aurora. It was calmer, more open.

"You look good too. That shade of yellow—" she pointed to his sweatshirt, "—compliments your hair."

"Really? You think?" He thought he might just melt or spill open in front of her.

"I'm not a liar. What are you up to?" Y/N looked around, keeping her head on a slight swivel. She returned to meet Alex's gaze with something like concern shining, hiding behind her animated expression.

"I'm meeting a deliveryman. If you want, you could come and eat pizza with George and me." After a short beat, he added, "Invite Sammy too."

"Is George your flatmate or..." Y/N intentionally trailed off.

"Flatmate." Alex thought he might have seen Y/N's smile widen more so for a second at his answer. But he could not be sure what he saw was real or just a manifestation of what he wished to see.

"He sounds nice."

"George? Yeah, he's lovely. Not as lovely as me, of course."

Nodding in mock seriousness, Y/N confirmed, "Of course."

It was a simple conversation, but it felt so alive: so real: so this is happening right now and Alex felt so present. Like looking at himself in the mirror late at night and being hit with the conscious recognition of I am a person. Here I am this corporeal being. Not made of words or thoughts, what I find funny or opinions I like, my mental state or view count.

Alex was real talking to Y/N. Words were free-flowing out of him as he processed and reacted simultaneously. Such an understanding – if harnessable – could lead to solutions for world hunger or maybe even get him to three million subscribers within the year.

"So, you'll come along?"

"I can't." Y/N frowned a slight frown. Her nervous nature returned as she cleared her throat and began to fiddle with her fingers.

"Come on, Red," his voice whined with the plea before stabilizing, "It'll be fun. It's not just pizza. I was planning on throwing together a salad as well to go with it."

"How healthy."

"Oh? Do you not know?" Alex paused so Y/N could shake her head. "I'm only buying a pizza to support local businesses; I'm really an expert in the kitchen."

"Is that right?" She raised an eyebrow.

"World-renowned."

"You know what? I see it now. Better than Ramsey, aren't you?"

"Leagues better. I'd challenge any chef to rival my bagged salad mix. It's spectacular – delicious."

Y/N giggled, and Alex joined.

Music had continued to blare from the earbud he left in, but he had been able to ignore it during the conversation. Until a particular song came on – one he downloaded as a joke – and he heard the line: got our song...up and ready

Did Alex wish Y/N and he had a song? No, that was dumb. An unrealistic expectation the romance genre shoved upon its (generally) female audience. But did he? Kind of. It would be cute. Men can want to be cute, too, right?

"So, you'll come?" he asked...again.

Y/N fiddled with the collar of her chin-hugging top. "I would, but I can't. Sam would—don't you think you've made your deliveryman wait long enough?"

"Probably. You have some time to change your mind; just ring me if you do."

"I don't have your number."

"Alright," he made a give it here gesture, "I'll plug it in."

Y/N's bright expression faltered a smidge as she relinquished her phone to him. It was an older model but still a smartphone: no passcode: no apps other than those built-in. Her wallpaper was a picture of Sammy and her on a nature walk.

Alex’s prominent adam's apple jumped. A pain like indigestion or like guilt stabbed him in the stomach. After plugging in his number, he took an extra second to double-check it and add some personal flair.

Y/N took her phone back. "Why the emoji? I think I'll know who you are without the..." Y/N squinted at the screen. "...without the dolphin."

"Never know. It could be a good reminder."

"I suppose, it does match your eyes," she muttered, still focused on the phone. Y/N froze for a second, clearly not having meant to say that out loud.

"There you go, it's perfect. Don't be afraid to call or text me; I'm on that thing 24/7, and I promise to reply in at least one-to-two business days. Guaranteed."

She scoffed, "You should go get your pizza."

It would not be the first or fifth time Alex had forgotten about a deliveryman, and – while he would let his extra-large go stone-cold before willingly break off a conversation with her – it was apparent Y/N was itching to get somewhere.

"True." Alex gave a short wave, maintaining his distance. "I'll see you later."

"Bye.” Y/N disappeared up the stairs.

~LATER~

Alex balanced the extra-large pizza box in one hand. Never having worked in food service, his confidence in doing so was even lower than his regular self-confidence. With his other hand, he patted himself down, looking for the key to his apartment. He cursed at himself for having locked it out of habit when he left.

There was muffled shouting coming from inside – sounding both playful and angry. It took a single step through the door for Alex to recognize the source of the shouting.

George was in his bedroom watching a video back without his headphones on.

A great grief. A true unseen struggle for all youtubers – headphones were uncomfortable. Constant low-pressure squeezing developed into the biggest hazard of the job: chronic headaches. Both flatmates had expressed how they sometimes woke up to the feeling like they needed to relieve a phantom pressure and take off their headphones despite not wearing them to bed.

"Take high ground," a familiar voice commanded. "You have to down this guy."

Pre-recorded George asked, "Where is he?"

"Left. LEFT! Your left! Goddammit George, you dyslexic bitch."

It was with bitch that Alex recognized the other voice in the recording– it was Joshy, and it was a fortnite video from the sound of it.

"This gun is so weak it's hitting nine damage," pre-recorded George complained.

Joshy screamed, "Let's go; we got to go!"

"You do your thing. I'll be over there in a bit."

Their bickering continued sounding identical in tone to that of a couple outside divorce court. Viewers loved how shit George was at fortnite and how increasingly frustrated that made Joshy: the shouting, the swearing, the idle threats and name-calling. Pairing up together for these types of gameplay videos would often have them banging out a quarter to half a million views per video.

Meanwhile. Alex placed the pizza box on the coffee table and fell onto the sofa with an exhausted sigh. Sitting up, he grabbed at the box lid and started claiming the best-looking slices in his head.

Eyes flickered to the closed-door: George had not heard him come in – surely not. And he would not be mad if Alex started in on devouring the pizza without him – surely not. Right?

Stacking two slices on top of one another, Alex crammed them into his mouth quick, as if scared they would be taken away from him, and burned his tongue.

"Help me," pleaded the pre-recorded George, "Help me. Help me."

"Nah. Don't think I will."

"Josh, if you don't revive me right now. I swear to god, I will piss in your mouth while you sleep."

Alex snorted, choking on the third slice of pizza he had fit in his big mouth; he had been on the receiving end of that piss threat before, several times. Most recently because he left a plate in the sink and George swore if Alex did not clean it that second, he would...well...piss in his mouth.

"That's not very nice." Joshy mimicked genuine sadness. "I got you."

1/3 of the pizza was gone, and Alex decided it fair to call George in before he scranned it all himself. "George! Pizza's here!"

"Alright!" George (the real not the pre-recorded) shouted back. There was the sound of his door closing and the padding of his socked feet down the short hall before he appeared around the corner. Met with Alex and the 2/3 of a room temperature pizza, he asked the appropriate, "What the fuck?"

"I was starved."

"And here I was thinking the one excuse I would accept for taking twenty years to get the pizza was that you'd run into the street and got hit.”

Alex spoke around his mouth being full, "Sorry."

"Whatever." He snuck in a quick smack against the side of Alex's head as he joined him on the sofa.

Both men sat in silence, shoving slices of pizza into their mouth like it was a competition. Like there was no other food in their apartment. Like they could not order another pizza. Like it proved something.

Breaking the silence, Alex swiped the sleeve of his sweatshirt across his mouth and asked, "Are we still filming that opening pokemon cards video tomorrow?"

"Yes. Just need someone to film the over-the-shoulder angle. Lewis is sick."

"Sick with what?"

"Not the bug." George rolled his eyes mockingly. His eating had slowed down after hitting the wall, half-way through his fifth slice. "It's like a cold or something. Could you ask your new mate Sammy to do it?"

"Why not ask Will to come down?"

"Don't trust him," he said, shrugging.

"Fair enough. I'll ask him when we hit the pub later." Alex stood and walked to the kitchen. At the sink, he washed his hands with dish detergent and, cupping his hands into a bowl, washed around his mouth with the soapy water. Satisfied, he took a towel to his hands and face before returning to see George shutting the lid on the pizza box. "What do you think of Sammy?"

"How do you mean?"

"Just in general."

George shrugged. "He's cool."

"Yeah," Alex agreed – because he did agree with the statement; he liked Sammy.

There was a pause, and, in the interlude, George stood and grabbed the pizza box. He brought it to the kitchen bin; balancing it on top the overflowing rubbish. Curious and perhaps thinking he heard a tonal shift in their dialogue, George settled himself to be pressing his shoulder against the wall nearest where Alex stood. Leaning like he was in a how do you do fellow kids meme.

Alex felt very much 'squared up' to. He turned to be met with a quick tilt of the head and a scrutinizing near-glare from his flatmate. It was not unlike George to stick his nose in where it does not belong; could this be considered that type of situation? Alex did ask for his opinion.

