#who had to make an extremely unfair choice to kill someone he loves. and then to take it out on his big brother | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hamliet · 3 years

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Ahhh well, I have written much on Romeo and Juliet before, because it's one of my favorite works of Shakespeare and of literature itself. It is criminally underrated and scorned because of sexist anti-romance sentiment. So uh, yeah, I'm more of your opinion.

To start with, I wrote this here, and highly recommend this old post by someone else as well. It's quite comprehensive.

But, because I love Romeo and Juliet and the more I learn about it, the more impressed I am with the absolute art of the story Shakespeare told, I have more to say. Essentially:

Juliet is one of the most astounding female characters in all of literature, and most of her brilliance has been lost with the loss of Shakespearean context. You see, Juliet was a deliberate deconstruction of the idealized, virginal, holy creature of Woman. Yes, that's how the medieval poets like Petrarch (the inventor of the sonnet, which Shakespeare adapted and wrote his own versions of in Romeo and Juliet and hundreds more on their own) and even Dante Alighieri (yes, that Dante, the Inferno guy) wrote their women. For Petrarch, Laura (whom he like, never talked to) was the object of all his love poetry. For Dante, Beatrice was written as his spiritual guide into Paradise in Paradiso.

Not to simplify their love for these women, but Shakespeare was essentially like "RIP but I'm different." He wrote Juliet as a human character with flaws (hardly a spiritual guide) who was not this virginal, holy creature. She starts off the play extremely obedient to her family and polite, almost like that ideal, but as the play goes on she begins to let her fire grow.

Romeo's poems for Rosaline are deliberately trite and parody Petrarch's sonnets, as well as other sonnets from the day (for example, Rosaline is literally sworn to chastity forever, which wasn’t even the case for Laura or Beatrice). While the fact that Romeo can switch loves from Rosaline to Juliet so quickly does indeed emphasize his flaw (impulsivity and deep passion), it also thereby emphasizes his humanity, because the unique imagery Romeo uses with Juliet show that he is really in love with her as she is--not as an idea like with Rosaline, but as a human being. As with many of Shakespeare's other renowned plays' characters, Romeo's flaws are also his strengths. He's complex--human.

So what am I going on about? Why did Shakespeare write Romeo and Juliet this way?

To emphasize their humanity. Which is interesting, because Romeo and Juliet's first meeting, the one where they both create a sonnet together, is all about idolatry:

Romeo If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this. My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. Juliet Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss. Romeo Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too? Juliet Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. Romeo O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou lest faith turn to despair. Juliet Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake. Romeo Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. [He kisses her]

He describes her as a holy shrine and a saint, but the more their romance goes on, the more human she becomes. He kisses her right away. When they meet in the balcony scene, Juliet herself tells Romeo that the only thing she wants him to swear by--no gods or moons--is himself. In other words, Romeo and Juliet can be seen as a deeply humanistic play.

Also, the more their romance continues, the more human they become and yet the deeper their love becomes. As one of the posts I linked above states, Romeo loves Juliet more after they’ve had sex, not less. Juliet loves Romeo more despite the fact that she knows he killed her cousin--and she is not happy with him for that, either. The more they learn of each other, the more they love each other.

Oh, and about the extra gross modern take that "it's actually a story about a 13 year old and a much older man"--that is complete bogus, as the above post says. Romeo is almost certainly 15 or 16. While people can be squicked out by it (as it was designed to do with some Italian stereotypes), to say it shows anything creepy is basically literary blasphemy and betrays an utter lack of reading comprehension.

Juliet sets the parameters in their relationship: she tells him if he really loves her, he has to marry her before she will sleep with him, and Romeo does. She muses herself how much she wants to sleep with him in a way that clearly expresses Juliet’s very human desires. Juliet is going to assert who she is and go after what she wants.

So to go back to your question, it’s not just about their families, but about society as well, as Prince Escalus says in the final scene:

Capulet! Montague! See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love. And I for winking at your discords too Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punish’d.

Everyone is punished for participating in the feud, which, keep in mind, we were introduced to via an intro fight scene between the servants of the respective families joking about raping the women in the opposing family. Yes, really. It’s almost like toxic masculinity was being called out before its time.

Society is extremely sexist, as we see when Juliet’s father essentially sells her to Paris for the sake of having political clout to win the feud (literally, as Paris is the Prince’s kinsman) and threatens to send her on the streets to prostitute herself if she wants to survive for asking him not to make her marry Paris. But the cat’s out of that bag: Juliet is not going back to being the docile, obedient idol. She’s decisive. She wants to write her own story, and if that makes her a sinner, well then, she’ll go to hell. In the end, when the Friar suggests that Juliet come with him so that he can hide her away in some convent (after Romeo’s death), Juliet refuses and kills herself. She is not going back to being a figure shrouded in some kind of ethereal, unknown glow. She is a person, and people die. But she shouldn’t have had to die for people to see her as a person.

There’s also another layer here: the imagery Romeo uses for Juliet (the sun) and that Juliet uses for Romeo (the moon) is the inverse of how imagery was typically presented in those days. The moon was feminine; the sun, masculine. Even if we look at Romeo and Juliet’s respective character traits, Romeo is the flighty, impulsive, love-struck one who cries all the time, while Juliet is the decisive, bold, and loyal one. That’s the first thing Juliet declares to Romeo in the balcony scene: that she will always be loyal, and she shows this in every choice she makes in the story.

In other words, Shakespeare was deliberately playing with gender and its stereotypes in the play, which gains an even more interesting layer to it when you consider that Shakespeare was himself almost certainly bisexual (his sonnets are preeeetty explicit). It’s not a patriarchal narrative; it can well be seen as a queer narrative in a patriarchal society. And it shouldn’t take two kids having to kill themselves to get society to realize how effed up it is. It isn’t an out-of-touch play, but instead one extremely relevant to our society 500+ years later.

But, Romeo and Juliet’s story is also one of hope. Because instead of no one listening, finally, Montague and Capulet realize how wrong they’ve been. They grieve together, and Capulet vows to let Romeo remain in his family’s tomb, by Juliet’s side (also different, you know, that the husband stays in the wife’s tomb). Montague vows to build a statue for Juliet:

For I will raise her statue in pure gold, That whiles Verona by that name is known, There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet.

Gold is associated with the masculine as well; silver with the feminine. She is remembered as someone “true and faithful,” aka for her loyalty and bravery.

But no statue can bring Juliet back. She was not an idol, and it’s tremendously unfair that that is all she can become now. Same for Romeo. Even so, the fact that their deaths have finally brought peace to the city means that there is life growing from their deaths. They will never be able to birth a family of their own, but the city will grow and live, because of them.

#ask hamliet #shakespeare #romeo and juliet #juliet capulet #romeo montague #romeo & juliet #sorry i accientally posted this before i was finished so had to delete it #and thus the ask is a screenshot

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sluttbuttsstuff · 3 years

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For the prompts, 49 with doppio? >:3 Idk what it is about him I just look at him and think “oh you’re NEEDY needy, huh?”. Thank you so much, you’re a really good writer! :)

No problem buddy, thanks for the request! >:3

Warnings: not sfw, dubcon/noncon, abduction, dark themes, yandere, etc.

Also, my requests are still open, if anyone else is interested!

Enjoy!

Yandere prompt with Doppio, “You want me to fuck you…? Would that make you happy? Would it make you love me?” afab reader, dub/non con

All you wanted to do now was go home. You had had a long week at work, your parents were nagging you again, and to make things worse you had a headache that would not go away. After an exhausting day that began before the sun was out, and ended after the sun had set, you certainly deserved to do nothing more than go home, eat some junk food in your comfy pjs, listen to a podcast while you took a bath and pampered yourself, and maybe jerk off before bed. Unfortunately, you had a “girls night” tonight.

Your friends (your IRL friends at least) complained that you never went out with them anymore (nevermind that whenever you suggested doing something with them, or wanted to chat or text on the phone they were busy) and had forced you to go clubbing with them to celebrate the three-day weekend ahead. You weren’t much of a drinker, and really weren’t much of a dancer, so you had been given the purses to hold while you waited for them to be ready to go home.

You wrinkled your nose in frustration, glaring into the blurry screen of your phone looking at the late time: this was unfair. You were a hard worker, kind to a fault to those around you, and you deserved better than this. Sitting in a corner of a crowded club, everyone in the place having a great time except for you, tired and alone. At least in your apartment, you chose to be there, and at least no one actively ignored you: places like this just pointed out the flaws you hated about yourself more: you were bad with people, and easy to ignore.

Once one of your “friends” stumbled over to the group’s table, you left them with everyone's purse, mumbling you were going to the bathroom (you didn’t know if she heard you and you didn’t care) and left before anyone could stop you. You stumbled your way to the restroom in heels way too high for you to walk in, trying to clean yourself up and find a quiet place to text your goodbyes so your friends wouldn’t worry about your sudden disappearance. Leaning over the sink counter, you wiped a makeup smear off the corner of your lips, noticing a second too late someone behind you.

“Hey, there’s another sink-” You began to say to the blurred figure way too close to you, before a sudden eruption of pain hit the side of your head, and you were out in a flash…

The next time you regained consciousness was several hours later, but it was still dark when you opened your eyes, trying to remember what happened and where in the world you were. The stale cigarette smell, the unreasonably cold ac, the bedsheets starched so strongly that the sheets felt like plastic- this was definitely a motel. But where, and how long had you been here? As you began to sit up, you heard a surprised, timid voice.

“Oh, thank goodness! You’re awake, I was beginning to worry about you! Hold on, don’t move so suddenly, i’ll help you sit up.

Sure enough, as you started moving, your head lit up with painful throbbing that made last night’s headache seem like nothing in comparison. You grit your teeth and clenched your eyes shut, trying not to groan in pain.

“What the hell happened to me last night?” you grunted through your teeth, rubbing your temple as gentle hands helped slowly sit you up propped against cushions.

“Haha, you had a lot of bad luck last night, running into my boss. He was waiting for...an employee in the restroom and thought you were sent after him. He’s a bit paranoid, and he may have...accidentally clobbered you.” The voice apologized, gentle as he handed you what felt like a glass of water.

You forced yourself to open your eyes; it was still dark, but you could tell it wasn’t because of the time of day but rather a lack of light and closed curtains. You looked at..you looked at the person in front of you. Like whoever had attacked you last night, they had long pink hair, braided and side parted. Their eyes were green and wide, and they looked particularly juvenile with a crop top and freckles. They were on the smaller side, perhaps even shorter than you (hard to tell from while on the bed) and their eyes were crinkled in apprehension, like he was afraid you were going to hurt him.

“Erm, don’t worry though, I talked him out of doing anything too..extreme, after all I'm his right hand man! Besides, you seem like a perfectly nice person, I'd hate to see anything bad happen to you. Sorry, I'm rambling! Umm, do you want something for your headache? You were groaning in your sleep, I'm sure it doesn’t feel so good right now-” He went on and on, pulling out some painkillers to take with your water.

After thanking him, you were about to swallow the pill before pausing, looking at the strange man who’d taken you to a remote hotel after his boss had nearly killed you. Sensing your suspicion, doppio exclaimed, “Oh, don’t worry, they’re safe, name brand painkillers! Um, hold on, lemme just-” And he made a show of popping some of the pills you were holding into his mouth and swallowing, sticking out his tongue and opening his mouth to show you he’d ingested it.

Satisfied, and more importantly in a lot of pain, you took some of the pills yourself, much to the relief of the pink haired man.

“Oh good, thank you for doing that! I was so worried watching you asleep, you’ll feel much better now! By the way, my name’s Doppio, it’s a pleasure to meet you! Oh! And I know your name’s y/n because you had your purse and ID on you! Haha, sorry for going through your purse, I was just hoping to find any info on you that might be, you know, important.” he sat on the bed, scooching closer and closer to you.

You cleared your throat, unsure of what to say, and the watchful eyes of Doppio doing nothing to make you feel better.

“Well, um, thank you, Doppio. I appreciate you, um, saving me? Sorry for any inconvenience, I'll just, um-” You try to get up to leave, only for Doppio to place a hand over your leg.

“Don’t go! What, I mean, what if you hurt yourself? You probably have a concussion, and also you haven’t had breakfast? We could eat together and-” Doppio stammered, grabbing your hand and stroking it with his sweaty, cold fingers.

You had to stop him, before things got out of hand.

“Thank you, Doppio, it really was very sweet of you to take such good care of me, but I-”

“Please! You don’t understand, I mean-” Doppio fumbled with his words, clearly trying to make you stay at all costs.

“Doppio, i can’t stay here forever, i need to go home. My friends are probably worried about me by now.” You tried to press on, you didn’t want to upset the man with a powerful boss, but you felt increasingly claustrophobic with Doppio pawing at you.

“You mean those mean girls who left you with their purses all night? Why would you care about what they-” Doppio covered his mouth with both hands quickly, realizing what he just said.

Your blood ran ice cold; how did he know so much about them? Had he been watching you before the “incident”

Using his moment of weakness, you got up from the bed and tried to reach the door; it was time for you to go home, if not call the cops.

Doppio yelped, Throwing himself in front of the door before you could make your escape.

“Please, don’t be scared y/n! I didn’t mean to upset you, I only meant that I can treat you much better than your friends can. I mean, look at how good I've been for you so far?? I didn’t make you dance with me at the club, even though I really wanted to. I didn’t just have my fun against your will in the bathroom stall like the boss told me to do.I saved you from a concussion, or worse! I got you your own hotel room for the night, and didn’t take advantage of you or touch you while you were asleep! I want our first time to be special, after all! Isn’t that what you want?” Doppio pleaded, eyes wild as he tried to smile, trying to calm you.

You were anything but calm however, this guy was clearly obsessed with you, and had been for longer than just one night. Even if at first he had merely seemed like a pathetic “nice guy” you no longer had any pity or time to give him.

“Doppio, get away from the door and let me leave, now.” you demanded in your best authoritative voice. Doppio whimpered, this wasn’t how this was supposed to go at all, you were supposed to love him!

“You can’t! Boss and I won’t let you!” He cried, covering the door with his body. With no other choice, you slid out of your shoes and charged at him full speed. You managed to give him a good blow on the head, and threw him out of the way of the door. He cried, crumpled on the ground. If not for the fact that he had kidnapped you, you might have felt bad for hurting him like this, but you had to think of yourself at this moment.

As you finally unlock and pull open the door, heading towards freedom, you hear the strangest noise behind you.

“RingRingRingRingRing!” Doppio calls after you, in an unnatural, high pitched tone. You try to ignore it, you literally don’t have time for this, but with strength he had not previously displayed, Doppio grabs one of your arms, twisting it behind your back and up to his ear, holding it like a telephone.

There’s a trickle of blood, and one of his eyes is rolled back in its socket, but he calmly says, “Hello, this is Doppio,” Into your hand, as if he was having a normal conversation on the phone.

You scream out, doubled over by the pain in your arm, Doppio silent as he “listens” to his “Phonecall” oblivious to your suffering. Where did all this power come from? He was acting like an entirely different person, and frankly scaring you. Doppio nodded, pulling your hand closer into his ear and intently listening to nothing but air before “Hanging up and pulling you back into the motel room.

He threw you on the bed ( his arms felt much stronger, and more muscular for some reason) before crawling on top of you and pinning you down. You were too stunned, and frankly too scared, to come up with any means of escape, just weakly struggling to throw him off of you to no avail.

“Doppio, please-” You whispered, eyes blurry with tears.

“I talked to the boss, and he helped me figure out what to do. He wants our relationship to succeed after all!” Doppio exclaimed, additude reverted to how he’d first spoken to you. You were confused, you’d neither seen nor heard anyone in or around the room, who was he talking to and how?

“Boss told me that people like you need some discipline in order to be obedient, or you’ll walk all over me. If I can do that, then I can make you love me, and we’ll be happy together, isn’t that what you want?” Doppio told you, stroking your cheek.

“This is not okay, Doppio!” you yell, thrashing against both arms, “Let me go or i’ll-”

...

Wait a minute, both arms?

Then how was he…?

You look over to one side in shock, only to see a floating metallic and red arm holding you down, one on either side. You screamed, overwhelmed by a stalker and strange supernatural forces you couldn’t understand.

“Oh, you can see King Crimson's arms? Interesting, perhaps because of your near death experience with Boss, you can see stands now? Although, it would be bad if you developed a stand, what to do?...” Doppio pondered to himself, speaking apparent babble.

You cried, trying to wake up from this obvious nightmare with no luck.

“Awww, hey y/n, it’s okay, i’m not gonna hurt you! Not if you be good for me and Boss.” Doppio cooed, kissing your cheeks and forehead. “I talked boss into keeping you with us- you’re always so lonely at home, and never have a good time with others, right? You don’t have to lie anymore, I've been watching you for a while. Nobody else seems to, though, they’re too self-absorbed and stupid to realize how incredible you are!” He continued, oblivious to his words not helping, but hurting you.

“You’re perfect for me and boss, we can take really good care of you. Forget this lousy motel, we have mansions and villas all over Italy that we can take holidays to. We have billions of Lira from work, you’ll never have to lift another finger and we’ll pamper you to death. And best of all? You’ll never have to see your awful friends or family again! Isn’t it awful how they treat you? We can get rid of them, so they can’t hurt you!” He finishes, grinning ear to ear, but his eyes hollow and lifeless, staring unblinkingly into yours.

This guy was sick, there was no other word to it. You might have had issues with your family, and yeah your friends could be assholes sometimes, but you didn’t want them killed! What good would that do you, or anyone for that matter?!

Doppio seemed to read your thoughts, “Look, I know it's a lot to take in at once, but trust me. Boss and I have planned this out for a while now, and we’re always going to do what’s best for us, ok? So don’t worry so much, and please stop struggling? Boss warned me if you got too unruly he’d take over and finish what he started last night.

A wave of nausea slithered through you as you remembered, thinking how close you were to dying. You gave up, lying limp on the bed, praying for this to end.

