#I also don’t think she’s naive but at the same time has very limited knowledge of prythian

[theladyofbloodshed]

I genuinely can never understand these posts. Nesta removed herself from the ic and chose to struggle ALONE. She didn’t want the ic in her life.

She deals with her trauma alone and doesn’t put it on anybody else. Why must it be the trauma olympics and only the people with “the greatest trauma” are allowed to be hurt?

Nesta calculates the ships needed for an evacuation, begs the mortal queens to help, begs Beron not to close his borders, and is willing to sacrifice herself to the king. How are any of these acts those of a self-absorbed person?

I don’t know how I am reading the same character as other people

[simplyalexeiofficial]

Penelope and Eloise (and Marina!) are such interesting characters who’s interpersonal situations are truly grey and I think that who’s “side” fans tend to lean toward really depends on whether or not they ascribe to the individual or the greater good.

For me, I obviously lean more towards Penelope’s perspective. This is because, as much as understand and sympathize with Eloise’s feelings of hurt and betrayal, I also see so many of her comments and actions as ignorant and willfully naive. She does things without fully thinking through the consequences, putting both herself and her family at risk. !BOOK SPOILER START! In her story, this is literally the cause of her marrying — she decides to run off ALONE to a man’s home whom she’s never actually met without telling her family, leaving herself stuck in the situation where she has to marry him not only to protect her own reputation but also that of her entire family. !BOOK SPOILER END!

Marina was very much the same in season 1. I sympathize with her perspective, and while I don’t think her actions were as naive as Eloise, I think that she was so focused on trying to grasp the best option for herself that she refused to acknowledge that by doing so she would absolutely ruin BOTH the Featherington’s and Bridgerton’s with a scandal much less recoverable for either family than the one penned by Whistledown.

Meanwhile, the reason that I agree more with Penelope over the others is precisely the reason anti-Penelope fans dislike her. She is fully knowledgeable about the potential consequences of her actions. She considers all of the angles and tries to find alternatives, and even her most controversial decisions are made with such tangible regret that we see her sobbing on screen multiple times, but they are decisions that she makes the way she does because they limit the damage to all parties involved as much as possible. Now, could she have done things differently if she thought bringing in someone to her secret was an option? Absolutely! But she didn’t think it was — something that, given what we see of her home environment and how her friendships are largely reliant on her supporting the other individual, makes sense for her character.

Anyway, all that is to say that I think people who tend to view these scenarios from the perspective of the individual also tend to agree with Eloise/Marina, where as those who tend to view from the perspective of the greater good also tend to agree with Penelope.

Philosophically speaking, neither perspective is “wrong”, but I don’t know that everyone contributing to the conversation fully understands that, which is where we get the black and white hot takes that blatantly attack these characters as awful people.

[random-french-girl]

Let’s talk about Blake and Ruby. I think we can all agree that of the four RWBY girls, these two have had the least amount of interactions - it’s a common grievance in the fandom. And we can blame that on a multitude of exterior factors: the writers not making it a priority, limited time, limited budget, whatever. But I’d like to try talking about their relationship and how it manifests itself in the show. 

I think of Ruby and Blake as parallel lines. They don’t “interact” - they never cross each other - but they also never grow apart. 

They meet at the very start of the series, which is when they take the measure of each other. Ruby learns that Blake is a girl with principles and knowledge of the world’s unfairness, Blake learns that Ruby wants to do the right thing, that she’s maybe a bit naive, but strong and earnest. In that sense, they find common ground right away: they are the two members of team RWBY most concerned with fighting for justice and peace in the world. Blake clearly thinks this is an important aspect of her relationship with Ruby, since she chooses purity to describe her. 

From that first meeting onwards, they have a very peaceful, stable relationship compared to other dynamics in team RWBY. Ruby never resents Blake for hiding her past from them, or for her White Fang history, unlike Weiss. Ruby also never resents Blake for leaving - in fact, her first reaction when she’s told about it is to think that there must be an explanation - unlike Yang. For her part, Blake is the one most consistently supporting Ruby’s decisions and agreeing with her. As recently as volume 7, Blake is always resolutely on Ruby’s side re:Ironwood, for example.

But let me go back to the metaphor. If Blake and Ruby are two parallel lines, it also means that they are going in the same direction, towards the same endpoint. Their journeys are similar, parallel, in one respect: they are both growing into good leaders.

Leadership is a central theme of both their arcs, and the central theme of their friendship as well. Blake is the most vocal in supporting Ruby as a leader, to other people but also to Ruby herself.

“She’s our leader, she can take care of herself”, Blake tells Yang in volume 3. 

“What do you think?” and “What’s the plan Ruby?” she asks Ruby in volume 6.

“We’ll follow your lead,” she reassures Ruby in volume 7.

Here’s the thing: while Ruby’s journey as a leader starts in volume 1, by that time Blake’s journey has already started. She’s already found her cause (fighting for the Faunus), she’s already rejected styles of leaderships that she’s found lacking (her father, Sienna, Adam). I think Blake is the most vocally supportive of Ruby’s leadership because she knows, on a personal level, what Ruby is going through. She knows that to grow as a leader you have to gain independence from your mentors (something Ruby has to do with Yang, Qrow and Ozpin after volume 3). Just like Blake has to take back the White Fang and reinvent the Faunus movement, Ruby has to take control of the fight against Salem from Ozpin, then from Ironwood. And they both are equally prone to inspirational speeches...

Of course, they are very different types of leaders. Blake is on her way to become a political leader, an activist, a diplomat. Ruby is becoming a war leader, a strategist, a general not only directing her assets but fighting with her comrades, a chess player who’s also a chess piece. But they are on two different versions of the same path, ultimately.

So yes, we can deplore their lack of interactions in the show. I, for one, would love to see more of them bonding, don’t get me wrong. I just think there’s a certain beauty in that kind of friendship too, the parallel lines kind, the kind where two people are moving in the same direction, separate but together till the end. 

[everything-laito]

damn the brain be out here going BRRRRRR here’s the Laito and Cordelia Analysis (with a little bit of Karl sprinkled in) Part III

wow my fingers are freezing but my brain sure isn't! 

aaaanyways, iiiiiit’s trauma time!!! Am I a productive member of society by writing these analyses? No. Do I gain anything by writing them? Kinda, my brain gets exercised and they’re fun to research for. But if you haven’t read the first part or the second part for some reason (I recommend reading them in order), there they are. 

Once again, trigger warnings still apply; mainly about trauma, isolation, etc 

I’m gonna talk about the trauma and effects it had on Laito and to attempt to extrapolate why he is the way he is. I have a lot of examples I want to go over and stuff to talk about, so I think the trauma part is going to be split between two (or maybe three) parts. I also have a little bit to say about Karlheinz.

As always, big ass rant under the cut! 

Section 6: Neuroplasticity and Trauma

Oh???? More science vernacular??? You BET! Ok, neuroplasticity. I know I’ve talked about it on this blog. But, I seriously doubt that there is a madlad who has read all of my analyses (speaking of which, I should update the master list lmao) and I don’t expect anyone to do that LOL! Anyways, this neurological concept is the ability of neurons to adapt to certain circumstances or stimuli by creating new neurological pathways (through synapses). This basically relates to memory and learning. It’s why we don’t stay the same person as we grow and develop. It’s responsible from mindset changes to response to traumatic events. It plays a huge part in trauma, which is why “repressed memories” occur as well. 

Trauma, taken from Psychology Today, is defined as: 

...the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event. Sufferers may develop emotional disturbances such as extreme anxiety, anger, sadness, survivor’s guilt, or PTSD.

It’s a basic definition. And although I’d assume people would know what trauma is already, but knowing the lexical definition of something can be good to know before going into it. 

Obviously, Laito has trauma, there’s literally no refuting that. But, the point I’m getting at, is the reason why he is the way he is today is because of neuroplasticity. As previously stated, we are going to assume the DL vampire brain works similarly or the same as a human brain. So, because of the stress put upon the brain (Cordelia’s actions and Laito’s general upbringing in a stress filled household), Laito’s brain was rewired (neuroplasticity). This section doesn’t really have much new information, but I wanted to give a baseline since there’s many people who don’t know what neuroplasticity is.

Laito’s definitely different than what he was as a kid. He still kind of had his smarts, and might have been  but as we’ve deducted from the first part of this series, he might have been groomed. On top of that, the brain is easily moldable when you’re a child (which is why grooming makes sense for Laito’s case), and continues to snip brain cells off and form new connections. 

Section 7: Little intermission about Karlheinz 

I know I haven’t really talked about Karlheinz yet. So this will be the section that I do it in. I know this part is about Laito’s trauma, but it’s so hard to not just weave other characters into it. Nothing is stand-alone, which is why it was so hard for me to plan this out. I was debating about saving this for another analysis, but I feel like it fits. 

I referenced this in Part II, Section 5 of this analysis series. Basically, Karlheinz throws Laito into the dungeon and locks him up. Not Karlheinz personally, but he ordered someone to do it. We don’t explicitly know why, but there’s several implications. A huge one is that it was part of Karlheinz’ experiment. Before Dark Fate, I was like “wait, so did Karl find out about Laito/Cordelia? And got like jealous or was like ‘nah this shit fucked up no thanks’?” I was really scratching my head on that. But in Dark Fate, you find that Karlheinz knew about Cordelia and Laito, and even really wanted it to happen. Which is all sorts of fucked up. This really put Laito in for a loop. Here’s a scene from Dark Fate: 

Laito: That woman always, always believed in Karlheinz. Laito: She believed he married her because he loved her, wanted her. That’s why she was sure that one day... he will give his love only to her.  Laito: But she was tricked. She wasn’t loved from the start... Laito: -And I’m a victim of this unbelievable mistake... That’s how it is. Laito: I was treated as a vent for her feelings. Yui: ...Laito-kun... Laito: I’m sure he knew that something like this will happen... He is a god after all... Laito: I was hoping that... He just overlooked it up until now... Laito: But... I was naive.  Laito: I was only planned a scapegoat. 

God, when I played this, that just freaking struck me to my core. That’s so awful. Ironically... Karlheinz probably has some high level of emotional intelligence. I don’t believe he could be labeled as a sociopath, considering he has this high level understanding of pathos. He’s not god in a sense that he controls everyone individually himself. He’s so good at manipulation that he basically creates fate itself (whether you believe in it or not). He’s generally intelligent and cunning, and it also just helps with the fact that he’s immortal and can time travel. He knows cause and effect by now, and I believe Lost Eden said something about how he’s done so many different “timelines.” 

The definition of a god in a philosophical sense can be broken down into three words: omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. More wicked cool jargon! Yay! Here’s what they mean for extra clarification:

Omniscient: All knowing Omnipresent: All seeing Omnipotent: All doing

Sure Karlheinz doesn’t absolutely know everything, nor can see everything, and he definitely has limits to his power, but he has gained knowledge through living for so many years and time traveling; he has familiars which add to the whole “all seeing” part; and he has a lot of power. So basically, in the most semi-”realistic” sense, it would definitely be the closest being to any kind of god.

Karlheinz is probably the reason why Laito himself has such contempt towards religion, and the existence of a god in general. Sure, the boys are like “that shit’s made up by humans” in general, but it would make sense for Laito himself to have that specific hatred. It makes sense that these vampires would be like “oh that’s made up by humans” when they’ve been around forever and have seen multiple religions come and go. (I’m mainly talking about in DL’s lore case, not starting a religious argument; please don’t take it as such––just to clarify)

Section 8: Isolation

Originally, the previous part was going to be about Laito’s isolation being locked up. However, I went off the rails and it turned into that little intermission. This is going to be a shorter section, but I still wanted to talk about, and it will weave into the next section. 

There is no implications about how long Laito was locked up (and tortured) in the dungeon. There’s also no implications about why he was tortured. But torture and isolation puts such stress on the brain that there’s definitely going to be some kind of outcome if persisting for a good period of time. So let’s take a look at what that does to a person. 

Once again, taking this with a grain of salt. I imagine vampires don’t need to rely on social interaction as much as humans do, considering they live forever. But we don’t know. However, throwing Laito into a state of isolation implies that it would be some type of torture or harsh punishment for a vampire, which therefore implies that social interaction is a necessity for emotional function. It’s just sound, inductive logic. 

So now, as for isolation, I’m using this article as reference. It’s a pretty interesting one to read. Here’s another extensive article as well. Basically isolation can cause:

Depression/anxiety

Immune system deficiencies (basically more likely to get physically ill)

Sleep cycle changes (if put underground or with limited natural light)

Hallucinations

Paranoia

Issues with processing information and more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation

We have no clue if Laito’s experience fits all of these. Also, the second one can be crossed out because vampires in DL can’t get physically sick in the way we can. Also, unsure about the sleep cycle stuff considering they are used to being in the dark. Hallucinations and paranoia can’t be crossed off nor proven. 

Being isolated physically and mentally exhausts the mind, which is why it’s also a way of torture. Laito implies that he was tortured with physical devices, but regardless, it’s still stress on the mind. This type of stress definitely goes along with what was mentioned with neuroplasticity and trauma, which also supports the last bullet point: issues processing information and being more susceptible to persuasion/manipulation. Take this flashback from Maniac Prologue in HDB that I used in Part II section 5 (but here’s even more context):

Laito: ーー Let me go!! Let me out of here! Butler: I can’t, young lord. We’ve received strict orders from your father. I am deeply sorry, but please stay put for a while. Laito: What’s the point in having me chained up in here!? Butler: ーーI am very sorry. Laito: Hahahaha…You stupid old man! Do you think that this will make repent!? How foolish! That demon! Has his brain finally rotten from spending too much time with humans!? ー Cordelia appears Cordelia: ー Oh? Laito: …!? Have you come to save me? Cordelia: Oh dear. Ufufu…I’m sorry Laito, that isn’t it. Laito: Eh? Richter: ー Why are you here? Laito: …That’s my line. Cordelia: Okay, okay. No fighting! More importantly, Richter…Come here. Laito: …!? Cordelia: Nnn…Hey, Laito. You are a good boy. Laito: …!! Cordelia: Right, Laito? Laito: Yeah, that’s right. I’m…I’m a good boy after all.  ーー Besides, I’m the type of person who only get more aroused from this kind of thing.

Although I also use this to support the whole Stockholm syndrome point, this could also be supported with the trauma isolation also holds. His mind is being re-molded into the facade he holds. Also, note the whole “do you think this will make me repent?!” part. Just a very interesting thing. The word “repent” implies that there’s something to feel guilty about or the person knows that what they’ve done is bad. It just goes to show that Laito has some part of guilt or moral compass still in tact. 

