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lc-holy · 3 months

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Conférence Masterclass 808 (Translation)

I've taken the liberty of translating the conference that took place last year with the writing director of Miraculous (Sébastien Thibaudeau). It was only made public when someone posted a video of the conference a short while ago.

In this conference, Sébastien Thibaudeau will talk about the creation of Miraculous and his work on the series. He is joined by Chloé Paye, a new scriptwriter working on Miraculous season 6.

Sébastien talks a lot and repeats himself a bit, so the summary can be a bit confusing.

I strongly advise you to go and listen to the video if you understand French. There are a lot of details I'm going to leave out, and Sébastien is very funny.

Photo belongs to mlbfanfr on twitter.

Please be respectful in comments or tags. If you want to debate on things related to this conference, please make your own post. I apologize if there are any mistakes, I'm French and I'm not fluent in English.

-12 years ago, Sébastien arrived at Zagtoon, a studio that was just starting out and had yet to produce and broadcast any series. The producer (Jérémy Zag) and Sébastien hit it off and decided to start working together. Zag decides to give Sébastien total freedom over his projects. Sébastien then decides to put the spotlight on scriptwriters, because in this profession they are unfortunately poorly paid and never stay on the same projects.

So they produced a cartoon called Kobushi. A little-known series that did rather well, even if it didn't stay on the "Gulli" channel for long. The scriptwriters and producer were happy with the end result, as it was produced in a very short time.

Jeremy Zag then proposed another project, which he thought was quite good, but which he was unable to sell to broadcasters. At the time, the project was called "Ladybug". No one was interested, as the project was aimed more at an adult audience than a children's audience. Sébastien had to make sure that the project could be broadcast on Disney and TF1.

There was only a "trailer" also called "Ladybug" (but you'll find the video under the title Ladybug PV) animated by Toei animation. At the time, Sébastien had not yet been hired by Zagtoon. It was Jérémy Zag who convinced Toei animation to work with them (no mean feat, since Toei animation doesn't work with anyone).

So Sébastien started working with Thomas Astruc (the man who wrote and created the "Ladybug" project). At first, he didn't want to work on this project because he found it complicated. Thomas wanted to make a series for adults, but at the time, it was very complicated to make a cartoon for adults. What's more, they didn't have enough money to take on such a project. Sébastien finally agreed, but there were some changes to be made, which Thomas accepted.

-What Sébastien appreciated most in this project was the romantic comedy, the love square between the two main characters.

To meet the requirements of the cartoon industry, "Ladybug" had to be set in a neutral universe, in other words, in an imaginary country or the USA, but Zag, who loves Paris, declared that the cartoon had to be set in Paris.

In the end, Thomas Astruc's entire project was discarded, leaving only the love story between the two heroes and the city of Paris, where the story was to take place.

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-Sébastien explains how he writes Marinette's first dialogues: He says he talks a lot in real life, so he writes Marinette like him. She says out loud whatever she's thinking.

For Chat noir, he makes him tell his father's jokes. Something TF1 doesn't accept. The TV channel went so far as to refuse to validate the Bible (a collection of information on the series and episodes) until it had removed the sentence: “Chat noir makes jokes”. Sebastien has therefore removed the sentence, but will continue to make Chat noir tell jokes.

-The writing director's job is to get the producer, creator and broadcaster to agree. The series broadcast on TF1 and Disney are very different. TF1 wants series whose story can be told in a single episode, unlike Disney, which wants series whose story spans several episodes.

Sébastien and TF1 agree that Miraculous will be a series with one story per episode, a "Formula Show".

He cites the example of Dora the Explorer episodes, where every episode is the same: Dora goes on an adventure from point A to point B, she has to find 3 clues, then she meets Swiper, she sings a song to make Swiper go away, she uses the talking map to get from one place to another, then Dora manages to get to point B and the episode ends.

This episode format is used for children, to give them a reassuring framework, as they build themselves up through repetition. That's why series like Dora work so well with young children.

So Sebastien sold the Miraculous series to broadcasters as a formula show. A person gets angry, is akumatized, then marinette transforms into Ladybug then frees the person from the akumatization and… The End.

It's also for this reason that Marinette tries to confess her love for Adrien in every episode, but is unable to do so.

But he tried to go against what he had planned with TF1, by slipping little extra stories into certain episodes. Audiences were receptive to these slightly hidden stories. The TV channel even asked Sébastien if there really were hidden things in the series, but he denied everything. Thanks to the positive reception from the public, TF1 agreed to develop the characters of Marinette and Adrien and flesh out the universe a little more.

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-Once the bible is written, they have to write a script. But first Sébastien, as writing director, needs to know the mood of the series, and to do this he calls on Thomas Astruc, the series creator. Thomas is a great fan of classical painting. A single painting can tell a complex scene with lots of detail. He wants the episodes of miraculous to be like these paintings, there will be very few shots, but in a single shot a lot will happen.

-Sébastien explains that one of the things Thomas wanted to convey in the series was emotion. They didn't want to do what a lot of children's cartoons do, which is to beat the bad guys and win at the end of the episode. They wanted to tell kids that it's normal to have negative emotions. We can also become better people, learn from our mistakes and so on. It also reassures TV channels by setting up scenes that are repeated in every episode: people get angry, people akumatize then people deakumatize, end of episode...

Once the TV channels had been reassured, they set about writing a script.

-Sébastien asks Thomas to write the ending, as they're not sure the series will work. They also wondered what the aim of the series was, and what they wanted to say to the children. The two of them sat down in an office and wrote the ending, which turned out to be just the end of an arc. He even adds that now that they've written a lot more, it's important for them to write in advance so that everything is clear to them.

-The first season was written by 19 authors, from home. He found it interesting that the series was written by several different authors, even if some of them didn't quite understand the premise of the series. One episode that Sébastien particularly appreciated was written by two “autrices” (I think it's weird to say “two female authors”, so I'll use the French word): the refletkta episode, with the story of Juleka who couldn't get into the photos. (Note that all the episodes were proofread by Sébastien and Thomas).

After that, they kept a few people on to work together on the scripts for subsequent seasons.

Sébastien explains that he keeps a close eye on the production of the episodes, to make sure that everything that goes into the picture is as faithful as possible to what they've written in the script.

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-The kwamis exist thanks to Toei, who wanted funny little animals to sell plush toys. So the scriptwriters had to find a way to integrate kwamis into the story.

-(Again, Sébastien advises people to check out the Kobushi series if they can still watch it somewhere, or ask the leaker who leaked the whole of season 5 to give them the episodes (that's a joke, of course)).

-Sébastien talks about the Ikari gozen episode, which could have been a total failure because the storyboarder didn't fully understand the scenario. Sébastien asks Zag to redo the storyboard, which will add 10 weeks to the episode's deadline. The storyboarder admits that he's always done storyboards mechanically, without worrying whether the episode is good or not, whether the jokes are funny or not. Eventually, the episode was redone by the same storyboarder, resulting in the episode we all know today.

- They still have a lot to tell with Miraculous, to the point where they're wondering if they'll have enough seasons to tell everything they want to tell. Sebastien says there will be a season 6 and 7, and probably a season 8 and 9.

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- Chloé Paye met Sébastien when she was looking for an internship. She had never worked in animation, and knew nothing about Miraculous. She tells us how the scriptwriting team works. Each time, all the scriptwriters in the room have to be convinced of the script. They can sometimes spend hours on details to get everyone to agree.

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- The driving force behind the series is that there must always be a secret between Marinette and Adrien. The lovesquare can never be broken, otherwise there's no series. Sébastien knows that some people are worried about this. Will they continue the lovesquare for another 4 seasons or more? How will they evolve? Sébastien says not to worry, they know where they want to go.

-It takes them 14 to 16 months to produce an episode, but it's often much longer due to unforeseen circumstances. And they don't work on one episode at a time, but on several at the same time. One episode takes a long time because of the 3D animation.

One of the things that's complicated with Miraculous 3d animation is that they can only display 3 characters at a time on screen, whereas the series requires them to display many more characters. It's also very difficult to correct animation errors, as this takes a lot of time.

-The TV networks were very surprised by the success of miraculous. They didn't think adults and children alike would watch the series. The TV channels were a little confused because they usually make series for a specific age group, but since miraculous had people of all ages watching, they weren't sure what to do.

- Sébastien says he's very happy that miraculous inspires a lot of people to create things, like writing fanfiction, however he's not interested in it because he doesn't want to be influenced by certain fans who would love to see certain things in the series.

- Writing direction also means paying attention to how the characters speak. They all have their own way of speaking. For example, Adrien will never say "j’te parle", but rather "Je te parle".

- During the writing process, the writers sometimes act out scenes to make the dialogue more natural. This is what happened with the episode "Gang of secrets". They felt that, with the success of the show and the pressure it was generating, they needed to write something to relieve their stress. So they wrote about Marinette and the enormous pressure she was under to keep all her secrets. The final scene, in which Marinette tells Alya that she's Ladybug, came naturally when they performed it together.

#miraculous ladybug #ml writing team #Conférence Masterclass 808

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eiightysixbaby · 6 months

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i’ll be home for christmas

PART TWO: Run Run Rudolph

previous part || series masterlist || next part

word count: 5.1k

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader

summary: eddie isn’t enjoying life in chicago, but he’s been too stubborn to admit it. when he's at his breaking point, what comes next?

cw: switches between past and present tense, mentions of food/eating, lots of angst, eddie is an idiot but we love him, reader’s nickname is ‘sunny’

author’s note: just wanted to say thank you all so much for the love on part one! i’m so excited to be sharing more of this story. part three is in the works and should be out in the next couple of weeks :) thank you again for giving my story a chance, it means so much to me.

Present Day: December 18th, 1989.

The droning, repetitive sound of the cash register’s scanner is giving Eddie a migraine. Beep. A sweater is thrown into a bag. Beep. Some cooking utensils. Beep. A toy truck and a Barbie doll.

The impatient face of the woman who stands before him only makes him want to move slower, and she scowls when he “accidentally” purposefully drops one of her items to the floor.

“Oops!” he says, giving her a fake innocent grin, shrugging dramatically before he bends down to pick it up. He debates how feasible it would be to fake a stroke or a heart attack or something while he’s down here, but ultimately decides against it and stands straight again.

Beep. He scans a tie with green and red stripes on it, presumably for the less-than-amused husband who stands at the woman's side, looking like he'd rather be literally anywhere else.

He can hear the woman’s foot tapping on the waxy floors beneath them, her arms crossed over her chest and her checkbook clutched in one hand. He gives her her final total, watching as she scrawls her pristine cursive writing onto the thin piece of paper before handing it to him. He hands her several bags once the transaction is finished, pressing his lips into a tight line when she yanks them from his grip in a less-than-pleasant manner. The husband follows absentmindedly like a puppy on a leash, paying absolutely no mind to Eddie whatsoever. He might as well not have even been there.

“Happy Holidays to you, too,” he says, perhaps a bit too loud as they walk away.

Sighing, he leans onto the countertop in front of him, pressing his face into his open palms. The store’s speakers play a consistent loop of popular Christmas music, and Eddie thinks he’s heard The Chipmunk Song enough times today to last him the rest of his life. The squeaky voices of the fictional rodents ring out through the decorated space, eliciting laughter from children who can’t help but sing along.

There’s been a non-stop wave of shoppers over the past couple of weeks, and it only seems to be getting worse the closer it gets to the holiday. People in Chicago aren’t friendly about it, either. Everyone seems to be going about their lives transactionally, angry and frustrated that they have to be picking up gifts and baking cookies and wrapping boxes in the first place. Eddie isn’t used to it.

Back in Hawkins, everyone was cheerful around Christmas. The otherwise quiet town seemed to light up in December, bringing even the grumpiest of residents out of the woodwork to celebrate. The funny thing is, he never thought he'd miss it. Never imagined he'd yearn for that town, for that community. But there's a lot of things that hadn't gone according to his plan, so what's one more on that list?

Eddie can feel his name tag poking his skin through his shirt, his argyle sweater that was so impossibly opposite to his taste in fashion but that was strongly recommended by his boss; "to look put-together", he'd been told. And so he'd picked out a few "nice" outfits, for nothing if not to keep his damn job. But the material of the sweater makes his skin itch, and paired with the too-bright lights and the too-repetitive music, this job was a sensory hellhole. The smell of over-priced perfume is engrained into his nostrils at this point, and Eddie literally winces as he catches a customer spray a cloud of the fragrance out of a sample bottle.

He rolls his eyes as Donna, head of the fragrance department, dishes out her usual sales-pitch to the clueless man that stands before her, utterly and devastatingly unsure of what to get the lady in his life for Christmas. I could never be that clueless, Eddie thinks to himself, I know how to get a good gift.

And then, his heart aches as he stares blankly at the man holding two different perfume bottles in each hand. Because he remembers that the last real gift he'd bought was for you.

December 5th, 1988.

The mall was packed full of holiday shoppers, everyone in a mad rush to find the perfect gifts for each person on their lists. Eddie typically wasn't much of a shopper himself, really only coming to the mall to bother Dustin and Will at Scoops, but today was different. You wanted to start getting your shopping out of the way, and didn’t want to go alone, so of course Eddie was going to tag along. He’d been spending every possible second he could with you, running errands or getting food or seeing a movie. Even just hanging out at your apartment or his trailer. With you, everything seemed magical. Every item you picked up and marveled at in each store, every Christmas song you sang along to, it was all shiny and wonderful because it was associated with you.

You currently have him at a jewelry store, looking into a glass case filled with glittering gold and silver accessories. Some of which probably cost, individually, more than all of his possessions combined. A low whistle leaves his mouth before he hears you chirp beside him.

“Eddie! Look at this one!” you coo, pointing eagerly at a flashy necklace that sits in the case.

He’s at your side in an instant, looking where your finger directs him. His eyes land on a dazzling pendant, adorned with jewels that sparkle glamorously.

“Oh, Nancy would love this,” you muse, taking a closer look at the price tag. “I could get this for her… or I could tell Robin about it so she could get it for her. I don’t know, is it too much if I get Nancy a necklace?” you debate out loud, making Eddie smile at how flat-out adorable you are.

He loves your heart, the way you always think about your friends. You truly aren’t looking for a thing for yourself, you just want to get your friends the best gifts possible, physical objects that remind them of your gratitude for them.

“I don’t think it’s too much. Or, why don’t you give Robin a call so you can ask her straight up? Here, use the pay phone,” he offers, pulling some quarters from his pocket and handing them to you.

“You’re right, that’s the easiest idea,” you say with a cute little relieved laugh. “Wait here, I’ll be back in like, fifteen.”

He gives you a little salute with two fingers, continuing to glance around at the selection once you’ve left. His feet stop him instantly when his eyes catch a delicate gold necklace with a tiny heart-shaped pendant. It’s engraved with the letter M, and a card sits beside it that informs potential buyers that you can get it customized with any initial. It’s simple, exactly how you’d want it to be, but it’s far from ugly or bland.

Eddie knows immediately that he wants to get it for you, eyeing the price tag nervously before breathing a sigh of pure relief at the fact that it’s far more affordable than he’d have suspected. You’re the most special thing in his life, and it feels right to give you a piece of him. His initial, to wear on your neck, so you can keep him close at all times. His stomach does a little flip of excitement at his idea, and he’s grateful you’ve left him alone so he can keep this a surprise.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he says to the worker after you’ve left. “I’d like to get this one, please. Engraved with an E.”

Present Day: December 18th, 1989.

He's pulled from his melancholy daze by another customer snapping their fingers in his face, polished nails standing out at the tips of slender fingers.

"Hello? Anybody home?" the woman asks, chewing her gum too exaggeratedly for Eddie to be able to take her seriously. "Are you too stupid to understand me or what?"

Yeah. It's going to be a long rest of his shift.

•

Cars roll past on the busy streets as Eddie makes his commute home, the holiday chaos evidently in full-swing on the outside of the department store, too. He winces as a car’s tires slosh through the slushy mixture collecting on the sides of the road, sending it splattering all over his coat. He sighs, moving off to the side of the sidewalk that’s furthest from the road, brushing half-melted snow off of himself.

