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dj-of-the-coven · 1 year ago

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Neku and Joshua - Detail Diatribe

Otherwise known as my complete analysis of Neku and Joshua's relationship, from the first moment they share to the last.

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BEFORE YOU READ:

This post is an opinion piece and will thusly be colored by my biases. I am not a big fan of Joshua or the Joshneku ship. This means absolutely nothing about what I think of the people who do like him or Joshneku. I don't think liking villains or morally gray characters makes a person immoral or villainous themselves, nor do I think having a ship that CAN be read as abusive makes anyone an abuse apologist or an actual abuser. Ship and let ship--we're all just here for enjoyment. If reading a negative depiction of Joshua or Joshneku will upset you then I implore you not to read this essay. Please take care of yourself and block liberally! This post is also NO EXCUSE to send harassment towards Joshua fans or Joshneku shippers. It is meant to be analysis of a fictional relationship in a game that I enjoy, not a reason to bully or make fun of people who disagree with my reading of the text. To ensure that those sensitive to Joshua-critical arguments do not see this post, I will not be tagging it with any of Joshua's character or ship tags and I humbly ask that you refrain from adding them as well. BE KIND TO PEOPLE AND BE UNDERSTANDING OF THOSE WITH DIFFERENT PREFERENCES.

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Whether or not you liked Yoshiya "Joshua" Kiryu after finishing The World Ends With You, it's no stretch of the imagination to say that his character is incredibly complicated--both morally and textually--to fully grasp. His opinions are often hidden behind layers of fluff and fancy words, and his actions might be even less comprehensible at times. He was the one responsible for kicking the plot of the entire first game into action. To put things bluntly: Joshua wanted to purge the world of something he deemed worthless, humanity, so he non-consensually "employed the help" of the moodiest teenage boy in the city to gamble over the lives and deaths of about 203,500 people in a game that cost his proxy...

his memories (initially)

three full weeks of his life

the life and safety of a new friend (twice)

the life and safety of a new friend's little sister (whose erasure he witnessed)

the lives and safety of literally every person he's ever met in his lifetime (e.g. the roughly 203,500 people living in Shibuya, Tokyo in 2007-2008)

his own safety

his stable perception of reality

And eventually, upon being sent to Shinjuku...

three whole years of his life

three years of his living memory (it's unclear as to whether ANYBODY but Beat and Shiki were able to remember him)

three years he could've spent with his new friends

three years of physical touch and interaction with living humans

the rest of his already ruined health and sanity

And this was after the proxy extended his friendship and good will to Joshua, despite him being unable to forgive the atrocities committed against him during those initial weeks of the game.

This begs the question, "Is Joshua a good person?"

Well, I wouldn't say he's a great one. I'm personally not so fond of those who perform genocide as a silly thought experiment, and I don't think most people are either--however, in the context of the game, this doesn't feel true. It does not feel true that Joshua wanted to kill, or was at least ambivalent about killing, 203,500 people in one swoop. Joshua's definitely supposed to be annoying, a bit disturbing, and NOT the good guy, but he also doesn't feel like a genocidal maniac within the context of the story. He feels like an annoying little bitch, and that's for the very important reason that he needs to reasonably be comparable to Neku Sakuraba, his proxy.

Part 1: Sides of the Same Coin

Neku Sakuraba was a boy who had closed himself fully off from the world before his involvement in the Reaper's Game. He had no friends, nor did he want any, as he was under the false impression that humanity had literally nothing to offer him; to Neku, people were burdens he was forced to bear and obstacles to weather through in order to live a peaceful life. This makes him the perfect proxy for Joshua at the start of TWEWY, because Joshua was operating on nearly the exact same axis of thinking. Humanity had nothing to offer him. He thought himself above it, so he felt no real remorse at the idea of making them all go away.

The way that the two of them differ, however, is that Neku was essentially being untruthful with himself in order to maintain his fragile worldview. It took less than a full week with a kind person for his ideology to start crumbling around him. This only continued to happen when he was confronted with someone who hated people, a boy exactly like him, in week 2. Neku's time with Joshua was fraught with conflict, manipulated actions and memories, and confrontation with the existential horror of needless cruelty. It served to show that he was already displacing himself from the niche he'd wanted to fit into. Neku no longer worked as a real, proper proxy to Joshua once he started to open up to others and expand his thinking. This was only cemented when Neku started his third week learning about acts of selflessness, first with Joshua's "sacrifice", then with Beat's act of true mercy, benefiting nobody but Neku himself. Neku could no longer be a proxy to a murderer. Through Beat's actions (and Joshua's perceived death), he learned the value of human life--why someone he didn't even get along with would put himself in danger just to make sure Neku had a fighting chance.

Neku was like Joshua, but he was able to start seeing the humanity in others after spending time with only one of them. Neku is what happens when someone like Joshua deconstructs their worldview at its core, opens up to new people, makes friends, and truly gets to know them. That's the first half of the foil. In order to complete this foil, Joshua is what happens when someone like Neku does not deconstruct their worldview. While Neku was learning an ideology of trust and mutual benefit, Joshua was still viewing everything as transactional, up until the very end. He crushed what little was left of Neku's trust by proposing the shootout at the end of the game--also taking Shiki and Beat for good measure--then asked the boy he'd been emotionally and physically manipulating for weeks to kill him.

When Neku put down his gun, he was displaying an ultimate act of selflessness. Not because he thought Joshua was deserving, as he admitted through his own words that he didn't forgive Joshua for what was done to him, but because he wanted to trust that Joshua could change.

Neku had the maturity at that point to realize that he and Joshua were fundamentally the same: neither of them understood why people bothered to help each other, but Neku, crucially, had been offered a way out through Shiki, Beat, Rhyme, and a number of other side characters. At the end of the first game, Neku had learned all he needed to know about why humanity was worth saving. He even tried to extend a hand to Joshua in spite of his deep hurt, asking him to come meet him and his friends at Hachiko for a second chance. But Joshua didn't take this invitation. And by refusing his second chance, Joshua's foil with Neku was completed, leading him to a life of literal inhuman detachment as an angel.

Now, how does Neku feel about his act of mercy being rejected?

Part 2: A New Day

During the events of A New Day, we get to see Neku after an indeterminable amount of time since the Game ended, at least more than one week and less than one year. There are a few important things that get established on this day:

Neku regularly sees Beat, or at least has seen him recently, not commenting on any long separation when they get inexplicably paired up for a game

Beat has a very negative view of Joshua, exclaiming "Priss Kid!? Lemme at 'im!" when his name is first mentioned

Neku does not have major qualms about this behavior, only responding with "Wh-whoa, slow down."

When having memories of his first death, Neku's face is dark, implying that he has no fond recollection of the incident

It is implied that Neku and Beat have not seen Joshua at all since the end of the Game

Beat calls Joshua a whack-job, and Neku again has no problem with or comment on it

Beat is rude and confrontational towards Joshua during their entire conversation, and Neku has no reaction to any of it, implying his silent approval

Immediately upon returning to the RG, Neku makes plans with Shiki to hang out, and chats lightly with Beat, but shows no concern for the whereabouts of Joshua

When Neku is shot by Coco, the camera first pans to Joshua's gun, NOT Coco's, mimicking an episode of PTSD from Neku's perspective

In short, we can see what Neku is like in a world without Joshua's continued presence... and it appears that he's doing fine, minus the lingering pain of a traumatic incident. He hangs out with his friends. He talks to them, or at least to Beat, enough for him to know that Joshua has majorly wronged him. Beat's anger can be extrapolated as protective, and his anger towards Joshua is treated by both of them as justified. Neku has told Beat enough about his death and partnership with Joshua for it to be old news--old news that Beat is sympathetic about to the point of wanting to immediately wail on the angel at the first mention of his name.

So, how did Neku feel about Joshua after the first game? Based off this information, it seems like Neku had been willing to befriend Joshua for real--but treated it as a missed opportunity. He moved on with his life as normally as possible given the circumstances, and even began to consider his time with Joshua to be somewhat traumatic, at least enough that was willing to pour his feelings about it out to Beat at some point. And this, keep in mind, is before the reckoning.

Part 3: Isolation and Desolation

Isolation does funny things to people's heads. According to this article published by the Prison Policy Initiative, people who go through extended isolation or solitary confinement often experience significant changes in memory and personality; changes that are mostly permanent. It's so damaging to memory in particular that isolation physically shrinks the part of the brain that plays the biggest role in memory after too long without human interaction, and this point comes much sooner than many people realize: after only fifteen consecutive days. Beyond the sixteenth day, forced isolation is considered by the UN to be a type of psychological torture.

Neku was subjected to this torture for three consecutive years.

No breaks, no visitors, no living people. Neku was in isolation for three entire years, waiting for Joshua or anyone else to release him.

Knowing about the effects of isolation on personality, it's easy to see the ways that Neku has changed when he returns to Shibuya after his time away. Despite being warm and amicable, seemingly all smiles, it's immediately obvious to players of the original TWEWY that his personality is lacking something important--that being the trademark snarkiness that made him such a compelling narrator. He has his moments of course, but for the most part, he's very different from how he was as a young teenager. He's soft-spoken with everyone and is mostly content to trail behind Beat as he catches up on the things he'd missed in his time away. He takes less action than he used to. He's less blunt. Considering all that was happening at the time, it makes sense that Neku wasn't too talkative about his own problems, but he hardly mentions anything at all about the place he spent three years being fully, completely isolated in. He even lies to the Twisters about knowing who put him there in the first place. Neku is clearly... off. And I bet that not all of it is unintentional on the part of the developers.

A thing that we in the TWEWY fandom joke about a lot is that Neku keeps befriending his murders, but to be fair, this is actually a bit of a non-point when you think about the fact that Neku has gone through a massive, relentless trauma of total isolation. After being by himself in Shinjuku for so long, he was probably desperate enough to talk to someone for his memories of anyone to start shifting, to give him literally anything to hold onto in an attempt to keep himself alive. This is compounded with the fact that time also changes one's own perception of past traumas. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that his memory of the time before his isolation would be hazy and hard to grasp, and this goes double for anything before the Game. He remembers the important bits--the people who inspired him, the intimate moments they shared, the fear and uncertainty that plagued those weeks--but he remembers everything in its vague emotional constructs, and some of those emotions smudge onto each other. So, when he sees Joshua in NEO, he smiles.

I'm not saying that Neku is literally remembering everything improperly, but I am saying that his recollection of the Game is colored by the fact that it was the last time that he'd been with people before he was isolated. He sees his time there as more nostalgic because it was the "before" to his "after". Neku is happy to see anybody from his past at this moment; he's reeling from the experience of suddenly being around them again. Combined with Neku's general dislike for unnecessary conflict (lying to the Twisters & not telling Beat about Coco, both to avoid making a scene), and also being in the middle of something too important to be derailed with petty fighting, he decides to take Joshua's sudden appearance as comforting. He's not necessarily happy to see Joshua anymore than he's just happy to see somebody that he knows.

This is a huge contrast with how we see him thinking about Joshua in A New Day, in which nearly every mention of him is treated as negative or neutral by both Neku and Beat alike. The expected thing for Neku to do here would be to first act surprised, then roll his eyes or make an annoyed sound. But instead, he smiles and allows Joshua to stay before returning to the task at hand. Why is he glad to see the man who killed him and then rejected his friendship? Well, that's because he isn't really, or at least not to the extent that a lot of fanon content would have you believe. It only looks like that if you don't compare how he interacts with Joshua to the way he interacts with Shiki and Beat.

Neku's reunion with Beat is one of the most beautiful cutscenes in the game, full of warm light and soft expressions:

Their eyes meet, and they grasp hands, coming together in a shower of golden bubbles and sparkles. It's pure magic.

As for Neku's reunion with Shiki, it's less spectacular, but appropriately emotional and sweet:

Meanwhile, Joshua gets introduced like this:

The difference is obvious. Joshua gets almost no fanfare from the narrative, not even receiving some sort of special animation or character sprite for the moment. And though Neku does eventually crack a smile, his initial reaction is stunned and doesn't change until the whole dialogue is through. He smiles a little right after he says "Not at all, partner".

"Partner" is the word that's the most important to this reading. Neku smiles after he affirms Joshua as his partner--someone he knew and briefly traveled with before his extended isolation in Shinjuku. E.g., someone he placed trust in. Someone he used to speak to after years of not speaking to anyone. Essentially, even though Neku had little to do with Joshua after the events of the Game, and definitely doesn't get along with him... he also does want to trust him, which runs directly counter to the moment that Joshua admits he didn't trust Neku enough to release him from Shinjuku. Neku's memories are warped by years of being so fully alone that it changed his whole manner of speaking and interacting with the world. Of course he clings to a familiar face and voice, if only for a moment.

But here's exactly where that moment ends:

Neku immediately loses that smile from earlier, confronting Joshua with a deadpan expression.

He asks Joshua about a couple of loose ends. Then, when Joshua mentions that he had plans to intervene if Neku and his friends were unable to do anything, he smiles again and he asks to go home. At this point, his grand reunion with Joshua has been completed: now he knows that Joshua has little visible remorse about what he's done, but at least he also has confirmation that Joshua had been planning some kind of backup in case Neku wasn't able to pull through. Neku's demeanor was largely uncomfortable and stiff until the moment that he realized it was all going to be okay. It was only after Joshua mentioned that he would've saved the city anyway that he truly relaxed--he does trust Joshua at his word, after all. And then he decides to go home, back to Shiki and Beat, the way he'd been wanting to.

Part 4: Conclusion

Neku and Joshua's relationship is like a rubix cube: a question with a simple answer, but a method of solving so complex that the majority of people who pick it up will never finish the puzzle. Most TWEWY fans do what humans do best and slap a romantic label on it, but I think doing that and ignoring some of the other dimensions to their relationship does a bit of a disservice to the way that Neku was treated by Joshua throughout the series, regardless of whatever his true intentions may have been. It's fair to say that Neku, Shiki, and Beat are best friends--if not something much stronger--just based off the way they interact, particularly with the beautiful mundane moments we get to see between Beat and Neku in NEO as party members.

On the other hand, for Joshua, his moments are few and far in between after the original game ends, but his presence is still a lingering thread throughout Neku's life that forces him to reckon with himself again and again. He could've been like him. He didn't end up that way, and so they can't truly be close. Neku wants to remember him fondly. For a moment, he does, until he remembers who was the warden for his years-long imprisonment. They are mirrors of each other and they will each haunt each other's actions forever, with Neku as Joshua's guilty conscience and Joshua as Neku's ironic shoulder devil. I don't think they could ever be described as friends, given their history, though I do think that they'll probably meet up for coffee once a year and make incredibly intense eye contact. Neku will silently ask why Joshua did it all, and Joshua will sip from his cup without ever answering the question. Maybe both of them or neither of them truly know.

#twewy #ntwewy #neku sakuraba #daisukenojo bito #shiki misaki

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honeyedheartss · 2 years ago

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the seattle pre show! I'm a lil late but here u go

- he went to pikes place and the space needle and saw a lady selling hot cider and thought it was whimsical

- he asked us if we liked living in Seattle and we were the only city who mainly said yes. the only other place who's said they like where they live was Wales.

- coffee or tea? he is a "coffee slut".

- if he left right then to get a tattoo he would have to be very drunk because he has commitment issues but he would wind up getting the original horny starbucks logo with the mermaid showing her tits and spreading fin

- someone asked "have you had dicks?" which he was offended by, and then read that it was a local burger joint. he was SO happy he could get a Bag of Dicks. he wound up talking about it for almost a minute and said he would go get a bag of dicks after the show.

- last anime he watched was my hero academia because he was catching up

- favorite anime of all time is Fullmetal Alchemist. he hasn't watched all if it just a few episodes and "there's a really cute scene of a dad and her daughter" [he said verbatim but he meant a daughter and her dad obvs]

- he was asked how he came up with the concept for the show and he said one morning he woke up and screamed bc the world was going to end and decided to make a show.

- his strangest phobia is a fear of man made objects underwater.

- someone told him to name 3 Hatsune Miku songs or they would leave and he DID!! and in record time too

- his clickbait title for the show would be "Potential Dan Ass Reveal?"

- he doesn't wear any layers under his jumpsuit (which the theatre all went "ew" to) and he ripped it because someone shouted "cunt" at him and he squatted too fast

- he is pro-soup!

- BUT he is VEHEMENTLY against people who think cereal is a soup

- someone brought their mom and he told her to close her ears and her eyes and he was sorry

- he was asked about his history with DDR and he said he actually played it as a kid and got good at it and now he's the person who's too good at it to be cool because you go to play with friends and then there is an annoying fuck doing jumps and combos and you don't enjoy it anymore and that's him

- very offended that someone asked him how to survive college

- "British people aren't real they were created by the American government so they could be the victims of history"

- he doesn't like boba :(

- "what is something that keeps you motivated to do youtube" nothing.

- "is dystopia daily for the bit bc all of it feels like it's for the bit but none of it does" he said they'd nailed the vibe of the show.

the guests are always confused and scared but Phil was the most weirded out. Dodie went with it and his gramma rolled with it and spit back sass really fast and he said he should replace Phil with his gramma.

- he filmed a dystopia daily with Louise but she was very scared and he's not sure how much of it is going to be approved to post even after editing

- he was asked how much money to eat a chip off the ground and he said he would probably pay us to eat floor chips. they spilled pickles in the bus and put the floor ones on the table when they were cleaning up and he snuck and ate them when no one was around

- called himself a "dirty pickle bitch"

- told someone to name their cat Susan 3

- in regards to his election day photo "democracy needs saving and I will post a nude for democracy"

- his toxic trait is that he's always right. if he doesn't know the answer to something he won't give an opinion and when he does and someone disagrees he waits for them to Google it with a smug look on his face

- he doesn't think he would have finished law school in an alternate universe, he would have been on OnlyFans

- his favorite Disney character is the Beast from Beauty and the Beast

- someone asked when he was going back to the spray tan and he got offended that they thought it was fake and said "no I just used to go on holiday with my family. and phil. and now I don't touch sunlight"

- his favorite song to play on piano is the final fantasy song he posted on his story a while ago or Chopin's Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor

- he just roasted the shit out of the 12 yo who sold him that axe

- he got Phil a pair of socks that had sasquatch being abducted by UFOs

- his favorite tree is a Maple tree and he thinks they're very dainty

- he's not an influencer he's an artist 🙄

- when he's at olive garden he let's them grate the cheese for an uncomfortably long time. he is a 'whore for parmesan'

- his starter for pokemon violet was the gay duck. obviously.