You can also argue that this scene was when Laito just got locked up, or he’s been here for a while. Either way, he could have also been socially isolated before this too, just hanging around Cordelia like it’s implied when he was a child. Remember the whole not being in bed 9/10 times when he was a child? Yeah, controlled social isolation. We also rarely see Laito with other characters in his flashbacks. I don’t believe we see him with his brothers in any of his flashbacks from what I can recall; he’s usually with Cordelia. Just implies (to me) that he’s around her a lot. And being locked up is also a more extreme case of that, which would mold the brain even more. 

I know that was a LOT to process and read. I sure hope this still is cohesive for you all. I’m pretty bad at organizing this kind of stuff; it’s a bit difficult since it all just goes together. Which, kudos on the writers of DL, because that’s just good writing. I was going to put something about gaslighting in this part, but that might be too long, so I’m going to make that a separate part or include it in the next part. 

If you have any questions, feel free to just put it in the inbox. I’m planning on making the last part of this series answering all the Laito/Cordelia questions I’ve received, or just general questions pertaining to this analysis in general, whether it be tangential questions or clarifying questions. 

Hope you all are still enjoying this ride as much as I am!  -Corn

[quentyl]

“You can’t treat me like Zuko!” - Azula, Sozin's Comet Part 1: The Phoenix King

This quote is so important for her character: it tells us that she suffered from her father’s abuse of her brother too, though indirectly. That every time Ozai hurt his son, he was demonstrating what could happen to her should she ever fall from grace, that this became a deep-entrenched fear in the back of her mind.

(Pic: Azula and kid!Zuko, both upset and confused, asking for answers from their father, who has his back turned toward them.)

I want to delve into it a little bit: what it means, for Azula, to be treated like Zuko. Long post under the cut, as usual!

Here’s the full exchange:

Azula: Sorry I’m late, Father. Good palanquin bearers are so hard to come by these days. So, is everything ready for our departure? Ozai: There has been a change of plans, Azula. Azula: What? Ozai: I've decided to lead the fleet of airships to Ba Sing Se alone. You will remain here in the Fire Nation. Azula: But… I thought we were going to do this together. Ozai: My decision is final. Azula: You... you can't treat me like this. You can't treat me like Zuko! Ozai: Azula, silence yourself. Azula: But it was my idea to burn everything to the ground! I deserve to be by your side! Ozai: Azula! Listen to me. I need you here to watch over the homeland. It's a very important job that I can only entrust to you. Azula: Really? Ozai: And for your loyalty, I've decided to declare you the new Fire Lord. Azula: Fire Lord Azula? It does seem appropriate. But... what about you? Ozai: Fire Lord Ozai is no more. Just as the world will be reborn in fire, I shall be reborn as the supreme ruler of the world. From this moment on, I will be known as... the Phoenix King!

So what’s interesting to me here is that Ozai isn’t actually treating her like he would Zuko under the same circumstances (not according to what we’ve seen of their previous interactions?). For one thing, it’s clear she wasn’t punished for lying to him about who killed the Avatar, nor for keeping her suspicions that Aang wasn’t truly dead to herself. Azula’s tone is light upon first catching up to him and she attempts to make casual conversation. Sure, she’s actually nervous underneath, but that’s because she can see things aren’t going according to plan and she doesn’t know why - she doesn’t know she’s supposed to be in trouble. He’s not ignoring her either, like he simply ignored kid!Zuko asking about his mother in the parallel scene in the above screenshot. She’s also not punished for her outburst, for raising her voice to him at a formal and public event, even after he ordered her to “silence herself” (how’s that for speaking out of turn? No Agni Kai, Ozai?). Instead Ozai is... surprisingly gentle? He placates her, reassures her of her importance and of his trust in her. And then he rewards her with the title of Fire Lord.

When we think of the way Ozai treated Zuko, we think of a history of open disdain, emotional and verbal abuse that culminated with setting his son’s face on fire. He’s doing none of these things to Azula here. So what it is exactly in this scene that Azula assimilated with the way he would behave toward her older brother?

Here’s my understanding: for Azula “being treated like Zuko” doesn’t start with disappointed looks, insults or scornful comments. It doesn’t need to go that far. Instead it starts with exclusion. And that’s a dimension of Ozai’s abuse and their family dynamic that I feel isn’t explored enough, despite being just as harmful.

Let’s go back to the flashbacks in “Zuko Alone”. Even without seeing them interact alone, we get the sense that there is an odd complicity between Ozai and his eight or nine-years-old daughter:

She shows him her new firebending moves - and what makes this significant isn’t that a father would keep tabs on his daughter’s progress, it’s that her mother and brother weren’t apparently in on it. Ozai speaks of the moves she showed to him not them (her parents), and Zuko’s amazement at Azula’s forms implies he hadn’t seen them before. So it’s time that Ozai and Azula spent alone together.

She supports his ambitions: “If Uncle doesn’t make it back from war, then Dad will be next in line to become Fire Lord, wouldn’t he?” and “I still think our dad would make a much better Fire Lord than his royal tea-loving kookiness”. More than that, she seems aware of his plots (might even have a hand to play in them, but that’s not confirmed either way): “‘Fire Lord Azulon’... Can’t you just call him Grandfather? He’s not exactly the powerful Fire Lord he used to be. Someone will probably end up taking his place soon.” - Azula obviously knew that her father had plans to get rid of her grandfather. Here again, what I want to focus on is the fact that Zuko and her mother were completely unaware about all of it (“What is wrong with that child?”).

Ozai calls her “my dear” and asks her specifically to demonstrate before the Fire Lord. He doesn’t address Zuko once throughout the flashbacks.

So even as a child, Azula was allowed into her father’s confidence. He trusted her, while her brother was left in the dark. And I think this was likely the biggest difference in how Ozai treated his children before he became Fire Lord. In these flashbacks, Zuko didn’t seem scared of his father yet. He wasn’t afraid to perform before him, to cry and lament his failures before him, or to be comforted by Ursa before him. He didn’t seem overly worried to have embarrassed him in front of Azulon himself. He wasn’t afraid to demand answers of him after Ursa’s disappearance. So I tend to think that whatever abuse he was subjected to at this point, before Ursa’s banishment, was limited. What is clear is that Ozai and Azula shared a special relationship that Zuko wasn’t a part of.

Of course, this puts Azula in a privileged position compared to her brother. Their father is the one with all the power in their family, the one they are both constantly trying to please, but only Azula is allowed to know his mind. Note that throughout the different scenes in the flashbacks, there’s a pattern of Azula using information Zuko doesn’t have to mess with him: “Uncle is coming home” “Dad’s going to kill you” “No one knows where Mom is” “Grandpa passed away”. She’s the bearer of news, and as such always ahead of him. Knowledge is power, and knowledge is something Ozai constantly denied his son. 

This disconnect between Zuko and his father reached its climax, imo, when Ozai challenged him to an Agni Kai and Zuko… misunderstood (more likely, he was deliberately misled). Zuko just never understood his father, because his father never spoke to him. Zuko was never allowed to know his thoughts - and for three years afterward, he wasn’t even allowed to see his face. He wasn’t allowed to know who his father was, unlike Azula, who was privy to his ambitions since they were children. This is why she can successfully manipulate him using the promise of their father’s love (in both the first and last episode of Book 2).

All of this is still true when Zuko comes back from his exile. Ozai doesn’t welcome both his children at the same time. Instead he sees Azula first. She reports to him, and only afterward (after they had the time to talk about him and make decisions behind his back) does he finally see Zuko.

He welcomes him back with honors as the crown prince, but Zuko still isn’t truly allowed to know what’s going on. He’s sent on a forced vacation to Ember Island while Ozai meets with his generals. He’s not invited to war meetings, until suddenly he is and people just… forgot to inform him. He has no important part to play during the counter-invasion plan. In short, Zuko is still excluded. Azula uses him as a shield one moment, says she’s looking out for him the next. His father calls him a hero, but doesn’t try to get to know him or spend any meaningful time with him (not even to try and make up for... everything). I don’t believe either of them truly intended for Zuko to ever succeed Ozai. So the whole time he’s in the Fire Nation, back in his “rightful place”, Zuko is fidgety because he can’t trust them. He doesn’t know if he’s being paranoid or too naive. He doesn’t know if they’re honest or just playing with him.

(Truth is Zuko was emotionally banished long before he was legally banished, and him killing the Avatar couldn’t change that.)

And this is what Ozai did to Azula in their final scene together before abandoning her. When her father’s palanquin left early, it was her turn to be fidgety and paranoid, wondering what’s going on. Ozai blindsided her, left her in the dark, excluded her without telling her why. When she was a kid, her father talked to her about his plans to become Fire Lord. Now not only did he not tell her about his plans to become Phoenix King, he didn’t even talk to her about her own promotion. She was no longer his confidant, but just another pawn, like Zuko.

[kookiepredictions]

Why Jungkook’s future spouse will fall in love with him

Broadly it’s the same as Jungkook’s reasons— the twinflame connection brings them together in a way that she can’t help loving him, even though she might have tried not to. But just so this post is not a reiteration of the previous one, I’ll be more specific.

Most of her life, people saw her as some sort of a trophy partner, and not much effort was made to understand who she really was inside. It’s not so much that the other men mistreated her, it’s just that they didn’t know how to treat her. She has been loved, but only in parts and pieces. Which, when awakening to a new perspective of life and love, didn’t seem like love to her. It seemed too conditional to be love. And it’s not just her own relationships, just relationships in general as she saw around her, whether it be her friends’ or strangers’ never fulfilled her own idea of love or relationships. She saw less of love and more of convenience-based asset-exchange. Deals that were made and broken, instead of promises that should be made and kept. Somewhere along her awakening, she formed this really lofty idealistic concept of love and she was keenly aware that it could be an unrealistic dream. Not only was the “love” unrealistic, the problem that came even before that was, to make that dream a reality, she had to first meet someone who also wanted the same thing in love and relationships. And her previous acquaintances didn’t make her feel hopeful about finding someone like that. She also might be a little headstrong with the type of “I’d rather be alone all my life than end up in a wrong relationship with the wrong man” attitude. It was not that the men were “wrong” per se, it was just that they didn’t have the same mindset as hers which is why even though there might have been other common interests and such, it was never whole/ complete. In a previous relationship or connection, she has had to dim down parts of herself to adjust and adapt in it, because they were in some way, “too much” or straight up “useless” to the other person because they just didn’t know what to do with it. One main example is her spirituality. Twinflames are spiritually inclined right from their childhood, even though they’re mostly not conscious about it. It’s just that they have that aspect, that intuitively guided thought process and behavioural pattern to them. In her previous relationships, this was considered an unnecessary thing, an inconvenience even. She was too “different” for her own good. For those partners it was like, it was enough for her to be an arm candy, why does she have to be so analytical, philosophical and idealistic? As she worked on her self confidence and grew more assertive in life, this was seen as an attractive quality— “finally someone with the face and the brains”— but it was still something most people didn’t know what to do with. This is another reason why dating didn’t appeal to her because it lacked the spiritual depth, and although she didn’t know this was what was missing from her life, she was never satisfied with the outer, surface-level dating activities where there was no soul connection. She was probably in a state of acceptance of “I’m going to die alone” idea lol when she first meets Jungkook.

One thing to mention here is that she was not treated right by her past connections not because it was their fault; the main reason was that she didn’t know how to be treated. She knew what she didn’t want in a relationship but she didn’t know exactly what she wanted. And that’s because she didn’t fully know herself either. Jungkook comes into her life and completely transforms the way she sees herself. He serves as the quintessential twinflame mirror for her and all those hidden parts of herself were revealed to her. With Jungkook, she doesn’t feel like she has to become someone else. Although it happens slowly and gradually, she feels more and more vulnerable with him in a way that she could never be with anyone else before. And in fact, in a way that she didn’t even think would be possible since earlier for her, relationships meant adjusting by partially hiding yourself. With Jungkook she doesn’t feel like she has to do that because somehow for him, ALL of her personality is very appealing to him. He’s just interested in everything about her. She can say what she really wants to say and he is eager to listen to it. None of her parts are useless, everything is attractive to him. He’s her biggest cheerleader lol. She could do the smallest thing and he will hype her up like she won the Nobel or something lol. And it all happens because Jungkook really sees her as she is. It’s that habit of his to dig deeper and deeper. He is SO interested to understand her, it’s a very pleasant surprise to her. He doesn’t judge her only for her outer attributes, he likes her for who she is inside— her thoughts, words, feelings— these are the main reasons why he loves her. He’s not like, “okay this is what you look like, this is what your body looks like, done, I’m in love, I don’t need to know anymore”. It’s not like that. He’s really interested in HER— it’s something she had always wanted but almost given up on. Jungkook just comes in and does the very thing that she expected a true partner to do. And the best part about this is that he doesn’t even have to force himself to do it— it’s just who he naturally is— his natural habit of trying to understand people deeply and then treating them accordingly (also discussed in his Personality reading). This is important because if you forcefully do something, say, to win someone over, but is not a part of your natural personality, it doesn’t last long, and eventually you’ll stop doing it, and then the other person feels like you’ve changed, but you haven’t changed, you just weren’t being true to yourself in the first place. (Relationship tip lol: Be yourself right from the start. Put exactly who you are on the table, and let them decide based upon it. It makes a relationship easier and long lasting).

Jungkook sort of just allows her to be— it’s a comfortable space to be in. It’s like how women in the Victorian era must have felt after they took off their corsets lol. And because of this, she learns to value herself and stand up for who she is and what she wants. Funnily though, this means that she might also sometimes stand up against Jungkook when their principles clash, but that’s not with the intention of causing arguments, it’s just that now she values herself too much to doubt herself, and if the person opposite to her is Jungkook himself, she must still stand up for herself, because that’s what Jungkook and this connection has motivated her to do, whether or not it was intended that way. Jungkook is like the last and most important puzzle piece in her spiritual growth. Whatever she had been experiencing in all those years, she now KNOWS what she was and is experiencing. She can articulate her experiences, feelings and ideas from a very definitive point of awareness and knowledge. He is literally the main reason she goes from being an ordinary girl to a divine feminine who knows what she wants, why she wants it, and how to go after it. So many things are said about DFs’ roles in awakening the DMs, but not enough is said about how much of an impact DMs have over their DFs. DFs can sometimes tend to get caught up in their heads with all the frou frou spiritual stuff, but since DMs lead in the physical world or the 3D, they keep the connection and their DFs grounded and play such an important role in manifesting the connection from the spiritual realm to the physical. They have so much love for their DFs they almost form this cocoon of love around them all the time, which again, like discussed in the previous post, makes the DFs feel like they are not all alone in what they’re doing. Jungkook makes her feel so loved and so beautiful, and it’s even better because she knows that it’s not just in a superficial way, rather for who she is in her entirety. In fact, he could care less about what she has to offer. She’s not naive, definitely not after she has found awareness, she knows exactly why people value her and why they want her in their lives. She might not be perfect but she knows what she brings to the table, and she knows that it’s a lot more than what most people are capable of giving. She doesn’t mind giving, as she believes people are born not to take but to give, but it’s the sense of entitlement and the obligatory responsibility that is pushed upon her that turns her off. Jungkook, being her twinflame, is that one person who doesn’t look at her as that kind of an asset. He’s not perfect lol he has his moments of struggle, but at the core, all he really wants is just a companion who understands him, nothing more nothing less. Instead, while most people would extend this energy of “what can you give to me?” Jungkook extends this energy of “what can I give to you?” It’s like how all of Rapunzel’s value was in her hair, but Eugene cuts it off to protect her because in his eyes, her value was in who she was as a person, and all he ever wanted to do was to love and protect her.