His body is frigid with the cold, his eyes heavy with his incredible lack of sleep and his fatigue from the most draining shift at the world's most boring job. He trudges inside of his apartment building, the tall structure looming over the Chicago streets. The large Christmas tree in the lobby makes Eddie frown to himself, resurfacing that ache he’d felt at work. The ache that really hasn’t fully gone away since last Christmas. It’s always in the back of his mind, always tapping away at his heart, a dull soreness like a bruise that won’t heal.

“Oh shit, what’s goin’ on, Edwardio?” Eddie’s neighbor, Argyle, greets him as he climbs the stairs to his floor.

“Hey, man,” Eddie responds, feeling guilty at the monotony of his voice compared to cheerfulness of his acquaintance.

“You wanna come in for a smoke sesh? Just picked up some new stuff,” Argyle offers, sticking his thumb in the direction of his door as he grabs his keys from his pocket.

“Nah, man, not tonight. Some other time,” and then Eddie’s slinking into his apartment, shutting his door promptly behind him.

Eddie never turns down a smoke sesh.

Once fully inside, he throws his things haphazardly onto the ground. He couldn’t be bothered to care about where they land — his whole place is a mess. A reflection of his mental state. Soft wool fabric of his sweater is tossed onto his bed, traded for a t-shirt so well-loved it has holes in the neckline. He goes to his dining table as he tugs the shirt fully over his head, grabbing the phone off of the wall and anxiously curling the cord around his fingers as he dials a familiar number. It rings a few times before there’s an answer, each droning dial tone making him anxious.

“Hello?” he hears Robin’s voice ring out on the other end.

“Rob, hey, it’s me.”

“Eddie!” she says excitedly. “Guys, Eddie’s on the phone!” her voice sounds further away, and he knows she’s holding the phone away from her face as she calls out to whoever else is there.

Steve shouts his name and he smiles, hearing the commotion on the other end as other people shuffle towards Robin to try and grab the phone.

“How is everything? How are you?” Robin asks him, shushing Dustin as he begs her to let him say hi.

“I, uh, I’m alright. I miss you guys,” he says, resting his forehead on the heel of his palm. “How’s everything there?”

“We miss you too. Things are….” Robin pauses, and it makes Eddie’s stomach drop. “—They’re okay,” she finishes, but she sounds unsure; like there’s something she isn’t telling him.

“Who’s there with you right now? I know I heard Henderson and Steve,” he says, trying to force some happiness into his voice.

“Eddie! You’ll never believe how the D&D campaign is going!” Dustin says excitedly into the receiver, and he can hear Robin’s voice telling him to give it back.

“I bet it’s great, you’ll have to call me on your own sometime and tell me everything.”

“I definitely wi— HEY!” Dustin says, yelling as the phone is seemingly snatched from him.

“Give me the phone back, you turd! Okay, to answer your question…” Robin’s voice is back again. “It’s me, Nance, Jonathan, of course Steve and Dustin, and then, uh… Sunny,” she trails off, getting quieter at the end.

It hurts Eddie’s heart, the way she says your name softly like she doesn’t want you or him to hear it.

“Can I… can you put her on?” he tries, wanting so desperately to hear your voice.

You haven’t talked to him since Christmas Eve. Since the night he told you he was leaving. Every time he’d call home he couldn’t manage to get ahold of you. The one time he called your personal number, the second you’d said hello and he’d announced his presence, you’d hung up. Sometimes, when Eddie happens to call Steve or Robin or Nancy during a group hangout, they’ll tell him you aren’t there, but he knows it’s a lie. Not that it matters much anyway, because even the times they’re honest with him he’ll ask to speak to you and you’ll refuse.

It hurts him, how much you’ve distanced yourself. He obviously wanted you to move forward, but he’d hoped you could at least catch up every once in a while. How stupid he’d been to think that this was a fair thing to ask of you. How stupid he’d been to think the right decision was to leave you behind, the one person who he adored, who was right for him.

“Eddie…” Robin says on the other end, her voice wavering.

“Forget it. It’s okay,” he says, immediately looking to change the subject. “Look, I just wanted to check in and see how you guys were doing. I can let you go.”

“We miss you, Eddie. We’re always thinking of you,” Robin says, and he hears Nancy say a quick “love you!”

“Tell Wheeler I love her, too. I love all of you guys, okay? We’ll talk later.”

And then the call is over. The phone clicks into its place on the wall, and Eddie is alone again. Deafening silence rings in his ears, taunting him as he stares blankly at the wall in front of him.

If he’s honest, truly honest, nothing has been right since he left Hawkins. He tries to grin and bear it, to pretend like his shitty dead-end job is making him happy and that he made the correct decision moving here. But deep down, nearly this whole time, he’s known it was wrong.

Last December, he’d been at a breaking point, feeling like he was unwanted in Hawkins and like he was just a burden to you and everyone else. He’d genuinely convinced himself that you’d be better off without him, had it in his head that you’d move on with time and that you’d be okay in his absence.

He couldn’t be more wrong, but he wasn’t aware of how much you missed him. He didn’t think he was something worth missing.

December 16th, 1988.

Steaming hot plates of scrambled eggs and bacon are placed in front of you and Eddie, followed by two sides of toast with extra butter. Taking a tentative sip of his scalding coffee, Eddie’s eyes meet yours over the rim of his mug. You do a happy little wiggle in your seat, more than content to have a meal after your drinking session at Nancy’s the previous night. Eddie’s stomach was begging for food, and he knows you must be feeling the same way.

You waste no time digging in, and he watches you with a cute smile on his face as you raise your fork to your mouth, groaning when you take your first bite of eggs. You look ethereal, with your hair unbrushed and your mascara messy around your eyes, one of his big t-shirts on your frame beneath your winter coat. His smile falters, then, as he considers how perfect you are. How you’re effortlessly flawless, and how he doesn’t come close to deserving you.

You catch him staring, poking his wrist with the dull end of your fork and breaking him out of his thoughts.

“You can’t absorb my food just by watching me eat, you know that right?” you joke, smirking around your mouthful of toast.

“I can sure as hell try,” Eddie says, pressing his index and middle fingers to either side of his head, humming while he does it as if summoning the food to him.

You laugh, the brightest little sound, before you go back to eating as normal. You don’t see his smile fade yet again as he starts to pick at the food on his plate, his appetite suddenly dwindling.

The last week had taken its toll on Eddie, to say the least. This time of year always tended to be a bit hard on him, making him reminisce on the days when his mom was still alive and reminding him that his dead-beat father couldn’t be bothered to spend the holidays with his only son. Christmas was a time for family gatherings, and Eddie didn’t have family to gather with. He had you, and the rest of the friend group, and Wayne, but it just isn’t the same as having a complete and loving family. He found himself wishing for the Christmas-card picturesque familial comfort, and his heart ached at the lack of it.

Then, to bring his mood down even more, there was the incident at the grocery store. Just last night he’d been at the store with you, picking up some alcohol for the get together at Nancy’s. You’d been following close behind him as he’d roamed the aisles, your hand wrapped around his arm. Soft laughter and warm smiles were exchanged as you waited in the checkout line, inviting the eyes and judgments of onlookers.

“What a shame that poor girl got roped in with the Munson boy,” an older woman had said to her friend as they walked by. “She could do so much better than that…” she remarked, looking Eddie up and down in a way that could only be displeased. He met their eyes, only to have them turn up their noses in response and walk away.

You hadn’t heard the comments, had been too busy selecting a candy bar to snack on, your fingers sifting over crinkly paper before deciding on a Kit-Kat. Eddie tried to shake the stranger’s comment off, really he did, but he found his brain clouded with it. Sometimes he was so good at letting things roll off of his shoulders, but he’s felt it getting harder and harder. The whole night at Nancy’s, he couldn’t stop thinking about what the woman had said; couldn’t stop thinking about the way she looked at you like she pitied you, simply for being near him. The worst part is, this isn’t the first time he’s noticed people judging you and him together. Not even close. Everywhere he goes with you, he feels like he catches dirty looks.

It makes him feel like even more of a screw-up than he already does, simply adding to the emptiness that resides within his body. In his head, he feels like that woman at the supermarket was right. You could do better than him. Why did you bother with the town freak when you could have anyone?

“Hey,” you say now, blinking at him from across the sticky tabletop. Your voice is like a shining flashlight through the fog of his thoughts, bringing him out of the murkiness. “Are you alright? I thought you were starving,” you worry, concern etched into your facial features.

He looks down at his plate, realizing he’d been dancing his fork around the porcelain and stabbing mindlessly at the now-room-temperature eggs. He’d taken a single bite of his toast and nothing more.

“Did those eggs do something to you?” you ask, playing tough, trying to get a smile from him. “Do I need to teach them a lesson?”

“Yeah, actually, they called me some pretty mean names,” he joins in, rolling his eyes, but it’s half-hearted. You notice this, able to read him like a book, but you don’t press the issue.

Instead, you simply reach across the table, taking his hand and giving it a squeeze. Squeezing yours in return, he tries to brush away the depressing thoughts that had berated him, and he eats his bacon and the rest of his toast before you both get up to leave. He knows he shouldn’t torture himself like this, but it’s hard not to when his whole life he’s felt like he wasn’t quite good enough.

When you arrive at your place, he walks you to the door of your building, ever the gentleman. Trying desperately to savor these moments with you without letting the town’s collective opinion of him ruin them. His heart flutters when your pretty eyes look up at him, your gentle fingers brushing against the sleeve of his coat.

“I don’t really want you to go,” you say, laughing a little but turning away as you do it, like you don’t quite want him to see.

“I don’t wanna go either. Hate leaving you,” he says, tilting his head to the side as he gives you a tiny pout.

You stand in silence for a moment, just looking at each other. The tension hangs thick in the air, and Eddie swears he could reach out and slice it with his fingernail. His heart thumps in his chest, he wonders if you can hear it from where you stand. And then, before he can truly even process it, you’re leaning in and he’s leaning in and then his lips are on yours and oh, god.

He’s never felt lips softer than yours, never felt sparks like the ones he feels right now. The kiss doesn’t last long, but in his mind it felt like he’d been frozen in that moment for hours. He can feel his cheeks flush when you’ve pulled away, but as he looks at you his heart just sinks.

You could do better than him. This is a mistake. He can’t let you do this to yourself.

He suddenly wants to sprint as far as he can away from you, he wants to curl up into a ball and hide away for eternity. He feels unstable, like the earth beneath him could crumble at any minute. His gut is telling him to leave, to go home and shut himself in to think. But at the same time, the way you look at him makes it so hard to go. You chew on your lip, giggling as he gives you a soft look and decisively tells you he has to get home. His breathing is a little shaky, and he hopes you didn’t notice.

“I’ll see you soon?” you ask, holding onto his arm.

“Yeah, see you soon.”

Your smile is persistent as you open the door to your building, waving at him through the small glass window. He offers a wave in return, before he turns heel and all but books it back to his van. He feels like he could collapse, like everything is crashing down around him.

To this town, he’s a fuck up, and maybe they’re all right. Maybe he needs to get out, to go somewhere where he can start fresh. Be someone new, not just a Munson.

His mental spiral only worsens as he drives to the trailer park, his thoughts racing in his mind. He hears principal Higgins from a few years back, he hears his neighbors, he hears the PTA moms all calling him a failure, a freak, a weirdo. A burden.

By the time he gets home, he feels like the answer to his problems is already decided. It’s been a slow boil over the course of the last week, a nagging thought that fades in and out of his brain. Now it’s finally coming to a head. There’s too many bad memories in this town, too many people that want him gone.

He needs to leave Hawkins. He needs to leave you.

Present Day: December 18th, 1989.

Initially, right after he’d left, the gang had tried reasoning with him, begging him over grueling phone calls to just come home. He’d felt horrible about it, but he said no every time. He truly wanted to make something of himself, something that he felt Hawkins could never give him.

But then, getting his foot in the door in the music industry like he had hoped was not as easy as it was made out to be. The guy at the local recording studio had laughed at him when he’d inquired about booking a session to record a demo-tape. He’d laughed harder when Eddie had asked if the recording studio itself was hiring. He couldn’t even land a job at the local record store, and he felt like his failures were just piling up. His first job in the city had been at a small book store, but they ended up letting him go due to their lack of need for his help. Not enough foot traffic, the owner had said. Not worth keeping Eddie around for one shift a week, he’d grumbled.

He’d had several failed job interviews after, growing more and more frustrated after each one. Bills and other expenses were piling up with each passing day he spent jobless, and he guiltily accepted the little bit of money Wayne insisted on sending him to help him get by. He struggled along until he finally scored a job at the big department store down the street from his place. It wasn’t glamorous, by any means, but it paid the bills… barely.

That was another thing. His rent raised unexpectedly a couple months after his move, and he’s been living essentially paycheck to paycheck ever since.

He finds himself missing Hawkins more than he ever thought he would, and it kills him every day. More than anything, he misses you. Every day he thinks about you, yearns for you, wonders what you’re up to. Most of all, he thinks about that kiss. That single, stupid kiss that you’d shared. It had been earth shattering, and looking back he isn’t sure why that wasn’t his reason to stay. Instead, it pushed him further away.

His pride had gotten the best of him, not letting him admit defeat and move back to Indiana because he wanted to seem like he had everything figured out. He couldn’t stomach the thought of returning after a couple short months and looking like a failure to everyone. Frequent phone calls home to Wayne helped him stay sane, and he tried to keep his tone upbeat for his uncle but he should’ve known all along that the man knows him too well to buy it.

That’s why, when Eddie picks up the phone for the second time tonight and dials Wayne’s number, the man on the other end isn’t surprised to hear the way Eddie’s voice cracks or the sniffles that he tries to hide. It’s why he instantly requests that Eddie tell him what’s going on, because he just knows.

And Eddie pours his heart out.

“I can’t do it, Wayne. I can’t fucking do it,” he sniffs.

“Don’t talk like that, boy, what’s got you worked up?”

“I’m miserable here. I thought this was the right choice, but it couldn’t have been further from it.”

Wayne is silent on the other end, but Eddie can hear his steady, calm breathing. He keeps going.

“Sunny won’t talk to me, and— and I deserve that, but I miss her. I miss you, I miss my friends, I fucked up, Wayne,” Eddie’s voice is raw as he talks, frustrated tears streaming down his face. “Chicago is not what I wanted it to be. It didn’t create some magical new life for me. I have virtually nobody here that gives a shit.”

There’s silence again. In this moment Eddie is so wound up he almost snaps at his uncle, but then he doesn’t need to, because his voice comes through the line.

“So come home,” Wayne replies, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“What?”

“Come home. Book a flight and get your ass here, I’ll help you pay for it. There’s still time to make it by Christmas.”

It’s like a lightbulb goes off for Eddie, in that moment. Why can’t he just come home? What’s so hard about it? He’d been telling himself no, acting as though he had to stay in Chicago. But what was he running from?

Maybe he just needed that final push. Someone to tell him point-blank to cut the crap and come home. He should've been confiding in Wayne all along. And then it all falls into place, as Eddie stews in the realization that there’s nothing truly holding him back from going home except for himself. He’d created this narrative in his head; that he needed to leave Hawkins and that no one benefited from his presence. What if that was all… bullshit? He’s been forcing himself to stay in a city he hates… for what? He slumps back in his chair, letting Wayne’s words sink in, nodding his head slowly as he thinks.

By the time he gets in bed for the night, he knows what he has to do. He knows he’s made a lot of mistakes in his lifetime, but his worst one was leaving you. Settling in under his thick comforter, his stomach turns with anxiety and excitement. He barely sleeps a wink, but for once, he isn’t mad about it when he wakes up the following morning.

Present Day: December 21st, 1989.

Eddie’s hands shake as he steps out of his cab, his breath shallow with his nerves. In a couple of short days he’d packed up his life in Chicago to leave this place behind for good. He’d left a note on Argyle’s door explaining his departure and thanking him for all of the smoke sessions, and he’d tossed his keys at the always-rude front-desk receptionist before walking out of that building for the last time.