- someone blamed him for why they're gay and he said we're not allowed to bill him for our therapy

- his past self would be terrified, excited, and more than mildly concerned at his present state of being.

- we all need to love our younger selves because if he can love the version of himself that made Hello Internet then we can love the version of ourselves who wore cat whiskers because of him

- the tour is about celebrating that we are all still alive despite the cat whiskers and 2015 and healing our inner childs

- and then he bullied someone wearing a Llama hat.

- the end <3

#daniel howell #wad preshow #wad tour #we're all doomed #dan howell

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sentientcave · 9 months ago

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WIP WEDNESDAY

Well it's that time of week again somehow. This time a bit from Sparrow since I just crossed the 40k mark. Was thinking about posting a bit from You Drive Me Wild but since I can reasonably get that finished by this weekend I'll save the whole thing for you all till then. This is a pretty fluffy little excerpt so I don't think any content warnings apply. Give me a shout if you disagree and I'll fix.

It was like gravity, the way he pulled her into him, planting a little kiss on the corner of her mouth as a greeting, his arm sliding around her waist like it belonged there. “How’re you feeling, love? Ready?”

“Just about. Might catch another hour or two of sleep before take off. Getting shot really takes the wind out of your sails.” “Might do the same, if you don’t mind company,” he said in a low voice, nuzzling against the side of her head.

Affection was so easy for him, like he knew exactly how to act without thinking about it. Morgan felt clumsy in comparison, not knowing what sort of touches were the right ones, what would be welcome, not even fully aware of what it was she wanted to convey. How could he be so certain about her when there was still so much unknown between them? John didn’t so much as know that her middle name was Talia, or that her favourite colour was green. But maybe that really didn’t matter. Danny had known those things, and more, and he’d still been a mistake. “I could use some help putting the sheets back on the bed, anyway,” she said, which was half an answer. Enough of one for him to fill in the blanks with what he wanted her to say, at least.

They ate dinner— Gaz had cooked— but Morgan couldn’t really focus on tasting anything, she just ate because she knew she needed to, and thanked him and complimented the meal, because she knew that was what he wanted to hear. And the praise did make him glow, enough to make her feel better about the white lie. I’ll pay more attention next time, she promised herself. There was going to be a next time.

After a couple more hours of sleep, this time curled up against John's chest, it was time to get ready. She geared up, John stealing kisses while she readied, like he was afraid to send her off without a ration of his affection to tie her over until they saw each other again.

"It won't even be that long," she reminded him. "Should be all over by sunrise."

"Should be. But maybe not. Just need you to come back to me, love." He cupped her face with big, calloused hands, thumbs brushing across her cheeks, his eyes roaming her face ardently, as though he was trying to commit every detail to memory.

"I will," she promised. Looking at him was too intense, but she held eye contact anyway, to make sure he knew that she meant it, even though there was no way that she could actually promise such a thing.

Trepidation stirred in her belly, sinking sharp claws in wherever it touched. There was no guarantee that this wouldn’t go south— Knowing Danny, it would. But she had a Ghost in her back pocket this time, and something good to look forward to when it was all over.

#Cave Writing #WIP Wednesday #Sparrow #I'm lowkey glad I'm waiting to post this fic because I'm thinking about rewriting the first couple chapters to deal with some discrepancies #I don't plan things before I start #So it's nice to have flexibility to change things #uh yeah I think that's all #I have to go back to work now lmao

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supernovaa-remnant · 1 year ago

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Ask game: 24 22 and 19

19. What are come of your favorite pieces of c!Dream animations/songs/other types of video/audio content?

The Old Days animatic by Knp lives rent free in my brain. Watching that animatic changed the trajectory of my life I'm so serious it's so aklsjdhsgajksdshass the way it so perfectly represents c!dream's longing to return to a simpler past? when he could laugh and have fun with c!george and c!sapnap???? the way you can see when c!dream stops smiling in the animatic?? aughhhh c!dream team my c!dream team you are a wound that never stops aching.

22. If you had all the time, resources, and skills to create your ideal piece of c!Dream fan content, what would it be?

I've talked about it before, but genuinely You and I Drink the Poison From the Same Vine (my theoretical c!dreambur semi-canon compliant fic that I talked abt in the post linked). I think about it all the time. I would love to just... have the commitment needed to write this long fic that examines canon through the lens of one non-canon element being added.

Also, it'd be really really fun to write interactions between c!punz and c!wilbur (where c!punz doesn't understand why c!dream keeps c!wilbur around and does what he wants and c!wilbur holds his connection to c!dream over c!punz's head like a taunt).

Uh, other than that, I have a slide show about c!dream that I never finished. I started making it with the goal of presenting it to my non-c!dream sympathetic irls haha

24. When/how did you become a c!Dream apologist?

Okay, this is going to get long and I may get into way more detail than I need to, so buckle in because this was quite the journey for me.

So, I didn't get into the fandom until around august-september of 2021. However, I had multiple irls who were really into the dsmp in late 2020-early 2021. And, uh, they're very very non-sympathetic to c!dream. (also believers in the l'manburg mythos, but we are not getting into that...) anyway, I heard a lot about the dsmp from an outside perspective during my time of not being in the fandom. And this included hearing about the exile arc (with one hilarious instance where my friends did not specify it was rp so for a moment I thought cc!dream was just a really really bad dude 💀) and hearing about how horrible c!dream was how evil he was etc etc.

In typical "I am not invested in this fandom at all but my dear friend is" fashion, I just agreed with them. All of my info came from hearing them talk abt something they were interested in, so why would I disagree?

Anyway, flash forward, like, half a year, and I begin watching the manhunts. I got really into them and ended up reading some non-dsmp fics. And then everything spiralled and I got sucked into the fandom. I remember reading some c!dream redemption fics, and I was really enjoying it, but I still didn't consider myself an apologist. Afterall, my entire first impression of him was how horrible he was through my friends.

Anyway, I don't have an exact timeline, but it wasn't until I actually followed someone from dreblr that I started fully embracing my c!dreamisms and my c!dream apologism. I kept my c!dream apologisms hush hush in front of my friends for so long. I still do to an extent. I'm scared, okay? And I don't wanna get into arguments with them, so it's best to just, like, not bring it up I guess.

#c!dreamie has always been my favorite character though #it definitely started with some cc bias bc I got into the fandom via manhunts #but it has evolved from that #stella answers #sioster #dreblr #ask game

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vidreview · 2 months ago

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VIDREV: "A.I. Filmmaking Is Not The Future. It's a Grift." by Patrick (H) Willems

[originally posted august 22 2023]

youtube

I worry that young aspiring filmmakers will see these [AI-generated film trailer parodies] and choose to use AI instead of actually going outside and putting their hands on a camera. That, to me, is just depressing as hell.

i have an on-again off-again relationship with the video essays of Patrick Willems. he's one of the very last video creators consistently carrying forward the internet-critic tradition of framing criticism with fictional elements as if the review is occurring in a story, and he's been unwavering in his commitment to the bit for damn near seven years now if not longer. unlike a fair few who've utilized this device in the past, however, Willems is himself an experienced filmmaker with a stable of consistent collaborators helping both behind and in front of the camera. this means his videos are, generally speaking, well-edited and pretty nice to look at. this experience also factors heavily into his criticism, leading to work that is consistently appreciative of and empathetic towards the innumerable material challenges faced during any given production. he is well-versed in film history and cares deeply about the art-- so he uses his criticism as an opportunity to play with cinema instead of simply commenting upon it. as a film school graduate who worked grip/electric for a few years and now makes video essays myself, i think that's pretty cool.

unfortunately, i sometimes find the finished work a little… lackluster. there are a couple videos i really, vehemently disagreed with (looking at you Rewriting The Matrix Sequels), but most of the time it just leaves me a little nonplussed. to be clear: his stuff is never bad, and i've actually found his recent work to be a marked improvement (that Bollywood video is the kind of thing i DREAM of making!), but overall i guess i'm maybe a little too familiar with the specific knowledge pool he's drawing from to get as much out of his stuff as i'd like. relatedly, while i admire his use of the fictional framing device and have nothing but enthusiasm for its continued use… i just, uh, also, kind of, don't really get a whole hell of a lot out of it when he does it most of the time. it's low budget amateur film-making, the quality of which is all over the place. but i am also someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about the video essay's capacity to fuse art with criticism, so i can be probably unfairly harsh when i feel it's not "properly" utilized. the fictional framing device at its best complements the criticism either literally or symbolically, and i find that in Willems' work they're often more distracting than complementary.

actually, before i explain why any of this commentary is relevant to the video at hand, i want to go on something of a tangent. one of my favorite single-video uses of the fictional framing narrative is Hbomberguy's Ctrl+Alt+Del essay, but my gold standard for its multi-video use is in RedLetterMedia's film review series Half In The Bag. the latter Plinkett Star Wars Prequel reviews arguably set the mold here (for better and worse), which RLM carried forward through at least the first two or three years of HITB. basically, every review is framed as two VCR repair guys not repairing VCRs and instead talking about the movies they just saw, then charging Mr Plinkett for that time as billable hours. i like their implementation because while the framing devices are in-character, the facade is completely dropped the instant they get into review territory. Willems is similar in this respect, which i think is good. too much fiction in the body of the criticism risks breaking the back of the whole essay.

in those first years, HITB did a pretty admirable job of using the fiction to comment on their subject. one of my favorite examples from this era is their review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where they spend the bulk of the review talking about the empty excesses of Michael Bay's frenetic, messy action setpieces, full of tonally inconsistent and sophomoric humor… only to end their review with an excessive, sophomoric, disgusting five minute setpiece where two adult men roll around in fake diarrhea and vomit all over themselves. you really just have to see it for yourself, it's a masterpiece of gross-out humor done for a good reason. as the years wore on they eased up on that fictional framing device, until covid happened and it suddenly came roaring back to great effect. they've eased up on it again since then, which i think is good. you can tell when these things are perfunctory. the fictional frame is at its best when it's as playful as it is purposeful.

okay, so what the fuck does any of this have to do with Patrick Willems' video on AI film-making? the short version is, it's got me rethinking how harshly i judge this specific variety of amateur film-making.

to summarize, Willems here is discussing viral AI-generated parody trailers of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar in the style of Wes Anderson, released by a company called Curious Refuge. this one's clearly coming from a personal place for him, and not just because he made a parody trailer for Wes Anderson's X-Men back in 2015. he has a lot to say about every AI-booster's fabulous yarn about how they're "democratizing" art creation, specifically that it's bullshit nonsense. i've gotten in trouble for expressing similar sentiments on twitter (which i can't link to because my account was permanently suspended over """death threats""" and honestly? good fucking riddance), particularly the insistence that LLMs and image generation algorithms make art accessible to some vaguely defined disabled population. it's an offensive notion on a number of levels-- it relies on an ableist assumption that art-making is somehow inaccessible to disabled people, as if specialty tools do not exist, as if the paralyzed have never painted, as if the blind have never written books. it assumes that art is somehow a secreted and gatekept skill, and not the single most common human compulsion outside of our basest needs. but even if these were nonfactors, there is simply no amount of accessibility gained by these technologies that outweighs the industrial-scale plagiarism, automated labor-discipline, massive carbon footprint, and generalized annihilation of the entire internet's usability they represent. these tools are not without their legitimate uses, but until they are vehemently and inescapably regulated on an international scale there is simply no case to be made for them as they currently exist.

Democratizing storytelling is what affordable film-making equipment did. It's what, like, iPhones did, it's what the internet did. Those things gave people outside of traditional structures without huge budgets and resources, the tools to create films and a free platform with which to reach a wide audience. Arguing for AI film-making is saying that people no longer need talent or skill. By this logic, why would you learn to play the violin when you can use AI to create a fake violin recording of the piece of music that you want to play?

it's easy to be against this AI grey goo crap, and still fall into obvious rhetorical traps meant to cede ground to the worst people on planet earth. Patrick Willems deftly avoids these pitfalls and calls it exactly what it is: laziness and plagiarism. the examples he focuses on are especially egregious because the guy who made them didn't even come up with the idea himself-- he asked chatgpt to make him a list of videos that would go viral on youtube, then had some algorithms whip them up. he did no work. no work went into the creation of these things. their supposed "quality" is composted from the unattributed and uncompensated labor those models were trained on. it is a function of what my girlfriend has been referring to as "the age of the executive auteur," describing this moment in history where talentless executives want to remove artists from the art-making process for pure algorithmic profit that goes directly and solely into their own pockets. ghoulish CEOs and tech boosters who want to be revered the way artists often are, without having to put any of the work in, and without having to listen to criticism. they don't just want to own everything, they want to be loved for it too.

it reminds me of Maggie Mae Fish's video about off-grid youtubers, a crowd of independently wealthy failsons who like to crow about their amazing self-sufficient housing projects that they did all by themselves… except for the parts they didn't. she makes a fantastic observation in that video that i've found myself coming back to often-- that for rich people, paying someone else to do work for you is ontologically indistinguishable from doing that work yourself. the exchange of capital comes with an exchange of credit. it is the base assumption that underpins every capitalist boss's relationship with their workforce, and we see it on full display among the guileless herd animals of silicon valley. AI art is only and exclusively a mechanism for doing to art production what the ruling class have long since done to industrial labor, annihilating the worker's claim to its value, disintegrating the jobs held by artists to disempower and destabilize them so that they will accept worse pay for more work. it is precisely the kind of horseplay that's got damn near all of Hollywood on strike. the actual technology itself sucks, obviously, and it will always suck no matter how much better it gets. the quality of the end product is immaterial-- it's about wage theft, man. it's about greed and labor discipline. same old story, different day.

They love the idea of using AI for film-making because they don't actually have any talent or skill. For them, AI is like a cheat code that allows them to seem like actual artists without doing any actual work.

but let's get back to Willems. he does a great job deconstructing how these supposed parodies don't even really embody anything meaningful about Wes Anderson's style, pointing out that anyone who thinks they're emotionless, stoic, austere films clearly hasn't watched any. the dude makes comedies about broken people struggling to find meaning in their lives, for crying out loud! the popularity of this algorithmic trash is an extension of pop culture's long-standing illiteracy when it comes to Wes Anderson. something about a director with a distinctive visual style short circuits the brain when you haven't watched any movies made before the new millennium, i guess. how pretentious to be all having your own vision or whatever lol lmao

what really hits home for me, though, is how he compares these parodies to his own Wes Anderson's X-Men trailer. he talks about spending time watching all of Anderson's films to date in pre-production, taking notes not just on style but on substance, on theme. he treated the project as an exercise in understanding a film-maker's approach to their craft, then got his friends together and spent a couple weeks running around New York filming the thing. the resulting short film is, let's be real, kind of sloppy and cheap-looking. but so what? in the making-of for it, Willems talks about the specific logic of the composition of this X-Men team and the inspiration behind the costumes. here we catch a glimpse of the layers of labor which go into the production of even the simplest amateur work-- research, writing, self-analysis, location scouting, costume design, props, lighting, camera work, and on, and on, and on. sure, it looks cheap. but it was made by hand with love and care, it embraces what it is and doesn't try to be more. i speak from experience with these kinds of projects when i say, the finished work is almost superfluous, except as proof of labor. the real value comes from the experience of making the thing, and the lessons you learn along the way. collaborating on even the silliest and cheapest of short films can be a transcendent and life-changing experience.

Artistic influence is Wes Anderson taking his love of Hal Ashby, Francois Truffaut, and Jacques Demy, and processing them into a unique approach that expresses his own view of the world. AI art is just a machine for plagiarizing existing art.

this is sort of a perfect illustration of what AI art simply cannot replicate. under the proposed normal of those boosting a post-LLM world, there is no barrier between the having of an idea and the realization of that idea. it's a world where ideas guys finally get the credit they insist they've always deserved. what they fail to understand is that everything which makes art special comes in the phase between having the idea, and finishing the work that idea inspired. they refuse to acknowledge that art is work, and work takes time, and that people who draw and write didn't just wake up with this ability by magic divine endowment. they aren't "hoarding" their skill. if i'm a good writer today it's because i spent the last 14 years and change being a really bad one. all this talk of accessibility and democratization sounds suspiciously similar to the "telling me to read is ableist" line of thinking, where we equate the simple and undeniable fact that getting better at anything requires Hard Work with a pilfered and ill-defined language of oppression adopted by bad-faith actors to justify why they never have to change or learn or improve in any meaningful way, to justify why criticizing them for their actions is actually a sort of hate crime.

Willems ends this video teasing a second part focused exclusively on the idea of "content," the way so many artists and entertainers today frame the fruits of their labor as if it is no different from paste in a tube. like Willems, i've long despised "content" as a descriptor and think its widespread adoption is nothing short of corporate-fueled stochastic terrorism against any creator who dares to presume that what they make has any value without the platform. it's like i said in my video about Netflix in 2018-- the only thing platforms have to sell is the platform. the ongoing grey goo-ification of the internet has renewed my conviction that "content" is the enemy (or at least an enemy), because its success relies on a baseline assumption that all things are reducible to their predictable financial valuation. this moment is not just about copyright law or labor exploitation; it's a come to jesus moment for our entire culture, forcing us to confront the only logical endpoint of art under capitalism. it is time for us to decide for ourselves what we value.