Even with speed bumps and potholes, Jungkook’s idea of love matches with his twinflame’s idea of love. There is a sense of innocence and purity with which he loves her. He hardly questions it and even in his most frustrated, weak moments, when he does question it, he’s not very good at it. He’s so much better at loving lol. He’s a true divine masculine to the divine feminine that she becomes. You know, most people do know what real love is, but when that ego comes in between, most people cave. It takes someone really strong to want to fight their own ego blockages and limitations to make that real, ideal love happen, and Jungkook is definitely one of them. He struggles SO much in the connection, it makes me sad often because it is difficult for anyone, but 22/ 23 is too young an age for a super busy K Pop idol to be in a connection as confusing and intense as this, and he definitely has all the reasons and ways out of it. But I don’t know what ultimately gives him the strength to want to work on this, to not let it go. I know a TF connection is not easy to let go of either, and I know he’s wanted out of it, and has tried often, as has his DF, but I just had to say it because we see him smiling for the press and photo ops and it’s just sometimes so hard to believe that that same person is going through all of this. Although, I would say that he does make it harder for himself due to his own stubbornness but again, that’s a post for another day :)

[fizzingwizard]

Digimon Adventure: Ep 19!

Wow! That certainly was an Episode!! It was pretty fun from start to finish, though nothing mind-blowing, but it was definitely the ending that made me gasp. Not wholly unexpected to an old turnip like me, but promising lots of fun (and angst!).

Picture of the week: MIKO, THE TRUE STAR OF THE SERIES!!

no for serious are the writers reading my reviews? they keep giving me what I want. within reason I guess. They seem to have an extremely limited budget as usual x’D

but Miko is still adorbs

ok I’m really looking forward to recapping this one so let’s get to it!

So last week I thought the kids sans Taichi and Yamato were abducted by Devimon, but apparently that either isn’t the case, or it was, but then Devimon decided it’s best just to dump the kids back on Earth and hold on to their partners. Because that’s the current situation. While concerning that the kids are separated from their partners, it’s probably best this way, since Devimon appears to be sending Gesomon(?) and Parrotmon(?)

to the human world, if I remember right. It’s hard to remember what happened in the first fifteen seconds kay So when the kids find their partners it will probably be in the human world and they can fight back.

Meanwhile Taichi and Yamato are alone and very Confuse

Taichi tries frantically to contact Koushirou. The others too... but especially Koushirou.

Finally he gets him!! He’s so happy!! My Taishiro heart flutters!

But I was fully expecting it to be a trap. When I saw this still here, my first thought was “Devimon’s forcing him to tell Taichi a lie by threatening him with a gun!!”

of course thats not whats happening. Koushirou is relatively fine and there are no guns (yet). What’s happened is the other kids have been sent back to the human world for reals this time!

This show is not even bothering to hide its Taiyama angle.

They spend the entire episode giving each other Significant Looks like this. The entire episode.

Now where’s Jou through all of this, you ask?

He went to talk to the police. He’s shocked they don’t believe his story about monster attacks and the world ending (well, at least Tokyo ending). I freaking love how taaaaall Jou is. Though it makes Koushirou look like a bean x’D

Jou = beansprout / Koushirou = bean

Koushirou has a much easier time dealing with the news that the police don’t believe them. He’s a denizen of the Internet. He knows how people’s minds work. And he has tons of chat logs to prove it.

People are chatting and spreading gossip and disbelief and complaints, but my favorite is the comment that just says “It’s a flood of fake news” xP

The home team runs into Mama Yagami! Who Sora literally calls Mama Yagami! x’D I mean I know that’s how kids generally refer to their friends’ parents but I still lol’d.

So un... Jou is almost as tall as Mama Yagami. LMAO. I’m gonna assume she’s short. Jou might indeed be quite tall for his age but Sora and Mimi are pretty close to Mama Yagami’s height too. I guess we haven’t seen Taichi standing next to his mom yet! With his hair he’s probably taller than her.

So Mama Yagami is HILARIOUS and I’m so glad that’s a continuing thing in the reboot! She was already that way in 99 Adventure, but we’re just seeing a lot of it now - like every time she’s around. (And we didn’t see it in Tri so I missed that.) Basically she seems like a basketcase. Not a totally irresponsible one, more like just... generally the carefree go with the flow type. Which is not bad. She just also seems a bit, uh, ditzy?? I think Taichi probably grew to be so serious by necessity. Dad’s busy with work and someone’s gotta make sure mom doesn’t leave the house without her keys!

The way Sora just stares at Hikari like “explain??” after Mama Yagami thrusts Miko at her and runs off to get her car with a big smile as if they hadn’t all nearly died recently... bahahaha.

also I love how she doesn’t even bother asking her son’s good friend if she knows where he is after not seeing or hearing from him for three full days

^The face of a boy shouldering the weight of nuclear family life and all its batshitness

Taichi and Yamato determine their priority is find the Holy Digimon. I wish they were a little more concerned with what happened to their friends’ partners, but I guess this is the only goal with solid clues. Anyway before they can do anything they are attacked by Bulbmon Looks like subtitlers went with Valvemon which also works, who looks like a Lego monster creation by an eight year old (and probably is).

He has the Domo face. Grrraaah

Domo is NHK mascot by the way. bahahaha

Next these guys come swarming out of Valvemon. (And if we didn’t already get it, apparently Digimon can construct other Digimon as we’ve seen before.) Nothing is quite as freaky as gas masks. They are commanded by Minotaurmon/Mintaromon whatever.

They too have the aim of Stormtroopers though so our heroes will be fine...

... probably...

... then Leomon finally shows up!! Yay! He looks good! All beefy and scarred and sounding exactly like Zaraki Kenpachi. Uhh. Is it the same VA?? Nothing comes up in the Google search so maybe not but it sure sounds like him. (Minotaurmon and Ogremon also sound like Leomon... while it’s normal for VAs in kids shows to voice multiple characters esp minor ones, it literally sounds like Zaraki Kenpachi is the voice of all the characters in this episode besides the main ones. And Mama Yagami of course because that would be weird.)

Leomon may look cool, but his ride... and his friends... uh, less cool x’D I want to strangle that ostrich thing with its own scarf somehow it inspires violent emotion in me

In the smallest, most shocked voice, Yamato says, “Leomon...?” It’s honestly kind of adorable. He’s clearly remembering what Neemon said about Leomon leading the resistance way back when.

Leomon helps them escape. Taichi very considerately and cutely helps Agumon aboard the fashion disaster ostrich emu thing.

Yamato also considerately helps his partner but rather less cutely xD

Leomon takes them to his hideout and gives them your standard fare of weird-looking Digi fruit. He then proceeds to tell them about Devimon and that he is trying to infiltrate Valvemon yadda yadda.

Taichi is freaking ADORABLE, immediately concerned that by saving their asses, Leomon’s battle plans have been ruined. Leomon waves that aside though. Yamato is equally adorabibble when he asks after Neemon and gets told that they made it to Leomon safely.

Leomon plans to try to get into Valvemon again because he knows Devimon’s put something related to the holy Digimon in there. Taichi is determined to join in. He doesn’t have much of an argument as it why they should be allowed when they just got their butts kicked so easily, but he has a trick up his sleeve: the Burning Eyes of Fiery Passion.

Not to be outdone, Yamato shoots off his Icy Eyes of Cold Determination.

Faced with this twin assault, Leomon has to give in. Ahh, I remember last week when we saw the trailer for this ep and I naively thought Leomon would train them like Piximon did in 99 Adventure. Nope. They’ve just met and they’re already spy buddies.

Okay, okay, yeah Leomon does seem to have some knowledge of the “Chosen Children” and that’s his real motivation. Still.

They break into Valvemon and we get the excellent invention of Agumon riding on Garurumon. I assume because of Garurumon’s advantageous speed. That seems to be recurring thing in this show.

Idk I just capped this because he’s so darn cute

I don’t know why I capped this one though.

They enter some sort of central space where Leomon tells them something relevant to the holy Digimon is being kept. (Lol I already forgot the details of what he said.) There are two protectors, Minotaurmon and Bullmon. Leomon tells the kids to take Bullmon while he faces down Minotaurmon. These guys might have been somewhat intimidating if we hadn’t already got Perfect level evolutions mastered, not to mention the occasional Jogress :P Sooo I didn’t feel too worried.

... uh, never mind x’D Taichi what are you doing

Yamato saves his idiot butt and almost gets in a bind himself. Once again I’m just wondering why they are sticking at Adult level. Whatever. They win of course

Leomon uses his Fist of the Beast King to maim Minotaurmon. His brilliant one-liner? “I have more than one first.”

Bully: *punches you*

You: ow

Bully: *smirk* I have more than one fist.

You: That’s funny, I only have one, but it’s made of titanium *You punch the bully straight through the stratosphere* Quality over quantity!!!!

*cough*

Our heroes approach the secret compartment supposedly holding something to do with the holy Digimon... Yamato gets a look inside and gets the black shadow of true terror over his eyes

becaue floating inside like some kind of Weapon X experiment is... Takeru!!!

Hold on while I put in my ear plugs. Okay, ready, screech all you want now.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

So... okay. First of all, baby Takeru is sooooooo cute <3 I had two predictions about what happened to Takeru last week. Either he ended up in the digital world and was now on his own, or he got abducted by Devimon. I thought the former was more likely, but in hindsight, it should have been obvious that it was the second. This show misses a lot of points where I feel like they could have developed some relationships or thrown in some drama, but it never passes up a chance for Yamato angst.

So yeah, this is pretty much gonna destroy Yamato xD Not only is the baby brother he wanted to protect no longer at home where he can easily protect him, he’s now in the digital world and in the enemy’s clutches.

I BETTER SEE REALLY TRAUMATIZED YAMATO NEXT WEEK. Of course, I expect him to be cool-headed enough to try to save Takeru, but I will be very disappoint if this goes off with no break downs at all. Takeru is always Yamato’s number one priority!

Super exciteddddd

So I give this ep 7.5/10. The .5 is pretty much for ending with a killer cliffhanger. My one real complaint about this ep is how highly plot-based everything is - we finally got the team all together only to split them up, and on top of that, once split up, we don’t even get all that many character moments between Taichi and Yamato. As I said, they give each other lots of Signifcant Looks, but man cannot live on bread alone. However this is par for the course for this show and I know I should stop mentioning it every week because I doubt it’s changing. We will get the big shockers when we get them and not a moment before.

I just want Yamato to cry in front of Taichi and make him all uncomfortable x’D That’s what made 99 Adventure so great bahahaha

Some cool bits from next week’s trailer:

Surprise surprise, Angemon is the holy Digimon! Or one of, anyway. And he is indeed trapped. This makes the “Angemon is Devimon” theory less likely. Let’s not forget that our heroes’ Digimon partners were evidently a band of powerful warriors in the past, but they’ve forgotten much of it. I won’t be surprised if the result of that war played a part in Angemon’s abduction.

Next week they’ll have to fight to save Takeru from being drained, I guess.

And then!! Digi egg! Excite. Also I only just noticed that his hate says TK!!!

Takeruuu <3 My first fav when I was 10. Though my heart has belonged to Taichi for many long years, I still have a special spot in it for Takeru only <3 Even if he does dress like a celery stick

[kiitsume]

a few thoughts on six the musical because nobody asked for them

(also excuse any historical inaccuracies, i've done only cursory reading thank you)

let's start light. the costumes are pretty but they completely take away any sense of historical context, unintentionally minimizing the degree of awareness the audience has of the culture surrounding the women at the time, which is actually pretty important to the message the writers are trying to construct.

the music is good. like, it's catchy and generally well written, and of course well performed. but the writers giveth and the writers taketh away. mostly they take away. all of the songs are reductive and collapse six people-- who they claim to attempt to honor the memory of-- down into platitudes and general notions of people, caricaturizing them into something that's barely recognizable.

the set up the musical to be a "competition between these six women to get the respect the deserve for the amount they suffered" and then they turn around at the end and shame the audience for doing that-- for picking favorites along the way and actually considering which ones they empathize most with.

the opening song, "ex-wives" uses modern lingo and whatnot, but it's not any more jarring that the costumes, so it's not until "don't lose your head" that the text speak really throws you off. it was honestly uncomfortable to watch in context of the musical, at least upon my viewing.

do i know they went chronologically? yes. will i ever forgive them for putting the most jarring joke of a song, "haus of holbein" right after arguably the most heartfelt song of the musical, jane seymour's "heart of stone"? absolutely fucking not.

haus of holbein has it's merits. i won't lie. it addresses the beauty standards of the time and the way that women were expected to destroy their bodies and give up their lives in order to appeal to men, which contributes to the larger narrative the writers were trying to build in saying that all these women would've led remarkable lives if they hadn't been forced to give themselves up to a life that made them miserable. but all of that is erased by the fact that it has air horns in it, i'm sorry, that can't be overlooked. literally die.

