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bubble-dream-inc · 2 years ago

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one kiss (is all it takes)

At first, you regretted agreeing to going to the game with the boys. Turns out a hockey game can be a lot more interesting than you thought.

Or; You and Price get caught on a Kiss Cam.

Pairing: Captain John Price x Reader

rbs greatly appreciated!

WC: 1.5K

a/n: i have no idea how a hockey game - or the military - works. anyways. this was written in an hour, is barely edited and not beta read lmao

tags: just pure fluff and Soap being a smug lil bastard :))

Sighing, you looked at yourself in the mirror one more time, accepting that yes, you did look as tired as you felt, but at that point you had no choice but to make your peace with it and try your hardest to rock those dark eye circles. At least you supposed your outfit looked presentable enough, since even if you were incredibly tired, you still felt like putting some effort into your appearance, telling yourself it was for no particular reason - or person - at all.

It had happened a couple of hours before. Sitting inside the bar across the street from the dingy hotel you and your teammates were staying after a successful recon mission, Soap and Gaz had disappeared for some time, returning later with a couple of tickets to a local hockey game. You found it best not to question how they got those, and, to be honest, you never pegged either of them to be into hockey, much like yourself, but Soap seemed so excited that you didn’t have the heart to tell him you were not looking forward to it one bit. Admittedly, you suspected the same thing happened with Price, who accepted the invitation somewhat hesitantly - you knew north american sports weren’t really his thing - and you admired Ghost for just saying ‘no’ to Soap’s face before returning to his cup of bourbon without another word. So that led you to where you stood at the moment, regretting falling into Soap’s trap and longing for your hotel bed that looked oh so comfortable. A knock on your door took you out of your reverie. Opening it, you found the devil himself standing outside with a smirk on his face.

“Hey, L.t. Ready to go?” You rolled your eyes playfully at Soap’s nickname for your rank, humming in response while you fetched whatever you needed to go out from your room - making sure to grab a coat.

Gaz and Price were already at the end of the corridor, waiting for the elevator, and, after greeting them both with a wave of your hand and a smile, you had to pretend to be very interested in the instructions written on the fire extinguisher by the wall to avoid gawking at your superior. It wasn’t often you got to see Price out of tactical gear and without his beloved boonie hat, and the sight of him in a basic and slightly too tight t-shirt under his jacket was doing things to you. Being pushed close to him in the impossibly small elevator once it arrived, too cramped for four soldiers to fit comfortably into, did not help you in the slightest.

A short car ride later - and somewhat silent, since Soap had lost his aux cord privileges after the last time - you stood in front of the arena, swerving your way between the other attendees, except clearly less excited to be there. As the four of you looked for your seats, you wondered how long it would take for them to notice if you bolted to go back to the hotel and sleep, but decided against it. Soap and Gaz took the first two seats side by side, leaving you to sit at the other end, with Price on your left, and you found it both a blessing and a curse. As he removed his coat, clearly feeling too warm with the amount of people around, and left his bulky (and hairy) arms visible to the world, you decided it was more of a blessing. Not feeling like committing an HR violation, you scolded yourself to stop ogling at your unaware superior, too lost in your musings to realize he was side eyeing you with a knowing smirk.

The first period flew by. You had no idea what were the teams names, you just know they were currently sitting at 1x0 when the first intermission rolled around, and, surprisingly, you were having a lot of fun. The crowd’s high energy and Soap’s enthusiastic cheering - even though he had said in the car he had no idea who was playing - was enough to make you momentarily forget how tired you were from the mission, and the fact it happened altogether. It was very rarely you got to enjoy some down time with your teammates, and that alone made you feel glad you accepted Johnny’s invitation.

Checking the time on your phone, you started scrolling through the various notifications, getting so immersed in the screen that you didn’t notice the way people around you were suddenly staring in your direction. Feeling observed, you looked up to the sight of people hollering and cheering around you, and, for some reason, Soap was angling his body out of his seat to look smugly at you, to which you only replied with a quizzical arch of your brow, receiving a nod upwards in response. Looking at the direction he nodded, you realized the huge screen in the middle of the stadium now displayed a banner written “Kiss cam.”

Directly under a live feed of you and Price.

That definitely could not be happening.

Your blood froze, and you felt like you were both on fire and ice cold at the same time, trying to process what was going on in seconds. Instantly your brain conjured images of you watching with a side eye as Price rejected you publicly to the camera, probably sneering and making a “cut it out” motion with his hand, as if kissing you was something incredibly unimaginable. However, none of those visions came true, since, when you gathered the courage to actually look over to him - with what you imagined was a very wide eyed and flustered expression - he was actually calmly chuckling and smiling with that damn good looking smile of his. Looking this closely you could swear you saw a faint hint of red on his face as he turned to you with a very gentle gaze, clearly considering the idea and giving you a silent chance to back away if you didn’t feel comfortable with it. Of course, you knew that you would never even dream of shying away from an opportunity to kiss your very attractive Captain who you absolutely did not have a huge crush on, but he didn’t need to know that just yet.

So, seeing no resistance from you, he leaned in closer and brought one of his huge hands to rest delicately holding your face, as if you were made of glass, and you felt like your heart stopped beating. Up close like this he smelled faintly of the cigar he liked to smoke and cologne he must have put on when you returned from the bar to get ready to leave for the game, and his blue eyes never looked so intense. You saw him smirk when you leaned in to meet him halfway before letting your eyes flutter close and your lips finally meet.

Kissing Captain Price was even better than you imagined. His mustache tickled your top lip and, in the background, you could hear the cheering of the crowd - particularly Soap’s hollers and someone, who you imagined was Gaz, wolf whistling - but you drowned it all to focus on the feeling of John’s lips moving against yours in a kiss that lasted a second, but felt like an hour inside your head. As you expected it, he did taste exactly like the cigar he smelled as, and a hint of mouthwash, and you found yourself embarrassingly sighing into the kiss.

You decided you could spend a good few hours just kissing your Captain, but any second longer would be positively awkward for your audience, so, regrettably, you broke the kiss, almost going insane by the way he chuckled lowly against you before leaning back as well, giving the camera an uncharacteristic almost bashful smile. So much for not committing that HR violation. You didn’t find the courage to look anywhere, much less the damn camera, so you pathetically stared at your shoes instead, very aware of the way your face felt like a thousand degrees and you must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Distantly, you felt Soap’s eyes on you, burning holes in your face with what you imagined must have been the smuggest smile ever, but you didn’t turn to confirm your suspicions.

Within seconds, the kiss cam had moved on, as well as the entire crowd, and you were the only one still dwelling on it as everyone cheered on another couple put on display. Trying to convince yourself it meant nothing, you shook your head and tried to pay attention to what was going on in the arena, something cut short when John Price himself discreetly leaned over for your ear, not turning his body or taking his eyes off the screen above you.

“You know,” He started above a whisper with his deep, gruffy voice. ��If I knew you were such a good kisser, I’d have done this a lot sooner.”

With that, he leaned back into his seat, hand crossed above his stomach and a satisfied smirk on his face as he pretended not to notice the way you stared at him with wide eyes and your mouth gaping open like a fish.

That was going to be one long hockey game.

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abstractnaturaldisaster · 4 months ago

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is it over now? (was it over then?)

part eight

part nine: see you come running

Eddie was slowing realizing that introducing Robin and Nancy to the Corroded Coffin crew was the perfect way to lose all of his sanity in one go. Eddie had continued chatting with Robin and bouncing ideas off of her but nothing was clicking and Eddie finally broke down and decided the whole crew needed to come together over pizza to write and score some not cheesy but totally grand gesture worthy songs for Steve.

Eddie's label wasn't thrilled with the abrupt u-turn from an angsty heavy break up album to a single song in that vein and then sappy love songs for the rest of the album but thankfully Corroded Coffin had earned enough cachet over the years that Ronnie was able to convince the label that the songs would still have their signature flair just less angsty and more romantic -- more I would bleed for you and less I would watch eagles rip out your intestines and laugh.

As a group, Corroded Coffin was generally ambivalent towards love most of the time. Ronnie was not interested in dating much more content with her plants and foster kittens. Jeff had been dating the same girl since kindergarten basically and while she was lovely and totally worth swooning over, Jeff had gotten his cheese out early on through middle school notes passed through lockers. Frank and Gareth kind of fluctuated between meeting people at shows and trying whatever fad dating site existed for celebrities at the time but hadn't had serious partners in several years.

All that to say, Eddie was fucking banging his head against the wall for the fifth time in so many hours trying to find another rhyme for love that wasn't glove or shove and his bandmates had taken to throwing little pieces of things into his rapidly frizzing messy bun. They needed reinforcements.

By the time pizza and the girls arrived Eddie was laying upside down with his head dangling off the couch singing an over the top version of I Miss You and hoping none of his friends ever told Tom Delonge. Robin and Ronnie promptly cut him off so his hair didn’t land square in the pepperoni.

"Alright let's get the show on the road," Nancy stated after she had ushered the group together onto couches in some semblance of order after the empty pizza boxes had been bussed.

"You can't rush art, Nancy," Eddie snarked which was probably overall a little too daring based on the look Robin sent him.

"But you can actually write something down instead of flipping through Steve's instagram and sigh over his hair," Ronnie responded earning her a high five from Robin.

Nancy had brought over a big flipchart and colored pens and was starting to jot down ideas that were being thrown around the room. So far Eddie had added a doodle of himself looking up at Steve but hadn't really contributed anything else to the board.

"What are you guys known for?" Robin asked.

"Uhm mostly spooky shit and more recently a break up song that low key ruined my life?" Eddie answered.

"What Eddie means to say is that we generally write fantasy based albums that have some sort of an overall theme or story and tend to be a heavily metaphored summation of something one of us was dealing with," Ronnie clarified after thumping Eddie on the back of his head.

"Examples?" Nancy asked.

"So our debut album was basically growing up in our small town and not fitting in but told through the metaphor of the nine circles of hell," Jeff piped in.

"Definitely aren't beating the satanist allegations back home, fam," Gareth chimed in from the kitchen.

"Okay so why don't we do Steve and Eddie's story through a metaphor y'all haven't done yet. Greek myth?" Robin suggested.

"Already done that," Ronnie answered.

"Lord of the Rings vibes?" Nancy threw out.

"Second album," Frank answered.

"Constellations?" Robin asked.

"Fourth album," Jeff said.

"Okay well what haven't you done?" Nancy was growing impatient with twenty questions.

"Eddie, I think it might be time to pull out the original Munson Mythology," Gareth said through a mouthful of cold pizza.

"I feel like there's a story there," Robin prodded.

"I mean, kind of. So I think y'all might know some of this but my family is mostly from Appalachia and I moved with my uncle to a bigger city where I met the rest of these guys so he could get a job at the plant instead of in the coal mines. We all became friends because we were part of a ttrpg group in school and I ran a campaign based a lot on the old stories Uncle Wayne used to tell me about the mountains. It became nicknamed the Munson Mythology and we've been thinking about putting it into an album basically since we started but I could never get it to sit right and our label wasn't the most excited about americana and metal," Eddie summarized as succinctly as he could.

"I think we could get them around to it now. Especially with how popular the single got. We could do a whole like americana cryptid vibe and keep it kind of spooky but ultimately romantic," Ronnie added.

"No pressure though, Eddie. I know Steve is already a personal subject matter but talking about your family lore adds a whole 'nother layer. We'd understand if you wanted to go another direction," Jeff said.

"I think I might be ready for it, guys. I mean Steve's the closest I've come to finding home outside of the mountains and it's something different than we've done before. I think Gare might be right. It's probably time," Eddie said.

"Then I guess we are writing a metal appalachian love story, friends," Robin clapped her hands as if to indicate it was time to get to work.

"Alright, Eddie. Time to tell us some stories," Nancy said.

"What do y'all know about skinwalkers?" Eddie asked as he settled in to tell some folktales.

***

through a random twist of events (aka someone actually wanting to find my fic which holy crap is so flattering omg) i've come back to this work. thanks anon for kicking me back into this au which is so fun to write. the boys will be back together soon just wanted to add some buddy hijinks as i think Ronnie and Robin would be cautious besties and i wanted to see that happen.

also it's been over two months since i worked on this so if you see plot holes no you didn't. one of these days i will put this up on ao3 and go through and make sure i'm consistent with everyone's backstory but for now just go with it. :p

it is a truth universally acknowledged for some reason i absolutely suck at tagging. i think i have been consistent but all these parts should be tagged "was it over then ficlet" if you have trouble finding them. i also might have to work on a master list situation as i will probably not get better at tagging anytime soon. but here we go:

@lololol-1234 @swimmingbirdrunningrock @zombiethingy @grtwdsmwhr @dreamercec @anne-bennett-cosplayer @strawberryyyenthusiast

@mensch-anthropos-human @kal-ology @ttyrussss @kristmkris @starman-jpg @wonderland-girl143-blog @child-of-cthulhu @legalmenace87 @adealwithher @practicallybegging

@lunaraquaenby @stripey82 @lexyvey @goodolefashionedloverboi @mothmamhasyourlocation @mugloversonly @sherrylyn0628 @steddieinthesun @wonderland-girl143-blog @counting-dollars-counting-stars @bookworm0690

@knightly-reblogs @rjwinterfell @kcsplace @y4r3luv @thedragonsaunt

#steve x eddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #steddie fic #steddie #don't worry robin will fix it #angst #angst with a happy ending #rockstar eddie #actor steve #was it over then ficlet

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thebottomfromhell · 1 year ago

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Hi! Sorry to bother you! But may I request a Dom!male reader like househusband x uppermoons head canons? Like the reader knows there a demon but literally doesn’t care and still loves them and the reader is basically the sole definition of “your doing great sweetie” (and the reader basically just supports them in everything and is like basically there 1# supporter)

(You can choose the uppermoons for the headcanons! I don’t mind!)

have a nice day! ♥︎

(Also if you have already done a similar idea you can just ignore this! I’m a little new to your blog and I really like your writing!)

I liked this ask a lot, also the image it's very cute, it made me smile, you might also like the traditional courting Headcanons 1 & 2 (but by this time you probably saw them already 😅) Also I didn't really know if as "dom" you meant as in dynamic or in sexual content, so I have a sexual connotation or two.

Househusband Human Supportive Dom Reader x Uppermoons. (Nakime, Douma and Gyutaro are not in this one, since their living conditions make it hard to step in as a house spouse. Also the clones come as a package in this one).

Warnings: Polyamory (Hantengu Clones), Slight sexual content (some characters and reader make out in a more sexual tone, but no explicit sex, so it's mostly implied), Cannibalism (mostly reading sharing his blood),

Gyokko:

"Okaeri, Gyokko. How was it today?" Gyokko is very organized with his time, he always comes back around the same hour and expects you to be awake to welcome him. "Tadaima." He just says, looking a bit tired. Probably some slayers did comments about his art, that pisses him off a lot. "I guess by that, it wasn't your best night. Is there is something this husband can do for you?" You tease as you get closer to him and hold gently the upper hands of his head, using your thumbs to carress circles in them. He relaxes and sighs after that.