AI is getting better all the time, but at its very best you will only ever get serviceable imitations of mediocre products.

with Matt Mercer playing Ganondorf in the american localization of Tears of the Kingdom, i decided to revisit the 2009 online miniseries There Will Be Brawl where he also plays Ganondorf. this series was incredibly ambitious, an attempt to make a dark and gritty film noir playing on the full-cast absurdity Super Smash Bros Brawl. i'm not going to pretend that it's better than it is, because i haven't been able to sit through the whole thing since it aired. it's very much of its time, and boy was that time problematic. but in the same way that films i once would've thought of as mid have skyrocketed up my rankings simply by virtue of having real sets and props and costumes and lights that are actually turned on, i find TWBB's excess of paper-mache props and dollar store wigs immensely charming in hindsight. it looks cheap, and the performances aren't always great, but so what? this is something that no algorithm could ever produce. it's a fanwork that took countless hours of labor, and while the finished project has no shortage of flaws, it may well have been an essential starting point for dozens of careers. it is an audacious idea that was executed to its conclusion, a feat that vanishingly few projects of its ilk have accomplished.

this kind of thing used to be youtube's bread and butter. i still quote The Legend of Neil all the time ("hello, uh- old man?" "you may call me… old man"), and my sense of humor is eternally linked to the forgotten pivot-to-video creations once hosted on The Escapist, Cracked, College Humor, and countless other long-dead platforms. these kinds of parodies fell out of fashion because they tend to be cheap and silly-looking. the rise of Marvel came at the apex of the 2000s hyperrealism fetish in genre media (Spielberg's Minority Report ruined science fiction cinema for at least twenty years), so everything had to be grounded and look photorealistic. we want immersion, man-- we don't want to see the zipper on the rubber monster suit. i think this is an unspoken motivation behind the AI hype cycle. what's the point of even attempting a genre parody if you can't make it look exactly as good as its Hollywood equivalent? we don't want to see a cardboard imitation, we want to see the perfect thing we can imagine in our heads brought flawlessly into reality!

i share Patrick Willems' sentiment that this is depressing as hell.

Willems shook something loose in my head with this video, because i came away from it completely rethinking my relationship to his fictional bridging material, and the generally low production value of most anything high-concept on youtube or other video platforms. there is something to be treasured in even the most slapdash of amateur films, when the work is done with love. there is inherent value to human endeavor in the attempt, even a failed one, to bring an idea into reality. it's the work, the experience, the memories, the chemistry of it all that matters. i want to live in and encourage a culture where people are allowed to make shit that sucks and not have it ruin their lives, so that they can keep making shit until they're good at it. art is not a machine, it is not algorithmic, it is not statistically predictable. like all things truly human, it is an act of defiance against entropy by a soul in transit.

anyway it's a good video, go give it a watch

#vidrev #video essay #ai art #llms #wes anderson #patrick h willems #media criticism #cracked #the escapist #there will be brawl #legend of neil #Youtube

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deerydear · 10 months ago

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I'm sorry if this is triggering to discuss, but I suffered from an autoandrophilic condition when I was younger.

I wonder whether this was caused by my own choices: my choice to be afraid of the outside world and other people, rather than attempt to pursue them as myself. Thus I saw myself more readily behind a mask (a woman behind the mask of a man pretending to be a woman). It even can feel triggering to admit I was a girl, a woman, and not something transmuted...

I did this sort of play, before "trans identity" came into my awareness. I even played it with other girls at my school. Funny, it isn't unnatural to refer to us, collectively, as "girls", but alone I am a "man".

I used to be discomfited by harshly-masculine descriptors.

After I took testosterone HRT for two years, I developed a taste for them.

Yet, my sexuality also had changed. I believe that this was due to the effects of the hormones, but there was an element of conscious choice. I felt like I had to accept that I was becoming male, or else "I would lose the game" that I had set myself upon. ...but I don't think I really wanted to be gay-gay. It was one thing to imagine it.

I felt a lot of distance between myself and "normal guys". Throughout my life, I felt that this was because of the mythologized and differentiated ways that boys and girls are instructed in our society. I thought that if a boy was raised as a girl, then I should be much like him... or vice versa.

Now, having undergone a partial male-puberty, I disagree with this. "Male" means something completely different than I had imagined it, as a girl. I had *thought* I was so much more informed, smarter than other girls in what it meant... but I wasn't.

I was limited by my own perspective as a biological female.

I thought that I could have changed this with cross-sex HRT, but then... I found that I became someone who wasn't "myself", as I defined myself as "myself".

"but isn't that term of thinking folly, then? If 'yourself' can be taken away from you by biological processes?"

Are we ever truly alive, if we can die?

Is there not something beautiful in being mortal and animal?

I haven't tried to put some sorts of thinking into a thesis, because they feel very squishy and soft -- malleable.

There is a part of the psyche that is instructed. That is: it learns from the outside world and it may seek to recreate what it finds within itself, such as a child mimicking a parent's actions, in learning how to live in the world.

Although I feel that this process can continue within someone's whole life, and it never need be finished. After all, [it feels like] an end to it would be an end to all learning. There's so much more to be learned in life. We aren't dead, as adults.

We find people in stories.

I've actually been considering one of my heroes from childhood: Light Yagami.

I feel, in my personality, that I am much like the man, Teru Mikami... who followed Kira until his death.

Yet, it's only a story... and each person who reads it has developed their own personal feeling about the events that unfold.

My reading isn't the only reading.

The story focuses on Light's perspective: his thoughts, his justifications, his life... I easily find myself understanding his reasoning.

I first read the story when I was twelve years old. I had little real-life experience in the criminal-justice system. but I knew that for a crime to be prosecuted, it had to be reported... and even if it went to trial, it wasn't guaranteed a punishment for the offender.

What I wasn't thinking about, at the time: There are so many people who have had their lives ruined by a false conviction. They are punished for a crime they had not committed. This happens.

Kira relied on news reports to know who he was going to punish. He was not omniscient. He had likely killed hundreds of innocent people, without differentiating them from the truly guilty. Meanwhile, there could be crimes committed underground, which he would have no way of knowing about: who was truly innocent...

It could rely on so much "he-said, she-said" misdirection. People can lie about eachother, for revenge. They can accuse someone of a crime, to ruin their reputations...

That's why we have trials of law, nowadays.

They don't always reach a fair verdict. They haven't always been executed fairly. Means have been used to keep guilty people out of prison, or to throw the innocent into jail.

That's the pain of living in this world.

We just have to figure it out.

So my point in bringing this up:

This writing comes from the inside of the mind of someone else: A fallible person. Just like anyone walking this earth, in that capacity for self-deceit.

We may want to deceive ourselves in believing we know what's best for ourselves or the world, but we don't always.

We aren't omniscient... (At least, I'm not...)

Our own emotions have a way of deceiving us.

The emotion might squabble out: "I truly need this to happen, or else I won't be happy!"

Meanwhile the rest of the mind, gathered into an assembly, watches with patience and longsuffering... as this whiny pop-star has its moment of eminence under the spotlight.

Knowing...

Sometimee people are unreliable in dictating themselves, narrativistically.

I had started writing my response, because after reading this man's writing... it reinforced the self-narrative.

I started to think to myself: "What if auto(gyne/andro)philia is a real disorder based on neurology? What if I was born with a predisposition to it?

What if I only returned to my natural female identity because of the sexuality-reversal that happened, whereby I became attracted to females? What if I became an (FtMtF) autogynephile?"

but this was a misremembering of how events had transpired.

It made me 'feel good', in some way...

This emotion would leave me with a restless agitation, "to prove myself", afterwards... if I let it burn its way through me.

I felt it, often, when I was a teenager trying to take on a trans "mask".

Suddenly, I wanted to "prove it" to other people, to be witnessed. It wasn't satisfied with itself.

I feel a sense of cool relief, after truthfully trying to lay it all out, instead of chasing this fire-dragon.

The reason that I define my autoandrophilia as a mental-disorder is because I lost that attraction to male traits, as I developed them myself.

I was only attracted to them "because they were something I didn't possess, in my own body"...

As anyone of normal heterosexuality may feel.

My difference came in how I filtered these feelings. It was my own mind playing tricks on me.

"I'll be happier", It's lying.

I used to hear deep male voices, and I would feel amorous.

Then, I have my own deep voice rumbling in my own bodily throat...

I try to emphasize "my own body", because my sexual train-of-thought says: "Don't lovers become 'of one flesh'? Wouldn't his throat become yours?"

Yes, in a secret way beyond words.

He becomes part of me, I become part of him. That seems like the natural course for sexuality.

So then, how is this a disorder?

Because I'm trying to be two people, without them ever being two people. Two don't become one, one became one. One half of a whole... always one.

I hear my own deep voice, and the other voices of men, then I feel territorial. I feel the same cool detachment that I felt towards other people of the same sex (females), before I transitioned.

After coming off cross-sex HRT for two years, I feel "more normal". but I still can feel the traces and the outlines of the changes wrought on my body.

Just like I may always have a thickened larynx, and my voice will always have a different pitch than it started with.

It really is. I've been "training" my voice by my own standards, as someone who used to be female... I think I oughta know how to do it, but the muscles are just completely different. I don't want to be a barbie doll. I want to be me. I don't want to be "some other woman", I want to be me.

I wasn't satisfied, as an autoandrophile pretending to be a man, because I wasn't a man on my own terms. I would never develop real male genitalia. The most I had was clitoromegaly.

Some people (who I used to associate myself with) would have accused me of harboring "internalized transphobia", but aren't transgender individuals supposed to be satisfied with the outcome of their sex-changes?

What if you aren't satisfied? Are you supposed to try to brainwash yourself into liking it?

"Not enough to change your body, now change your mind"? --- The same mind that got me into this whole mess?

Carl Jung wrote:

Unfortunately, the good person who has bound his strength will all-too-easily find slaves for his service, since there are more than plenty who yearn for nothing more strongly than to be alienated from themselves under good pretense.

I was acting in this manner. I wanted a storybook to live inside of; forgetting mundanity.

I did try brainwashing myself, and all it did was confuse me even more. It never brought relief. Only by telling the truth, did I find relief.

the other day i started reading an anthology of transsexual/transgender memoirs and was really shocked by the first one in there. it’s from the 1880/1890s and is taken from the psychopathia sexualis by richard freiherr von krafft-ebing (freud’s mentor) which was one of the first texts on sexual pathology.

it’s an autobiography by someone i guess i would categorize today as an autogynephile and who would probably (maybe?) identify themself as a trans lesbian (in this political climate). it was kind of crazy how similar all of the things they were saying line up with stuff today but also provided a strange amount of clarity on how sexist (etc.) heterosexual/bisexual transwomen’s thought processes are.

it’s shocking to me how the pattern is the same. it’s an honest account of fetishization. the most shocking thing to me was when on the last page, now an old man, wishes they were a young woman so they could pursue their young friend who is a “masculine woman”, who they are very attracted to and envious of. nothing has changed.

i’ve clipped the excerpt and uploaded it to dropbox. it’s 12 pages. content warning for most of the things you’d expect in a tell all from an autogynephile (graphic descriptions of sexualized dysphoria and fetishization) and also mentions of suicide.

read here

#psychology #sexuality #autoandrophilia #detransition inc.

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maoam · 3 years ago

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WHY HINATA IS NOT A GOOD CHARACTER

INTRODUCTION

I wanted to take a deeper look at Hinata’s character, considering there are a lot of claims about her out there, that she’s strong, that she’s kind, that she’s complex and relatable, that she’s the perfect woman and that she’s at least better than Sakura. I don’t really think so, and I’ll explain why. I’ll be focusing on canon, so no fillers or novels will be included in this post. I’ll say this as a warning, if you’re a fan of her character this probably won’t be something you’ll like. This will be tagged with the anti tags and put under read more so please do not complain if tumblr somehow puts this in the normal tags, it is not intentional. Also Sakura stans please don’t write lengthy comments about Sakura under this, I’m not a fan of her either and I’ll write about her later. Make your own post instead.

”HINATA IS STRONG AND THE BEST KUNOICHI”

Hinata is generally really bad as a shinobi and I’m not sure where the claims that she is strong come from. Hinata's entire character revolves around her being weak. This could have been fine if she actually developed, or if she found some other area for herself, yet she's mediocre at best and a waste of panels at worst, because she never becomes good or strong at anything. She’s not only physically weak from start to finish, but she’s also the equivalent of a damsel in distress. Everytime Hinata attempts to do something, she ends up failing, getting beaten up and having to be saved. She lost to her sister who is five years younger than her, which is what marked her as a failure in her clan. She tried to fight Neji in the chunin exams and ended up coughing up blood and losing her consciousness, and Naruto had to beat Neji for her. After Kabuto heals her fully, she spends the rest of part 1 either sleeping or missing in action. Very underwhelming.

If this had been only the beginning, it would have maybe been fine, but it’s a reoccuring pattern with her character. She throws herself in front of Pain, managing to do nothing but get one-paneled and almost killed. Even at the start of the war she had to be saved by Naruto. She tried to run to Naruto and tripped over a rock. Actually, she’s so weak she got Neji killed, when he had to jump in front of her so she wouldn’t get impaled. Why is she even in the front lines when she can’t fight? Even in Naruto the Last movie she had to be saved multiple times. In Boruto the movie she is still useless and reckless, leaving her daughter’s side to help Naruto, ending up defeated and having to be healed by Sakura once again.

I can’t say she’s mentally strong either. She has the personality of someone who hates conflict and tries to avoid it as best as they can, to the point of agreeing with others on everything, as Neji pointed out. Even without him saying it out loud, most of Hinata’s moments that aren’t her thinking about Naruto are her doing exactly this. This is not the personality of someone who is strong mentally. It’s the personality of someone who is too weak to have their own mind, someone who will go with the flow and is easily led and convinced. It can be dangerous the more you think about it. Hinata is also the bystander who never stands up for Naruto despite liking and admiring him. If she’s a compassionate girl, why isn’t she showing this by reaching out to Naruto and befriending him? Why doesn’t she show he’s not alone? Why is she only drawing inspiration from him? I don’t normally watch fillers, but there was one filler scene unrelated to Hinata where this girl says if you only look at the loser and do nothing, you aren’t much better than the oppressors, which probably wasn’t meant to be a call out for Hinata, but ended up being so anyway. Another thing that’s annoying is how she is berating herself often, yet doing nothing, it comes off as self-pity. Even in the Last movie, she is talking about how she must be a bad sister for knitting a scarf when her sister is in danger. Then why are you doing it and not stopping? Of course everytime this happens Naruto must cheer her up because she just can’t stop moping around and doing something herself.

Aside from all this, from the very beginning Hinata’s honor needed to be defended by Naruto because she couldn’t stand up for herself. Of course, after Naruto’s words she did stood up for a moment, and that was good, but it should have been a wake up call which altered her course. Instead, she kept doing the same she always did. If we take the Last movie into consideration, she’s still not strong enough to do anything even about her crush on Naruto. She needs genjutsu and Sakura to do the work for her. So even when it comes to the only thing she cares about 90 % of the time, which is Naruto-kun, she can’t do anything about it. That’s really sad.

”HINATA IS KIND AND SELFLESS”

There’s one mistake I see people make often, and that’s assuming characters that are quiet and shy are automatically kind. I wouldn’t say Hinata is as kind as the fandom makes her out to be. She simply comes off that way because you don’t really see her have her own opinions or disagree with the other characters. Hinata’s shyness on the other hand is most of the time a fetishized quirk to appeal to certain subset of fans. Her shyness doesn’t stop her from taking exams or hanging around Shino and Kiba, or talking to characters other than Naruto. She also has enough attitude to rub Neji’s status as a house slave in his face during their match, but because she stutters Naruto-kun every five minutes she’s supposedly kind. Kindness is shown through actions, not through standing around and stuttering. For comparison, we see Ino befriend an unpopular kid like Sakura, and give her confidence. That’s an act of kindness. Did Hinata ever cared about helping the branch members in any way? No.

She's supposedly "kind" but like I mentioned before she never shows this kindness by standing up for Naruto, or reaching out to him. She simply stares at him behind a tree and draws inspiration from his suffering. The only time she can actually stand up is to selfishly confess her love and die. She even said she felt like being selfish, and like I said she knew there was nothing she could do, she was told she’d only be in the way. She came there only to confess and commit suicide. This actually reminds me of another anime where this female character, after being unable to receive a male character’s love killed herself in front of him and said ”now you’ll never forget me”.

In the end, she cares about nothing but her own hormonal urges. Hinata tried to help Naruto cheat to pass an exam at the risk of disqualifying her whole team. This is the first individual action we see her character take. Did she consider Shino and Kiba during that moment? No, she didn’t even have an inner conflict on whether she should do this, whether it’s right towards her teammates. Even Naruto considers he might get Hinata, Sasuke and Sakura all in trouble if he accepts Hinata’s offer, which is why he doesn’t do it. Then when Hinata wonders if she can cheer for Naruto during his and Kiba’s match, she thinks Kiba might get mad. It’s more about how Kiba views her rather than whether she should cheer for Kiba because they are in the same team and should support each other. During the Pain attack, she left an injured shinobi, who couldn’t move, to go to Naruto, even when said shinobi told her she would only be in Naruto’s way. She didn’t try to save people, she simply wanted to confess and act in front of Naruto. This is about a threat to the entire village, which includes her comrades and her sister and she’s thinking only about her romantic feelings towards a guy she had maybe two conversations with and who barely remembers she exists. How is she better than Sakura? War arc really was the icing on the cake that Hinata’s character is only about Naruto. We should not forget the infamous ”Naruto-kun’s hand is so big… so manly...” is that really the right time to be thirsty? When Neji just died? Shikamaru mentions that he could help out Naruto as a right-hand man and then Hinata thinks “I-I want to be by Naruto-kun’s side too.” Then there’s of course the scene where she starts running to Naruto, leaving her post and teammates, even when Naruto is a mile away and already in the hands of medical ninjas, and even that ends up her pathetically tripping over a rock. Kiba has to remind her to use her byakugan because she is too busy gushing about Naruto. Eventually her only last line is “Naruto-kun”, when everyone is put into IT. It’s like a parody by this point. She doesn’t have any concern for her sister, her father, her teammates, Kurenai or her baby. It’s just “Naruto-kun” like it always is. Even in the Last movie, she is knitting a scarf for Naruto during the mission where they’re supposed to save her sister. Who brings a scarf on a mission? Why is she thinking about her romantic gift to Naruto so much she has to take it with her on a mission which focus is saving her sister? She even looks more devastated when Toneri tores the scarf apart than she ever does for Hanabi’s sake. It’s just silly and selfish.