He shuffles in through the revolving doors at the airport, hands nervously wringing around the strap to his duffel bag. Wayne had been right, of course, there was plenty of time to make it home for Christmas and Eddie had secured a flight to Indiana rather easily amidst the holiday craziness. He hadn’t told a single other soul he was coming home, and he knew Wayne certainly wouldn’t share the news without his permission. He wanted to surprise everybody, wanted to fix what he’d broken last year, and he could only hope that he would be welcomed by his friends. You were his biggest obstacle, the thing making him the most nervous, but he was more than ready to see your face again and to never let you go this time. Somehow, he’d make it right.

He takes a deep breath as he heads towards his gate, then another.

This is it. He’ll be home in Hawkins for Christmas.

taglist: @hellfirenacht @writethrough @littledemondani @prettyboyeddiemunson @trashmouth-richie @succubusmunson @likedovesinthewnd @tlclick73 @mrsjellymunson @idkitsem @svbrbnlegends @eddiesxangel @munsonzgf @hereforshmut @eggo-segual @joannamuns9n @lavendermunson @leenameh @micheledawn1975

#eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson angst #i’ll be home for christmas #support banner by cafekitsune

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bengiyo · 7 months

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GMMTV 2024 Part 1 Stray Thoughts

I have finished viewing the trailers. I'm feeling relatively cool about most of it, and I had a strong negative reaction to the announcements about two adaptations.

Here is what intrigued me in order:

My Golden Blood - When Joss and Mond rose off the ground, I also ascended. Joss and Gawin wasn't on my radar as a potential option, but I am so here for it.

Wadee Gooday - I'm so here for the adult romance, and Thor is here. A boxer and a doctor have such fascinating potential.

The Trainee - OffGun workplace romance and Love Score is playing. We are so fucking back.

On Sale - TayNew in a ghost romcom? We are so fucking back.

Pluto - Film and Namtam and Namtam is lying? I am here for it.

Kidnap - Ohm is back in BL and they gave him a gun and a little brother who shares his name. This is probably gonna be a mess but it looks fun.

Only Boo - Not sure how I feel about an idol trainee show, but Louis is here.

We Are - Why are there four couples? Engineering? Hopefully, this is going to be like MSP, and let us put this behind us.

High School Frenemy - I will have to watch School 2013 before this airs because it looks like the original was well-received and this trailer just looks like boys fighting the whole time.

My Love Mix-Up - Fourth doesn't seem to do slapstick well in this trailer, and Gem doesn't look serious enough. New Hashimoto doesn't have that glint in her eye. New Aida looks solid. I'm skeptical. More thoughts below.

Ossan's Love - Literally why?

Summer Night - Phuwin and Dunk pratfall kiss bait into het nonsense with a BL side. No thanks.

My Precious the series - I feel like any hype I had for this has evaporated. I'm past it.

Ploy's Yearbook - Apparently step-siblings fall for each other in this? No thanks.

Enigma 2 - No idea what's going on but it has clear vibes.

Alright, I'm just gonna say it: The My Love Mix-Up trailer was not good. I love Fourth and Gemini a lot. I think Fourth is really talented, and I think he and Gemini make a good team. That being said, there is a reason KH continues to get content shared on this website, and right now I don't think Fourth and Gem showed the juice to match Michieda Shunsuke and Meguro Ren.

I don't think Fourth is going to generate meme material as Thai Aoki the way Michieda did if this trailer is indicative of where he's going. I don't think Gemini is hitting the seriousness of Ida well here at all. Ida is a demisexual icon and so important to the genre, and I just don't think Gemini has this in him right now.

For those wondering why I feel so strongly about this, I will remind you that Kieta Hatsukoi is free on Viki.

We are now seeing cross-cultural adaptations of BL work, and I think that it's incredibly important to view the source work before we get into big discussions about what each adaptation does well. I am so concerned about Kieta Hatsukoi being adapted because it's so distinctly Japanese in its stylings and the dramatic tension underpinning it. The Thai trailer feels lacking to me because the angst felt so ungrounded. Fourth can moon over Gemini just fine, but there's a specificity to the mooning that he just isn't hitting here.

I will be talking about My Love Mix-Up Thailand as an adaptation of Kieta Hatsukoi. I will not be entertaining debates or discussions about it as an independent work. The trailer has called directly to the Japanese origins and it will be judged as such. If you haven't or won't watch the original or read the source work, please don't tag me, because "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore."

#gmmtv 2024 #kieta hatsukoi #my love mix up #my golden blood #wadee gooday #the trainee the series #on sale the series #pluto the series #kidnap the series #only boo the series #we are the series #high school frenemy #ossan's love #Ben watches

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chocolatepot · 11 months

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Twitter is rapidly sinking as people are only allowed to look at it for about ten minutes a day, so I thought I would put together a post explaining the best way to get started on Mastodon! It can be an intimidating prospect as it's not as immediately user-friendly as Twitter or other corporate social media sites.

Selecting a server

The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that you don't just "sign up for Mastodon". Mastodon is effectively made up of hundreds of small sites (called "instances") that are all interconnected ("federated") and use the same interface. The instance you choose has only a minor effect on your experience. The main one to be aware of is that if an instance is known to be poorly moderated and have users who cause a lot of trouble, other instances may unlink from it ("defederate") and make it more difficult for people on it to interact with you. This is rare. The very big, unthemed instances like mastodon.social are more likely to have this problem than any fannish one, in my experience. (You can also make a personal choice to block an entire instance if you have an issue with it.)

The other effect is that each instance has its own universal feed of all users on it.

The sidebar looks almost exactly like Twitter's, except for "local" and "federated". Your home feed is just the people you follow. "Local" is everyone on your instance, and "federated" is everyone on any instance yours is federated with. The local feed is why it's worthwhile to choose an instance that has some sort of theme you're interested in, like fandom, tech, queer issues, history, etc.

The two main fannish instances I'm aware of are fandom.ink and federatedfandom.net. There's also wandering.shop but that seems to be more for writers, in my experience. If you want a different sort of instance, just google "[topic] mastodon instance" and you should find it.

Applying to your instance

Because instances are more tightly moderated than the rest of social media, you can't always immediately get into the one you want. (Though I suspect that many have opened up slightly as Twitter flails.) You may need to submit some kind of application and wait a few days.

If you know someone on the instance you want to join, they may be able to get you an invite code so you can skip the queue. I have unlimited invites for fandom.ink, hit me up if you want to join.

You can also join an instance that's currently taking new accounts and then transfer into the one you want later. For the impatient souls.

Posting

The mechanics of posting are just like Twitter's.

You type in the box, you hit "toot" (I know), and out it goes. You may notice that you get a 500 character limit! This is nice.

If you add an image, make sure to add alt text. Not including alt text may get you flamed or shamed. You can also make a poll, set privacy levels, and add a content/spoiler/trigger warning that will require people to click through to see the text.

Use of hashtags is strongly encouraged on Mastodon. I've seen some talk praising Tumblr's style of having a separate field for tags and suggesting Mastodon add that, but I don't know if it'll happen. But unlike Twitter, there's an earnest culture of incorporating tags into your text (eg "I just bought a new #fountainpen") and following tags to get posts about different topics. This is the main way to find people with similar interests to follow, outside of your local feed.

It's also Mastodon culture to write an introductory post with your interests, including hashtags, so that people can find you.

Something else to be aware of is that you can edit your posts! If anyone has already rt'd ("boosted") them - they will just get a notification of your edit.

You cannot qrt on Mastodon at this time. It's a hotly debated topic. You will have to settle for boosting and then replying, or making your own post with context and linking to the post you want to qrt.

Following other people

If the person you want to follow is on your instance, that's all well and good. Click on their name, go to their profile, click the "follow" button.

If they are not on your instance, you need to make sure that you're accessing them through your instance. Clicking on their name from your federated feed, or if someone has boosted them onto your home feed, will automatically take you to the version of their profile on your instance. Also all well and good.

If you get to their profile from somewhere else, such as a direct link from another social media platform, that's a problem. If you try to follow, their instance will bleat at you that you don't have an account. There are two ways to get around this.

One is to paste their entire username (eg "@[email protected]") into the search bar on your instance, from your home feed. The other is to navigate to "http://[your server address]/[their whole username]" in your address bar. Both will take you to the same place.

#mastodon #tutorial #please join me on mastodon it's lonely

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trickphotography2 · 1 year

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D-Day by TrickPhotography | Chapter 2

Pairing: Jake "Hangman" Seresin x female!reader

Word count: 3.1k

Synopsis: After finding out his girlfriend is pregnant, Jake is ready to move in and get married. The last thing he expected was to be hit with a six-month deployment at sea and missing the birth of his first child.

Chapter 1 | Master List | Ao3

---------------------------------------

Chapter 2

“Special delivery!”

You looked up from your computer and blinked at the older woman in your office doorway. While Joanne, the office receptionist, often waved on her way to the break room to restock the coffee or clean up after the guys, she rarely stopped by. The most interaction you usually had was stopping by her desk to get your mail and snag a piece of candy from the bowl. After you had strongly shut down the hints that you needed to help the administration department set up the holiday party, the relationship was strained.

It wasn’t that you didn’t want to help - it was just that you were the only person outside of admin asked to do so. If she’d asked just one man from your team to do the same, you would have been more than happy to pitch in. But you’d walked in on one too many snide conversations about the ‘party planning committee’ to give the guys another thing to tease you about.

So Joanne standing in front of your office was an oddity. Even more so was the vase of flowers in her hands. “What are those?”

“Flowers for you, silly! There’s a card and everything!” She stepped into your office as you stood, lifting the flowers to her face to smell before handing them to you. You frowned at the arrangement of white roses and blue hydrangeas, running a finger along the green foliage. It clearly wasn’t the obligatory office birthday gift and your parents never sent flowers. “Open the card!” Joanne said, clapping her hands.

Sighing, you set the vase on your desk and plucked out the white envelope. The front said that the arrangement was called Blue Skies. Your frown deepened at the message on the back.

1) Thanks for the beers

2) Didn’t think you were a tag chaser

3) I prefer to be called a man in a bag or Hangman

4) I disagree

-- Jake

There was that phone number again.

“Well, who is it from?” Joanne asked. “A secret admirer?”

“My parents,” you lied, forcing a smile while stroking the soft rose petals.

“Oh,” her smile fell, disappointed that there wasn’t more gossip to spread in the office. “That’s nice of them. Any special occasion?”

“Not that I know of. I’ll, um… I’m going to give them a call to thank them. And thank you for bringing these to me.”

“Of course. I’m up front if you need anything.”

As soon as she left, you collapsed back into your chair and let your head fall back to stare at the ceiling. For a moment, you debated calling Seresin but decided against it, tossing the card in your desk drawer to deal with later. Your attempt to focus on emails kept being interrupted as the scent of the flowers permeated your office, and the blue caught the corner of your eye. It was a relief when the meeting reminder popped up on the screen. Quickly, you locked the computer and gathered a notebook and pen, grabbing your coffee mug at the last second.

Mark and Glen nodded as you moved toward the break room coffee pot. They were talking about a golfing trip over the weekend that some of the guys were going on. When they asked what you were doing, you shrugged, “Just relax and catch up on some stuff around the apartment.”

“No hot date?” Glen asked. Unlike some in your office, you knew Glen was playfully teasing - you’d attended his wedding just two months ago, and the man was so obnoxiously in love with his wife.

“Not unless you count Mr. Clean who will be getting up close to my baseboards,” you laughed.

“Say the word and you’d have a lot of guys lining up to see your baseboards,” Mark smirked into his coffee, and you blushed. Glen rolled his eyes before looking at his watch.

“Meeting’s starting soon. Save you a seat?” When you nodded, he shouldered Mark towards the door, and you could have sworn you saw Glen swat the back of Mark’s head. With a deep breath, you set your mug by the sink and turned on the cold water, removing your watch to thrust your wrists under the stream. While annoying, Mark’s comment wasn’t the worst you’d heard. And you’d, unfortunately, opened yourself up for that comment - joking about someone seeing your baseboards? Rookie move.

Eventually, you turned off the water and dried your hands. After putting on your watch and dumping cream and sugar into your coffee, you made your way to the conference room for the weekly check-in. Thankfully Joanne had sent one of her staff in to take notes so you wouldn’t be in charge of the meeting minutes.

Twisting in your chair, you looked at the flowers again and chewed on your lower lip. They’d caused quite a few remarks as your colleagues filed past your office following the meeting, a few people popping in to try and get the gossip. You stuck to your story about them being from your parents. Glancing at the open door, you grabbed the card from your drawer and held it up again.

The card was handwritten, which either meant that Seresin… Jake… had called in the order or gone to a flower shop himself rather than ordering online. The writing was small and precise; you could feel it indent the paper when you ran a finger over it. Flipping the card over, you saw that Blue Skies was in different handwriting. Which meant he probably wrote the note himself.

Something about a guy going into a flower shop and picking something out for you made your heart give an unwelcome flutter. It was a bad idea. You interacted with pilots enough to know those wings usually came with an ego. There was too much of that in your life already, why invite more? And besides, what kind of nickname was Hangman? You knew enough to understand that it was his callsign. Had he been caught doodling in his notes one too many times, or was it some inside joke? Groaning, you tried to push away those thoughts. There was no need for you to know where it came from.

Picking up your phone, you quickly typed in his number and hit send before you could think too much. It rang repeatedly as you shut the door and crossed your arm under your chest.

“It’s Seresin. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

“Oh, hi,” you said, unprepared to have been met with his voicemail. “I, um, I just wanted to call and say thank you for the flowers. They weren’t necessary. So, um… thank you again, and have a great day.” Cursing yourself after hanging up, you muttered, “Smooth.”

The phone rang in your hand, flashing an unknown number. Against your better judgment, you answered it. “Hello?”

“Hi. It’s Seresin - Jake. Glad to hear you got the flowers. I was getting worried they got delivered to the wrong place.”

“Right, um, thank you. Again.”

“You’re welcome. So I’ve been thinking about this conflict of interest.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve got nothing to do with contracts and I don’t even fly what you’re selling - I’m still in an old fourth-gen, like you pointed out yesterday. So there’s no conflict.”

“Really?” you said, feeling charmed despite yourself.

“And to your other point, I’ve very clearly a man in a bag, not a boy.”

“Man or boy, I don’t date pilots.”

“That a hard rule?”

“Yes.”

“What if I told you I was on the maintenance crew?”

“Lying isn’t a great way to get a date.”

“Who says I’m lying?”

“They don’t hand out those gold wings I saw on your uniform to just anyone, Lieutenant.”

“You know a lot about uniforms. You serve?”

“No, I’m a civilian.” When he hummed, you cleared your throat. “It was nice meeting you. And if you ever have $75 million lying around and want to purchase an F-35, feel free to call me and I’ll give you the sales pitch.”

“That with the friends and family discount?”

“We’d have to be friends for you to get that.”

“Ouch. Nothing on the family side?”

“Are you saying you're family? Because that would be another reason we can’t go on a date.” He chuckled, and you smiled.

“I can see why you’re in negotiations.”

“It pays the bills.” There was silence before Jake cleared his throat.

“So dinner and drinks are off the table?”

“They are.”

“Damn.”

“No hard feelings?”

“Just a couple. It’s not every day you come across someone smart and gorgeous.”

“You’ll get over me.” At that, he laughed and you grinned.

“That’s usually my line.”

“Oh, so you’re a heartbreaker? Good thing I’m dodging that bullet.”

“Guess so.” Neither of you said anything until he spoke up again. “Well, I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah. It was nice meeting you, Lieutenant.”

“Jake.”

“Jake,” you repeated. “Have a good rest of your week.”

“You too.”

When the call disconnected, you let your head fall back against the door and sighed. Why is it that a five-minute conversation with Jake was more fun than you’d had in months of being on dating apps?

“So do you have any siblings?” Tyler asked, running his finger around the rim of his coffee mug. Smiling, you shook your head and subtly twisted your wrist to glance at your watch. Half an hour in and you were still playing twenty questions. You wondered when he would ask what your favorite color was. At least he wasn’t monologuing about his podcast like your last date.