katherine (we're going with the musical's spelling okay) howard's song? a fucking bop. "all you wanna do" is iconic. but it has been brought to my attention by my girlfriend, who is much more knowledgeable on the six's actual history and writings, that pretty much the entire song is a complete disregard for who she was in life and her actual feelings, and that's especially irritating because they did it specifically for the purpose of constructing a much more simple narrative and, in the process, did the exact thing they claim to condemn: writing over her, and all the others, with what they think they know and bending them and their lives to fit their ideal message. how so? my girl k howard actually did have feelings for thomas. you know, the one person in the song she's like, "just mates, no chemistry/ i get him and he gets me/ and there's nothing more to it." they just throw that out to make thomas look like a nice guy and like people were just constantly taking advantage of her, which to some extent was true. but it also strips all the agency out of her life, and ignores the fact that "serious, stern and slow/ gets what he wants and he won't take no," francis dereham was the one who got jealous of her and thomas' relationship and snitched to the king and got her executed. there's literally no acknowledgement that he was anything other than just another fling or something. and, by omission, it implies that her music teacher, henry mannox, was the one and only one who groomed her (and molested her at 13). in reality, dereham's relationship with her started when she was 15 and he was 32. oh, and she was 17 when she married the 49 year old king. if the musical is supposed to form a cohesive narrative around how these girls were taken advantage of and thrown out by history as a joke, her story is literally ideal for that purpose. but instead we got naive girl uses sex to get ahead and then it backfires and she's killed for it.

not that thomas is innocent in all of this-- when the affair was brought to public light he blamed everything on howard and continued to deny ever sleeping with her, though he eventually admitted to intending to. there's some debate over whether their private meetings were actually an affair, but howard's writings on it make it seem as if she did have feelings for him, so. we may never know. but again, this is just to show the disservice the musical did to her.

i don't know as much about the other queens i'll admit, but here's just a few things that would be useful for the narrative the musical tries and fails to build: catherine parr was 15 when she was married to henry's brother arthur, who she couldn't speak to because they'd corresponded in latin but had different pronunciations-- this marriage was to give arthur greater legitimacy, because she was considered more strongly royal by blood; anne boleyn resisted henry's attempts to make her a mistress-- she was extremely smart, which was desirable in a mistress but not a wife!-- as her sister mary had been, and her daughter, unlike parr's is never acknowledged by the musical, the subjects called her "the king's whore" and blamed her for his tyranny, and-- oh, did i mention? historians debate whether there were any actual grounds for the charges brought against her that led to her execution, and most scholars regard it just something the king did so he could move on to seymour; jane seymour was married to henry the day after anne boleyn's execution, and she was never publically coronated in part because of a plague (woo!) but some also theorize that henry didn't want her to be coronated until she'd done her "duty as queen" and bore him a male heir; anne of cleves was described as extremely beautiful, so when the king met her and described her as "plain" he was incredibly let down, and immediately decided that he wanted to avoid the marriage altogether-- she was not considered ugly, as the musical makes it sound, just not good enough for the kings "selective" tastes (you know, the same henry who had a festering, ulcerated wound on his leg from a jousting accident); catherine parr is done the most justice, actually acknowledging the work she did in education and writing, the role she played in the establishment of the Third Succession Act which allowed her daughters access to the throne, and her two previous marriages (one of which was to someone twice her age) but it fails to acknowledge that her protestant sympathies got her targeted by arrest warrants before she reconciled with the king, and she was able to marry her lost love thomas seymour (different thomas, different seymour) in secret four months after the king's death, only to die a year and four months later.

also this: catherine of aragon was the only wife older than henry when they married, with her being 24 when and henry being 18; boleyn was 32 while henry was 42; seymour was 28, married to a 45 year old henry; anne of cleves was 25 and henry was 49; i repeat, howard was 17 when she was married to the 49 year old king; and parr was 31 and henry was 52.

and they were all flawed individuals, too, don't take my defenses of them to mean otherwise. in fact, as historical figures, i don't necessarily like all of them. but despite their flaws, they didn't deserve what happened to them, which is something the musical fails to portray in every way. it glosses over everything so quickly, which i understand is to be expected to a degree when you give each queen a six minute song to tell the story of their entire life, but the writing distorts them so badly they're hardly recognizable, and their stories are changed willy-nilly to fit the lazy empowerment theme rather than addressing them as they were.

the final song, "six." boy do i have thoughts. it's meant to seem empowering, and to an extent it is, because the characters they've given us get to talk about having a happy ending and making something of their lives that made them happy to have a legacy. but none of it's true, and it feels incredibly forced, especially because they take the concept of these women and pay no attention to them historically or what the figures they're based on would've actually wanted, and instead just says, "they all sing and dance and have a great time! question nothing!" and it just feels so hollow. it honestly made me feel even worse about the historical figures themselves and the suffering they endured, because it felt minimizing and shallow, like a platitude to make you stop thinking about how horribly they were treated. it was genuinely upsetting from that point of view, and despite how uplifting it's meant to be in the context of the show, it acknowledges that it's only a dream by giving a time limit to their happiness-- five minutes. and after that point you're supposed to go on continuing to be happy, having connected with these people and been empowered by their stories, when you are given very little of their actual stories and are shamed for analyzing things through the lens they gave you at the opening of the show. not to mention how horribly they trample over their message of how restrictive and repressive their lives were by nature of their station and says that, "well, if they could've just made different choices they would've been happy!" ignoring how the culture gave them no other choice and there's a pretty good chance that, even if they had made the choices they wanted to, they would've still been held back by virtue of their gender and station. the story behind six is not empowering, and it feels horrible to have it twisted around that was to make it seem empowering. i understand not wanting to beat down your audience and make them miserable, but rather than reducing these women down to such simplified caricatures and then having them all bond and have a girl power moment, it would've been much more impactful to have their actual concerns be what they bonded over-- being forgotten, talked over, held back, so on-- and talking about the people they actually were. having them write their own stories is fun and all, but having them actually tell their stories and feel heard, even if it's in a time they'll never see, is a much less reductive sentiment.

tl;dr: so basically i thought the musical was badly written for the message they were trying to send, and no amount of good music or talented performance can save a boring or badly written musical, and the six queens still deserve better.

[midnighthyuck]

Beautiful | jungwoo!au

summary: you were working on a photoshoot with your university team, in the meanwhile, jungwoo has to dress up as a girl to help his sister. 

words: 2.600 (sorry bout that)

pairing: you & jungwoo

a/n: pretty sweet. also, sorry about any mistakes, english is not my native language. it’s not that good idk? but it would be a shame deleting it all without giving a try. promise next time will be better.

requests are open!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two hours. That was the amount of time you had already spent trying to convince your senior that purple lights wouldn’t look as good as blue ones. The scenario was all set up but the lights still annoyed you. He had been working with photoshoots before you, period. He had plenty of works highly well recognized by all teachers in photography faculty, period. Yet, purple didn’t feel right.  

Tired of hearing your annoying complains he decided to give it a try. It ended up with you being congratulated by your ‘unceasing persistence’ and happy with the finally blue studio. He was good, but you also were. Being on top of the class was the main reason you were the only sophomore in the wise room.  

Once done with the lighting discussion you decided to take a look on the models. It was not your first time on a shooting like that so you had plenty knowledge of how the girls get stressed and sensitive right before the show. Most of them you’d never seen before and was pretty much sure you wouldn’t be seeing again anytime soon, still you made sure to bring them some fruits and cool water. 

‘’You all look stunning! Definitely the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen’’ you genuinely smiled at them. That was your job, making them feel at ease, instead of freaking them out like Doyoung would be doing in a few minutes. 

He wasn’t a bad guy, but the amount of overwork he had been dealing with in the past few months may have helped him to become this ‘fast mood shifting’ weapon. Or you might just think it because you are two opposites. Doyoung doesn’t know how to behave when it comes about girls. Also don’t you when it comes about boys. 

“There’s one missing’’ Ten made himself noticeable, handing you the paperwork. 

“It’s fine, we still got a few minutes.’’ you tried to stay calm, although you knew Doyoung would be shouting at you once the shoot started and one of his ‘girls’ was missing. ‘’I’ll go grab some coffee for us. Make sure Doyoung doesn’t freak out.’’  

“I will try.’’ It’s all you get back when you’re already reaching the elevator.  

In the meanwhile, Jungwoo was in denial.  

“No.” was all he said. 

“No, you don’t get me.” Junghah, the older sister, insisted. “I need you to be there for me. The director will fucking kill me. Also, what if I never get a job like this again?” 

“You should be there, not me!” his voice still sounded awfully adorable, despite the loudness. 

“I know! Do you think I’m like this cause I want to? Huh?” Junghah’s voice made itself louder than expected thanks to the eco. She had been in the bathroom for the whole day long. It had been four hours already. “Even if I manage to get out of here, I don’t think I can stay away for too long, you understand?” 

Jungwoo was too good, even he suspected of it, but everything must have a limit. He thought about the uncountable number of times he’d helped his older sister until the very moment. Combing her hair when she broke her arm. Dumping her ex-boyfriend for her cause she wouldn’t be able to handle his crying face. Not to mention all the times he had lied to their mom in order to help her sneak out of the house to go out.  

He knew that dressing up as a girl and showing up in a photoshoot wasn’t the best decision at all.  “Pretty please.’’ and that was it. 

With that simple sentence she had him all over her shoes.  

Jungwoo was way too good. 

[…] 

“Hold on, please!” you let the air in your lungs come out as a demand, running to the metal door a few steps away from you while managing to keep both ice americanos in your hands inside its cups, instead of dripping all over the elevator’s floor. “Thank you.” you mumble once in, trying to fix the harsh first impression you’d just caused. 

A smile was the answer. An awkwardly cute smile coming from an around 5 feet tall girl. She was huge, that was no secret, even compared to the ones waiting for you at the studio, yet something about her felt just to adorable, despite her size. Her long hair fell just right over her shoulder’s, contouring her back with a few other strands over her cheekbones. She was definitely adorable and you couldn’t help but smile. 

“Excuse me, are you here for the shooting?”  

“Uh, yes!” not only the face was lovely, but also the voice.  

You tried to keep your reactions to yourself, but seeing her ears getting red just made you internally jump in joy. “I see. I’m also on it, I mean, not modeling as you can see. I’m in charge of light and photography.’’ you smiled once again when she opened her mouth impressed, getting even more red than before. “Is this your first time?” 

“...Is it that obvious?” and once again you found yourself whipped by that extremally cute face.  

“Nah, it’s just cause you have very sincere expressions. It’s not bad though.” The conversation could keep on some other time, because in the very next second you’d arrived in the 8th floor. 

You, politely, guide the girl to the makeup room and let her there so they could work out on how to make her look like the astonishing (you would call kinda fake looking) woman we see on magazines. 

[…] 

As you thought Doyoung couldn’t keep his frustrations to himself, but since you were there the models had someone to rely on. Specially the cute one. It was her first time so it took ages for her to feel comfortable enough to pose properly.  

You managed to make some good pics before noon arrived, so you’d just sit around and wait until your colleagues were also done. Going out for a few drinks was always one of the best parts of working on projects with them.  

While setting up a few things in your head and organizing some paper and equipment, you heard two of your senior laughing. ‘If they can chill, they can also help me get everything done’ your thought while frowning. Finally reaching both guys you could barely remember the names, you were able to hear was seemed to be so funny. 

“I don’t know how Doyoung let that thing be on the project. That’s definitely not a girl, dude.”  

“I mean, maybe if I was drunk, or blind” both them laugh annoyingly.  

“Well, if it is so cool making fun out of people, I guess you guys will die in laughter once you check up on yourselves in the mirror.” you claim entering the place. “Or it might be funnier if your just shut the fuck up and take care of the work you’re here to do.’’ 

“Yeah, but nobody told me this was a gay parade.” one insisted. 

You smile back. “I bet they told you it was a circus. That’s why you keep acting like a fucking clown.” 

Before it could get any worse (or better), all the models, now done with their hard work, entered the room laughing in delight once it was over. Except from the tall one, who came in leaving the bathroom right behind you. You frowned in pain. You just wished she didn’t hear all the bullshit those two said. 

“Thank you for that.” she told you once you both were the only ones left in the huge studio, since taking the elevator was a kind of process when there were around 14 people in there. And taking the stairs on 8th floor was not an option.  

The touch of your hand on hers makes she feels vulnerable, and once again she blushes. “Never mind those assholes. Men are fucking stupid. Are you coming with us for a drink?” 

“Uh, not really. I gotta go back to check on my sister.” 

“Oh, I see.” and when the elevator finally arrives to get you, you hear her sighing in relief. 

“You did well today. I bet we are gonna see each other again anytime. What’s your name anyways?” 

“Kim Jungwoo.” she answers back with a wide smile.  

“You’re name is as adorable as your face, you know it?” you can’t help but make your thoughts real by telling the truth. 

“Oh... Thank you. I don’t get this a lot.” 

“But you should. Honestly, you’re the cutest model I’ve ever bumped into. Feel lucky, cause I see plenty of gorgeous girls every once in a while. You’re extremally beautiful.” 

“Thank you.” you are amused by the laugh that comes from her. It was just too much of a cute sound. But before you could embarrass yourself in front of her again the door opens, revealing a groups of people waiting for you to follow them to the nearest bar.  

You just wave goodbye and wish Jungwoo luck.

[…] 

Later that night Jungwoo searched for you online. He wasn’t brave enough to send a request, though. He felt cheesy for being like that, just appreciating your face once again by a picture someone else took. But it was not all about looks. It was about you all. Something just felt warm inside him while watching a stupid video Jaehyun posted on your birthday.  

Was it the smile? Was it the cozy voice? He didn’t know for sure, but it made him feel even worse for not being fearless.  

He was a coward afterwards.  

[…] 

You couldn’t bare the pain in your neck anymore, even after trying to stretch or taking pain-killers. You decided to go home for the day, you wouldn’t be much productive editing the pictures with that annoying pinch keeping all your attention for itself.  

“Excuse me!” the sweet voice reached your ears when you were just about to leave the building.  

“Yes?” you frowned. That face was somehow familiar. 

“Uh- well... I was here last weekend on the photoshoot...’’ You still couldn’t link it. 

“Sorry, I don’t recall. Are you a staff member?”  

“Not exactly. Well, I was... one of the models.” Oh. It wasn’t hard to say why you weren’t able to recognize her (him? they?). 

They still were tall as hell, the baby face had pretty much the same features and naive expressions, but it all just felt so different. The person right in front of you now seemed like someone else. 

“I think I remember now.” you said trying to conceal your surprise. “How can I help?” 

There it was again. Ears turning red, just as the tip of the nose, confused face and shrunken shoulders. Just as adorable as you could remember. 

“I actually... Hm...” 

“The pictures aren’t ready yet, if that’s what you’re here for. It takes some time.” 

“No!” they answered louder than you expected, getting you surprised. “I... actually came to.. Uh, talk to you.” 

“Me?” you didn’t mean to sound as surprised as you actually did.  

“I’m so sorry! I swear I’m not a weirdo. I just didn’t have the chance to talk to you that much that day, and I was wondering if... Well, if y-you...” 