”HINATA IS A COMPLEX CHARACTER”

Is she complex though? Her development goes from standing behind a tree looking at her crush she never talks to, to committing suicide for feelings that could never be reciprocated, to… waiting that a genjutsu and Sakura guilt trip Naruto enough for him to be with her? Like I already mentioned her character revolves entirely around Naruto, she has no hobbies or interests we know of aside from him. She has no motivations aside from being by Naruto’s side. She once had an interesting goal and backstory, but that was never fully explored, and it turned into her wanting Naruto’s attention and thinking about him. Her clan plot was irrelevant, she showed no interest in wanting to be a leader or even wanting to make things better for the branch members. It’s funny because immediately after the ending, no one cared about the Hyuuga branch and how the storyline was dropped and had no resolution. It was only when Hinata was being attacked for not showing to care did her fans start to over-analyze all the panels looking for the tiniest little clue that might hint at some changes.

It’s possible to be both shy, anxious and quiet and also to be strong, motivated and have interests and dreams. Hinata is never strong for herself, she’s only strong to be with Naruto, to die for Naruto, to motivate Naruto, to have Naruto look at her even for a moment. All the while Naruto doesn’t pay much attention to her unless she’s literally dying in front of him or she slapped him. Even when a big climax is happening, what’s on her mind is always her romantic feelings and her crush. I saw someone say if she were a male character, and she pulled this pointless sacrifice and theatrical confession in the final fight of an arc, she would’ve been universally mocked. Actually, I think even if it was Sakura who did this instead of Hinata the former would have been mocked, because their stans are unable to see the same flaws in their own fave as they see in the other girl. Naruto is a battle manga, characters are supposed to contribute to the defeat of the villain in some material way. The only reason people praise Hinata for what she did in the Pain arc is because they either pity her or because they’re men who think women killing themselves for a man is great because it boosts their ego.

I also notice many Hinata fans don’t notice the vanity in their own fandom. They call Hinata “princess”, ”heiress”, ”Konoha’s first lady” and draw fanart glorifying these concepts and how it makes Hinata good, because they like the superficial status, what they don’t care is the titles are unearned. I thought Hinata’s appeal was that she’s the underdog and a loser? Or maybe her real appeal is the idea of getting everything you want without doing much in order to get it? Another claim is that Hinata is the perfect woman, which you might see from men. This is what I might dislike the most. Men judge Hinata’s worth and whether she’s a good character based on what kind of woman they want and think is the right kind of woman. Hinata has big breasts, she’s submissive, she has no other interests than the man she likes, and she’s the only girl in her class who didn’t go for the popular guy. Many men hate Sakura, Ino and Karin for being fangirls but praise Hinata for being a fangirl. Basically to them if a character is a fangirl of the wrong guy, she’s a stupid slut. If she fangirls their self insert, she’s wife material and the ideal woman. If Sakura has to be saved, she’s useless. If Hinata tries to kill herself for Naruto, she’s ”so kind”. Rin is a one-dimensional character, but Hinata saying Naruto-kun for the 50th time is depth. Hinata is also claimed to be better than the other girls because she had more kids and thus is more ”fertile”. It’s like feminism never happened and we are back to the 16th century. Why are we judging women’s worth on how many kids they have and how much they can please a man?

I could also talk about how Studio Pierrot turned Hinata into a hentai bait for otakus, which also plays a part in her popularity, but I don’t think it’s necessary, so I will just offer this picture which speaks for itself.

END NOTE

Hinata is simply just a sexist stereotype, a shadow of a real woman, with not much depth, and who is certainly not better than Sakura either. Both of them are fangirls whose characters revolve around men. It’s wild to me how there are women who genuinely act like one must be a misogynist if they reject Hinata’s superficial, one-dimensional and boy crazy character. Her character itself is misogynist for crying out loud. And honestly, what does it say when even the creator himself assumes that Hinata is someone’s favorite character because he must like big boobs?

#anti hinata #anti hinata hyuga #mp #I'm not sure if I'm satisfied with this #but there's just not much to talk about when it comes to her character #it would just become repetitive

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hotcoffeetransformation · 3 years ago

Text

Jason swore loudly and had to resist the urge to throw his controller down, pissed that he kept dying cause of the game's stupid glitches (Also known as own mistakes). Still, he regained his composure, and smiled before saying

"Alright chat, we're gonna finish up this one and then we're gonna move on to another game. There should be a poll on top for what we do next"

Jason was a moderately successfully game streamer, averaging about 200 to 300 viewers a night, entirely based on his wit and skill. He knew for sure that they weren't coming for his looks, given his weedy, thin frame, overly pimpled face and large, nerdy glasses. Still, it was enough for him, and he was happy with the progress that he'd made.

As Jason got himself set up for the next game, he heard a shocking sound from above him. The victory theme from one of his favorite JRPGs was blaring through the speakers, and he came up, staring at the screen in shock. He knew what that sound meant. That meant someone had tipped him one thousand dollars, completely out of nowhere.

He looked in shock at the notification on the stream, seeing that it was from someone named JockBro69, with the simple message "Can't wait to get to know you better, cutie~"

Jason was completely stunned. Not only had someone actually redeemed the donation goal that he set as a joke (That being that whoever was stupid enough to tip 1000 dollars got to have a 15 minute private chat with him), it was also someone that he'd never seen in his chat before.

Thoroughly weirded out, but knowing that he had to honor his commitment, he sent the guy a quick private message.

"Dude, I don't know how to thank you enough! Guess I'll see ya pretty soon!"

With that, he sent the man his private zoom link, and said goodbye to the chat, who were still going wild over this turn of events, before pausing,the stream and hopping over to discord for the call.

Not two seconds after his stream stopped, he got a requested video call on discord from the guy, and he opened it up, giving a second for the video to load, but when it did, he was completely dumbfounded again. He was expecting the mysterious donator to be some fat, sweaty silicon valley nerd with too much and money on his hands, but instead what met him was possibly the hottest man he's ever seen, standing up and looking down at his webcam with a friendly expression.

"Fuck, bro! Its so good to finally fucking meet you, I've been such a big fan for a long time, and this is a really big deal for me~

The man had a deep, rumbling, pleasant voice, that shot straight down Jacob's spine and left him feeling strangely... inadequate. Like the fact that his voice wasn't as smooth or melodic as this guy's was his fault, and he should be ashamed of that fact. Still, this guy was pretty pleasant to look at, Jason had to admit. He wasn't gay, definitely not, but he could acknowledge when another guy simply looked good.

Jason scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, not entirely sure of what he should do or say. Still, this guy spent 1000 dollars on this meeting, so he had to try anyway.

"So, umm.... I see your username is jockbro69... What's your actual name thought? I don't think I've ever seen you in chat before..."

The other man actually laughed at this, before looking confused and saying

"What are you talking about bro? Its me, Ethan! I'm in your chat all the time! Man, I guess what they say about playing games so much is true, huh?"

At this statement, Jason actually went pale with shock. THIS was Ethan? This was the guy who's username used to be runningLink? Who was an active fan of the zelda series, constantly begged Jason to play them, and bemoaned the fact that no would date him? It just didn't seem right...

Still, Jason, ever the semi professional, continued on, pretending that he wasn't shocked at the news.

"Well, thanks for supporting me so much! Seriously, this means a lot to me... Ummm... so I guess tell me some of your favorite things about the channel then!"

The man laughed again, the sound coming out in a slow, dumb chuckle, before saying

"What's my favorite thing? Do I even have to say, bro? Its the amazing piece of eye candy I'm looking at right now. You're super hot, bro~"

At this, Jason was shocked, but he chuckled awkwardly while blushing, and said

"Really? I don't think I've ever heard a single person say that before. I guess I consider myself slightly below average..."

The guy looked confused at that, before pressing on

"Really, bro? You look super hot to me, you got those bright, blinding blue eyes that you can just get lost in~"

At this point, Jason knew the man was just messing with him. His eyes have always, and will always be a dark, muddy brown, hidden behind his massive frames. Jason was about to respond, when Ethan continued

"Yeah, and you got that super stylish haircut too, really makes you look super masculine~"

Now Jason was REALLY confused. The guy was right, he did always get complements on his eyes, the bright, shocking blue visible and striking even through his huge glasses. But his hair was always a long, unkempt greasy mess.

"Ethan, are you sure you're okay, you're not just seeing things? Cause I don't know what you're talking about"

Ethan ignored the comment, just continuing to press on

"And you've got that hot, manly face, with your strong jaw and amazing profile"

Jason was confused again. Sure, his stylish haircut did help him look much better, but his face had always been pretty androgynous, with hints of baby fat still present in his cheeks. Again, before he could interrupt, Ethan continued,

"And you've got that smooth smooth skin, that hot stubble, that sexy smirk of yours. You're the full package bro~"

Jason laughed at this. Ethan was clearly being way too complementary. Sure his face had a great shape to it, with strong cheekbones and a square jaw, but his skin was still acne marked as hell, his smile was crooked and awkward, and he'd never been able to grow any facial hair, no matter how much he tried.

"I really have no idea what you're talking about Ethan. Sure I've got some good features, but the overall package isn't much to write home about~"

Ethan smirked again, his eyes lighting up with humor, as if he knew something I didn't.

"Nah, bro, you're underselling yourself. Plus, you've got that body~"

"What about my body? I think its pretty average, though I guess I'm a bit on the skinny side..."

Jason looked down at himself, trying to contemplate what Ethan meant. Sure, he'd been blessed with an attractive, manly face, but it didn't change the fact that his body was still below average at best.

"Again, bro! Putting yourself down. You really think those massive logs you have for arms are below average?"

Jason looked down at his skinny arms, and said

"More like logs than twigs man, seriously."

"And what about your legs? You've spent so long working on em, you've got thighs and glutes to kill for~"

Jason laughed again

"I dunno man! Most people say the exact opposite. They say I spend too much time on arms and not enough on my torso and legs. What can I say though? I love having big, beefy arms."

"Of course you do, bro? Who wouldn't? Especially when right in between em, you got your big, pillowy chest, your sexy abs, and your super toned back~"

Jason was seriously starting to wonder if Ethan was on something. Anyone could clearly see from first glance that Jason's body was badly proportioned, his arms and legs being massive from months to years of work, while he neglected his back, pecs and ab muscles. Still, he thought he looked pretty alright honestly.

"And I especially love how you're not only super sexy, you know it and flaunt it~ I don't think I've ever seen you once wear a shirt. The most you'll wear is a necklace, and even then, not like that covers anything, bro~ Only makes you look sexier"

Now here Jason had to disagree. He knew that he had cultivated and developed an amazing body over his years of going to the gym, but that was all for his own personal satisfaction. He never flaunted it unnecessarily, especially not during a stream.

"And I love the fact that you're such a fucking bro, bro. Every other word out of your mouth is bro and dude, you can't go even five minutes without flexing and thinking of fucking, or going to the gym, or hanging out with your other hot bros. We all know that your brain is basically only good for working out and looking hot. No smart's up there. And you've got your deep, sexy voice, too. Makes it even hotter that you're a gay bro, just like me"

Jason HAD to laugh at that. What the guy was saying was just so ridiculous.

"What the hell are you talking about? Look, I know that I like to show off my sexy body a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm some kind of dumb jock. And I'm definitely straight, dude. Don't know why you'd think I'm gay"

Ethan pressed on, completely unabashed by Jason's last comments.

"But you know the best fucking part, bro? Its that power of yours. The fact that any weak ass nerd who looks at you and your huge fucking muscles grows into a hot, dumb bro like us within seconds~"

Jason was busy flexing, staring at his own bicep in awe, as if he was shocked by him impressive he was. He looked up at Ethan blearily, saying

"Sorry, bro, what'd you say? I guess I got a bit fucking distracted. Huhuhu. But who could blame me~"

"Nah, it was nothing bro. You don't need to worry about it. Now should head back to the stream?"

Jason gasped in excitement, having forgotten entirely about the fact that there was a whole stream audience full of lame ass nerds, just ready for him to make as sexy as he and Ethan were.

"You got it bro~ This is gonna be so fucking hot~"

Jason left the call, going back to the stream and restarting, glad to see that a full 300 people were still watching, even through the extended break. The second he turned his camera on, he could see that people were confused for some reason, saying a stranger broke into his house. How stupid could these people be? How did they not recognize him? Still, not like it would matter for long...

"Hey bros! How're we all fucking doing? Welcomes to today's stream..."

He trailed off, looking blankly at the camera, before saying

"You know what? Fuck video games! Who needs them when you can do this~"

And as his pecs bounced and bounced hypnotically, the chat slowly transitioned from messages like "What the fuck is happening?" or "Who is this dumb jock?" to "Fuck, bro! Your pecs look so fucking hot today!" and "Huhuhu, I love making my pecs bounce like Jace's~"

And so the stream continued, Jace showing everyone all the amazing things his body could do, while anyone that was watching, whether they wanted to or not, began to copy him exactly. And as the stream went on, the viewer count rose, and rose, and rose...

#musclegrowth #straight to gay #jockification #himbo tf #jock #muscle

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gukyi · 4 years ago

Text

the love project | jjk

summary: from running to mcdonald’s at 3am after a halloween party where the two of you dressed up as the teletubbies to timing how long it takes for him to drink a cup of monster mixed with mountain dew and iced coffee and then do fifty push-ups, you’re used to your best friend jungkook asking you to do all sorts of crazy things. but, of all the shit the two of you do, letting him follow you around for a week with a camera and take candid photos of you for a photography assignment might just be the craziest of them all.

{college!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy word count: 12k warnings: college antics, hopeless pining, slow burn a/n: me: this fic will be 10k max! also me: actually nevermind on par for the course of this blog, i hope you enjoy this fic! it was so much fun to write and it definitely got me back into the ~writing mood~. more fics coming soon!

These days, the weeks pass you by like trains on a platform. They whiz past you, the only discernible features being the beginning and the end of them, with the middle nothing but a blur.

At least, that’s how it feels when you’re in college, and the days bleed into weeks bleed into months, and suddenly you’re one year closer to graduating, one year closer to figuring out what next to do with your life, even if you’re still missing that one general education requirement you forgot to take in your first year so now you’re trying to cram it into your schedule at the last minute.

Okay, you’ll admit it. Introduction to Astronomy is kicking your ass. That’s what you get for putting it off until junior year, when you’re supposed to have reached the point in your History major career where you don’t have to look at numbers anymore and the idea of doing basic math is absolutely unfathomable. History majors don’t do math. They just don’t. It vanished from your academic arsenal long before now, alongside your ability to interpret word problems and understand science textbooks.

Perhaps in another universe, you would have actually retained those skills past high school, but that universe is not this one, and so your problem sets can solve themselves or not be solved at all.

Your best friend would have to disagree.

“It’s not even calculus!” Jungkook exclaims over a mouthful of a Starbucks tomato and pesto panini, pointing to your laptop in exasperation, as if the answer has been staring you in the face for the past fifteen minutes. “It’s just algebra! All you’re doing is plugging the numbers into the formula and finding the missing variable!”

“Easy for you to say,” you huff, furiously erasing at the notebook in front of you as you get yet another incorrect answer. Who knew math could be so difficult? Oh, that’s right. You did. “You took that advanced differential equations class for fun last year. It’s not even required for your major. You’re just a masochist.”

“Says the person who convinced their advisor to let them take seven classes because they, and I quote, ‘all seemed so interesting’ and you ‘didn’t want to miss out.’” Jungkook rebukes pointedly. “Because your life would be so terrible if you didn’t take Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe.”

He’s got you there. Seven classes is a lot. In your defense, Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe was very interesting and you got a 4.0 that semester. So who is he to judge? Jungkook’s favorite pastime is pretending that taking three different computer science classes in a single semester isn’t going to single-handedly kill him.

Jungkook watches you struggle for a few moments more before he sighs, like he can’t take looking at someone so mathematically incompetent any longer. He stuffs the remaining third of his Starbucks panini into his mouth all at once like the ravenous beast he is before he reaches over the tiny table you’re sat at to look at your problem set himself. He turns your laptop towards him and grabs hold of your notebook, furrowing his eyebrows as he enters Work Jungkook Mode.

Work Jungkook Mode is the mode of him you see most often during finals week or the rare occasions where you meet up to actually try and get work done. Work Jungkook has tunnel vision for whatever assignment is currently in front of him, which he will do either in one sitting or die trying. Work Jungkook lets his coffee get cold and forgets to answer your text messages, even when you’re sat right across from him and you know that he can see the notification on his laptop. Work Jungkook refuses to turn in anything that he hasn’t devoted his entire being to, even if it’s something as simple as a discussion board post. Some of his other friends say that when Jungkook is in Work Jungkook Mode, they won’t even try to contact him, lest their messages get lost in the flurry of his coding assignments.

But you are not “some of his other friends.” You are his best friend. So rules do not apply to you. And Jungkook has long accepted that fact.

“Hey, don’t mess up my work—” You exclaim defensively, grabby hands reaching over the table to retrieve your notebook. “Wait, how did you do that?”

Jungkook scribbles something down in nearly-illegible font, determined to solve the problem in front of him. He thinks for a few more seconds before eventually jotting down an answer, circling it with his pencil. Holding the notebook out so both of you can see, he scoots his chair over to your side of the table, your shoulders pressed together in this tiny corner of the Starbucks, right by the bathroom, and explains, step by step, what he did.

He does that for the following two problems in your set, walking you through the kind of math he was doing in freshman year of high school like it’s nothing, answering all of your stupid questions and giving you tips on how to finesse the system by taking as many shortcuts as possible. Teaching you things you never learned, or possibly had just forgotten. Things that a professor would think is idiotic to re-teach to a junior in university. Things that Jungkook wants you to know because he just wants you to have a little more faith in yourself.

“Does that help?” He asks when he’s finished, still doubting his fantastic teaching abilities despite the fact that he just taught you more in the last thirty minutes than your professor has managed in a month and a half.

“It actually does,” you tell him, pleasantly surprised. Looking back down at your notebook, what was once a shapeless blur of numbers, letters, and formulas is suddenly a clear and organized outline of each and every step to follow. “I didn’t know it was that easy.”

“Anything can be easy if you just commit yourself to learning how to do it,” Jungkook says, one of those random sentences that are too wise for a college student surviving off of RedBull and Starbucks food, the ones that always make you think Jungkook is secretly an immortal sage with life experiences far beyond your own. “Except coding. Which is hard no matter how good you are at it.”