“Only child,” you replied. “You?”

“Two older brothers.”

“That must have been a fun dynamic growing up,” you smiled, adjusting your sunglasses. Tyler shrugged.

“Being the youngest sucked since I was the punching bag. Always wanted to be an only child.”

“It does have its perks. So are you from Lemoore?”

“Nah, got that DoDEA job and moved from the East Coast. Nothing like moving across the country to teach a bunch of third graders. I really wanted an overseas job, so that’ll be the next step.”

“That’s awesome. I really liked my teachers when I went to school on base.”

“Yeah. Not to mention the pay is way better.” Your eyes glazed over as Tyler railed against the government teacher’s salary for stateside compared to overseas postings. You agreed that teachers needed to be paid more, but this wasn’t a great first-date conversation. You nodded where appropriate and sipped at your iced coffee.

And then you spotted him.

The downside of living near a military base was how small the community was. It wasn’t something you had necessarily picked up on while growing up when your whole social network revolved around school, but it was definitely noticeable as an adult. A perfect example was seeing a man you’d turned down walking towards the only open table on the patio of your favorite local coffee shop, clearly on a date.

Jake pulled out the woman’s chair, settling her back-to-back with Tyler, and taking the seat opposite her. Which unfortunately put him in your direct eye line. While you couldn’t confirm it because you were both wearing sunglasses, you felt his eyes lock on you as you stared at him. It’d been three weeks since meeting him in the hangar, and clearly, he hadn’t had an issue finding a date.

You tried focusing on Tyler, but your eyes kept drifting back to Jake. He looked good out of uniform. The green collared shirt he wore clung to his arms and chest, and was unbuttoned enough to hint at chest hair. You had a feeling it was a close match to his eyes. Forcing your gaze back to Tyler, you couldn’t help but compare the two men. Tyler was leaner, his dark hair long enough for him to continually flick out of his eyes. Tattoos decorated his arms - definitely your usual type. And he was dull. It had seemed exciting to set a date after only exchanging a few messages online, but this was a reminder of why you usually waited at least a week to screen out meeting someone in person.

Jake’s laugh drew your attention, and your eyes flitted toward him before lowering to your drink. Running a hand through your hair, you pushed your sunglasses to the top of your head and propped your chin in your hand, leaning forward to focus on Tyler. You saw his eyes dip down to your cleavage and suppressed a sigh. You’d worn a cute new halter top decorated with flowers and a keyhole slit that apparently was just enough for him to get a peek at your breasts.

As he rambled on about the renovation he was doing on his house (one tally in the pros column - homeowner), you absentmindedly ran your thumb through your glass’s condensation. With your customer service smile pasted on, you mentally ran through the lists of things you needed to get done that weekend. It was hard to ignore the chuckles and laughs from the table next to you, and you tried not to be envious of the easy flow of conversation between Jake and his date.

Tyler eventually asked how you got into defense contracting, and you gave him the bare bones story - your dad did it and it was a career where you could use your English degree. Granted, working on a contract for washing planes - your newest project - wasn’t always the most exciting, but you liked it. “Too bad some of that military budget can’t go into education,” he smirked.

“Yeah, it’s absolutely an underfunded public service,” you agreed.

“Could divert funding for even a couple of those jets always flying overhead and get so much more bang for your buck.” It was on the tip of your tongue to comment on having to decouple property taxes from school funding, but it wasn’t worth the back and forth. Rather than answer, you took a sip of your coffee, glancing over Tyler’s shoulder to see Jake’s raised eyebrow.

When you’d both finished your drinks and the date was coming to an organic end, you couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment that another guy who had seemed promising on paper led to a disappointing date. As you gathered your purse and empty cups, he held the door open for you to go inside and return your dishes. “Well, it was nice to meet you,” you said while exiting the building, car keys in hand.

“Yeah, you too. I had a good time.”

“Me too,” you lied. “It’s always nice to get out and meet someone new.”

“We should do this again sometime.” You smiled rather than answer and returned the hug he pulled you in for. Thankfully, you were parked on opposite sides of the lot. You sat in your car with the door open until he left, and then got back out. While the date was a bust, you wanted another latte to get you through the errands you needed to run that afternoon.

“Fancy seeing you here,” a voice said behind you in line. Taking a deep breath, you turned to look up at Jake.

“Hi.”

“Date going well?”

“I could ask you the same,” you said, glancing out the window to where his date was looking at her phone.

“Just getting us some refills,” he shrugged.

“Good for you.” When it was your turn, you ordered a large iced latte to go and moved to the opposite side of the counter to wait for your drink. You pulled your phone from your back pocket and opened the dating app. Jake moved to stand behind you, crossing his arms over his chest. After typing a quick message to Tyler to say that you enjoyed the date but you didn’t really see anything moving forward, you unmatched with him.

“Ouch. Could have at least let him get home before breaking his heart,” Jake said. Ignoring him, you closed the app and locked your phone, slipping it into your purse. Tucking your hands into your pockets, you glanced over your shoulder at him.

“Kind of a dick move to talk to another woman while you’re on a date.”

“Really? Even when there’s no chance of a date or even friendship with the one I’m talking to?”

“Yeah, still disrespectful.”

“My bad.” Neither of you spoke for a long moment. He stepped forward to grab a few sugar packets and stood beside you. “So, aren’t schools paid for by property taxes?”

“Yes!” you said, throwing your hands up. “I mean, completely agree with shifting some defense spending to education but…” you trailed off, turning to glare at him. “Were you listening to our conversation?”

“English degree?” Jake smirked. You reached out to swat his arm before you could stop yourself, which only made him laugh. “Hard not to. Should’ve kept your sunglasses on - hid that you were bored better.”

“I was not bored!”

“Which is why you blew him off.”

“Pay attention to your own dating life, Seresin.” With another glance at his date, you scoffed. “I’m surprised you didn’t bring her flowers.”

“Blew my budget on a cute contractor,” he shrugged.

“Thanks for that, by the way. Everyone at work’s wondering who I’m dating.”

Jake leaned closer, and you could smell his spicy aftershave and a hint of coffee on his breath when he spoke again, voice low and rumbling in your ear. “Probably better that I paid for delivery instead of bringing them myself, then, huh, Sweetheart.”

Goosebumps erupted on your skin, and your breath caught. Slowly, you turned towards him, catching a glimpse of your stunned expression in the aviator sunglasses hanging on the front of his shirt, and looked up at him. His green eyes dragged from your arm, lingered on your mouth, and finally met your gaze. There was a loaded silence as you dropped your eyes to his cocky grin before turning your attention back to the coffee counter. “Don’t be a dick to your date, please. Don’t be one of those guys.”

That seemed to bring him up short, and his smile dropped as he looked out the window to where his date sat, tapping her fingers on the table. They called your drinks, and you both moved to grab them. Your eyes met briefly and you gave him a weak smile. “Good luck.”

“I’ll see you around,” he replied. With a nod, you walked towards the front door, pausing as you pushed it open to see Jake leaning against the door to the patio looking at you. Smiling, he lifted one of his drinks and tapped a finger to his forehead in a small salute. You smiled back and returned it before walking out.

-------------------------------------------------------

Author's Note: DoDEA schools military funded schools on base. Stateside, it's usually only through elementary school, but overseas it goes through high school. They're just like a normal school, just funded differently (people always imagined a military training school when I say they're military schools).

Thank you for the support with this story! I do have a tag list running, so please let me know if you would like to be added to it.

Read Chapter 3

@memeorydotcom; @alldaysdreamers: @genius2050; @djs8891; @caitsymichelle13

#hangman seresin x reader #jake seresin x reader #top gun fic #top gun maverick #jake seresin #D-Day fic

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controversial-blorbo-bracket · 6 months

Text

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Light Yagami from Death Note vs Edelgard von Hresvelg from Fire Emblem: Three Houses

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. please be normal in the notes, i will not hesitate to block if you harass people)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Light Yagami:

LOVE: - "He does some messed up things but have you considered: fucked up protagonists rock :)" HATE: - "this man makes me sick. ive genuinely had manic episodes over hating him. i have trauma from his existence in general. not even because of the murder. because hes a sexist cheater :(" - "My cousin and I frequently debate this. I think despite his 'intentions' he's ultimately a despicable character who cares for nobody but himself. She disagrees and says that he is just trying to do the right thing and making a difference in the world (she still thinks his actions are wrong, but she doesn't think he himself is despicable)" BOTH: - "I mean cmon man"

Edelgard Von Hresvelg:

LOVE: "People either claim she's the hero or the irredeemable villain with no in between. She's also my lovely wife who has never done anything wrong in her life." "I never even finished her route and remember nothing of what happens in that game but I DO remember the absolute warzone the fandom turned into because of her. She staged a coup and overthrew the head of the government/church and I think that's pretty cool of her. "But she committed war crimes!" God forbid women do anything." "I lied in the previous question. I don't hate her or love her in fact I have never even played this game. But I keep finding people making up Discourse™ featuring wild accusations of bigotry towards both Edelgard fans and Edelgard haters so I feel that she belongs here. (Also my friend hates her. but HER friend loves Edelgard. So even in my small social circle there is a clear polarization.)" "ok I don't have any solid propaganda because my opinion of her is more positive-neutral, but. she fits the spirit of this poll. trust me." "[three houses spoilers] Yes she started a war but it was the only apparent way to break the chokehold the church had over everyone in Fodlan. Also she’s the only lord you can gay marry so I’m hopelessly biased" "every time i go into the tag its either "edelgard is perfect no notes!!" or "edelgard is literally a fascist!!!". ive never seen someone with a neutral opinion of her. i yearn for battle." "I know very little about her to be quite honest! But good god. As a fire emblem fan for the GBA and engage. I have NEVER seen such a decisive character like Edelgard. Jesus Christ. I still find stuff in those tags. What the hell!!!" "I don’t even go to Fire Emblem but even I know that Edelgard has never done anything wrong, ever, in her entire life, and that if she did any war crimes they were a SUPER effective use of girl power. source: I am a lesbian. (realtalk I genuinely love a noble-minded extremist revolutionary and think Edelgard is a great character, so it’s kind of a shame that opinion on her seems to simply split down the line of “whether the person wants to kiss Edelgard or Dimitri more.”)"

HATE: "So on the one hand, she's fully willing to kill and burn and murder her way to a "better future" at the expense of the present, but on the other hand she's pretty cool and #girlboss. She's also a canon gay romance option, but idk if that makes her more or less problematic." "I just. I understand why people like her. I really do. And I don't have anything new to say for why I dislike her. Edelgard fans and stans have heard everything. She has great points and motivation, but her methods are wrong. She hitches her ideals to the first good opportunity and never reconsiders her allegiance when things go off the rails. She hates the church for "lying to people" and proceeds to lie to her own populace herself in her own route. She gives Claude an opportunity to live because she knows he believes in her goals. But Dimitri and his Kingdom are too beholden to the church to ever be offered such mercy. She herself acknowledges that the change she wants to see is more quickly enacted through war than subtle and slow societal change. She recognizes the human toll of her actions, but she justifies it through flowery language and an insistence that the change needs to happen now or it never will. I honestly find her so interesting, and I agree with a lot of her thoughts about the need for societal change in the world of FE:3H. But people latched onto her and propped her up as someone who can do no wrong. And that just never sat right with me. I just think she’s a hypocrite who got put in front of a shiny means to her end and was immediately blind to every other opportunity around her." BOTH: - "I dont even play fire emblem but I cant escape people not shutting up about how much they love or hate her" - "You said there were no hate answers for her...and I don't really hate her so it wouldn't be right but I wanted to balance things out some. She's the perfect storm of a character who sounds right and progressive and has a route all to herself that doesn't contradict that...but once you play other routes, it becomes clear she's kind of. full of misinformation. And attacking people who don't deserve it. Also a LOT of the divisiveness I'm willing to blame on the writers rather than her, for having her both be Evil Tyrant we NEED to take down and Sad Uwu Baby who just wants to eat cake and laze around and loves You the Player SO MUCH."

#poll #4 submissions #12 submissions #round 2 #yagami light #light death note #light yagami #death note #edelgard von hresvelg #fe3h edelgard #edelgard fire emblem #fe3h #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem 3 houses

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wen-kexing-apologist · 11 months

Note

How are you so cool and write so much cool meta?? Sometimes I find myself not agreeing to it, but that makes it more cooler ig. (Like what are you doing with life if your meta posts don't have a lil potential for controversy and make people second guess.)

I don't really have anything to ask rn but your latest Step by Step meta post about homelessness and hidden relationships and bridges was really, really good, so just Take my love! <3333

(and keep on writing, please!)

Omg thank you this is so sweet!

How am I so cool and write so much cool meta??

It’s a combination of being gay, mental illness, and a theatre degree I think!

But actually I write cool meta because other people write cool meta and other people share their thoughts and opinions and talk to the internet about them, and talk to me about them, and sometimes I agree and sometimes I don’t and sometimes something they say makes me think about a scene differently or a show differently or a character differently and without that I wouldn’t be here, writing meta until way too late in the evenings.

My cool meta would not exist without people like @absolutebl, @bengiyo, @colourme-feral, @dribs-and-drabbles, @emotionallychargedtowel, @ginnymoonbeam, @kyr-kun-chan, @liyazaki, @lurkingshan, @neuroticbookworm, @respectthepetty, @ranchthoughts, @shortpplfedup, @so-much-yet-to-learn, @solitaryandwandering, @waitmyturtles

and so many many many many many more people who have made posts or come into my comments, or my DMs, or my inbox to talk to me about the things they’re seeing, about the things they are thinking, about the questions they have.

it starts small, it builds over time. I started by seeing @respectthepetty’s index of BL tattoos and BL t-shirts and sending her examples I’d seen that she didn’t have, and then I followed her, and then she started posting about colors, and then I started to thinking about colors instead of just watching the show in front if me, and then *I* started to post about colors, and then about scenes, and then about body language, until my brain was trained, primed, and ready to instantly make a connection between queer people finding safety among other historically disenfranchised communities.

not all of my meta has been cool, some of my meta has caused people to stall on shows they were enjoying because I got over excited, because I was still honing my analysis brain, I’ve been wrong before about colors, about theories, about everything and I keep posting anyway (I just don’t include those failures on my master post lmfao)

All of this to say, cool meta is subjective and cool meta can take time to get right. My meta does not exist without other people behind the camera, in front of the camera, and on the internet putting their own time and effort in to creating something, analyzing something, sharing something that I can connect with, reflect on, and respond to.

all of this to say I write cool meta because other people write cool meta and I am all the better for it. So this is my call to action for more people to start feeling empowered to POST! THAT! SHIT!

post it if you feel it strongly, post it if you agree, post it if you disagree, post about colors and numbers and shapes and the significance of blow jobs and tattoos and tropes. Post the best kisses and why, post the categorizations, post what you are comfortable with

but be respectful!

don’t jump down people’s throat on main, engage in discussions not debates don’t post just cause you feel like you have something to prove. I have disagreed with many people I tagged here, honestly I’ve probably disagreed with all of them at one point. Disagreed about actors, about editing, about story structure, about significance. But I listen, I understand that everyone has lenses through which they view the world, the way they view media and I take those as learning opportunities. I’ve disagreed with everyone here at some point, and even in the midst of those discussions I take their points. I can understand why they don’t have the same hangs ups, or have different hang ups, or like something others don’t, or don’t like something others do.

I consider a great number of the people I tagged to be my internet friends and we’ve remained that way for the last…4? months that I’ve been posting meta because we can shut up and listen just as good as we can ramble and write.

tl;dr i write cool meta because others write cool meta and you too should write cool meta

#step by step #bl meta

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rxgueone · 1 year

Text

SEEN

Word count: 4,999

Summary: Austin, who strongly dislikes the oc. Eventually falls for her, and isn’t afraid to admit it.

Warnings: fluff, cursing, enemies to lover trope, arguing, emotional cheating, all I can think of.

Tags: none.