Doppio smiled again, this one almost seeming genuine, and gave you the softest kiss to your lips. It was childish, almost, and he clearly lacked experience, but he gained more confidence from your lack of struggling. With the mysterious hands holding you (stands? King crimson?) his own hands were free to touch you. He started With your cheeks, your face, your hair, your neck, stroking you with feather-light touches, his fingers tracing each curve, digit and flaw like he was trying to memorize it all.

“Finally… I finally get to touch you like this… I’ve been waiting for so long, y/n. Do you know how long I've wanted to hold you?” He whispered, wrapping his arms around your neck, cradling your cheek to his. You didn’t know, and you didn’t want to, but Doppio told you anyway.

“I’ve been watching, waiting...for so long. Following you home from work, listening into your calls, finding your online accounts. I’ve known since I first saw you that you were the one for me, and now I get to prove it to you. I get to show you all the things I've been meaning to do to you. You’ll never be lonely again, not with me around. We’ll never be lonely~”

He giggled the last part, giddy with excitement, as he slid his fingers down your ribcage, your sides, fiddling with the bottom of your shirt. You wriggled, trying to fight him off again, only to your dismay Doppio giggled even harder at your reactions-perhaps because he knew you could never overpower him.

“Ohhh~ still so shy? Don’t be so uptight, y/n, you need to live a little! I know how much you want this; you complain about it all the time on your personal blog-” You could feel the blush on your cheeks heating up your face, desperate to make him shut up, “ How you want someone to have their way with you, to make you forget everything else in life. You’re desperate for someone to truly cherish and understand you; mentally and physically. You want me to love you? You want me to fuck you…? Would that make you happy? Would it make you love me?” Doppio rambled on and on, ripping your shirt off with strength he hadn’t had before.

You yelped, goosebumps forming on your skin as Doppio cackled, rubbing his face on your stomach, and into your cleavage poking out from your bra.

“Yes, let go for me! Show me every emotion, everything you’ve been holding back from me for so long- i need it, I demand it!” He snarled, splitting your nicest bra in half, and biting down on your neck, hard.

You screamed, legs kicking uselessly as the pain blurred your mind and you were operating purely on instinct. Doppio didn’t seem bothered in the least by it, you could still feel his laughter against your sore neck, as he sucked down on it, trying to bruise and mark you. His hands couldn’t help but find their way to your breasts, toying with them and squeezing them with admittedly little expertise. But he was a quick learner, making note of each little gasp and twitch according to how he touched you, and improving his technique from there. He twisted your nipples a bit roughly, already hard from the chilly air and sensitive to touch- you couldn’t help but moan a little in satisfaction. It had been awhile.

Doppio’s moans echoed yours, as he kissed his way down the crevice of your breasts, and licked each nipple in turn. You squirmed, not in fear or anger but pleasure, angry at yourself for letting this strange man win your body over so easily. Doppio kept his eyes on you at all times, studying your face to see how you felt. He’d had to watch you for so long from so far away, alone in your bedroom, or so you thought… it was time to use the knowledge he’d gained to make your body crazy for him.

You jumped at Doppio’s hands, cupping your groin through your pants, trying not to buck into his hands . It was getting harder and harder to deny him, though, why couldn’t you just-?

Doppio pulled your pants down to your ankles, taking your panties with it. He groaned audibly at the sight- your pussy was so wet and dripping, there was still a trail connected to your underwear.

“No, don’t-” You cried, snapping your legs shut, visibly scared at what was taking place again. Doppio was losing patience, crouching down and prying your legs open,

“Stop fighting me, y/n, you clearly want this!” He cried, eye twitching in annoyance. He managed to open your legs again, and buried his face into your pussy. He moaned, licking up a wet stripe against your labia, warm and puffy and so wet for him- he knew you would be, he knew you loved him.

Tears streaked down the sides of your face, this was so much and so intense. Your thighs clamped down on Doppio’s cheeks and neck, squeezing him as hard as you could. Not hard enough, apparently, as he just started giggling again through a full mouth and busy tongue “Ssho good, y/n, why have you been hiding thissh from mee~?” he moaned, tongue circling your clit. You flung your head back into the pillow, gripping the mysterious hands that held you for any source of strength or comfort.

Watching you whimper so pitifully with his head between your legs, obviously blissed out after being so needy and alone for so long, just did things to doppio. He loved the pained, fucked out expression on your face- you couldn’t even keep your eyes open as he snuck one, two fingers into your aching pussy. You whimpered so cutely, and it was all for him and him alone. Finally~

“Y/n, please, i can only hold back for so long, let me make sure it’s not painful… be good for me, please?” Doppio begged, grinding his hips into the mattress before he could help himself. Begrudgingly, you moved your thighs back just enough for Doppio to push them away, when he got a wonderful idea. King crimson, or what Boss had lent him of his stand to use, sensed his thought, and grabbed both your hands in one arm. Doppio pushed your thighs back and up, effectively bending your knees into your chest and displaying your pussy in such a beautiful way. You cried out, surprised by the sudden movements and embarrassed by how exposed you were, but there was nothing you could do about it. Doppio was just too strong.

The other free hand floated down, spreading your lips apart to give Doppio a nice view before pummeling two of his thick, strong fingers inside of you. You screamed, crying as the fingers curled directly into your sweet spot, massaging with robotic-like precision and speed. The sounds you were making were wet, animalistic, and you were quickly brought close to the brink.

“Perfect, y/n! Just like that, let yourself go! It makes me happy to see a side of yourself you never show anyone else- and you never will to anyone but me! Remember, I'm the one making you feel this good, right y/n? You couldn’t possibly find anything half as wonderful from anyone else but me! Me, got it?!” Doppio exclaimed, his voice cracking and becoming much darker, scarier. For a second, you could swear he looked like a different person entirely, wild, angry and dangerous- but you blinked and Doppio was just as before.

Doppio licked his lips, sweating and anxious, this was good enough to make you love him, right? This was what he had to do to make you happy? Boss’s words from before appeared in his head though, and he remembered how Boss had always been right before. Doppio trusted him, and was determined to win you over. Doppio let go of one of your legs-you seemed adequately distracted and restrained to get away from him- and unzipped his fly. In truth, he would’ve preferred to get all the way naked with you for the first time, so you could see and feel the real him as well, but clearly the two of you were too desperate and impatient for him to get fully naked. This time.

You whimpered at the sound of a zipper, feeling the fingers pull out of you. You heard the crinkle of a wrapped, and the muffled groan as Doppio probably rolled a condom onto himself, but you were too afraid to look. The strong floating hand, still wet with your juices, gripped your cheek and forced you to look at Doppio, staring you down with much more restraint and calm than he had been. Doppio kissed your cheek, then your lip, and pushed his warm cock achingly slowly, gently, into your waiting pussy.

You couldn’t help yourself from moaning, grabbing at the hands that held you, thrusting yourself onto Doppio’s hard and hot cock. He bit his lip, feeling you twitch and squeeze around him; he was trying so hard to be gentle for you, why were you still making things so difficult. He chuckled to himself, and motioned for King Crimson to let you go; finally you were beginning to relax and enjoy yourself, and he wanted to enjoy every bit of it.

Without thinking, you wrapped your arms around Doppio, holding him close to you. Your mind was a mess, your body even messier, you didn’t know what to think or do about your abducter/rapist fucking you so tenderly, and you were tired of fighting. So you let him fuck you, slowly and gently and way way emotionally. Doppio wiped away new tears you hadn’t realized were there, shushing you, “It’s okay, my sweet y/n. Just relax and let me do the work. Don’t fight it any more, just let go.” He whispered, pressing kisses into your lips and cheeks far too sweetly.

So you did, you relaxed and sank into the mattress, pulling Doppio down with you. He let go of your thighs, and held you tightly to him as he fucked-no, made love to you. He gradually picked up the pace, huffing and whispering words of admiration to you about your body, or how much he adored you. You took it all limply, the fight having gone out of you and desperate for comfort. The floating arms, which you had forgotten about, reappeared and stimulated your nipples and clit, bringing you closer and closer to the edge.

Doppio sped up as well, he knew this would have to end, but he wanted to make it last as long as possible. This was your first time together, after all. He wanted to make it special. Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper and closer into you. You could feel the spongy head of his dick rub your inside so sweetly, you were starting to get addicted to the feeling. Doppio buried his head into your neck, mumbling nonsense as he pushed in deeper and deeper, faster and faster, as his restraint gave way to passion.

“Y/n I- I don’t know how much longer I can last, but-” He kissed you, as the stroking of your clit sped up. You groaned loudly, you were so close, “Just a bit longer, please~” You begged, biting your lip. Doppio took a deep breath, steeling himself as he was determined to make you come first. He pounded into you, urging you closer and closer, four sets of hands circling your body and drawing out noises and gasps from you out of your control.

“Almost there, please, almost~!!!” You cried, throwing your head back with a final sigh as you came hard and fast, your core heating up and washing over you as Doppio helped you ride it out with clit rubs. Your walls fluttering around him, the face that you made as you came from him, for him, it was too much and he quickly filled his condom inside of you, moaning even louder than you had as he thrust without abandon into your wonderful, most precious place. He didn’t want to stop, thrusting almost to the point of overstimulation, before he had to stop, and collapsed on top of you. He cooed and kissed his praises and thanks into your shoulder and skin, before he noticed the soft sound of you snoring. Poor thing, he chuckled to himself, you’d really worked yourself up.

He reluctantly pulled out, after indulging in 5 minutes of cuddling your sleeping body and listening to your heartbeat. Doppio cleaned the two of you off, and tucked you into the covers of the motel- now would be a good time to set up moving you into your new home. After all, The whole reason you were in the motel is because the moving company Boss had hired to move your things into the main base would take several hours to complete their job, and Boss didn’t want anyone seeing you or Doppio at home. Doppio ruffled your hair as you slept, pulling out his cellphone to check in with Boss and give him the full update he’d requested.

Tonight was going to be very busy.

#sluttbuttstuff #fic #mine #jjba #jojos bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #vento aureo #golden wind #doppio #vinegar doppio #yandere #reader #yandere x reader #doppio x reader #not sfw #yandere prompts

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animeyanderelover · 3 years

Text

This one wanted to be kept anonymous and what is asked shall be done.

Request: Can you please do Prompt 72 for Claude Faustus?

Tw: Yandere themes, unhealthy mindset, unhealthy relationship, possessiveness, obsessiveness, overprotectiveness, kidnapping, sabotage, manipulation, teasing

Prompt 72: “Do you want your underwear back?”

You hated approaching that man, you hated being with him, no matter how hard he might try to change your mind. Being stuck with someone who wasn't even a human was really everything, but pleasant. Being completely isolated in a cottage you weren't allowed to leave was unpleasant. And the trues cherry on top of everything was his personality, rge unbelievable confidence he seemed to have in himself that he would get you to love him and all the teasing and provoking just to get his sadistic fun out of it.

His methods were rather simple, but smart and effective nevertheless. Whenever you were ignoring him, he did something to leave you with no choice but to seek for him. As much as you hated admitting it, he was the one who took care of you, meaning that without him you wouldn't be provided with the basic needs a human needed daily for living. Because you knew from previous experiences that as much as he chose to be lenient, Claude got quickly annoyed and was ready to punish you when you made him snap which didn't end always well. It wasn't like he hurt you physically, but he very much always showed you that he was the one in power and the one you would have to rely on for everything. Clearing this up hurt your pride more than anything else and you just knew that he wanted to embarrass you by having you admitting it.

Making you come to him, having you pleading him to help you had to be the most shameful for you to do, having to do what he wanted just so you would also get what you wanted. It wasn't good for your own self-esteem and knowing Claude, he did everything on purpose so this would happen. Your guess was to feed his ego a bit by knowing that you had to come to him when you needed help.

He probably intended to push you into developing Stockholm syndrome and forcing you to think that he was all you needed, you had figured out that his kind seemed to be more possessive over persons they had chosen as their "mates".

If you remembered right one of your friends had once told you that it was her dark fantasy to have someone going after her who would be ready to kill for her, everyone seemed to like this thought of having someone loving them who would do anything for the person of desire. And back then you might have even wanted the same, but now you could have beaten your ounger self up for thinking about this. People only knew better after having witnessed certain things, same counting for you. You were alone, helpless, left at the mercy of your captor.

You were in no condition to look in those golden eyes, not wanting to see the same amused and pleased look from all of this. No, absolutely not. But even without looking up, you felt those eyes sliding over your body, causing goosebumps to start coverin your whole body and your face to burn up, knowing what would await you in your nearest future.

It was all his fault, he had done it once again on purpose, you knew it had to be true. Why else would his eyes linger a bit longer on the place between your legs that currently was at it's most vulnerable, unprotected which added a new kind of shame to all of this? He must have done it, there was no other explanation.

"You seem to feel tonight a bit more bold than usual, don't you think so?", he asked, the slight amusement in his voice all too audible which had you boiling even more. How much you would have died to just smash him in his face to feel satisfaction. But it would only be for a few seconds before you might agitate Claude and making him angry was not a good idea, not in the least bit. Especially now that you were left so exposed.

"Claude...Where is my underwear?", you pressed out, eyes still trained on the wooden floor under your feet, not a single scratch or trace of dust on it. That you had to give Claude, he made sure that the house always stayed in top shape. What had he said once before? A pretty house for his pretty made? Something in that direction.

Black and polished shoes entered your vision, the sudden closeness causing your skin to crawl and make you stumble frightened a few feet back, not having sensed his fast approach. A short huff of air was heard from him, sounding like he was a bit annoyed and yet entertained by this small act of yours, making you bite angrily your tongue. Making yourself look like a fool wasn't what you planned on doing whilst being with him. It gave him only more stuff to irritate you with.

"(y/n)...I thought we already talked about this. You have to look someone in the eyes when you want something from them. Otherwise I'm afraid I won't be able to help you and you know I will gladly do anything for you if you would just let me. If you just wouldn't be that incorrigible."

Ah yes, that shit again. Your manners and the tantrums you sometimes threw about the situations you were stuck in, the disapproving looks from Claude whenever you acted out of the place, the constant lecturing that came afterwards. He really came in such scenarios over as a butler who wanted to make sure that others were behaving like they should be and scolding them if they didn't. It put you always down whenever he pointed those things out, you knew you weren't perfect and him rubbing it constantly under your nose wasn't helpful. It led you to such moments where you just felt like you were under average, reaching your lower points.

It was no reason to give up nor was it an excuse to stop fighting, especially since the butler planned on making you feel that way, to slowly break you. Still, he was currently the only person you were able to see, meaning there was no one to cheer you up, no one to tell you otherwise. You were all on your own with the only source of comfort being the golden-eyed man. And there were those times where you questioned if giving up your pride was the better and less painful option and indeed just giving in would make your life easier. The moments where you became all too aware of the one and only fact. That a human wouldn't be able to beat a demon, at least not a human like you.

This was one of those moments where you felt like a fly trapped in the web of the spider and where the only option was pleading and hoping he would choose to be lenient with you. "Just standing there and not saying anything won't help you nor can I help you when you are like this. If you don't have anything to say, please go back to bed. It's pretty late and I have to leave tomorrow morning early to work in the manor of my master."

He didn't sound happy whilst saying it, you knew that he didn't really like how his master was constantly bossing him around and on some days he complained for a few seconds about what a brat that boy really was, even more when because of him Claude had to be kept busy which meant leaving you longer alone.

You were stuck in denial, not thinking it would be good to do as he said. Not letting having it the way he wanted it to go was important for your own sanity, to prevent you from getting caught in his trap and grow over time too dependent on him. But you also could estimate what would happen afterwards. He would take something else from you away to push you into having to ask him once again and he would continue this for as long as he had the patience. That meant for you more and more embarrassment and hurt. Was that what you wanted? Or should you just go with the easy option to keep the damage as small as possible and live with this scratch on your pride?

You heard his footsteps slowly fading more and more away from you telling you that he was leaving you in your frozen state behind. Why wouldn't he? He had the time and the power to do so. Claude knew that the one way or another you would have to come to him and it was what allowed him to have confidence. This luxury was sadly only open for him whilst you were only allowed to live a good life for as long as he was pleased with how you acted. It was cruelly unfair, but you knew that this was how life was. The one in power and the one at the bottom.

"Wait.", you called faintly after him, making him stop, golden eyes being met with yours, the look in them being comparible with being tired and done with something. You looked leached out, your pride already having taking so many blows before and every time it became harder to fix the damage and pain he put you through like this. Maybe there would come a time where you would have to give up indeed, you doubted that anyone would be able to stay strong whilst suffering from this. But maybe you were wrong and there were people out there who would be able to stand their ground. And maybe you just weren't this person.

"Claude...My underwear.", you slowly muttered out, forcing your gaze to not waver too much and stay on him, knowing you would have to repeat it again if you would look away. And that would mean more poison for you to swallow.

"Do you want your underwear back?", he asked with a silk-like voice, smoothly walking with a few huge steps over to you to take a better look at your current state. How wonderful, he felt extremely satisfied in that one moment. You were slowly being stripped off your stubborness to accept him, instead starting to to him when you needed something. Just two months ago you wouldn't have even thought in your wildest dreams to ask him for help. It just told him that you were slowly breaking, were getting exhausted from all of this.

"Yes. Please.", you said in a more quiet voice, now that he was being so close to you again you felt your gaze shifting somewhere completely else, still not being able to shake the drilling look of him off. Hopefully he wouldn't force you to ask him once again.

"See? This wasn't as hard after all wasn't it?" His voice was laced with a certain sweetness in it, leaving you with a bitter stinging in your heart. That was not true at all. You had just now sacrificed a part of your own confidence. Not like he would care. And not like you would tell him that. You didn't feel in the mood to do so and now it would be dangerous to do so, whilst you felt so incredibly small and helpless. It would be too easy for him to get in your head.

Instead of answering you let out a noise akin to a gentle hum, making yourself a bit smaller, feeling a bit intimidated by the way he was towering over you. Claude seemed to take notice of this and to your surprise he was suddenly kneeling in front of you, although you had almost bet he would push your buttons a bit more right now. But maybe he didn't feel in the mood to be that way, not after you had for the first time ever finally broken a bit in front of him.