Clearing his throat, George asked, "Is this about Y/N?"

"I was talking to her earlier and—"

"Why were you talking to her?"

"—and I got the sense that Sammy might be like a tad controlling. I don't know."

"Are you serious?" George asked harshly before continuing in a softer voice – with a hint of hesitation, of caution, "You know what happens when you jump to conclusions like that. You shouldn't be chatting up Y/N behind Sammy's back."

"It wasn't like I cornered her. We ran into each other." Alex tugged on his sleeves, pulling them past his shaking fingers – seconds away from crawling into himself.

It was not playful bullying between friends anymore; it was a telling off. And neither was comfortable. George's eyes pleaded for Alex to look up and meet them, and for Alex to understand. Alex held no negative feelings toward George. But Alex hated himself for reacting as he was; he hated being human and having sensitive moments. Though he could not stop it.

"You have got to back off. Ok?" George confirmed, "If it means we can't have Sammy in the friend group, then that's what it means. We'll find someone else to film for us tomorrow."

"No, it's fine. I'll ask him," Alex said as he pulled up and straightened his posture. He smiled at George's concerned expression and added, "I'm not interested in Y/N."

#imallexx #imallexx imagine #imallexx x reader #alex elmslie #alex elmslie imagine #alex elmslie x reader #internet sensation #commentary crew #eboys #memeulous

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gallickingun · 4 years

Note

I hope you don't mind me asking... How did you get followers? I want to start my own blog but I want to make sure I can reach audiences I want to reach. I don't have any friends who know I write, and honestly I'm not sure I'd want them to read my works anyway. I get embarrassed easily. It's much easier for me to talk to someone that I don't have a face for. Does that make sense? Probably not. But how did you start your adventure here?

I want to preface this with follower count can make sense, or it can’t. I’ve made friends with some of the most amazing, most talented writers who have less than a thousand followers. I’ve made friends with amazing, talented writers who have thousands of followers. I genuinely don’t know how to trick the algorithm into listening to you, haha, but just know that numbers don’t equal talent; popularity does not always equal skill. So please, even if you don’t have the high follower count of someone else, don’t let it discourage you from writing! Everyone starts somewhere, and everyone grows differently.

But, I’ve found that it all depends on who you write for, what you write, and how often you write.

Who you write for: Bakugou is one of the most popular characters. I truly didn’t know this when I entered the fandom, but it was really what got me started on the upward climb. I’m by no means a big blogger, lol, but I know that writing for Bakugou was what helped me out initially. He was originally the only character who I could write for because he was my favorite and I hadn’t really gotten too far into the show. I think the same goes for other fandoms - if you write for the more popular characters, who have more content in demand because they have more fans, you’re more likely to gain more followers.

DISCLAIMER: Do not let this keep you from writing for other characters who are less popular, if you prefer to write for them. Content is needed for all characters! I am desperate for some Sugawara content, but he’s not one of the more popular characters that people write for (see: Kuroo, Ushiwaka, Bokuto, Oikawa, Iwa, and Akaashi). If we only focus on the popular characters, the ones that get us the most growth, but those aren’t the characters we love, the content can seem disingenuous, if that makes sense. I got lucky by Bakugou being my favorite. But like, when I try to push out Kaminari content, I find that it’s a real struggle for me because I don’t necessarily vibe with Kaminari as a character. The same goes in reverse. If the minor characters have your heart, but you try to force out content for the popular characters, it can be tough to write and come across like you don’t really want to write it. Write who you want to write!

What you write: This is a really big deal right now, but I’m just gonna say it lol. NSFW gets more notes. I don’t say that to force you into writing NSFW content - I actually had never read/written NSFW content until this past March, and I’m 22, going on 23. Originally, when I decided to start writing, I wanted to be NSFW-free, but some stuff changed in life and in writing and I chose to make the change.

Also, I’ve found for each fandom, different things are more prevalent. For instance, the BNHA fandom seems to do a lot of AU’s and full length fics, but the Haikyuu!! fandom seems to do more traditional works that follow canon and then the content itself is mostly headcanons and short scenarios. I think you have to find what works for you and write it to the best of your ability. I suck at headcanons, I’ve never really been able to do them and they stress me out. So I stick to full length fics. I know this means I’ll do better in one fandom versus the other, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to start only doing headcanons just because it’s what’s popular.

DISCLAIMER: This does NOT mean that just because someone wrote 10k words of smut, that it’s better or more involved than your 10k words of fluff/angst/domestic/etc. writing. Unfortunately, there are horn dogs out there who are especially touch starved during quarantine. It doesn’t make anyone better or worse because they choose to write about being naked versus being clothed. Please don’t let this discourage you from writing SFW-only writing, as there are tons of people out there who are just as desperate for some comfort fics about cuddling completely clothed.

How often you write: When I first started, I had a lot more time on my hands and was able to pump out content much quicker. I grew pretty rapidly in a short period of time because I was able to consistently put out content. Since I’ve gotten more busy and my mental illness has reared it’s ugly head, I’ve not been able to write as much and I can tell my follower count growth had tapered off. But the pace in which you post content generally helps increase your follower count, because people know that you will continuously feed them with the goods! Sometimes it might be good to set a schedule so others know when you’ll be posting - say a new fic every Friday? Or sometimes it can be good to keep your followers engaged with thirst posts (SFW or NSFW), or specific nights where you do events that focus on a certain character or genre.

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT FORCE YOURSELF TO PUSH OUT CONTENT. Please be aware within your own self what your limits are. Just because one writer can sit at home and push out tons of short scenarios and drabbles during the day, but you can’t, doesn’t mean either of you are doing anything wrong. It just means that one person has a different availability than you. I don’t really do thirst posts a ton in the same respect that others do them, because I know that I’ll want to write a whole fic out of the couple of sentences that my followers might send in. However, there are many others within the fandom that can respond with a few paragraphs that take a few minutes to type out. It doesn’t mean that they’re better than me and I’m a horrible writer, it just means that in this area, they’re more skilled or have more time.

Also, don’t be afraid to tag people and send out DMs! I promise your writer idols are not nearly as scary as you think they are. And they’re probably just as excited to get a DM from you as you are to talk to them! I was really hesitant to reach out to anyone before, because I never really did much chatting in other fandoms, but the anime fandoms I’ve been apart of have been very kind and welcoming, and helpful! I made some of my closest friends because I tagged them in my works or I joined a server with them in it, or I read their stuff and reached out to them to fangirl over it. Don’t be afraid to reach out, even if you just keep the conversation focused on your writing, it’ll still be worth it in the end! The worst thing that could happen is they don’t reply or the conversation fizzles out. Either way, you will have made a connection, and blasted one another with some serotonin.

Remember to take breaks. Take a hiatus every once and a while! Take some time for yourself to recharge. If this begins to feel like a job, like an obligation, and you feel yourself dragging your feet just to put out content, please step back and reevaluate. This is a hobby, it’s supposed to be fun. Once it stops being fun, take a breather and reassess what you’re doing. Sometimes this means closing requests, sometimes this means opening requests, sometimes this means participating in collab fics, sometimes this means disconnecting entirely. This is just tumblr, in the end, and you should be able to take care of yourself first rather than pinning yourself into a corner to try and post content for the sake of your followers. In the end, everyone wants you to be happy and healthy, so you can put your best foot forward in life and in your hobbies. So please, for the love of everything, take a break every now and then. Disconnect, recharge, and regroup.

I also had a blog before this one, my main, so I’ve been on tumblr for eight year prior to this. I’m not going to even claim that I begin to understand how this hellsite works, but I will say that I’ve been writing on here for a while now, since way back to my band blog days. Eventually you just write what you want to write, and chat with your followers and your friends, and you’ll grow organically. When you start to pressure yourself over it, it can become like a cloud looming over you, and then when you don’t perform up to your preset standards, it might be a little disappointing. Follower milestones are cool to want to achieve and celebrate, but don’t pour all your focus into them. For the most part, I use milestones for celebration events to give back to my followers, or to set goals for myself like opening commissions! But they don’t determine my worth as a writer, because sometimes the tumblr algorithm is more giving to some rather than others.

Whew, this was a doozy. But I hope it helped! Some of these answers might come off a little crass, but I’m just trying to be honest. Don’t let anything deter you from doing whatever the hell you wanna do.

You wanna write that rarepair? DO IT. You wanna write character x character? DO IT. You wanna write about your Original Characters? DO IT.

Whatever it is you want to do, do it! And have a helluva time doing it 💕

#morgan gives advice #Anonymous #morgan gets mail

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jalapeno-princess · 4 years

Audio

Mark Tuan X Reader

Genre: Angst (Y’all this is my first imagine without a happy ending and I honestly think it is shit because I can’t write angst to save my life HAHAHAHA)

Summary: Two months ago, you broke up with your boyfriend of four years, Mark Tuan. Your mutual friend Jinyoung invites you over to his apartment to see how you’re doing. When Jinyoung excuses himself to grab something from his room, it’s in that moment you stumble upon a letter from Mark and you find yourself aching to read what it says.