“Aw, you can do it,” you rally, reaching up to pinch his chin in between your fingers and squeeze it tight. “It’s also too late to change your major now, so you’re stuck.”

“Wow, thanks for the encouragement,” Jungkook chides, hand coming up to rub at where you held his jaw, rolling his eyes. “You should let me help you with your Astronomy work more often. Gives me a break from Python.”

“I would have made you help me whether you liked it or not,” you tell him pointedly, because he is your best friend and he doesn’t get out of things as easily as he thinks he can. “But thanks. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”

“Of course,” Jungkook says with a good-natured grin, always so selfless and kind and giving. He practically signed himself up for a semester’s worth of TA-ing for Introduction to Astronomy despite the constant mountain of work he has himself. Just because it’s you.

“My very own personal genius,” you muse, wrapping your hands around his arm and snuggling into his body, a whisper of a language only the two of you share. It’s something the two of you have long gotten used to, pressing your fingers all over each other’s bodies like it’s second nature. One of the things that makes you feel so certain about having Jungkook in your life. About wanting him to stay with you for the rest of time. “I’m never letting you go.”

Jungkook smiles, a warm hand coming to rest atop of your own. He breathes, in and out, chest rising beneath your touch. “Like I’d ever let you,” he says.

There is no question about it. Jungkook is one hundred percent, absolutely, undoubtedly, positively, indisputably smarter than you are. It’s something that the two of you used to jokingly fight about (because Jungkook claims that he’s a bad essay writer, even though he’s not), but at this point it’s cemented in stone—he’s a damn genius. A genius who is inexplicably good at everything. A double threat. Triple, if you count the fact that he’s built beyond belief and could probably chuck you into next week if you really, really ticked him off.

The truth is that, ninety percent of the time it is you who is going to Jungkook for help. Whether it be an assignment you need assistance on (namely Astronomy, because Jungkook probably couldn’t help you on your Mesopotamian artifact and primary source analyses despite his best intentions), a date that was a lot worse than you were hoping it would be, or even just the right coffee to order from that expensive place on the corner. Jungkook knows how to fix everything.

So when Jungkook slides into the seat across from you in the food court after his Mastering Photography class with that I’m in trouble look on his face, you know something is horribly wrong.

“Are you alright?” You ask, concerned as you watch him devour the sushi takeout in front of him, stuffing the spicy tuna rolls into his mouth like they’re Skittles. His camera hangs haphazardly out of his open backpack, like he barely had enough time to stuff it into the pocket while he was making his way here. There’s a worried expression written all over his face as he fumbles with the chopsticks in his hand, losing his grip on them every ten seconds.

It’s not until Jungkook has finished the container of spicy tuna rolls in front of them that he finally seems to work up the courage to answer you.

“My Photography class is gonna be the death of me,” Jungkook exclaims, exasperated.

“I thought you liked it,” you comment unhelpfully. Jungkook had been so excited to be enrolled in it, because you needed a recommendation from a different professor and you had to submit a portfolio in order to join the class, making it one of those exclusive (and thus, much better) courses. Not to mention the fact that Jungkook is basically already a professional photographer if his Instagram is anything to go by. He’s going to walk out of university with a Photography minor whether he realizes it or not.

“I do,” Jungkook insists, even if right now it sounds like the two of you both need convincing of that fact. “But this project is ridiculous. I don’t even know how my professor expects us to have the time to finish it.”

“What do you have to do?”

Jungkook sighs. Just thinking about it seems to stress him out. “I mean, it’s only really a week long. So I guess it’s not too bad. But we’re supposed to compile a portfolio of the same subject, taken over the course of the week, with them in all sorts of different poses and lighting and locations, to express a personal theme.”

You scrunch your nose up in confusion. “I might be wrong, but isn’t that what photography… is?” You ask cluelessly.

“Yes,” Jungkook argues, “but also no. Photography is taking pictures of things just for the hell of it. Not because they necessarily speak to a part of your soul. You just like the look of it. You want to capture the scene. That’s it.”

“Oh,” You say dumbly.

“And our subject can be whoever or whatever we want, but he recommended choosing a person because taking pictures of our water bottles in different places is boring,” Jungkook huffs, though his professor does have a point there. Modern history wasn’t made out of photographs of store windows and miscellaneous items. It was made out of people, out of events in their lives that shaped the rest of the world, out of personal experiences that changed their point of view. “But I don’t even know anybody who would be willing to let me photograph them for a whole week! I’d basically have to follow them around like paparazzi!”

“I’ll do it,” you suggest casually, because it seems like the most obvious choice to you. There’s no one Jungkook spends as much time with as you.

Jungkook’s eyes pop out of his head. “What?”

“I’m serious,” you insist. “Think about it. You need a subject for your project that you can photograph in a wide variety of places and over the course of a week. Who else do you spend that much time with, other than me?”

“Well..” Jungkook begins, trying to fight your reasons with his own. “Would you even be comfortable with something like that? I mean, I’m literally going to constantly be taking photos of you.”

“Like we don’t already do that on our phones,” you tease, having amassed quite the album of terrible Jungkook pictures over the years.

“A camera is different from a phone,” Jungkook protests weakly.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m just saying. It won’t bother me,” you say with a shrug. Why is Jungkook being so… weird about your suggestion? You thought he would be jumping at the offer, especially considering it means he won’t have to go out of his way to find and photograph someone else for this assignment. But he’s being rather hesitant. You watch as he glares down at his empty sushi takeout box, eyebrows furrowed in that thick, nervous way. “But you don’t have to,” you backtrack. “It was just a suggestion.”

He breathes in and breathes out, expression solid. Even from here you can see the cogs whirring in his brain, placing each and every potential result into a pro and con list inside his mind, trying to work out whether the benefits will be greater than the cost.

Quite frankly, you don’t know what all the holdup is about.

“You’re… sure about this?” He asks, looking up at you, determined to ensure your comfort. As if that’s even an issue. “You’re cool with being photographed and everything?”

“Only because it’s you,” you tease lightheartedly, expecting some sort of equally cheesy response. Instead, it makes Jungkook do something weird. He freezes in place, darting his eyes away from your gaze for a split second, collecting thoughts you can’t see. “Yeah,” you say loudly, trying to bring him back. “I’m fine with it.”

He inhales, exhales, closes his eyes, and opens them. “Okay then. I guess it’s settled. You’ll be my subject,” he declares, an almost unnoticeable wobble to his voice. It’s probably nothing, so you don’t think too hard about it.

“Can you at least pretend to be a little more excited about this?” You ask, jabbing him in the chest with a wooden chopstick. “It’s the first time we’ve ever gotten to be part of a project together!”

“Yay,” Jungkook says, lifeless.

“How about a photo to commemorate it?” You suggest, reaching over to pull the camera out of his backpack, pushing it into his hands. “This can be the start of your portfolio.”

“Fine,” he eventually caves, bringing it up to his eye as he turns it on, twisting the lens to perfect the focus. Even caught off guard like this, he looks like a professional, like someone who was born to be behind the camera. He’s a computer science major but you know that photography will always be something special to him.

You strike a dramatic pose, holding your chopsticks out, one in each hand, with a wide, excited smile on your face. “How do I look?” You ask, scrunching your eyes together.

Jungkook’s finger hovers over the silver button. “Perfect,” he tells you, voice soft and honest.

Click.

“So, how many photos are you supposed to take for this portfolio?” You ask as you flop around on Jungkook’s bed, pretending that the open tab on your laptop with your fifty-page reading doesn’t exist. You don’t even know why professors assign readings that long. Do they really expect you to read all of it?

From across his room, you can make out the top of Jungkook’s fluffy brown hair over his sleek gaming chair, one of the ones that look like high-tech airplane seats. “I don’t know,” he says. “He said at least twenty. And no more than fifty. Which really makes me wonder if someone once submitted like, one hundred photos for this project that he had to grade them on. But yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” you say. When you’re around a cute animal, you can easily take twenty photographs. Granted, they aren’t exactly award-worthy photographs, but it’s not a physically demanding task.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “Hypothetically you could finish it in a day. But it looks really obvious.”

“Well, how many do you have now?”

It’s been a day and a half since Jungkook agreed to let you be his so-called muse, but already you’ve lost track of how many photos he’s taken of you. He loves his camera, you know that, but you didn’t realize exactly how much he loves his camera. And with you as the sole subject for his project, he’s practically letting it hang from his neck all day long, just waiting for the right time to snap a photo of you standing in line at the food court, frowning at your textbook, or waiting to meet up with him. Every time he sees you he snaps a picture, even if the lighting’s bad, even if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet, even if it’s midnight and you look like a zombie. In his mind, there are no bad pictures. Just memories.

You wonder what the hell he sees in you.

“A lot,” Jungkook answers unhelpfully, making no effort to elaborate on that statement.

“Have you counted?” You ask, getting off of his bed to join him at his desk.

Jungkook doesn’t seem to realize what you’re doing until you’re standing right next to him, placing a hand over his shoulders as you lean down next to him. He fumbles around for a second, the mouse slipping through his grip, and you catch a glimpse of one of the photos he’s taken of you, a sliver of your pursed lips, the wrinkles between your eyebrows.

It’s from the library yesterday. You didn’t even know Jungkook had taken a picture of you there. You had a stupid reading to complete last night, one that made no sense and was terribly-written, and you spent an hour just trying to figure out what the damn argument was, and Jungkook captured it. You were there for an hour and Jungkook was there too, watching you like it was nothing, waiting for the perfect moment. He was there, sitting across from you, camera at the ready. You didn’t even hear it click.

He closes it before you get a closer look at the photo, frantically hitting the little red dot at the top corner of the window before you have a chance to ask why.

“What, I’m not allowed to see?” You chide, a little bit hurt but more confused than anything else. Why is Jungkook being so secretive?

“No,” Jungkook spits quickly. making you raise an eyebrow in alarm. “I mean, it’s a surprise. You get to see when it’s finished. I still have to… uh, edit. And stuff.”

“Edit? You think I’m that ugly?” You tease, knowing that he probably means color correction but enjoying the way that he gets all flustered when he hears your voice.

Jungkook’s eyes widen at that, like he just realized he made a wrong turn and is desperately backtracking. “What, no! I don’t—I don’t think you’re ugly.”

You laugh, letting the sound of your voice ease the tension in his shoulders, reveling in the way his big doe eyes seem to soften when he realizes you were just teasing. He looks like a kid caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, looks like one of those boyfriends in the viral videos where the girl reveals that she got him a present or something instead, all nervous and full of explanations.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” you assure him, rubbing up and down his arm to soothe him, calm his heart down. “You don’t have to show me. I’m just excited. No one’s ever taken photos of me like this before.”

“I would,” Jungkook speaks up softly. “If you asked. I would.”

“I know,” You say. You’re not sure if there’s a thing in this world Jungkook wouldn’t do for you, and you, him. If he asked, you would pluck the stars from the sky for him. Bring him back a piece of the moon. Stop time. Anything. Everything. Just for him. “I know.”

“What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, changing the topic as he whirls around in his gaming chair.

“Just another reading, like always,” you dismiss, because you’re positive the last thing Jungkook wants to hear about right now is your primary source reading on irrigation techniques in agrarian Europe. You don’t even want to hear about it. “But I could use some help on Astronomy.”

Without another word, Jungkook gets up from his desk and the two of you head over to his bed, where an untouched problem set waits on your computer. He grabs a notebook from his backpack along the way before sitting down next to you on the edge of his bed, bodies pressed together. Slowly, he begins to coach you through each problem, step by step, drawing pictures and diagrams if he has to, until you finish all ten problems.

The truth is, you didn’t really need help with this unit. Astronomy’s gotten a lot easier now that Jungkook has taught you the strategies to tackle it. But Jungkook sometimes feels like a ghost when he works, especially when he’s sitting at his desk, quiet and focused and almost invisible. And call you clingy, but you like it when you can look up and see his face instead of the back of a chair, a little tuft of wavy brown hair. You like it when he’s right beside you, in a place where you know you won’t lose him, where you can hold on if things get rough. Where you can see his stupid brown eyes and his goofy smile and know that he’ll always be there for you.

When he’s finished, Jungkook doesn’t get back up to sit at his desk. He flops down on his back, staring up at the white ceiling of his room, eyes tracing the cracks. You join him, side by side, pretending that there’s something there. Looking up at the sky would be nicer, but it doesn’t really matter, so long as you’re with him.

“I didn’t know you took so many photos,” you say.

“I never want to miss anything.”

“You should give me more warnings, next time. I feel like I look so ugly in some of them.”

“No, you don’t. Don’t say stuff like that.”

“You don’t think I’m ugly?” You ask him, for real this time. It’s not that you think he’s going to say that he does, it’s that you want to know what he really thinks. How he really sees you. You turn your head to him, back pressed against his comforter, barely a foot apart. And he turns back to you, and he’s right there, right there in front of you, big brown eyes wide and blinking. He’s right there, how could you miss him?

“No,” Jungkook says, honest and true. He looks at you, looks right at you, right into you, and he muses to himself, chuckling. “Why would I ever think that?”

At the end of the day, you can’t really be bothered to put on real pants in anticipation of Jungkook’s trigger-happy camera-taking tendencies. He’s seen you spill a boiling hot bowl of tomato soup all over yourself in the dining hall. He’s seen you at four in the morning in the library the night before finals begin, eyebags down to your knees and mismatched shoes on your feet. He’s seen you in the middle of a frat house, sweat dripping down your forehead and smelling of nothing but straight alcohol. Getting dressed up just for him would be antithetical to the very foundation of your friendship.

You have, however, become keenly more cognizant in the last few days of when Jungkook is about to take a photo of you. Mostly because you glance up at your surroundings every three seconds to make sure you aren’t getting sniped from across the food court. Nobody else needs to see a picture of you picking up three pieces of sushi with your chopsticks and stuffing them all into your mouth at once. And, from what you can tell, you’ve been pretty successful, which either means you’ve gotten better at telling when Jungkook might be taking a photo of you, or Jungkook’s gotten better at hiding it.

Either way, he’s got a lot more pictures of you reflexively flashing a peace-sign in his direction when you hear the telltale sound of his camera lens focusing, so you’re not really sure what that means for the fate of his portfolio.

Besides your newfound hyper-awareness of the sound of a camera lens adjusting, the strangest part of you and Jungkook’s little project is how quickly the rest of your friends adjusted to this brand new dynamic.

This is not to say this assignment is the weirdest thing you and Jungkook have done together, because there was once one week where you and Jungkook challenged each other to only eat bananas for every meal to see if anything would happen to either of you. Nothing did, but after that week you swore off bananas for the rest of your life and have had little appetite for them since.

It’s more that your other friends have just accepted the fact that ridiculous, extravagant shenanigans are a necessary part of you and Jungkook’s relationship and have simply chosen not to question them anymore. At least, most of them have.

“So, how’s you and Jungkook’s little photography fling going?” Maisie asks, and even through the phone you can hear the way she’s wiggling her eyebrows.

“It’s not a fling, and it’s fine,” you hiss back, trying to keep your voice down as you pack up your belongings, phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder. “Stop speaking so loudly, everyone else in the library can probably hear you.”

“Good, because they’ve all probably noticed the way Jungkook’s been following you around like an unrestrained fanboy for the past four days taking pictures of you,” Maisie says pointedly, voice so sharp it causes you to look around at the other tables to make sure no one’s listening in.

You frown, hoping your deadpan expression is audible through the phone. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Don’t you think it’s even a little strange that you’ve given Jungkook full permission to take photos of you like you’re a model and he’s some sort of weird, professional paparazzi?” You can practically see Maisie’s face in front of you, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows as she makes her point.

“No, it’s what we agreed on,” you remind her for the umpteenth time. There’s nothing weird about this. You’re helping him with a project, what more could it be? “Jungkook needed someone to take pictures of for his photography project and I thought it would be a good idea if I was that someone.”

“Hmm… wonder why…” Maisie trails off, deliberately vague and suggestive all at once.

“You’ve been going on about this ever since Jungkook and I met, Maise,” you say with a roll of your eyes, tossing your backpack over your shoulder. “You know that Jungkook and I are just friends. Like we have always been.”

“Friends that take candid photos of each other under the guise of a project,” Maisie adds, and you can see the air quotes around the word “project” right in front of you.

“Friends that help each other out because that’s what friends do,” you correct. “You’re just going to have to accept the fact that Jungkook and I are always going to be just friends and nothing more. No matter how much money you’ve bet on us getting together.”

Maisie gasps. “I have not bet money on such a thing! This is slander!”

“Don’t think I don’t see you and Jimin’s damn Venmo history.” You pull up to the front desk of the library to check out a primary source book needed for one of your classes. It’s the first edition, and it’s battered beyond belief, but it’s better than paying for it. “Just this, thanks.”

“The only way you could convince me that you and Jungkook are just friends is if you go on a date or something,” Maisie comments snidely. “I don’t think I’ve seen either of you romantically interested in someone else the entire time you’ve known each other. Isn’t that proof enough?”

“You want me to go on a date with someone?” You demand, determined to get Maisie to hop off your ass about this.

You and Jungkook are just friends. If swiping right with someone on Tinder and getting dinner and a movie with them is what will convince Maisie of that, then that is what you will do. It’s not as if being friends with Jungkook is mutually exclusive with you going out with other people. Should be easy, right?

The boy behind the counter tells you your book is due back at the end of the semester, and you nod your thanks before heading out of the library.

“Fine, I’ll go on a date with someone. If it’ll get you to stop trying to convince me that Jungkook and I are gonna get married and have babies,” you declare, pushing your body against the door handles as you leave, five minutes to spare before your next class begins.

“You guys would have really cute babies, I’m just saying,” Maisie points out like it’s nothing.

You roll your eyes, taking the phone away from your ear as your finger hovers over the red button. “See you, Maise.”

You’re barely three steps out of the library, still rolling your eyes at the Call Ended screen on your phone when a voice catches your attention.

“Y/N!”

You turn your head just in time to see Jungkook’s devilish grin disappear behind his camera, and you don’t even have time to blink before he begins snapping away, finger mashing the silver button at the top as your expression morphs from surprise to defeat, unable to counter his sniping abilities with a signature peace sign. Even from twenty feet away, you can hear Jungkook laughing as you take the opportunity to pose for a few moments, like you really are a model and he really is your personal photographer. The sound of his giggles fills the air, music to your ears, lingering between you like dandelion wisps, blown by the wind.