"How about a cup of blood? That might cheer you up." You say as you guide him to the kitchen where you have a first aid kit, which you use a needle to take out your blood. "No, that is an artery. You will bleed out, let me do it myself." It's less messy this way, specially with Gyokko's help (he knows the circulatory system better than you), but it seems this time he doesn't have the patient to that. "Did you kill them or just put them in a pot?" You start a conversation as you put the red liquid in his favorite cup. "It was horrible, this was a Hashira and those sidekicks they have, they were so tasteless, didn't know how to appreciate arts. And the sidekick was infuriating, a damn child!" And you spend an hour with him drinking with one mouth as he complains with the other.

By the time he finishes there is are two hours left for sunrise, so you stand up and kiss the talking mouth "Meet me at bed, I will lock down the house." You close the window, three layers of curtains and move some objects for the weight to secure them more. "Do as I say, and I will treat you good." He compliains of you being "bossy" as you leave the room, but you do find him under the sheets once you step in your room. It doesn't have any windows, so it's already safe. You close the door and then go to sit in front of Gyokko. "You deserve to rest your mind once in a while. You are very hardworking, so let me..."

"Enough talking, darling. I already told you the night I had. Now I want my husband to spoil me. Now." You roll your eyes, and he calls you bossy? Still, you get under the sheets and kiss one of the mouths and you put your thumb in the other, tasting your own blood in the other's tongue as in joins yours. You also feel the teeth and tongue biting and salivating the thumb, you make sure the liquids don't fall into his lower eye. Still under the sheets you get on top of Gyokko, who's arousal is visible. "Then I better spoil you good."

It's already noon when you finish, you are very tired, but Gyokko just rest his head against your naked stomach because he is uncomfortable like that. You are always surprised by the unlimited demon stamina, you massage his scalp with your fingers to help him relax further. "There are people who just don't understand art, Gyokko. But you and I both know you are a great artist. Don't let things like this get you so worked up." He only groans a bit against your skin to speak after a minute of silence, you almost fell asleep before you heard his voice. "Well, I got my husband to support me and make me feel better, don't I?"

You chuckle a bit. He does.

Hantengu:

"T-t-t-tad-d-daim-a..." there, he said it (whispering), as he stepped in, closin the door behind him as quietly as possible. "Okaeri." Hantengu shrieks when you come next to him, when did you get this close? He thought you would still be asleep. "What are you doing up at this hour?" He asks quietly, still covering himself with his arms as he took a protective stance of the fright. He knows you won't hurt him, but it's a reflex. "I couldn't sleep, so I decided ro eat something. I just finished cleaning the kitchen after. How was your night?" He slowly puts his arms down as he sighs.

How long did you stay in a barely understadable ramble of how aggressive and scary Hashira are, how his master is an exploiter, how everyday and night are both nightmares alongside a self-pity monologue? Two hours, at least, but you only show him you are listening, not interrupting him once. Once he stops talking to tremble hard as he hugs himself you walk around him slowly, making sure he can see where you are and what are you doing with your hands as you put them on his shoulder. "Calm down, darling. It's ok. You are home right now, safe with your husband who wants to make you feel better."

He starts to relax as you squeeze and massage the stress away, then going to his back, feeling it full of knots. You sigh, you also did this yesterday and it's like this again? Well, it's not like it's Hantengu's fault. He didn't ask to be conditioned by the emotion of distress, it's already good enough he can find some comfort in you. "Thank you for doing this for me... How was your day? What did you eat just now." You appreciate his interest, even if part of it is only to be able to distract himself from the bad feelings as he listens to you. You do describe your day, talking mostly about when you went outside to buy some things the house needed. "It must be nice to not burn under the sun... even my clones can step on the sun."

"Well, other demons can't go under the sun neither. Have you eaten already? I can give you some of my blood." He shakes his head to reject the proposition "I don't have the stomach to eat today... thk u fr offr.... [thank you for offering]." You don't get to hear that last part, but you just finish the back to get in front of him. "Let's go to bed, I will give you a leg massage, check that the sun won't get through the windows and take a nap with you. That way you should feel better." Demons don't need to sleep, you already know that, but you are tired and asleep Hantengu feels a lot better than while awake, so he agrees.

Once you finish all those things you cuddle with his face against your chest, having him crying over everything and nothing specific as he hugs you tight. "Thank you... I feel better here." He answers honestly as you pat his back to valm him down as you feel the tears move through your abdomen. "It's ok dear, your husband is here for you. Just try to sleep." He does, you feel he stops breathing, but at this point it doesn't bother you, his nature is different to yours. He is still very dear to you, and so you help him as you can.

It can be tiring, but it's worth it.

Hantengu Clones:

"TADAIMA!" Scream Urogi and Karaku as they open the door, waking you up instantly as Sekido was lecturing them. You put another outer robe as you go towards the entrance to find your four idiots, Aizetsu is the first to notice you and go to see you before the others. "Y/N, Tadaima. We have had a rough night... can you please calm them down before going back to bed? I think you are the only one who can." He gives you big sad eyes before blinking fast a few times, making sure to look as cute as he can, manipulative little-. You can only nod before he leaves to the main room where you were sleeping "Okeari, by the way." You say before he disappears in the hallway.. Once he does that the next one to jump over you is Urogi, in his case, literally.

"Y/N! Hubby! We missed you so much!" He rubs his face against your as he has his arms and legs wraped up around you. "Sekido got beheaded like 7 times! It was so funny! Karaku actually had to save his a-" "SHUT THE FUCK UP, UROGI!" Karaku only laughs in the background. "He still got to thank me, ya know? I was so heroic back there, bet that if you saw me killing that slayer you would have gotten a bo-" "Karaku...." Yeah, that's the sign. If you don't step in Sekido will leave them outside all day. "Okaeri you all. I also missed you." You kiss Urogi's horn, wish makes him giggle. "I will set the house for sunrise, so if you want to help-" Joy and Pleasure leave to the main room in order to avoid work, leaving you with Sekido. "Those little shits..." he is very angry.

"Are you ok?" He doesn't answer, so you grab his hand gently and take it to your mouth to kiss it's back, making him blush but relax the frown. "I'm sure you all did great, at least did you all eat." He nods before you let him go, that means you don't need to offer blood (thank the one above and the one below, because you would die if the four were to drink blood from you), you both secure the house and find out that Aizetsu already secured the main room as Urogi and Karaku joined togeter several pillows, futons and sheets. "The beddings are ready! But if you want to have some fun before that, I am willing to give you some "cake" in the bathroom~" Karaku winks (which makes Sekido growl) at you, meking you (and Aizetsu) roll your eyes. "Nah, I'm good. I just want to cuddle and comfort my husbands if that is ok." Urogi laughs at the rejection as Karaku shrugs "Your loss."

Aizetsu goes to take both yours and Sekido's hand. "Can we please get along today. The sun will be up in some minutes, I can sense it... and it makes me sad that we would be trapped here while fighting." The Sorrow clone probably did already the eye trick to the other two and, since you already calmed down Sekido, it works on him to. "Thank you... " In the end you end up all un a fort under the sheets as they tell you the whole story. You are brushing Urogi's hair with your fingers as he lies on his stomach by your side, Sekido gives you his back as he uses your other arm as pillow, Karaku has your head in his lap to massage your scalp and Aizetsu rests his head in your stomach. It's not the most comfortable position to be, but you are happy to be like this (besides, you still could fall asleep how you are.)

You know they are also having a good time, since Sekido nuzzles against your limb, so you know he is there and comfortable. Aizetsu has his eyes close, so he could be asleep, once Urogi gets bore of you playing with his hair he starts nibbling softly your arm as if he was a cat (trying his best to not hurt you) and Karaku lies in his back with you still in his back. "Hey, Y/N... thank you for taking care of up. We like to be with you a lot." Karaku starts. "Yeah, we love you so much! You are the best husband ever!" "... you are good. Thank you for being there." "That tone didn't really sound sincere, Sekido." "Shut up, Aizetsu!" You can only chuckle at that. What can you say, you also enjoy taking care of them, even if as demons they don't need it.

"I love you all, too."

Akaza:

Akaza looks tired, emotionally exhausted, as he steps inside the house, he was just scolded for not killing the Hanafuba earing brat, the weakling, that little shi- "Okaeri, you came back early. Did something happen?" You ask him, you were just going back to sleep (you woke up to eat something) since Akaza usually comes back just some minutes before sunrise, looking for Muzan's imaginary flower he comes back to complain about. "Y/N... Tadaima... sorry, I... did you do the dishes?"

You laugh as he looks concerned, he didn't meam to change the topic, but "I told you I would do them..." he pouts, Akaza likes to be helpful around the house, so most of the time it's you both competing to do the chores. "Go to sleep, I will do the rest." He wants to clean, since the house is already set for sunrise. "You can fix the house for yourself, but I already did everything else after you left." You say proudly as you watch him grind his teeth. "I will cook you breakfast later then, and the house must be cleaned every day, so tomorrow I do the chores." He really likes to take care of you and gets easily frustrated when he can't. It often backfires because you also like to take care of him.

You cup his face in your hands to make him look at you in the eyes, smiling softly as he melts alightly in hour touch. "You look way too stressed for that, how about you tell me first how was your night?" Turns out his boss lectured him for not killing a child, the one he fought the day he didn't come home for sunrise (that night you were worried to the point of sickness, it was the first time since you married that Akaza didn't spend the day in your house) and he is very angry. "I have always done everything he told me! I swear that brat, weakling, will die at my hands. Damn weaklings taking advantage of...." his breathing become unsteady at that, so you pet his face. "I know you will, you are way too stubborn to not manage to kill someone you want dead. I'm sure even that Douma will fall under your hard work sooner or later." You don't really know about Douma, but fantazising of his death makes Akaza feel better.

"How about you go to bed with me? I am a bit tired and I would like to lie down somewhere." He nods as you take his hand and guide him to the main room. Once in the bed you push him so he can lie on his back as you get over him in the space between his legs. "Didn't you say you wanted to lie down?" You smile as you move your robes to expose one shoulder "Well, I will need it depending on the amswer. When was the last time you ate something?" By the look of his face you can se it has been a while, so you pull him from the back of his neck to your naked skin. "Take a bite, love. And I will also take a piece of you. Deal?" The second he bites theough your skin, you know you are on.

You didn't last that long, mostly because of the wound in your shoulder. You curse you only have 4 liters of blood and half gone already show it's effects, unlike Akaza, who is tending the bite. "If it makes you feel better, it's always hot when you bite me." You say something you know is stupid to make him laugh, he hates hurting you, even when you ask him to. "Well, I do think you are a snack, dear husband." You also laugh, gods that was awful.

You love, trust and support him, and Akaza better damn well know it.

Kokushibou:

Kokushibou just breathes in before closing the door behind him, fully knowing you are not only awake, but in the end of the hallway. "Tadaima." He answers without even looking at you, to be honest he was hoping you would still be asleep. He does love you but... he is not the best with feelings, and you are just so- "Okaeri, Kokushibou. How have you been?" good to him, and he just can't aswer the same way. It makes him feel inadequate. He hates that, so he tends to leave for long periods of time. "It's been six moons since the last time I saw you, anything interesting?"

And yet, you never anger, you never are anything but understanding, and that is just so confusing. There was other man that was like that with him, no matter how evasive or cold Michikatsu Kokushibou could get, he would still welcome him warmly, forever patient and stable, like the sun that burns all demons. You remind him a lot, and the worst part is that it attracts Kokushibou, the familiarity and the way you treat him. "Hey, are you ok?" You say as you notice he lost himself on his thoughts, once he gets out of his trance he looks at you. He only wanted to see you, that is why he came back, he hoped you wouldn't be awake when he did.

"Do you want a drink?" Blood, you are offering your blood and he can't find himself to day no. No when this is the only way he can drink it from a cup without calling it what it actually is, that way he can pretend he is still a samurai drinking tea in his free time, that he didn't transform into something that is not human. "Please. That would be nice." He sits in a mat as you serve him the red liquid, and besides thanking you as you hand the cup to him, Kokushibou doesn't say anything. There is a big chance he will leave soon, so you tell him everything that happened while he was missing. "And then I had to tell the ladies I was to old for marry his daughter, but I think she didn't believe me. Still, I'm a faithful husband to the second most powerful demon is not an explenation that will be well received."

Thankfully, between the blood and your story telling, he decides to stay for the day, so you prepare the house so the sunlight won't be able to come inside. You must hurry since you realized he would be staying when there was half an hojr for the sun to come up and he didn't move at all. You started with the room you are with Kokushibou, then the whole house, there was already sun when you finished the last rooms, but Kokushibou didn't burn and you consider that enough. "Kokushibou, the house is ready. You can move arpund if you want." He does, only to get to find yourself in hour room as you followed him. "You look tired. Sleep for a while I will stay here." He says as he sits in front of your bed.

The thing is, you are tired, you were at least half of the night awake and the missing blood is not doing you any good. But you don't want to sleep, you want to spend time with Kokushibou before he leaves. "Only if you promise we can properly say goodbye to each other bedore you go." He agrees, so you get ready for bed, knowing he likes to watch you sleep for some reason. "Kokushibou, remember that if you want to talk about anything, I will listen." ..... "Thank you." He just says that before becoming dead silent. It's very hard to be there dor Kokushibou, since he does and doesn't want you around at the same time.

Still, you try. That is enough.

#demon slayer #kny #upper moons #top reader #kny x reader #karaku #urogi #aizetsu #sekido #hantengu #akaza #gyokko #kokushibou #male reader #kny headcanons

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littleeyesofpallas · 21 days ago

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So I guess this is a good time to do a recap of some old Ukitake posts: [1][2][3][4][5][6]

Ukitake[浮竹] Juushirou[十四郎] actually has one of my favorite names in the series as it feels like it says a lot about his core concept beyond what we're really given in canon. The family name reads uki-[浮]: "Floating" and take-[竹]: "Bamboo." That same "floating" is part of the word fuurou[浮浪]: "vagrant/vagabond" and a few other colloquial terms, a generally circling around a homeless person or a drifter. (In fact the other half of that compound word, [浪] is the "wave" in ronin[浪人]: "wave man/person" as in a masterless samurai.) Bamboo being a staple lumber in Japan of course but also notorious for its fast and rampant growth, as it is quick to spread and choke out other plants in an environment. The idea of "floating..." or "vagrant bamboo" gives an impression of being plentiful and common, even excessive.

The personal name, Juushirou[十四郎] just reads "14(th) Son" which always implied he came from a large family. A profile in the back of vol. 18 long ago confirmed he had brothers and sisters, but curiously all younger than him. The implication seemed clear that as a sickly person from a big family, he was poor and that there were 13 prior children who died before him, which is really the only reason you'd name a child the way they did. This feels like it works in tandem with the family name to again emphasize a family of many, but also almost expendable. The big family is also why he's got an affinity for children

That said it always felt to me like the backstory should have been more grim? Like rather than just praying to a god to save his life, it seemed more like he should have been a sacrifice made to ensure the family line continued. Like first 13 kids died, they were afraid he was their last chance, but he was sickly, so they sacrificed him to basically ensure the next ones would come out alright. Hence the kids younger than him surviving in spite of the ominous past implied by his name.