Word Count: 4.3K

A/N: “Norman Fucking Rockwell” has been on repeat lately and I couldn’t stop listening to this song and I began to write this it didn’t come out the way I wanted it to but whatever

I shouldn't have done it, but I read it in your letter You said to a friend that you wish you were doing better I wanted to reach out, but I never said a thing I shouldn't have done it, but I read it in your letter You said to a friend that you wish you were doing better I wanted to call you, but I didn't say a thing

“Dear Jinyoung,

Hey man. It’s been a while. I’ve been meaning to call you. I just don’t really have the time nor the energy to do so these days. How have you been? I’m sorry for leaving on such short notice. I just..I needed to get out of California. Everywhere I went reminded me of her. God. I miss her so much Jinyoung. I know. You’re probably going to tell me that I’m an idiot. And you’re probably doing that thing with your brows. But I can’t stop thinking about her. I wish I could say I’m moving on and that I’m doing better. But we all know I’m not. Do you know how she’s doing by any chance? Damnit, sorry. I shouldn’t talk about her. Anyways, Greece is really cool so far. It’s a very beautiful place but it’s so fucking hot. You know how much I hate the heat. I’m sure y/n would love it..fuck. I should end it here. I hope you’re doing well. Maybe when you have the time, you could come up here sometime. Call me when you get this.-Mark”

It took you a while for you to realize that you were crying. But when the ink began to smear, you knew you had to put the letter down. Jinyoung had asked you to come over to his apartment to see how you were doing. Once you arrived, you took a seat at his bar while he went to grab something from his room.

As you were entertaining yourself while playing animal crossing on your phone, you couldn’t help but notice the envelope on his kitchen counter; it’s as if it was calling for you. When you saw who it was from, your fingers were aching to open it and to see what he had written. It‘s been a little over two months since your break up, yet you were still so hung up over him.

The break up was mutual. Like a lot of relationships, the two of you grew apart and no matter how much you both loved each other, sometimes love was no longer enough. You initiated the breakup, and God, you’ve been regretting it for the last few months. Breaking up with Mark was probably the biggest mistake you’ve ever made. However, he was quick to agree with you. He didn’t fight for your relationship like you had wished he would have. You were holding on to a tiny piece of hope that he would want to fix things. That he would want to start your relationship over and try again. But as he left your apartment with his suitcase filled with all of his things, you knew it was over.

When he left, you were sure he took a huge part of you with him. The pain you felt from losing him was excruciating. Your friends and some of your family members would always describe to you how painful a broken heart was but you never would believe them. At one point, your relationship with Mark was one that everyone seemed to envy. It was obvious that Mark was head over heels in love with you by how he was so quick to do anything you asked of him. Love wasn’t even a good enough word to describe what the two of you felt for each other.

You didn’t think that anything could tear your relationship apart, nor did you think you were going to ever experience the pain of a broken heart. That was until you found yourself crying in the middle of your kitchen floor, crying, screaming and begging for him to come back all the while downing an entire bottle of red wine. You felt pathetic. It was you who wanted this, why were you so upset over it? You didn’t want to break up with him. If you had the choice, the two of you would still be together. However, things were no longer the same. There was no spark in your relationship anymore. The two of you did your own things, you were always your own person before you were Mark’s.

With that being said, you would never run things past him anymore. If you were going out with your friends or staying back at work, you didn’t feel the need to tell him your whereabouts like you used to. Nor did you guys really communicate with each other unless you really had to. On most nights, the two of you would stay up until the wee hours of the morning, talking about anything your hearts desired. Towards the end of your relationship, all you would talk about was the weather and something interesting he would see on television.

You could feel the distance growing deeper between the two of you as the days went by and what upset you, was that it never seemed to bother him. It was as if he was okay that your relationship was falling apart and you were tired of being the only one trying to keep it together. The two of you had made so many plans together. Dating someone for almost four years was quite a long time, so it was understandable that you were so broken over it. Although, the main reason you kept beating yourself up over the break up was because you knew Mark was the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. You were willing to stay with him, even if things were no longer what they used to be. You would rather have him around, no matter how dull and lifeless your relationship had become rather than to not have him in your life at all.

Learning to live without him was probably the hardest part. Both you and Mark would do everything together. He was a part of your everyday routine and you didn’t know how to continue without him. That’s why alcohol became your best friend. You found yourself getting drunk almost every single day. The amount of vodka you consumed was actually scary, but you didn’t care. It helped fill the void in your heart that Mark created when he left. You hated waking up without him. The room that you both shared for the last four years that used to be so warm and full of happy memories, was now cold as ice. No matter how many times you would wash the bed sheets, his side of the bed still smelled like him and it taunted you. You missed the feeling of his arms wrapped around you. His arms felt like the safest place in the world.

You couldn’t stop thinking about how he would hide his face in the crook of your neck because you knew it would calm him down. How he would always run a bath for you when you had a long day of work and how he would blow dry your hair right after you were done because he knew you were tired. You missed every single thing about him. How safe you felt with him around. How he never failed to make you smile by telling you the cheesiest jokes. The sweet nothings he would whisper in to your ear while he held you close to his body after your passionate love making sessions. You missed who you used to be when he was still in your life.

You were soon broken out of your thoughts when you heard the refrigerator door open and you immediately dropped the letter. Your eyes widened in shock and you looked like a little child who had just got caught stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. The letter was already opened, so you didn’t see anything wrong with reading it. But you were ultimately regretting your choice all together when you saw his facial expression. Jinyoung crossed his arms while smirking at you and leaned back against the fridge. “”I’ve been good Jinyoung. I’ve moved on. Stop worrying about me.” So tell me miss “I’ve been good”, care to explain why you’re reading a letter that’s not addressed to you?” You released an exhausted sigh and shrugged.

Why did you feel the need to read Mark’s letter? You knew there was a huge chance Jinyoung would catch you doing so. And why did it matter to you what the letter said? The two of you were no longer together for a reason. But now that you were aware that he missed you and that he moved away to get away from the memory of you only got you to miss him even more. So many thoughts were going through your head. He said he wished he was doing better, but how exactly was he doing? Did he regret moving away? Was he regretting your break up and did he wish he tried harder to save your relationship? He also mentioned that he had yet to move on, so did that mean he was trying to? Or was he still in love with you the way you would probably always be with him?

He was your first and only love and you were sure if soulmates exist, then he was yours. However, that did not necessarily mean he was meant to be in your life forever. Things happen and people change. Sometimes we lose the ones we love no matter how badly we want to keep them in our lives and there is nothing we can do about it. There was nothing you could do about losing Mark. Some things just weren’t meant to be. If he didn’t want to stay, you couldn’t force him to. But if he was hurting as much as you were, did this mean he was willing to end both your misery and his by getting back together?

As much as you loved the thought of having the love of your life return back to you and patch up everything that was broken, what exactly would it do? Deep down, you knew that things wouldn’t change. The two of you would only go back to the lack of intimacy, connection, boring conversations and miscommunication. Even if you were to tell Mark you were still so in love with him, and how you want nothing more than for him to come back so that the two of you could be together again, you know it wouldn’t do anything. The two of you broke up for a reason. Nothing lasts forever. If the two of you were meant to be together, neither of you would’ve allowed your relationship to end the way it did.

He said so himself one time when the two of you were watching the sunset at Santa Monica Pier while he sat you on his lap and left lingering kisses all across your back. You were upset to see how quickly the sun had set. It was winter at that time and compared to how the sun would normally set at 10:00 p.m., during the winter it was usually gone before 6:00 p.m. He found himself giggling at how adorable you looked with your arms crossed against your chest and your brows furrowed. “You’re so cute, you know that right? God. How did I get so lucky? I want to spend the rest of my life watching sunsets with you. Don’t be so upset baby, nothing gold can stay. We’ll just have to come back tomorrow afternoon. And the day after day. And the day after that.” At the time, you compared his words to that of the sunset. You didn’t think it would foreshadow the end of your relationship.

“Jinyoung?” The older boy looked at you with soft eyes and hummed in curiosity. “Did you call him?” He shook his head in disagreement before heading towards you.

“I only opened the letter this morning. Why? Did you wanna call him right now?” By the wide grin on his face, you knew he was messing with you. You rolled your eyes while bringing your fingers to the bridge of your nose, pinching it out of frustration. There was nothing more you wanted to do than to smack that smirk off of Jinyoung’s face. He was enjoying this too much. It’s as if he enjoyed the fact that you were suffering. Did he open the letter and called you over in hopes of you finding it and wanting to read it?