With his own face suddenly so close to his, you had no other place to avoid those golden eyes, scanning slowly over your embarrassed and ashamed expression. "You don't have to be scared of me. You know that I wouldn't hurt you. I'm not lowlife like other creatures you might have met."

"Then why do you do this to me?", you stuttered out, by now feeling your eyes tearing up. "Because I only want the best for you. I know how to treat you good, better than anyone else. And all I try to do is helping you to realize this. It would make life easier for you too. I just want you to trust me."

#yandere black butler #yandere kuroshitsuji #yandere claude #yandere claude faustus

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mira--mira · 3 years

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Hi! I was wondering

How do you think Hashirama and Madara would be in a Road to Ninja version?

I remember once reading a Hashimada fic (which I never finished RIP) that was about Madara appearing in the RTN universe and the 3 things that stucked with me were:

1.- Madara was the first Hokage (something that Madara thought was horrible when he saw his sculpted face on the Hokage mountain 🤣)

And personally I think that it would not have been like that even in the RTN universe because we didn't see his face along with the other faces of Hokages in the movie (Yeah, apparently I'm basing myself on a movie which I'm not even sure if it's canon or not, even though Kishimoto wrote it) and the RTN characters didn't seem to even know who Madara is.

2.- Hashirama having his bowlcut as an adult

And I agree with the Madara from that fanfic, it looks awful on him. Hashirama, babe, I'm sorry but the only ones who can rock that style are Guy Sensei and Rock Lee, I know you just were trying to be cool but it doesn't suite you.

3.- Tobirama was a porn writer

Instead of being a fan of forbidden jutsu and creating justus, he wrote porn novels a la Jiraiya. And I'll hold that headcanon with my dead hands.

The only other fanfic that places the founders in the RTN universe is one where the protagonist is Mito (it's an interesting one-shot that pairs her with Itama 🤔)

She was kind of a shy person 🤔? And so it was Tobirama 🤣 which I found fun.

Hashirama, as the first fanfic I mentioned, was the Tobirama of the place (saddenly Madara wasn't in this fic).

So I would like to know what are your versions of the founders (or only Hashirama and Madara if it is too much) in the RTN universe! And how do you think things would be

Hmm, RTN is an interesting concept to me but, to be honest, I don't think Konoha would exist if a lot of personalities got flipped 😂 I haven't read any RTN fics with the founders, but if you, or anyone else, have links at hand I'd love to check them out 👀

1. Madara

Here's the big one and the crux of why I don't think the village would exist. Typically I characterize Madara as an extremely responsible man who internalizes things when he shouldn't, takes himself way too seriously, is aggressive and abrasive even to people he loves sometimes, but genuinely loves the people closest too him. Reversing this would make a character that slacks off, takes no responsibility, and is completely passive in life and has fleeting attachments to others around him. Assuming he wouldn't die on the battlefield, I could see the RTN "alternate" personality coming about of Madara's being so overpowered and competent that he loses interest and distances himself from things before he can get attached and lose them.

It makes building a village very hard though. (At first I was tempted to go RTN Sasuke route and maybe RTN!Madara is a little more openly flirty than canon!Madara, but the passivity and refusal to take responsibility would be the "core" qualities for me.)

2. Hashirama

Hashirama is a bit weird because he has a lot of surface-level "conflicting" traits in canon. He is optimistic but he pushes beyond his natural attitude and uses it as a mask to hide instead of addressing his feelings. He's mischievous, likes jokes and games, and can be a bit hedonistic with his pleasure but can equally be serious when necessary and will willingly sacrifice for others around him. And simultaneously, Hashirama and Madara are connected by a shared sense of idealism but also anger. Hashirama is a very kind, but extremely angry, man. I think a RTN!Hashirama would share a kind of apathy of RTN!Madara but instead of passivity his lack of anger would manifest as cruelty. Because canon!Hashirama is angry but his anger is usually a righteous kind. I don't think RTN!Hashirama would go out of his way to be cruel, but he doesn't have the empathy of canon!Hashirama, especially to others' suffering. He enjoys fighting just a bit too much and has no qualms about killing. In his mind, he should always come first in any situation and prioritizing (or even considering) others' is effort and him going out of his way to be "nice" and the other should be thankful. Similarly if he feels any negative emotion, he won't bottle it up and swallow it down, he'll immediately address it, usually confrontationally. RTN!Hashirama is as intelligent as his canon counterpart but he doesn't suffer fools and he hates it when people underestimate him. He's pretty proud and vain, tbh.

I really don't think the above would make him the "Tobirama" of RTN verse. To me Hashirama and Tobirama have different core values and perspectives and inverting Hashirama's doesn't make it become Tobirama's, if that makes sense. This one is also wordy bc I immediately knew how RTN!Madara would be RTN!Hashirama is a bit harder to pin down. But I hope it's clear why I have doubts about the village existing...maybe if RTN!Hashirama got it in his mind as a pet project for the hell of it, that he'd be a better leader for the country and not just the Senju alone, and RTN!Madara liked the idea of no responsibility and being able to detach even further than he already was? But that's still kind of grasping for a reason.

3. Hashimada

Equally I think any Hashirama/Madara relationship would be ehhh. They definitely wouldn't have the overwhelming bond of their canon counterparts, and it could be a relationship ripe for unhappiness. The closest I can think of to making the ship work is RTN!Madara would be drawn to Hashirama's absurd level of self-confidence and able to let the casual cruelty slide off instead of getting worked up about it. In a way RTN!Hashirama is stable and predictable. If he's pretty overpowered, there's less of a chance RTN!Madara would lose him, so their relationship isn't deep but it's more or less dependable and Madara knows exactly what he's going to get. In contrast RTN!Hashirama has an audience in the form of RTN!Madara and a partner that's not going to push back against his ideas. RTN!Madara doesn't ask for much and he doesn't complain when RTN!Hashirama puts himself first. He doesn't want, or might not be capable of, the deep emotional bond their canon counterparts have. RTN!Madara wouldn't leave Konoha (if it existed) in the AU, because he doesn't really care. If someone upset RTN!Hashirama and he decided to leave to 'do it right' RTN!Madara would probably follow, maybe out of some loyalty for RTN!Hashirama but mostly because it's what's easiest.

4. Tobirama

The core of Tobirama's character to me is prioritizing logic over emotion and both a conscious and unconscious failure to realize he can't completely eliminate emotion. Tobirama loves his brother, he's curious and has a desire to find out what makes things work and is willing to bend morality to get results if it'll serve a greater good. He's very aware of the unfairness of the world but believes it's an unspoken truth of humanity and can only be mitigated through logical means, but never completely erased. He'll be the sacrificial lamb, the one that works in shadows so his brother can have his utopian dream. Despite everything, he loves his genin, the strongest bonds he has aside from Hashirama, and does try to instill in them lessons he think will help them and lead to peace and stability in the village. He's still influenced by the prejudices of his time and can never find it in him to truly forgive the Uchiha.

A RTN!Tobirama would be a man ruled by emotion. Him writing erotica all day definitely could be one way this manifests lol. But overall he's sensitive and spiritual and can't stand the idea of killing. He and RTN!Hashirama don't get along and he actively tries to avoid his brother. RTN!Tobirama has equally strong principles as canon!Tobirama, but they're pacifist in nature and while he likes his studies, he prefers to be out talking to people and learning from them first hand. He's very naive and can be easily taken advantage of and he has trouble focusing on any one thing for too long. No matter how many times this happens, he never can harden his heart or be overly suspicious of others. RTN!Tobirama would most likely be the one support peace in this AU. He embraces the Uchiha and all the Senjus past enemies with open arms, almost to a foolish degree. It'd be a bad idea if he became hokage in this AU because he's a terrible negotiator and has a bad people-pleasing streak and struggles with long-term tactics. With the exception of RTN!Hashirama, who he considers an aberration who doesn't have a soul, humans at their core all have good intentions at heart.

5. Mito

I characterize Mito as a very level-headed woman. Her marriage to Hashirama is political in nature but they grow to be good friends and she never expected to fall in love and she's glad Hashirama didn't want a traditional wife. Mito is devoted to her community work (she works hands-on with people in the village), she seeks out connections with others and, despite the distance, remains close with her family in Uzushio, constantly writing them letters. She's spiritual and follows the Uzumakis' beliefs (not gonna list this OoT spoiler lol) and studies fuinjutsu in her spare time, something she's done since she was a child. She is willing to sacrifice if it meant protecting something she considered greater than herself, much to her own personal detriment. She loves and is proud of her children and grandchildren, but if she had a choice, she would have chosen to remain childless, she finds her true calling elsewhere.

RTN!Mito, similarly to RTN!Tobirama, is ruled by emotions. She dreams of one day making a good marriage for herself and centers romance and being a mother as her ideal life, but she's extremely picky when it comes picking the perfect husband. RTN!Mito knows how much she's worth and she refuses to settle and will not even entertain the idea of an arranged marriage. She has a hard time forming long-lasting, deep bonds with other people and views starting her own family as the solution to this problem. At times she can be a bit absent-minded and unintentionally selfish, but she's not actively malicious. She blusters a lot and depending on the situation can come off as cold and uncaring, but it's only to hide the depth of her true feelings and loneliness. In this AU she would absolutely refuse to marriage RTN!Hashirama. Nothing on hell or earth, could make her change her mind.

Mito is such a blank-slate character it feels like writing an oc more than a canon character, tbh. And this is something I don't see brought up a lot but a "heart full of love" to combat the kyuubi's hatred to me has never been exclusive to romantic or familial (to children) love. *cough* I want a complex female character who's not vilified for not wanting to have children and/or regretting having them *cough* Mito's "love" was for the people of Konoha and Uzushio. My personal headcanon regarding her and Hashirama's child (I don't think she had more than one) was that she was dedicated to her son, but quickly realized being a mother wasn't her dream or something she even actively liked. The kid was well-cared for and she was dutiful towards him, but Hashirama was the parent that loved and embraced him with his whole heart and it led to some tension between Mito and her son as the kid could tell the difference and neither of them were "wrong" to feel the way they did. This is why Tsunade was shown with Hashirama instead of Mito, he was a lot more present in her life when she was young (instead of Kishi just not having made Mito as a character yet). But after Hashirama and Tsunade's dad died (and then Nawaki), she and Mito grew close but it was definitely more of a friendship or student/mentor relationship rather than a traditional grandmother/granddaughter relationship but both were satisfied with it and loved eachother. Likewise I didn't want RTN!Mito's characterization to be shallow and hit misogynistic undertones with her being an "opposite" to Mito's calm, level-headed, focused on her work/passions characterization.

6. Closing thoughts

#1: Wow this got long #2: I feel conflicted about RTN because it seemed to flip surface-level characteristics instead of deep characterizations, and ignored flaws altogether. The ones above, esp. Hashirama and Madara's, are kind of dark in a way? But that's the only way it makes sense to me...Gai and Lee caring about style and being stylish is a funny joke but if you were to actually poke and prod and say their personalities were inverted, neither of them would be top-notch ninja as we know...unless I'm just completely misremembering RTN because I realize it's been years since I saw it lol. Anyway, hope this was entertaining!

#naruto #hashimada #hashirama senju #madara uchiha #mito uzumaki #tobirama senju #asks #al-stuffy #rtn au #long post

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fl0ating-tree · 3 years

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c!technoblade is in the wrong more often than not

(unless i use “cc!” before the name, assume i’m talking about the characters as well as the fact that this is all /rp) (also this is very c!techno critical and it’s meant to be that way, i understand there’s a whole other perspective if you look at it from techno’s view but this is purposefully seeing the situation only from c!tubbo/c!tommy or other’s perspectives)

it’s been over a month since doomsday and since cc!techno’s content/lore has simmered down a bit i feel like it’s a good time to point out how from nearly everyone’s POV, except techno’s and phil’s, techno is in the wrong.

this is VERY analytical and c!techno critical and i would love if someone who’s a diehard techno apologist could give me their imput on this, feel free to debate this in the replies or reblogs or even send me an ask about it!

First of all, let’s go all the way back to when Technoblade first joined the smp. One of the biggest defenses for Techno is that he was clear about his goals of destroying the government to Wilbur and Tommy, and that Wilbur and Tommy went behind his back to set up a government. While I don’t have exact timestamps, if you watch through Tommy’s Dream SMP videos on his YouTube channel from when Techno joins to before the festival announcement both Wilbur and Tommy make it clear that they are gather resources and manpower to revolt against Manberg. Not rebel, which would imply simply destroying the government, but to go back to L’manberg and reinstate their places as President and Vice President. Technoblade joined their cause on the offer to train Tommy and Wilbur to be able to overthrow Schlatt. It was only after the festival that Techno revealed his motives to be destroying the government, after Wilbur came to the same conclusion. In the same vein, Techno’s vendetta against Tommy for ‘establishing a government’ doesn’t hold any water because Wilbur elected Tommy, not the other way around, and when Tommy actively tried to be uninvolved in government Wilbur made Tubbo president. Tommy was not involved in the creation of the government what so ever. To claim that Tommy betrayed Techno by establish a government you also have to admit that Technoblade betrayed Tommy by destroying L’manberg instead of helping train them.

Then comes Tubbo’s execution. Techno’s argument of peer pressure holds absolutely no ground considering when it came to blowing up L’manberg on Doomsday he didn’t seem to have any qualms even after nearly the entire server was against him doing it. Part of me feels like that defense came from cc!Techno simply having to think on the fly with improv, but that’s a little too meta of an argument for this analysis. I will admit that Techno’s defense of being surrounded is a lot more solid. Wilbur wasn’t /msg-ing him anything about what to do, and Techno had no personal reason to not shoot Tubbo. However Techno’s insistence that ‘it stays in the pit’ shows another downfall of his character in the fact that the argument between him and Tommy didn’t start with violence and therefore couldn’t simply end with violence. There’s a really well written analysis on how Techno’s character relies on violence rather than words because there’s no one, asides from Dream maybe, who could beat him in combat but a lot of them could hold their own in a verbal argument. Techno really didn’t have a solid defense for executing Tubbo, so he physically fought Tommy and claimed that that settled the argument. It was unfair to both Tubbo and Tommy. That was another betrayal of trust on Techno’s part; to Tommy, loyalty is being willing to die to protect someone. Techno being unwilling to fight, and possibly die to, Schlatt in order to protect Tubbo was a betrayal to him.

There’s also Tommy’s exile. I’ve seen people claim that Techno manipulated Tommy into siding with him and while I think that’s a bit extreme of an explanation I do think Techno gave Tommy an ultimatum. Tommy could either be thrown out of Techno’s home and most likely fall back into Dream’s hands, or help Techno. Tommy was in a very fragile state, he felt hurt by New L’manberg and their government and was emotionally vulnerable because of the abuse from Dream. Of course Techno’s proposal of “You help me minorly terrorize L’manberg, I’ll help you get your beloved possessions back” would sound appealing. That’s another thing to highlight here- Techno promised he wouldn’t hurt Tubbo in that deal. Every time he gave Tommy their ‘to-do list’ he would remove “DESTROY L’MANBERG” from it. He told Tommy his clear intentions inevitably, but Tommy was still hard-set on not hurting Tubbo. There was no way this agreement could’ve worked, their goals fundamentally conflicted. So in the same way that Tommy betrayed Techno by siding with the government after agreeing to destroy it, Techno betrayed Tommy by destroying Tubbo’s home and hardwork and therefore hurting Tubbo. Techno betrayed Tommy just as much- if not more- than Tommy betrayed him because while Techno promised not to hurt Tubbo, Tommy never promised to help completely obliterate L’manberg.

Another area that Techno get’s sympathy from the viewers for is his execution but that’s because we can see his POV. Let’s look at that situation from Tubbo’s POV. Tubbo was just elected president of L’manberg. Technoblade then shoots him and kills him (not canon, so plot-wise this means he probably severly injured him). Wilbur blows up L’manberg and Techno spawns Withers and attacks all of them. They manage to kill the Withers but Techno promises that if he hears anything about them establishing a government he will come back and kill them all and destroy L’manberg once and for all. Technoblade then dissapears and Tubbo sets out to rebuild. Dream has an iron grip on their government so Quackity proposes they do the next best thing to protect L’manberg and go after Technoblade, who they haven’t heard from since he promised to kill them all. They go to kill Technoblade, he escapes and kills Quackity. He then takes a hostage to get his belongings back, and finally he destroys L’manberg to bedrock.

Techno never once told anyone but Phil and Ghostbur, and later Tommy, that he was retired. Even if he did, retiring doesn’t suddenly absolve you from your crimes. Technoblade was a terrorist that threatened L’manberg and Tubbo did what he thought was best to protect his country. Tommy had no choice but to side with Techno and even then made his position clear to not hurt Tubbo. Tommy and Wilbur (when he was sane) made it clear that they would reestablish government. A big theme in the Dream SMP is miscommunication and multiple times does Techno seem to think people can read is mind because he fails to tell others what he wants and what he’s doing, and then claims he’s been betrayed when people don’t do what he wants.

Like I said in the beginning, this post was written purposefully ignoring Techno’s perspective, because a lot of his actions become a lot more understandable when you see his point of view. However, character’s don’t have access to his POV and both the audience and c!techno need to stop acting like everyone can see his side of events. Technoblade has betrayed people just as much, if not more, than they’ve betrayed him and characters, especially tubbo and tommy, have every right to hate him for it.

#dream smp analysis #dream smp #technoblade #tommyinnit #tubbo #critical #technoblade critical

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ace-trainer-risu · 3 years

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what are your fave diana wynne jones books that aren’t howl’s moving castle??

Oh whattt a lovely and fun question which I was definitely not secretly hoping someone would ask!!!! Yay!!