(Also the "shiro" phonetics in his name as a homonym with shiro[白]:white point to his hair. Kubo makes an explicit joke about this as Toshiro, also white haired, shares a similar wordplay, his name Toshirou[冬獅郎] meaning "Winter Lion Son.")

Then there's his shikai, Sougyo-no-Kotowari[双魚理] which reads "PairFish's Reason/Logic/Natural way of things." (sougyo-kyu[双魚宮] is the Japanese name of the constellation Pisces.) It appears to be an allusion to daoism/onmyodo, and the yin-yang diagram of balance, and this theme gets built upon by other contextual information like the zanpakutou arc's designs borrowing from onmyoji, and Ukitake's presence in conjunction with fish imagery and metaphor in the Jaws of Hell arc.

The little preamble to that chapter, about the two fish in balance until one dies and then the other grows bigger, is itself synonymous with sougyo-no-kotowari: The Natural Order of Two Fish.

The release command [波悉く我が盾となれ]: "All Waves be my shield," [雷悉く我が刃となれ]: "All LightningBolts be my blade" is fairly straight forward and just evokes the image of a stormy sea, which actually seems to have surprisingly little to do with the rest of the themes in play? I mean sure, waves and fish and floating, but when the floating and fish are less than literal the waves and lightning without any additional reading feel kind of out of place?

Of note: the onymoji was a prestigious class of sort of advisor in the japanese imperial court was at its peak in the Heian period, the long standing era of peace in ancient Japan that came just before the descent into the civil war of the Sengoku period. (Subsequently the onmyoji lost most of their power and clout during the waring states period as power shifted from the imperial court to the shogunate.) They were associated with and consulted for a wide range of things from medicine, to architecture, to city planning and meteorology, and divination, and perhaps most well loved by media, as exorcists. This ties into things like his beyond bankai form in Bleach Brave Souls where they opt for a more shinto purification theme, in either case making him fit something of a paragon role as Shinigami as ""cleansing"" hollows rather than destroying them.

Actually those shinto motifs all link to the recent addition of shinto themes in Mimihagi pretty directly, but I'll get to that in a bit...

It's worth noting that with Kyoraku's emphasis on a leisurely city life in the capital(Kyoto), and the onmyo mystic themes of Sougyo-no-kotowari, Kyoraku and Ukitake appear to both represent aspects of the Heian period, and thus cultures that predate the Sengoku period, and the rise of the samurai, lending to their role as two of the most senior members of the gotei 13.

People often forget but technicaly Ukitake was the first captain we were introduced to, well before Byakuya showed up, the Captain title just wasn't present at the time. When Rukia has her flashback to a then uncertain event while Ichigo fights Grandfisher, it's Ukitake she's hearing speak and that we catch just a brief glimpse of the back of the head of. Like I said there were no captain ranks in the story a that point, so he just appears as long flowing white hair over an all black shihakusho. I think his hair was always meant to help him embody an element of balance between black and white, and thus the very series title: Bleach.

I think there was always an implicit siniste quality to the idea of "Balance" underlying the shinigami that Kubo tried to gesture towards with the general vibe of the Soul Society -v- Rukongai dynamics, the Shibas, that flicker of a twist in the Fullbringer arc that Ichigo just ignored, and even with a lot of the loose and ultimately unfulfilled themes he set up for the TYBW arc with Yhwach's plans for a new world and Juugram's Balance schrift.

Oh I forgot the whole MIMIHAGI bit, despite teh being the whole subject of this week's episode:

東流魂街七十六地区『逆骨』に伝わる単眼異形の土着神。

An indigenous God of Grotesque/Suspicious Single-eye passed down in East Rukongai 76(th) zone "Sakahone(Reverse Bone)"

太古の昔、天より瀞霊廷に落ちて来た霊王の右手を祀ったとされるもので、自らの持つ「眼」以外のすべてを捧げた者に加護をもたらすと言い伝えられている。

(In)Ancient Times, From Heaven to the Seireitei the fallen right hand of the Rei-Oh is said to have been enshrined.

浮竹の行った『神掛』は、体内に宿るミミハギ様の力を全身の臓腑へと広げる事で、全ての臓腑をミミハギ様に捧げ、その依り代になる儀式である。

Ukitake's performed "Kamikake(God debt)" was, the power of MIMIHAGI dwelling in the body spreading to the whole of the viscera/entrails, offer up all of your entrails to MIMIHAGI-sama, it is a ceremony/ritual to become a Yorishiro*

『神掛』を成功させた浮竹は、霊王の右腕そのものとなった。

Ukitake succeeded at/with "Kamikake", he had become the right hand of the Rei-Oh.

*i don't have a more concise way to translate this... the translation listed run something like "object representative of a divine spirit"/" object to which a spirit is drawn or summoned"/"object or animal occupied by a kami" and it's specifically a shinto thing.

When you see big deified trees with the shimenawa ropes and shide paper talismans, those trees are yorishiro. or rather they're Shintai, because a Yorishiro is a thing capable of being host to a kami, the Shintai is after they've been deified. (And technically when you do that to a person it would be called Yorimashi, not Yorishiro. I don't know if that's meant to specifically dehumanize Ukitake or if its a broad enough term that it doesnt really make a difference.)

These little eye catch data cards really aren't giving us anything new huh?

#bleach #bleach meta #recap of junk i already posted years ago mostly #some of which i dont even know if id stand by today #but im too selfconcious to really reread my old shit #i know its bad #jushiro ukitake

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evanoxvt · 6 months ago

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The struggles of disabled people without support at home.

I've been away from home for over a week. I have next to no expectations put on me here, but I still have my weekly physical therapy and both myself and Town Crier to take care of.

TC eats 3x a day and obviously, I need food too. My grandparents are cooking about one meal a day at a nearly consistent time, so I'm eating at least once a day consistently. At home, I was lucky if I ate a single meal a day.

I (sometimes) help with setting the table, which consists of paperplates, paper napkins, silverware, and glass cups. Since both me and my cousin help with this, I'm usually not doing any heavy lifting at all.

I spend part of the day downstairs and 'randomly' will go upstairs to lay down for awhile. Usually, after my mid day break upstairs, I bring my laptop downstairs and play some games until dinner and end there or resume playing until the end of the night.

No one critiques my daily routine. No one asks me to do more than I can. Everyone appreciates when I help out.

I was having trouble walking and standing yesterday because I did far too much the day prior, but because I spent the entire day resting I was able to contribute to cooking dinner and I cooked the pasta roni (~10 mins of intermittent standing required). I was able to play games and rest afterward without being yelled at for not doing more, and was even thanked for helping cook a portion of the dinner.

I have a funny sad thing to say about this: Somehow by being asked to do nothing, I've found I can do so much more than when I'm asked to do a tiny bit.

The shittiest part of this story, as random small bits put together as it is, is that I am more disabled when I'm asked to be functional, and less disabled when I can go at my own pace or back out if need be. At home I get asked to do things like empty the dishwasher (which is tons of light to heavy objects, Ina short period of time), vacuum (which is alot of heat, standing, walking, arm movement, a eight on my arm, back movement and back bending, navigation, balance, etc), cleaning things like the bathroom (which required detailed work for some parts plus moving all the things needed so they don't get in the way or touch the chemicals). I could go on and on and on but the point will get muddled if I write the entire list and every problem on every "basic chore" because the truth is that I need alot of breaks, a long period of time, and the option to back out of all of these things to be successful at it without seriously hurting myself. If I do too much today, it will affect me for multiple days. If I do too much for an entire week it will affect me for a month or more, etc. I sometimes feel really good like I did on Friday and accidentally over do it and need to be able to back down from most things for a period of time afterwards.

I normally can't make a box of pasta roni AND move anything heavy (like my laptop) on the same day at home because I'm always expected and forced to do so much more. I usually can't make cookies on days like today where I need to spend multiple hours at a time lying down in between short bursts of sitting or activity, but today I could because there's nothing else I have to do so spending potentially all of my energy is okay. Resting afterwards is okay. No one is upset because less than an hour after making cookies I had to lay down and still am. NO ONE said it's not okay. However if I go home cookies are a luxury therefore the logic goes that "if you can bake some cookies, you can do some dishes too". At home I wouldn't be able to make the cookies because it opens up the idea I'm able to do a ton of chores. I'm not okay right now, that's why I'm resting.

I feel like I'm ranting in circles at this point... but honestly I don't get why most people will see me do one "simple" (for them) thing and assume I'm okay to do things even they don't want to do because it takes up alot of energy... I really don't get it. My health sucks, it goes up and down all day long, all week long, and yet people want to pretend I'm making it up if I can do literally a single thing normal people can...

I hope my fellow disabled friends and people I haven't met yet find themselves in better social situations than me because this isn't okay in any way.

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askdacast · 11 months ago

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Life Series SMP/Eyes and Ears AU Thematic Discussion + Theorycrafting (pt. 1)

WARNING: Extremely long post

Kachow what’s poppin fellas, I’m back at it again talking about boomer block Youtubers and their surprisingly in-depth improv series. Now that the Life Series’ 5th season has finally concluded, I’m back on the lore train and poor Scar is left to suffer the consequences, and Martyn’s concluded yet another lore stream, I decided to compile a long master post of lore notes and theories about what we have so far.

Obviously all the ‘lore’ of the Life Series is purely unofficial; Grian has not approved any of it as being actually official/set in stone for what he intended the series to be. Most of it has been us in the crazy fandom extrapolating their really good storytelling, and also “semi-canonized” by Martyn in what he calls the Eyes and Ears AU (and this post assumes you are familiar with it). As someone who’s been a fan since the beginning way back in 3rd Life, I’ve pretty much hopped on the lore train since the beginning as well (if casually) and enjoying all the different extrapolations/analysis/angst written around the players. Rather than just theorizing lore details in a vacuum, however, I’ve always liked imagining the lore based around the reoccurring themes, symbolism and arcs we’ve seen across the series. I’d been bouncing my various thoughts and theories around these themes for a while, and finally I decided to compile my notes together.

This post is basically my imagining what the Life Series/Eyes and Ears AU story is “about,” as if it were a fleshed-out, long-running and story-driven tv show. Initially this post started as simply a gigantic “Eyes and Ears Theory,” me trying to sus out my own theories/ideas of what the Life Series’ mysteries were based on Martyn’s lore. However, considering that Martyn is ALSO writing the lore on the fly, and I have some details I would interpret differently or change, this ended up less a ‘theory’ and more ‘me writing an entire AU/interpretation of the Life Series as a whole.’ My intention is NOT to ‘correct’ Martyn’s lore, nor to claim my theory as the ‘right’ interpretation; rather, this is my personal interpretation of what the Life Series story is about, based on information shown in the original SMP and in Martyn’s AU.

One last disclaimer: I am ONLY drawing on lore details from the Life Series, Martyn’s lore streams, and Minecraft EVO, and also references to the iRL creators. I am not drawing on any story from other SMPs such as Pirates or Empires; there may be some Hermitcraft references here and there.

This is going to be very long, and a multi-parter, because I can’t summarize to save my life. And I promise I’ll come up with a proper name for my series of posts another time. If you’ve stuck around to read, I thank you.

Part 1: The Overall Plot + Understanding the Watchers

Recap of official lore details

Although Martyn hasn’t given specific details on the Watcher + Listener species (he hasn’t come up with a name yet), we know the following details for sure (from EVO, lore streams etc.)

Watchers + Listeners + The Council are all deity-like beings of the same species, and they all consume human emotions

The Council are the upper ranks/possibly leaders, whereas the Watchers + Listeners are separate factions

The Watchers are at LEAST two high-ranking members of the species (the two dots being outcast from the wider circle, as is their logo)

The Watchers were behind Minecraft EVO, where they gave all the players tasks (much like Secret Life) and eventually ending in them fighting the Ender Dragon separately

While the Watchers may not have been evil in EVO, they certainly became so AFTER, when they began to crave more negative human emotions, viewing them as “tasty” (Martyn’s words), s p i c y

They first kidnapped Grian at the end of EVO season 1, turning him into a Watcher to possibly have him join their ranks, but he’s gone rogue after realizing what their plans for the Life Series were, and plans to rescue his friends from them

The Life Series was the Watchers’ ploy to trap the players in an infinite death game where they betray and cause each other pain, all to harvest their negative emotions. Grian, in defiance to this, takes control as the ‘game master’ to make the whole thing…well, a game, so that his friends can enjoy, have fun and ease their anguish. In Martyn’s words, this is like “pouring ketchup all over the Watchers’ sundae.”

The Listeners (EVO season 2) are an opposing faction to the Watchers who disagree with their methods, although why is unknown. They’ve attempted to contact some players (e.g. Jimmy) before back in EVO in order to oppose the Watchers, but it’s not known how successful they were. They’ve also tried to swap in players in the Life Series before (e.g. subbing Lizzie and Gem for Pearl and Cleo in Lim. Life) in order to sneak them in and try to subvert the game. The Watchers kidnapping Gem for Secret Life is partially in retaliation to the Listeners. The Listeners may not be good and may have nefarious intentions also, it is as yet still unknown.

There’s potentially a third faction, the Speakers, but very little is known about them and Martyn doesn’t want to elaborate on them yet.

Okay, but what are the Watchers even after?

"Accept your fate."

From here on out is my real conjecturing/theorizing. The main question on my mind has been why are the Watchers doing what they’re doing? Obviously Martyn has confirmed that they are malicious deities who find negative human emotions tasty, but this raises further questions. Why exactly do they desire such emotions, or need them to survive (if they do, anyway)? Why do they favour negativity, when the other members of their species consume a wide range of emotions? They were confirmed to be outcast in some way from the other factions for this ploy, so what does that say about them then?