Out of all the members in their group of friends, you and Mark were closest with Jinyoung. The three of you spent so much of your time together and he saw just how much the two of you loved each other. That’s why he was pretty upset to hear that his favorite couple called it quits, especially because he had already planned for himself to be the best man at your wedding.

“You can say whatever you want to try and lie to me y/n, but the tears in your eyes speak the truth. You miss him and you’re probably still in love with him. It’s only natural. Your breakup was only two months ago, neither of you are expected to move on so quickly. I see it in your eyes and in the expression on your face, you love him y/n. You’re always going to love him. God, the two of you are both so stubborn. You’re obviously meant to be together, so why don’t you put your big girl pants on and tell him how you feel? I’ve never seen either of you so broken like this before and your only solution is..each other.” As he continued his speech, you felt the tears flow out like a dam. Each and every word hit at your chest and you knew he was right. But like what you had thought right after reading the letter, what good would it do? And what if he didn’t want to get back with you? What if you were to call him and he would get irritated with you for doing so?

You knew Mark like the back of your hand. Four years together made you an expert on his feelings and emotions and whenever the two of you would argue or fight, he didn’t like when you would try and amend things right after. He always needed time to think, no matter how much he hated being away from you. This situation was no different. You were sure he was going to be bothered by the fact that you were the one to end the relationship only to want to get back together months later. Even if he was hurting right now, you knew he’d be fine in a few more months. You couldn’t say the same for yourself though.

Jinyoung released a long sigh before pulling you in to a hug. He placed a soft kiss on your forehead and shrugged. “I just want the best for the two of you. You know that right? I’m not trying to force you to do anything you don’t want to. But you never know what could happen y/n. It might just bring him back here. You know he probably hates it there. Probably hates being without you even more.”

Before you knew it, his phone was being placed in your hands while he walked over to where you were previously sitting. You scrolled through his contact list until you saw Mark’s photo and hovered over it for a few seconds. You surprised both yourself and Jinyoung when you pressed the call button and your heart rate increased with every ring. Minutes felt like hours waiting for him to pick up and when you head his voice echoing through the phone, your stomach sank. “Jinyoung? Hey. I see you got my letter. How’ve you been? Hello? Jinyoung? Are you there? Did you butt dial me again?” Hearing his voice again after two months sent you through a frenzy. You missed it. You missed him.

Hearing him talk brought back so many memories of how you would get him to sing to you almost every night. Although he hated his voice, you claimed that his singing would calm you down. However, it was just an excuse to hear his pretty voice that you loved so much. Jinyoung looked at you in confusion before getting up and quickly taking the phone out of your hands. You were shaking, it was all too much for you to take in. You so badly wanted to talk to him, but you didn’t know what to say. I’m still in love with you. I miss you. Come back to me. There were so many things you wanted to tell him lingering on the tip of your tongue, yet nothing came out. Luckily Jinyoung took over and began a conversation with him.

“Yeah. I just read it this morning. What part of Greece are you at again? I forgot. I’m alright. School is shit if that’s what you’re asking. The guys miss you, our outings aren’t the same without you here bro.” He giggled through the phone and you felt butterflies swarming in your tummy at the noise. His laughter was your favorite sound in the world. You felt a small smile graze at your lips and you wanted nothing more than to be the reason behind his laughter again.

“Yeah I miss you guys too. I’m not going to lie, it does get pretty lonely here and like I said, it is hot as fuck. I’m always in my room with the air conditioning on high. I’m glad they don’t charge for shit like that because if they did, i’m fucked. But it is very beautiful and the people here are very friendly.” To your dismay, Jinyoung asked the unthinkable, but you couldn’t blame him. You were just as curious when you read that part of his letter.

“Any girl catch your eye yet? Europe has many beautiful women I’m sure.” You could feel your chest tighten while waiting for his response. But what did it matter? You no longer had the right to get jealous if he were to even look at other girls. You were always the jealous type, but that was only because you felt as if Mark deserved better than you. You didn’t consider yourself to be all that pretty. Nor did you think you were smart, funny or anything special really. But Mark never failed to make you feel as if you were the most beautiful girl in the world and he always made sure you knew just how much he loved you both physically and verbally every single day.

“I mean..they’re okay. I’m not here for the girls Jinyoung. You know that. There’s only one girl for me and it’s always going to be her. She’s the only girl in my eyes. How um..how is she?” Your breath hitched at his sweet words and you felt yourself tearing up again.

“She’s here right now if you want to talk to her. She also heard everything you just said..do what you want with that information Mark.” Your eyes widened in shock and you couldn’t believe he just threw you under the bus like that. You couldn’t even handle hearing Mark talk, how could you start a conversation with him? The silence made you feel as if he was thinking the same thing. At first, you thought he had hung up. But then you heard his shallow breaths and after a few moments, you found yourself giving in.

“Hey.” You felt a huge weight being lifted off of your shoulders and all you had to do was wait for his response.

“Hi.” Jinyoung couldn’t help but cringe at how awkward the two of you were acting. From an outsiders point of view, no one would ever know that the two of you were once lovers who could never get enough of each other.

“You um..you heard all of that?”

You let out an exhausted sigh. “Yeah. I also may have accidentally read your letter. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry.” Although you couldn’t see him, you were sure he was shaking his head in disagreement. He always had such a soft spot for you. If you made a mistake or did something you weren’t supposed to, he would always let it slide because he never wanted you to feel bad. He wasn’t upset that you read his letter, he was upset that he didn’t know what to say or react to this entire interaction.

“Did you really move to a whole new country just to get away from me?” You never hated yourself more than you did in that moment. Mark left his friends, his family, his scholarships that he worked so hard for and his internship at a veterinary clinic just because he could no longer stand being in Los Angeles. All because of you.

“Don’t put it that way y/n. I came here for for the experiences too. I want to travel around the world while I’m still young, remember? As much as I like it here so far, I’ll probably be coming back soon. One can only last so long in a place where they don’t understand the language all too well.” You quietly laughed to yourself at the thought of Mark getting lost somewhere in Greece and him getting all flustered when he had to ask for directions.

“How have you been? How’s school? Did you end up getting the job at that one doctor’s office?” Your heart warmed when he brought it up. Mark was an amazing listener, but sometimes he could forget things pretty easily. When it came to you however, he remembered every single detail and he knew how much the job opportunity meant to you.

“I did..but um...things just didn’t work out and I ended up leaving.” That was partially true. You had gotten the job just a couple of days after the breakup. As much as you wanted to be excited that you finally got the job you’ve been dreaming about for months, you couldn’t find it in you to be happy for yourself.

You had just lost the love of your life, your best friend. How could you do anything other than wallow in self pity and cry over what no longer was? You knew you weren’t in the right mind to be working in such a prestigious office, so you quit just days after being hired; telling them that you had already agreed to another offer. If only that was the case. The longer you stayed on the phone with him and talked as if nothing was wrong, the more you craved more. Your heart was begging you to tell him that you missed him, that you wanted to pretend as if the last two months never happened. You wanted Mark to know that you were suffering without him and that you made a brief lapse of judgement when you broke up with him. But you knew there was no point. It would only spark more questions you didn’t have the answers to.

“Oh. Well I’m sure you’ll find another job soon. Anyone would be really lucky to have you.” With the way that last sentence slipped off of his tongue, you weren’t quite sure if he was referring to job employers or something else.

Jinyoung began to glare at you. He knew there was more you wanted to say, so why were you so adamant on staying silent? If looks could kill, you’d be dead by the scowl he was sending your way. You didn’t cry when reading the letter for no reason. Mark’s words obviously had an effect on you, and you heard what he said to you on the phone. What was stopping you from ending both your loneliness and your suffering?

“Y/n if I come back maybe we could-“

“Mark I think I should-“ You both giggled as he told you to continue what you were about to say.

“I should go. I don’t wanna keep wasting your time. It was nice talking to you.”

“Y/n wait-“ Before he could continue his sentence, you handed the phone back over to Jinyoung while reaching for your bag and immediately left his apartment. No matter how badly you wanted to hear what he had to say, you had a feeling he was hinting towards meeting up with you again. Your mind was in a battle with your heart. Your heart wanted to listen to what he had to say but your mind knew it was the wrong thing to do.

Love was an indescribable feeling. It was also a very scary feeling and you didn’t think you could go through all of the heartbreak you suffered in the last few months if you were to give your relationship with Mark one more chance. Sure, there was a chance that things would be different this time. Losing him was the most painful thing you’ve ever experienced and although you wanted to think that getting back together with him would end your suffering, what if it were to bring more? What if getting back in to a relationship with Mark only brought more sadness and more negativity? Maybe your break up was for the best and you needed to accept it for what it was.