Hm okay so, not specifically in order, probably my top fave Diana Wynne Jones books would be:

Deep Secret! Deep Secret is not just one of my favorite books by DWJ but one of my favorite books full stop! It’s so good. Basically, the premise is that there is an infinite series of interconnected worlds, some of which have magic and some of which don’t, at the center of which is a vast interdimensional magical empire. Magic in the multiverse is overseen by an organization of magicians called Magids and there must always be a specific number of Magids in existence. When Rupert, a young Magid living on Earth, discovers that his mentor has died (ish) he becomes unexpectedly responsible for finding and training the next Magid, which is extremely inconvenient timing for him because the aforementioned magical empire is on the brink of civil war and chaos and its his job to stop it. And also almost all of this takes place at...a science fiction convention. It’s amazing. I have read this book minimum four (probably more) times and every time it’s absolutely delightful and hilarious. I would like to go to the sci fi convention in this novel more than anything. It’s such a good read and its one of her few novels which is specifically aimed at adults, so I would EXTREMELY recommend it. Plus the romance in it is extremely good...not exactly enemy-to-lovers but more like ‘annoys-the-shit-out-of-each-other’ to lovers. (**One note about this one...there’s a few very briefly mentioned side characters who are gender noncomforming and even tho they are actually portrayed very positively, it’s not necessarily ideal and 100% respectful (basically the protags comment on them being very beautiful and nice but also keep trying to guess their “real” gender). Additionally there’s a different briefly mentioned side character who is fat who isn’t portrayed very nicely. Both of these are brief incidents, just wanted to provide a warning for them)

Dark Lord of Derkholm - Okay this one is weirdly hard to summarize but it’s about this magical fantasy world which has been taken overy and is being used as a tourist destination by a non-magical world (heavily implied to be Earth) for people who want to role play at being in a classic high fantasy story, including fighting and killing THE DARK LORD...who is really just a random magician pretending to be evil. The inhabitants of the fantasy world do not enjoy this and are trying desperately to stop the tours, but unfortunately according to a magical oracle, their best hope of stopping the tours is this year’s Dark Lord, a hapless farmer magician named Derk, and his, um, eccentric family consisting of his glamorous wife, seven children (of whom five are griffins and one is a bard) and a simply improbable amount of magical animals. And also there is a very good dragon. I think Derkholm is so great as a novel b/c it’s a very funny, loving but sharp, parody of high fantasy stories...but a lot of the time parodies only function as parodies but not as good stories in their own right, you know? But this novel completely functions as a story too, and in fact the first time I read at maybe age nine or ten, the high fantasy parody went completely over my head...but I still loved it. I also really love that this novel is very accessible to all ages, I think I enjoy reading it as an adult just as much as I did as a kid, which is rare. For anyone who has read Howl’s Moving Castle but nothing else by DWJ and isn’t sure where to start, I think this is a great place to start. (TW: There’s a brief, non-explicit scene which has implied sexual assault.)

Fire and Hemlock - This may be the most controversial one since it features a romance with a significant age gap where the two characters meet when one is a child and the other an adult. And I fully agree that that’s :/ and normally that trope is NOT my thing but it doesn’t come off at all creepy in this story imo, and if you think you can deal with that then this is a very weird, atmospheric, cool book about storytelling and fairy tales and growing up. The short summary (this is another hard to summarize one) is that as a child, Polly encounters and strikes up a friendship and correspondence with a young man, Tom, which mainly consists of the two of them jointly making up a silly, ongoing fairy tale type story...but things get weird when parts of their story start to come true in real life. I’ve only read this one twice but it really stuck with me and in fact just describing it here...really makes me want to read it again!

The Chrestomanci Series - So all of the above are either specifically aimed at adults or a general audience whereas the Chrestomanci series is aimed at children, mainly a middle grade type audience. And tbh I started reading them as a kid (fond memory - I bought an omnibus of the first two with my allowance money...b/c it had a cat on the cover!) so I don’t know what it would be like to first read these as an older teen or an adult. BUT. Honestly they are really good and would be a quick read so I do still recommend them. There’s seven overall, with th seventh being a collection of short stories, and they’re only semi-chronological so the reading order isn’t vital. My recommended order (b/c this the order I read them in, haha) is Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona, Witch Week, The Pinhoe Egg, Conrad’s Fate, and then Mixed Magic you can read whenever you want so long as you read it after Charmed Life and The Magicians of Caprona. So the very core premise of it is not dissimilar to Deep Secret - there’s an infinite series of worlds/universes and there’s a magician, called the Crestomanci in this case, who is responsible for making sure magic isn’t abused across the multiverse. The Chrestomanci is an extremely powerful enchanter who has nine lives, and the novels are various semi-connected stories about the adventures of Chrestomanci as an adult and child. Chrestomanci is a title so it’s not always the same person, but for the majority of the stories it is the same guy and he’s...the best/worst...He’s this extremely handsome, charismatic, powerful enchanter who is very good at his job, loves his wife a lot, wears very beautiful clothes and makes, um, questionable life choices and is very annoying to everyone. I’ve thought about this very hard and I believe that he’s what happens when you take a fundamentally chaotic good person and make him do a fundamentally lawful good job; yes, he’s going to do it and do it well, but he is going to do it in the most chaotic, ridiculous way possible, and he IS going to die at an ALARMING rate, doing things that would not normally kill a person, such as playing cricket and trying to catch stray cats. He also, as previously mentioned, frequently wears very dramatic silk dressing gowns with elaborate embroidery, which the protag of Charmed Life finds deeply alarming. It’s very odd to me how these books don’t seem to be well known, because the Chrestomanci books were some of my absolute favorite books as a child. I still have my omnibus editions of the first four novels and they are very worn and very beloved. And it’s so WILD to me that I don’t think I have ever talked to someone who also read those as a kid! Like I’m not saying those people don’t exist, I’m sure I just haven’t met them, but that’s so weiiirddddd to me. If I bring up Tamora Pierce or Garth Nix or other authors of weird, eccentric children’s fantasy novels to other avid childhood consumers of fantasy, people usually know what I mean, but Chrestomanci and its just..crickets. Is it b/c she’s British? Anyway all of the Chrestomanci books are very degrees of good, but if I had to pick a favorite, I think, controversial choice here, it would be Conrad’s Fate. Particularly in terms of recommendations to others, Conrad’s Fate works as a standalone and, unlike the other books in the series, it’s aimed more at a YA audience, so if you wanted to read a Chrestomanci novel without getting into the whole series, that’s a good way to go. It’s about a boy, Conrad, who is told that he has a terrible, possibly fatal Fate awaiting him unless he goes to work as a servant at a wealthy, and weird, estate neighboring his town, at which place he encounters things including color changing livery, an extremely annoying teenage Chrestomanci, and the greatest liminal space house EVER. It’s like a combination of an upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey type social drama with bizarre fantasy shenanigans. How could that not be good??

Also as Honorable Mentions - A Sudden and Wild Magic and The Time of the Ghost. A Sudden and Wild Magic is fun b/c it’s one of her few works aimed specifically at adults and it’s (gasp) a little bit NAUGHTY which I was very surprised and delighted by when I read it. (This may seem like an unfair statement considering that Deep Secret fully has an orgy in it, but Rupert is so fundamentally unnaughty of a character that he completely unnaughtifies the whole novel, whereas Sudden and Wild Magic embraces being a (little bit) naughty.) The Time of the Ghost on the other hand is weird and haunting and creepy and atmospheric. I only read it once but it’s one of those novels you just think about periodically and go “wait what the fuck that was a weird novel” (Also known as the “Garth Nix” effect)

#the ask and the answer #i spent...too long writing this out but i love talking about her novels soo muchhhh #that i couldn't help myself!!!!!!!!#diana wynne jones #things you didn't care to know about veronica

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trashcatsnark · 3 years

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I love that Johnny is the kind of person who would kill for you no problem and fuck you untill you can't walk, but stuff like holding hands or saying geniuine compliments just cause him to short-circuit and he just can't do this. I think it's an interesting part of his psychology, that he's all about grand gestures (kill for you/die for you) and physical intimacy (sex and whatnot) but he's still very closed off and unwilling to engage with just like, small acts of affection that can't be easily brushed off. And, of course, he thinks he's being sooo slick and nobody can see how much of a fool he is around V, like, he's such a clown, I love that about him.

YESS YESSSS YESSSSSS SPOILERS WITHIN, I WENT ON ANOTHER RANT IM SORRY

I read a fic I believe it’s called 505 on archiveofourown, which in general, has had a lot of ideas and concepts I love and has birthed inspiration to some of my own brainworms (the idea of V getting stuck in like 2010-2012 in a like manufactured cyber pocket universe lives rent free in my brain and i really wanna play with that concept in my fic too cause i needed more flashback content, and like wanted V to properly have some sort of interaction with the past versions of Rogue, Alt, Kerry, and Johnny, like it’s so good and i highly recommend checking the fic out, yeet!)

And they state that Johnny’s basically the kind of guy who if you called him up, its life or death, he’d be there for you in a second. But, if you just texted to ask how his day is, he’d leave you on seen. He tends to think, act, and operate in extremes. Everything is always cranked up to eleven and high stakes; filled with passion for everything he goes near. Cause those moments revolve more around doing, acting on something, rushing in; whether its attacking Arasaka or fucking, its all about doing something and he doesn’t really have to put his emotions or his heart out there. He feels intensely, extremely, passionately, but he can’t properly articulate that when it comes to people on an individual level. He can scream until the cows come home about his ideas about society and the people on a grand scale, on the big picture, but when it comes to individuals and his intimate relationships the action should be enough, to him, should say everything. He can hide behind the extremes, act on his feelings without having to truly bare his soul. There’s a comfort in that, he can act on his feelings while still keeping his distance.

But, that’s harder with domesticity, its harder with everyday intimate affection, its harder with someone who knows you inside and out. Because he’s now committed to not only being there in the extremes, he’s there for the mundane and monotony. He’s not just there for hard fucks and terrorists attacks; he’s there for V casually (though they’re also screaming inside) grabbing his hand as they walk somewhere together, he’s there for mornings that start with a kiss and a cup of coffee, he’s there for cleaning the apartment, taking care of a cat, cuddling on a couch while watching bad tv, trying to help V cook (once they get an apartment with a kitchen cause why the fuck doesn’t v have a kitchen cdpr), there for conversations that have nothing to do with life or death, and casual i love you’s being dropped because that word is no longer an emotional bomb, but a simple reality.

No walls, no barriers, no fucking off until the next time someone needs him to die or kill for them/fuck them. Emotional intimacy becoming a part of daily life. And oh boy is that a fucking scary ass concept.

Cause being there and sacrificing himself when V could potentially die, feels like a no brainer, of course he’ll do that, that’s what he promised, what’s right by them, and he’d die for them any day. If that’s what they need that is what he’ll do. And he’ll say so to anyone who asks, proudly. Cause he can to an extent hide behind it being the right thing to do, its the right thing to honor his promise, to try to save them from this unfairness, even after mikoshi he can explain it away as he owes V his life, he can hide behind his own moral code. Brush it off as being “right”. In Mikoshi when he tells V he plans to keep his promise; there’s no introspection of the emotional intimacy they built, he’s still trying to keep some walls up. Its’ “we’re sticking to the plan” “I won’t do you wrong.” He can hide and frame it as a promise, what’s right, which is a huge aspect of it no doubt, but we know he has feelings beyond that. His own guilt, he own care and concern for V, hell, there’s apparently even a line where it seems he gets mad at Alt, like genuinely mad that they can’t save V.

“You promised this poor little shit a new life and you lied! You fuckin' lied!”

It was about more than a sense of duty and keeping his promise, but he can hide behind that. (And with just sex, he can hide behind sexual gratification, paint it as selfish desire)

But holding V’s hair back or rubbing their back when they’re sick and puking; not relic sick, not dying sick, just neurovirus/ate something that disagreed with them/or drank a bit too much, regular sick...is different. Because V doesn’t objectively need him in that moment; they will survive without his hands in their hair or rubbing down their back, They will survive without him checking on them and once they get it all out, carrying them to bed. There’s no right or wrong even, cause its no one elses job to care for V.

It is a choice born purely out of an unselfish desire to make them feel better, to care for them even in the mundane troubles of life. And he can’t, though he’d try, pretend that it’s anything else. It puts his feelings on the table, bares his feelings in a whole other way.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #johnny silverhand #cp2077 spoilers #Anonymous

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ruby-whistler · 3 years

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Srry but i noticed in one of ur dream posts u Referred to tommy's cat as hope. I must correct u, that cat was born pussbou and died pussboi. /lh Also tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile btw just wanna say Also for ur posts about dreams trauma or wilbur manipulating him can u provide links to vods or other proof? Srry if i seem rude i mean that in a "genuinely curious way"

Aaa sorry if my ask came off as rude im just genuinely curious :(((

hi! dw, you don't seem rude at all, and i'm extremely happy someone with a different perspective has found my blog! i really appreciate that sort of attitude and am happy to answer :]

/dsmp /rp

the cat was called pussboy by tommy, but dream only called it "the cat" and then said that "it was hope", which is why it sort of became a symbol (his hope is dead, basically) - that's why i kind of made its name capitalized, because it was more of a metaphor than anything.

most c!dream fans call the cat hope because it's just really nice and really symbolic, and also really sad when you think about it. that's why the name was used in the essay, just to clear up the confusion!

tommy killing that cat was nothing compared to dream killing mushroom henry in exile

i don't really think so? mooshroom henry was entertainment more than anything, and even if it was bad, when watching the stream i don't remember seeing him mourn that much - on the other hand, dream was very quickly and very obviously attached to the cat, with it being his only companion in months of isolation, along with the hope that even when tommy left it would keep him company.

keep in mind c!dream has been deprived of stimuli and human contact for so long it's officially classified as psychological torture at that point.

i don't mean to compare trauma or even compare deaths - because honestly, what c!dream and c!tommy have gone through individually is incomparable and i think neither should be diminished in favor of the other since they're both terrible situations.

that's why i disagree that it "was nothing compared to" - it had an obvious effect on c!dream, and was still c!tommy killing an animal specifically to hurt him, no matter what reasons he had.

when i'm talking about effects people's actions have had on c!dream, i'm not talking about those people. i'm talking about him. :) /lh

as for the trauma, a lot of people agree that a lot of the things he says or does are trauma responses, and hence it's very possible that he's had trauma before he went into prison!

this includes being repeatedly called a tyrant via propaganda by about half of your friends who decided to betray you, trying to keep peace and being pushed deeper into villainy instead, repeatedly being put in between a rock and a hard place in order to make sure the people you care about don't start killing each other, then being betrayed by your closest friends after merely trying to keep peace (sapnap & george) and just in general having no control over your life or image and grasping at straws to gain it back.

i know a lot of people with trauma who heavily relate to certain trauma responses, which aren't always just shaky breaths and flashbacks, but trauma often also manifests itself in extremely ugly and destructive ways, both inwardly and outwardly.

trying to control the people around you is also very often a response to going through trauma, as well as emotional repression which is... rather evident on c!dream during season two. it only seems to get worse with repeated abandonment.

in the end, during the vault scene, the way he acts really just isn't at all the way a healthy person would act, and a lot of his really bad mindsets come from the way he was taught by the world around him.

the character is very reserved however, and since we don't have his pov we can't really say for certain - a lot of people claim it in good faith because they have a lot of evidence for it, and i think they're certainly valid in that.

that is just before the prison, however. from what happened during the prison arc? there is no denying he's traumatized at this point.

he's been emotionally and physically abused by c!sam since the very beginning of being imprisoned, and being in solitary confinement for over two weeks is generally considered psychological (and maybe also physical?) torture. that alone shows up in a lot of symptoms of his mental deterioration while in pandora's during people's visits, and quackity's "sessions" just absolutely drove the point home.

what he's gone through during this arc is absolutely incomparable to anything others charactes have faced before, and it's just plain suffering being endured by someone who is, despite everything, still a human being.

as for the wilbur manipulation thing!! it's talking about the whole vassal scene (though even beforehand a lot of their interactions are pretty iffy), and here's a post about that :]

I also have a small question about the analysis u last reblogged cus it says "why dream needed lmanburg gone rightfully" and like. The house analogy is poor because for one cus the land is infinite. And 2 cus punz's yard was literally larger then lmanburg. And also stuff about dream being a mediator? Can u provide examples?

i wouldn't say it was poor. dream's said a lot of times that he didn't care in the slightest about the land - a lot of his problems with l'manberg arose with the fact that wilbur basically built it on lies and tried to disallow half of the server to come there. c!dream was mad about the division and the fact that wilbur wanted "freedom" to have authority in his lands - over others, as can be seen in this post also.

the table analogy was fitting not because dream was some overlord, but because these were literally friends he invited to hang out and live in a place he wanted to call home. claiming a part of it for yourself and saying people of a certain nationality can't come in is directly opposing those goals.

in the early days of the smp, dream's always been a mediator between his friends - sapnap and george, who would often get into fights and go around killing each other! he would always do his best to stop the conflict, which continued after tommy joined when he took him to court and then later tried to mediate conflicts he was a part of, which resulted in tommy killing him unprovoked, stealing his gear, and starting the disc wars when dream was trying to get his stuff back. later, during pogtopia, he is also most concerned with peace over everything, and this seems to continue indefinitely after.

Today i was thinking about how messed up the final control room was. Like. Dream arranged the betrayal and punz and sapnap killed tommy and tubbo who like. Were literal children and their pals (because the author, wilbur soot, is dead/j but srsly if u take the streamers words tommy said he was 9 during the revolution sooo)

Sorry im gonna ramble about how dumb canon ages are for a second cus like. Streamers can say the characters are one way or another (wilbur saying he is mentally 30-something, etc.) But in the end the characters act like they(or at least their streaming personas) do.

i... honestly don't find it that bad? they were in a war, and the final control room was basically just supposed to end it quicker. the l'manbergians made it clear they were going to fight to the death, so they really left c!dream no other choice. and it's not like he didn't give them chances to give up.

also yeah the 9 year old thing was retconned, because in that case c!dream would've been 14 and i don't think that's true.

c!tommy and c!dream were both young and once again, in a war. the final control room was an attempt to assure victory, which both sides would've taken if possible, but only c!dream saw he had the option.

i do agree the whole child soldier thing was bad but... complain about that to c!wilbur, methinks. he talked naive kids into fighting for his personal power. however, the age argument isn't really valid either way. they had enough agency to sign up for it, and whether or not c!wilbur pushing the intense nationalism onto them had something to do with that is another debate entirely.