Note: I don’t know what’s been up with Tumblr lately. But this app has been duplicating and deleting paragraphs. So if this story is a bit messed up. I apologize. This is also based off of something that happened to me with the chic I’ve been seeing. We’re about to hit two years so rad. This story is based off of mainly her perspective and to what she’s told me when dealing with her friends who use to constantly judge not only our relationship but as well as me as a person so that’s also rad. But yeah. Story based off of mainly how she sees me and why she loves me etc etc. I love her sm. She’s genuinely perfect. So… I guess you could say this is technically just a super long love letter to my girl. So if she sees this. I love you.

MASTERLIST

—

The blonde sat down in silence. His body hunched over the bench he was sitting, legs crossed, with a pen and sketchbook. He was constantly glancing at the reference photo of Venom that was on his phone. Sketching out some sort of figure of the Marvel Villain.

Behind him was a girl in black pantyhose, a black skirt and black shirt. She had raven colored hair, that was long. However compared to him she was quite little and petite. He hadn’t noticed her presence as he was quietly sketching.

The girl recognized him. He was Austin Butler, the most outspoken guy at the campus. A man who she had hated greatly, and she knew he felt the same way over her. The pair had gotten into several heated debates about controversial topics. He was never afraid to stand up for what he believed in. When she had met him, he was dating a girl named Ana. Who was very short compared to him.

She never understood how Ana could put up with Austin. A brash and blunt man who never seemed to know how to shut up. But, this was the first time he looked at his lonesome. And she watched him draw in his sketchbook.

He never had many friends either. He always looked to be alone ever since he and Ana broke up. He had such a cold expression on his face, he was emotionally unavailable most of the time. And he had changed since the breakup, still outspoken but less or more so.

She cleared her throat, wanting to compliment the drawing. “That’s a nice drawing you got there.”

The pencil stopped moving as he turned to face her. “Oh,” he blankly looked at her. Looking at his drawing again, then at her, “appreciate that. It’s Venom.” He had a simple tone. His voice was raspy, but it had a husky twist to it. Almost seemed unreal how deep someone’s voice really was. She forgot how deep it was in all honesty, even despite of their heated debates.

“Oh… Venom.” She whispered. “Mind if I sit with you to watch?” She asked quietly. She was expecting him to reject the offer, considering their deep dislike towards each other- or, so she thought.

“Yeah, go ahead.” He flicked his head, motioning her to the empty spot. She blinked, taken aback by this. But nonetheless, she had offered, he took it, so she should go through. She sat down at his side, close to him to watch the pencil move against the paper.

She said nothing for some time, not wanting to disturb him. During this time, Austin’s eyes would sometimes wonder off to her face. She was prettier than he remembered. In fact, he never thought she was pretty, purely cause they were typically yelling at each other. He figured he’d spark up a conversation. “You know anything about Marvel?”

“No.” She answered, glancing at his face. “I dunno much about Marvel.”

“Me neither,” he admitted casually, “I just like drawing.” Once the sketch was finished. He began to tighten up the drawing so it could look more of an actual figure instead of just circles and messy squiggles. “More of a Star Wars guy.”

“You like Star Wars?” Her eyes were now focused on his face.

“Yes.” His tone remained monotonous.

“I’ve never watched it.”

“Would you like me to tell you about it?”

“Sure. I’d love to hear about it.” She shrugged. Her brown eyes had remained on him. As he continued to sketch Venom, she listened intently to his words as he talked about the love he had for the series. He sounded passionate, and she couldn’t lie, it was interesting and attractive how someone could talk so passionately about something they felt fondly for.

Her head was slightly tilted the whole time as she listened. She couldn’t believe that she was sitting with Austin, casually talking to him. She thought he’d be mean or hostile towards her. But he seemed so casual and chill, like they had never once argued a day in their life. For some reason, this too charmed her.

She blinked, thinking it’d be awkward to mention it. But she decided to anyways. “I thought you’d be meaner.” She said once he finished his monologue about how great Star Wars was. Austin looked at her with half sleepy eyes. His face was unreadable but she assumed he was confused. “Cause well- y’know, you and I use to go at it.” She chuckled nervously.

“Oh.” He looked away for a moment. “Yeah well,” he started, “I know how to properly loathe people. You were debating with me because that’s the whole point of English Literature. You debate about topics and stupid shit like that. You were only doing it to get the A. I was doing the same. Nothin deep about it.” He shrugged it off. “It was professional, not personal.”

She was surprised by his laid back response. “But I mean— I would ignore you and everything too after that.”

“So?” He smirked. “Don’t matter does it? You’re talkin to me now.” This man was full of surprises. He was laid back. Incredibly so that it seemed unreal. But on his face was a smirk, a smirk that showed friendliness. “We’re still friends. You may not consider me one. But I consider you one. So, I’ll wait for you to talk to me. I’m like a dog.”

“You shouldn’t compare yourself to a dog.” She was taken back from how low he saw himself. Never has she seen someone refer to themself as a dog, and for some reason he didn’t seem too bothered by it. He just looked back at the sketchbook.

“It isn’t an insult to myself.” Beginning to shade in the parts of Venom’s body. “It’s not an insult if it’s true. I’m like a dog. I wait and wait. My ex girlfriend ignored me for a total of six months, and I waited for her.”

“Ana?” Scooting closer to him until their knees were touching. He gave a nod. She looked at what he was wearing. Black jeans, a white shirt underneath his Vans hoodie, with a pair of Vans sneakers. “She ignored you for that long?”

“Like I said Lyra,” he looked at her eyes now. She saw nothing but empty gray orbs. As if he was use to being treated that way. With a blank expression, “I’m a dog.” He returned back to sketching. “You hated me. Your friends hated me too. Most people on this campus hated me. Even my girlfriend ignored me. So… y’know you gotta wait till you’re actually used or some shit.”

“But… nobody should be treated that way.” She spoke softly.

“Oh? When I debated with your whole entire friend group. One of your buddies made a whole post about it on Instagram. Then I got attacked for it.” He scoffed, his tone still showing no range of emotion. He didn’t seemed annoyed, he didn’t seem sad, he didn’t show anything.

“We did that?” Not even being able to recall the event. Austin couldn’t help but chuckle when she answered him. He gave a nod once more, his brows raised in amusement. “Oh- I’m sorry about that. That was incredibly immature of us.”

“Yeah. It was.” He began drawing in the background of the sketch. “But I don’t blame you. It was him. Not you.”

“But I’m friends with him?”

“But, you’re not him.” He put the sketchbook away now. Closing it shut to put it beside him with the pencil on top. “So… I look at you differently. Like I said. I know how to loathe people. I never had the privilege to really loathe someone properly.” Their eyes locked with each other. They were sitting incredibly close.

Maybe she didn’t hate him. Now that she was actually talking to him. He seemed chill, interesting with the way he thought. Yeah, maybe she didn’t hate him. Maybe she believed she did because her other friends hated him, but her? No.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.” She murmured, realizing that he was much different than she first perceived. He chuckled lowly once more, shaking his head. “Well- I don’t hate you either.” This caught his attention. Their eyes were still locked with each other. He had been listening to her intently, his arm over the bench, leaning back on it. With her hands underneath her thighs, with their bodies turned towards each other.

“You don’t?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I thought I did honestly. But now that I get to know you… you’re super chill.” Her hands pulled out from underneath her thighs, nervously twiddling with her fingers.

“Then I’ll see you here tomorrow, huh?” As if he was suggesting the idea to become actual friends. She had nodded her head in agreement. Not wanting to treat him like a dog, like the way he saw herself.

From that day on. The pair would meet up with each other on that bench every day. He’d probably bring some snickers, for himself mainly cause she didn’t like chocolate. But they had began to grow closer to each other as the days pressed on.

Lyra’s priority was always her friend group, and Austin wasn’t the priority. She cared more about her friend group than she cared about him. But at times, she would often catch herself talking about him.

“What’re you so focused on?” One of her friends asked. Noticing that she had been on her phone more, as if she was expecting a text message.

“Oh- a text from that guy I was talking about earlier.” She revealed to them. They quirked up their brows, surprised by the answers.

“You seem more interested in him.”

“Oh, well y’know he’s cool.” She brushed it off as if they weren’t even there. They had laughed at her new interest in him, going back to talking about whatever they were talking about. She had known that if they found out if she was talking to Austin Butler they would have made fun of him.

But for some reason, she began to prioritize him slowly. Slowly he was chipping away at her heart. At times when he would meet with her, they would just sit at the bench at talk. Get to know each other more. With his arm around her shoulder, and her leaning against him.

He was learning more about her. And the more he learned. The more he realized she wasn’t really a good girl like the front she put up for the audience. She wasn’t innocent nor pure like the front she put up. She was mean but she was also kind to him, she would listen to him talk about random things he enjoyed, or would vent to her about how the storage room flooded again at work.

She learned that he was a person filled with anger. He grew up in a culture where he was taught to never show emotion. So he was mostly monotonous with everyone he met. The only time he would actually show emotion was when debating with someone, but that emotion was usually annoyance, nothing more, nothing less. She learned he was impulsive and battled with his demons often. That he needed someone stable there to keep him calm, he needed someone who was patient and understanding. He needed that.

She learned that he was also a handyman. For some reason she found him to be the coolest in the room. He had revealed that he could weld, fix motorcycles, he knew how to cook, he had so many things about him that were surprising. Such as how his favorite color was pastel pink. She found this to be especially shocking due to the fact he was such a burly dude. Tall and blunt with no emotion, who really loved puppies and loved the color pink. When she needed him to help her with something, he was there. Always.

She learned that he would cope with himself by writing. His stories were always different in her eyes. With a world filled with nothing but hate, with a world that is constantly tearing itself apart, writing stories can help put it back together. Making up a poem on the dime for her just like that. She had figured that he’d write about her, about their friendship, about everything.

And so, she had came to the realization that she was slowly falling for him. For a man who was blunt, honest, unemotional, but that was fine for her. Due to the reality of him being an immature sweetheart.

—

At the time he had been talking to a girl for awhile. He would often vent to Lyra about the girl. About how she would belittle him and tell him how nobody would love him as much as she did, why Ana left him, why people treat him like a dog, etc etc. she would just go on with belittling him.

It was eventually so bad that Austin simply told Lyra. ‘I just want to be a good man.’ He would whisper in such a weak and soft tone, exposing his vulnerability to her.

Never before had a man expressed such a genuine desire to be good. Was he belittled so much that he genuinely saw himself as a bad person? To this. She would simply answer with: You are a good person.

And he was. He wouldn’t hurt a fly if he could. It was if he was afraid of hurting people. With his background, he didn’t want to hurt anymore people. He would always listen to Lyra, and she could be herself around him. Sometimes she would twirl, with his hand holding hers to help. Something she was embarrassed about but loved doing due to the skirts she wore.

He admitted to liking her skirts. He admitted to liking everything about her. Saying that she was kind and patient, which meant she was perfect to him. But she never believed him, however he believed his words with everything he had. He had fallen for her, and promised to protect her while they were friends. He had vowed his loyalty to her even as friends. So she could tell him anything she couldn’t tell her friends.

One day by the park, they had been sitting beside each other. She was eating ice cream that he bought for her. “You alright?” He asked.

“Yep! Vanilla is an awesome flavor!” She smiled up at him. A crack of a smile plastered on his face as he kept watching her eat quietly.

Austin had gotten a hint that maybe Lyra felt the same way he felt for her. He saw her as the most beautiful woman in the world. She wasn’t what he first thought of her. She wasn’t a bitch. She was kind, gentle, and understanding. She was whiney and bratty, but she cared deeply for him, he knew. She would listen to how he felt. She would listen. Which was all that mattered to him. Nobody, not even the girl he was seeing could even do that for him.

To him, Lyra was the most perfect woman in the universe. The way she would skip or sometimes ramble about stuff was what made her so perfect. The fact that she would comfortably lean on his shoulder without judging him. The fact that she wasn’t shy to smile. The fact that she was able to sit down with him. To look at him. It was all he could ever ask for from her. The way she would just wrap him up in all her love, the way she would touch his hair to make sure it was okay and not messy. Sometimes he’d just walk around in ripped up clothes due to how old they were and the fact he couldn’t afford anything, she never judged him for that.

He wanted to show her the world. He wanted to show her how grateful he was. Even with the girl he had been currently talking with, how he felt miserable. But with Lyra she would make him smile. Cupping his face as she spoke, gathering and stealing all his attention. Twirling to show off her skirts. For a short while, he thought he could never love again, not after that girl he had been actively talking to, not after the girl that made him feel miserable. But then Lyra found him that one faithful evening.

In all his misery, her calm and gentle smile, her soothing voice was there to save him. When he felt the most lost. She was there for him. She was his Juliet to his Romeo.

So on that day when he gathered up all his courage. He figured he would shoot his shot. “Do you like anyone?”

“Huh?” She gulped down, licking her lips. “You asked me this already.” Her tone showed genuine confusion. Puzzled why he would ask her this while she was eating ice cream.

“I was just curious. I hear things.” He shrugged. “So…?”

“I got a crush.” Revealing only that to him. “What about you?”

“Yeah I got a crush too.” Blinking his dazed eyes, she perked up a brow. Austin? Liking somebody? When he was seeing a girl? Of course he likes someone. Maybe he just wants to amuse himself.

She chuckled to herself. “Yeah? Is it the girl you’re seeing?” Continuing off the assumption that he wanted some entertainment.

“No.” With a shake of his head, he hunched forward off the bench. With his elbows on his thighs, pushing his lengthy figure up.

“Oh-“ she blinked, now she was curious. If it wasn’t her. Then who. “Alright then who do you like?”

“You.”

“What?”

“You.” He reiterated. “I like you.” With eyes staring at hers. She had froze in place. She couldn’t believe how casual he was about this. As if confessing wasn’t nerve wrecking. The bastard even had an arrogant smile on his face. Amusing himself with how shy she had evidently gotten. Her face flushed a light shade of pink, her knees rubbed against each other.

Hurriedly eating the rest of the waffle cone. “Well-“ she gulped down the last of it, wiping her lips with a napkin he gave her, “-I admittedly like you too.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “You don’t do a good job at hiding around me.” Leaning back on the bench. He stared into the sky as if this was an average Tuesday.

“How can you be so casual about this?” Lyra had gotten multiple confessions in her life. All of them were hosted with boys who had their heart pumping in their chest.

Austin shrugged, thinking about it. “I guess… because I’ve accepted that if I get rejected then that’s too bad for me.”

Now that she had known Austin returned those feelings. She wanted him. She wanted him all to herself. But, how could she even admit that. How could she even say she wanted him. Austin had let out a sigh, a disappointed sigh. Which then again caught her attention. Now with his body turned to her. “May I kiss you?”

“What-“ she was still having trouble that the man she use to spite was now a man who liked her, and the fact that she even reciprocated those feelings for him was more surprising.

“May I kiss you.” He didn’t lose his calm tone. Knowing that she was incredibly nervous. “I know you just ate ice cream but my heart is about to explode.” Even with half opened eyes and a relaxed tone, he was nervous.

“Okay.” She nodded, and she watched as his face inched closer to hers. Until she felt their breathing against each other.

“Close your eyes.” He instructed. And she did. He smiled a bit. She’s cute. Tilting his head, their lips now against each other. His arms snaked around her hips to bring her closer. Instinctively, she had her arms around his neck. With her hands going up to his hair. It was soft.

Pulling away from her, he pressed his forehead against hers before finally pulling away enough to get a good look at her. She blinked up at him, and for some reason he was reminded of a doe. He couldn’t help but slightly smile at how cute she had looked. As if she was processing she had just kissed him. “Not bad, huh.”

“Yeah…” she admitted. “Not bad at all.” Seeming breathless by him. A low chuckle that resonated deep within his chest was his only response to how breathless she was.

—

However with the girl getting in the way, he and Lyra couldn’t be together. Without Austin’s knowledge, she had been seeing another man, and eventually that man confessed to her. To which, she had accepted his feelings. And when he had found out, he grew furious.

“You’re dating him? Darcel?” He had his arms folded across his chest. Standing in front of her, with his eyes narrowed down to her. “That goober?”