No. The answer was already set on your mind before you could even think about the painful pinch on your neck. But that was when you realized it wasn’t there anymore. You frown in confusion and run your fingers through the back of your head. Everything is just fine. 

“Ok.” you said before thinking well, interrupting the other while getting lost on their own words. “What about grabbing some coffee?” 

They were not a dog, but for a second you could swear you saw a wagging tail when they opened that bright smile right in front of your eyes. 

[…] 

So Kim Jungwoo was indeed a guy.  

The whole ‘’dressing’’ as girl thing had a story behind it, before you could get angry at him. No that you had a real reason for that, but as Ten would say “getting mad at boys is you favorite sports”. But even though, he was way different from all the other boys you had ever met.  

Adorable wasn’t the only word to describe him. He was... sweet (?) Like genuinely.  Not the kind of “am I cute?” sweet, the real sweetness. The one kids lose once they grow up. The one that makes us love animals because they’re just too pure for this world.  And you hated yourself for feeling so much at ease with a guy as you did with Jungwoo. 

You knew his intentions. Growing up with two older brothers and being friends with Johnny made you a kind of expert when it comes to know that guys are into you. Yet, you couldn’t help but smile at each sweet expression he’d let off whenever you said something that caught him out of guard.  

[…] 

Keeping in touch with Jungwoo was just natural.  

People tend to say they never really realize they fell in love, but you’d never forget that friday night, when he texted you a “I wanna see you soon.”.  

What is this? You thought to yourself, holding onto your phone tightly, staring at the ceiling wondering since when were you anticipating seeing Jungwoo that much. What exactly was that cozy warmness inside your chest. 

[…] 

“I like you.” Jungwoo closed his eyes when the words came out, becoming real. 

It had been a month since the first time you thought he was adorable. And now, right in front of that playground somewhere nearby your house, on that cold november noon, he was being adorable once again. 

He didn’t dare to take your hands. He knew you well to know how suspicious you were with skinship, what got you smiling. You moved one step forward, getting closer to the taller cute boy, taking one of his hands on yours. 

“I know.” 

“Since when?” he sighs deeply. You wish you were brave enough to check up his expression. I bet his ears are red, you thought.  

“Since day one.” you laugh when his lamentation moan reaches your ears, at the same time he decides to lay his head on your shoulder.  

“That’s so unfair.” he sighs once again, that’s when you feel the urge to pet his head. At the first touch he gets surprised, since touching wasn’t really something between the two of you. “I’m sorry.” 

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” you smile, although you knew he couldn’t see it.  

Gathering all his strength, he takes a step back to face you. “And... What’s your answer?” 

You laugh. “You know I have a soft spot for you and there’s no way I’d say no when you’re looking at me like that.”. 

And when he pouts at you with that ridiculously adorable face you can’t help but hugging him. “You were special since the first second. Thank you for that.” 

He hugs you back and now you’re able to feel his heartbeat, which gets you a bit worried since it was way faster than people consider healthy. 

“I never cared when people gave me compliments. But that day, when you said I was beautiful, I felt you were looking through me. It was not about being a guy, being a girl, not even about being attractive. It was about... me. I’m the one to thank you.” 

You smile while petting his back. “You’re beautiful, Jungwoo.” 

And he was. 

Kim Jungwoo was the prettiest thing that had ever crossed your path. 

[beatricebidelaire]

🔥 Bertrand and Georgina

Despite their differing personalities and fields of study, Georgina had always quite respected Monty, her fellow VFD stem major. They were both one of last VFD members who had gone to college with VFD’s sponsor. A few years after, the schism had worsened enough that there were no longer official funds for these. In Georgina’s opinion, this change was why even VFD members only a couple of years younger than her and Monty had a much more limited world view, having only received VFD education.

In Georgina’s opinions, spying missions that required visiting different places or jobs in The City, whether in the field of journalism or acting, didn’t really make up for the limited world view that was the result of a VFD education. Because these jobs were still highly VFD connected, and many volunteers still had VFD in mind with every decision they made at the job. Every thought of theirs was a result of VFD influence, everything they learned they learned from VFD - especially their definitions of what’s right and what’s wrong and what’s the greater good. And with the schism going on, usually it’s “everything the other side did was bad, anything we did was for the greater good”. Arson, of course, was especially terrible, considering they did call themselves the volunteer fire department, after all.

Real world was more complicated than that narrowing world view of the newer VFD members. And after years of studying outside VFD, Georgina knew all too well that in each field, there were always ways to exploit certain techniques to one’s benefit. And sometimes the line between exploiting a technique for personal benefit and experimenting differently in the name of science could get blurry. And legality issues could be easily circumvented since the laws were often lax, as the lawmakers did not understand much about each individual field. People also had interesting side projects all the time. Georgina herself had ventured into the study of hypnotism on the side after studying optometry.

She and Monty would occasionally exchange updates on their respective research. Monty would share his latest experiments about his reptiles and Georgina about the hypnotism techniques she’s recently experimenting. Monty was a man who appreciated scientific methods applied under a controlled environment, and also a man who had a little taste of making some extra money outside of VFD with their research results. Georgina could have intellectual conversations with him without him ranting about morals and integrity and what’s best for VFD.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said about Monty’s little friends.

Including his roommate.

Monty himself liked Bertrand, but that really didn’t say much because Monty had a tendency to like everyone outside of his field. (Within his field was another matter, he didn’t exactly hate them, but it was complicated, with the rivalry going on. Georgina could sympathize.)

Bertrand was a typical younger VFD member with a very VFD-limited view, in Georgina’s opinion. And he had always been a good student, so Georgina supposed that made him worse. Upon a few times of meeting him, Georgina had decided that he was indeed as righteous and morally-inflexible and judgmental as they came.

However, he was also too polite to outright pick an angry fight over this, to directly accuse her of being evil like some of volunteers with quicker tempers had, so he resorted to mild frowns and trying to calmly talk her out of practicing the questionable technique of hypnotism when the subject was brought up.

“It’s wrong to control other people like that,” he argued. And it was such a naive argument that Georgina found almost laughable.

“And what forms of control do you deem acceptable, then?” She questioned drily.

He frowned. “None of them.” He said, like it was obvious.

“What about fear? Or money? And what about kidnapping children and then isolating them from the outside world and feeding them only selected information?” Georgina gave a pleasant laugh. “Surely you had to agree there isn’t anything wrong with the last one! It’s considered disloyal to not agree with that. I heard you were a good student.”

“That’s -” he began, and then stopped again, looking troubled. “I think it’s still wrong.” He finally said. “There are definitely methods for improvement when it comes to our recruitment.”

Georgina wouldn’t say she was impressed, because it took a lot to impress her, but she would admit to herself that perhaps he wasn’t one to parrot every VFD indoctrinated thought like she had previously assumed. “And have you told them so?” She asked, amused.

“I know some people have, so I’m sure the complaint has already been raised,” he said, and then hesitated. “There is a schism going on though, so I could understand why recruitment is especially important and - sometimes we need to employ methods that aren’t always …”

“Then what makes you decide hypnotizing as a form of control is worse?” She raised an eyebrow.

He looked frustrated for a moment, as if he couldn’t argue the point, before a calm mask fell over the frustration again, covering it. “We’re doing it for the organization. It’s - not without flaws but I could see why people argued it’s necessary. I’m not saying I approve entirely either, but it brings results.”

“I assure you,” Georgina said pleasantly. “My methods bring results, too.”

“For your personal gain,” he was quick to point out.

“Which makes me evil? In this world, everyone has to look out for themselves. Here’s a piece of advice - you shouldn’t rely on VFD to protect you. You’d be disappointed, someday.”

He frowned. “This isn’t just about looking out for oneself - you’re profiting off others.”

She rolled her eyes, “And our noble organization is, what? Saving the world?”

“Fighting the wrongs in the world,” he said.

“Poetic, you are,” she commented wryly. “So you’d think it’s okay if I use my skill set for them? If I, say, hypnotized someone to not start a fire that they were originally planning on starting?”

Bertrand was quiet for a moment. “The issue with hypnosis as a form of control is that, unlike other ways, people … are no longer their own selves and have no idea what they’re doing. While whether other methods are moral are also debatable, at least people are still aware of things and have more choices - even if most choices don’t look promising.”

“How miserable it is, don’t you think?” Georgina asked languidly. “To be knowingly aware of such, to be conscious of the limited choices one face, to be forced to choose to do something out of, let’s say fear. To not be able to escape while all too aware. Perhaps being hypnotized was a less miserable alternative.”

“It’s always better to know,” he said.

“Ah, a mind for knowledge. How admirable,” Georgina mused. “But I’m sure not everyone is like you. Some people just want to be ignorant, and who’s to say it’s right to force knowledge upon them?”

He looked troubled, and then said. “Well, if the organization decides to employ the method, I won’t be fighting to stop those, even if I don’t think it’s the best of ways.” Of course you won’t, Georgina thought. Just like you didn’t argue with them about their other methods, despite your silent disapproval. “But using it only for personal profit is unquestionably wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong with personal profits, one can’t live with their only goal as serving VFD. I trust you to be at least smart enough to know that.”

“Well, it’s not personal profit itself is wrong -”

“Right, you only question my method - the very same method that you agree you won’t argue with if employed for organization causes. So how is it so deplorable when the two are combined together?”

He looked lost for an argument, like he still firmly disagreed with her but didn’t know how to argue his position. Unlike some other volunteers who were quicker to decide to resort to angry, illogical accusations or outbursts, he was silently thinking things over in his head. While those volunteers amused Georgina briefly and then just mostly irritated her, Georgina decided that perhaps Bertrand had the potential to be convinced, after a few more arguments.

And sure, she did not need any volunteers’ approval, but it could be potentially useful if the one who used to be called “perfect apprentice” would take her side in debate like this.

She began making plans in her mind.

send two characters and 🔥 for an argument scene between them

[sebastianshaw]

(thanks to @prfxxor for helping me hash out this headcanon!) I’ve written many times before that Shaw immediately recognized Madelyne as not being Jean at all, but that we are never given an explanation as to why. My new headcanon is that Shaw is really, really good at picking out clones, alt-reality counterparts, and other such doppelgangers. This is due to having been in the Hellfire Club for so long. The Hellfire Club is EXTREMELY cutthroat; Shaw became Black King because the current White King deceived and betrayed him, tried to murder him and killed his beloved Lourdes in the process, and then Shaw killed him and his Inner Circle in vengeance. And while that was the first attempt on Shaw’s life by another member, it was far from the last. Murder is a very accepted means of promotion in the HFC, and even when death isn’t on the line, the politicking and manipulation and backstabbing is just...the culture, really. So even though Shaw frankly does not give enough of a shit about MOST people to pay attention to them at all, he did learn to pay VERY close attention to people in the Inner Circle, and then anyone he might conceivably need to be “worried” about, just to survive. Picking up little signs, little signals, small expressions, anything that’s even slightly “off” from their usual. Because sometimes it’s not paranoia, they actually are out to get out, especially when you’re HERE and especially when you’ve made the enemies he has. So, Jean being one of those potential foes---both as an X-Man in general and because he probably always expected vengeance for the Dark Phoenix saga---he probably paid pretty close attention to her mannerisms, demeanor, the way she carried herself, etc., and that’s how he pinned Maddie as someone else the second he met her. It sounds....kind over-the-top for what’s realistic to my mind for him, even typing it out, but it’s the best explanation possible (and also comics generally doesn’t CARE about the realistic limitations of mundane abilities and treats them like superpowers a lot--) This does NOT apply to anyone he meets. It applies to people that were either in the Inner Circle alongside him even if they were on good terms (after all, he THOUGHT he and Buckman were on good terms) and to people of whom he’s made an enemy and has reasonably/realistically had a chance to study in such a way. So for instance, he could distinguish Courtney Ross/Sat-Yr-Nin from Saturnyne because he worked with Courtney for awhile when she was White Queen, and has had enough interactions with Storm, Magneto, and Gambit to probably do it for them too...but like, he’s really barely interacted with Xavier prior to Krakoa, he wouldn’t know an imposter or alt-reality or cloned Xavier wasn’t the real guy just because they acted somewhat different because he doesn’t know how Xavier acts (and honestly the current Xavier is PRETTY DIFFERENT ANYWAY in his mannerisms) He’s probably rapidly brushing up on the rest of the Quiet Council, but still, this is going to apply only for a small pool of characters. It also only applies to clones who are FUNCTIONALY DISTINCT PEOPLE from their genetic donor. For instance, Madelyne is a different person from Jean. Ben Reilly is a different person from Peter Parker. They have different personalities, behaviors, etc. Whereas Sinister’s Marauders or the Krakoa clones are not, they’re psychological duplicates (or at least intended to be) and thus Shaw doesn’t see anything different about, say, the current Shinobi than he does the original, because there ISN’T anything different. It also does NOT apply to illusionists and shapeshifters who are deliberately TRYING to deceive him. Madelyne was never pretending to be Jean, so she never tried to affect Jean’s mannerisms. The shapeshifters and illusionists in Marvel are generally disguised because they WANT to be taken for that person, and all of them seem to be VERY good actors, so unless they’re just so grievously out of character that ANYONE could guess it. Shaw’s good, he’s not fucking psychic, nor is he Sherlock Holmes, and I don’t want him to be, I prefer his skill set being concentrated in the very IMPERSONAL fields of engineering and business, as I feel that fits him best and because like...idk Shaw is capable enough AS IT IS that giving him further talents feels risking OP to me. As a note, Shaw’s father was canonically a shapeshifter himself, and while I hc he kept this from Sebastian, it’s certainly possible he didn’t, giving Shaw additional experience in picking out doppelgängers and knowledge early in life that such things CAN exist...but honestly like I don’t like piling on skills like this if we don’t have evidence for it, so like I’m sticking with “shapeshifters can fool him if they include the right mannerisms” especially since like...idk, it kind of drives me nuts in RP how it seems like EVERYONE thinks their muse can, say, see through Mystique? Like I once saw a thread where someone wrote their muse realize something wasn’t right because their “friend” mentioned having the wrong kind of game console...and like, really? You wouldn’t just assume he had another one or had gotten a new one, your mind would INSTANTLY go “something is wrong”? Even in a world with Mystique, Lady Mastermind, Skrulls, and Life Model Decoys, I call bullshit. Same for how I see so many characters just “somehow know” that the other character (usually a villain) is lying to them, even when the character is explicitly supposed to be naive and trusting and like...I just don’t want to do that, players of deceptive muses have enough shit to put up with like this even if I could theoretically justify it.

[shinneth]

Do you think Steven and Connie are similar to the Bojack Horseman and Diane Nguyen situation?