The whole species fundamentally do not understand human emotions (or perhaps do not even possess them)

This seems to me the most logical conclusion. These are powerful deities who can create miniature worlds/dimensions, life, and time to an extent (death loop). They should theoretically be self-sufficient, so I doubt that their consumption of human emotion is for survivability reasons (i.e. I don’t think Watchers will literally die if they don’t consume emotions, the same way humans die without food). What seems more likely is that human emotions bring them some benefit to their intelligence or power that they’d otherwise be quite non-functional without. (Think like the demons in The Promised Neverland, who regress to feral natures/lack of sapience if they don’t eat humans)

The Watchers’ powers and their lab-rat experimentation on the players gives a huge vibe of not being able to understand human emotions in an involved way, but only from a distance. They know methodically things like murder and betrayal cause panic and anguish, so they enforce these experiences through the game, mechanics like the Boogeyman, the Secret Tasks etc. But they don’t really know internally why these emotions come about the way humans do. Being above time, they probably don’t understand why the funny small animals have so much attachment to their transitory experiences and memories (more on this later).

world's angriest pumpkin

The Watchers are Losers, Actually

Going further, don’t you think the Watchers have a very misanthropic mindset all around? “Anguish and panic are s p i c y.” They conversely have a complete disgust for positive emotions, and can’t stand Grian making things fun for everybody. It almost feels like they have the mindset that only things like hatred and fear are exciting, bringing motivation and life to the humans, whereas things like happiness and fun are ‘useless’ because they don’t bring about the same results. Let’s also not forget their name – Watchers – and that Martyn’s confirmed them to be symbolically based off us, the audience. It’s almost like a commentary of the worst of the entertainment industry, of an audience who crave watching anything and everything to satisfy their own desires, even at the expense of the privacy and safety of the entertainer. Given the current state of the internet and social media, I don’t think I need to elaborate how awful things can get.

In other words, I believe the main motivation the Watchers are eating humans emotions is because they WANT to understand and ‘take into themselves’ such emotions. I don’t think they’re totally emotionless – Martyn does portray them with moments of glee and anger. But their understanding of emotions is superficial (self-centered, if you will) at best. As deities with no needs, being above time, they have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to feel sad or anguished over. It’s a boring, dull and empty existence. And that’s precisely why they’ve set up the Life Series game: by kidnapping a few humans and putting them through the artificially constructed wringer of panic and betrayal, they think they can create a human farm of such rich, complex and exciting emotions, all for themselves to enjoy at their own pleasure and fill the void they have.

(Listeners’ side note: If all that is the philosophy of the Watchers, it’s probably not difficult to see how/why the Listeners oppose them. The Listeners likely disagree that negative emotions are the most optimal state of humans, and unlike the Watchers do not think human suffering is just tasty popcorn one can eat at one’s pleasure. Their name – Listeners – implies they’re a more sympathetic faction, as in they listen to one’s troubles and heart rather than take delight in suffering at a superficial level. But if they are the same species, it’s very likely they have the same lack of instinctive understanding of human emotions that the Watchers do, and this could cause…problems.)

Why turn Grian?

All this is also why I believe the Watchers kidnapped Grian + turned him into a Watcher in the first place. Firstly, if they were going to concoct their plan to trap humans, they needed a collaborator from the humans in the first place. Secondly, and most importantly, this collaborator was going to be their only direct source of how human emotions work/feel like, and therefore what were the most optimal conditions needed to ensure their death game would generate the most pain and anguish. They picked Grian because he’s always the ‘leader’ of the SMP players, the person gathering and organizing everyone, so logically, he is the most ‘representative’ of the humans, and the one with the greatest ability to control them.

Of course, it’s also true that Grian was a little $#@% throughout EVO and actively rebelled against the Watchers’ tasks, so making him their collaborator might seem strange. Ignoring the meta reason that the ending was written to explain Grian’s exit from the series. But I figured in this case, they considered the benefits more than the costs. Grian’s chaotic nature is not unlike the Watchers’, considering how much he loves causing pranks and trouble to others. So, as a huge oversight, they think Grian is just like them: he loves to see people suffer, so they think. Additionally, the Watchers are desperate to understand how Grian gets his fellow humans to follow him and do what he asks with little effort. You’ll notice the Watchers have very direct, authoritative ways of trying to wrest control (e.g. the tasks, “do this or you fail”), and they get very petty and upset when people rebel against them (re: Scott’s refusal to be the Boogeyman, their motto is a very demanding “OUR WILL BE DONE.”) They see Grian’s charisma as yet another aspect of human emotions they fail to understand and thus WANT to possess for themselves.

Pictured above: The Watchers, coping and seething

Of course as we know, the Watchers believing Grian would help them is a major oversight. Becoming a god doesn’t just fundamentally change who Grian is, and he definitely doesn’t want to consign his friends to an infinite death loop of suffering. That being said, I don’t think Grianhas truly gone ‘rogue’ so much as taken as much advantage as possible of his ‘deal’ with the Watchers. We can guess the Watchers promised to him some kind of control/leadership over his friends’ circumstances as long as he worked for them, which led to them giving him the keys to the Life Series. In other words, so long as he fulfils their requirements of things being a death game that will generate ‘food’ for them, and lets them revive everyone each loop, he gets to decide how the games go.

And we know exactly what Grian’s done with this: he created the green-yellow-red lives system, he creates a fun gimmick each season, he inserts himself into the game as a player, all to bring out the best and most creative side of his friends rather than the worst. The Boogeyman probably is the only gimmick the Watchers added on their own initiative (re: Martyn’s POV in Last Life) in order to make things more spicy. Probably Grian’s conversation with the Watchers each time goes, “hey, I got an idea on how to bring out the most creative ways for everyone to cause pain in each other, [comes up with some bullcrap justification for the game’s fun mechanics].” I like to think the Watchers were going to make the death games even more vicious, cruel and competitive, but because of Grian’s wrangling he’s convinced them that a slow burn from joy to horror creates better results, and they tolerate it as long as they see him useful.

Memories and Emotions

There is also one BIG detail of the Watchers’ plan I’d like to mention: Martyn claims that the Watchers do NOT erase the players’ memories. At the end of each season, they consume everyone’s emotions so that there’s no more angst/ill will towards each other, and they start each season afresh. The players remember what’s happened in past seasons, but they don’t continue to hold the pain and negative feelings they had towards each other.

I don’t buy this, for numerous reasons.

For one, Martyn has confirmed the Watchers ARE capable of removing people’s memories. The one memory they have outright altered was the ex-EVO players’ (Martyn, Jimmy, BigB etc.) memory of what happened to Grian: they don’t remember that Grian was taken to be turned into a Watcher, and instead remember it as him either going missing or dying after the Ender Dragon fight. All this presumably to not give away the Watchers’ schemes and to ensure they still listen to Grian as if nothing ever happened.

More importantly, however, memories are vital to humanity’s emotional experience and mental health. I am not an expert by any means, but there are studies showing how people with amnesia, PTSD or other conditions affecting memories have flashbacks/emotional reactions to trauma they don’t remember consciously. The Watchers have (supposedly) done something far more simplistic yet fantastic by just eating up everybody’s emotions. All this, even though they see humans as emotion factories, constantly able to generate emotions just by existing, by their ability to draw and create meaning through emotional experiences, and by creating memories – the clearest embodiment of a mortal’s attachment to time (which if you remember, I believe the Watchers have no concept of).

You cannot just tell a human to stop feelingcompletely (under normal circumstances anyway), but especially not if they remember something very very traumatic.

Besides, there ARE clear instances when some of the players remember the events of past seasons and are STILL not over them! Impulse and Tango still being bitter/distrustful after Bdubs betrayed each of them separately, Cleo distrusting BigB for the same reason, Scott referencing Flower Husbands a lot, Pearl feeling betrayed by Cleo/Scott when they supposedly broke up the Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girlboss trio at the start of DL, Bdubs’ “I wanna be your favorite son” in Secret Life, the list goes on. Note that I’ve only listed negative/bittersweet instances; there are plenty more cases of the players remembering past seasons and alliances positively which the Watchers may have ignored. The point is, if the Watchers truly consumed everyone’s emotions to the point of a clean slate, they haven’t exactly been thorough. Nor do I think it’s very conducive for them either – don’t they want players to have enduring, unending, unresolved pain, the sweetest of all (to them)?

No, I think the Watchers HAVE been erasing/suppressing the players’ memories – they’ve just been very selective which ones. Martyn’s said that the Watchers do not care what families or connections they separate so long as they get the people they want and the plans they want. I’m going to assume the players in my theory/the Eyes and Ears AU are exactly the same as their CC counterparts. In other words: they’ve stolen Grian away from his wife. They stole Martyn away from his and his daughter. Ditto with Skizz, Impulse, Tango etc. They stole Scar away from his family. Joel and Lizzie are the only couple they didn’t separate, perhaps because they needed both for their plans, and also so they can inflict the most torture on them by ripping them away from each other, over and over again. And in order to ensure the complete submissiveness of the players to the game, the Watchers have taken away their memories of their past lives, their families, basically anyone who isn’t a fellow player in the game. The Watchers don’t erase the memories of bonds between seasons, because it’s a pain to have to teach the humans how to play all over again, but they erase any memories they find disadvantageous to keeping the game running.

They might even go one step further: while they haven’t erased the players’ memories of who each other are (so as to not cause confusion), they do try to suppress important memories. Things like how they met, the times they confided in each other after a bad day, cried on each other’s shoulder, laughed in each other’s successes, the times they hung out with each other’s families. Imagine the different alliances constantly gravitating to each other, but never being able to remember why they care about each other so much. Imagine Bdubs’ “Come on, you know you and I go way back!” when trying to justify taking Cleo’s stuff, and Cleo laughs back, even though she can’t quite remember what exactly Bdubs has done to warrant that. Imagine Joel or Lizzie trying to remember why they loved each other so much.

They fight and kill some of their friends, and protect others, because��because why again? It’s for survival value, surely, so the Watchers whisper. It’s because the strong must congregate with the strong and leave the weak to die, surely. It’s because Martyn’s always been a loner, and always will be, and should remain so. So they tell him. So they whisper, this is a deathmatch for a reason.

Grian’s Fundamental Rebellion

I think all this is the real reason Grian is rebelling against the Watchers. The most immediate reason is obvious: he wants to free his friends from this death loop. But the deeper reason as to why he’s rebelled is that the Watchers are torturing and robbing his friends of their humanity. They’re taking a tight-knit group of friends who love and would do anything for each other, and turning them against each other in a cruel and unescapable death game. On TOP of this, the Watchers have constantly messed with their heads in order to make them obedient and submissive to their schemes and the worst of their human nature, trapping them in fear, pettiness and paranoia. Of course Grian is upset. Of course he wants to save them from this fate. It’s an insult to who he knows these people to be.

This all leaves Grian in a pretty precarious position. While outwardly the Watchers want to make him a lackey as the “game master”, both he and they know he really wants to save his friends (they probably see it as their ‘cattle’ showing a bit of resistance, which once again they need to suppress). And while on one hand he’s making the games fun to ease his friends’ pain and bring the best out of them, this is just a hotfix rather than a real solution. In order to really rescue the players, Grian’s got to get them to rebel against the Watchers as well. Refuse to play by the rules, by the expectation that they must murder and kill without mercy, without any attachment to their alliances or past friendships. Make everyone like Scott refusing to be the Boogeyman, or Skizz constantly trying to be wholesome (until the bloodlust gets the better of him anyway).

Ironically in order to achieve this, Grian’s best bet is to try to jog everyone’s lost memories of each other and the things they lost, both good and bad. But ultimately, this is going to make them (in the short term) suffer more. This is where you can insert all your Desert Duo/Flower Husband/whatever alliance you like most angst. But more practically, I like to imagine when “the cameras” are not watching, when Grian knows no one will notice or catch him, he sneaks around to the different alliances, even the ones he’s not part of, to ask them how they’re doing, if they remember anything from the past etc. (in a meta sense, the players edit and cut stuff from their videos all the time; who’s to say he isn’t trying to catch a quick chat while everyone’s mining?!) It also reflects in why Grian is constantly trying to make alliances with different people instead of just gravitate to one person, he needs to check on everyone and capitalize on every single opportunity. (besides the meta reason, being that cc!Grian wants to be creative, and sticking to the same person all the time isn’t very entertaining from a content creator perspective)

One last detail about the winners: I don’t have much to say about the fragments yet, because Martyn (sneaky boi) hasn’t yet revealed the significance of the fragments nor of their healing, although he has hinted Bad Things™ will happen if a player gets too fragmented. But I do think the winners are important: with the game finished, they give Grian a very short window of time to talk to one person directly, without Watcher interference. They’re always the last to be killed/swept away/revived by the Watchers, and I can imagine there’s a brief period of time when their souls are being transferred to The Void w/e where Grian can step in and interfere. In my theory, Grian passes on some sort of clue/push to the winners, as like a subtle message about what they can do to stand up to the Watchers. I’ll detail on what I think these individual messages were in part 2. Needless to say, 3rd Life was a traumatic experience for Grian for many reasons, but the nail in the coffin was the fact that he won, and therefore there was no way for him to pass a message onto anyone.

Conclusion

Hooooooo jeepers that was long @A@; Thank you so much for your patience reading this if you made it to the end, I really appreciate it. As I said, I’ve had these lore ideas bouncing in my head for a LONG time, and with the end of Secret Life I couldn’t get out of my head the different trends/symbolism that was popping out of an improv series. It honestly speaks a lot to how genius our favorite block dudes are at improv, that they can turn their improv nonsense into a coherent narrative. I really wanted to try my hand at fleshing out such a narrative, and with Martyn constantly drip-feeding lore to the fans, I had more than enough material to not just put out guesses but construct something a full XYZ. As I mentioned, I enjoy workshopping themes and characters a LOT more than just worldbuilding or “what if this or that” details in a vacuum, hence why I’ve written all that I have, so this was a fun exercise for me all around!

Next time in part 2 I talk about Character Development™, or character specific notes and details I’ve noticed and extrapolated from what we’ve seen of each individual player, as well as what their different arcs across the seasons mean for them within the lore. Stay tuned for another wordbarf!

Bonus list of works I was inspired by for this loredump:

Log Horizon

The Promised Neverland

Danganronpa (ironic as I’m not really a fan of this franchise, but the first game has an otherwise solid premise which I found really similar to the Life Series)

The Fate franchise (when Martyn asked “what’s Fate?” on the latest lore stream, let me tell you I couldn’t stop laughing; NO MARTYN DON’T GO INTO THE WEEB RABBIT HOLE)

Various amazing animatics from the Traffic fandom: Earth, Bang!, most of Melloz Heist’s works, and of course all the amazing fanart

Way too many conversations with my friends about fantasy species

#what have I done #trafficblr #traffic life #traffic smp #life series smp #life series #eyesandears #eyes and ears theory #inthelittlewood #thematic discussion #theorycrafting #3rd life smp #last life smp #double life smp #limited life smp #secret life smp #long post

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brf-rumortrackinganon · 9 months ago

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Ok so im the same person who’s been asking these endgame/superinjunction questions. I’m sorry if you may have to explain these stuff to me like a dummy, but i figured i’d rather ask than be stupid. So what you’re saying is there’s a possibility there really is some kind of deal between the palace and the murdoch establishment and it’s not simply a good old out of court settlement that involves monetary compensation, it also involves some sort of deal to supress the affair rumors? and this deal might have benefitted harry too if he waited? but also h&m and scobie believe the deal also involves bad press for the sussexes?

No worries, anon! Ask as many questions as you like. (I know I can talk in circles when I start rambling. I've even confused myself.)

I'll take your ask point by point because I think that may be more helpful and less rambly. I've also done a bit more research into what actually happened in court last year and that may be the missing piece to clear everything up.

there’s a possibility there really is some kind of deal between the palace and the murdoch establishment and it’s not simply a good old out of court settlement that involves monetary compensation, it also involves some sort of deal to supress the affair rumors?