“You did not just say goober, Austin.” She was trying to take him serious but with the word Goober. She couldn’t. She saw him as a childish guy. “Austin, I don’t even know why you care so much! You’ve been refusing to date me for the last two weeks!” She was sitting on the couch in the middle of his living room at his apartment.

“Okay who gives a fuck, Lyra! I want you. Be with me!” He shouted out of frustration. She blinked, surprised by how randomly he had just asked her out. “Just- who gives a fuck about her, yeah? Just be with me.”

“Oh well that’s a bit too late now. I’m not gonna leave Darcel for you.” She was calm, her legs crossed, folded arms.

He sat beside her now, staring at her eyes, frustrated. Gulping down his anger, he inhaled deeply to calm down. “Tell me this honestly. Do you love him?”

“Scuse me?”

“It’s a simple question Lyra, do you love the guy or not.”

“That’s rather rude of you.”

“Why can’t you just answer the question?” He scoffed, leaning back against the couch with his body turned to face hers.

“I-…” she trailed off, twiddling with her fingers again.

He chuckled, shaking his head. “So you’re playing him.” He muttered. Watching her hand reach out for his, he allowed her to hold his hand in hers. She looked down at his piano fingers, playing with them.

“Well y’know…” she began, “I just- I dunno. I love you. Not him.”

“So then be with me. Why play a dude.” He seemed to have calmed down now. She looked up at his gray eyes. Like usual, dazed and half awake. Proving it.

“Well, Austin. There won’t be an us. It’s over, between us.” She clarified for him. Wanting to make sure that he understood she wouldn’t leave Darcel for him.

“Well, might be over for you. But not for me.” He grabbed the remote of the TV on the coffee table, switching the TV on. She looked at him up and down. He’s got balls. She thought to herself. Something that she loved about him.

—

Darcel had seemed to get the idea that Austin had feelings for Lyra. He had spotted Austin standing uncomfortably close to her at a party the three of them had attended. With his head leaned down close to her face, from what Darcel saw. Austin’s eyes were so focused on her face, clearly listening to her words.

He had his hands on her hips to hold her. She seemed to be casually talking to him. Not noticing the gestures. She wasn’t even pushing him away. At one point, Darcel had overheard Austin telling her that he loved her.

“God Lyra, I love you. Y’know that?” His eyes looked her up and down. She was wearing his flannel jacket, underneath was a black shirt that showed a bit of her cleavage, and a pair of jeans. “You look pretty as hell.” He whispered.

“Yes. I love you too. Now hush down before people hear you.” She hissed.

“Darcel ain’t gonna know.” He shrugged casually. His eyes wandered across the party. Locking with Darcel’s who had been standing there was a cup of beer in his hand. His black hair slicked back. Austin had smirked at Darcel, flicking his head before Lyra had grabbed Austin’s face to force him to look at her, missing his attention.

“What’re you even lookin’ at? You’re making me whine again.”

“Sorry princess.” He wouldn’t kiss her. Even though he wanted to.

Eventually, Darcel and Lyra had gotten into an argument. He had yelled at her to cut Austin off. But due to her love for him, she had rejected the offer to cut Austin off. They would bicker multiple times about it.

He had enough of her now. He had dumped her there and then. “You stay away from him you hear!” He snapped, wanting the last word. “He’s in love with you.” Before slamming the door shut.

She stood there for a moment. Rolling her eyes, she had known that Austin was just a phone call away. To which, she took that phone call.

Just as she wanted. He had came over to her place. They were sitting side by side, her arms had been wrapped around his neck. He had smiled against the kiss, and she had finally understood that he was growing more comfortable with her. So comfortable that he had an actual smile on his face. He loved her. He did.

“So he dumped you.” He wanted to clarify. Even in spite of his blunt tone. She could tell it was a question. “Why?”

“Thought you had feelings for me and didn’t trust me because I refused to dump you.” She shrugged.

“Ah, I see.” He nodded understandably. “Well, guess you’re mine for the taking now.” He leaned down again to kiss her once more. Her hands digging into his blonde hair, with his arms tightly wrapped around her hips.

“Yeah, I guess so.” She smiled.

“How you gonna tell your friends that you’re with me?” Austin had known that Lyra’s friends hated him.

She shrugged. “I’ll figure out a way.”

“Rad.” He grumbled, scratching the back of his head. His brows raised as he sighed.

—

Lyra sat with her friends. All of them surrounded her. The eldest one had glared down at her. “You’re dating Austin Butler? The douche who is opinionated as fuck and doesn’t listen to anybody for shit?”

“You haven’t seen him.” She had a calm tone.

“We all talked with him!”

“Talking isn’t debating.” Not wanting any of this to get to her. She shrugged it off. “You haven’t seen my man.” Looking at them all. “He loves me and I love him, we decided to date. You haven’t seen him. You haven’t seen how he treats me. How he kisses me. How he looks at me.”

She believed that fully. His eyes would always soften when he looked at her. Leaning his head down close, or just leaning in her general direction so he could clearly hear her. The way he’d sometimes crack a smile from something silly she’d do. Or how he would teach her how to dance.

She would step on his Vans, and he’d hold her hand in his, with one hand on her waist. Showing her the steps to a dance.

The way he held her, with his arms propped up on her hips. Sometimes she’d straddle his lap, with her head on his chest. He would keep his arms around her hips, caressing them as he spoke to her in a soft tone. She would lay there, listening to how his heart would race whenever she told him she loved him deeply. But when they laid together. That to her was heavenly.

With her head laid on his chest, her arms around his surprisingly small waist with their legs tangled. She would listen to the beat of his heart, watching as her head would rise then fall in sync with his breathing. How deeply he breathed whenever he was asleep, he had looked like a relaxed baby.

How protective he was over her. How he would always hold the door open for her. Always holding her hand whenever they were out for a stroll around the city. She loved him, and he loved her. He was never afraid to show his love to her, he would sit with her and tell her; I love you, forever and always, with my heart and my soul. You have my heart. I love you Lyra. I love you forever.

None of them had seen her man. None of them had seen him. Seen him for who he truly was. You haven’t seen my man.

#austin butler #austin butler fanfiction #austin butler fic #austin butler imagine #austin butler angst #austin butler x oc #austin butler fanfic #austin butler fluff

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0bianidalas · 1 year

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“Triangles are the strongest shape there is. Any weight placed on them is evenly distributed on all 3 sides. They represent geometric sturdiness; no matter how much weight you put on any side, it will not break.” With this science fact in mind,

let’s talk about ObiAniDala

(a ship manifesto brought to you by the joined forces of my silly brain and my much smarter besties at the discord server)

Also known as “Prequel Trio”, this is the triad ship for Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala (Naberrie), our main protagonist characters of the Star Wars prequel films (Episode I, II and III) as well as the subsequent shows, comics, and novels.

Most of the basis for this ship is centered around their interactions and established dynamics within the films canon more than any other piece of media but fans do not neglect the rest, as it also expands on their relationship. It also presents, as most polyam-oriented ships, a solution to fandom phenomenon known as shipping wars, in this instance mostly between the Obikin (Obi-Wan/Anakin) and Anidala (Anakin/Padmé) fans.

Obianidala is, as of January 2023, the second most written trio relationship in the Star Wars fandom on Archive of Our Own, with 536 works on their tag. They’re only topped by the sequels trio, Poe/Finn/Rey, who have over one thousand works.

Their nature of being the protagonist characters in two of the three films of the prequel trilogy is enough to warrant some people would’ve shipped them, but the special interest fans have in them has to do with the fact that they are intrinsically connected, even if only by proximity (in Obi-Wan and Padmé’s case). Anakin is the protagonist -turned antagonist-; Padmé is his love interest; Obi-Wan is his mentor/brother/best friend figure. Each of them have a loud presence in each other’s lives and thus, the importance of the others in each of their stories is pivotal.

What’s established in canon?

While I’m not a firm believer that we, as a society, should be bound by the shackles of canon, I also understand sometimes knowing you’re not picturing things in your head feels very vindicating. It’s good to know creators are onto something you’re digging with your little fan goggles. And Obianidala is no exception to that.

As I mentioned above, they’re all connected. Narratively speaking, Obi-Wan and Padmé pose two opposing forces for Anakin, even though some fans even see them as foils of each other (as they do with Obi-Wan and Anakin as well); yet it is evidently clear that he loves them both deeply and strongly, equally. They are the most important people in Anakin’s life.

In fact, Anakin’s personal view of Padmé and Obi-Wan as opposing roads for him to take and the amount of love he feels for them is something that contributes to his falling to the dark side, aided by Sidious latching on his weakness and exploiting this internal turmoil he has.

From Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization:

Now, this quote infuriates me for several reasons but mostly because people see it as an ‘end it all’ to arguments of how much more Anakin loved one or the other. Personally, I see it as Palpatine pushing Anakin to his already preconceived idea that he had to give one up (and a perfect showcase of his reluctance to do so, too). Anakin ultimately had to make a choice, yes, but saying he loved one more than the other based on that is very debatable.

Throughout the films it is established that Anakin gravitates around them both, but the novels take a very special dive into this, often highlighting how Anakin’s mind seems to have Padmé and Obi-Wan as a single unit:

(From the RoTS novelization)

(Both from Wild Space by Karen Miller)

(I’m personally insane about that last one because sure, that’s a TOTALLY normal thing to think about. ‘I wish me and MY WIFE would make my BEST FRIEND be less alone’. Anakin Skywalker, I know what you are)

As for Obi-Wan and Padmé, the same thing goes, albeit in a more reserved and collected way – as it is their nature. While Anakin is constantly struggling with how much he loves the both of them and how he suffers because he eventually will have to make a choice, Obi-Wan and Padmé are at peace with their affection/love for Anakin AND the presence of the other in his/their lives.

In fact, they also care and deeply trust each other as well.

Padmé is the one who decides to go to Obi-Wan’s rescue in Attack of the Clones, and she also suggests they could trust him to help them with the whole pregnancy ordeal.

Then, there’s also this from the RoTS novelization:

Which even goes on to suggest Padmé might’ve even trust Obi-Wan more than she did Anakin.

She accepts, willfully and unreservedly that they both love Anakin and therefore will always be present in each other’s life. And she spares some affection, warmth, and yes, perhaps even some love for him, too:

Obi-Wan, the super-ego character of the trio, also cares for them very deeply, even past his otherwise private and reserved nature. It’s established in an episode of Clone Wars (7x02) - as well as a deleted scene from RoTS- that Obi-Wan is aware that Anakin has a relationship with Padmé and has been for quite some time yet he never tells the Council about it and he only ever tries once to talk to Anakin about it, trying to remind him that attachments are forbidden for the Jedi. Yet, Obi-Wan doesn’t press on this because he himself is attached and Anakin’s happiness is more important to him than Jedi rules. (Ok, maybe I’m interpreting it but, it’s true, I’ll show you).

Snippet from the RoTS novelization because the screenshot was gonna be too big:

"Senator-Padme. Please." He gazed into her eyes with nothing on his face but compassion and fatigued anxiety. "I am not blind, Padme. Though I have tried to be, for Anakin's sake. And for yours." "What do you mean?" "Neither of you is very good at hiding feelings, either." "Obi-Wan-" "Anakin has loved you since the day you met, in that horrible junk shop on Tatooine. He's never even tried to hide it, though we do not speak of it. We... pretend that I don't know. And I was happy to, because it made him happy. You made him happy when nothing else ever truly could." He sighed, his brows drawing together. "And you, Padme, skilled as you are on the Senate floor, cannot hide the light that comes to your eyes when anyone so much as mentions his name."

From Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View:

What I find interesting in this quote is the fact that Padmé is paired with Obi-Wan’s canonical love interest and the other two characters Obi-Wan has a more canonically familial bond with. So, yes, I do have the receips when I say Obi-Wan loved Padmé as well as he did Anakin.

This is from the RoTS screenplay, and it’s also RoTS canon, it just didn’t make it into the final cut but it’s very important to point it out because while here it’s explicitly said, in the film it’s implied, so it still counts:

“I know you both too well” // “We’re all friends, I care about both of you”... Obi-Wan Kenobi, I SEE you. And so does Padmé:

(I’m adding this one simply because it’s very inch-resting to me that both Anakin and Padmé seem to be very concerned with Obi-Wan’s loneliness... THAT’s suspicious)

Even going to present content, the Obi-Wan Kenobi show very clearly establishes that Obi-Wan is mourning both Anakin and Padmé as they were the closest people to him in their last days.

He sees Padmé in Leia (”Nothing, you just reminded me of someone” -1x02- “When I look at Luma, all I see is her mother’s face” -1x03-) and he finds a new life purpose in looking after Luke simply because he’s Anakin’s son (”To keep watch over Anakin's son-" Obi-Wan sighed, finally allowing his face to register a suggestion of his old gentle smile. "I can't imagine a better way to spend the rest of my life." -RoTS novelization-).

It’s also very evident how much he loved and how high he regarded Padmé and Anakin when he’s listing the qualities of them that he finds in Leia:

“Both were exceptional people who bore an exceptional daughter.” (From Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV series) – 1×06)

What about them from a meta point of view?

Now that we talked briefly (and I do say briefly because I could’ve gone even deeper with the canon stuff), let’s dive into this ship from a meta lens. What’s the REAL juice in this one true threesome?

Well, we talked about this in the Obianidala discord server a few days ago, prompted by me asking why they shipped the trio, mostly because I couldn’t believe no one had written a ship manifesto yet, and as acting CEO of this OT3 I felt it needed to be done.

Here’s the masterpost of all their valid and incredible answers:

Pluto: Poly. I’m biased bc im poly, but like, I love poly ships

Saathi (@saathi1013): The balance among the three of them! How each pairing has its own dynamic but the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts! It's because it feels like any of the other pairings are incomplete and/or unstable comparatively? They're def enjoyable and I throw no shade to ardent supporters of the sub-pairings, but in MY head:

-Padme/Anakin are the impetuousness of youth, passionate but not grounded;

-Anakin/Obi-Wan carries the tension Anakin feels about the Order (and the War), lacking the outside perspective Padme brings;

and any way I slice it, Padme/Obi-Wan are either clinging together out of grief post ROTS or I have to mentally rewrite AOTC so she & Obi-Wan get together instead of Padme/Anakin, which might either precipitate Anakin's fall OR they end up like Obi/Satine so however I slice it, it's kind of heartbreaking.

Bere (@bereweillschmidt): Because they complement each other and are a perfect balance in their relationships. Both O and P are perfect pillars for Anakin. Also they’re all beautiful af

Ash (@cypanache): Okay so I’m coming at this from the perspective of an obidala shipper first but here’s my view on them.

Both Obi-Wan and Padme’s relationship with Anakin is flawed and doomed to fail on its own. Not just for the fact that the act of trying to love both of them separately tears Anakin apart because he simply doesn’t know how to love in moderation and the resulting sense of being forced to choose us what contributes to his descent. But also for the fact each only speaks to one half of Anakin and it’s weakness is the other relationships strength

For Obi-Wan his ability to set boundaries to hold Anakin to a standard of expected behavior Padme has never been able to maintain.

For Padme her ability to make Anakin feel unconditionally loved in a way Obi-Wan has never been able to get him to believe

At the same time I truly believe Obi-Wan and Padme’s relationship that love is the missing piece of what they all need. And the lack of it is why they all fall apart

Obi-Wan’s respect for Padme and his willingness to challenge her is what would give her the strength to hold her own in a relationship with Anakin without losing her sense of self

Padme’s caring. Her compassion and heart and her passion is what would pull Obi-Wan out of his rigid ‘perfect Jedi’ persona and allow him to feel free to love and be loved he couldn’t do with just Anakin alone because of their history and the tempestuous nature of their relationship.

You need all three pieces for them to work.

Loki (@chaoticdumbassrogue): Polyamory for the win

Jeka (@darlingamidala): There are countless reasons why I ship these three characters together. I don’t feel like I need to go into the reasons anidala, obikin, and obidala are all fantastic pairings on their own, and it goes without saying that they all have chemistry with each other. So instead, I’ll focus on why I love them so much more as a polyamorous triad.