If there was one thing you were sure about, it was the fact that you would always love Mark. Hearing him say that you were the only girl for him sparked something in you and you wanted to act on his words. But something just kept holding you back. Maybe one day, the two of you would find your way back to each other and end up together the way you had planned initially. If he were to come back to California, then maybe you’d see where things would go from there. Until then, you’d continue to learn how to live without him. For both your happiness and his.

Oh, I'll pick you up If you come back to America, just hit me up 'Cause this is crazy love, I'll catch you on the flip side If you come back to California, you should just hit me up

#got7 imagines #got7 drabbles #got7 scenarios #got7 #got7 mark #mark tuan #got7 angst #mark tuan imagines #mark tuan angst #kpop imagines #yall #this song has been haunting me #and i feel as if it matches him perfectly #i miss got7 #and i really miss mark

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thefanficmonster · 3 years

Note

I may or may not have just sent the 3 word challenge in my real account instead of anon... I'm sorry. Please don't answer there. :)

When you post, post answering here please.

Again, much love,

📚🌻

Don't worry dear! Your identity shall remain a secret 🥰 Here's yet another fic with my Resident Evil OC: Gwen Winters (she’s an adult guys, don’t worry. However this is still an Older Man/Younger Woman relationship)

The words dear 📚🌻 Anon gave me in their previous ask were: Unruly, endurable and system. Please enjoy!

What happens in the gym....

Pairing: Chris Redfield x Female OC

Warnings: Swearing, Spoiler Free 😊

Genre: Angsty Romance

“Sure, throw me in the fire like you always do, Leon!“ Chris snaps, clenching his fists tightly as he glares at his best friend while the two stand in the dimly lit gym.

“Chris, you’re a BSAA captain, for the love of God! You should know better than to complain about something as little as this!“ Leon, while significantly calmer tone and demeanor-wise, is glaring daggers of his own.

“Why me, damn it?! And why her?!“ Chris is not done with his attempts to get out of the situation Leon’s trying to land him in and his partner’s honestly done with it.

“And why not?! You see the same potential I see, why would it be so hard to train her? She’s a quick learner, she’s disciplined when she wants to be and she’s already skilled to a certain degree. You’ve made soldiers out of total wimps before, why is she such a hassle to you?!“

“Because she’s disciplined when she wants to be and I guarantee she won’t want to when she’s around me. She’s unruly, selfish, arrogant and a Chris-phobe. I’m telling you, she hates me!“

It’s about time Leon’s had enough of this conversation. To be honest, he was done with it as soon as it started but he stayed, thinking he’d be able to change Chris’ mind but seeing as how this is a hopeless case, he’s just been wasting his time. “Does she? Or are you projecting your hate for her onto her?” Slinging his duffel bag containing his training gear over his shoulder, Leon finally makes that realization that these are ten minutes of his life he’ll never get back and storms out of the gym without another word.

Chris doesn’t attempt to stop him, in fact, he’s relieved he left. He sighs, silently hating himself for all the shit he said and how he meant none of it. It was all hard bullshit and he doesn’t know whether to be thankful or disappointed that Leon didn’t realize. Either way, he’s been cleared of possible suspicion, even if training the newest BSAA rookie still remains as his task.

Gwen Winters, she’s such a fucking handful. One cannot tell if it’s because she’s angry with the world, angry with herself or just straight up picked up on the habits of the family that took her in when she was rescued from Raccoon City where she was held as an experiment hamster. A chemistry project basically. Ethan and Mia were recovering from the events back in Louisiana at the time, still probably are, that is not some shit you get over, so they thought having another person in the house would help them. And help Gwen did. See, Gwen isn’t a handful with everyone. In fact, she’s a real sweetheart and Chris knows it too, despite his bogus claims. He knows she’s got a heart and soul of gold and is built with the will of a BSAA soldier already. All she needs is a bit better fighting skills and she’s good to go.

He sees how she acts with everyone around him. She’s been quick to make friends with Jill and his sister Claire and she’s even got Leon’s liking and trust which is hella hard to get, especially after all the shit with Ada. She’s overall a super sweet and lovely girl, even with him from time to time. He’s seen her welcoming, friendly smiles whenever he stops by the Winters’ home. He’s heard her laugh at the jokes he rarely cracks.

Then why does she act like she hates him so often? And why does he claim he hates her?

Chris is snapped back to reality by the sound of rough impact. It’s a very distinct noise, one he places immediately: the sound of fists hitting a punching bag. It’s the middle of the night, almost midnight actually, and knowing how lazy the soldiers on his team are, he can only assume it’s either his sister or Jill, given that Leon just left. However, they’ve had people sneak in to train for free before, so it’d be for the best if he went to check who was releasing some pent up energy on the poor punching bag. Judging by the intensity of the punches being thrown, sounds like the person might be angry as well.

And they have every right to be. Because they are Gwen.

Chris’ face goes a bit red at the sight of the infuriated rookie giving the punching bag her all, punishing it the way she’d want to do to her superior she just heard call her all the names she hates being referred by.

“Winters I-“

“Unruly?“ Punch “Selfish?” Punch “Arrogant?” Punch

She stills herself, sighing and wiping the droplets of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, “You say all that and expect me not to be a Chris-phobe?” She lets out a bitter laugh, rolling her shoulders before continuing her wrath over the piece of equipment she’s threatening to destroy. She hasn’t spared him a single look yet, something he’s rather grateful for because the last thing he wants to see is whatever her gaze is hiding right now. “I’ll talk to Leon.” She says, her voice leveled and breathy, far from the pissed off tone she was just using. This calmness is a lot scarier though. “I’ll tell him I don’t want you to be my trainer. To be perfectly clear, I never wanted you to train me in the first place. I’m just not the type to complain, you know. I’m not picky. Beggers can’t be choosers. I take what I can get. And you were all I was offered, but...” she trails off, delivering a particularly hard punch, “It’s not gonna work. I may not be picky, but I know when to draw the line. I know when I deserve better.”

“Kid, you really have no idea what the case really is here.“ He attempts desperately, taunted by the thought of acting on his instincts and approaching her even if that means being the recipient of one of those hard punches.

“You know, I’m strong. I’m skilled. I can hold my own in a fight quite nicely. I’m endurable. I’m not afraid to work my ass off and sweat and pant like a dog after workouts. There’s not a line I wouldn’t cross, but you still choose to make me feel lesser than any soldier you’ve ever come across, that’s really lovely of you, Captain Redfield.“

“Winters, please...“

“It’s ok, I won’t tell Ethan and Mia. I’m sure they’ll send you to hell over it. I’m not petty like that.“

He’s had enough. He’s had enough of hearing that hurt tone in her voice. He’s done hearing these words she’s so certain are true but aren’t. He’s done lying to her and to himself. Before he can even think twice about it, he grabs her by the arms gently but firmly, turning her to face him despite her hostile attempts to free herself from his hold like a wild animal caught in a trap. He’s surprised when she relaxes, probably seeing that as a quicker way out of the situation rather than struggling though if she tried to free herself any longer he would’ve probably let her go.

“Fucking hell, Gwen, listen to me.“ He looks her dead in the eyes, catching onto the spark of shock created by his use of her first name. But he also sees something else, something that looks dangerously a lot like tears. He knows she won’t cry, especially not in front of him, but knowing that he’s the cause behind the welling of those crystal droplets in her always shiny, always smiling eyes breaks him. When she doesn’t look away nor protest, he continues, “I can’t be your captain. I can’t be your trainer. I can’t be any of that. I’m a strictly professional man, and it’d be highly unprofessional of me to take you in as my soldier.”

“But why?“ She’s fully aware she sounds like a whiny kid - exactly how she thinks he envisions her sometimes - but she couldn’t care less. She wants and needs answers. She knows she won’t be able to fall asleep or keep coming back to the training center if she doesn’t get them.

It’s blatantly clear this is far from easy for Chris. His first instinct is to look away, let go of her, run away like he always does - not that she’d let him do such a thing but still. He’s finds the words impossible to spit out yet he oh so desperately feels the need to get them out of his system. And so, he gathers all the strength within him and finally forces himself to say it.

“Because a captain isn’t supposed to look at a soldier the way I look at you.“

Sure, it sounds cryptic as heck but he has no doubt she’ll catch on. Gwen is a smart and sharp girl, among many other things. She confirms this when barely three seconds after he’s said it, he notices her eyes widening

“Sir, I-“

“Don’t.“ He says simply, a small, regretful smile playing across his lips as his hand slides down her arm to take hold of hers, “I just admitted my dirtiest secret to you and you are still gonna remind me how unprofessional I am by using my title, Kid?“

She purses her lips, the shock momentarily replaced by her signature mild glare, “Well, you just admitted your biggest secret to me and yet you still choose to call me ‘Kid’, huh?”