Sorry it took a while to get to this. Mostly, it’s because I never watched Bojack Horseman. 

However, I did hear a lot about its ending. Like, critical acclaim levels of how it ended. I distinctly remember reading a lengthy multi-parter tweet from Linkara about it. 

So I did some research (still haven’t seen the show outside of some Youtube clips), and... well...

I honestly think Steven and Connie are only similar to these two in that this is how they should have ended up.

In more straightforward terms, I’d say Steven and Connie are Bojack and Diane done wrong in every possible way.

I managed to find a Youtube comment that can articulate this far better than I can (given my limited knowledge on the show itself):

I kinda feel there's more than that; basically Bojack and Diane do love each other BUT for Diane to have been trauma bonded almost with too many years of "Fixing" Bojack and finally getting out of that type of cycle (although in a stable relationship) - she still feels kinda flat. It's ironic as Bojack and Diane probably understand each other's darker side better than anyone else. Both of them ARE defined by their darkest tendencies. That's what makes it especially sad as neither will ever have that level of understanding from anyone else. AND sadly it's not possible for anyone to have a 'Safe" relationship with Bojack. (At least not for a super long time perhaps ???). - At least for me that's why the end is truly heart breaking (final scene on the roof) prefect song and animated very tender / awkward moment. The length of time in awkward refrain is a nearly direct measure of "Love" that can never be (after so much destruction in spite of growth learning and accountability .). - Some things can never be really fixed.

Considering the show took time to establish Connie having a life outside of Steven - friends, interests, goals, etc. - I figured there would be literally no excuse for any of that to be brought up unless they weren’t going to have Connie happily living her own life without having to be weighed down by Steven’s baggage. 

Instead, much like In Dreams as a whole, elements that should have been meaningful and logical story progressions for the characters instead ended up being a bunch of red herrings that meant sweet fuck-all by the end. 

Also.

Some things can never be really fixed.

This is a message I often push in my writing that I really think Steven Universe (and Future especially) should have done more with. Maybe that clashes heavily with the show’s overall message... but at the same time, I think it’s more damaging to send across a naive sentiment like “anything/anyone can be fixed if you just keep pushing for it enough!” than it is to be cynical and to acknowledge a lost cause when you see one. 

Because realistically, I do not see the Diamond Authority as fixable. Really, the closest SU ever came to touching this message was through Kevin (which is HEAVILY TRIVIALIZED when you realize Steven won’t forgive some random asshole young adult, but be will forgive a group of space dictators who are responsible for multiple counts of planet-wide genocide, countless millennia of enslaving gemkind, and of course the attempted destruction of Earth on multiple counts) and Aquamarine+Eyeball. 

The latter of which is undermined when you realize they’re honestly not real threats anymore and are Discount Team Rocket at best. 

And coming from personal experience, as a kid who spent years in denial thinking that my parents would eventually rekindle their marriage and get back together, because surely Daddy loved me enough to really make the effort to change and better himself for his family...

... Yeah, that never happened. And over the years, I learned I really should have never hoped for that in the first place, because my parents never really should have stayed together to begin with. Everything about that relationship from my dad’s perspective was incredibly fucking unhealthy and very creepy in hindsight. 

Sometimes, you don’t always know what’s best for you. Not through any fault of your own: it’s just a matter of there are certain truths out there that would have been cruel to make a kid face and accept. 

I hoped for SUF, there would have been some acknowledgement that what Steven wants isn’t necessarily what he really needs. He thinks he wants to marry Connie, but Steven has no way to know for sure that will be what’s best for him. And honestly, their friendship at the start of the first season is just a hollow shell of that by SUF; Connie is only 14 in that series, mind you. That’s a turbulent phase for any kid, and she’s very likely to change in ways that won’t jive with Steven the way he thinks he will. In many ways, she already has. 

And realistically, by the end of SUF, the most he can have with Connie is a long-distance relationship throughout her college years. Anyone with half a brain knows how low the success rate of long-distance relationships are.

I honest-to-god would hope Connie either finds someone in college she better relates with or just have her forego relationships altogether so she can reach her dreams. 

But Rebecca Sugar’s “oh, they’ve always been in love!” despite that directly contradicting a big message the show itself has preached (anyone remember when Garnet told us how love takes time?).... yeah, that tells me it was pointless to have any hope the show would do anything even remotely mature or realistic with Steven and Connie’s dynamic. 

Pretty ironic that for such a “progressive” show, it has a very goddamned dated model for the lead and his love interest. 

So yeah.

If they did Steven and Connie like Bojack and Diane, that would have been fantastic. But sadly, I can only say they’re similar in that they had very similar problems. Only one relationship was masterfully resolved, and the other was handled in the most shallow, lazy way possible that sends across a very screwy message when you try to read that whole story from beginning to end. 

(hell, Lapis and Peridot got resolved more similarly to Bojack and Diane - but only in that they pretty much had next to no interaction even after Lapis came back from abandoning Peridot and stealing her home and belongings. Of course we got zero follow-up from that, and while they’re still clearly friends and teammates, one can easily infer that they went their own separate ways considering they have nothing to do with each other unless Bismuth is also there)

[moonexile]

the most important thing about luther’s apology to vanya isn’t him taking responsibility for his actions or accepting that he did something wrong  (  though that’s very important too,  given that he did not understand what he was doing was so wrong at the time and recognizing that now is vital.  )  the most important part is the way he validates her anger.  

his apology to her is not about him.  he’s spent the last year feeling both guilt over how he handled things / what he did to her / how he feels he failed her and the rest of his siblings when his job has always been to protect him  --- and feeling scared of what she’s capable of  (  which i think is fair because to not be scared after the limited knowledge and what he saw would be invalidating to her powers.  )  he’s scared of himself + he’s scared of what she’s capable of,  but once he sees her,  and once he realizes she’s been here too + she’s got a family she’s with + she seems genuinely happy,  he wonders if she’s doing better and if she’s better off out on her own than with her family  --- especially him.  

because after everything,  their entire childhood + what transpired during season 1,  he knows she has every right to be angry at all of them.  but he carries a lot of it on his own shoulders because of what he did to her right before the academy was destroyed.  in an effort to try to protect his family + her,  he only hurt her more.  that was not his intention.  that was a failed attempt at being the leader and a quick realization that that was not his place anymore.  but allison nearly bled to death + he saw a man brutally murdered by her  ----  he had every right to be scared of her.  he knows that.  but after a year of thinking about this over and over again,  he knows he should have taken a different approach in trying to help her and understand her  ---  because he didn’t take that time with her before locking her up.  he should have and he knows that.  he takes responsibility for that.   he has no reason to blame her for not wanting to be around her family,  if that’s the case  ---  because so much has become clear to him since then.

luther didn’t read vanya’s book with the same perspective as everyone else.  everyone else knew that their father hurt them all.  luther didn’t recognize that until after reginald died.  a lot of vanya’s book was very confusing to him because of it;  a lot of the abuse they faced was pointed out in the book,  and he didn’t feel like she had a place in saying any of it because he didn’t think she understood.  but vanya understood better than luther did  (  keeping luther so close to him that reginald was able to twist luther’s perception of him was the height of luther’s abuse. )  he was less resentful in the way his siblings were towards her and just a little more lost by her book.  i mentioned this before but the similarities in vanya and luther really come down to the fact that vanya was on the outside of everything and luther was too close to it all;  both of their perceptions are skewed because of that but it makes their perspectives both very interesting.  it’s why it takes him longer to understand that what he did to her in his attempt to help was wrong  ----  because he’s still trying to process,  for the first time in his life,  that their father was a bad man and that he treated his kids horribly  (  ‘ i was naive enough to believe dads don’t lie to their kids.‘  /  i cant believe how much time i just wasted believing dad.  ‘  )   

coming to terms with the fact that he hurt vanya and failed her + his family in the process is part of him recognizing the way he was abused,  too.  the more he realizes reginald has hurt him and the others,  the more he realizes just how bad it was for vanya and how valid her anger is  ---  not just at their father,  but to all of them.   so it takes him until his first year in the ‘60s to start understanding her book more and more and how that anger that came through the pages was so valid.  all these pieces came together for him and he saw vanya in a new light.  all the siblings  (  maybe just excluding five  )  played a part in excluding vanya while growing up;  it was engrained into their minds to do so.  but he didn’t want it to be that way anymore.  he believes he deserves her anger,  but he also hopes that he can still be a brother  ---  so there’s a line to balance on between her valid anger + how rightfully destructive her anger can be + how he wants to be there for her,  this time in a better way that he was before.  

but luther knows that her anger is far more valid than his desire to be a family again.  he puts that first.

he didn’t bring a gun there with intent to hurt her  (  he’s spent the last year feeling awful for hurting her before,  purposefully letting himself get beaten + exploited because he wanted to be punished for what he’s done.  he has no reason to want to hurt her again.  )   he brought a gun because he knew how powerful she is and how destructive she can be and how valid her anger is.  i’m not saying it was the right way to handle it but i do think it’s fair for him to be scared of her and it makes it clear that he recognizes why she should be mad at him anyway.  he always wanted the chance to apologize to her,  that was the most important thing  ---  but he was immediately blindsided when she didn’t know who he was. 

but he recognizes the way he (especially) + the others have hurt her.  he is recognizing that she is hurt and that she is allowed to be hurt and she i allowed to be mad at them,  whereas season 1 luther felt like the rest of their family  was her victim,  not fully aware of the other side of the story.  but now that he is aware,  and now that he is starting to understand,  he sees that she has every right to feel hurt and be angry,  and she’s allowed to deal with it in her own way.  no one ever let luther deal with his pain in his own way;  he’s constantly belittled for it  ---  he doesn’t want her to go through that too.  so she needs to hear that it’s okay for her to deal however she needs to.  that validation is something she needed in season 1 and luther could not give it to her then,  but he’s trying so desperately to give it to her now.  he wants to help her right now;  if the only way he can do that is to leave her alone,  that’s fair + it’s her choice that he’s going to respect.  assuming that she’s lying and purposefully trying to hide out rather than actually not remembering any of it is just his way of trying to respect her boundaries.  

he wants her back.  he wants her to be part of the family.  at this point,  she’s only the second family member he’s seen  ---  after a year of wondering if she’s dead or if she’s okay.  he desperately wants his family back and to atone for hi mistakes with all of them,  especially her,  but more important than atoning for himself is protecting + validating her.  that comes first.  but he understands that she may not be ready to see them or want to be part of that family anymore and that’s her choice,  he’s going to respect her for that.  because if hiding away + trying to move on with her life is the healthiest option for her,  rather than coming back to their family,  she’s allowed to do that.  he’s not going to force the family together like he tried to do before;  he didn’t always recognize that when his siblings left,  they were abandoning the academy / reginald,  not him.  he thought it was about himself.  but now he understands that it was about them and them having their own lives and being who they are  ---  just as this is for vanya  (  he assumes,  given that he doesn’t know if she’s lying about losing her memories at this point.  )  if this makes her happier than she feels she can be with the family,  then that’s the best thing for her.  he didn’t get that chance when reginald took away his options;  so luther won’t take away vanya’s.

if the best thing for vanya is to be away from them,  despite him wanting to make up for their lost time as siblings,  then he’ll respect it.  but when she does decide to come back to the family,  he makes a conscious effort to ensure she’s always included.  he becomes her advocate.  it’s such a little moment but before they meet their father,  she suggests they use the shell to talk,  and when diego doesn’t have the shell,  luther calls him out for it  ---  not to be funny,  but because it was vanya’s suggestion and he wants her to be heard.  in season 1,  there’s a lot of instances when there are family meetings that don’t include everyone or don’t pull everyone’s feelings into account,  but it’s different now,  and they’re all making sure of it.   he’s just really showing her that she is part of this family and that she is being heard and is important in their decisions and i think that’s extremely important  --  because he’s recognizing why she was in pain before and why her pain is valid,  so he’s trying to give this a fresh start and do better than he did before.  it doesn’t mean he’s always doing it perfectly,  but he’s actively working on himself and trying to do right by all of them  ---  especially vanya,  because she has every right to hate him,  and if she did,  he would understand.   

so luther’s apology was not about himself;  it was not about trying to ‘ make himself feel better. ‘   it was entirely about her.  it was about putting her before himself.  it was about validating her pain and her anger in a way that she needed last time he saw her,  in a way he didn’t give her then.  it was all about respecting her and trying to make sure she was okay.  

but beyond validating her anger and her pain,  he is actively taking responsibility for what happened.  he tells her that she was not alone in causing the apocalypse  ---  yes,  she was the bomb,  but there was a series of fuses and canon mentions multiple times that harold is the fuse,  but luther will always believe he was.  that’s why he mentions himself first before saying they were all a part of it;  that’s why he explicitly states “i destroyed the world by overestimating my own importance,”  because he’s recognizing just how valid she was in her response to what he did to her.  she destroyed the world,  but would she have if he didn’t lead her to it?  

that’s how he sees her now.  he is scared of what she’s capable of because he is impressed by her powers  (  he told her that  )  but more than that,  beyond her powers,  he is actively trying to validate her all season and understand her pain and that really emphasizes the way luther is starting to get a fuller picture of the way they were all abused.  he has always been a protector,  but he’s realizing now that the way he’s gone about it hasn’t always been the best for people,  and that’s why we see him take a step back + try to put himself as an equal to the others rather than their number one.  

of course we don’t get vanya’s genuine reaction to his apology,  since she doesn’t remember what happened between them and doesn’t have a way of truly understanding his apology / accepting it,  and that’s the worst part,  because she deserves to be fully conscious of what he’s saying to her and how she feels about it,  but the way he insists on validating her pain + the way she chooses to cope is the most important thing about this,  for me personally,  and the most important thing for luther to communicate to her.  he leaves there after his apology not certain if he believes that she doesn’t remember or not  ---  because he knows how valid it is for her to want to stay away from him / the rest of them,  and he knows how valid it is for her to want this life,  where she looks happy,  instead  ---  so he doesn’t insist on pushing because he wants her to have what’s best for her,  not what he wants  (  which is his sister back + a chance to treat her better.  )  he puts her before himself and that’s so important to the way his mindset has changed and how he’s come to terms with things since leaving 2019.

[andimlonely]

BNHA | DanganronpaAU! hc’s

Part 2, featuring some characters outside 1-A! I really like this AU if you couldn’t tell, so feel free to request stuff/ask questions about it! Possible spoilers for Danganronpa below so please don’t read on if you want to avoid them.