A large part of it is the way they balance and complement each other. Any two of them have the potential to bring out the worst in a each other, but when you put the three of them together, they bring out the best in each other. They balance each other in ways that allow their relationship as a triad to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Anakin and Padme are rather hopeless romantics, and they can get swept up in their relationship to the point where it almost becomes an escapist fantasy. Obi-wan is more practical and pragmatic, he keeps them grounded in reality, which is important for maintaining a healthy relationship in the long term.

Anakin and Obi-wan have such a complicated relationship, where they know each other on an incredibly intimate level and yet also struggle to see eye to eye. And Padme I think understands them both where they fail to understand each other. She helps them fill that gap and communicate their feelings when they don’t know how.

Padme and Obi-wan are deeply dedicated to their duties and responsibilities, often to the detriment of their personal lives. Both of them would feel like pursuing a romantic relationship would be a neglect of their duties. But Anakin is passionate and stubborn and devoted, and he pushes them not to neglect their own happiness.

There’s so much history between the three of them, their fates are woven together from beginning to end. They’ve been through a lot together, and they care about each other so much. They trust each other so much, and they love each other so much. Even when everything falls apart in Revenge of the Sith, and they’ve all broken each other’s hearts and can no longer trust one another, there is still a deep love between the three of them that can never be broken.

Jui (@nicolos): Like yes balance, and their delicious delicious dynamics, but also I got into OAD first bc I kept getting annoyed at one or other character being fridged or vilified in fics. Which is a fandom answer not a canon one, but it did get me thinking about it

Leo (@anakinkshamer): I ship OAD bc it’s hot, I love polyamory, and the ✨chemistry✨

Vic @//vesper29: 1. Anakin is the chosen one. Very powderful. Fight of the immediate people he loves (padme and obi). 2. Because Obiwan and Padme if you look into their personalities and life purpose, they are cut out of the same paper. And to balance the raw force nature of Anakin, we will need both Obiwan and Padme. One show him way of life (career, life goal); the other love, family.

Joey (@alabama-metal-man): it's all about how they dull each other's harsh edges, and temper their more more bullish traits, while also honing their strengths and hearts, thus creating this incredible balance.

In summary, they balance each other, just like the triangle is meant to spread all stress equally to make up for the strongest of supports. In a perfect world, them together would’ve saved the entire galaxy from a lot of troubles.

So, if you’ve made it this far, I hope we got you at least quirking an eyebrow at the way Anakin stares intensenly into both Padmé and Obi-Wan, or Obi-Wan’s ridiculous use of plurals all the time, or how obvious Padmé is that even Yoda can tell:

#obianidala #obi-wan kenobi #anakin skywalker #padmé amidala #obikin #anidala #obidala #meta #long post #LONG LONG POST THIS IS 2K WORDS OK #sw #star wars #huge shoutout to my peeps at the discord server ily all sm

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cannibalthoughts · 1 year

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Hi. Um. I am very curious about the Alma/Pedro underground revolutionary romance you mentioned in the notes of one of your posts....

This one is long, because I can never give a brief answer, haha

For context, I reblogged this post with the tags: #...Okay: next time a fic requires the Encanto to have a bunch of books it will be because they have One Guy #who ran an illicit printing press publishing politically contentious materials #and sets up a new one in the Encanto #almost all the classics are awful knockoffs though and this results in Debate when the Encanto opens and someone gets in a conversation #about their beloved favorite scene that exists only in the Encanto's fanfictionalized canon

Which got me thinking about That One Guy and how they connect to Alma’s and Pedro’s life prior to the miracle.

Starting with what we see of Alma as a political figure:

The Encanto has free universal healthcare. I doubt anyone goes hungry, either. If the magic healing food is freely available to anyone who needs it, I can’t imagine the regular food being hoarded, and with The Family Madrigal demonstrating Pepa watering fields of crops, I don’t think the Encanto struggles with famine, after the rocky first years.

The same song shows 75 year old Alma helping with the construction of a new house. Is everyone else a dedicated construction worker working on a contact, and she just drops in on job sites sometimes? Or (the interpretation I go with) is this a collective community effort along the lines of a barn raising? The chain of people standing still and passing materials to each other doesn’t behave like I would expect from a construction crew, which would usually have too few people to make that effective. But a large group of friends and neighbors? The Encanto has a very strong sense of connection. If you watch the background during the scenes in town, there’s people constantly meeting up and chatting. I think the standard practice in the Encanto is community-built housing.

(This also foreshadows and establishes the rebuilding in All of You. The Madrigals have long provided support to the town without receiving it in turn. But when they’re in need, the welfare structures they’ve created and contributed to are there to help them, too. It’s a bookend, and the symbol of the Madrigals truly becoming part of the community, instead of living on pedestals.)

Which would mean that Alma founded and leads a town with universal healthcare, food, and housing. The latter two aren’t explicitly canon, but I do think they make more sense than alternate explanations.

Going more into inferences: the refugees arrived in the Encanto with almost nothing in the way of material possessions. The only person with any sort of landed property was Alma herself. Upon founding, the Madrigals were essentially the only family with any form of inherited wealth. Do you think that a community of desperate refugees living in the near-wilderness and dependent on each other’s collective skills and knowledge to eke out their survival would re-form a stratified socio-economic class structure? Especially with the knowledge of the strong social welfare structures they form in the future?

TL;DR Alma believes strongly in mutual aid and community support and uses her position of power to found a communist paradise.

(Where the world’s most hyperfixated accordian enthusiast is able to ply their trade)

With that in mind, the fic idea, inherently a tragedy Because Canon:

Alma has ideas about things like land ownership and the sorts of support a society should guarantee its members. Fanon characterizes Pedro as a writer. I think this came from a canon-adjacent source? I’ve also seen the idea floated in the fandom that he specifically wrote political essays.

So: Pedro is also politically invested, and writes some contentious material. Alma is a networker, the one who introduces Pedro to the someone running an amateur printing press out of their home and builds connections with allies (building the role of community organizer and leader she will eventually take on). She thinks of herself as supporting the people who do the real work.

Their romance is also the story of rallying a community in order to create a better system. In the end, Alma manages it, in a way neither of them ever imagined. She always thinks of it as Pedro’s gift to them and largely discounts her own efforts.

(Which is the real lure of this idea to me. Thematically, I think it works really well for the Alma we see in canon, and for the struggles I imagine she went through in the aftermath of Pedro's death, left suddenly as the leader of a valley of similarly traumatized people relying on her for survival.)

Unfortunately, this would require A Lot of research about the political climate of late 19th century Colombia, including things like majority/minority political stances, what the most common forms of activism were, and the ways that political dissent was treated. I can say that Alma probably disagreed with the privatization of formerly communal farmland, based on the operation of the Encanto. But I’d need to put considerable time into figuring out:

what the cohesive political groups at the time supported and disagreed on, and where Alma and Pedro could fit amid/around those groups

what sort of activist actions she and Pedro might have taken that could have led to local policy changes (since local policy is where a lot of change happens, please vote in your local elections, folks)

who would have been likely to react to their attempts to organize (who stands to lose, who stands to gain, who is just going about their day)

how those people and organizations might have reacted to activism and how that would shape Alma’s and Pedro’s decision making, and how this would shape the views I would write them as having, in order to make the narrative more compelling

And tons of other things. Just looking at those, I’d need... several books and a ton of articles as source material so I could do the real world setting justice, as well as better Spanish reading skills since I imagine many relevant primary sources and a good deal of secondary sources would not be available in translation. And I might even discover that the base premise is unfeasible! Nature of research.

The setting deserves that level of care and delicacy, but I am just not doing all that. I have a research limit of like... two books. Probably. So it remains as nebulous backstory for me.

Anyway, the reason this idea lives in my head at all: the person who owns a wooden handpress. It would have been too heavy for someone to reasonably evacuate with over the mountains, but Casita totally has a hand press in one of her rooms.

No set ideas, but I think it would be fun if it had a similar functional design to the Columbian press, with very different aesthetics. Picked this style of printing press because it can be hand operated by a single person, was still being produced when the Encanto formed, has incredible longevity (some are still used today), and it seems reasonable that the printer may have encountered a similar press in a city and wished for one, making its presence in Casita a very targeted miracle. Something taken as evidence that it was a gift from Pedro. They didn’t spread much outside of major population centers because they were (mostly) metal and weighed a metric fuckton.

This would also mean that there is an immovably heavy printing press inside of Casita and Alma’s old friend the printer just goes to work in their house for several decades before anyone realizes that, hang on, Luisa’s out there tossing bridges around like pizzas, she can move this.

I might end up writing that fic idea about post-canon classic lit debates, though

#Thank you for this ask!#I love rambling about the blorbos #as you can probably tell haha #alma madrigal

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unoficialy-married-to-ace-austin · 2 years

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Hello! Saw that you’re look for Ian Malcolm requests. Any era just reader admiring him with their kids. You can make it smut if you want but I’m not picky.

Domestic Bliss (Ian Malcolm x Reader)

An: You have no idea how happy I am to have gotten this request! I’m literally in love with this fucker. Also, this fic takes place right before Jurassic World Dominion. So, if you haven’t seen that don’t read this.

Summary: You have to admit, moving to the research center hadn’t been the worst idea

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR JURASSIC WORLD DOMINION!!

Taglist: @fiskers7136 @peachmango-kombucha @kcloveswrestling @bellalutionn @xkennyxomegax @tummyyellin @cuzimacomedian @auburnwrites @damnnhausen (I know you all are wrestling fans, but I’m a simp so you are all being tagged)

If you were honest, you didn’t think anything would take you near a Dinosaur voluntarily again. Your biggest regret was helping create the damn things years ago, and they had almost killed you multiple times. When Jurassic World opened you had openly criticized it, and when the debate on if they should be protected came up you were strongly for letting them die.

And yet, you round yourself living at another research facility for the beasts. This time you had simply brought your two children, David who was 4 and Ell who was a year.

When Ian first brought up the idea of going you had shut it down immediately. You didn’t care how advance the security system was, you had thought you were safe once too and you didn’t want your kids in danger. But over time he wore you down, just like he always did when he wanted something. Eventually you agreed to go, so your family packed up and made the move.

You didn’t want to admit it, but the moment you saw a dinosaur again you felt like you were seeing them for the first time all over again.

As soon as you landed the owner of InGen greeted you, and showed you where you would be living for the foreseeable future.

“ stegosaurus”

“Very good. And what do they eat?”

“Plants.” You watched from the couch as Ian held up one of the toy dinosaurs up to David.

“And this one?” He held up another, continuing to quiz the young child. Ell, who was learning to walk and using him as a stabilizer, leaned forward, trying to grab one of the toys.

“You want one too?” Ian lifted her to sit in his lap, and once she could reach she quickly grabbed the t-Rex and brought it to his mouth.

“Ell, you can’t eat the y-Rex! He’s the big one!” David exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t say the big one.” You cut in, sliding down to sit next to your husband. “Technically the ‘big one’ would be the brontosaurus. The t-Rex is just the meanest.” You explained.

“But Ell still can’t eat him!” He whined. Ell, as though knowing her brother was making fun of her, stoped chewing on the toy and threw it to the ground. “Here Ell, you be the Stegosaurus and I’ll be the triceratops. Then we can fight.”

“I’ve taught you nothing!” You threw your arms up as you’d stood, making Ian laugh at you. ”oh shush.” You lightly kicked him as you walked over to the small kitchen.

“Hey!” He set Ell on the ground and stood up, walking over to where you were.

“Tea?” You asked, turning to make some once he nodded. “When is your next lecture?”

“I don’t have any for the rest of today or tomorrow.” He told you, letting his hand run through his hair. As much as you missed the brown curls you had loved so much, you definitely liked the slicked back gray look.

“You know, I wonder what people would say if they saw the sarcastic asshole known as Dr. Malcolm playing dinosaurs on the floor with a 4 year old.” You chuckled, handing him is cup of tea before sitting next to him at the kitchen bar.

“I think we could give Grant a good heart attack.” You smiled at his joke, but looked down at the liquid in your cup.

“Hey, thank you.” You turned to give him a questioning look. “You didn’t want to come here, yet you did. I know you never wanted to see one again, so thank you.” He admitted. You always treasured these moments with Ian. Even though you had been married for years he wasn’t the type to be serious.

“I have to admit it hasn’t been all that bad. I think we’ve spent more time all together since coming here, and the kids love it so much.” You explained. “But you owe me.” You pointed at him. He he leaned forward, pulling you into a kiss. It wasn’t super long, but it had the promise of something more behind it.

“Baby, I think I have just the idea on how to pay you back.” He winked at you, but before he could kiss you again the door to your apartment opened.

“Dr. Malcolm?” You both turned to see a man standing in your door way.

“A bit busy Ramsay.” He tried dismissing the boy, but he didn’t leave.

“I really need to talk to you.”

“And I’m about to have sex with my wife. Your point.” You lightly slapped Ian, slightly embarrassed by his words.

“It’s about the lotus.” Ian final pulled away and looked over at him.

“Fine,” he stood and gave you another quick kiss. “Be back to finish in a bit.”

#jurassic park #jurassic world #ian malcolm x reader #ian malcolm #request #oneshots

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slug-demon · 6 months

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look. proship vs anti-ship is another one of those debates that is treated too black and white for my tastes. i do not consider myself proship and a lot of people who choose to describe themselves as proship make content that makes me deeply uncomfortable and conflicts with my personal moral perception of the world. however i am STRONGLY anti-censorship and i feel like a lot of anti-ship people really do not understand the implications of the stuff they seem to want. like i hate to say it but i like ao3 because you can host just about anything there. you never have to worry about 'sensitive' topics being banned unjustly. and like, you can't really ban a topic all together in most situations because it blocks productive portrayal and discussion around real-life topics which is important. i would rather have uncomfortable and weird fanfic on the site i use than have to worry about the website being bought out or changing management or some shit and starting censoring any mention of 'distasteful' or 'inappropriate' topics. sometimes writing contains rape, incest and other uncomfortable topics in a non-glorifying or productive light and censoring those works would be unfair. also the idea of all art needing to have a purpose or a sort of productivity to it comes from capitalistic ideals about art as a product and not as expression, so i also don't think the gross underage incest rape fic should be censored either. if you start censoring, where will the line be drawn? how will you maintain the line? what will you do if societal and/or popular opinion of what should be allowed changes? it's all deeply rooted in capitalism and exclusion and othering/'i'm better than you' ways of thinking. so i'm not proship or anti ship i'm anti censorship and pro minding my damn business when something unrelated to me makes me uncomfortable. ao3 has tagging. block the tags from your searches. it is that easy.

#op #probably delete later. i am a nobody talking into a void #and yes i understand wanting to complain that you have to block said tag from your search. i do.#but ultimately i would rather be mildly inconvenienced for a minute while i type a tag into a search exclusion box than have to worry about #-censorship of topics/portrayals i don't disagree with #and yes there is definitely something to be said about minors engaging with proship circles and being put into inappropriate situations-#-but i do not have a solution to that and i am absolutely certain the solution is not a complete wipe of all of that material.#this is also why i don't put proship dni into my bio. like if you post stuff that makes me uncomfortable i just won't look/ill block you #proship has become so meaningless that sometimes people use proship for stuff that is decidedly not proship in my mind #whatever. puritanism is not the response to morally outraging art. just try to find a way to not engage with it.