Another voice breaks you from your trance.

“And here we have our resident celebrity and her paparazzi,” Jimin says, motioning to the two of you as he speaks to an enormous tour group of potential applicants and their parents. Caught in front of them, the heat suddenly rushes to your cheeks as you instinctively cover your face, embarrassed to have been pointed out by Jimin, whose amicable, lovable personality is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to his part-time job as a tour guide.

The worst part is how some of the parents and students seem to believe him for a second, that you really are famous and that Jungkook really is your photographer, looking at the two of you inquisitively as you shrink beneath their gazes.

“I’m kidding,” Jimin quickly continues as Jungkook joins you where you stand, laughing at the way you look like a deer caught in headlights. “They’re just some friends of mine who we happened to catch outside the library, which is our next stop. But don’t they look so cute together?”

“Are you guys dating?” One of the students pipes up, asking what no one else dared to.

Your eyes widen at the notion, wondering if you and Jungkook really are cursed to always be mistaken for a couple when you two have never been, and most likely will never be one. Shaking your head, you force out a laugh, “No, we’re just friends.” Beside you, Jungkook is noticeably silent. You suppose he’s gotten just as sick of explaining as you.

“Bummer, right?” Jimin asks his group, earning a couple of disappointed nods from innocent high-schoolers that still believe in love. “But I’m working on that, so don’t worry. Anyway, this library will be your main destination for studying, book-reading, and everything in between, and is conveniently located two minutes away from the freshman dorms…”

The conversation finally drawn away from you and Jungkook, you let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you had been holding in. “Weird, right? Even high-schoolers think we’re together.”

Jungkook doesn’t meet your eyes, fiddling with the settings on his camera just to keep his hands busy. The quiet makes you wonder what is going on up inside his head, makes you wonder what it is he’s thinking about, what it is you’re not seeing. Lately, it’s felt like there’s something on Jungkook’s mind you wish he felt comfortable telling you.

“Hey, you alright?” You ask, giving him a little nudge with your side. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” Jungkook says, voice soft, barely audible. It doesn’t make you feel any better. “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have class soon?”

“Oh, shit, you’re right, fuck,” you say, checking your phone only to find you have barely a minute to get to your next class. Guess you’ll be using one of your allotted absences today. “Thanks for reminding me. Dinner tonight?”

“I’ll text you,” Jungkook promises, and you nod your agreement as you dash off, determined to turn a five-minute walk into a one-minute one with the power of exercise. As you leave, you watch as Jungkook flounders outside the library, staring down at his camera and scrolling through his photos, and you still find yourself feeling like you’re missing something. What is Jungkook not telling you?

What do you not know?

By the time you reach your class, two minutes late and completely out of breath, tardiness is the last thing on your mind.

This project was just meant to be a friend helping out a friend. So why does it feel like you and Jungkook are losing each other?

Using Tinder is easy. Dangerously so.

You’re no expert in app design, but its simplified “yes or no” mechanic has you swiping through people like it’s an extreme sport, barely giving some of them a second glance if their Tinder profile description doesn’t make you laugh within the first sentence.

Tinder was, admittedly, not your first choice of potential date-finding methods. Call you old-fashioned, but whatever happened to asking someone in person if they wanted to get a meal with you? To showing up at their doorstep with a rose bouquet and a toothy white grin? Perhaps all of those old-timey movies you and Jungkook always watched have given you unrealistic expectations. But can you blame them?

Even if Tinder wasn’t your first choice, it was certainly the fastest. It takes a second to look at someone’s designated Tinder thumbnail, two to read their description, and three to decide if they’re worth a swipe right. Compare that to actively meeting up with someone, getting their contact information, and then continuing to dance around each other until you finally decide to get dinner together. That’s the sort of thing that could take weeks. Maybe months. And in some cases, years.

Besides, it’s not like you had very many options at your disposal. You don’t trust Maisie to set you up with someone because she’ll probably just choose one of the many boys from her management class and call it a day. Asking someone yourself is absolutely out of the question. And, for some strange, unknown reason, the idea of getting Jungkook to hook you up with one of his friends just doesn’t sit right with you.

So, Tinder it is. And as it turns out, chivalry isn’t dead. It’s just archaic.

An hour into your mindless swiping, you get a message notification. Two hours after that, you’ve got plans with a nice senior boy whom you’ve never met.

And for the first time in a very long time, there’s something to mark on your calendar for Saturday night.

The little blue block on your Google Calendar tab stares back at you from where your open laptop sits on your desk, the red line that signifies your current time slowly inching towards it as you fumble around in front of your mirror, more dressed up than you have been in weeks. Maisie was right. It’s been so long since you’ve gone out with someone that you’ve completely forgotten what the dress code is for something like this. A dress? Heels? Makeup?

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you will anyway. What if he’s wearing a hoodie and sweats while you look like you’re about to attend the goddamn Academy Awards? Maybe the eyeshadow was a little too much.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks it’s inevitable that you do. The door to your apartment swings open, and you can hear heavy footsteps making their way to your bedroom, that easy gait of his familiar as always.

“Hey, do you think we can just get some take-out and watch a stupid old noir movie, or something? I’ve had a day,” he shouts out, the sigh audible in his voice.

You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you definitely have when you turn around to see Jungkook standing right outside your bedroom in the floppiest sweater you’ve ever seen and jeans with holes in the knees, mouth agape as he stares straight at you. It’s impossible not to notice the way his eyes are blown wide at the sight of you, at the way they rake up and down your figure, like he can’t even believe what he’s seeing. It’s impossible not to notice how he seems to flounder at the sight of you.

The only thing that breaks the both of you out of your stupors, frozen in place like two criminals caught red-handed, is the sound of his hulking black backpack thudding to the floor.

“Whoa.”

“Do you think it’s too much?” You ask, voice wobbly. God, why are you so nervous? It’s just Jungkook.

“Too much for what?” Jungkook blinks, deliberate and slow, as if he’s determined to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. “Where are you going?”

“I think we’ll have to do a raincheck for the noir movie and takeout,” you say sheepishly, pursing your lips together in fright as you force out a small, tense smile. “I’m… going out. With someone.”

“Like,” Jungkook begins, and even from here you can hear the way he stops himself, hear him breathe out every word, thick on his tongue. “On a date?”

“Yeah.”

It’s a one-syllable word and yet it takes nearly all of your willpower just to say it. Just to confirm what Jungkook’s already thinking. Just to tell him, your best friend, your ride or die, your number one, that you’re going out on a date.

“Oh.” Jungkook’s voice is lifeless. “Do I know them?”

“No, uh, it’s just some guy I met on Tinder. I don’t know, I just wanted to see what all the hype was about, I guess. And I haven’t really been on a date in a while, so I figured I might just take up the opportunity, so we’re probably just going to go out to a restaurant and maybe go to a club afterwards if we’re still in the mood, and—” You cut yourself off, so nervous that you’ve resorted to your terrible habit of rambling to try and ease the tension. “Why? Do you think it’s too much?”

“You use Tinder?” Jungkook asks instead. It sounds like he’s shocked to hear this.

“Yeah…” you trail off. “Why?”

Jungkook freezes at the question, but it’s not because it seems like he doesn’t have an answer. It’s because it seems like he does. Only it’s an answer he doesn’t want to share.

“Nothing, it’s nothing,” he eventually settles on, shaking his head. “You, uh, you look good.”

“You think? I feel like it’s a lot. I don’t know how to dress appropriately for stuff like this anymore,” you ask, palms sweaty as you furiously straighten out the skirt of your dress. “Should I change into pants, or anything?”

“No, no, I think that’s fine,” Jungkook says with an honest smile. “You look nice like this.”

“It’s probably been like, a year since you last saw me in a dress,” you comment mindlessly, turning back to face the mirror as you fiddle with your makeup, finger wiping away a bit of smudged lipstick or a stray bit of mascara. “I miss my sweats. Hey, whoa, wait, what are you doing—?”

You whip around to find Jungkook slowly fishing out the camera from his backpack, hand gripping it tightly as he brandishes it in front of you.

“I, um, I just wanted to see if I could maybe take a photo of you,” Jungkook says, a small, little grin decorating his features. “Since you’re all dressed up.”

“Seriously?” You ask in disbelief.

Jungkook nods, holding the camera out in front of him. “Just one.”

He looks so small, standing across your bedroom. He looks so small and delicate and intimate, body curled in on itself ever so slightly as he looks at you, the yellow glow of your ceiling light reflected in his hazelnut eyes, drowning beneath his clothes. He looks like he has never seen a moment more perfect, never seen an opportunity as clear, looks like he thinks that if he blinks he’ll miss it.

Looks as if a photo will be the only way to remember it.

And you nod. Because he is your best friend, and who are you to deny him of something so simple? Of a press of a button? It doesn’t feel like a project anymore. It just feels like a memory.

Jungkook brings the camera to his eye, and you smile at him, soft and gentle and warm. He grins back, focusing the camera lens before snapping away.

You wonder what he sees.

(You wonder if it’s as beautiful as what you see.)

“Have fun tonight, okay?” Jungkook asks of you as your Google Calendar notification sounds, letting you know you have approximately two minutes before he’s supposed to pick you up outside your apartment.

You nod. “I will. And if I don’t, then I’ll come over afterwards. And we can watch that stupid noir film.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes, a shrug of his shoulders.

“But I want to. So I will. Okay? I’ll text you,” you promise. “Don’t think I’ll forget about you.”

Jungkook smiles at your little tease, at the way you cup the side of his jaw with your hand as you head towards your front door.

“Wait, Y/N,” Jungkook sputters out, running after you. He reaches you right as you get to the door, hand grasping the doorknob. You turn to look at him, blinking. “I hope tonight is everything you dreamed of.”

There is something so distinctly sad in his voice. It makes you wonder who has broken his heart. Makes you wonder what you can do to fix it.

“Even if it’s not,” you say to him, taking his hand in your own and squeezing it tight, reminding him that, no matter what, you’re still here. “I know you’ll always be there to take care of me afterwards.”

Your phone buzzes with a message from your date, and you scurry out the door.

For some reason, there’s a part of you that wishes you never even left.

The date is okay. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. By the time you finished eating, it was obvious neither of you had any interest in continuing the night elsewhere, whether it be a club or a karaoke bar. He pays for your meal despite your insistence that you can handle the check perfectly fine on your own, thanks you for a nice night, and drops you right back at your apartment. And so goes your one and only Tinder experience, blowing away like a leaf in the wind.

You look down at your phone. It isn’t even nine o’clock yet.

[November 7th, 8:48PM]

You: you still game for that movie?

[November 7th, 8:50PM]

Jungkook: you finished your date already?

You: is that a yes or a no

Jungkook: my door is always open, you know that

You: you’re gonna get robbed one day and it’s gonna be by me You: i’m coming over

The walk from your apartment to Jungkook’s is six minutes and thirty seconds on a good day, and seven minutes and fifteen seconds on a bad day, which is usually dependent on if the traffic light over the main road has decided to be extra slow or not. You could walk the damn route in your sleep if you really wanted, having done it so many times in the last year and a half, ever since he moved out of on-campus housing and into his own place.

Tonight, it takes you nearly eight minutes to get to his apartment, but you mostly chalk that up to the heels you’re wearing. If you cared any less about your dignity, you’d probably take them off and walk barefoot like a defeated heroine in a romance movie, shoes dangling from your fingers as they hang low by your side.

But you aren’t defeated. You didn’t have the world’s most spectacular date, but the night isn’t over just yet.

Jungkook’s waiting at his front door by the time you arrive.

“Eight minutes, huh? You’re getting old,” he asks snidely, looking down at the invisible watch on his wrist.

“Your counting is just off,” you retort easily, falling into that same friendly rhythm, that familiar little beat that the two of you share. You push past him and into his apartment, instantly feeling more at home, shoulders sinking and heartbeat soothing as you soak in the scent of his room, of his home, of him.

“How’d it go?” Jungkook asks, eyes hopeful as they watch you tug off your heels. They were hardly three inches tall and yet you still want nothing to do with them.

You shrug. “Eh. It was okay.”

“Just okay?” Jungkook asks, sounding seriously upset for you. Upset that you didn’t have a good night even after you promised him that you would. Upset that it didn’t turn out to be everything you wanted.

“I don’t know,” you admit, looking over at him, dejected. “It just—I just had this feeling that it wasn’t going to work out.”

Jungkook scowls to himself, eyebrows furrowing like he’s trying to figure out what exactly you mean by that. And the truth is, you’re not sure either. The date was fine, and he was nice, but even when you first met it felt like you weren’t going to get what you wanted from him. Like you were just going on the date to go on the date. Like you already knew that it would mean nothing.

Jungkook was going to be waiting for you at the end of the night whether it went amazingly well or terribly bad. And knowing that, strangely enough, almost made you want the date to be horrible. Like it would make seeing Jungkook afterwards that much sweeter.

“Oh,” Jungkook says lamely. “Well, I’m sorry. It seemed like you were really looking forward to it.”

“It’s alright,” you assure him. “Can we just watch this movie now and make fun of how sexist it is? Please?”

To that, Jungkook easily agrees. As he’s queueing up the movie, you raid his closet for a hoodie and sweatpants, desperate to strip yourself of your dress and tights and cozy up in clothes that are much more appropriate for your comfort level. At this point in your friendship, Jungkook doesn’t even question it when he sees you march into his room, fishing through his closet and drawers for your favorite matching set of his, this grey pair that he’s worn so much it still smells like him even after it’s come right out of the wash.

He only stares back in awe when he sees you emerge from his bedroom wearing them.

“Ready?” You ask, breaking him from his resolve.

Jungkook blinks wildly from where he’s seated on his dinky old couch, as if to clear his vision. “What? Oh, yeah, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Then hurry it up, Mister,” you demand, sitting down next to him and curling into his body. It’s instinctual, at this point, wanting to be close to him. To feel the warmth of his body radiate upon your own. To feel his chest beneath the palm of your hands, his arm wrapped around your side. “All good?” You ask, looking up at him.

Jungkook looks down at you, and you swear, you’ve never seen him more at home. “Always, when I’m with you.”

The movie is predictably good and predictably sexist, but your favorite part by far is when Jungkook reaches around on the coffee table in front of you for his camera, holding it up to his eye and snatching a picture of the television, the film grainy like an old polaroid, faded like an antique photograph. He clicks away at the scene in front of him before turning on you, the lens so close to your face you’re almost certain all he’ll manage to capture is your nose. You laugh, pushing yourself away from him as he snaps, and snaps, and snaps, image after image after image, until his camera battery has died and there’s no more room left on his card.

“Guess I’ll have to charge this thing, then,” Jungkook sighs as he declares his camera dead, screen black.

“You aren’t going to include any of those, are you?” You ask, an eyebrow raised.

Jungkook shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you have enough?” You deadpan, thinking back to the hundreds of photos Jungkook must have taken of you over the past week, and even more that you don’t know about. There’s certainly no shortage of them in his current camera inventory. That’s for sure.

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. He stretches out an open arm, and you don’t have to think twice about falling into it, letting him wrap you up in his hold, curling into his body.

The black television screen crackles before you, DVD player waiting for Jungkook to turn it off. There’s no need for either of you to look up at each other. Not when you’re strung together like this. Not when you already know exactly where he is.

“It’s due on Monday, right?” You inquire softly, fatigue slowly overtaking you.

“Yeah. I’m almost finished, just have to do some curating and editing.”

“I want to see it.”

“What? My project?”

“What else?”

“It’s just a project, it’s not that exciting.”

You pull away from him at that, looking up at him with furrowed brows and scrunched-up nose. “What do you mean ‘it’s not that exciting’? It’s your photography project. You’ve spent a whole week working on it.”

“Yeah, but it’s just you, you know?” Jungkook objects. “Like, you know what you look like. It’s just going to be a bunch of photos of you, like I said it’d be.”

“That’s exactly why I want to see it,” you say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You took pictures of me for a whole week. Don’t you want to share them with me?”

“If you really want some of the photos, I’ll send you some, but you don’t need to see the whole portfolio, you know? It’s just for my professor,” Jungkook says stiffly, surprisingly resistant. What’s the big deal? It’s not like there will suddenly be new information about you that you didn’t know before. You want to see what Jungkook has been working tirelessly on this entire week. Where’s the harm in that?

“Why are you getting so hung up on this? It’s just photos,” you say with a frown.

“Why are you getting so hung up on this?” Jungkook challenges back.

You sigh, sinking back into him, defeated. Even a little disagreement like that is enough to knock the wind out of the both of you, so you decide not to push it much further.

“Do you promise to show me eventually?” You ask, hopeful.

Jungkook pauses for a moment, and you almost expect him to say no, considering how protective of his work he’s being. “One day,” he declares. “One day, I will.”

And that’s good enough for you.

You lose track of how much time passes after that, feeling your eyelids getting heavy as the warmth of his body envelopes you, drowsiness settling in. There’s just something about this moment, right here, right now, that makes you want to fall asleep.

You’re on the verge of slumber when Jungkook’s voice breaks through.

“Why didn’t you think your date would work out?”

“I don’t know,” you respond sleepily, barely even opening your eyes. “It just felt wrong.”

“How do you know what feels right?”

Good question. Perhaps if you had the energy, you’d answer it. But right now, all you can think about is how cozy you feel in Jungkook’s hoodie and sweatpants, how the scent of him surrounds you, that indescribable, boyish aroma that can’t be replicated. Right now, all you can think about is how easily your body molds into his, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to fit together. Right now, all you can think about is him.

The worst part about each and every week is when it ends. Because the end of one week signifies the beginning of the next, and when you’re in university, the beginning of the next week means a whole new batch of assignments that you have to complete and a whole new batch of due dates to meet.

So, yeah. The weeks have been blurring together for you lately. But what else could you expect?

Sunday evening, as per usual, finds you right back where you always are: Jungkook’s apartment.