He chuckles, letting his other hand repeat the movements of the first, “Sorry, force of habit.” His thumbs brush against her knuckles briefly as his head falls, his gaze fixating on where their bodies are connected, “You know, I didn’t tell you this to get myself any pity or anything. I just wanted you to understand and....wanted to get it off my chest. Ethan will kill me if he finds out, won’t he?” He suddenly asks, regaining the courage to look up at her once again.

She giggles, “Who says he’s gonna find out?”

Chris bites the inside of his cheek, shaking his head, “You’re right, there’s nothing really to find out abo-”

Gwen has never been a chatter nor can she tolerate when people beat around the bush so she’s quick to cut them off sometimes, no matter how rude that may seem or sound. However, just to clarify, her chosen method of cutting a person off isn’t always kissing them. Just saying - this is a special situation requiring special methods.

Taken aback by the sudden feeling of her lips on his, Chris’ eyes close automatically but not even a second later he responds to the kiss properly: wrapping his arms around Gwen’s waist as her hands travel up to cup his face. The kiss is short - too short if either of them is to be asked - but it’s worth all the words they didn’t say despite wanting to.

When they pull away, Gwen gives him a mischievous smile, “Now he could find out about that and then shit would go south. That’d suck, wouldn’t it Chris?“

He’s only ever heard her say his name twice, once in passing conversation with Claire and once earlier when she paraphrased his term ‘Chris-phobe’, both time spoken with some dose of dislike he now realizes was a cover-up all along. Turns out the two are a lot more alike than they initially thought. Regardless, hearing her say his name with fondness instead of bitterness makes his heart flutter, his body yearn to have her closer, his lips wanting to be in contact with hers again. But he’s a patient and self-controlled man, he’s nothing if not willpower sculpted in a human body, so he keeps his distance, waiting for her to pick the moves, waiting for her to make the decisions just like she’s his captain.

“Big time.“ He manages to say, voice coarse all of a sudden, barely able to leave his throat. “So it stays here, right?”

She giggles again, bringing her lips within an inch or two away from his, taunting him, threatening to break his self-control, “What happens in the gym stays in the gym, Redfield.”

Golden rules of discretion, ones he mustn’t break ever. Especially not when his captain - Captain Gwen Winters - holds so much power over him.

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thisisallthehattersfault · 4 years

Text

Writing Romantic Relationships

I get a lot of compliments on my chemistry and character interactions. A lot of my readers have expressed liking the way I write relationships, so since that’s an aspect of my writing that gets a lot of positive attention, I want to really make sure to hone and refine it as best I can. With that goal in mind, I did some Googling a couple months ago to try to find any articles or videos I could that had advice for writing believable, engaging romantic relationships.

Turns out, there’s not a ton out there. The results that came up were all focused on the Romance genre, which I’m sure will be very helpful to those who are writing their first bodice ripper, but it’s not for me. There were a few lists of things to avoid when writing romantic relationships, but as with all advice telling people what not to write, they’re really only helpful sometimes.

So, I decided to sit down and try to articulate the way I approach romantic relationships in my writing, in the hopes that it might be helpful to someone, and also in the hopes that other writers would chime in and add some tips of their own.

Right off the bat, you should ask yourself why you want these characters to get together. A romantic relationship should be an entirely character-driven subplot -- sure, things like an alien invasion or an eldritch cult will push people together through necessity, but if you really want your readers to be hooked on your characters’ relationship, you need to make it believable that these people would fall in love even if the Plot wasn’t happening. Basically, what do they see in each other? What do these people gain by being together? Why them, and not anyone else?

The main way I address this is through character flaws. A good relationship in real life should make you a better person -- within reason. No, getting a girlfriend isn’t going to solve all of your problems, but those problems should seem smaller and more manageable now that you have someone in your corner. A romantic relationship is life’s built-in buddy system, and fiction should reflect that. The two ways characters can help one another deal with their respective flaws are through Overcoming and Compensating.

Overcoming is typically how character growth works -- your character addresses their flaw, and decides to change it in order to become a better person. Having someone around to call them out on their bullshit, or encourage them to do better, or praise them for their progress can be a huge help in achieving that growth. Typically the easiest and most effective way I’ve seen this done is to have one character lead by example.

An emotionally repressed jerk becomes more open and expressive because their S/O’s strong sense of compassion rubs off on them. A character who’s shy and insecure gains courage by watching their confident, self-assured love interest. These will likely be the first reasons your characters are attracted to each other. They should respect and admire things about each other, and want to emulate those traits -- even if it’s only grudgingly, and even if they never admit it out loud.

Which brings me to Compensating. The thing is, perfect characters are boring and unrealistic. Even after a whole book’s worth of development, your characters should still be at least a little flawed. They’ll still have hangups, habits, issues that they haven’t worked through and probably never will because if they were cured of Every Single Flaw they’d be… just, unbearably boring. What I’m saying is: Not all character “flaws” need to be fixed. But, depending on what those flaws are, they could maybe stand to have somebody else compensate for them.

An impulsive character held in check by their calculating partner. A trusting character cautioned by their hesitant lover. A passive character with a temperamental s/o who stands up for them. This is the classic opposites attract -- the messy one adds excitement and spontaneity into their lover’s life, while the neat one keeps things reasonable and on-track. There should be a back-and-forth, with each character taking turns to show that neither of them are necessarily wrong, but there’s a time and place for quiet vs loud, aggression vs pacifism, logic vs emotion. Your characters should respect their s/o’s perspective, and be willing to listen and meet them on their level. This creates balance, and gives your readers clear examples of why your characters work as a couple.

These are the most important parts of your relationship to figure out, because they’re how you’ll plot out the romance. The major heavy lifting for your romance will be almost entirely done by showing how your characters help each other grow or come to rely on each other for help. If they don’t make each other better, and they don’t need each other to pick up the slack, then the relationship is shallow, and won’t work.

Once you’ve got the bones of the relationship figured out, you can start to work on the fun meaty bits. Next up, Affection.

Way, way too often in media, we’re given two characters who are supposed to be madly in love, who… don’t have anything in common. No shared interests, conflicting goals. They barely talk to each other. But we’re supposed to believe they’re happy in their relationship? Look, your characters need to like each other. Yes, even while plot is making their lives crazy! They shouldn’t completely overlap, but they need to have hobbies and interests in common, or at least have complimentary senses of humor and priorities. Your character who has never touched a camera in his life can absolutely still fall for a photographer -- if he appreciates art, or at least appreciates the way his s/o lights up when they talk about their craft. Are your characters both passionate about animals? Do they do the same sports? Play video games? What do they do together?

Again, they don’t need to share Every Single Aspect Of Their Lives -- in fact, it’s better if they don’t. Much like how you need your love interest to both Overcome and Compensate for a character’s flaws, their hobbies and interests should be a little of both -- things they share, and things they don’t. Hell, have your character who absolutely hates country music take their s/o to a concert anyway. Have your character who couldn’t care less about videography rattle off movie-making trivia because their lover talks about it so often. Show them supporting each other’s interests, even if it’s only to make the other happy. The things they do share should be a way for them to connect and have fun. That’s really what it comes down to. Romance should be fun sometimes.

Next up, I wanna talk about Love Language. I read somewhere that if you need your characters to kiss and say I love you for them to be in a relationship, you didn’t write a strong relationship. I agree with that, but I think it needs to be expanded on -- The Big Kiss and Those Three Words are a very loud way of expressing affection, but typically people say it much quieter, and much more often, than we acknowledge.

The Five Love Languages are Words Of Affection, Giving/Receiving Gifts, Acts Of Service, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. Understanding your characters’ primary love language and showing them expressing their love in whatever way makes sense for them will make your readers go absolutely fucking hogwild. Your characters don’t need complimentary love languages either -- in fact, if you’re looking to add a little conflict in the relationship, giving them love languages that don’t add up can really help add some believably to the whole mutually pining trope. A character who’s love language is physical touch trying to cuddle up to someone who hates having their space invaded, or a character who’s love language is words of affection coming across as a flatterer to a love interest who’s been manipulated a few too many times, makes way more sense than two people who adore each other but aren’t together because [enter contrived excuse.]

Between your characters having Affection for each other and your characters speaking to each other in their respective Love Languages, you have the groundwork for a lot of really immersive Chemistry! We get why these characters are good for each other from a story-telling perspective, we know why they like each other, and we can see how they express their feelings in small, consistent ways that really sells the idea that they’re in love -- or headed that way. Now what we need is to feel it for ourselves.

Chemistry in writing is all about immersion. When you have a crush, your whole body gets involved. The sweating hands, the pounding heartbeat -- but it also shows in your body language, the way you stand near that person, the way you carry yourself when they’re around. It’s in your thoughts, the language you use to describe them, the way you view them compared to others. There’s really no trick to writing chemistry -- at least none that I’ve found -- other than to really delve into your characters and make your readers feel what they feel. Every quiet thrill when their hands brush, every subtle glance at each others’ lips. These are people who want to get closer like lungs want air. Attraction is a magnet, and both of them should feel it.