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marjansmarwani · 9 months

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(More Than) Seven Sentence Sunday

thanks for the tag @reyesstrand <3

Ah yes, we've reached the long-winded retrospective part of this fic:

There really wasn’t much debate about it, Alex had to go find TK. He avoided him for the remainder of the accident scene; Alex was too shaken to confront any emotional situations and he figured springing this reunion on TK while on a call was not going to get things off to the best start. But if there was one thing Alex had come to believe in over the past couple of months it was the fact that everything happened for a reason. A couple of years ago he had been one who strongly argued for the idea that we all make our own fate anyone who claimed otherwise was just playing the victim. That was the Alex TK had dated, and it was one of the many things he looked back on with a wince. But in the time since the universe had given him a whole series of reality checks and that was only one of the instances in which he had to confront the fact that he was just wrong. He had turned over a new leaf — hell, he had turned over a new tree — but he thought that even Alex of the TK era would have seen the obvious path ahead of him. The universe has dropped TK Strand in his oath once again, and the best way out was through, right? He made his excuses to his client shortly after his conversation with Captain Vega as he left the cafe and the surrounding accident scene. He would like to say he didn’t sneak away…but that would be the most accurate description. From an objective perspective, of course. After a quick phone call with the CEO to assure her that he and the client were both fine and that yes, he did still have everything under control, he allowed himself a quiet night at the hotel. Quiet, as it turned out, was a relative term.

someday I will finish this oneshot, probably.

no pressure tagging @justaswampdemon @moviegeek03 @welcometololaland @kiras-sunshine @sunshinestrand

#tagged things #seven sentence sunday #911ls

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lasnevadaslaborunion · 2 years

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Credit to this post by @enderwalking and some Discord convos with @thequackcity for getting me thinking about this topic again (please let me know if you'd rather not be tagged)

Okay so my short answer to the disc duo "obsession" question is that a good chunk of it is a silly semantic debate. They obviously have a toxic and abusive dynamic, and they're obviously crucial to each other's narratives. Whether or not the word "obsessed" is appropriate is a minor quibble, imo.

My longer answer to this question requires me to analyze why their relationship is the way it is. What I'm going to say here hinges on my interpretation of both characters as being fundamentally afraid of change and instability. Which for c!Tommy manifests as needing someone to follow, look up to, and idealize (even as he chafes against authority he thinks is flawed), and for c!Dream manifests as needing control over his environment.

On c!Tommy's end, it's not exactly fair to call it an "obsession" if his fear of c!Dream is repeatedly justified by experience. After all, this is the person who nearly drove him to suicide, who blew up his home multiple times, who killed him and revived him and gleefully promised to do so over and over again. But his feelings are very complicated, because the man who ruined his life was his friend once, too. Think about the repetition of his exile, the cycle of creating and watching those creations destroyed, and how c!Tommy latched onto the routine even as he spiraled into depression. These events happening in the aftermath of losing c!Wilbur only support his craving for a steady friend. Even after he snapped himself out of that rut, he keeps coming back to the person who abused him, both physically and in spirit. He can't fully rest as long as c!Dream is alive, and who knows if even his death will give him peace. In that way, it's an incredibly lopsided bond; c!Dream's very continued existence gives him power over c!Tommy, whereas c!Tommy can't directly influence c!Dream as strongly or consciously.

On c!Dream's end, the "obsession" with c!Tommy is sometimes misunderstood as a monomaniacal fixation, when his goals are clearly a lot broader, all wrapped up in his quest for peace and unity (whatever that entails...) on the SMP. And I think that's where a lot of miscommunication between the two sides of this argument happens. c!Dream isn't singularly focused on making c!Tommy's life hell, or on possessing him in the most literal way we might think of it. Nor do I think his controlling and ruthless personality is exclusive to just one person or situation.

But c!Tommy does take up a disproportionate place in c!Dream's mind. The kid is an easy symbolic scapegoat for the server straying from the original ideal, given that the Disc Wars were some of the first big conflicts on the server, that he was one of the founding members and arguably the "muse" of L'Manberg, and that he has a (somewhat earned) reputation as a troublemaking gremlin. However, I think c!Dream finds c!Tommy's presence a strange comfort as much as his mischief is an annoyance. Especially as time passed and the number and scale of the wars increased, c!Tommy became a convenient "stress toy" due to his emotional transparency and, later on, the conditioning from months of history. c!Tommy is uniquely frustrating to him, but that also makes him uniquely satisfying to put down; if c!Dream wants to feel powerful, scary, and competent, he can count on c!Tommy's reactions to give him that boost. It's a combination of practical motivations (intimidating the server members into responding in ways that suit his plans, starting with the one who fears him the most) and more emotional ones (feeling control over something or someone in a world that rapidly escaped his ability to cope with its transformation) that make c!Tommy the perfect victim.

And yes, there is once again an uncomfortable awareness that they were buddies once, if vitriolic ones, and that they've remained constants in each other's lives even as they've become bitter nemeses. That combination of chaos and consistency keeps them so horribly entangled, and both of their emotions are so much more complicated than simple hatred.

As a final note, I like the interpretation of c!Dream seeing c!Tommy as a wayward little brother figure that he needs to "correct" by any means necessary and also has fun tormenting, much like one would pretend to be a big scary monster or put a spider in their sibling's hair to make them cry after being irritated one too many times. (This twisted familial dynamic also opens the door for a lot of thematic parallels with c!Wilbur, a more explicit brother figure, though his dynamic with c!Tommy is hardly healthy, either.) But I also think the idea that c!Dream opportunistically ruined the life of a teenager who once admired him and rarely gives a second thought to the harm he caused because he's so obsessed with a "united server" that never truly existed - thus making c!Tommy's devastating trauma mere collateral damage - is very terrifying and tragic in its own way. They're both compelling frameworks to play around with, and I don't think either one is entirely right or wrong.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'll leave it to more prominent discduo enjoyers to add on or correct details, but for now I'm leaving it here

#i don't know if i'm saying anything new here but these are my opinions #dsmp #c!tommy #c!dream #analysis #tw abuse #tw suicide #long post #idk if this counts as c!dream critical #i'm doing my best to discuss his motives neutrally #he's just a Very Strange Man

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asachuu · 20 days

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I’ve got a headache and I’ve partially sworn to both myself and another person I wouldn’t go over this, but…it just won’t let me rest, so I’m sorry to anyone the apology is due. I open my other abandoned socials once in my life, and the first thing I see is debates on this I didn’t even think would be possible, and there’s only so many days I can just bite my tongue.

Refer to the tags of this post for more context if you wish, but I’ll make this separate instead of a reblog in case it may reach more people.

Spoilers for phase 18 of the Fifteen manga below.

So, ah…let me just get the extremely cheap joke out of the way. Heaven forbid the Literary Stray Dogs fandom has to be faced with…oh dear goodness…literature…

If you’ll excuse that, I truly don’t wish to be anyhow outwardly hostile, but I don’t know what would be more fitting to say. In my former vague-ish post (tags excluded), I did say I initially thought this was pointless to go over, but I see that it’s inevitable— so, before I leave my two cents on this, as an absolutely shameless self-plug, since I won’t be going over any deeper Rimlaine-related context in this post to an extent I’d like to properly explain and elaborate on, I’d redirect any curious soul stumbling upon this to my essay about the pair, which will explain a lot more as to why I find any of this worth my time and why I will speak of them in a rather uncharitable manner.

I believe the above is a self-explanatory warning as to the fact that despite talking about a certain panel from the Fifteen manga I’ve seen a rather questionable amount of people use as backing for their ship, I will be doing the absolute opposite, and if that’s not what you want to read or hear, I’d suggest leaving this post be. As much as I mostly try to come from a place of understanding, I don’t think you’ll find much of it in this post, both because I’m not feeling well at the moment and I’ve already explained my strongly held stance in softer terms before, linked above. As always, none of this is personally directed at anybody whatsoever, but that doesn’t mean that some simply wouldn’t want to read a slightly harsher analysis of what could perhaps be their comfort ship for any personal reason they may have, to which I say, I very much suggest not hate-reading this and clicking off, please always look after yourself.

So…while I was going to spare myself a longer post due to my physical state, you best believe me that I will do anything in my power to make it not hinder me, just so I can write this whole thing properly this time around. Without further ado, here is the panel/page I’ll be referring to from now on.

All translation credits go to DarkestJay868 on Twitter.

I think I have to start this off by saying that if this was a different story, a different situation, different inspiration and different characters to match, I would understand the fandom’s reaction. While I’m someone who’s far from shipping characters in most media I consume, I only have one OTP across everything I’d ever engaged with and can’t think of another ship I like from the top of my head, I do understand if people see two characters interact with each other in one way or another, perhaps one rather close way or another, and jump to shipping them for their personal use or just for the sake of it. Ultimately, there is absolutely no point in trying to go over why, because it harms absolutely no one, and these are all fictional characters anyway, it’s not as if we’re intruding on real people’s personal relationships doing any of this.

I also understand that not only is it a well-known fact that MLM ships are far more popular in fandoms than any other, but also, when two characters have a dialogue/thought process/etc. of the nature you can read above, it comes as no surprise that people would like to spin their own narrative on it, and I’d say that’s usually more than fine, go for it, have fun— except in this particular case, I’m astounded. Generally, at this point, I cannot tell whether Rimlaine is a ship born of the indomitable human spirit that won’t be swayed by quite deeply serious topics this pairing is outright created from and exists because of, or one that won’t falter even while not only explicitly written words, but also graphic depictions show exactly what scenario is being presented and it’s simply not the one so many in this community have imagined, but in the case of this scene, it would be downright nonsensical to claim that some form of active dedication is not being used to back the claims I’ve seen going around.

I will be providing no specific examples, as what they all boil down to in various different ways is speaking of the lower panel as some form of canonical confirmation of Arthur and Paul’s closeness, be it in a platonic or romantic way, and believe me when I say this— not a single part of my counterargument will have to do with the thought of one hand on a shoulder(?) meaning nothing, because trust me, in fandoms, I can’t say it’s not ordinary.

You see, out of any and all context, I’d find it amusing, but the simple fact of the matter is, this panel:

is not out of context,

is not canon, even,

has a very real chance of depicting a character’s imagination based on the very next panel, which is this:

And this is about the panel only— don’t worry, I will remind everyone the origins of Rimlaine by the end of this post as well.

I cannot believe I’m sitting here saying this while bearing in mind that my desired audience are people who have read the Fifteen manga at the very least, and while I insist on it being anything but a sufficient adaptation of the original novel, this particular scene is one I did praise for how it was depicted. Nevertheless, this scene is a third-person recollection of Arthur’s memories, and while it is both written and drawn for us all to see, “(…) at least, that’s how one of them felt” is a line directly quoting the original novel, being quite clear, straightforward and explicit confirmation that these were, in fact, not mutual feelings for them both, those feelings also being explicitly stated— their partnership, trust, friendship and whatnot was something only Arthur himself believed, all of which you may find black on white in the Fifteen novel, and surprisingly, even in the very manga people are using images from to speak of Rimlaine as if it were a canonical ship now, often based on this one panel.

In addition to that, this doesn’t only apply to these panels, but for the whole manga and any other adaptation of a source material— it is not the original canon. Fifteen adaptations never fail to prove this point on a regular basis, so I believe this shouldn’t be something difficult to grasp. The same, naturally, goes for this specific panel— nowhere in the original novel itself does it imply any kind of mutual closeness between the two partners whatsoever, in fact, it proves the exact opposite time and time again, and this panel is ultimately a creative liberty taken by the artist. In my personal opinion, however, I don’t have a problem with it in this case, given both how much it emphasizes Arthur’s point of view and the very obvious effect the next panel has on it— very directly showing that indeed, this was only a part of his imagination, or so would make the absolute most sense to me, but it seems that kind of “deeper meaning”, which is nowhere near deep or complicated to understand from the given material in any way, is just…lost on this fandom?

Might I also add that it makes no sense in canon, either— even if it was something signed off by Asagiri-san himself, I’d raise an eyebrow, because there is nothing in any of the media Arthur and Paul appear in that implies Paul would be the one to be close to Arthur and not the other way around, yet that’s exactly what’s drawn in said panel. It is very explicitly stated canonical information that Paul hated Arthur at the time, especially before their final mission together, and I could go further here, onwards to addressing some rather far-fetched claims of him somehow always repressing his true feelings he held for Arthur the whole time because he “felt a bit guilty for pulling the trigger” despite both the entire character arc for Paul being intended to culminate in his sudden genuine regret at the very end AND the fact that his continuous total lack of remorse or any shred of grief for his late partner is constantly spoonfed to the reader, but I’m here for one panel only. And one panel is now damn near enough to make me write another essay.

It’s not even as though Rimlaine is canonically a more ambiguous relationship up to the reader’s interpretation— both Fifteen and Stormbringer are, at least to me, very clear in conveying the message that if the feeling of affection, be it platonic, romantic or any other, is present anywhere between these two, it’s from Arthur towards Paul, and it’s entirely unrequited. Their whole story revolves around it, I’ve almost typed it out word for word in my essay if no one would be up to reading any of the necessary passages in the novels, the whole point lay in Arthur’s genuine care and affection towards his partner which is never returned or anyhow acknowledged and appreciated, that of which canonically deeply affects the former throughout his whole life and beyond, but at this point, I’m willing to bet that even if a hypothetical light novel centered around Arthur and Paul out there actually started with the words “this is a story of very obvious unrequited love and a toxic/abusive relationship that’s practically impossible to interpret in any other way”, I’d once again find myself in a spot where I’m giving far too much credence and leniency towards various arguments as to why said disclaimer is somehow wrong.

I promised one more thing as I finish this up, reminding you all the origins of Rimlaine, and why exactly does this all probably read like I’m rather irritated about some mischaracterization that doesn’t have any further impact beyond a fictional work, because that’s not the case. If it were, I’d care far less, the same way I don’t write lengthy paragraphs about Soukoku or any other ship I believe to not be anyhow healthy whatsoever, even though I do actually enjoy one character out of them both.

I could do my third absolutely shameless self-advertisement and refer to part 4 of my essay, but that’s only for further details and clarification, if anyone wanted it. What I’ll say next is something I don’t want hidden somewhere in thousands of words for the deeply curious willing to tread through them, I very much want this to be common knowledge in this fandom, regardless of whether it will deter people from ignoring absolutely all canon, misinterpreting both characters and entire story arcs in rather impressive ways at times to fit their own ship, or just rallying to support it. The choice is up to you, but keep this in mind:

BSD Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine are, in fact, based on two real-life poets, which is made clear beyond merely their names— their characters, abilities, partially personalities and even aspects of their stories are heavily and directly inspired by them. If you wish to claim their real-life affair as something Asagiri-san has obviously heard of and thus must have kept in mind, meaning BSD Rimlaine is either canonical or just somehow healthy, fine, something that “comes naturally” under these circumstances in general, I don’t want to hear you forgetting that this affair was between an abused 16-year-old and a homicidal 26-year-old. That’s the inspiration— real-life abuse, and not only that, abuse of a minor, AND not only that, due to the fact that I’ve not placed any trigger warnings above, I will not go into any details, but it’s nothing short of a horrific story that never received a good end to it.

That is why I insist on this so much, because there is only a tiny handful of very specific good-faith reasons I could possibly think of for practically just supporting the BSD ship. I do hate phrasing the sentence that way, but “support” is the closest word I can use here for the washing away of information, spreading total mischaracterization, and overall just romanticizing any part of this without any care for its origins or true nature, which can be one of two things— or both— to you. A real-life tragedy, or a very clear story of an unhealthy, possibly abusive relationship in BSD.

I know that, in my essay, I said I understand why people might long for such ships and so on, but perhaps I’m just stubbornly typing this in blinding physical pain that obstructs my senses from being able to return to that train of thought or all I’ve written above renders it nonsense even to myself, the original author, because right now, having said all this, I can’t say I’d understand it with all this information provided. The inspiration is a story incredibly sorrowful, dark and truly harrowing, the BSD counterpart couldn’t be more explicit about how extremely one-sided and unhealthy Arthur and Paul’s relationship is, and yet, I feel as though it really won’t matter in the end, because if I’m writing all this over an interpretation of one single panel I can only describe as completely out of left field, which is quite literally directly disputed by the next panel following it, is this really a matter of knowing all the necessary context and information, or am I unknowingly describing something that’s actually common knowledge?

Anyhow, I would perhaps go on, but sadly, I’m left with no choice but to end this abruptly. I…hope this panel will never haunt me again.

#I’m super sorry if this is too harsh #I can’t proofread this anymore as I really need to lie down #but I want this out of the way #bungou stray dogs #bsd fifteen #bsd arthur rimbaud #bsd paul verlaine #rimlaine #asachuu

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