Yes and no. What we know about the deal is in 2012ish, an agreement was made, authorized by The Queen, that the royal family wouldn't pursue litigation or claims of litigation against the News Group Newspapers (which is owned by Murdoch) until all of the other cases in the phone hacking scandal had been resolved first in exchange for an apology and a settlement (i.e. cash).

The affair rumors were not part of the original 2012 deal because, well, there were no affair rumors in 2012. Let's leave that aside for a second.

So after The Queen makes the deal with NGN/Murdoch, the BRF basically sits back and waits for all the phone hacking lawsuits and court cases to resolve. This takes about 8 years. In 2019 or 2020, NGN/Murdoch calls up the BRF and says "we're ready. Let's talk." They meet and start negotiations for the settlement. William eventually walks away with X, cash in hand.

We don't know what the terms of that settlement is. There's speculation it was $80-$90 million because someone looked up the NGN/Murdoch financial reports after Harry spilled the tea and found NGN's profits dropped by $80-$90 million. But we don't actually know.

Now going back to the affair rumors. They started in February/March 2019. Soon as it started, all the royal reporters and society reporters immediately began investigating. They were crawling all over Norfolk and talking to everyone/anyone they could but they couldn't find any evidence and kept digging, thinking it was a massive coverup. Eventually they couldn't find anything and they all stopped talking about an affair or rumors of an affair, except for one: Dan Wootton and The Sun, which is owned by NGN/Murdoch. Wootton kept investigating and kept talking about it, until all of a sudden he stopped, in June 2019. Never brought it up again.

My personal theory is as William/KP and NGN began meeting about the settlement, William had some kind of leverage that made them realize 'oh we fucked up with the affair rumors' and it was addressed in the settlement he walked away with. I've no actual idea what the leverage could be - maybe Christian Jones had something on Wootton? Maybe William did the "let's tell people fake stories and see which one gets published" thing (he's done it before) and it fingered people other than Wootton? I've no actual idea if there was any leverage in the first place. I've no actual idea if it contributed to the settlement. All I know is that The Sun stopped talking about it around the time things may have started moving to execute the 2012 deal and the timing seems important.

and this deal might have benefitted harry too if he waited?

Yes, absolutely. When The Queen initially struck the deal, it applied to all members of the royal family - so William, Kate, and Harry were covered by it. What's important to remember is that the deal was contingent on waiting out all the other lawsuits and cases first. So had Harry just waited, he would've been able to split the money William walked away with.

Instead, in 2017, Harry started getting antsy about how long it was taking to close everything out. He started pressuring the BRF to push NGN to move faster - he didn't want NGN/Murdoch's people covering his engagement, his wedding, his future children, etc. He wanted to ban them from certain events as retribution/revenge for violating his privacy and he believed that NGN was dragging out their lawsuits and cases to continue covering the royal family. (Quick aside here: Harry and Meghan did not invite the rota or members of the press to cover their wedding, as is their prerogative, but it's thought the reasoning behind this decision was because of Harry's anger at NGN's phone hacking and what he perceived was a lack of consequences.)

This goes on for a couple years: Harry keeps pressuring the lawyers to force NGN to settle and the lawyers kept saying 'no, we need to wait, remember the deal.' Summer 2019 rolls around and Harry has had enough. It's his money, he wants it now! So then Harry pulls out of the 2012 deal and begins filing two lawsuits.

Lawsuit #1: Against NGN/Murdoch

Lawsuit #2: Against MGN/The Mirror

I don't remember which one gets filed and looking it up sends me down a wormhole I can't afford to go down right now. I think the MGN/Mirror lawsuit is part of the cases that are announced in September 2019 while they're in Africa and the NGN/Murdcoch lawsuit comes some time later.

Now there are three separate cases: a) William's settlement which is still bound to the 2012 deal, b) Harry's lawsuit #1 against NGN that's part of the bundle with Hugh Grant and Elton John and all those other celebs, and c) Harry's lawsuit #2 against MGN/Mirror.

So as Harry's lawsuits begin to working through the court system, William is negotiating the terms of his settlement and at some point in 2020, he finally gets his payout and it's a big one.

Fast-forward 3 years. It's 2023 and Harry's lawsuits are finally getting its day in court. In April 2023, NGN/Murdoch is arguing that Harry's lawsuit is past the statute of limitations* and should be dismissed. Harry says 'no, actually, I couldn't file my lawsuit earlier because of a deal my granny made that I didn't consent to.' As part of that testimony, Harry has to describe the deal and that's how we know what happened in 2012 and that William got his payout in 2020. The judge decides 'Harry's right' and finds in his favor: the NGN lawsuit stays. That was in April 2023, I believe. In June 2023, Harry's back in court to take the stand (the lawsuit goes horribly awry).

*I think they call it something else in the UK though. The actual phrase "statute of limitations" didn't come up in any of my research. I'm using it here as a shorthand because it's easier for us Americans to understand. (Apologies if you're not American, anon!)

In July 2023, Harry is back in court for lawsuit #2 against MGN. MGN makes the same argument: it's past the statute of limitations and should be dismissed. Unfortunately for Harry, this judge agrees with MGN and his case is dismissed. So lawsuit #2 is done.

In December 2023, the judge from lawsuit #1, the NGN/Murdoch case, rules that the phone hacking was "widespread and habitual" awards Harry damages of $175K(ish). That's not enough. Harry wants more money, so lawyers do lawyer things and eventually, last week, Harry finally settles with NGN for damages ($175Kish) and legal fees ($500Kish).

So, long story short is this: If Harry had waited for the 2012 deal to play out, he would've walked away splitting $X million with William in 2020. Instead, because he was too impatient and too greedy, he's walking away with less than $700,000 in 2024.

How do you like them apples.

but also h&m and scobie believe the deal also involves bad press for the sussexes?

No. They do not think the 2012 deal leading to the 2020 settlement involves bad press for the sussexes.

They think William used the bad press for the Sussexes to kill media coverage of the affair rumors in 2019. They think Christian Jones made a deal with Wootton/The Sun back in 2019 involving bad press for the Sussexes to stop writing about Rose and William had approved of it because William didn't immediately fire Christian as Harry wanted when he told William of his suspicions of Christian's relationship with Wootton/The Sun.

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

So what actually happens in Endgame is that Scobie speculates that connections between

an abandoned investigation of the affair rumors

bad press for the Sussexes,

an embargoed report on the behavior of British newspapers (which may or may not be a superinjunction), and

William not doing anything to address Harry's concerns about Christian's relationship to Wootton

is the clearest signal that William is using the power of his position as heir to control, suppress, and influence how the media covers him. It's an implication that the power has gone to William's head.

I definitely muddied the waters for you by thinking it may all be connected to the phone hacking deal. There's no evidence that says it is - that was just me thinking "it can't be a coincidence these four things are happening at relatively the same time, and then they all just kinda stop at the same time, the same time that we now know William received a huge cash payout."

I hope this untangles things for you, anon. If it doesn't, please keep asking questions. (If anything, this round of questions led to some research that helped untangle the lawsuits for me so they're as much a chance for me to learn as they are for you!)

#ask #brf

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bestworstcase · 6 months ago

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So, I recently had a discussion with a friend regarding your angle that Salem respects humans/Faunus, convinced Summer to get onboard with her plan and has the explicit goal of taking out the gods to save Remnant.

Conceptually I don't strictly mind any of this, its certainly not impossible for reasons you've outlined and it'd be suitably subversive of CRWBY to take the woman scorned/heretics villain and have her not be about that but some way bigger issue.

However, I run into a bit of a hurdle with embracing the concepts because it always hits what I deem to be some narrative and structural hurdles. Not one's that "Can't" be overcome, but that I am unsure I have seen be covered in outlines and theories.

My main concerns tie into a few angles that I'll try to break up for clarity:

Focus A big concern for me with the current theory is that it feels like it shifts the focus of the story away from the main characters.

You know how people treated Ironwood or Adam, or Ozpin & Qrow like they were the main characters and RWBY were or should be just supporting characters in their narrative?

While I don't think this is intentional on your part, it does beg the question of how this would be avoided.

Shaggy Dog Story Tied into the above is the potential for it to make the main characters journey feel a bit like a Shaggy Dog story. IE, a story where a lot of bad stuff happens for no reasn and they'd be better off having stayed home.

Again, I don't think this is intentional.

But, if Salem has a plan to take down the gods, if this plan is good and workable and would succeed... Haven't they made everything worse by fighting her and dragging it out?

Agency & of not and Salem is happy about them rallying the world behind them because then she can do this alone, we go back to the Focus issue.

Salem seems to become the main character and the story feels less about RWBY and more about them being caught up in Salem's narrative.

Consistency Meanwhile from Salem's angle, it does beg some questions about her thought processes. I can accept the idea she is varying shades of paranoid ad not used to being trusted...

But at the same time she has an inner circle she trusts a fair bit and is willing to reach out and align with large organizations like the White Fang, or try to cut deals with Atlas. Plus she might legit have Summer on her side.

So the idea I've seen proposed that she feels compelled to go to war, that she cannot envision another way. When most of the world doesn't know or care about the gods, when she has humans & Faunus on her side already who could speak for her.

Simply put it feels inconsistent to say that Salem is pathologically incapable of reaching out to others. She certainly struggles with communicating, but she can do so and can get people on her side.

Satisfaction This one is a bit more vague, but the general point is I am unsure what a satisfying conclusion with the seemingly proposed ideas looks like.

If Salem is right, then RWBY and co are to one degree or another supporting characters, whose actions had little impact. Or their narrative significance is in basically clarifying that Salem is correct and should be worked with. Or perhaps serving as her nominal therapists/communication advisors.

I swear I am not trying to be reductive, I am just basing this on conversations I've had and posts I've seen.

But yeah, basically I am wondering how you envision things going down that ensures RWBY remains the focal characters and that their journey and decisions have real meaning. While keeping the nuanced Salem and ensuring she doesn't come across as inconsistent. I am sure it can be done, and have tinkered with some myself, but most of them don't seem to in the direction I've seen suggested by others.

rubs hands. all good questions

#1: focus

i will say i do think the story of rwby is foundationally about ozlem—in the sense that the plot of the story revolves around this ancient and deeply personal conflict between them that is tearing the world apart and the narrative goal is their reconciliation, because you can’t have true peace until These Two immortal fucks stop fighting—and that team rwby’s the main characters because they’re the ones whom the narrative has, in essence, asked to put the broken pieces of this fairytale back together the right way.

as ruby herself says, remnant isn’t like a fairytale but that’s why they’re here, to make it better. on a character level that’s a statement about how ruby sees the world, her youthful optimism mingled with sadness, but on the thematic level it’s a very. literal description of what the story’s about.

points at oz. look at where he started, look at where he is now. this man is under a curse designed to make it impossible for him to change and at the top of the show he has not fundamentally changed in any sense except gradual decay for, literally thousands of years. right. and then he admits ruby into his monster hunting school two years early because she has special magic eyes and he’s in need of a new chosen one since her mother disappeared, and then salem sends cinder to maul him, and—oops!—his “simple soul” who was never supposed to become anything more than another symbolic guardian is the one actually. like. making all the decisions.

once he gets oscar to mistral his “authority” over the gang lasts for exactly as long as ruby trusts him, which is [checks notes] One Month and Two Weeks. and then she explodes his whole situation by asking jinn what he’s hiding, which incites his long period of self-reflection while oscar becomes more oscar followed by the atonement arc in v8 and now he’s in vacuo fighting against this curse tooth and nail.

now ruby did not Set Out to wrench ozma free of his divinely-enforced rut, she just did the protagonist thing of seeing a problem (bad guys attacked her school, and they’re planning to attack the other schools too!) and trying to fix it (she won’t let anyone else die!). but directly because of her actions, oz undergoes this seismic character development precipitating his part in the Ozlem Reconciliation.

and ruby is also indirectly the cause of the (subtler but just as necessary) character development salem has undergone since her proper introduction in v4 because all of that is constructed on the foundation of cinder’s near-death atop beacon tower.

so v1-8 are—in this very high level, bird’s eye view of the narrative—about ruby being more or less the butterfly who flaps her wings, by just Being There and responding to the events unfolding around her as best she can, having these cascading impacts on the world and on ozlem. thats step one.

step two is the ever after, where all of team rwby but ruby in particular start having to confront. The Ideology. of ozma’s mandate which they’ve not yet thought about because they’re focused on the more immediately urgent problems of Not Dying and Not Letting Innocent People Die. so they need to get a little time to stop and breathe and feel the weight of “atlas is gone and salem has two of the four relics and what are we going to do” before they meet the demiurge who tells them, very gently, that the god of light is wrong and that they can’t solve this conflict with more conflict.

and then they go right to vacuo, which is on the brink of civil war. this is step three. they need to figure out how to resolve the situation in vacuo, and this is why i do not think salem will arrive in vacuo until the end of v10 if at all; vacuo is sort of a proving ground for team rwby.

can they take what they learned in the ever after and put it into practice in vacuo? can they make that mental leap from ozpin’s idea of unity (conflict avoidance, fear of disagreement, keeping secrets and hiding problems to maintain the appearance of peace while propping the whole system up with warriors trained to kill monsters and not ask questions) to true balance (which is messy and complicated and requires talking instead of fighting, negotiation and compromise instead of placation or condemnation, honesty and trust instead of manipulation and secrecy)?

their coalition wants to protect vacuo from salem. the crown also wants to protect vacuo from salem. the two sides of this nascent civil war want the same thing, but have very different ideas about how to achieve it. v10 is about team rwby solving this, finding common cause with the crown, in preparation for step four.

which is finding common cause with salem. they want to save remnant from destruction. she also wants to save remnant from destruction, but has very different ideas about how to do it. The Rest Of The Show is about bridging that divide. she isn’t the main character so much as the final goal.

#2: shaggy dog story

following from that: i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, salem can’t get the Good Ending by herself either. i think whatever plan she has for dealing with the gods is probably something that will work but, gestures at the apocalyptic destruction she’s leaving strewn in her wake, she does not care how much blood she has to spill to get there, and the best case scenario for her if she continues on this path is that the gods are gone forever but the entire world reviles her and she’ll find no quarter anywhere.

right-but-evil vs wrong-but-good.

now in the abstract, if the relics had been just sitting on an unguarded plinth somewhere and team rwby had taken it upon themselves to keep them away from her… then sure, they’d have been better off staying home to let her scoop the damn things up and stab light in the heart, figuratively speaking. but ozpin had the relics locked down inside fortresses guarded by children, three in the middle of major urban population centers. salem. can’t get to them by herself without killing a whole lot of people.

so if nothing else, if literally nothing else, team rwby saved thousands of people who would have died in mantle/atlas and i am pretty sure they’re going to save thousands of people who are now trapped under mountain glenn, to bring that full circle. EVEN IF making peace with salem were to look like the heroes just adopting her plan with no notes and handing over the last relic, they’d still be the sole reason hundreds of thousands of people survived to see the world get saved.

but i can also guarantee that’s… not what making peace with salem will look like. the stakes are very high for everyone and there is a lot that needs to be addressed. what happens to the grimm? to the huntsmen academies? how does her vision of a new world conflict with the future they want? (how do they deal with the way fear of collective punishment shapes her plans, because i do think her plan for dealing with the gods depends on the whole world being credibly united against her as a failsafe against round two of “we killed the world to punish you”?) what compromises do they demand from her? how do they challenge her? etc.

this is a type of narrative arc rwby has already proven to be pretty good at handling—look at ‘cordially invited,’ look at the whole amity-or-mantle split underpinning the plot of v8. there are even more moving pieces in negotiating with salem than in either of those combined, and team rwby—by virtue of being the main characters and by virtue of being the ones who brought the vacuo coalition and the crown together—will be the ones shepherding all of this.