Tsuyu Asui - is nervous, like everyone else, but is good at holding it together. She’s intent on finding a way out, and when she realizes that endeavor is fruitless, is dedicated to working with the others to rise against Monokuma. She has a knack for finding clues and noticing weird behavior. And as much as she can hold it together until then, the first death really shakes her optimism. She won’t be quite the same after the first trial, but with encouragement, she can be pulled out of her slump again. 

Tenya Iida - disciplined and knowledgeable, he never lets anyone forget what areas are forbidden or when curfew is. Has a strict moral compass and is prone to projecting it onto others. Follows a rigid schedule and stays cautious of the others, openly expressing he does not trust most of them. His schedule can open him up to someone, as they will have a good idea where he is and what he’s doing at many given times. Openly denounces Monokuma and reprimands anyone who defies rules or jeopardizes the group’s safety. 

Hanta Sero - makes a lot of jokes to cope with how terribly nervous and scared he is by this situation. His strategy is to find people he feels he can trust and make a solid alliance with them. His first concern is also trying to find a way to escape, and he never really abandons this idea until he realizes how hopeless it is. He likes to take it upon himself to lighten the mood and cheer people up with his humor. In times of desperation, he often feels like just giving up, but his friends are there to lift him up, and he’ll have the strength to keep working with the others.

Eijiro Kirishima - puts on a brave face, but is not as brave as he pretends to be. Very strong, so he isn’t easily overpowered. Wants to prove himself to the group and himself, so he sometimes acts impulsively, mostly with good intentions. But his impulsive actions can land him in dangerous situations, so having friends to talk him out of doing so will help him get farther.

Kyoka Jirou  - a smart and snarky musician who is willing to work with others, but doesn’t let her guard down. Happens to overhear things often, but also makes a habit of eavesdropping once she realizes how beneficial it is. Pretty good at telling when someone is lying. Doesn’t share much about herself or what she knows unless she really trusts someone. Because she’s a pessimist, doesn’t really believe working together will save everyone by the end, but she’s willing to help here and there. 

Mei Hatsume - Mei can be boisterous and a pain to constantly be around, but her inventive and creative nature could be a life-saver. She doesn’t always want to share her inventions with everyone though, and she has a tendency to be selfish. She also isn’t fully compliant with Monokuma’s rules and pushes the limits when she feels like she could find useful parts and information by defying them. She’s mostly out for herself, but it isn’t as if she doesn’t care about the others at all - she just prioritizes her own survival.  

Neito Monoma - a mass manipulator. Of course, he wouldn’t make that obvious. Initially he seems a little smug, but mostly normal. He’ll equip himself with a trustworthy and friendly persona, but secretly inject his chats with the others with lies and omissions. When his dishonest nature comes to light, he won’t be ashamed or cease to spread lies. He enjoys it even more once everyone is aware that he can’t be trusted, because that means he can tell only the truth and people will still second guess and not know what to believe. Probably the best liar, and masterful at turning people against one another.

Hitoshi Shinsou - is not opposed to working with the others. Only hesitates because he’s used to being perceived as intimidating, but is fairly mellow and friendly in his own way. That said, he’s also determined when he has his mind set on something and is very intent on getting to the bottom of every murder and figuring out what’s going on overall. His biggest motivation is figuring out who or what is behind Monokuma and this killing game, and the purpose of it all. He is not unafraid of dying, but he’s willing to take some risks to get closer to the truth. Not afraid to confront privately, whereas other people would limit confrontation to times where others are present or not very far.  

Camie Utsushimi - is not book-smart, but she knows how to get her way with certain people because she’s charming and attractive. Is one of the most naive of the students, and not the best at defense. Her best hope is to get on people’s good sides. That said, she is also good at manipulating what people think by starting rumours. 

Mirio Togata - very nice and outgoing, which can seem artificial to some, but only is when necessary. He’s also athletic, so he is not easy to overpower. Like Deku, wants to believe that everyone is well-intentioned, but if he finds that they aren’t, will discreetly scope them out with a friendly facade. He has a strong sense of justice and no sympathy for wrong-doers.  

Nejire Hado - kind of like Ibuki, but less chaotic. Is not as ditzy as she might seem, and she uses this to her advantage often. It’s hard to tell if she genuinely likes you or is just acting like she does, because her bubbly nature can seem disingenuous (and is at times). She might seem a little eccentric and maybe even juvenile, but can also be very serious when the situation calls for it. Is one of the most thorough at investigating because she’s so naturally curious. Her suggestions during trials can seem outlandish; this coupled with how ditzy she seems often leads people not to take her seriously.

Tamaki Amajiki - Tamaki is probably the most anxious and frightened by his predicament, and it shows. He doesn’t want to deal with the killing game or any of the others, and is very distrusting of them. Unlike some of the students who doubted the legitimacy of Monokuma’s announcement that the only way to get out is to kill someone, he believed it from the start because he couldn’t afford not to. Prone to anxiety attacks, which could make him vulnerable to an attack of a different kind. Is a very good cook and knows a lot about food, which gets some of the others to warm up to him. When encouraged, he can become bold and selfless.

[aspoonofsugar]

With all of the forest metaphors that are in the recent chapters, what do you think about the lost girls ova(mikasa's part) where eren takes mikasa into the forest and teaches her to not be afarid of it? And what do you think about zeke in ch 113 trying to escape the forest but levi is stopping and dragging him back in? . i wonder if all of the forests in the series just got extra meta meanings. I would love to hear your thoughts you always write meta beautifully. Have an amazing week!

Hello anon!

Thank you for the nice words!

I have talked a little about the use of the forest in the female titan arc here and I have mentioned it also about Sasha and Mikasa’s arc here and here.

In short, I think that the forest has a symbolic meaning both in the female titan arc and especially in Mikasa’s backstory and side story, while I am not sure it has any kind of special meaning when it comes to Zeke and Levi even if I guess a metaphorical interpretation is still possible.

As far as Levi and Zeke are concerned, the fact that they fight each other in a forest can very well be seen as a symbolic way to highlight how they are both still far from finding a positive resolution to their inner conflicts. I have discussed briefly their fight here:

Finally the chapter has Zeke mentioning the fact that he and Levi can’t trust each other and the caption at the end mentions again this concept aka that even the people who can’t understand each other have each one their own reasons. Basically, at the root of Zeke and Levi’s conflict (and at the root of the whole conflict btw Paradis and the world tbh) there is the inability/unwillingness to communicate. Zeke won’t share his true intentions and even if he did there is no guarantee that Levi will hear him out since he has not gotten over his hate for Zeke. Chapters 112 and 113 are called respectively “Ignorance” and “Violence”. They can be considered as the two flaws of respectively Zeke and Levi and at the same time they are connected to the strong points of both characters. Zeke is one of the smartest and most knowledgable characters of the series, but he also fails to understand others and misreads them. Levi on the other hand is one of the strongest characters, but he is also extremely violent. At the same time he is one of the most good willed and empathetic. They are two paradoxes and probably no matter how intelligent or how strong they are, they won’t be able to reach their objectives without showing empathy, exactly like the whole world will crumble if the people will keep refusing to understand each other.

An interesting point of the fight between Levi and Zeke is that the both of them understimate each other. On one hand Zeke understimates Levi’s determination to kill his comrades in order to fulfill his duty. It is as Levi says, Zeke has no idea of how many people the SC sacrificed in order to arrive where they are and by brushing off their sacrifices he is showing a lack of respect for the people of Paradis. This is made clear also by him basically calling them naive in his speech since they have no idea of how the world works. Levi easily preventing him from escaping by showing his initial assumption to be wrong proves how flawed Zeke’s vision of others is. On the other hand Levi understimates Zeke’s determination to sacrifice himself in order to realize an ideal. Levi wants to believe that Zeke is completely inhuman and that he is a monster. He understimates Zeke’s determination and this is why he ends up hurt.

In short, they are both stuck in a frame of mind where they can not really understand their enemy fully despite the fact that the two of them have both grasped some traits of the other person. For example, Zeke has noticed how caring Levi is to his comrades, while Levi has grasped how manipulative and cruel Zeke can be. However, these traits are not all there is to them and each one of them refuses that the other could be more. Because of this, it is fitting that their fight happens in a forest aka a place which Mr Braus’s lines link to violence and confusion. Both Zeke and Levi display a high degree of violence and the inability to see the situation clearly (and in that arc we have two chapters called respectively Ignorance and Violence).

Generally speaking, a forest is a place symbolic of the “id” and of the subconscious. It is a place where things are not clearly visible and where monsters and strange creatures hide in waiting. In fairy tales and formative stories it is often a place the MC has to enter in order to grow by overcoming its obstacles. I would say that in snk the forest has a similar meaning and this is clear in both the Female Titan arc and in Mikasa’s (and Sasha’s) backstory.

Let’s start with the Female Titan arc. That arc is the arc where the MC go outside for the first time. The beginning of the series makes clear that going outside is something dangerous, but also necessary. This is true for the society of the walls and for the story itself, but also symbolically for the characters who have to leave their comfort zones and to face the “unknown” in order to grow up. That said, the experience of going outside is also highly traumatic and the obstacles the characters meet are difficult to face alone. This is why they need mentor figures like Erwin for Armin and Levi for Mikasa and Eren. The Female Titan arc is after all when these characters are properly introduced and their role as mentors is quickly established. As a matter of fact Armin shows admiration for Erwin and praises him, while Levi ends up saving both Mikasa and Eren and he gives them both advice. It is not by chance that the most important action happens in a forest. This setting has in the FTA a very similar role to the one it usually has in fairy tales. It is a dangerous place full of monsters (the titans) the characters have to enter in order to face their own limits. In the forest we see both Eren and Mikasa coming to terms with their inability to save the people they love and with the difficulties of choosing (trusting others or trusting one-self? And again saving a loved one or killing the enemy?). They do so through facing again a strong enemy aka Annie who is a mirror to both Eren and Mikasa.

Levi’s role in bringing both Eren and Mikasa out from the forest is interesting as well when we think about Mr Braus’s claims that it is the adults’s duty to guide the children out from the forest. We see Levi giving in to hate and immediately after he loses his whole squad. However, he is able to stop Mikasa from doing the same just a little later. At the same time, Annie aka the other kid who is lost in the forest is left alone crying. She has no-one who can guide her outside.

In short, I think that the symbolic role of the forest in the FTA fits perfectly with Mr Braus’s metaphor.

I would say that the forest’s role in Mikasa’s lost girl story fits as well and shows how thematically the story is doing a partial inversion (even if it is probably more correct to say that in the past we were lacking a more complete perspective). I will be quoting myself from one of the metas linked above:

The forest is a place symbolic of Mikasa’s childhood:

And at the same time it underlines a difference between Mikasa and her two friends which is mostly shown in her spinoff story:

For both Eren and Armin the outside (represented by the ocean especially for Armin) is a symbol of freedom and it is something which calls them. Whereas for Mikasa the outside is something mysterious, but also scary. It takes the symbolic shape of a wood which in fairy-tales is a place where the child meets the monsters aka metaphors for formative challenges they have to undergo. In short, while Armin and Eren are excited by the unknown, Mikasa is scared by it.

Mikasa’s childhood world was little, but she was sheltered there and happy. However, in order to grow, she would have had to leave it one day.

As for now, I would add to the above description of how the three MCs perceive the outside this ulterior difference between Eren and Armin i.e. that Armin identifies the outside with the ocean and what is beyond it, while Eren is more interested in the “act” of going outside and of overcoming established limits. This is also why Eren in Mikasa’s dream immediately suggests to go through the forest. It is not really the place itself which interests Eren (after all it is a place he has already explored), but rather it is the idea of making Mikasa go outside from her comfort zone. It is the pleasure of doing something which has been prohibited by adults. Mikasa’s parents told her not to go in the forest and Eren tells her she is not her parents and that she should start thinking with her own head. This is what Eren symbolizes within the first part of the narrative. He inspires people to go against the flow and to think with their own heads. He highlights how it is important to go outside and to overcome limits which are artificial and unjust. The first part of the manga says that “entering the forest is something which must be done even if it is scary”.

This is true also for Mr Braus and Sasha:

One of the reasons why Mr Braus has Sasha join the military is that she can face her fears and grow that way. Sasha has to cross the forest and to go out by herself if she wants to grow.

I would say that right now the characters have all entered the forest and have been struggling with its obstacles and “monsters”. The problem is how to finally escape it. As a matter of fact in fairy tales the characters do not stay stuck in the forest, but are able to go out. If they don’t, it means that they have not completely grown. So, the current chapters put more focus on the limits of what Eren represents. He was able to enter the forest and to bring others along, but it is not sure he knows how to properly leave this giant forest. He seems determined to go deeper and deeper in the woods and the others must choose between following him and staying stuck or searching for another way out.

In conclusion, I would like to highlight once again the relationships between the three main characters and the outside. To do so, I will quote some parts from this post and other parts from this one.

-Armin idealizes the outside world to the point of being naive about it. This is also made clear in the chapter called Volunteers:

Armin’s chapter is called Volunteers  and the focus is on the people coming from the outside world and making  Armin and the others discover how rich the world is. This is Armin’s dream  becoming true. However, he sees that Eren is not excited about it even  if that is supposed to have been Eren’s dream as well. All in all,  Armin’s chapter is about how he and Eren see the outside world  differently. Armin sees it as a possibility, while Eren sees it as a  threath. Armin is curious about it and wants to explore it, while Eren  is cynical and wants to protect his home.

-Mikasa used to see the outside world with fear and she is the character mostly linked to the concept of home. Deep down she wants to recreate her childhood comfort zone, but she can’t. This is also why her chapter is called Demons of the Island:

Mikasa’s chapter is instead called Devils of the Island  and the focus is on Eren’s double nature. Of course we are still shown  Mikasa’s family exploring the outside world and Eren is clearly shown  not as excited as the others. However, the thing Mikasa focuses on is  the fact that Eren has and has always had violent traits Mikasa chose to   ignore. However, he also keeps having kinder traits and deep down he   keeps being a person who wishes to be loved and understood.

In other words:

Armin focuses on the  good side of otherness, while Mikasa focuses on the darkest sides of the familiar.

This is interesting because it makes clear that Armin and Mikasa are somehow complementary both in regards to Eren and to the series as well. To Eren, Armin represents the dream of the outside world, while Mikasa represents home. They are two halves of Eren and this is why he treasures the both of them. In the past, I theorized Armin would have gone to talk with MArley, while Mikasa would have gone to Hizuru at one point. I now wonder if maybe their complementarity will be explored by having Armin stay in Paradis, so that he can help solving the chaotic situation the island is in, while Mikasa establishes a contact with the world throuh Hizuru. I think it might fit the two characters. On one hand Armin has been too idealistic towards the outside world and him helping to solve the situation on Paradis would mean he has gained a more mature understanding of the relationships with “the other”. On the other hand Mikasa leaving her home as she has been already asked to do by Kyomi might work for her growth in a more self-reliant person. That said, things could turn out very differently, so take this as simple ramblings.