The two of you have been regularly getting together on Sundays to study, ever since you both realized you work significantly harder when motivated by the other, determined to finish all of your work on time so you can spend the rest of the night fooling around by mixing Monster with as many unhealthy drinks that you can possibly think of. And it’s been working out well for the both of you so far. Jungkook powers through his coding assignments and you whiz through your readings, intent on keeping up to date with your tasks so they don’t all come crashing down on you at the end of the semester.

Studying with Jungkook has always been easy, largely due to the fact that it’s the one allotted time during your friendship where the both of you deem it best to not speak to each other for the sake of your work. The moment one of you opens your mouth it’s over, so you sit on opposite ends of the room and pretend that the other person isn’t even there.

Jungkook told you earlier today that he had already finished his photography portfolio, so there would unfortunately be no sneaky glances over his shoulder to see if you can catch a glimpse of one of the pictures. Which is fine by you, you’re just a little embarrassed that Jungkook had told you this outright. Not that you were planning to do exactly that, but you were planning to do exactly that.

Part of you. more than anything, wants to know why Jungkook won’t just show you himself. Why he’s being so secretive, so protective of his photography project when you both know already exactly what’s in it. For God’s sake, he just spent the entire week taking photos of you non-stop. It’s like not as if any part of this is a mystery to either of you. What more could he have done?

Whatever. You aren’t going to force it if he doesn’t want you to. You suppose that maybe one day, far into the future, he’ll finally decide that the time is right.

“I’m so fucking tired,” Jungkook declares lifelessly as he gets up from where he’s sitting on your bed, dead inside. “I need a break.”

“Are you going to the kitchen? Can you make me some tea, please?” You ask him, looking up from the laptop on your desk.

Jungkook nods wordlessly before disappearing out of the room.

You and Jungkook’s best study practice to maximize productivity is the taking of each other’s cell phones so that the other cannot be tempted to look at it. It’s worked plenty of times before and will probably work plenty of times again, because as they say, out of sight, out of mind.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to pretend that your phone is out of sight when it’s been buzzing on your bedside table for the past five minutes, and your fingers have been itching to get over there and answer your damn notifications. So, while Jungkook is out of the room, you decide to cheat a little by dashing over there just to see what the heck is going on in the rest of the world.

As it turns out, nothing much. Just Maisie texting you as she binges yet another television show, giving spoiler-free updates anytime anything remotely dramatic happens. You have a couple of new emails as well.

The thing that actually catches your attention the most, is Jungkook’s laptop screen.

There’s just a Word document open on it, but a Word document is a far cry from his usual coding program or Photoshop. Because you can’t help yourself, you peer over to see what he’s written.

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Hard to say that I have. I don’t think I learned something about myself so much as I confirmed what I already knew, cementing it as a real thought in my brain, rather than just a daydream. Nothing changed in the way that my best friend and I interacted, and I can almost confirm that nothing changed in the way that she feels about me, just as nothing changed in the way I feel about her. I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.

What?

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Not as a reference but to remind myself of this very moment in my life—a single week over the course of my life that I felt was worth saving. I imagine that there will come a time, far in the future, where my best friend and I have separated a little bit, found our own lives and created our own families with our own people. And when that happens, I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.

This feels personal. Maybe you should stop reading. But there’s just one more question left on the page…

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. If it meant getting to spend more time with her, take more photos of her, see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.

“Y/N?”

You hadn’t even heard the kettle whistling.

“Jungkook,” you say, breathless, caught red-handed.

“What are you doing?” He asks, placing your steaming cup of tea down on the desk as he stares back at you in horror, in surprise, in worry, in something. Something that gives you this imminent sense of impending doom.

“Uh—”

“Were you reading my computer screen?”

It’s not like you could say you were doing anything else.

“I couldn’t help myself, I came over here to check my phone since it’s been buzzing like crazy and your computer was right there and I just…” you sputter out, thoughts swirling inside your head.

(I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.

If it meant getting to see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.

I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.)

“What do you mean, how you feel about me?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. Because the sound of his voices echoes in your head like the beat of a drum, over and over and over. Because you’re staring back at him and even if he just caught you snooping through his computer you can never be worried when it comes to him. Because everything he has ever done puts you at ease.

“Y/N, that is private, why would you read something like that?” He asks, each word a sucker punch into your heart.

“Because I just had to know, okay?” You shout back. “I had to know what you were hiding from me.”

“So you decided to snoop through my computer to see if you could figure it out yourself?” He demands, storming over to you.

“So you are hiding something?”

“That’s not the point, the point is that—”

“What are you not telling me, Jungkook?” You cry out, watching as he approaches you, dark eyes piercing your gaze. “Why won’t you show me your goddamn portfolio? If there’s really nothing to be afraid of, why are you keeping it from me? I’m your best friend, I’m the fucking subject of your project? Don’t I deserve to see it? Why won’t you show me?”

“Because then you’d know!” Jungkook shouts back, leaving deafening silence in his wake. You look up at him, blinking. In front of you, Jungkook is out of breath, chest heaving.

He looks so strained. So tired. Like he’s been carrying around this secret for months now, maybe even years, and this is the final straw. This is what has sent the both of you crashing down upon each other. This stupid fucking project. You’ve known Jungkook ever since the beginning of your freshman year, and never before have you seen him so hopeless.

“Jungkook—?”

“You’d know, goddamnit,” Jungkook says, hand coming up to rub at his forehead, dragging down his cheek. “And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.”

“Know what? What would I know?”

Jungkook closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Opens them again. “That I’m in love with you.”

The words drift in between the two of you, hovering in the air like feathers. You see them, clear as day, in front of you, hear them echoing in your head, over and over and over again. Feel the way your blood is pumping, the way your heart is beating.

“You’re in love with me?” You ask him.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” Jungkook admits. “Or at all, really. But I have been, for a while now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid that I’d lose you.”

You chuckle, a small, little thing from the back of your throat. “You must have known I’d never let that happen, hmm?”

Jungkook smiles softly. “I was scared. Can you blame me? You’re my best friend.”

“And you are mine,” you remind him.

“It’s just—” Jungkook begins, like the gates of a dam are opening up. “We’d known each other for so long, and we have such a good thing going as is, always texting and calling and hanging out together, studying together on Sunday nights and seeing each other during the week, and I didn’t want to ruin anything. And then my professor assigned this project, and the only person I could think of to take photos was you, but I didn’t want to ask that of you in case you thought it was weird, but you suggested it anyway so I said yes, but I knew. I knew then that the moment I took one goddamn photo of you it would be obvious, and that if you ever saw you would just know. Stuff like that is easy to pick up in pictures, because a camera is like, tunnel vision for whatever it is you want to focus on most, and that’s you, that’s always been you, so I—”

“Jungkook,” you interrupt, reaching out to him, pressing a soft hand to his cheek. “Just, shut up, okay?”

And then you cup his head in both of your hands, and press a kiss to his lips. A small one, if nothing else, but a kiss nonetheless. You press your lips against his own and immediately you feel the sparks rush through you, this flash of heat that settles into something softer, something sweeter. It ignites and soothes you all at once, like a stray lightning bolt out on the open ocean. Like a single clap of thunder and the pitter patter of rain.

You press a kiss to his lips and when you pull away, Jungkook’s eyes are closed, lips parted ever so slightly. And for a moment there, you almost think you did the wrong thing.

But barely a second more passes before he’s scooping you up in his arms and pulling you in close to him, his lips finding yours like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. He holds you tight, hands pressed against the small of your back as he kisses you, warm and fiery and full, as if he can’t get enough, as if this is his only chance. You gasp into it before relaxing in his hold, cold hands on his warm cheeks, body melting at the feeling of him, of him all over you, of his hands and his mouth and his chest, this perfect, solid figure.

He kisses you and it sends heat shooting through your body, filling you up from the inside out, like your heart has burst and filled your bloodstream with fire, with sparks of warmth that tingle all over. He kisses you, and everywhere his hands press is another sizzle to your skin, an electric shock that makes you giggle into his mouth.

He kisses you and it feels like a storm has settled, feels like gentle rain after a hurricane, feels like waves crashing against the shore. He kisses you and it is the only thing you can think about.

By the time you part once more, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Jungkook so blissed out.

“See?” You point out softly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Jungkook looks positively dazed. “I think I need to lie down.”

“Ooh, was I that good?” You tease.

“I’m dreaming.” He shakes his head. “I’m definitely fucking dreaming.”

Jungkook sinks onto your bed, hitting the mattress with a thud. He stares mindlessly in front of him, like his brain needs time to process.

You smile to yourself. He can have all the time in the world.

“Is this real?” He mumbles when you sit down next to him, press another kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Are you real?”

“Just like you,” you promise him. “I didn’t know this is what we had been missing, all this time.”

“It wasn’t missing,” Jungkook assures you. “It was just hidden.”

“I love you,” you whisper, watching him swallow the words like a glass of wine. “I think I always have. You just needed to say it first.”

“Oblivious as always.” Jungkook grins, smiling against your lips. “But I’m glad. If this is what it would take, then I’m glad.”

“You wouldn’t change anything?” You ask him, eyes wide and curious.

It’s hard to know how long you and Jungkook have been secretly pining over each other. Hard to know how long Jungkook has known that he’s loved you, how long it’s been since you started to feel the same, even if subconsciously. It’s hard to know how long you would have kept going if not for this project. It might have been months. Years. Years that Jungkook was willing to spend holding back, if only it meant keeping you by his side.

“No,” Jungkook says like it’s the easiest answer in the world. “I have you now. Why would I?”

What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?

Previously, I had responded to this question by saying that I hadn’t learned anything, and felt that nothing changed in my life. Then, some things happened. And after those things, I learned that I am the luckiest man alive. To know my best friend is one thing. To love her is a privilege. To have her love me back is nothing less than a miracle.

Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?

Yes. Every day for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful to receive a homework assignment as I am, right now. I owe everything to this project. It is the reason I have her.

This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?

Yes. I want to take photos of her for the rest of my life. I want to save every memory we ever share together. So that far into the future, we can look back on them together and say, “Remember that?”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #jungkook x reader #bts x reader #w: the love project #yes i am finishing this at 6am on the day its meant to be posted... MIND UR OWN BUSINESS

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taakomg · 10 months ago

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I disagree with the sentiment that code purple was never about family or protection, and with Lark and Sparrow having always been selfish and violent.

Him enacting Code Purple was not only about his family. If I remember correctly Code Purple was something that had already been thought of prior to when it was enacted, and therefore was something that he had at least known was an option before what actually happened happened. He had not done it yet, which means that up until the actual attack he had not seen the consequences of dooming everyone on Faerûn as worth it. If he actually felt as if Code Purple was purely to absolve himself and the rest of the DADDIES of dealing with the Doodler, I don’t see why he would have waited.

His family was also not the only thing actively at stake- Implying otherwise does not take into consideration that what is currently happening to the population of Faerûn on earth was also what had been happening to the entirety of humanity since around 2019 up to 2035 in canon, and DADDIES is only one organization set up in a building in California without government backing. For every monster they’d caught, I’d argue that a lot more were still out killing people. The flesh monster was just ONE of these things, and it took out dozens of people within a span of minutes with ease.

The Doodler’s hold over the earth was not and is not something they could fix easily. I’d argue that at least hundreds of millions of people had died already on earth, and they would continue to without intervention. I don’t think Sparrow was ignorant to what the consequences of his choice would be- People would still absolutely continue to die, and Faerûn and it’s people would inherit the scorched Earth and the fate that came with it. However, it wouldn’t be the world his children grew up on, or the one where the majority of everyone he knew and loved lived. Hero and Normal would have grown up during an active apocalypse had he not made the choice he did. This is not to say that the decision he made was right or that he didn’t have some level of self interest in the Earth not being actively eaten away at, but to paint it as entirely selfish on his part doesn’t make sense to me given context. He did a horrible thing, but he didn’t set the proverbial Doodler trolley into motion. He just diverted it’s course, and most certainly did not commit genocide.

Releasing the Doodler was also something he and Lark were tricked into doing by Willy when they were 11, with at most a warped idea of what would actually come of it. Willy caused the apocalypse. This is not their fault- something Henry says himself in S2E23. Implied spoilers for the finale of the Magnus Archives, but I’d say that the situation Jon is in at the end is not unlike what happened with Sparrow and Code Purple. (they’re also very different in a lot of ways- it’s just the closest thing I can think of.)

I agree that the reason that Lark didn’t tell people about what the Doodler was is because it would be easier to kill, and that killing the Doodler would be a bad outcome. Killing the Doodler and the Faerûnians also most likely seemed to Lark and the rest of the DADDIES as if it was the easiest and fastest option when it came to ending everything once and for all, so much so that every single one of them were willing to die for it to happen, which is where S2 itself starts off. Every member of DADDIES was on board with incinerating all of the Faerûnians along with the Doodler in the sun, as was the plan when they all got trapped on Earth. They did not care about the casualties when it came to finishing what they feel they started- To Lark, the Doodler was most likely just another unfortunate side effect of a necessary decision. To all of the DADDIES, including Lark, everyone on old Earth were also means to an end.

Sparrow doesn’t hate Normal, by the way, and if he did it wouldn’t be because he was not easy to control. Wanting for his child to fit in- to be ‘normal’- is not a consequence of hate on Sparrow’s behalf. In my opinion it is deeply misguided care, and something he only actually told Normal while extremely drunk in a place that was neurocognitive-ly fucking him over where he also thought he’d die.

This leads me to Hero. Lark, Sparrow, and Rebecca created a child soldier out of their niece and daughter. This is objectively fucked up. Normal was also most likely going to be raised in the same way, as shown by the both of them being in the gun range. They were both exposed to DADDIES, and Hero spent the first 8 or 9 years of her life experiencing an apocalypse that her uncle and father had also been entrenched in since they were 11. I cannot explain why they decide to keep her involved in everything after Code Purple, but my personal headcanon is that so much of her life had been tied to being an agent for DADDIES that the memories of her childhood couldn’t be spliced from the memories Code Purple would have taken from her without practically wiping her clean. Her parents plus Lark couldn’t live with that, and so they kept her in the business. (Again, this is all headcanon.) Hero is my favorite character of season two, by the by- I think about her and the shit she’s gone through constantly.

Since I am a student and have thoroughly strained my thumb tendons writing an essay about all of this, I haven’t expressed everything I wanted to in this. I’m sorry if it’s long or comes off as aggressive, and I will most likely follow it up with another post discussing my thoughts on the claims made about Henry and the final paragraph once I find the time and spoons. Please feel free to reply/reblog with your thoughts, OP!!!

Edit: I DIDNT EVEN SEE THE TAGS. I’m definitely doing a follow up soon.

Currently thinking about Sparrow dooming an entire world to suffer and die to "protect his family". ya know, the family where he forced his daughter when she was very young to murder animals with her bare hands, his son who was a unwanted pregnancy and ended up hating because he was too unapologetically himself/not easy to control and his brother who fucked his wife for years and knowingly hurt him. And finally his father who he has never respected or liked and has felt neglected and made helpless by.

What happened with the flesh monster Normal released was obviously incredibly bad. But considering that it was in containment already, they clearly have beaten it before already. This wasn't some hopeless fight where Sparrow had no choice by to enact Code Purple. He just didn't want to have to put the hard and painful work of fixing his and brother's mistake.

It's why Lark never told anyone what The Doodler really was, it's why Hero was born, it's why they betrayed Nicky and it's why Sparrow committed genocide. Because it's easy. If they knew that The Doodler was just a scared child that desperately needed help then that means We Have To Help It and that's more complicated then killing it. Hero was born as a copout so the twins wouldn't have to fix this themselves and could just sacrifice their daughter instead. Nicky and Code Purple was just their way of shoving all this responsibility under the rug and getting to pretend that if they can't see it then it's not real anymore.

None of this was ever about Family or protection. It was always Lark and Sparrow trying to find a way to make this no longer their problem. The twins have always been selfish and violent. At at the end of they day they were both adults when they made all these choices and as painful and unfair as it is when you've been through trauma, you have to fix that shit yourself. You can't keep blaming your childhood or parents, you can't keep the cycle going and going on forever just because you're family didn't break it first.

#dndads #dungeons and daddies #lark oak garcia #sparrow swallows oak garcia #sparrow oak #lark oak #dndads s2 #this is more of a like #character study #than it is an opinion??#eddieposting

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mochegato · 3 years ago

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Even the Losers

Chapter 6

Chapter 1 Chapter 5

Marinette collapsed onto the barstool and immediately motioned to the bartender, ordering a drink before Adrien had even sat down. She downed the drink as soon as it came and motioned for another. The bartender raised an eyebrow at her. “Want me to just leave the bottle?”

“Yes,” Marinette answered gratefully with a bright smile.

“No,” Adrien answered over her. “Just another drink for now and a water for me, please.” The bartender looked between the two of them, waiting for her response to his interruption. Marinette pouted and slumped in her stool, but didn’t counter him so the bartender nodded and left to pour the drinks.

“Leaving the bottle would be easier,” she commented, slightly annoyed.

“And more dangerous,” he warned. Marinette rolled her eyes and looked away. It wasn’t that she disagreed. She knew it was stupid. She knew she shouldn’t drink until she blacked out. She knew it wasn’t safe, especially in Gotham. But honestly, she didn’t care. The entire day had been a clusterfuck of dark thoughts and tears, after their meeting with M. Fox, and now she just wanted to forget… everything. She wanted to forget her day. She wanted to forget the last twenty odd years. She wanted to forget her feelings. She wanted to forget how to feel. She wanted to forget how to think.

“You might want to try something else,” Adrien tried instead. If self-preservation wasn’t going to get through to her, maybe he could use her self-destruction against her. “If you get the bottle, you’re committed to that liquor. If you just go by the glass, you can try different ones.”

Marinette looked at him from the corner of her eye, knowing exactly what he was doing but unable to fault his logic. Instead she propped her elbows on the bar and buried her face in her hands. She mumbled a thank you to the bartender when she heard him set her drink in front of her but groaned when she heard someone sit on the stool next to her. There were plenty of open seats around the room, plenty of seats at the bar, if that’s where the person wanted to sit.

The only reason for the person to sit so close was because they wanted to talk to her. And while she would normally be polite and give the person a smile and maybe talk with them before turning them down, she was utterly, completely, and in all ways, not in the mood. So, regardless of whether the person was there to hit on her or talk to her because she was a Wayne, she had no interest in any kind of a conversation.