#3 agency

salem is pleased about the broadcast for, i believe, two reasons:

in the short term, it hands her an opportunity to force the sword out of the vault without risking cinder’s life on a silver platter, because if she takes a rain check on showing up to be the Great Evil they’ll eventually have to mount a counteroffensive to hold that coalition together, and

in the longer term, once she has all four relics, if the entire world fucking hates her then the gods are less likely to kill them all to punish her if she fails.

this is also why she razes vale to the ground (and the first is another reason i anticipate a lot of survivors trapped in mountain glenn—hostages).

i don’t see that either of these reasons reduce the agency of the main characters or make salem the main character, any more than e.g. cinder’s pleasure when the black queen virus hops from ozpin’s desk to ironwood’s scroll makes her the main character of the beacon arc. villains have motivations and agency as characters too and one of the basic building blocks of narrative is action-reaction pushing and pulling between hero and villain.

ruby takes action. salem reacts to turn it to her advantage, because that’s how she operates. the vacuo coalition will react to her destruction of vale (and probable hostage-taking) with either a counteroffensive or an attempt to save people without handing over the sword, or both, or take the riskier but higher reward option of talking to her, which she doesn’t expect (and may react quite badly to, because of the second reason).

the reason i discuss salem’s motivations and plans so disproportionately in comparison to the heroes is that she’s more opaque and teasing out what she wants and why she does things is a lot more challenging than it is for the main characters; they are, always, trying to protect everyone they can from those who do harmful destructive things. there is an abundance of other very interesting things to talk about with regard to the mains, but within this broad overarching narrative their motivation is Extremely Simple. they don’t want bad things to happen to people.

so when it comes to speculation, if you can puzzle out “what will salem do?” it tends to be self-evident what the good guys will do in response. because the response is always “stop salem” and will continue to be that until it turns into “help salem,” which is really just a different means to the same end of protecting people from salem but one that requires her to cooperate, and she isn’t going to cooperate if they don’t surprise her.

it’s similar to “what is ozpin hiding from us?” in that there’s another key change coming—so far salem has taken the initiative in every arc. she attacks beacon, she attacks haven, she attacks atlas, she razed vale. villainous action, heroic reaction. they need to, in essence, react and then act in a way that she doesn’t anticipate. and then she reacts.

but narratively, the way this plays out—the focus and momentum of the story is with the main characters. it’s going to cut away to salem only as much as is needed to set up her reaction when the main characters take the initiative. the story is how the main characters get to the point where they can do that.

#4 character consistency

the key point here is that all of salem’s relationships within her inner circle (and more broadly the factions she aligns herself with) are strictly transactional; she is able to trust and feel secure in these relationships only as long as they don’t care about her and she doesn’t care about them. but the instantshe becomes consciously aware of caring about cinder in 6.4 she goes kind of nuts.

dropping everything to rush to atlas after saying she was going to leave cinder to toil in isolation. then being mean to her. then doubling down on being mean. then folding like wet cardboard when cinder called her bluff, landing on “good for you for defying me when i was cruel,” and immediately razing vale rather than send cinder after the summer maiden.

this is what salem caring looks like; going to extremely destructive lengths to protect someone whom she is, in almost the same breath, trying to shove away. remember all the ruby-salem parallels that began to really erupt in v9? “if you stay with me, you’re going to end up dead, too” is one of them. salem:

lost her mother in childbirth. her father blamed her and locked her up with a wet nurse from infancy because he wanted nothing to do with her except insofar as he could treat her like a defective imitation of her mother once she grew older

grew up imprisoned in a tower, watching her father execute not just anyone who tried to help her but anyone who spoke to her; being caught offering her kindness was a crime punishable by death.

fell in love with a man who then promptly grew sick and died, and got brutally punished by the gods for asking him to be restored to life.

told people her story and gathered a following of a few hundred, maybe a few thousand people who agreed to stand with her against the gods, and the gods murdered not only these people but also everyone in the world, to punish her defiance.

refused, millions of years later, to help ozma enact his mandate from those gods; he left her and they attacked each other and fought so brutally that their children (and entire household) died in the crossfire and their whole kingdom collapsed overnight.

has spent decades watching ozpin treat children as expendable cannon fodder, bloody grist in the mill of an imaginary war to get rid of her.

salem blames herself for at least the latter two (#5 is made clear by the framing in 6.4 and underscored by paralleling with jaune in 9.7; #4 is implied by salem glossing over her rebellion out of fear that ozma would reject her, a fear she could only feel if she felt guilt), and i will not be remotely surprised if it turns out she’s blaming herself for the first three as well. certainly ozpin implies in his commentary on ‘the girl in the tower’ that the blood her father spilled is on her hands because she asked for help.

the point is, i don’t think it’s possible to understand salem as a character without considering what it would do to a person for this to be the defining narrative of her life, literally from birth, that she is the reason others die. she killed her mother; it’s her fault that her father murdered anyone who showed her kindness; she was selfish and arrogant to plead for her lover’s life; her turning other people against the gods who enforce this rule is cause for genocide; her children are dead because she is a monster. if you stay with me you’re going to end up dead too.

ozma was her last and only hope—the one who saved her from the tower, who knew her before, who chose to come back for her—that anyone might ever see something in her worth helping, worth loving, worth protecting. his betrayal shattered her trust, but that isn’t why salem is the way she is.

she always felt unlovable. she always felt monstrous. the foundation of her identity is guilt. she is the scapegoat. she is the reason everyone else must die. and it’s her fate to be the one left standing with all that blood smeared on her hands, because she is always, always the justification for the killing. all this endless death! salem calmed down when yang spat that in her face instead of getting angry because it rang true to her.

it isn’t that she’s incapable of trusting or making emotional connections or seeking common cause with others—although her preferred method for doing so begins with inflicting violence on herself or inviting others to inflict violence on her so there is severe dysfunction there—but rather she feels a deep conviction that doing so is materially harmful, that she endangers people by asking for help, and therefore that no one who understood her could ever want to help her.

if no one sees her clearly, if she performs her role as the fairytale witch and allows people to cast whatever distorted reflections of themselves onto her that they like, she can maintain the emotional detachment that makes her feel safe. as long as she is alone, no matter how painful it is, she feels safe.

but once she notices herself caring about cinder… she desperately wants to keep cinder safe and that motivates her cruelty, because if she cares about cinder then cinder will, eventually, be killed to punish salem. and if cinder knew that she would run, and she should run while she still can. this is woven into the foundations of how salem sees herself.

#5 satisfaction

the conceit of this reading is that there is one way to resolve the central narrative conflict, which is the war between ozma and salem. the Problem Of Salem is that she cannot be killed and never gives up, so even if they defeated her now and sealed her away in a vault somewhere or whatever, nothing would really change. the world would still be broken and endangered by this conflict. oscar would die; ozma would gradually decay again until he became another ozpin.

moreover, it’s becoming increasingly clear that they can’t defeat salem. oz wiped out hundreds of thousands if not millions of grimm in the blink of an eye—and half the fandom kept treating that like the inflection point, as if salem had exhausted all of her resources and now had nothing left to bring to vacuo—and then what happened? she turned around a few weeks later and flattened vale.

if this were a conflict ozlem could resolve on their own, they would have done so long ago and there wouldn’t be a story, or at least not this story. the reason the story is happening right now is that team rwby are the ones who can make what needs to happen, happen.

the only thing that makes this narrative different from a bog standard fantasy war story is that, well, as ‘for every life’ put it, some heroes chose the wrong side. so instead of a straightforward narrative about good guys persevering through trials and tribulations until they triumph over the bad guys it’s a narrative about the good guys—team rwby—learning that doing the right thing is actually really difficult and complicated, because there’s no such thing as pure evil and because the things they were taught to believe aren’t always true.

salem is evil (she kills people) but right (she refuses to surrender remnant to a genocidal tyrant) and just a person (she deserves compassion as does everyone). ozma is good (he wants to save people) but wrong (he serves the genocidal tyrant) and just a person (he deserves compassion as does everyone).

narratively, the purpose of team rwby is to take right and good and put them back together. with ozma this means team rwby is the driving force that causes him first to be honest with himself and others, then to rebel against his role as the god of light’s servant—because his problem is that he’s wrong. with salem, team rwby first have to tear down all the obfuscating false narratives built up around her (this arc began in v6 and is ongoing) and then hold out a hand and challenge her to meet them halfway. which she will, because the cinder stuff is challenging her in the same way that “what is ozpin hiding from us?” challenged oz.

this is not anything different from say, what blake does narratively for ilia or what penny and weiss do for winter, or what oscar tries to do for ironwood, or what ruby and yang do for raven, or what ruby does in forgiving neo. it’s at a larger scale because salem is a central character—the main villain—but the same in principle. they open a door and she has to walk through it.

this remains true even if salem is notionally the one who initiates the conversation, e.g. by revealing the existence of hostages in mountain glenn and demanding the sword, because if she does that then obviously team rwby can’t and won’t play on her terms. this remains true even if salem initiates the conversation in earnest, e.g. by putting all her cards on the table and asking for help, because the focus of the narrative then will be on team rwby grappling with the very daunting question of whether to take the risk of hearing her out and the emotional stakes of agreeing to negotiate.

again, gestures at jax and gillian. the crown wants exactly the same thing that the heroes do, but their methods are destructive and harmful and while they might be able to achieve a victory against salem if they won, it would be a very pyrrhic victory indeed. this is precisely the narrative set up regarding salem and dealing with the crown is the last set of training wheels for team rwby before they’re ready to tackle the Salem Problem.

it may help to think of it in terms of negotiation being equivalent to the battles in a standard fantasy war story. typically you would expect the main character to face a series of increasingly difficult fights against increasingly dangerous opponents until they’re ready to bring the fight to the villain, and then they win. if they lose a battle they’ll train and become stronger and eventually face that opponent again and win this time. yeah?

well. rwby is doing that but with talking. weiss and blake have their blow up fight over weiss’s bigotry in v1 and weiss has to listen and apologize. v2-5 team rwby lose every important fight against salem’s agents except for the one that forces qrow to reveal himself and bring RNJR into the loop and the one where yang confronts raven and persuades her mother to give her the lamp. v6, ruby triumphs over cordovin and the bees defeat adam only after making a serious effort to reason with both of them, and then the leviathan is defeated because cordovin ultimately took what ruby said to her to heart. v7 is centrally about trying to talk ironwood down from the fascism ledge and get everyone to the table to negotiate. v8 is in many ways an examination of why they couldn’t get through to ironwood in the end—that intense fear of division and consequent inability to handle disagreement constructively—while setting up, through salem’s erratic treatment of cinder, the idea that salem is not beyond reason or incapable of change. v9 is literally just an extended training montage where they practice empathy and critical thinking and learn to ask questions and listen instead of making snap judgments.

see how it builds? their journey isn’t about becoming better fighters so they can beat salem, it’s about developing the skills and perspective they need to talk to her. but that really only works narratively if salem wants something that the heroes can find common cause with—there has to be a connection, something they can listen and then say “we want that too, so work with us” about. in the same way thatif this were a story about defeating salem, she would have to have a weakness, something they could do to negate her power or make her mortal again, so that defeating her isn’t impossible.

and again if you have trouble envisioning how this can happen without displacing team rwby as the main characters, look at how things shake out in v7 and v8 with the negotiations and disagreements the kids deal with in those volumes. because those are preludes for averting the vacuan civil war in v10 (or ending it in a truce) and that’s the prelude to dealing with salem.

#mainly i just don’t speculate much abt what team rwby does because their role seems self-evident to me #they stop salem by helping her. this is made clear in 6.3 and reiterated in 9.10 #but how do you help salem? that depends on her and what she wants and what she’ll do with the chance given

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7ndipity · 1 year ago

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Study Date

Jin x Reader

Summary: What happens when your best friend sets you up on a study date with your campus crush?

Warnings: not proofread

A/N: Thanks to the lovely anon who requested this! I love the idea of college au Jin, I wanna write more for him!😊

Masterlist

Requests are open

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You were going to kill Jungkook for this.

It'd been his idea to suggest a group study session, only for it to turn out to be just you, him and Jin, and then to bail out after only a half hour.

You knew he'd done it intentionally, as one of your best friends he was more than well aware of the crush you harbored for the upperclassmen, and had decided you needed a push to spend more time together, rather than just gawk at him from the sidelines.

"I'm bored." Jin groaned, slumping down in his chair, trying to get your attention

"C'mon, y/n, please?"

"I thought you assignments to study for?" You asked, still not looking up at him.

"I finished already."

"Then why didn't you leave with Jungkook?" You asked.

"Because he was going to the gym, and I'd much rather stay here with you than go sweat with him."

"Wow, that was almost a complement." You mused.

"You're almost welcome." He chuckled.

He let you work in peace for a while, but after a bit, it seemed like the more you tried to focus, the less info you seemed to take in.

"You've been staring at that same page for almost ten minutes." He observed in a low voice.

"I have not!" You argued. "How do you know?"

"Because I've been staring at you for over ten minutes." He said simply, ignoring the way your eyes widened at the admission. "You need a break, how does coffee sound?"

"Like heaven." You admitted, trying to stifle a yawn that would only further prove his point. With approaching midterms, you had been basically running on the stuff.

"There's a coffee shop not far from here that's good, let's go." He suggested.

You packed your things away and followed him out, getting slightly flustered when he offered to carry your bag for you.

"So what's your major? I realized I never asked." He asked as you walked along, dodging puddles left over from the morning rain.

"Litterature, what about you?"

"Film theory." He answered.

You found it surprisingly easy to talk with him, quickly finding similar interests that you had in common and sharing stories about your other friends. Although you ran in the same circle of friends, you'd never actually never really had any one on one conversations like this until now.

Before either of you realized, it had grown dark outside the cafe and you had to leave, knowing your roommates would worry if you were out too late.

"This was fun." He said as he walked you home.

"Yeah, although, we didn't actually get much studying done." You said.

"You wanna meet up again tomorrow?" He asked. "I promise I'll let you study this time."