I don’t just mean sexually, either. A character hyper-fixating on the collection of freckles on their love-interest’s nose can be as much a method of ratcheting up the tension as a character who can’t tear their eyes away from their love-interest’s rippling abs. Likewise, it doesn’t even need to be physical intimacy at all that your characters are chasing -- the desire to know someone, their deepest thoughts and dreams and fears, can be just as if not more intense than the desire to see them naked. However your characters’ attraction manifests, you need to make your audience feel it. Use all five senses, have them be very aware of each other when they’re in the same room. Show them wanting each other. Make your readers want it, too.

As you’ve probably picked up on from my wording in this, the last big tip I can give you for writing romantic relationships is that they need to be Reciprocated. Loudly, explicitly, consistently. Too often only one half of the pair is fleshed out, while the other is basically cardboard -- a thin, lifeless collection of “attractive” traits with no substance beyond that. The Manic Pixie Dreamgirl is perfect and fun and sexy, and she’s here to drag this unfuckably boring sad sack out of his miserable life. Why? Why is the gorgeous Adonis with every girl in town fawning over him settling for the plain, bitchy protagonist? Wish fulfillment is great and all, but both of your characters need solid reasons to be attracted to each other, or the romance just won’t be good.

#Writing advice #romance #romantic relationships #writeblr #not writing #shut up alice

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your-iron-lung · 3 years

Text

La Chasse au Loup - 1

available to read on AO3 HERE

Story Synopsis: All things considered, there’s a lot of strange things a man could find in the back-bush of his own farm, rural as it may be. Some of it he could be aware of and do his best to work around, but a lot of it went so far under the radar it almost wasn’t worth thinking about. Mostly it was animals- a goat or a sheep that hadn’t been bedded down proper wandered out overnight and didn't wander back come morning. Turned up the next day in the bush in a strange, disemboweled sort of way.

It's coyotes that do it, Wayne reasoned. Wolves, maybe, but whatever it was it certainly wasn't anything living under his very nose.

Chapter Word Count: 3133

Pairings: (background, minimal) Wayne/Daryl

Genre: Dark/black comedy with a lil bit of drama

Next Chapter: 2

Chapter Warnings: blood and some bones being kinda funky, but nothing graphic

Notes: now, i know what youre all thinking. youre thinking, ‘duke, what are you doing! dont start another werewolf fic while youre still tryingta get no shade done!! are you coocoo banans or what!’ and the answer is yes

yes i am

(tho this is supposed to be short and funny and its mostly all written out anyway. this first bit is a lil dark but i swear to GOD its supposed to be funny. pls believe me. pls laugh.)

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THE STORM

The storm that hit the farm was one that the local meteorologists had been nervously talking about for days, warning both farmers and locals alike to start taking serious precautions against it. ‘Make sure your delicate crops are appropriately cared for, and be sure your livestock have a proper, sturdy shelter to take cover in, because, folks, this is going to be a bad one.’

Spring storms often were. Wayne’s mother liked to put it in his head when he was younger that it was because the winter and summer seasons used springtime as a battleground of sorts, fighting it out like gods from some old mythos. Spring storms, as she put it, happened because winter was taking too long to leave and summer was quickly growing impatient. Their clashes turned violent fast, and that's how spring got a reputation for its disastrous weather.

If his mother were still alive today, he was sure that she’d say this storm was going to be a real battle for the ages. It was winding up to be one of the worst the area had had in awhile, aiming to hit Letterkenny in the dead of night when its people were at their most vulnerable.

Should probably just surrender there, bud , he sometimes found himself thinking whenever he heard new reports regarding the storm, each incoming update worse than the last.

Expect heavy gusts of wind and moderate to severe structural damage, quoted the forecasters. Hail was guaranteed, and it was going to bring plenty of thunder and lightning with it. The rainfall was expected to be heavy, so be wary of localized flooding. Isolated tornadoes would be a strong possibility- make sure there was a way to receive alerts if one should pop up.

“With the way they’re talking, you’d think the sum’bitch was gonna be rainin’ fire and brimstone on us,” McMurray grumbled one day, and Wayne found that he agreed that they might be talking it up a little bit. He couldn’t remember a time when an unnamed storm warranted so much precaution.

Wayne’s thoughts on the impending weather notwithstanding, he understood how important the farm was to his livelihood; he and Katy depended on it to get by, so if there was any sort of threat to it that could be prevented, then it was only right that they ought to do something about it. Nothing worse than being caught with your pants down, so to speak.

With the enlisted help of Dan and Dary, they’d gone around reinforcing all the windows and barn doors, checking for any fundamental flaws in the integrity of their buildings while Katy went around making sure the crops that could be saved were secured before extending that same courtesy to Dan’s estate. It was hard work, and they were all bedraggled and worn out from all the extra hours that had to be put in on top of everything else they’d been dealing with as of late, but they all felt a little more secure from their efforts.

(They’d paid special attention to fortifying The Garden as they’d worked on making sure the farm was secured; they couldn’t risk its contents being exposed, and if anyone asked why it warranted so much focus, well, they had to protect Dan’s perennials.)

By the time the storm finally rolled into town with its thick, voluminous black clouds slouching ominously towards Letterkenny to be born, Wayne again found himself mentally calling for its surrender. All his blustering with McMurray left him feeling slightly foolish as he stood out on the back deck of his small home to face the bastard’s approach, lightning already beginning to flare out of the clouds to illuminate itself against the backdrop of a rapidly darkening evening sky.

He wasn’t a man who’d ever really been affected much by storm anxiety, but as he stood there thinking about it, flicking his unfinished dart away, he reckoned he might be feeling it now.

(Although, to be fair , his anxieties weren’t because of the storm itself, but rather, were in anticipation of the storm’s aftermath and what it might dredge up. Things had been oppressively ominous around the farm the past few months, and of course it was only suitable that a storm of this magnitude should serve as a catalyst; he just hadn’t yet figured out what it was a catalyst to.)

His mind weighed down with his thoughts, Wayne turned his back on the stormfront and stepped inside as the first strong gust of wind surged past him, slamming the door shut after him with a loud bang.

The suddenness of its closure made him flinch, and the uneasiness harbored in his chest squeezed tightly for an instant. Gus jerked up from where he’d been sleeping by the door and whined pitiably at the noise. Wayne crouched down as he stepped by him to pet his head reassuringly as the distant, Delicate Sound of Thunder announced the storms arrival.

“Oh, it’s alright,” Wayne muttered lowly in a babying tone before stepping away, ignoring the miserable way Gus plopped his head back onto the tile with his eyes turned nervously towards the door.

He peeked his head into the living room to check on Stormy before making his way upstairs, mentally going over the emergency plans he’d made with Katy and Daryl (who lived with them now for safety’s sake) in case the worst should happen: where their emergency supplies were stashed, which one of them was going to round up the dogs, and where they were all going to go if a tornado should whip up.

They were as well prepared as they could be. All that was left to do was sleep through it; there was choring that needed to be done in the morning, and a man needed his rested energy to do them efficiently, impending doom or no.

The door to the guest bedroom where Dary had been staying was uncharacteristically shut when he reached the upstairs landing. Wayne stopped by it and considered checking in on him, but decided against it before settling into his own room and getting ready for bed, where he laid sleepless for hours, listening to the storm as it came to town, bringing all its rage with it.

The wind outside wasn’t just howling as it blew past, but screaming , screeching like a mateless fox in the night. Every thud and thunk of debris as it slammed against the house had him calculating the damages in his mind ( casualties of a seasonal war), leaving him to wonder if his barn would even still be standing by the morning.

But if not, then it could be rebuilt, the livestock replaced. It would be a financial hit, sure, but all the family animals were inside, and unless a tornado really did come bumbling through, then everything would be fine. Stock could be replaced; his family couldn’t, but they were all safe and accounted for. If he stayed awake worrying about it, then he’d be too tired to make any needed repairs by the time the storm finally did peter out.

He inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to ease his mind, and felt all the stored up tension he’d been holding slide out of his body. As he focused on the machine-gun rhythm of the heavy rain hammering down against the roof, he could almost tune out the screaming gale, and adjusted to the aggressive white noise as being something soothing.

Later, he wouldn’t remember falling asleep; it was only after he woke up that he’d realized he’d even slept at all. He woke up feeling disoriented, his phone pinging an alarm at him from where he’d set it down. Grabbing it, he checked the tornado watch alert and then set it back down, an anxious little curl forming in his stomach.

He sat in bed, alert and awake despite feeling as though he hadn’t gotten more than about an hour’s worth of sleep. Something wasn’t right, and it wasn’t just because the storm was still there and lingering, thrashing Letterkenny hard enough to provoke an early morning alert.