She moved her hands just enough to clearly enunciate, “Not even remotely interested. Move along, please.”

The man chuckled and leaned against the bar himself. “Good to hear it. I'm pretty sure the Press would have a field day with that.”

Adrien scowled at the men who had taken the seat by them and wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Hey, buddy, she said not interested. Find someone else,” he growled threateningly.

The man shook his head. “I only have so many sisters and the others don’t drink. Well, not with me anyway.” He motioned to the bartender. “Actually, the only other sibling we have that can drink, besides Cass, is Dick and he is going to be absolutely insufferable for months over this, trying to make you feel welcome in the family. So I’m avoiding him too.”

Marinette eased her head out of her hands to look at the man. She immediately recognized him from the gala. Jason Todd. One of Bruce’s sons. She narrowed her eyes at him. What was he doing here? How did he find her? “You followed me here.”

Jason shook his head with a light chuckle. He looked up as the bartender approached. “Hey Jay, Roy. The usual?”

Jason nodded. “Thanks, Jack.” He waited for the bartender to retreat to pour the drinks before turning back to her. “If anything, you followed me here.”

Marinette scoffed and turned back to her drink. “I was just looking for some place to get drunk and forget about the whole,” she motioned to him, “drama.” She glared down at her purse. “Lucky me. I chose this bar. Sorry for the accusation.”

Jason waved her off. “No. I get it. Paranoia is justified in this family. Welcome to the family. It doesn't get better.”

Marinette groaned and dropped her head into her hands again. She motioned to the bartender as he brought Jason and Roy their drinks. “What do you want? Same?”

“I don't care. Whatever you have and make it a double… please. Is a triple a thing?” Her eyes brightened at the idea. Adrien motioned no behind her, his eyes pleading with the bartender.

Bartender nodded. “Yes, ma'am. Double it is.”

Adrien let out a relieved breath and turned to the boys. “Hi. I’m Adrien,” Adrien finally cut in after a few moments of awkward silence.

“Nice to meet you. So you’re the one schtupping my sister.” Jason reached out to shake his hand.

Marinette wrinkled her nose in confusion. “Schtup? What is schtup?” She downed the last of her drink as she waited for them to respond.

“Screwing,” Roy answered.

Adrien choked on air and Marinette spit out the whiskey she had just drank. Marinette glared at him and shot Jack an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. This one and the next are on the asshole.” The bartender looked to Jason with a laugh and nodded.

“It was just an observation,” Jason answered with a smirk.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Marinette grunted.

“That’s a tall order for Jason,” Roy grinned.

“He’s tall. He can handle it,” Marinette snarked with a shrug. She turned back to Jason. “No. No we are not stooping.”

“Schtupping,” Jason corrected.

“Stopping…” Marinette tried again.

“Sch…toooo…ping,” he corrected again, accentuating each sound for her.

Marinette blinked a few times at him. “Screwing,” she finally finished with a decided nod. Roy laughed hard. “He’s my brother Adrien. Adrien…”

“Her other brother, Jason.” Jason finished for her. Marinette narrowed her eyes at him but didn’t contradict him. “And this is my partner, Roy,” Jason continued, motioning toward Roy who gave a short wave before taking another drink.

Marinette waved back at him. She turned back to Jason. “Partner… is that another word for screwing too?”

Jason sputtered and narrowed his eyes at her, frustrated that he walked into that so easily, but Roy laughed loudly again. “I like her. New favorite sibling… don’t tell Cass… or Dick.” He grinned charmingly at Marinette. “But no. Business partner. Not currently schtupping anyone.”

Jason rounded on him and glared. Roy looked back at him innocently. “Yes?”

“No,” he said warningly.

“Are you another Wayne?” Marinette asked Roy.

“No?” He stared at her for a few seconds before realization set in. “No. I hang out with them a lot. Dick and I used to be on a team together so we were around each other constantly for a while there. Our families used to be together a lot. They feel like family sometimes.” He grinned at her. “But, no. Not in any way related to you.”

Marinette nodded and looked back at her drink. At least that’s one person in Gotham her… M. Wayne hadn’t adopted after chucking her out. Jason glared harder at Roy and punched his shoulder. “Sister,” he hissed.

Roy grinned back. “Yours, not mine. We just established that. Keep up.”

Jason narrowed his eyes even further before relaxing them as he turned back to Marinette. “So, how are you handling… you know, everything?”

Marinette and Adrien both stared at him with deadpan expressions. Marinette looked pointedly around the bar and her drink. “Oh, you know… well.” She kept eye contact with him as she downed the rest of her drink, wincing at the feeling. She looked down at her drink critically. “Why do I drink this stuff? I hate it.”

“Maybe you should ease off then,” Adrien offered gently.

“No. Fuck off. I want to get drunk,” she glowered back at him. Roy chuckled and motioned to Jack for her.

Adrien sighed and raised his hands in defeat. “Okay. Maybe something that tastes better then?”

Marinette cocked her head in consideration. “Okay. Excuse me, M. bartender? Can I get something that will get me very drunk very fast and taste better than this, please?”

Jack blinked at her a few times and looked over to Jason. Roy laughed at her response while Jason shook his head. “She’s had a rough day. You got anything?”

Jack grunted and shook his head as he looked around. “I’ll look.”

“Thank you, M. bartender,” Marinette chirped at him. He waved her off without looking back at her.

“I think you came to the wrong bar if you’re looking for something other than the basics,” Roy mock whispered at her.

She leaned in closer, leaning past Jason to talk to Roy. “I came to get drunk and away from reporters and forget about all this,” she motioned toward Jason. “I came to the wrong bar for more reasons than my liquor preference.”

She suspiciously eyed the drink Jack put in front of her with a grunt, but plastered a smile on her face. “Thank you.” She tentatively took a sip and wrinkled her nose in disgust. There was no way she was going to be able to drink this slowly. The only solution was all at once. She removed the tiny umbrella she was pretty sure he added to mock her and downed the drink like a shot. She gasped at the horrific sensation. Adrien just barely missed getting his water away from her before she grabbed it to get rid of the taste.

She handed the now empty glass back to Adrien and buried her head in her hands. “Regretting your decision?” he asked with a smirk. Served her right for stealing his water.

Marinette groaned into her hands and nodded. After a few seconds she leaned back in her chair, eyes unfocused. “I should never have come here.”

“Told you so,” Roy singsonged. “Now there’s a different bar a few streets over you might like better…” The rest of his sentence got cut off when Jason smacked his shoulder with the back of his hand.

Jason turned to Marinette with a sympathetic smile. “I often feel that way, but usually after a few more drinks.”

Marinette shook her head. “I knew it was stupid to come. I knew I shouldn’t have,” she groaned pitifully. “I could feel something bad was going to happen, I just thought that was the part before we came not… not,” she motioned all around her. “God, I was so stupid. I should have known I wouldn’t be able to just sneak in and out.” She leaned her head on Adrien’s shoulder, fighting the tears.

“So why did you?” Jason asked as though he didn’t know.

She looked over at him for a second without raising her head from Adrien’s shoulder before closing her eyes again. “Friend needed a job. Was getting sc… schtuped by the hiring committee at WE and scouted by a few other places that I didn’t trust… I mean Lexcorp gets blown up less than Palmer but then he’d have to work for M. Luthor. And, yeah, I don’t think so. So that leaves your dad.”

“Our dad,” Jason corrected pointedly.

“So you thought you'd use your connections to get him a job and didn't think you would get noticed?” Roy asked not even bothering to hide his amusement at the apparent stupidity of the plan. It wasn’t often he got to enjoy how laughably bad other people’s plans were.

“So,” she countered pointedly, looking directly at him, “I thought I’d use my charismatic personality to charm M. Fox into noticing him and let him know one of his scouts is poaching ideas. You were never supposed to know I was here.” She squeezed her eyes shut and let out another long sigh.

“But I was so stupid and now everyone knows and once they know...” she groaned and let her head drop onto the bar top with a resounding thud. She popped her head up quickly and rubbed her head. “Ewww. It’s sticky. I don’t even want to know what caused that.” She pulled some hand sanitizer out of her purse and wiped her forehead with it.

“You approached Lucius Fox with nothing more than charisma and got him to do what you asked?” Roy asked in amazement.

“And my brains, but…” she leaned closer to him as if passing on a secret, “I can be very charming when I want to be…” She looked down at herself and frowned. “When I’m not,” she motioned to herself, “you know. A mess.”

Roy smiled charmingly. “I believe that. Even when you aren’t trying. And if this is you as a mess, normal you must blow people away.”

Marinette scoffed and turned back to her drink. Jason waited until her attention was on her glass and shoved Roy hard enough to knock him off his chair. Adrien raises an amused eyebrow at them before shaking his head and looking down. Marinette looked over at the sound. Her brow furrowed in concern. Jason smiled casually and motioned to Roy. “Too much to drink.”

Roy narrowed his eyes at him and rubbed his hip. “Overprotective much?” he grumbled quietly enough for Marinette not to hear.

Marinette turned back to her drink, noting it was awfully low. She swirled the contents and nodded distractedly. “Lucky.”

Roy bit his tongue as he climbed back onto the stool to stop from asking if she wants to be, because there's no way asking Jason’s new sister, in front of him, if she wants to get lucky, ends well for him.

“I’ll have whatever he had, please,” Marinette called out to the bartender, motioning toward Roy.

“So what now?” Jason asked.

“Now… fuck,” she whined. She almost dropped her head on the bartop again but stopped herself just before actually making contact. She eyed the surface suspiciously and whimpered instead.

Roy took a long drink to keep himself from talking because “Is that an invitation?” was not going to end well for him either and he was not looking to get a black eye out of tonight. He frowned at his drink. What was in his drink tonight? He didn’t usually have this much trouble keeping his comments in check.

“I don’t know. Now everything is…” she made a jumbled motion with her hands that almost caused her to fall out of her chair. “I haven’t even…” she whimpered and eyed the bartop again before grabbing a napkin and setting it down in front of her. She dropped her head onto the napkin with an audible thunk.

“You know your hair is still touching the counter,” Adrien mentioned with more amusement in his tone than Marinette appreciated. Marinette groaned and sat back up. She pulled her hair in front of her eyes to look for traces of gunk. “She only found out about all this a few days ago and by then we were already on our way to the gala and in mission headspace so she hasn’t even had the chance to deal with it yet,” Adrien explained, keeping his eyes on Marinette.

“You didn’t know?” Roy asked incredulously.

“Nope,” Marinette responded popping the p and nodding in gratitude to the bartender for bringing her another drink and motioned for another.

“What the fuck?” Roy grunted. “That’s messed up. How did you find out?”

Marinette downed the entire glass. “Heard my maman talking on the phone and distinctly heard ‘if you would like to actually meet your daughter…’ and she wasn’t speaking with my papa. And I just…” she shrugged, staring at the empty glass like it might have an answer for her. “… knew. I had a friend trace the call. And then I was here the next day and…”

“I think B was expecting more time to deal with it too,” Jason nodded along.

“He’s only had 20 years. If that wasn’t enough, I may not live to when he finally has the time he needed,” Marinette groused.

“Twenty years,” Roy mused. “Isn’t that when…” he trailed off and his eyes got wide realizing the timing of Dick’s adoption.

“I think he was planning on doing something soon,” Jason said louder than was necessary for their close proximity, leaning forward slightly to cover Roy. “And being able to ease into it, slowly, making sure you… and Damian, weren’t too overwhelmed and you could move at your own pace,” Jason offered, fighting down the odd feeling defending Bruce left in his chest.

Marinette stared at him, swaying slightly in her seat. “Did you come here to drink or defend your dad?”

“Our dad,” he corrected.

“Because you seem to be doing a lot of one and not the other,” she continued as though he hadn’t said anything.

Jason shrugged. “Easy fix for that,” he said raising up his glass and finishing the contents. “So… you staying around or what?”

Marinette whimpered again and eyed the bartop. “I haven’t thought that through yet. That wasn’t the plan, but then again getting found out wasn’t the plan. Getting drunk tonight is now the plan.” She looked over at the hoodie Roy had thrown over the back of his chair and back at the bartop. “Can I…” she motioned toward the hoodie and reached for it at the same time.

“Oh, are you cold? Yeah sure,” Roy almost fell out of his chair trying to get out of the way so he could hand the hoodie to her. She gave him a weak smile and thanked him before spreading it out on the bartop and dropping her head audibly on it again. She sighed almost happily as she let her head stay down on the bartop. Roy watched her in amused fascination and let out an amused huff. “Not what I was expecting, but glad you’re getting use out of it, I guess…” he chortled.

“And do you always need to have a plan?” Jason asked curiously

Marinette and Adrien snorted in sync. “Do you have a plan,” Marinette mocked, raising her head purely so she could take another drink, but decided to keep it up to educate them. Jason looked over to Roy to see if he was as confused as Jason was. “I have lots of plans,” Marinette continued swinging her glass around to accentuate her words.

“I have plans. I have contingency plans. I have backup plans. I have plans for plans,” she started listing off on her fingers. She looked at her hands accusingly as she ran out of fingers and almost dropped her drink. She set down her drink with a frown and continued counting off her plans.

“I have plans to back up backup plans. I have plans for contingencies that the contingency plans didn’t cover. I have plans for when things go sideways. I have plans for when things go to shit. I have plans for when things go exactly to plan,” She leaned over to them. “I’ve never once gotten to use one of those. I have life plans. I have death plans. I have future plans.”

“That’s a lot of plans,” Roy noted, fascination laced his voice. “Any of them turn out for you?”

“No!” She threw her hands up in exasperation. “And then I have to make a new plan on the fly.”

“Sounds familiar,” Jason grumbled.

“If all your plans get destroyed before you can complete them, why bother making them at all?” Roy asked.

Marinette brought the fingers together in front of her face and stared at it as though she were holding something precious. “It’s all about the illusion.”

Roy snorted and nodded. “She’ll fit in.”

Marinette narrowed her eyes at Roy. “Is that an insult?”

Jason laughed and Adrien dropped his head into his hands. “Jesus, Mari,” he groaned.

She scrunched her nose at him. “What? He said I’d fit well with M. Wayne.”

“I meant his kids,” Roy assured her.

“Oh…” Marinette answered sheepishly. “Sorry.”

Roy waved her off. “Nah. It’s okay. I get it. I meant you’re smart, sassy,” he eyed her with an amused glint in his eyes, “short…”

Marinette rounded on him, mouth agape in insult. She quickly closed her mouth and glared at him. “Not too short to kick your ass.”

Roy laughed and grinned at her. “Violent.”

Marinette scrunched up her nose and turned back to her drink. “Not like I’m out there every night beating people up.” She took a swig of her drink, missing the glance Jason and Roy sent each other before looking back at her for any indication she had meant something more by it. “Anymore…” she muttered under her breath just loud enough for Adrien’s sensitive ears to hear it.

“But,” Adrien cut in. He motioned toward Jason. “Short?”

“Yeah,” Roy granted, “Jason’s the exception to the short part.”

“Damian’s the exception to the sassy part,” Jason added.

“Who’s the exception to the smart part?” Marinette asked.

“Dick,” Jason and Roy answered at the same time.

“Who’s the exception to the violent part?” Adrien asked, concern edging into his voice, because that wasn’t exactly a comforting quality to be associated with Marinette’s new family.

Jason scoffed at the idea of any of them not being violent. “We were hoping it was going to be her,” he motioned toward Marinette.

“But, nope,” Roy finished, popping the p. “I mean Duke isn’t particularly violent. He can protect himself but, like, he’s chill about it.” Roy eyed Marinette analytically. “Maybe you can be the exception to the emotional car crash part,” he offered.

Marinette snorted inelegantly, took a swig of her drink, and looked back at him. “That wasn’t on the list.”

Adrien leaned past her to look at the boys. “She wouldn’t be the exception. She’d be leading the pack.”

Marinette shoved his shoulder. “Like you’re any better.”

Adrien raised his glass to her. “Never said I was, Bug.” He eyed his glass with contempt. “You know, this would be a lot more effective if there was alcohol in here.”

Jason ordered another round for them and raised his glass to Marinette when the drinks came. “Well, at least now I know why you were completely uninterested at the gala. Because I'm your brother.”

Marinette scowled slightly and hunched over her drink at the bar. “Not my brother.”

Jason looked at her curiously, a frown forming on his lips before a hurt look flashed in his eyes. Almost immediately, the hurt turned into annoyance. He pressed his lips together hard. “Right, another blood child. Another kid that thinks only blood matters. So adoption doesn't count?”

Marinette furrowed her brow in confusion. She faced toward him and pointed toward herself. “Given away and never contacted again doesn't count. You he cared for. You he wanted. You're his son, but I am not his daughter.”

Jason’s eyes softened looking at her and he nodded in understanding. Feeling unwanted, he understood. Feeling abandoned, he understood. Feeling like you weren’t considered good enough, he understood. Feeling replaced, he understood. And the fact that Bruce had made someone else feel that too, that it wasn’t just him, pissed Jason off more than he could express. He didn’t even bother reacting when Roy punched his shoulder. “Maybe not. But you're still my sister,” he assured her. “I want you.”

Marinette scoffed. “You don’t even know me.” Adrien gently bumped her shoulder with his and gave her a gentle warning look.

“I know you better than he did,” Jason reminded her calmly. “I have more to base my decision on than he did, and I know enough to know you’re my sister and nobody can change that.” He gave her a devilish smile. “You’re stuck with me now. Fuck the old man. He did this to himself.”

“And,” Roy interrupted excitedly. He raised his drink for her to clink. “Now you get to be an official member of the Shitty Dad Club.”

“Oh,” Adrien perked up. “Can I be a member of that club?”

Roy eyed him suspiciously. “What are your qualifications?”

“Neglect, severe emotional abuse, and he was a supervillain who tried to kill me regularly,” Adrien rattled off nonchalantly.

Roy blinked a few times. He looked to Marinette for confirmation. She nodded almost imperceptibly. He turned back to Adrien and raised his drink. “Right. Welcome to the club. We meet whenever there are drinks. We should get you one. You deserve it.”

Chapter 7

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