Bacl to final control room cus like??? Also fun fact punz took 2 of wilbur's canon lives. And like that probably is what started wilbur's paranoia which later lead to his spiral and i. Many thoughts full of lmanburg today.

i'm pretty sure cc!wilbur said what lead to c!wilbur's spiral was a "dark, twister view of possessions" and "disregard for his fellow citizen whom he claimed to love so much", but i really wouldn't say it was the control room; if anything the sudden loss of power after the elections seems to me like the trigger for his spiral.

I watched the exile arc live and. I feel dirty almost for feeling little to no sympathy for c!dream (srry ive been forgetting to add that aa) because of his actions toward c!tommy and like. The whole probation was so humiliating and unfair and c!dream was planning to frame him for the crimes he and puffy did under the the guise of "pranks" and c!quackity was planning to seize the vice president role.

i mean... to be fair, if you didn't watch the prison arc much yet or only watch tommy's perspective i understand not feeling that sympathetic - however, i encourage you to maybe watch a few prison visits, since they could help you see the whole picture better!

i also watched it live, and i also thought it was terrible, but i share very much the same sentiment for the prison arc because. absolutely no one should have to go through either of those things, you know?

i don't think probation was that humiliating? he was just. being asked to not start conflict with the other factions for two weeks. of course, what happened as a result is in no way justified, but i don't think probation itself would've been bad at all. either way yeah the framing and c!quackity's behaviour was. very yikes, i agree.

Also c!tommy antis are dumb because they say "he deserved exile angry emoji" i dont see u saying that about ranboo. Just say you hate cc!tommy and go. Also people say c!tommy was just as toxic to c!dream and i??? No. One is the victim and one is the abuser and like. :/// man. This part is rambly srry

i wouldn't say they hate cc!tommy? cc!tommy has a persona who people think is annoying at first ( but then they subscribe because he is super entertaining big man! ) but a lot of c!tommy's actions are straight up toxic to certain characters, such as c!funndy and c!jack. he has a very dismissive attitude towards others and their trauma and it does affect the people around them very negatively.

examples; his repeated bullying and behavior towards fundy:

Tommy: “Fundy, I’m just here to kinda let you know that I – if you weren’t Wilbur’s son, you would be out of L’manburg, alright? Just remember – you need to keep that relationship with your father. I saw how asshole-y and bratty you were acting in the courtroom the other night. You need to pull your shit together young man.”

......

Fundy: “I’m wearing glasses…are you making fun of my eyesight?!”

Tommy: “Yes.”

Sapnap: “Your father would be very disappointed.”

Fundy: “Wh – disappointed for wearing glasses?!”

Tommy: “You got glasses, like what are you wearing…”

Fundy: “What do you mean?”

Tommy: “Sapnap, Sapnap, over here. Fundy, Fundy, Fundy, I’m really sorry to say this – I’m just here to publicly denounce you.”

Fundy: “…What?”

( credit for transcript: @/findingjoynweirdstuff )

he's also responsible for a big chunk of c!jack's trauma, both with actions and words, and that's why i think certain people might dislike the character, and i don't think that's wrong of them. anyone can dislike any character they want if they don't attack people for liking them, in my opinion.

also c!tommy was most definitely toxic against c!dream in the cell. it's of course understandable but that doesn't change the fact he was constantly hitting and insulting him (without dream doing anything back for a long while until he snapped) which is toxic behaviour.

i wouldn't say he was "just as" though, so i agree with you on that. they're different and they behave differently.

i made a dream blob keychain today. Is it possible to send images if u wanna see? Idk cus i havent used tumblr before. I think that's all for now. Thx for letting me talk :D peepoShy -curious anon (but fr a connoreatspants c!dream redemption arc would be cool)

yooo that's cool! i don't really,,, know if it's possible to send images? try it out and if it isn't i'll try find a way to turn it on.

also, no problem! just please remember this is a c!dream sympathetic blog, and me as well as my followers are uhh,, oftentimes emotionally attached / personally relate to the character, so if you could avoid sending hate on the character (not that you have or that i expect you to, just a friendly reminder) in the asks that would be great! we already see a lot of it unwillingly so, i'd rather not see more, but as long as the discussion is civil i'm absolutely ok with you asking more and with me answering more questions if you'd want to! :)

if anyone else would like to reblog this and add some things i might've missed with my answers, feel free to, just go easy on her (she uses she/her pronouns!) and keep it factual.

i hope u had a good or at least ok time at school today :D

thanks! i gtg now because exam tomorrow but i'm going to try write the redemption essay tomorrow as well because ohhh boy i have a lot of ideas about what all i could write around the concept.

also sorry this was long, i can't keep my tongue on the leash :[

#c!tommy critical #c!wilbur critical #my asks #curious anon #long post #history #tw torture #tw manipulation

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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Thank you "Worthwhile Trade". The idea of Baxia turning into an guai is so interesting. I liked imagining the part where she hit NMJ for his idiocy. My brain is projecting "married couple" vibes, omg. I admit despite how weird WWX spoke about the events, the time travel part flew over my head until the tags spelled it out for me. (TBC)

(Cont'd) Also... did NMJ mean it in THAT dual-thing way when talking WRH's prefs? And the last part, where WWX used resentful energy to sub NMJ's qi. I assume he can still cultivate since his core's still there, if emptied? But I wonder what'll happen to his energy once restored Can't help but think his renewed qi will inevitably be affected by the traces of the previous energy that once circulated. He's not going to become a walking stygian tiger or something, is he? Off the wall guess, sorry!

----

sequel to Worthwhile Trade (ao3), also on tumblr

Wei Wuxian didn’t understand Nie Mingjue.

He didn’t understand the way he thought, the way he acted – the way he smiled when he woke up, the way he opened his arms when Nie Huaisang threw himself into them with a wail and said, “It was worth it for you, didi; it always is if it’s for you. Don’t you know that?” the way Wei Wuxian had always shamefully thought of saying, as if something like that could just be said like that, out in the open.

The way Nie Mingjue shrugged when the doctors said his cultivation would likely never recover, that he should have died, that they didn’t understand why he hadn’t; the way he said, seeming even satisfied, that it was a worthwhile trade.

It’s not a trade, Wei Wuxian wanted to scream at him. It’s a sacrifice! It hurts and you’re sad, no, worse, you’re resentful about it and you shouldn’t be because it was your choice, your decision, but you see someone else with everything that you worked so hard for and you’re angry when you shouldn’t be angry and you feel bad and you turn away; it hurts them when you do and you’re glad, you miserable thing, you’re happy that they’re hurt because why should you be the only one whose hurt –

Perhaps the problem wasn’t that he didn’t understand Nie Mingjue.

Perhaps it was only that he saw in Nie Mingjue his own faults, his own deficiencies, the ones he’d tried so hard to hide in the sea of his poor memory.

“You’ll die if you don’t find a way to cultivate,” he said instead, hovering by the door. He’d say that he didn’t mean to ruin the mood, but he kind of did, and Baxia’s eyes on him were cold as if she knew.

As if she knew everything.

How he’d gone back to the past, how he’d changed things, how it was his fault that Nie Mingjue – who’d never done a single thing to hurt him, who’d been upright and righteous and good and whose brother loved him enough to –

Wei Wuxian had made a point of avoiding Baxia.

Not that she was that easy to avoid. She was tall for a woman – not as tall as Nie Mingjue, but proportionate to him in the sense that she was as much taller than the average woman as he was taller than the average man – and she walked as though people should flee before her, a tread that only felt heavy because of the almost visceral rage that surrounded her like a cloud.

Nie Huaisang had found robes for her, somehow, and they were the least feminine robes Wei Wuxian had ever seen a woman wear, though he supposed he still hadn’t seen that given that Baxia wasn’t exactly a woman. Cut in a martial style, a dark shimmering grey that seemed in some lights to be almost red – she had been born as a human in a mantle of blood and she would not let anyone forget it.

“I should have died already,” Nie Mingjue said, as if the world’s scariest guai didn’t have her hand on his shoulder right next to his vulnerable neck. “You came up with a solution, Wei-gongzi, and for that I thank you. Even if we are not able to solve the next stage, being able to see my loved ones is worthwhile.”

Wei Wuxian could learn to hate that word.

“I have a solution, of a sort,” he said, irritated and not entirely because his reveal had been preempted. He’d hoped to sort of ease into it, somehow. “You lack the capacity for regular cultivation, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use demonic cultivation.”

“What? No, we can’t do that,” Nie Huaisang said, biting his fingers anxiously. “Anyway, doesn’t demonic cultivation harm the temperament?”

“You mean my temperament can get worse?” Nie Mingjue teased, and Nie Huaisang smacked him so lightly that it didn’t even displace his clothing. “I don’t know any means of demonic cultivation, Wei-gongzi –”

“Call me Wei Wuxian,” Wei Wuxian said. “Please.”

“Wei Wuxian, then,” Nie Mingjue said. “All the methods I’ve ever heard of were forbidden for very good reasons – but perhaps those conditions are not the same in the method you know.”

Wei Wuxian tensed. “How do you know that I know one?”

“You saved me, didn’t you?” Nie Mingjue said practically, and well, yes, Wei Wuxian supposed he had a point – “And anyway, Baxia can tell.”

Wei Wuxian shivered. “I don’t use it,” he argued. “How can she tell?”

At Nie Huaisang’s instigation, Baxia had recently started experimenting with smiles. She put one on her face now.

It was terrifying.

“Tell me about it,” Nie Mingjue requested. “The powers and the price, all of it.”

“You’re actually considering this?” Nie Huaisang exclaimed. “But da-ge…!”

“Wei Wuxian was not wrong when he said that I would die if I didn’t find a way to cultivate despite having given up what I have,” Nie Mingjue said. “If I die, what will you do?”

Oh, not much, just become a mastermind capable of puppeting the entire cultivation world to enact revenge for your death. Nothing big.

“But – da-ge has always put such a priority on remaining on the righteous path…”

“That’s why I asked about the costs,” Nie Mingjue said patiently. “I will not abandon righteousness simply because I adopt a new method of cultivating.”

“Everyone will revile you even if you are righteous,” Wei Wuxian warned him.

Nie Mingjue shrugged. “Who is everyone? What do I care for them? You do the right thing because it is right, not for the sake of fame.”

Wei Wuxian had once thought the same.

“If everyone in the cultivation world thinks you are evil, they will paint you as evil no matter what you do,” he insisted. “No matter how righteous your motives –”

“Let them think he’s evil, then!” Nie Huaisang exclaimed. “He could be the most black-hearted cultivator in the land, but he’s still my da-ge; my Nie sect and I will protect him!”

“Huaisang! No! That is not how righteousness works – if I ever truly become evil, you are to cut me off at once, kill me if necessary –”

“No way!”

“Huaisang – Baxia, tell him; evil cannot be endured –”

Baxia was looking at her fingernails. She’d picked that gesture up from Sect Leader Ouyang, when he was trying to be pointed about ignoring someone; it was extremely irritating to absolutely everyone who wanted to know who she was and what she was doing here and Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian had teamed up to convince her to keep doing it.

Possibly a mistake, in retrospect.

“Baxia. I know you agree with me on this. Evil is evil, and must be eradicated no matter who it may be.”

She gave him an unimpressed look.

“I know I’m not evil yet,” Nie Mingjue argued, apparently understanding her without any difficulty whatsoever. He’d just woken up from a month-long coma and he could already speak fluent human-saber, it was really unfair. And this man had succumbed to Jin Guangyao’s wiles? Lan Xichen had more to answer for than he knew. “But if I ever become evil – what? No, we will not burn that bridge when we come to it, that’s not even the right idiom, who is teaching you these things –”

Nie Huaisang coughed and hid his face behind a fan.

Wei Wuxian was not going to laugh.

Nie Mingjue growled at them all and turned back to Wei Wuxian. “Explain,” he demanded. “The rest of you, out.”

“But –”

“Out. One of us has to cultivate the righteous path, and if it can’t be me, it has to be you. Baxia?”

She picked Nie Huaisang up by his collar, for all the world like a mother dog picking up her pup by the scruff of its neck, and walked out.

Nie Mingjue picked up demonic cultivation faster than anyone else Wei Wuxian had ever met or even heard of. He wasn’t sure if that demonstrated an unnerving aptitude or if it was simply that Nie Mingjue was surpassingly talented – Wei Wuxian had never met anyone like himself before, someone for whom all things came easy, and it was an unexpected delight to meet a kindred soul somewhere where he’d long ago given up hope. He’d never planned to unveil demonic cultivation in this life unless he truly needed it – he didn’t want to hurt his Lan Zhan the way he had in his first life, and anyway Jiang Cheng and Uncle Jiang and Madame Yu were all alive, with hundreds of Jiang sect members to boot, there was no need for his sacrifice – but the part of him that was more researcher and inventor than cultivator luxuriated in their discussions.

Nie Mingjue was a lot more concerned than Wei Wuxian had ever been with consequences, and how to mitigate them, but he supposed that made sense: losing his cultivation hadn’t impacted that Nie temper one bit, and demonic cultivation was likely to make things worse. Moreover, Nie Mingjue was simply who he was, stiff and unbending, as much steel in his spine as in Baxia’s; he could almost be described as being rigid in his thinking except for the fact that he was in fact seriously considering becoming a demonic cultivator.

“We’re saber cultivators,” Nie Mingjue said when Wei Wuxian tentatively brought it up. “Like a saber, our nature is to be firm and unyielding, not flexible like the sword, but we cannot allow ourselves to become too rigid – a too-rigid saber will break upon encountering an obstacle. It’s a difficult balance to keep, and one made more difficult by our cultivation style.”

“The demonic cultivation aspects, you mean? Using yao to refine your saber spirit?”

“One day, though not today, I’m going to ask you how you know about that,” Nie Mingjue remarked, and although his tone was causal Wei Wuxian’s back went cold. “And I’ll expect you to tell me the truth when I do. But not today. Anyway, yes, that’s what I mean. Do you know what they mean when they say that demonic cultivation harms the temperament?”

Wei Wuxian hesitated. “I assume you’re going to tell me something other than ‘it drives you crazy and makes you kill people’?”

Nie Mingjue snorted. “Sometimes I wonder how someone as smart as you got sent home before you finished your lessons at the Cloud Recesses, but other times it’s fairly obvious.”

Wei Wuxian shrugged, embarrassed.

“Do you really not know?”

“No one taught this to me,” Wei Wuxian said, stung. “I came up with it on my own. How would I know?”

“All demonic cultivation has the same root,” Nie Mingjue said. “Obsession.”

“With killing, yeah, I know, I’ve heard it a million times –”

“Shut up and listen, you impertinent brat. The killing comes later. It starts with obsession. Obsession with righteousness, obsession with love, obsession with the pleasures of this world, with power – a human becomes a demon when they cannot overcome the obsessions within their heart, and the obsession consumes them. In time, a demonic cultivator who is obsessed with power will do whatever it takes to obtain that power, and not mind the blood shed to do it; a demonic cultivator who is obsessed with love will kill everyone who they perceive stands between them and their love, a demonic cultivator who is obsessed with righteousness will turn to murder when in their judgment something that ought to be condemned goes unpunished…”

“What about one who only wants what’s best for his family?” Wei Wuxian said, and he did not know if the challenge in his voice was about Nie Mingjue’s future or his own past.

Nie Mingjue shrugged. “Two roads that I can see: first, their family turns away from them for what they have become and they become vicious with the abandonment, becoming quick to lash out against the world and eventually doing something that causes the world to turn against them. Second, their family stands by them, and eventually the world causes some harm to them – and the demonic cultivator turns to madness in revenge.”

“Not exactly an optimistic outlook.”

“Not especially, no.”

“You don’t seem as concerned by that as I would have thought.”

Nie Mingjue’s lips twitched. “I have a solution.”

“Would you like to share?”

“Using resentful energy to cultivate our sabers makes them prone to obsession, driving them ceaselessly to fight evil, destroy it, without discrimination. It makes them stronger, but also more dangerous – and that is why they must be carefully controlled.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “So, what? You’re going to be the saber now? Under whose control?”

“Huaisang’s, of course,” Nie Mingjue said, as if it were obvious. “For better or for worse, he is sect leader now. Who else would it be?”

“But – what if you disagree? What if he wants to do things one way, and you another –”

“Then I argue and probably yell a lot, and if in the end he still insists on doing things his way, I listen,” Nie Mingjue said dryly. “That’s how hierarchy works. Isn’t it the same for you? When your shidi, Jiang Cheng, becomes sect leader, you’ll need to listen to him – or leave the sect. There’s no middle ground.”

Wei Wuxian scowled.

“A sect leader that can’t control his disciples is worse than a demonic cultivator,” Nie Mingjue said. “He’s weak. A target, ripe to be ripped apart and devoured by other sects – resources raided, disciples poached, responsibilities taken away...It’s not a fate I would wish on anyone. If you can’t commit to obeying, commit to leaving so that you don’t end up promising more than you can give.”

Ouch.

Just – ouch.

Great advice, fantastic advice, world-class advice, and totally useless because Jiang Cheng had travelled back in time with him and was therefore convinced that Wei Wuxian was just looking for the first way out of the Jiang sect he could find, no matter what Wei Wuxian said or did about it.

(Even Madame Yu was concerned by the new coldness in their relationship and had tried to talk to him about it, which – Wei Wuxian didn’t know what to do with that. It didn’t match any of what he had thought he’d understood.)

He decided to focus back in on the demonic cultivation lessons, shifting from theoretical discussions to the practical, and that, unfortunately, was when they encountered an issue.

“What do you mean you can’t play an instrument?” Wei Wuxian demanded, appalled. “It’s one of the Six Arts! Everyone can play some sort of instrument – even Nie Huaisang plays an instrument!”