It was preternatural, the way it was lingering, hovering over his home as though it had some sort of vendetta against them.

A loud bang came sharply and abruptly, capturing wholly Wayne’s attention. He fixed his head in the direction it came from and heard muffled voices coming from somewhere downstairs. The howling wind rushing by his bedroom window masked the urgency with which they spoke, but all the same he was able to understand that something bad must have happened sometime in the night.

Had the barn collapsed? Was a funnel cloud forming? He hoped that whomever it was pounding their way hurriedly up the stairs wasn’t about to tell him someone he knew had been hurt.

The door to his room slammed open, banging against the wall. Katy stood there in the opening, breathing hard, her face shadowed by the darkness of his room.

“ It’s Dary,” she said urgently, panting. Her slender form, backlit by the hallway light, was visibly shaking.

He didn’t have to be told twice. Wayne sat up in bed quickly, shucking the blankets off of himself so fast that he flung them straight to the floor as he came to a stand.

“What’s the fuss?” he asked as an eerie sound came drifting up the stairs behind her. She stared at him with dazed eyes before turning her head to the side to listen to it as it crept up from down the stairs, and before he could kindly ask what the fuck is going on, she turned around suddenly and left.

He listened to her footsteps race down the hall and back down the stairs, utterly alarmed. Her panic was uncharacteristic and unnerving, spurring him into action as he heard another loud bang emanate from downstairs. He took long walking strides as he made his way after her, subconsciously coming to realize that the sound that had lured Katy away was of someone moaning.

Katy’s voice, shrill, disappeared as someone ( Squirrely Dan , he realized belatedly once he was halfway down the stairs) furtively whispered to whomever it was that was making that awful, miserable moaning that it was going to be okay.

“You’re alright, Dar. I gots you, I gots you.”

Making it to the downstairs landing, barefoot and full of purpose, Wayne turned towards the kitchen where all the noises were being made and was stunned still by what he saw.

There was blood everywhere . Splattered on the floor, on the furniture, and in the center of a small pool of it was Dan, cradling Dary’s limp, motionless body amidst the overturned dining chairs. Wayne’s mouth dropped open, his eyes blinking hard as he both tried to get over the shock of what he was seeing and processing it all in the same second.

Dan looked up at him when he stepped close, pale-faced and covered up to the elbows in runny blood, fresh and staining his denim overalls a dark, grotesque burgundy. All Wayne could do in that moment was stare, even as he realized that what was making that horrid noise was Dary.

Dary, who looked ridiculously small as Dan held him in his trembling arms. Dary, who was naked and coated in blood and viscera, looking more like a newborn than a man. Dary, whose eyes were open wide but rolled back and blind, exposing nothing but red-veined white as his mouth hung limply open, releasing that droning moan in one continuous breath.

One of his hands was clutching at Dan for support, and his legs-

“What the fuck,” Wayne choked out, because as he stared down at him, he could see that both of Dary’s legs were hideously broken.

“I don’t knows,” Dan gasped, his bearded face wet with tears. “I don’t knows what’s happening.”

“Where’s Katy gone?”

But before Dan could even respond to him, her screams supplied the answer.

“Gus!” He heard her screech, her voice pitching wildly as she screamed furtively into the wind. “ Gus !”

Though it was hard, Wayne managed to tear his eyes off of Dary to turn towards the backdoor, alarmed to see that it was hanging weakly off its hinges, rustling as easily as a leaf in the breeze, opening a portal into the horrific grey rain that came in to splash against the linoleum. A flash of lightning illuminated her briefly as she stood in the yard shouting, her hands cupped around her mouth as she screamed for Gus over the sharp crack of accompanying thunder.

In the back of his mind, all Wayne could think of in that moment was of the tornado alert. All their precautions had been tossed aside, and if disaster struck now-

Well, it almost wasn’t worth thinking about.

Leaving Dan and Dary in the kitchen, he rushed out after her, striding into the snow and mud barefoot to grab her roughly by the arm, her hair whipping around in the harsh wind in long wet strands that struck at his face.

“Inside!” he bellowed, trying to pull her back towards the house.

“Gus is out here!” she cried out hoarsely, pulling her arm out of his grip. “He’s out here, Wayne! He got out when Dary came in! Gus! ” she continued to scream, heedless of the danger she was putting herself in.

Wayne’s heart sank as he both saw and felt the desperation in her voice. He looked around briefly, trying to discern if he could see any sign of where his beloved dog had gone, but it was impossible to see anything in the torrential downpour.

Freezing water flooded down his face in such strong streams that it was all but blinding, such that he had to squint hard to keep the rain from inhibiting him totally. He could barely see Katy between the hard pouring streaks of rain even though they were only standing a few feet apart. If Gus was out there, then he was lost.

“INSIDE,” he ordered again, even though it hurt him deeply to do so, but for as much as he loved that dog, he couldn’t risk losing her over him. Katy let out an exhausted sob, but let Wayne take her by the wrist and sternly guide her back to the safety of the house.

As they rushed up the steps and out of the rain that was slowly turning to hail, there came the sound of a frightened dog hiding from underneath the porch. Wayne had never felt such relief as he did as he saw Katy to safety before sprinting back down the wooden steps, nearly slipping in the slush as he did so. There was a spot of latticework that lined the back-porch that he’d been meaning to patch up that smaller, wild animals had been using for shelter, and as he rounded the corner to it, he found Gus there lying in a terrified heap.

Ignoring the cold and the muck and the mess he was making of himself, Wayne wasted no time dropping to his knees to grab Gus and roughly drag him out of his little cove of protection. He was shaking badly as Wayne effortlessly tucked him up into his arms, carrying him back into the house with his whimpers in his ear. He held Gus by the collar for a moment as he tried to situate the door back into place before releasing him, letting him bolt into the living room to shake himself dry and hide.

Soaking wet and breathing heavily, Wayne wiped the water off of his face and unknowingly streaked mud across his forehead before returning to Dan’s side, who still sat with Dary in his arms. Neither of them had moved from their position on the floor, but even as Wayne tried to re-fix his attention on what happened to Dary to see where all that blood was coming from, he noticed something that didn’t make any sense.

When Wayne had looked him over before, his legs had been terribly broken in such a way that they'd looked almost digitigrade, the bones cracked at unnaturally sharp angles that seemed to strain against his skin, but now they looked like they were-

And even as he stared down at them, the noise Dary was making suddenly keened and Wayne was able to see the bones in his legs shift, moving back towards what accounted for normal with a sickening crunch.

“Wayne,” Dan whispered, terrified. “Wayne, I don’t knows what to do here.”

Well, that makes two of us, Squirrely Dan , he thought hysterically to himself.

“Just- fuckin’- I don’t- just- just take him upstairs,” Wayne barked, speaking too harshly in his confused panic. He honestly had no idea what to do; didn’t even fully understand yet what was even going on, but even as Dan flinched at the initial command, having some sort of direction seemed to solidify his resolution. His round face lost its helplessness in a quick second as he nodded resolutely at the order. Wayne helped him situate Dary’s unconscious, lax body into his arms before getting to it, tromping heavily up the stairs with dutiful purpose, handling the extra weight expertly and trailing blood behind them.

Wayne watched them go before turning his attention to Katy, who had picked up one of the overturned chairs and was now sitting at their table, her head in her hands. Her hair, stringy and loose from being in the rain hung in long, miserable strands, masking her face in a way that was reminiscent of a Japanese ghost.

“Where’s Stormy?” Wayne asked, throat clenching uncomfortably at the thought that she, like Gus, could’ve gotten loose and was out there in the storm somewhere. The sounds of the wind howling and threatening to blow the kitchen door down were more disturbing to him now.

“Locked in the bathroom,” Katy replied tersely, holding an unlit cigarette in her trembling hand.

“In the bathroom,” Wayne repeated with a frown, turning his head in the downstairs bathroom’s direction. The inside light was on, and from the slight crack under the door he could see the shadow of Stormy pacing anxiously by the entrance. “Well... what for?”

“She attacked Dary when he came in.”

“What?” With so much to process, Wayne was struggling to understand this strange sequence of events, such as they were. “She attacked him? What was he doing out there?”

“He wasn’t… he wasn’t right when he came in,” Katy said, her whole body shuddering at whatever memory she’d recalled. Before Wayne could ask her what she meant by that, exactly, she elaborated further, saying, “Wayne, it’s him . The sasquatch, wendigo, fucking thing. Killing all those animals. All those people- Wayne, it’s Dary. Daryl.”

#too lazy to format correctly just click the ao3 link #letterkenny #letterkenny fanfic #wayne/daryl #werewolf!dary #dark comedy #black comedy #teeny tiny mentions of gore #this is supposed to be funny but all i know how to write is drama and horror #everyones unaware #theyre just all so fuckin oblivious #samsquantches are involved #dont tell the trailer park boys

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