"Really?" You looked up at him.

"Yeah, I-I liked getting to spend time with you." He said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

"Okay. I'd like that." You agreed, earning a bright smile from him.

"Good, me too."

Taking a sudden burst of courage, you leaned up on your tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. "Thank you for the coffee." You said before retreating.

"I-um- yeah, no problem." He stuttered, ears suddenly turning bright red.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah see you tomorrow." He agreed starting turn and walk away.

"Jin!"

"What?" He said, spinning back around immediately.

"My bag." You pointed to where it still hung on his shoulder.

"Right! Sorry, here." He quickly passed it to you before nodding to you again. "See you tomorrow."

You watched him leave, unable to hide your growing smile.

Maybe you wouldn't kill Jungkook for this after all.

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mochamoth · 2 months ago

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samarina magical girl headcanons?

I have a few headcanons so far and the whole plot is kinda done! Uhh sorry this is a bit of a rant in advance! Feel free to just skip to the headcanons, the order doesn't matter too much (also mild spoilers for the canon gamee!!)

Backstory:

So this takes place sometime in the early 2000s, not modern but also not the canon 1940s time era. The backstories are pretty much the same except the Ninth Circle has an even sharper eye on Samarie. At some point Marina catches Samarie stalking her and gives her a talking to. But, after several apologies and begging from Samarie, Marina decided to get to know her a lil better. They slowly become friends overtime until some plot stuff happens and they die. I don't have a solid idea yet but I was thinking what if the Ninth Circle was more of a lab than a "school". Still a cult but y'know the vibes are a bit different. They catch the two running away and threaten to shoot Marina if she doesn't turn Samarie back in. Marina refuses, they shoot, Samarie takes the shot for her but unfortunately they just shoot Marina anyways afterwards.

Somewhat luckily Samarie was close enough with the Gods to make some sorta deal with Rher specifically (for arguments sake let's pretend in this au Rher is still semi close with humans). Marina and her would be allowed to live and be resurrected, in exchange for.. Well idk yet. I was thinking something to do with Moonscorching. Maybe every night they turn, or every few days, full moon, you know something like that.

So they're brought back to life, but both have MUCH stronger magic. Not only that but Samarie doesn't feel as sick as she used to be. The two later on realize they're stereotypical ✨️magical girls✨️ and fight against "villains" ig. The villains would be actual enemies from the games. Uhh I might add other characters to this au later on, but for now it's just my own little corny ship indulgent au so yeah!

(Sorry for any grammar errors I am tired lol)

Actual Headcanons:

Samarie uses a Star themed staff while Marina uses a Moon themed staff. I just thought it fit their souls aesthetic wise!

Samarie has extremely powerful magic, but is a terrible fighter. She's clumsy, messy, and a nervous wreck. Marina is a bit weaker magic-wise, but is wayy better in combat. She's more confident, focused, and skilled.

I think it'd be funny as shit to make Black Kalev their little sidekick.

They're constantly saving eachother. Usually it's Marina saving Samarie, but if Marina is in danger Samarie fucking kicks ass. She's still a crazy girl after all.

They have more stereotypical sparkly magic cuz.. Well magical girl. But they can still use other canon spells. It's just less convenient.

Their staffs will transform when they do. When they're not in their combat fits the staffs both turn into crystals. Both wear them around their necks like necklaces.

They can't use the gifted magic without the staffs. Basically they're witches in a way.

They do flirt on the battlefield cuz that's romantic imo. It's more Marina flirting and Samarie being a gay mess but that still counts!

In this au they're not dating (yet). Samarie obviously has a massive crush (or obsession) with Marina, and again after becoming friends Marina develops a crush back on her.

This has nothing, and I mean NOTHING to do with the au, Samarie has autism. I didn't know where else I'd share that hc so taking my chance rn.

Samarie still isn't used to the outfit change. Especially Marina's outfit (she is a lesbian disaster).

They rest and cuddle together after long battles. It'd be cute okay?

I might add more later (in which case I will post), and yes this is out of character. Sorry abt that. Uhh also I've never seen a magical girl anime. Like ever! I want to. I really wanna watch a few, just haven't gotten around to it.

#au #magical girl au #headcanons #samarina #samarie #marina domek #samarie f&h #f&h samarie #marina f&h #f&h marina #toxic yuri #ranting

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basedkikuenjoyer · 6 months ago

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Motherlode

And here I find myself again, circling back to the same basic thoughts about this arc that really only stretched itself out to about double what I and most others predicted. You get my angle right? While the world's watching, while the fandom's watching someone not named Nico Robin give a little nuggie of Void Century lore...200 chapters after Bakura Town, 100 after Kiku's fall, in a chapter after one with a folk lore allusion title. Stussy breaks the seal. Speaking more or less the same trauma. It's even the same central idea of Wano; ensuring the Straw Hat's escape was Stella's final command. It all runs on that old school Japanese take on ideal feminity; "A woman's happiness is taking care of those she loves." Self-sacrifice to repay kindness towards you.

Bonney has so much to compare and contrast, you're a solid candidate for someone who could kinda fuse Kiku & Yamato, but Stussy? You're our Tamataebako buddy with the same eyes. A trans woman and a clone, can't say it isn't relatable and they both have a demonic facade without an ounce of action girl tomboy tropes. Stussy can nab that torch now just like Bonney could have. But you still exist in that space. Why are we doing you now, after the others? We still have cards unplayed from Wano. When their theme is subtlety one should expect waiting until the final phase.

This chapter gives me a lot that has me excited.

We have a whole theme this chapter of people responding again and doubling down on the idea these different faces we know are reacting differently to Vegapunk's speech. Things different fans are reacting to. Wano the Joyboy lore, Carrot the weaponry, but it's one of those simple tricks that fuel a big deception. None of it is really that much deeper than clarifying what we as readers sorta knew. Of course, for Wano...it isn't the full group but we see a group. It'd make perfect sense for Kiku to be smiling and holding a tray with the implication she brought the dango, she could appear any example of this cover serial...but this is how you have to look at things when strategic absence is an established motif. Oh, and I guess Shino just got to stay youthful. Rock on mature woman, enjoy it.

The world is merely learning more or less what we know. The real story is still playing out. Stussy, the escape, this time we aren't breaking away. It's almost like a good rap track where the first two verses are smooth and melodic leading into a rapid-fire third verse to really hammer the message. I think we'll stick with that as the message unfolds. But this arc has just enough gas it's the opening act not the final point in and of itself. What makes me feel confident this time? Glad you asked:

Nojiko caring more about the farm bolsters this and her alone would have me freaking the fuck out but...bruh. Miss Goldenweek? Goldie!? Marianne and her hilarious in hindsight apple hat? Peep the suitcase, they're leaving to find Cross Guild. But yeah! Miss Friggin Goldenweek and Nojiko have an interesting response to this worldwide message. I love it too. They don't really seem to care much. Nami's big sister and a mellow girl that was one of Luffy's most vexing opponents. She got a cover serial, this little lady was always an oddball waiting to surprise us. For now though this is dope. Don't let her demeanor fool you, she was clearly a top agent for a reason and the reasons really aren't that different than the archetype I see out of Kiku.

What specifically does it though is how she's paired with the reaction focusing on the common people killed as collateral damage. Now let's take it altogether. Because something else going on under the message brings us back to where this felt most powerful:

Uh-oh. The big cloud layer is under attack. The Elbaf ship is getting surrounded. What if they weren't enough? For all the talk about other stuff that could happen if the Giants are the penultimate surprise addition...is it just gonna be the Grand Fleet after all? They make so much sense big picture. Robonosuke is still hanging around at the edge of all this too. Because things are getting dire on Egghead underneath the lore dump.

All in all...I love this shit right now because it's exactly what I've been on about since Wano ended. Wall to wall this chapter. 1115 is a straight banger.

#one piece #chapter 1115 #post-wano musings #miss goldenweek #kin'emon #Momonosuke #Obama #Shinobu #Nami #stussy #kaku

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ijwrsmff · 6 months ago

Text

A Day At The Beach

A commission for @ibby-miyoshi-nerd for Cole from Blush Blush! It's such a fun little game, I'm excited to have a chance to write for Cole! I didn't even realize he was voiced by Cyyu and now I'm having a hard time unhearing Cyno from genshin. Fun times. Regardless, here's the completed fic! I'm going to try and do one more commission today, but if not I have time tomorrow to try and knock out at least a couple!

Thank y'all for your patience <3

Word Count: 2,300

(This is basically 100% fluff)

You skipped and hummed, excited for the date you were promised. Cole had been working more for the police department, which meant less time with you. The both of you hated it, but it paid the bills. Though admittedly, having him come home and pick you up just to spin you in circles did soften the blow…a lot. So knowing he promised a date for the two of you was something you’d been looking forward to for months. It took a while for him to get it approved for a full week without work, but he managed to get it done.

Since you worked several jobs here and there, coming up with the funds for the trip was no issue. He had pestered and borderline begged you to say how much it cost so he could pay you back. But you weren’t having it. You ended up having to come to an agreement on it, where you paid for the trip and he paid for everything there. Food, services, shopping trips, whatever you wanted. Not that you’d let him spend every penny on you, but he tended to do it regardless.

Since it had been a while since the trip was discussed, everything was purchased and ready, with bags packed and bills paid before you left home for the week. Now all you had to do is wait for Cole to get home from work and you could set off. It wasn’t a long trip, but still a good two to three hours to the resort by car. He didn’t trust planes, but you liked the idea of driving better anyways. Just the two of you away from the world, enjoying each other’s company.

Right on the dot, six minutes since Cole was clocked off work he had returned home. The drive was technically 10 minutes, but that never seemed to stop him. If it meant coming home to you sooner he didn’t care. Especially since you had called off from your jobs as well, so he knew it was just you at home. He hated leaving you alone whenever it was possible not to do so, always scared something may happen to you. It hasn’t yet, but his worries overturned logic in many senses…at least…when it came to you.

Once he was barely even in the door, he dropped his work bag and caught you as you flung yourself at him. You both laughed, as he spun you around in circles. “Hm…something tells me you missed me.” He set you down, and smiled at you with half lidded eyes. “Truth be told, I missed you too. Arguably more than you missed me.” He poked your cheek and sighed, slowly coming into the house and shutting the door.

“What’s that sigh about?” You jabbed his arm lightly, and he winced back with a smile pretended it hurt before he returned to a complex look. “Are you nervous about the trip?” You tried to analyze his emotions, but he was much better in that field. He seemed to always know what you were thinking, but the same couldn’t be said back. Especially now, you thought he’d be over the moon to get a full week with you and no work to bother you.

“Hm…” He smiled and deflected your question with his own, “You ready to go? A long drive is on our agenda for now.” Cole stretched, and walked with you to the living room where your bags for the trip were. He wrapped his arms around you the second you turned from him, “At least we’ll have three hours alone…” he mumbled, and didn’t even seem to realize he said it out loud because he didn’t respond after that.

You giggled, and tried to turn in his arms to face him but he just held you tighter, effectively keeping you in place. “Cole! We have to get going! We’re going to miss check in!” You patted his arms but he didn’t let go, just pretended to sleep on your shoulder. “Coooooole!” You laughed, and he finally released you from his grip.

“That’s my name, yes? Do you need something?” He had that goofy smile on his face when he was up to no good. “Oh! That’s right!” He grabbed the bags and slung them over his shoulders before he started to push you into the direction of the car. “We’re going somewhere important, are we not?” He would randomly brush his fingers along your scalp but the second you were out the door he put one arm around your waist and opened your door for you.

After his silly teasing, you did what you always do. Teased him right back. “Oh my! Such a gentleman! Where’s my boyfriend?” You searched around, as if you were looking for someone and he scoffed with a laugh. “My boyfriend, the man who was once a panther? Do you know him? He’s a detective, we met at work?” You hummed and as soon as he strapped in he looked over you with adoring yet mischievous eyes.

“Do you get into anyone’s car that isn’t your boyfriend?” An eyebrow was raised and that dangerous smile was once again on his face. “That seems highly unsafe, perhaps I should just bring you back home, surely you want to rest at home and watch movies with him.” There was a slight trace of reluctance in his expression before it was gone.

You had burst out laughing by now, barely getting any words out. You gave him a playful poke to his cheek before turning his head fully towards you to plant a small kiss on his lips. Pulling away didn’t work as you intended it to, because he placed a hand on the back of your neck and pulled you back in for a “proper” kiss. He did eventually pull back though, and faced the road.

It seemed he was working more on concealing his feelings, because his expression gave nothing away. The only sign something was on his mind was how his hand only rested on the gear shift, but had yet to actually start the car. You wanted to pry, but he would tell you in time. Figuring he was worried about this trip, you placed your hand over his which shocked him out of his trance.

“It’s okay. The trip will be amazing, I promise.” You smiled and he didn’t have it in him to not smile back, though it was lopsided and awkward. It made him sigh again, but this time he started the engine and you were both on your way.

Before even getting out of the driveway, he placed one hand on the steering wheel and the other rested on your mid thigh. As it turns out, driving was when you got the most answers out of him. Not by words, no, but if you asked the right questions he’d squeeze your thigh a little more without even intentionally doing so. It was a secret weapon of sorts, but you knew in your mind nothing would go wrong on this trip.

So instead, you discussed your latest game or anime obsessions, and he listened attentively, asking questions here and there to get a better understanding. While he didn’t play many games or watch many shows, he did love anytime he could hear your voice. If you wanted to get him to play a game, he’d try but he’d much rather cuddle while watching you play it. There were many times where you’d be trying to get him to watch one of your favorite shows and videos, only to look over and he’d be watching you and not the screen.

Knowing he cared enough to try is what mattered.

Though the drive seemed long, it was even longer for him. He didn’t pitch in as much, and after a while you sat in comfortable silence. Once getting out of the car, he had a hand around your waist as he led you to the room to get your bathing suits on. Cole was being far too reluctant, it had you worrying if he even wanted to go on this trip at all. But you had to push through, because you knew if he gave it the chance, this beach would be a perfect getaway from the real world.

Once you emerged in your bathing suit, he couldn’t stop staring. But you were too excited, and maybe even a bit flustered to stay there for now. You giggled and grabbed his hand to lead him to the beach. You had towels, and sunscreen, and even some little sandwiches you made before leaving for the trip. His favorites were made, of course, and you went down to the beach with very little words spoken.

You couldn’t help but see how often he was glancing around the area. His hold on you was much tighter than usual and it left you confused. He hadn’t looked at you as much, seemingly more focused on observing the surroundings. You stopped in the ideal spot and pushed him onto the towel, making him beyond confused. All he could do was look up at you with a questioning glance.

“Alright! What’s the deal? What’s bothering you?” You said, attempting to look firm. Though your expression and slight shakiness in your voice made it sound much more feeble than intended. You were worried about him, and it showed. It was clear you were questioning if it wasn’t the trip, but YOU, that was the problem here.