“Everyone agreed it was better that I stop learning,” Nie Mingjue said defensively. “It’s all just plucking on strings or blowing air in pipes, and yet no matter that I did exactly what the teacher said to do, it never worked, that’s all.”

“Didn’t Zewu-jun offer to teach you…?”

“He did. And then he said it would be better if we stopped, too.”

The reason, Wei Wuxian soon learned, was that Nie Mingjue was almost completely tone deaf, and the only reason it was almost was that he was still capable of differentiating speech.

“I agree with the majority,” he said after an extremely frustrating day. “Stop. Never pick up an instrument ever again. And don’t let anyone but Zewu-jun play something especially for you, either, okay? Even if they’re highly recommended.”

“An interesting request,” Nie Mingjue said, eyebrows arched skeptically. “May I ask why?”

“Because you’ll have no idea if they’ve changed the music on you,” Wei Wuxian said bluntly. A great deal about the man’s murder in a different life made sense now, and Jin Guangyao’s brilliance in hiding the score of Turmoil inside of Clarity was a little less impressive when played to a man who thought all music, without exception, was just plucking strings or blowing air. “Musical cultivation is deadly in the right hands, especially if you lower your defenses against it. Just consider it a precaution.”

Nie Mingjue’s eyebrows remained arched, but he hummed in agreement.

“I guess we’ll have to think of a new way for you to cultivate demonic cultivation,” Wei Wuxian said, rubbing his face. He had not been planning on having to invent demonic cultivation at all in this life, and now he needed to not only ‘invent’ the original but actually come up with something new. Why was his life so hard? “How did you previously manipulate external energy?”

“With Baxia.”

“Well, that’s not helpful, is it? You can’t wield a human being. Perhaps another saber…?”

That didn’t work, primarily because it turned out that Baxia had strong feelings about Nie Mingjue even thinking about using another saber and well, as far as Wei Wuxian was concerned, whatever Baxia wanted, Baxia got.

(Nie Huaisang had had to go to Heijan once, with Wei Wuxian and Baxia accompanying him since Nie Mingjue wasn’t ready yet, and some unlucky Wen captain had tried to ambush them. That captain, and his squad, were not granted the courtesy of an intact corpse, and Baxia hadn’t even gotten a speck of blood on her nice new robes – no, Wei Wuxian would not be crossing Baxia any time soon.)

“There’s got to be something,” Wei Wuxian said, and Nie Mingjue agreed, and in the end they found something.

Nie Mingjue had been absent-mindedly playing around with one of Nie Huaisang’s fans when one of the fierce corpses Wei Wuxian had raised as practice targets had gotten loose; instinct had taken over and Nie Mingjue had lashed out with the weapon at hand as if it were a saber, and the resentful energy had surged in response –

Baxia was apparently not threatened by the notion of her master using a fan as a weapon, not even one inlaid with steel and heavy cloth with enough layers to catch a sword in.

(If Wei Wuxian needed to go have some time to himself at the sight of Nie Huaisang, dressed as a sect leader with his saber always at his side, standing next to Nie Mingjue holding a fan – well, that was his problem, and also one he intended to show to Jiang Cheng at the next possible opportunity. Someone else deserved to have their mind wrecked by the incongruity as much as he had.)

Even without the weirdness of Nie Mingjue, it was more than a little odd to see Nie Huaisang in the robes of a sect leader without him acting like the Head-shaker. The shock of having to become sect leader had fallen heavily on him: he had become a little more serious, a little more earnest (though still a bit frivolous); he was more inclined to listen and think things over, less inclined to run away.

“If da-ge is going to become a demonic cultivator, someone needs to stand behind him,” Nie Huaisang said simply when Wei Wuxian had tried probing. “He’s always held the world up for me – it’s the least I can do for him. I may not be able to do much, I might be terrible at it, but I owe it to him to at least try.”

Wei Wuxian wondered, sometimes, if Jiang Cheng would have stood up for him if only he had trusted in him, believed in him, the way Nie Mingjue believed in his notoriously useless little brother.

Maybe he’d ask, when he went back to the Jiang sect.

Maybe he’d –

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Jiang Cheng said as a greeting, and for once Uncle Jiang didn’t disagree. “All those letters and you never once mentioned the terrors?”

“The what,” Wei Wuxian said, and that was how he learned that while he was on his way back to Yunmeng neither Baxia nor Nie Mingjue had wasted any time utilizing their newfound skills out on the battlefield.

Nie Huaisang was never going to be a particularly respected sect leader, especially by those that had met him beforehand, but evidently that wasn’t really important given that he was constantly flanked by what was being called the two terrors of Qinghe.

Nie Mingjue preferred darker colors now that he was no longer sect leader, the same dark grey shading towards black that Baxia had selected for herself, and the selection somehow made him seem even taller, verging on inhuman, and Baxia standing beside him, her human features patterned roughly after his, made the two of them appear a matched set. Nie Mingjue wielded the fan that Wei Wuxian had helped him design, which he had forged with his own hands out of the metal from the Xuanwu’s cave that Wei Wuxian had foolishly figured someone ought to get some use out of, painted over with a cinnabar array in Nie Huaisang’s careful brushstrokes, and in his hands it was both weapon and conduit for the raising of armies of corpses. Baxia, for her part, held nothing but required nothing, a sweeping gesture of her hand more devastating than a dozen blows with the saber.

They were terrifying, a nightmare writ large and unmistakably dangerous, undeniably demonic cultivators in a way that was entirely different from Wei Wuxian’s own dramatics, and it unnerved the rest of the cultivation world the way Wei Wuxian had feared it would.

“It won’t be a problem,” Jiang Cheng said impatiently. “The Nie sect are ascending in strength, and this only adds to their mystique – who would challenge them?”

“Uh, Jin Guangshan,” Wei Wuxian said. “Like last time?”

Jiang Cheng huffed. “At this rate, I don’t even think Jin Guangyao will bother defecting to the Jin sect,” he said. “Not if he knows how to play his cards right. The Nie sect’s strength in the original version was never about Chifeng-zun’s skill with the blade alone. It was the whole sect’s strength, with Chifeng-zun’s ability to wield them as skillfully as he did his saber; he’s an outstanding general. And now they have him as a general, him as a demonic cultivator, and whatever the fuck is going on with Lady Baxia –”

“I already told you. She’s a guai.”

“Like I already told you, it doesn’t matter how many times you say that, I will immediately expel the knowledge from my mind and you should too. ‘Immortal cultivator cousin that my brother named his saber after’, like what Nie Huaisang has been putting about, is a perfectly acceptable cover story.”

“And the fact that his saber disappeared at the same time?”

“Coincidence,” Jiang Cheng said firmly. “And we’re sticking with that. Anyway, the point is that if you’re an ambitious man, the Nie sect is the place to be right now and probably will continue to be in the future. This is going to be evident to both Jin Guangshan and the future Jin Guangyao, and we’ll need to deal with that.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Wei Wuxian promised. “After rescuing Chifeng-zun and helping with the demonic cultivation, I’ve gotten pretty close to them.”

“Mm. And how about your other mission?”

Wei Wuxian scowled at the smirk on Jiang Cheng’s face. “You know perfectly well that I haven’t had any time to seduce Lan Wangji, what with how busy I’ve been. I don’t even know for sure if he likes me yet -!”

“You’re an idiot, he does, and you’re not allowed to keep us all in suspense for two decades this time. Figure it out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that I’m sticking you with the job of being an information courier and you leave for the Lan sect front line tomorrow.”

“You are the best shidi ever,” Wei Wuxian said, and meant it.

Jiang Cheng huffed. “Yeah, well,” he said as if his cheeks weren’t red. “Remember that in the future. In this life we’re the Twin Heroes, you hear me? No take-backs.”

Nie Mingjue was right: Wei Wuxian would need to either learn to obey or tell Jiang Cheng early on that he was leaving, and walking a path in the middle would only cause heartbreak all over again.

“Okay,” he said, deciding to ask Lan Wangji for advice on obedience. Surely that was something that could be learned? “Deal. You do know that that means Lan Wangji’s going to have to marry in, right?”

“Oh no,” Jiang Cheng said, voice entirely flat. “How terrible. I’ll find a way to manage dealing with that ice block somehow…listen, I don’t care if you end up calling him Wei Sizhui in this life, but don’t ruin his character. He was perfectly nice.”

“I don’t know if he’s even been born yet,” Wei Wuxian said glumly. “I’ve been looking, but…”

“I’ve asked some of Mother’s spies to keep track of Wen Ning and Wen Qing,” Jiang Cheng said. “Collecting evidence we’ll need for their inevitable post-war trial, assuming we want them to live better lives than just refugees. Give it time, we’ll find him.”

“Now I just need to see if Lan Wangji will want to raise children with me…”

“Wei Wuxian. I don’t care. Go.”

#mdzs #nie mingjue #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #baxia #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #academic discussion of demonic cultivation #this isn't an answer to your question but I hope you like it anyway #tkpartisan

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elyvorg · 4 years

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Remember that analysis post of mine debunking the ridiculous myth perpetrated in this fandom that Kaito never apologises, in which I discuss how he actually apologises way more than he should? Well, while thinking about and writing that post, I also got curious. What’s the cold, hard data on that? What if I just straight-up counted every single instance of each character apologising throughout the main story of DRV3, in order to be able to indisputably prove at a glance that Kaito is actually one of the most apologetic characters in this game?

…I wasn’t willing to go so far as to play through the entire game again just for the purpose of counting every time a character apologised, mind you. But several months ago, I began watching yet another V3 Let’s Play – and since I was already committed to watching said LP all the way through, I figured I could count all the apologies as it went along and collect that data with minimal extra effort on my part. So here’s the full dataset, at last!

There we go. It is objective and indisputable that Kaito apologises the third-most out of any character in this game, behind only the incredibly insecure Gonta and the still-rather-insecure-and-has-the-most-lines Shuichi. And pretty close behind them, at that!

I noticed a bunch of interesting things while doing this, though, so I can’t resist the chance to break this down and talk about it in some more detail.

Data collection criteria

For the sake of Scientific Thoroughness, I should explain my exact criteria for counting these. Every way of phrasing an apology, be it “sorry”, “my apologies”, “my bad”, etc, was counted. I also decided to count statements along the lines of "I need to apologise for this", because that itself is essentially already expressing the apology, too.

If a character apologises multiple times for the same thing, each of those times counts separately. This isn’t a measure of how many individual things each character apologises for, but rather of how inclined they are to apologise. Even if multiple apologies are grouped together, such as “Sorry… I’m so sorry…” or “sorry, my bad”, those still count as two, because that’s essentially a double-strength apology.

I did not count optional dialogue that was mutually exclusive with other optional dialogue. Which is to say, I didn’t count any FTEs, since you can’t get all of them in a single playthrough, and as much as I might like to insist that Kaito’s and Maki’s FTEs with Shuichi should definitely be considered canon, I’m trying to be unbiased here. I also didn’t count any FTE invitation dialogue, even though you technically can get all of the first parts of those (the lines before you actually make the choice to invite someone) in a single playthrough, mostly because it’d have taken forever to go through them for absolutely everyone.

However, I did count optional dialogue in those bits where you’re free to talk to everyone in the room before advancing the plot by talking to a specific person, because that can all be assumed to be canon. The bonus item scenes also count, because they should be assumed to be canon, too. There may have been some apologies that I missed here, because the LP I was watching occasionally missed these bits of dialogue, and while I tried to check myself for these missed bits, I may have overlooked a few. But if so, it was definitely only a few and not enough to significantly affect the overall picture of the data.

I only counted Shuichi’s and Kaede’s apologies when they were spoken out loud. It’d be unfair to count their inner-monologue apologies as well when we have no idea how much any other character might also be apologising in their head.

The pregame characters’ apologies were not counted, because they are not the same people. I would have counted Tsumugi’s and Rantaro’s apologies prior to the “reset” if they’d had any, since they are already themselves from the very beginning.

Obviously there’s still a lot of inherent bias here towards the characters who get more screentime and more lines, such as especially Shuichi. There isn’t much I can do about that, short of counting the exact number of dialogue boxes that every single character has throughout the whole game and using that to normalise things. As you can imagine, I don’t want to do that. (Though, on the extreme off-chance that someone does somehow happen to have data for that lying around somewhere that they can access with minimal effort, I’d love for them to send it my way.)

Characters who totally never do anything wrong

I was not at all surprised to see that Kiyo and Angie never apologise for anything at all, sincere or not, warranted or not. Psh, what do you mean they might have done something wrong, of course they never do anything wrong ever.

Miu almost ended up on the zero-apologies list, too. Interestingly, the four times she does apologise in canon dialogue are all during the Virtual World trip. Three of them happen when people are frustrated that she isn’t telling them stuff about the Virtual World sooner, and one is for being about to murder Kokichi in the flashback to that. Since she never apologises at all the entire rest of the time, this is a neat sign that she actually does feel pretty guilty about deceiving everyone and plotting to get them all killed.

In another effort to be as objective as possible, I also counted every apology regardless of how sincere it was. However, in Kokichi’s case, I did keep a track of how many of his apologies were actually sincere, out of curiosity. (Other characters may have a few insincere ones here and there, but it only felt worth my time keeping track of that with Kokichi, because he’s obviously the biggest offender for this.) I included this information on Kokichi’s bar of the graph, because I feel that the implication otherwise given of him being the fifth most apologetic character in this game is deeply misleading. If you discount all of Kokichi’s screamingly insincere apologies, suddenly his apology count is just unremarkable background noise on par with most of the others.

It is notable – and also very unsurprising to me – that Kokichi’s five actual sincere apologies are all for things that, according to Kaito’s principles on this, he doesn’t really need to be apologising for at all. They are all within chapters 1 to 3. He never sincerely apologises for any of the many things he actually does wrong that really do warrant being apologised for, because Kokichi is totally never in the wrong about anything, you guys, and he definitely doesn’t ever murder anyone.

Three of those five sincere apologies happen when he’s hit his head during investigation 3 and is dazed and disoriented. Apparently Kokichi needs to be literally injured in order to be made to feel like anything is his fault for more than a brief moment. …That said, that evidently only works for accidental slip-ups that aren’t really his fault at all. Kokichi’s totally-never-in-the-wrong-about-anything defence mechanisms work full time to protect him from ever having to acknowledge and feel remorse for any of his many very real and deliberate misdeeds, even when he’s painfully poisoned and dying.

Kaede

Kaede’s apology count is very notably high for someone who was only alive for one chapter. If she’d stayed alive for longer, she’d almost certainly have rivalled Shuichi for total apologies. (So, technically, Kaito is probably only the fourth most apologetic character in this game. Still, though.)

You might assume that Kaede’s high count here is because of the murder she does, but actually only like two or three of them are related to that. Most of her apologies are evenly spread throughout the entire chapter. Some of it’s just general politeness, but an awful lot of it comes from her being too inclined to feel bad over not being as good a leader as she wishes she was, when she really hasn’t done anything wrong at all. Kaito is right to try and encourage her not to apologise when things aren’t her fault! She of all people needs to hear that!

Chapter-by-chapter

The majority of the rest of the characters aren’t that interesting to talk about. For the most part their low counts are basically just, like, background noise politeness, a vague measure of how polite that character is and nothing more. Very little of those counts has anything to do with how insecure that character is, or any actual things they do wrong that genuinely warrant apologising.

But for the other three of our most-apologetic characters, since they’re alive for several chapters, it’s kind of interesting to look at how their counts fluctuate from chapter to chapter. So here’s another graph, to help me break their huge counts down a bit more.

Shuichi

Despite him obviously having the most lines, I was pretty surprised that Shuichi ended up with the highest apology count overall. I wasn’t even expecting him to top Kaito’s count, let alone Gonta’s.

This conclusion did, however, seem a lot more likely once I’d made it through chapter 1 and seen just how much he apologised during that time. Geez, is that one hell of a headstart for even Gonta and Kaito to catch up to. My surprise over this was probably because, when I think about Shuichi, I usually think about the post-Kaede protagonist-Shuichi (perhaps especially because I usually think about him in a Kaito-centric context, whoops). So it’s easy to forget just how incredibly insecure – and also apologetic – he was in the very beginning.

Shuichi apologises exactly as horribly much as Kaede during chapter 1. Again, this is partly politeness, but also far too much of him having an inclination to feel bad over things that aren’t his fault because of how insecure he is. Kaede and Shuichi basically spend most of chapter 1 constantly apologising to each other for existing, and it’s heartbreaking. Every time I had to add another of theirs to my spreadsheet, I was all, “No! Stop it!”

What I find really fascinating about Shuichi’s count, though, is that he pretty much loses this bad habit entirely after Kaede’s death. Despite him still kind of moping around and struggling to know what to do until Kaito steps in to help, it seems like Shuichi’s resolve to carry on Kaede’s wish and believe in himself more really had already had a tangible positive effect on his confidence!

This also means that Kaito never has any reason to give Shuichi advice telling him not to apologise if he hasn’t done anything wrong, which he absolutely would have done if he’d spent more time with Shuichi in chapter 1 when he was apologising so much. As I mentioned in my original post about this topic, this fact is important.

Shuichi’s counts in chapters 2 and 3 are especially low. This is what background noise politeness from a character tends to look like – and it also pretty clearly proves that his and Kaede’s huge apology counts in chapter 1 are down to way more than them just being generally polite people who are getting the most screentime.

It might look like Shuichi gradually gets more insecure again as the killing game goes on, but that’s not actually quite why his count goes up again like that. Instead, it’s that, when something particular does go wrong, Shuichi still feels inclined to apologise for it a lot more than most people would. Turns out, most of his excess apologies in chapters 4 and 5 are spurred by very specific incidents involving Kaito.

Literally five of Shuichi’s apologies in chapter 4 are over the cell phone incident with Kaito during the investigation. That genuinely did warrant an apology – he should have thought to warn Kaito that he’d be logged out beforehand so he wouldn’t be so startled – but even then, apologising that many times was still rather excessive. Shuichi evidently felt really bad about startling his friend like that in the first place. But it also doesn’t help that Kaito reacted more strongly to it than he should have done, for reasons rooted in his own issues that Shuichi was completely oblivious to, which is probably a lot of why Shuichi felt he had to keep apologising.

Three of Shuichi’s apologies in chapter 5 are over the awkward situation between him and Kaito, albeit directed at Maki and not Kaito. This is despite Shuichi himself asserting that he doesn’t believe he should apologise for his actions in trial 4. Even then, he’s still feeling insecure enough about the whole thing that some unintentional apologies slip out of him anyway, not precisely about Gonta’s trial, but about not being able to fix the rift between him and Kaito. He seems to feel like that’s meant to be his responsibility, when he should be able to realise himself that it isn’t. The real responsibility to fix this is on Kaito. Once again, it’s Kaito’s issues – and Kaito not talking about his issues – that causes Shuichi to apologise for something more than he ought to.

Another three of Shuichi’s apologies in chapter 5 are over lying to his friends at the end of the trial in a desperate attempt to protect Kaito. (…Well, technically all of these apologies are part of the lie and therefore not really him apologising for lying – but his inner monologue confirms that he really is sorry for lying, which is almost certainly why he ends up fake-apologising so much within the lie. More on this principle in a bit when I talk about all of Kaito’s apologies in trial 5.) Again, this is another thing that does genuinely warrant an apology, but probably not three times? And while this one isn’t related to Kaito’s issues, it is still because of Kaito that Shuichi needed to try and lie to everyone in the first place.

(One more of Shuichi’s apologies at the end of chapter 5 is for Kaito’s death, because in his grief he’s hurting enough to have slipped back into feeling like everything is his fault. At least this is just the one, and Maki manages to talk him out of blaming himself any more than that.)

Without these specific incidents that he’s still a bit too inclined to feel bad about, Shuichi’s count would be three in chapter 4 and five in chapter 5. So, basically just background noise politeness again. Maybe he’s being slightly more generally insecure in chapter 5 than usual, perhaps due to Kaito not quite being there for him, and/or the whole despair thing. But he’s no longer constantly apologising for existing to nearly as much of an extent as he was in chapter 1.

Delightfully, in chapter 6, with Kaito’s death spurring Shuichi’s determination into overdrive, Shuichi’s count goes right back down to insignificant background noise politeness. Nothing at all happens to make him feel like he needs to apologise way too much.

This is exactly how I hoped it would end! He is being a hero and none of his actions here are anything for him to make himself feel bad about. Kaito would be proud.

Gonta

Gonta’s background-noise politeness in the earlier chapters is noticeably higher than everyone else’s, because there’s also quite a bit of insecurity and apologising-for-existing going on with him. But it’s still not, like, super high on its own. It might not even be quite as bad as Kaede, even accounting for him getting way fewer lines than her?

His somewhat higher count in chapter 2 could be because of the Insect Meet and Greet, but it could also be because the way Ryoma’s body was discovered made Gonta feel especially strongly that he should have been able to prevent Ryoma’s death.

But then, of course, there’s chapter 4. As you’d imagine, almost all of those are in the trial, and almost all towards the end of it. Poor Gonta. It also doesn’t help that there’s two Gontas in the room for the trial conclusion, and naturally I included Alter Ego Gonta’s apologies in Gonta’s count, too.

Kaito

For the first two chapters, when he doesn’t have any sidekicks and therefore no expectations to live up to as their hero, and/or when he’s not struggling with weakness and worrying that he’s failing those expectations, Kaito’s apology level is just unremarkable background noise like most other characters.

(Well, one of them is actually not background noise and is a meaningful, warranted apology for punching Shuichi at the end of trial 1. But because he correctly doesn’t apologise for this any more than he needs to, it kinda blends in with the background noise.)

Then chapter 3 happens, and, predictably, his count shoots way up. All but one of Kaito’s apologies in this chapter are over being sick due to his phobia. (And if I’d been counting the free time invitation dialogues, there would be another four added on here, again for being too sick to hang out with Shuichi.)

Of his five in chapter 4, one is genuinely warranted (for laughing at Maki’s katana story), and two are over being physically sick, goddammit, Kaito. The other two in this chapter are for letting Kokichi’s taunts get to him, which is also not quite a thing he should be apologising for. Kaito can’t help it if his emotions react in a certain way to Kokichi making him out to be worthless. He can control how he responds to it, but not how he feels over it.

Then there’s chapter 5, which somehow manages to even eclipse Kaito’s chapter 3 count – but most of this is about the trial. Only three of his apologies in this chapter are from the Daily Life. (Naturally, two of them are still over being sick. No, Kaito, stop it.)

Literally half of Kaito’s fourteen apologies in the trial boil down to being sorry for tricking and deceiving his friends. This is something that warrants an apology, according to Kaito’s principles, even though he’s doing this deliberately for the purpose of hopefully saving everyone. He is still choosing to hurt them as part of that, and that hurt deserves to be apologised for.

What’s interesting about most of Kaito’s apologies for this, though, is that they’re technically insincere. He’s apologising for tricking everybody while he’s still tricking them, which sure makes it sound like he doesn’t mean it. This even applies to the majority of these apologies that happen during the bits where he’s speaking in his own voice. Because “Exisal Kaito” is a fake and overexaggerated version of himself that he wants everyone to conclude was really just Kokichi pretending to be him, anything he says during those moments is never going to come across as genuine.

But obviously, there’s not a shred of doubt that Kaito really is sorry for tricking everyone the entire time he’s doing this. It says a lot that during those bits where he’s being himself, Kaito just so happens to have a particularly high density of apologies-per-line. He feels awful for being this insincere and deceptive towards his friends, and he really wishes he could just communicate to them how genuinely sorry he is for all of this. But because he can’t, the next best thing to try and scratch that itch is to just apologise anyway even though he needs them to assume it’s all fake.

Kaito even apologises a couple of times as Exisal Kokichi for lying to them! This is absolutely categorically not something Kokichi wrote into his script, because Kokichi never apologised for lying, not even in a blatantly-insincere-sounding way. Kaito’s desperate desire to express how awful he felt about this was just so strong that it even accidentally slipped into a couple of his ad-libs as Kokichi.

However, while Kaito apologises so many times for this, it’s not because he’s blaming himself a bit too excessively much for his wrongdoing like Shuichi was still liable to do at this point in the story. The only reason Kaito apologises this much for tricking everyone is due to how insincere he was forced to sound almost every time. He kept apologising again and again because each insincere apology never felt like enough, and he desperately needed them to know that he meant it.

When Kaito reveals himself at the end of the trial, he pretty much immediately apologises again for tricking them – once, and that’s it. This time, they know he means it, and that’s all he needs. He’s not going to wallow in his bad feelings any more than that.

This is also the case for the other genuine wrongdoings he goes on to apologise for in the conclusion. Kaito gives a double-sized but still concise apology to Shuichi for lashing out in trial 4 like he’d needed to give this whole time, and then one single apology to his friends for lying to them about his illness. He gets those apologies out like he should, but once he’s done so, he doesn’t linger on them and mope any more than he needs to.

Which is good! Look at Kaito finally following his own advice again and being emotionally healthy about this!

…Except for the part where he then goes on to apologise twice for dying on them. That one is still not his fault.

#danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #ramble #kaito momota #shuichi saihara #gonta gokuhara #kaede akamatsu #kaito's hero issues #i may be just a little bit bitter about this ridiculous myth #i am also fully aware that i'm preaching to the choir here in terms of people who read my blog #but shush let me geek out about this data anyway

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thinknicht · 3 years

Text

Kakashi loses his father and Minato gains a puppy

Kakashi had been mad at his dad for months now – for screwing up that stupid mission, for losing all his awesome reputation because of it, for getting replaced by a ghost. Everybody had said his dad was going to cost them the war, that he was a selfish bastard; everybody had whispered and subtly let Kakashi know just how much of a disappointment his father was.

It was so unfair! Why did he have to make a stupid mistake? He was supposed to be perfect, Konoha’s elite White Fang. Everybody was supposed to love and admire him… it shouldn’t be like this. The Hatake Sakumo he knew and admired was always proud and straight-backed, confident and sure. He wasn’t supposed to make mistakes, to have people hate him so much that they’d treat him and Kakashi both like trash. Kakashi… couldn’t do much. He was just a kid – but he could feel. He’d felt all sorts of things – he had been scared and ashamed and sad at it all – but mostly he’d been furious. He’d been mad at the old ladies gossiping about his dad on the street, at his classmates who’d previously admired him but would now shoot him derisive looks, at their parents who mumbled bad words behind his back, thinking he couldn’t hear – or perhaps not caring. But most of all he was mad at his dad for not defending himself, for not defending him.

Picking up Kakashi from the Academy, he must have heard the whispering parents too, seen the looks Kakashi’s classmates kept shooting at him – but instead of standing proud whilst slinging Kakashi upon his shoulders like he had used to, Sakumo had bowed his head and said nothing. They had walked silently home, side by side – yet it had felt like they were worlds apart. He couldn't stop thinking about how his dad hadn’t met the eyes of those gossiping parents, or even their children. Of what those parents had said and how his dad’s hand had trembled on his back as he’d led Kakashi away.

The dishonoured White Fang. He too, must know the gravity of what he’d done, they whispered. Just look at him, at those eyebags and posture. It seemed like the pathetic scumbag at least recognized what he was. Suits him right, they crowed, for almost costing Konoha the war. It’d be better if that drunk disgrace just ended it already.

The words had hurt – but they couldn't compare to his father's reaction. It had challenged some of Kakashi’s most visceral beliefs about what his dad was like. Day after day, his father would pick him up from the Academy and never defend him, never look anyone in the eyes, like a beat down dog. Then, one day he didn't come. After waiting in the rain for over thirty minutes, Kakashi had realised this. He’d been forgotten, cast aside. No one would come to pick him up. Kakashi had begun walking home alone after that – every day. His father hadn’t mentioned it at dinner. The added responsibility was not as exciting as he’d always pictured it to be.

Some days it had all gotten to be too much and he’d said something rude and frustrated to his dad – but he hadn’t really meant it! He’d just been acting petulant. He’d just wanted things to get better… to go back to how they’d used to be. He’d wanted Sakumo to snap out of the weird dazes he got into lately, maybe even get angry at him and defend himself, even if Kakashi had to take the brunt of his fury. It would have been okay. Kakashi had just wanted him to react – anything at all would have been preferred to the emptiness that constantly seemed to follow him, dull grey eyes unnerving… unfocused… wrong . Kakashi had just wanted things to return to how they used to be.

The winter was cold and harsh, reflecting Kakashi's mood perfectly. Overcast skies and short days were not conductive to good humor, but with the beginnings of spring, Kakashi felt the beginnings of new hope sprout within him. Perhaps, now that everything was brighter and better, his dad would get better too?

He'd been in a good mood all week so much so that he didn't even mind that much when his dad forgot to make breakfast or lunch or shown his face at all. This had happened a few times before, him falling asleep and not waking up for a long time. By dinner Kakashi decided to go look for him, maybe get him to come out to the porch and look at the rabbit den he'd spotted in the garden. And yet dad wasn’t in his room or the living room or the bathroom or the kitchen. After checking everywhere else he could think, he’d gone to the west wing. His father had always avoided it because it contained his mother’s old bedroom, the one both of his parents had used to sleep in before he was born… the one dad never used anymore.

There was a smell in the corridor… unpleasant, disgusting. He had been ignoring it until now, and he kept doing so. Maybe his father had left to the bar or even a mission! Or maybe he’d gone to mom's grave. He should just…

He went back to the kitchen and ate dinner. He brushed his teeth. He put on his pajamas and went to bed. It had been a long time since his father had tucked him in. Normally, Kakashi was responsible in following his bed time, but that night he felt restless. Against his father’s wishes (who was he kidding, nobody would scold him) he flipped on the light again and paged through a scroll – he would look for dad tomorrow, hopefully by then the smell would be gone. But the stench was getting worse and worse and finally he set the scroll aside and propped himself up. There was no way he could keep ignoring it any longer. It had penetrated up his nostrils and into his bloodstream, slinking into the very marrow of his bones. Those of Hatake descent had extremely sharp noses; at this rate sleeping would be impossible.

Resigned to some inminent pain in his nostrils, Kakashi crawled out of his futon and folded it carefully, his stomach pooling with dread. It was unreasonable. He wasn’t a little baby anymore – he was six . It was just a smell. Maybe some dead animal had gotten in, he told himself. He’d throw it out and that was that. And yet every part of him told him to turn around. He didn’t.

Earlier, Kakashi had left his mother’s room out of the search for his father before – perhaps because a part of him had known all along what he would find. Still, the sight of his father’s rigid corpse shocked him down to the very core. It had to be a joke, a trick, a training exercise, he thought wildly, but he didn’t dare step into the room to check. Kakashi was a logical creature even then and he knew that that made little sense – Sakumo hadn’t trained or played with him in months, and he was sensitive about strong smells. No. What he was seeing was exactly as it appeared.

He was dead. Not murdered or assassinated – dead.

The body of his dead father was sprawled upon the blood-splattered floor, flies buzzing around it noisily. A katana gleamed, reflecting the moonlight that streamed in from the window as it protruded from his stomach. Sepukku. The samurai’s suicide ritual.

Kakashi had known something was wrong even before going into his mother’s old room, but nothing could have prepared him for this. His father – dead. The flies, the blood, the smell, the choice he had made – seppuku .

After standing there for maybe minutes or maybe seconds, his recollection of the night’s events got blurry. Kakashi barely remembered running out of the house in still in his pajamas and barefoot, or stepping on glass as he rushed away, away, away. He barely remembered barging into the hokage tower, leaving bloody footprints in his wake and sobbing uncontrollably. He barely remembered explaining much of anything, other than repeating ‘sepukku’, ‘sepukku’, 'sepukku’ like a mantra. The look in the hokage’s eyes said he understood. Someone had sedated him after that.

It had been a month since then. He couldn’t go to sleep at night anymore without seeing Sakumo’s cold body sprawled upon the blood-stained wood whenever he closed his eyes, without smelling that smell . He couldn’t dream anymore, couldn’t get a full night’s sleep. He couldn’t train with Sakumo anymore or count the days until he’d be back from his latest mission. He couldn’t do any of those things – because Sakumo had abandoned him.

The villager’s behavior toward him didn’t improve. In fact, it was as if Sakumo’s death had been kindling thrown into a fire. Where previously people had only whispered about the White Fang’s shameful, pathetic, selfish behavior, now they all talked about it openly. Every gossiping old lady told their neighbor that they’d always known there was something cowardly and dishonourable about that Hatake dog. Drinking himself into a stupor to then commit suicide, and to top it off with his kid at home! It was rumored that the poor boy had found the man in a pool of blood and sake. What a pathetic waste of space he had been!

Kakashi’s mask, until then vehemently hated, had suddenly become a reprieve – he was harder to recognize with it. His training, which had previously been the way in which he connected with Sakumo, the way in which he strove to impress him when he returned from missions, now became the only thing he had left. He trained constantly, both resenting and missing Sakumo in equal measure, his exertions the only outlet. During those moments, when his body and spirit trembled and his eyes misted, he swore to himself that he would never make the same mistake.

Sakumo had died (had killed himself) for breaking the rules. Everybody said so. Kakashi had always known that the rules were important, but a few times he’d felt tempted to question them – like when that frog girl had crossdressed as a boy. He had seen her sometimes afterward, when he’d glanced out of his classroom window, sitting all alone and friendless in the yard outside while her classmates played – and he had known immediately that this was his fault, that his rule-abiding had done that. Before he’d confronted her, she’d had friends, he’d seen it. He hadn’t liked that… somehow it had annoyed him, he didn’t know why. He’d told her sensei about it, just kind of expecting she’d get into trouble for a bit and maybe find him to throw another tadpole at him afterward… but that hadn’t been what had happened. She hadn’t found him to throw tadpoles at him whatsoever, and instead had started looking sullen and withdrawn and sad whenever he saw her from the window. He hadn’t wanted that. He’d just wanted to follow the rules.

A part of him had begun to doubt his decision then. A part of him had felt guilty.

He had thought about breaking the rules other times too, like when a hard test was coming up and he’d been tempted to sneak into the teacher’s room to check the answers – this was practically in a ninja’s job description after all – though he’d settled for studying all night in the end.

He had felt bad, too, about more indirect breaches like getting all riled up when that frog girl called him names. Ninja weren’t supposed to fall for taunts, it was in the shinobi handbook that they show no emotion because talling for taunts lead to mistakes. But he kind of enjoyed the breach in the monotony that the frog girl and her loud bowlcut friend provided. He liked that they weren’t all admiring and brown-nosing around him like all his classmates, and, though he’d never admit it to himself, he liked the stories they came up with too, and when he was bored in class he would sometimes picture the annoyed faces frog girl would make at him when he outsmarted her and snicker. But ninja should live in the present, without distractions or indulgences in childish make-belief games, he realized that now. That girl was a rule-breaker more than anyone else he knew, and if Kakashi had learned something from his father’s death it was this: he would never, ever break a rule again. Any rule.

He stopped going to frog girl and bowlcut’s meadow. At first a part of him missed them. He was all alone, after all – but – he still didn’t go, didn’t want to see their looks of pity – or even worse – disgust. He kept wanting to drop by but then not doing it. He had other things to keep him busy, like being a genin. He was a ninja now.

He wouldn’t make his father’s mistakes in his career, he swore to himself. He’d follow the ninja handbook to a T and then nothing like what Sakumo had gone through would happen to him. He had graduated now and frog girl and bowlcut were just kids . He had better things to do than them now, like training and having endless nightmares.

At night, he couldn’t keep lying to himself. He cried himself to sleep often.

During the day, he kept his mask on and his feelings off, and surely things would get better if he did that. He had been accustomed to living alone from when his father left on missions, but this was different. He was in charge of his dad’s money now and other things like cooking and cleaning and bills and… he felt anxiety just thinking about it. He knew he’d have to pay some kind of bills for electricity and hot water and heat and all that later on, but he didn’t know how or where or when to do it. Money wasn’t an issue, his father had never lacked it, but he still got nervous thinking about what if he suddenly ran out or someone scammed him?