Cole seemed to see this clearly, and he stood up, putting both hands on your cheeks and resting his forehead against yours. “I’m…sorry. I’ve just been a little worried, is all.” He didn’t elaborate, but you weren’t having it. Especially with it only being hour one of your seven day trip. He wouldn’t even hardly look in your eyes. The look seemed forced, like he wanted to look around more than he was in the moment.

“Worried? About what?” You were so confused by now, and you raised your hands to rest it over his. “Do you think we’re in danger, or anything? I’m sure it’s safe, and we have so much space and time to ourselves, and I just thought-” you were speaking so fast you were sure he could barely understand you, but you had to get your thoughts out somehow.

“No, no, no shhhh, it’s not that. I promise. You could never do anything wrong.” To halt your rambling, he put a finger over your lips as he tried to console you. “I…I’ve been worried. About something stupid…” He knew you’d ask for more clarification this time, so with a deep sigh he continued, “I don’t want others to see you in this. Not because I’m ashamed! I just want you…to be for me. Only for me.” This time he took a step back and rubbed the back of his neck, but it was clear this was a huge weight off his shoulders.

“Ah…” It all clicked, his reluctance to go, his nervous habits barely peeking through, all of it. “You don’t have to worry about that, I promise. And it’s not stupid, not at all.” You stepped closer to him and hugged him tightly to express those affirmations physically as well.

“I don’t…have to worry about it? What do you mean?” He was skeptical, but still clearly worried. His care, and emotions portrayed by it made you giggle a little into his chest. He huffed and reached down to flick your arm. “Don’t make fun of me, I’m being serious!” He was a little exasperated and there was a definite pink tinting his cheeks.

His plea only made you laugh more, and you backed up slightly while still holding him to look at his face. “Well…you won’t have to worry. Because just like you said, how you only want me? Well I wanna be the only one to have you, too!” You looked at his expression with a huge grin, seeing how he was still confused. It made you kiss the tip of his nose before kissing him fully. It was possessive, from both ends. You both clearly meant your words, and he knew that now. Though he wasn’t sure what you were trying to say. Not fully, at least.

Once you pulled back, you tried to make him piece it together himself. “How many people have you seen on the beach so far?” When he answered “zero” reluctantly, you continued. “A whole beach? With no people?” You looked around, making him do the same as he held you.

You saw the lightbulb click in his head, “did you…?” he said, looking baffled. He couldn’t even finish his sentence when you nodded to confirm his suspicions.

“Mhm! A whole beach all to ourselves. I couldn’t rent out the whole resort, but this part of the beach is all for us. Just you, and me!” You jumped back into his arms, and laughed. “Because…truth be told…I don’t want to share you either. Not with anyone.” You took a deep breath and pulled away to look at him.

Everything about his look, in one word, would be “adoring”. He was clearly over the moon, and he even muttered out an “I love you…more than anything.” Before he smoothed out the towel on the ground and laid down, prompting you to lay next to him so he could wrap his arms around you. “You’re so perfect…I can never find a single flaw in you. And I’ve tried.” He pulled you as close to him as possible, and before you went into the water several moments later, he made sure to whisper in your ear.

“You’re mine. Just as much as I’m yours. You’ll never be able to get rid of me now.”

#x reader #cole blush blush #cole blush blush x reader #reader insert #gn reader #writing commissions #commission #x you #blush blush x reader #fluff

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parhelios · 13 days ago

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part two of the stargate atlantis animorphs au where john sheppard used to be tobias! this will hopefully get turned into a full fic at some point but i like telling ppl about my fic ideas its fun

an important part of this au is that at least once on atlantis people have started reminiscing about favorite foods on earth they miss and when john was asked what he missed the most, he just blinks and says "burgers" and everyone gives him shit about his basic ass answer but little do they know the real answer is fresh mouse

part one here

he never really realized just how much he missed truly flying on his own wings until he did it for the first time in too many years, circling over the spires of atlantis and relishing the feeling of thermals under his spread wings. he can’t help but chuckle as on the way to rodney’s lab later in the day, he spots some of the biologists in their lab losing their minds. he does make a note to be a little less conspicuous though. john makes another note to let chaya know that if she ever needs anything, he’s her man, for the rest of time. he’s never been more grateful for anything.

(meanwhile, rodney and less so elizabeth, have been tinhatting about john since kolya's invasion of atlantis. john was weird enough they decided they needed to investigate him more and found that large swaths of his childhood and teen years are redacted to hell and back. they can't even figure out when he was born, exactly. it's WEIRD, and the fact that not even weir has clearance makes it all the more disturbing. rodney tries his best to find an unredacted version--surely it must be somewhere in the files sent on the atlantis expedition, in case of emergency--but not even that works. the thing is, by this point, john is their friend, and though they are definitely concerned and more than a little weirded out, they trust him. they trust that if it becomes necessary, he'll trust them too.)

missions go for the most part as normal, but whenever john can get the free time, he spends it flying. eventually, ar-1 gets sent out on a recon mission to a new gate location, a supposedly uninhabited planet which they believe might serve as a potential alpha site for atlantis in case of wraith incursion

as they begin their expedition, the group moves through the brush, ears and eyes sharp for any darts or wraith patrols. they walk for some time, having chosen to head in the direction of what looks to be a plume of smoke in the sky--perhaps a sign of civilization? certainly an anomaly worth checking out. when they reach the source of it, all four come to the same conclusion. a ship has crashed here. small fires still burn in the trees and brush at the edge of the clearing from its crash landing, but for the most part it looks only superficially damaged. however, not one of them save john recognize the design, and john keeps his mouth shut.

it is an andalite blade ship, and john wonders wildly about what it could be doing so far from home as he leads rodney, teyla, and ronon towards the entrance. he's able to keep his reaction to himself pretty easily, years of having to think about his face and his words coming in very handy for deception. rodney and the rest recognize it as being like nothing they've ever seen before--an egg-like pod with a tail curving above it, ending in a sharp point facing the front of the ship, two small, stubby wings curving off of the side. rodney starts to lose it with excitement at another spacefaring race which they have not encountered before, and john has to keep his mouth shut. after the war with the yeerks, the andalites and the humans had come up with a plan to deal with the yeerks, which none of the animorphs had been privvy to, except that once they were dealt with, the andalites would return to their part of the galaxy under seerow's kindness (their prime directive) and not contact the humans again. they took ax, the one andalite who had joined the animorphs and fought alongside them for the whole war, and they took the morphing cube, and they'd said that earth could keep the animorphs and any remaining technology left behind by the andalites or yeerks on earth. what they were doing here, he had no answers for, and he knew that rodney would be inevitably disappointed when he learned that they were all major assholes who wanted nothing to do with earth and had avoided aiding them until the eleventh hour.

when they get inside, john notes no signs of the pilot, and tunes out rodney's excitement at the pilot's chair clearly designed for a quadraped, and heads straight for the console, to try and find out all he can while the team is distracted examining the ship itself. his knowledge of andalite is ingrained, still sitting in the back of his mind from when elfangor gave him his knowledge. from what he can tell, this was an experimental blade ship designed for long-range travel through z-space, featuring a prototype andalite hyperdrive, which apparently worked a little too well. after poking around some, the team determines they should get as much data as they can for themselves from the ship and head back to the gate to pass the info on to weir and return with a bigger science team to study the ship itself. john makes a private note to hold a briefing. this requires a bit of an update in clearance for everyone involved.

of course, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, and as they leave the ship they are promptly ambushed and captured by a wraith patrol.

while the rest are thrown in a cell, john is taken to the wraith queen, who interrogates him on the crashed ship and though he protests ignorance, she decides to drain him until he breaks. she seems to believe it is some new trick by the atlanteans, but john catches something she likely did not mean to slip to him. she references a prisoner, and from what little she reveals, it sounds like the andalite pilot. john refuses to give up any information to her, and so the queen decides, drained as he is, that he is best used as an example for the rest of his friends, to... encourage them to cooperate. she drains him practically to the point of death, and has him dragged back to the cell, throwing him to the dirty floor at the feet of his friends.

he can feel himself dying, as he lays in the cell, every bone screaming as his team surrounds him, and he feels tears dripping onto his face, which he knows without looking is withered and aged from the feeding. and john knows in that moment that there is one way that this will go, unless he changes. he mumbles out an apology, tells them not to worry about him, and not to freak out. and then he begins the change.

for those unaware, morphing is a process which tends to be extremely unpleasant to watch, unless the morpher is an estreen who can control the process of the morph. john is very much not an estreen, despite his deep familiarity with being a hawk, and he knows exactly what this looks like as the shift megins and he takes in the horror on the faces of rodney, teyla, and ronon. he’d seen people shift birds, and the first time he'd done it, he'd watched himself in a mirror, out of pure curiosity.

the eyes went first, turning big and yellow. you could hear the crunch and grind of bones as they shrunk and molded into each other, the mass folding into z-space and condensing as his fingers merged and feet split, limbs and body shrinking into itself. feathers began to burst from the skin, starting as strange mottled patterns on the skin before lifting themselves up. the corners of his mouth stretched up as the bones of his face shifted and the skin receded over his elongating beak, leaving yellow keratin behind.

the morph felt the same as always, but alongside the grinding of bones and the odd crushing feeling that always came with a smaller morph, john could feel the strength returning to his body the closer he got to hawk-shape. as the morph finishes, he reaches out with thought-speak to the others, trying to get them to stop freaking out as he wriggles free of his shirt and vest, ruffling his wings.

rodney immediately goes "I FUCKING KNEW IT-okay not the bird thing i did not see that one coming but SOMETHING was going on--" but john's thought-speak very quickly shuts him up, and he takes the initiative of rodney's dropped jaw to come up with a quick plan and hop out of the cell through one of the holes in the wraith netting. the wraith probably think he’s dead already, and john is happy to keep it that way—he’s got an escape to make.

#my cousin who is a birder showed me a picture of a redtail hawk eating a squirrel and my first thought was omg john sheppard core #john sheppard #stargate atlantis #animorphs #stargate #tobias animorphs #rodney mckay #<-hes finally showing up enough i feel i can tag him #i do in fact ship mcshep so rodney will be showing up in literally everything i post abt atlantis <3 #sga #stargate au #stargate animorphs au #stargate animorphs #arc txt #fic tag

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mediumsizedpidegon · 1 year ago

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I'm unable to stop thinking about OG!Mobei-Jun. We never meet him like we do Luo Bingge but I have such a strong image of who he is.

To reference a text post I am obsessed with, if Luo Bingge is a male power fantasy, original Mobei-Jun is the ‘one man as an island’ belief. The idea of ‘one man as an island’ is basically the same as the lie of complete self sufficiency.

It means; you don’t NEED help. It means: you are an island, a city, a nation within yourself, and so you are all you need. It means; you aren’t weak and you can do EVERYTHING yourself. And while this isn’t an inherently male concept (everyone can be influenced by it) it does tend to be extra emphasized in male spaces. It’s certainly part of the toxic masculinity package. Because in toxic masculinity, other men are competitors. Rivals. Enemies. You crush them to get what you want and you do it alone.

Airplane takes Luo Bingge and turns a story about the cycles of abuse into the height of male power fantasies. And Airplane thus takes Mobei-Jun and projects his desires to be a one-man-island.

Because islands aren’t lonely. They can’t feel lonely. (You are a one man island and you don’t need people so that means you chose your aloneness. you have control over it.)

And here’s the thing: complete self sufficiency is utter HORSESHIT. ITS A LIE. IT DOESNT FUCKING WORK.

Since complete self sufficiency is a lie, translating Mobei-jun from book to real person gets wayyyy more complicated.

So my view of OG!Mobei Jun is someone who has frozen himself into complete indifference. He’s a man who desperately wants to belong to someone or something but has forgotten how. He’s a closeted romantic who has gouged out all the soft and vulnerable parts of himself. He moves through life as if everything is beneath him and less real than him because if it isn’t then he’ll fall apart spectacularly. He’s a man who’s sat so long with solitude that it’s crystallized him into a moving statue. He’s a flesh and blood person but he is so incapable of letting his guard down that the entire world sees the mountain he wants to be and not the cracks where the illusion fails. He doesn’t know how to live. He refuses to die.

OG!Mobei-Jun is the myth of self sufficiency. And it eats him alive.

He can’t trust his family, so he raised himself while "overseeing his future realm," leading to him being malnourished and touch-starved. He can’t trust his servants, and so he learned how to put on everything himself— in simple styles so that he could do them even injured. He can’t trust his advisors, so his kingdom is governed by fear and precedent rather than understanding. He can’t trust his palace, and so he is short on sleep and good food and relaxation: after all, he must do everything himself and thus he must know everything.

In comparison to SVSSS, original Mobei-Jun is noticeably thinner. He wears makeup to hide the dark circles beneath his eyes. The wound from the Huan Hua dart never healed right: and neither did many, many others. Compared to our Mobei-Jun, he looks…. brittle, with the vicious fear of an animal backed into a corner.

SVSSS Mobei-Jun is taller, bigger. He has that extra essential “I’m not alone and being taken care of” weight. Even just by looking at him, you can tell that he is miles steadier, with people he can trust at his back. He’s not constantly shaking with a combination of touch starvation and paranoia. He has less scars and the ones he does have look better taken care of.

SVSSS Mobei-Jun is just.... a complete antithesis to his original self. A complete deconstruction of the self sufficiency myth.

A one man island wouldn’t be rescued like three times like a damsel in distress! A one man island wouldn’t have a devoted servant to care for him: to heal his wounds and give him food and drink, a place to rest, and information more valuable than gold. A one man island wouldn’t know gentleness if it clubbed him in the head!

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Shang Qinghua has a MONUMENTAL impact on Mobei-Jun’s life and his entire perception of the world and himself.

This is a man who could have friends! This is a guy who is unguarded enough to actually fall in love! This is a dude who might be close to some distant family members! This is a guy who might have HOBBIES or THINGS THAT MAKE HIM LAUGH!!!! The ripple effect goes and goes and with Shang Qinghua smashing his ‘I need to do everything myself’ belief, Mobei-Jun can relax and actually trust people! Other people even!

Imagine a Mobei-Jun that has not just Shang Qinghua but!! A half sister he really likes!! A couple great aunts he can ask for advice!! Some cousins that have children that call him uncle!! A friend or two!!!!

THIS IS NOT A MAN ALONE!!!

#svsss #mobei jun #og!mobei-jun #shang qinghua #listen. listen. if luo bingge is a ravenous black hole in a flesh suit then og mobei-jun is a self-made weapon with everything gentle #and soft carved right out of him.#and each time it starts growing back he repeats the process. he's a man trying to be a mountain.#he's a man trying to be iron instead of flesh and bone. AND ITS NOT WORKING BUT HE KEEPS GOING AND GOING #AS IF IT WILL WORK THIS TIME. THE VERY DEFINITION OF INSANITY. THE PICTURE OF DESPERATION #i am chewing on the fucking walls. i'm howling. do any of you even understand this.#my posts

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