He had spent the first week after That Night with another family – the Sarutobi household – the first week after his dad had died. Then he’d graduated the Academy and the hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, had told him that he was welcome to stay with them, though he could become independent now too if he wanted, seeing as he was now a genin – legally an adult. Kakashi had jumped at the chance of being alone. Asuma’s constant invasive presence and probing questions had been stifling, his mom’s mothering unwanted, the pitying looks they all kept shooting at him less than welcome.

“I will return home,” he’d told the hokage immediately. The more Hiruzen had insisted to the contrary, the stronger Kakashi’s determination to be left alone.

Now, he was regretting that decision… he hated living alone, hated the empty spaces and the silent Estate. At this point he'd agree to live with anyone, but his pride kept him from going back to the Sarutobi household. He missed his dad… he missed frog girl and bowlcut but didn’t know how to reach out. He felt so, so alone. He wanted to be independent and strong and rule-abiding, but he wanted a hug too and a good night’s sleep and some excuse to leave this stifling estate where his dad had killed himself, but he couldn’t let himself look weak, he couldn’t , didn’t even know how – and he didn’t know what to do.

He had started going to the central market in Konoha, even though it was very far from the Hatake Estate, which was located at the village’s outskirts. He told himself it was just because the central market was better than the small shop he’d used to frequent, even though he’d never bothered to go there Before.

At the market, he would dawdle and soak in the people and chatter, floating through the lively atmosphere. It made the loneliness starker but also duller. Before, he had loved to have his peace and quiet, but now silences haunted him. Now the noises of people had become a balm. He often just walked around the stalls, peering at the wares and at the people and listened . He didn’t do anything else. A part of him had hoped to maybe run into someone he liked there… but of course he never did. He should have known that none of his classmates or frog girl or bowlcut would be there, of course. If he had really wanted to find them, he knew he could, but somehow he didn’t.

He was shaken out of his musings when the blond man appeared again. Kakashi and the blond man had coincided a few times in the market already. The blonde would often sit on a bench and do nothing in particular, though he’d sometimes bring books to snicker at, or chat up girls and vendors alike when they passed him by. The blonde man had a radiant smile and people seemed to love him, Kakashi had noticed. A part of him wanted to be mad at him for that, for having something he so sorely wanted but didn’t have, not any longer, not after that mission – but he mostly found himself being unable to muster up much resentment.

Sometimes, Kakashi wondered why the blond man would spend so much time at the market, just like him. Was he lonely too? Did his family leave him behind like Kakashi’s father? Despite himself, he’d gotten curious. He had made a habit of going to the market every day and he’d started getting to know the regulars. During his excursions, Kakashi always wore bland clothes and the mask so that he wouldn’t be noticed as much, but he in turn did notice the people, and the blonde man was often there – except sometimes when he left on missions, or so Kakashi assumed. The blonde man was a ninja.

He’d never dared to approach, but today he felt tired… so he sat down on the bench across the blonde to eat an apple he’d bought. He tried to divine what the man was reading, to subtly glance at his book’s cover… but he got caught looking. The blonde gave him a smile, then returned to his book. Kakashi didn’t dare to look again but his heart pounded. A while later, the blonde was cornered by some civilian ladies who wanted his opinion on some of their wares and ushered him away. Finally, Kakashi dared to steal another glance, then stood up and stretched, readying to go back to the estate.

That smile… it had struck him like a punch to the gut. How long since anyone had just… smiled at him? He couldn’t remember the last time. Lately, he was always alone, and when he wasn’t, all he saw in people’s eyes was either disinterest or distaste, depending on whether they recognized him or not. Sometimes there was pity in the case of his father’s former friends like the hokage.

Missions weren’t any better. In fact, he found that he hated the whole thing. Without fail, he always got passed around the genin teams, mostly replacing recently deceased members, and was never liked by the other integrants. He wasn’t sure if it was because they knew his reputation, because he was so much younger (and better, he privately thought) than them, or because he was the replacement of their dead friends. Yes, Kakashi thought. Nobody had smiled at him in a long, long time… He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it until that very moment.

The next day, he sat on the bench across the blonde again… and the day after too. He always noticed when the man was gone on missions and he… it wasn’t like he was stalking him or anything, but the man – Minato, the old ladies called him – would always smile that warm smile at him, and Kakashi… Kakashi cherished it. He mustn't know who he was, that Minato. A part of him feared what would happen if he found out… would he start glaring at Kakashi if he did?

One day, Minato sat down next to him. Kakashi froze and almost bolted… but the blonde just pulled a book out of his pouch and calmly began to thumb through it, like always. He talked to the merchants like always too, and Kakashi slowly relaxed. The week afterward, when Minato returned from what must have been a mission, he sat next to Kakashi again, surprising him once more, but he relaxed quicker than last time.

“Mind if I take one?” Minato asked, peering at him from over his book. “Those oranges look mouth-watering.”

Kakashi startled and looked at Minato suspiciously. “You’re an adult. You shouldn’t be asking kids to give you their oranges.”

The blonde’s lips quirked into that smile again and Kakashi almost forgot he was supposed to be acting pissed-suspicious. “Yeah, but aren’t you one too?” Minato asked with a chuckle. “A legal adult? I’ve heard about you, you’ve made genin, haven’t you?”

Kakashi was startled for two reasons: one – adults never acknowledged he was independent and two – Minato knew who he was! And he still smiled at him?

“I guess you can have an orange,” Kakashi decided, handing it over.

Minato laughed. “Thanks, kiddo. Also, I was going to say that I would pay you back before you interrupted me.” He chuckled. “You’re always here, so I figured I’d treat you next time we meet.”

Next time.

Kakashi’s breath hitched. “S-sure. I mean whatever, it’s just an orange.”

The blonde chuckled. “So you don’t want to get treated, huh? Well, I guess it’s no sweat off my back…”

“That’s not what I said!” Kakashi exclaimed, wide-eyed. He took it back! He wanted to meet with Minato again!

The blonde teen laughed, suddenly reaching out to give him a mighty head ruffle. “Alright, alright. I’ll treat you to some dango then, I think.”

“I don’t like sweets,” Kakashi informed, crossing his arms, but secretly wishing for another head-ruffle.

“You say that now … but have you tried the fried eggplant with honey?” the blonde prodded happily. “Maki-baa makes ones to die for!”

“Eggplant,” Kakashi repeated dubiously, “with honey ? What kind of crazy person would make a sweet out of eggplant ?”

Minato smirked at him. “Just you wait. You’re going to be blown away, Kakashi!”

“H-hey! How do you know my name,” Kakashi muttered. “Stalker.”

The blonde chuckled. “Kid, I’m a master infiltrator. Knowing these things is pretty much my job.”

“Yeah, well you look like a girl,” Kakashi spluttered, embarrassed for some reason. “And way too young.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m nineteen and my looks are great for making people underestimate me, so… peace!”

“You’re weird,” Kakashi declared.

“Ah, wait till you try the eggplant. You’ll join the dark side soon.”

“ Right .”

Somehow, Minato never suddenly decided that Kakashi was a persona non grata. He never avoided him, never stopped being kind. Kakashi found himself missing the blonde intensely when he was gone on missions, though he never admitted to it.

Life continued and things got easier… or maybe he just got used to his situation. He got used to his nightmares, used to the silence, used to the glares. Like all shinobi worth their salt, Kakashi adapted. He stopped getting crawls just from looking at the Hatake estate, though he still avoided the west wing like the plague. He completed D-ranks with ease and watched as other genin got sent out to the field and didn’t come back. He got used to being a replacement for the dead genin too… there were many. Still, a part of him wished he could have his own team, his own sensei. He wanted it so badly… why couldn’t he have what everyone else did? He surmised none of the jonin wanted to get stuck with the little kid, with the White Fang’s spawn. He understood. He still wished though.

Autumn came and went and the days got colder. Less people visited the market now, but Kakashi still went religiously. Despite his pride, he had finally worked up the courage to ask Minato how to deal with taxes and bills… even though he’d hated doing it, because he was afraid Minato would think he was a little kid after all if he asked. But the blonde hadn’t done that. He’d gone into long-winded, excited explanations on book-keeping, tax-paying, old fogies who might try to mess up his taxes so he needed to check everything over carefully, remember that, Kakashi!, and most importantly, what Minato had happily dubbed ‘money-saving ninja skills’. Kakashi had never enjoyed learning about anything more, but maybe that was because it was Minato who was teaching him.

One day, Minato showed him how to fish in order to save money. Another day he invited Kakashi to a training ground and taught him how to season said fish. Then, the week after they went to the woods and they cooked a rabbit. Minato would often give him tips on how to save money whilst doing all of this, though Kakashi privately thought that the blonde wouldn’t really need to follow his own advice since merchants were constantly gifting him their wares or inviting him over. At the beginning, Kakashi had wondered why everyone liked Minato so much, but now he understood. Minato was special… he was… sometimes, Kakashi couldn’t believe that someone like that would bother to give him the time of day. It was... the best thing that had happend to him in a long, long time. Maybe ever.

Over the years, someone had taken up the nasty habit of drawing odd preschooler figures on his window when it was fogged up from the cold, or with crayons and chalk during the summer. Kakashi had been trying to catch the perpetrator ever since they'd begun, thinking that it might have been frog girl or bowl cut, but never managed. When he grumbled about it halfheartedly to Minato one day, the blonde burst out laughing.

“Ah, the henohenomoheji? That was me!”

“What?” repeated Kakashi dubiously. “You’re the person who draws them? But they look like they were made by a preschooler!”

“Ah, I guess it’s a habit, from when my siblings were still… anyway, yeah! I’m not an artist, that’s for sure,” Minato told him sheepishly. “But I wasn’t trying to bother you, I promise. The henohenomoheji were just my way of telling you that I’d returned to the village after a mission, Kakashi. I always stop by your place to sketch a quick one on my way to the tower.”

“Oh.” The tower was on the other side of the village. Kakashi gulped. He felt happy Minato went out of his way like that, he really did, but… a part of him had hoped…

“Kakashi? What’s with that look?” Minato asked softly. “I… didn’t know it would upset you. I’ll stop, I promise.”

“No, don’t,” Kakashi mumbled.

He should have known it hadn’t been those two. Of course they must have thought the same as everyone else, that he was a disgrace and not worth hanging out with. Why had he even expected otherwise? Frog girl and bowlcut had probably forgotten all about him by now. He felt some part of him freeze at that. If they’d forgotten him so easily, he had no reason to expend energy thinking about them either. Firmly, Kakashi pushed the two out of his mind. He would not think about them again.

“Kakashi? Is everything… alright?” Minato’s deep blue eyes were filled with concern and Kakashi felt the coldness that had spread in his gut thaw.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Minato nodded slowly. “Well… I have some news that will cheer you up! I applied to be a jonin sensei. How’s that for cool?”

Kakashi frowned. “A… a jonin sensei?” Hope lit up within him. “Does that mean… you’ll…?”

“Yep! You’re my student now, Kakashi! Hope you’re not too put off by this pretty face.”

Kakashi’s lips split into a large grin, his cheeks hurting from the rare action. The mask would cover it, but Minato had never had any issue with reading his expressions before. Smiling brightly, the blond teen lurched forward to give him one of those wild head-ruffle noogies Kakashi adored so much.

“I guess it could be worse,” he muttered, failing rather spectacularly at hiding his excitement.

“Don’t be coy with me, Kakashi! I’m your sensei now and what kind of pupil lies to their sensei!”

“Sh-shut up, Minato… sensei.”

“Awww! And he’s blushing! I need to take a picture!”

“DON’T YOU DARE!”

Note: this is an extract of my story misnomer, hence the frog girl oc, but I figured this chapter pretty much doubled as a Kakashi character stude so here you go! Hope you enjoyed!

(Also, in case it wasn’t obvious from the japanese characters, the image above is not mine.)

#Kakashi #hatake kakashi #sakumo #minato #feels #suicide #writing #fanfiction #team 7 #team minato #character study

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sevsnapeposts · 3 years

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Snapetober Day 2: "You have to let go".

hello everyone. this one was a hard prompt but i managed, and it hurts a little. poor Sev has a lot to carry, huh? so yes, this is from his POV. again, you can read it over in ao3 if you'd like, and also if you'd be kind enough, go give me some kudos over there. thanks, hope you enjoy~.

Day 2 - "You have to let go".

"I'm very disappointed, Prue".

It wasn’t easy to say those words. Severus knew well what it was like to hear those words, what it was like to feel like a failure, to feel like he had failed others, but he knew that this was the best way to reprimand her, to let her know that what she wanted to do was wrong.

"Isn't my current state enough of a warning that you shouldn't get involved in such things?", he continued. He was standing on one side of the desk, his arms folded, his expression serious and cold; meanwhile, Prue avoided looking at him, also with her arms crossed and a frown. The fact that she wouln’t look at him made him more upset. “Can't you see where I'm in because of my stupidity? I thought you’d know better than this”.

Prue was still quiet, very interested in the cobblestone of his office. Severus couldn't blame her immature behavior; after all, she was only 16 years old, and the fact that he, of all people, was the one who spoke such harsh words to her must have made her very defensive.

The man sighed, flopping into his chair. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off the impending headache without potions or spells.

"I can't take care of everything, Prue. I have to look after Draco, and also tend to Dumbledore, and don't forget Potter, plus myself all the bloody time because Voldemort is getting more and more impatient”, he told her in a whisper. He was about to add something else to show her that he trusted her, but his choice of words proved to be the wrong one as Prue bolted to her feet, turbulent green eyes, a sea of emotions behind them.

"Do not worry for me, professor", she blurted out, in that shaky voice that always came out when she was upset. “I know how to take care of myself. I will not waste any more of your time with a burden like me”.

And with that she hurried out of the office. Severus sighed again, knowing it was useless to go after her and try to reason when those eyes filled with tears and the girl drowned in her own isolation.

Still, that didn't stop him from feeling bad. It wasn't his intention to make her cry, much less make her feel unwanted or that he saw her as another dead weight to carry. He simply wanted to show her that holding grudges only poisoned one’s soul, that excessive pride would only harm her, that the Dark Arts were unpredictable and extremely dangerous especially when some used them as an emotional outlet. He knew about that, more than he liked to admit.

Severus could understand that Prue hated her parents and was offended at the fact that they were now looking for her nonstop due to finally noticing the incredible witch she was. He could understand that she wanted nothing to do with them, that she loathed the very idea of looking at her mother. He would allow her to stay with him for the rest of her life if she wanted to (romantically or not), once things settled down, as long as she didn't go back to her hell-turned-heaven home attempt.

But what he would never allow was for Prue to go tangle herself among the Dark Arts, looking for something to get her payback for the suffering they had put her through. She was obsessive, it was in her nature to be so, and Severus knew very well that once the first curse was cast, once the Dark power was discovered, she wouldn’t return.

Nevertheless…

He was being a hypocrite, right? Telling her all those things about resentment and envy, treating her as if he were a saint, as if he had gotten over his own demons.

He would never really act upon it, because he was far above those caveman impulses, but Severus didn’t deny his dark thirst for revenge and was aware that no matter how long it had been since then, deep down he wanted to return every little thing they did to him.

To Voldemort, for killing the woman he loved the most.

To Dumbledore, for putting him in the situation he put him in, taking advantage of his pain and regret.

To Lucius, for inviting him to his cult of idiotic and intolerant cretins when he knew that he himself was an idiot and a cretin in a desperate search to belong to something, to be someone.

To James Potter and Sirius Black, for everything they did to him, for making his life more miserable than it already was.

To his father, for every humiliation, every tear, every blow. Not only for those that had left marks on his skin, not only for those that had left marks on his memory, but also for those that had adorned the body of his mother.

And in those moments when he was drowning in his misery, Severus also wanted to blame Lily, and her mother, and Prue, for how unfair life was. For everything bad that happened or had happened to him. He straightened up and buried his face in his hands, his head pulsing hard, the urge to do something stupid and irrational and potentially dangerous almost overwhelming his firm discipline.

Emotions were strong, especially the negative ones. As powerful as the Dark Arts themselves, capable of destroying everything in their path, leaving nothing but pain and destruction where before had been love, friendship, kindness.

Wrath, hatred, loneliness, envy. Severus felt them strongly, being transported from his heart to the tip of his fingers, urging him to pick up the wand and de-stress with some of his old student, teenager habits.

"Let go", he growled to himself, like a warning, like an anchor. There was no one else in there to tell him so, but he had him, as little as that seemed at the moment. He squeezed the wand, which he had taken almost without realizing it. “You have to let go”.

Grudges were strong, but he was stronger. He had learned to be. He knew that many were his mistakes and his alone.

It wasn’t Lily's fault that she had ended her friendship.

It wasn’t her mother's fault that she had been terrified and made bad decisions out of fear.

It wasn’t Prue's fault that she misunderstood him. She was a girl, just a girl who had always been displaced and put last. If anyone was to blame for making her cry it wasn’t her and her insecurities and her overthinking, but him, for not being careful. He had told her not to repeat his mistakes and yet he found himself repeating them.

He had already broken Lily's heart by calling her a Mudblood. Did he, too, have to break Prue's, making her feel that she was a burden to carry, to understand how to choose his words better?

Another sigh, and Severus finally put the wand back in one of his robes’ pockets. He wiped away a hot, angry tear that had trickled down his cheek when he least expected it. The headache was still there, more intense than before, but much less than what it could have become.

He managed to avoid catastrophe, and he would soon drink something for the bloody malaise he felt. It was still too early to go after Prue, but he knew that when she came to her senses, as much as he did, he would be able to explain things to her and steer her away from her misdeeds. If necessary, he himself would set the example, and make his peace with everyone who had ever hurt him, for her.

#snapetober 2021 #snapetober #severus snape #severus x oc #snape x oc #snapedom #pro snape #harry potter original character #original character #oc #fanfic #harry potter fanfiction

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