Let’s now focus on Eren.

-As stated above, I think that Eren is interested in overcoming limits and barriers. I think this is well symbolized by him literally destroying the walls in the most recent chapters. He has obtained what he wanted in the beginning and has reached the outside world, but this is not enough for him. He is not even a little bit excited. What he needs is another barrier to fight.

All in all, it is interesting that his relationships with Armin and Mikasa might become inverted as well when compared to how they used to be in the beginning:

The  whole scene is interesting. As a matter of fact Eren is in his home  with his mother and Mikasa. He feels safe and warm and doesn’t want to  go outside. However, Armin manages to remind him of freedom and of their  dream of going outside.

I think that this scene is pretty symbolic of what Armin and Mikasa represent for Eren. which is also what @echo-from-the-void​ writes about here.

Mikasa  is home and family (and she is inside the house with Eren’s mother),   while Armin is the dream of the outside world (and he is outside the house).

This is also why Mikasa fails to get through Eren in that situation. It is because Eren needed the drive of going outside and to escape his comfort zone. However, right now things could be reversed.

Armin  had always thought that he understood Eren better than anyone else   because they both shared a dream. However, he is starting to understand him less and less, while Mikasa has shown that she is getting better and  better into understanding him.

Similarly, the dream of the   outside world has been wasted for Eren whose mind is full of Grisha’s   cruel memories. He seems much more concerned about protecting his home   and his loved ones and this might be why he asked Mikasa for warmth in   chapter 123. It is because she has always symbolized that warmth for   him.

In short, I would not be surprised if the scene we have  in the chapter called Wound and in the ones following it were to be   reversed at some point in the near future.

In summary, I think that at the beginning of the story it was important for the characters to enter the forest and to face it directly, but right now they should have become strong enough to leave it and if they do not they will die and never grow up.

Thank you for the ask and enjoy the holidays if you celebrate!

[missbugaboo]

That Other Guy (7)

“Why does it matter so much to you? What’s so terrible about Adrien Agreste that you can’t stand him as your competition – even though it changes absolutely nothing for you? What in magic’s name makes him such a hateful rival?” Or, Chat Noir finally learns who Ladybug’s dream guy is, but somehow, he’s not pleased at all. For more reasons than one.

LadyNoir, Adrienette.

fanfiction.net / AO3

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Chapter 7: The Iceberg

"I think it's going to rain."

Adrien's voice was calm when he uttered the words, his gaze fixed on the still blue sky above his head as he noted the clouds that were slowly starting to take over it. He heard Plagg snicker quietly, undoubtedly in response to his comment, and glanced down at the kwami as the latter munched on a piece of cheese they had – miraculously – found in Adrien's bag right after entering the school grounds.

Think of it, Plagg probably had known about it being there all along.

He sighed and closed his eyes, his brain once again betraying him as the image of a dark-haired girl in ponytails appeared in his mind once more, regardless of his tries to push it away. He had hoped he could do that for a little longer, at least until Plagg finished with his meal – clearly though, it was still too much to ask for.

He shook his head and looked around, deciding to at least organise his tangled thoughts before he was forced to open up before Plagg. He knew there was no escaping it now; so perhaps, the best he could do was to find a way of presenting his reasoning in a way that would leave no room for doubts on his companion's part.

Seeing how Plagg was still happily occupied with his cheese, he still had a few moments to figure things out.

Refraining from yet another sigh, Adrien frowned pensively, trying to come up with a plan for his unwanted (yet necessary) speech. The circumstances seemed favourable for once, with the warm spring breeze coming in place of the sterile, cold air of his own room and the noisiness of the photo shoot set replaced by the quietness that marked their current spot. No Nathalie, no Gorilla, no make-up or photography directors.

This time Adrien couldn't help but smile weakly to himself. Indeed, it would have been a real miracle to have any of them follow him all the way up here.

Maybe there were some perks of being a superhero, after all.

"You know I can still listen to you with my mouth full, right?" he heard Plagg ask mockingly, a note of suppressed laughter clearly audible in his tone. "I don't use my ears for eating."

Adrien raised an eyebrow at him, his own smile unwavering.

"Is that so?" it was his turn to ask. "I've always thought you put your whole body and soul into this particular action. After all, you're the one who keeps reminding me how important it is to savour one's meal. Especially when it's cheese."

"Not just any cheese, kid. We're talking about camembert here," Plagg responded after another big gulp.

"My point exactly, isn't it? And since I'd hate to disturb you during such a life-altering event..."

"As if you hadn't done that on multiple occasions so far..."

"This, as well as the fact that I obviously need your undivided attention during the conversation you insisted upon so relentlessly, are the reasons why I'm waiting for you to finish in your own time. There is no need to rush."

"Okay, okay, that's it," Plagg cut him off decisively, leaving his place and floating up to Adrien's eye level. "I can see what you're doing, trying to put it off so that we don't have enough time to talk it through before your next class starts. Well, let me tell you this, kid: you're not going anywhere until we're done talking."

"Now that was never the deal," Adrien responded firmly, however as of now, there was no trace of annoyance in his voice. "And you know perfectly well that I can't skip any more classes, even though I honestly wish I could. Also... It was not what I was thinking about."

"What was it then?"

"You want answers to your questions. I think the only way that makes sense it if they are throughout, too."

For reasons not entirely fathomable to Adrien, Plagg refrained from his next comment, even though it was obvious that he'd had more than a few words to say. The determined look in his kwami's eyes didn't fade, either, and yet, it was exactly what made Adrien's serenity grow, as he could once again witness the excess of his tiny companion's mindfulness and cool.

He might have been a source of destruction in the magical sense, and still, Adrien couldn't imagine him ever truly hurting him – and not only because he was Plagg's so-called master.

It really was time to show that their loyalty and trust went both ways.

"I need you to promise me that you won't interrupt, no matter how many times I trail off or get stuck," he said in a quiet voice, pulling his legs to his chest and resting his chin on his knees. "I don't fully understand all this myself, and even if I did, it would be hard to put all of those feelings into words. So... be patient with me, okay?"

A part of him expected to Plagg to disagree, or to at least treat him with some witty remark about how their time together was limited by Adrien's upcoming class. He was to be surprised again, however, as Plagg simply nodded in confirmation, giving him to understand that he comprehended and accepted the rule bestowed on him.

No, not a rule.

Just a request.

"I know there's only one thing you really want to hear, so I won't dodge the subject by talking about something else. Especially as it really is the only one that matters," he begun with as much calmness as he could summon. "I think so, anyway. So, as difficult as it is for me to bring it up, it's probably best if I just up and do it. I..."

He bit his lip anxiously but refused to close his eyes. Scared as he was, imperfect as he was, he at least wasn't going to act like a coward.

He was Cat Noir, for Fu's sake.

"I told you I was disappointed when I'd found out it was Marinette under Ladybug's mask. That it had always been her. I know it sounds cruel and unjust – that it's something that Felix might have said in my position, but which I had no right to say. And yet, it's true."

He could feel cold sweat break over his neck and go down his back, regardless of how early he was into his story. He swallowed painfully, but refused to give in to the anxiety.

"You probably think it makes no sense, either. She's my friend, a very dear one. I've always wanted to be closer to her, because I realised what a wonderful person she was under all of that stammering and clumsiness she seemed to hide behind. I wished she had acted towards me in the same way she did with Alya or Nino, or any of our classmates, really – the way she acted around Cat Noir, even if she was supposedly in love with him that one time. To learn that all this time, she has also been Ladybug...

"It hurts, Plagg. It just does. Partly because it shows how arrogant I've been, how stupidly naive to think I should recognise her the moment I laid eyes on her – that my heart would know the truth even if my eyes and brain were fooled. To realise that she's been there all this time is like a punch in the guts and one that I've deserved because heck, how could I have been so cocky? I failed to recognise the girl I loved in the one I saw each day; I couldn't see my darling friend in the partner I cared for so much. I literally met Ladybug's civilian self a day after I'd met her superhero one, and still couldn't make the connection between them.

"So there's that part. I am disappointed in myself for not having noticed that earlier. And yet... That's not even the tip of the iceberg."

He shifted slightly, just enough to press his forehead against his knees as he took a deep, shaking breath. It was all so difficult; so horribly terrifying while also entirely unexpected.

He told himself he should be alright talking about it, after so many hours of pondering over the situation he had found himself in. The time distancing him from his discovery wasn't short either: it wasn't a minute, a quarter or three. It had been full twelve hours, ten of which he'd spent torn between denying all his knowledge and tearing it to pieces in search of an explanation he had missed before.

Ten hours of pure hell and more than a dozen resolutions made along the way.

How come it still felt as if he'd only found out?

"Breath, kid," he heard Plagg say, in a voice so completely void of audacity that Adrien couldn't help but look up, surprised. "Just breathe, in and out. It's okay."

So he did just that. Inhale, exhale, with his gaze glued to Plagg as the kwami swung his tiny arm in order to dictate the correct rhythm. Once again, he was taken aback not only by his friend's obvious concern but also the enormous gentleness he displayed – a feature so different from his usual sassiness that Adrien had some trouble wrapping his head around it at first.

"Leave my personality traits be, Adrien, and just focus on your breathing," Plagg muttered grumpily. "We've got enough to deal with without you suffocating on the edge of the school roof, simply because you can't take in your oxygen properly."

"I thought I'd asked you not to listen to my thoughts?" the boy asked automatically, but this time, reproach did not resonate in his voice; if anything, it was cheerful. "I haven't got completely crazy, you know, I can still distinguish the things I say from the ones I've been wondering at. And I know I haven't said anything out loud just now."

"Well, I hate to break it to you but your inner monologues can be as loud as mayor Burgeois' outright speeches," Plagg responded readily. "I really don't have to try to hear any of it, especially if you're thinking about me. And just so you know, today isn't the only instance when that happened."

To that Adrien could only respond with a chuckle. With his face still pressed against his knees and his grip around his legs tightening, his shoulders shook nonetheless. It wasn't a loud, sonorous laughter; it couldn't haven been one. Yet, it was sincere – and that was the most they could count on now.

"Thanks, Plagg," he said after a moment and raised his head just enough to meet his loyal friend with his eyes. "You really have a way of dealing with depression, I must give you that."

"Experience, kid," Plagg responded shortly. "If you'd had to deal with as many Black Cat wielders as I did, you too would've figured it out. You're certainly not the first Chat Noir who's got himself into this kind of mess."

"You mean, I'm not the first one to fall in love with a Ladybug who then fell in love with my civilian self?" Adrien asked almost casually. However, his smile soon grew sorrowful as he recalled some of the words Plagg had thrown at him earlier that day, words that he had chose to push aside at the time but which now came back to him with double force.

He felt like the knowledge of it could make him implode.

"Did it really happen?" he asked quietly, fixing his gaze on the horizon ahead. "Have there really been reveals that ended up in the Miraculous Holders' deaths?"

He did not dare too look down at Plagg, certain that the amount of pain his question must have caused would reflect all over the kwami's little body. He felt bad for provoking such hurt; he wondered if keeping his eyes away from his friend was really a sign of discretion or just the cowardice he'd been trying to avoid all this time.

Something was telling him that he shouldn't have asked and yet, how could he not? The matter was too grieve to just let it slide.

Plus, it was Plagg who'd brought it up in the first place.

Clearly, the kwami wasn't going to back down now, either.

"It did happen," he said calmly, in the same tone he might use for commenting on the weather; taken aback, Adrien couldn't have helped to glance at him, even if he'd wanted to. "It were just a few cases, all of them happening a long time ago. Well, one of them was recent, at least if you look at it holistically. Still, regardless of when it happened, it was always during the toughest of times. Times when your dealings with Hawkmoth would have been considered a child's play at best."

"Well, at least there's that," Adrien whispered, shifting his gaze to the passing clouds once more. "One thing less to worry about. For now, anyway."

"Well, now is the only period you should concern yourself with at the moment," Plagg responded firmly.  "Here and now, and only the situation involving you."

"I don't want to just disregard it though, I -"

"Adrien? Just focus on your own iceberg. We can have that history lesson at some less troubling time."

Adrien could not disagree with the suggestion. He knew Plagg was right: he'd had a lot to deal with on his own without the additional burden of the past heroes' struggles and pain, especially as he also realised that no wisdom would come to him by hearing about them now. It would have helped to fight his curiosity when he had still endeavoured to find out who his Lady really was; it might have been a good means to stop him whenever his eagerness had become a threat to both of them. Now however...

It could no longer be of use.

"My own iceberg. Right."

When Plagg had mentioned the other Miraculous Holders that morning, it hadn't been to make him feel miserable or go into mourning after the people he had never even heard of before. The reason for the unexpected trip into the past had been a very simple one: namely, to make him aware of how much better his own situation truly was.

To make him realise that he really had no reasons to complain – no reasons to feel disappointed.

Disappointed.

Dear Heavens, it must have sounded so wrong; and yet, he still couldn't find it in himself to deny that earlier statement of his.

Suppose the only thing he could do now was to explain what he'd really had in mind, even if he himself wasn't entirely sure what it was.

"She's in love with me," he said simply at last, swiftly coming to the conclusion that pouring out his heart was his best shot at the time, as there was no guarantee that his so-called reorganisation would bring any results. "Ladybug is in love with me. The Adrien me. And it's not a shallow celebrity crush, it's not a silly infatuation developed over the few times she's met me outside the Cat Noir suit. She knows me, she cares for me. Not the image. Me."

He paused for a second, puzzled. It wasn't that he didn't know what to say next or what words to use to make it most meaningful – rather, he knew exactly what it was, but because of it, he also perfectly conscious of the fact that it was by far the most difficult thing for him to say.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Speak.

"Ladybug is in love with me," he picked up at long last. "Ladybug is in love with me. And she's Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Which means..."

He allowed himself one last break to summon his strength before finally addressing the issue that had been the real cause of that inner conflict of his, the one idea that lay at the bottom of all this.

"It means that Marinette is in love with me, too."

Suddenly, it was as if a weight had been lifted, leaving him freer and calmer than he had been since he had first found out about Ladybug's feelings last night. He wasn't bold – or stupid – enough to believe that anything was solved or that the crisis had been overcome in any way. More like, he had taken the first step on yet another rocky path which, as challenging as it undoubtedly was, was still a much better option than the comfortable yet stifling prison he'd been locked in so far.

Now all he had to do was to keep going.

And yet, it was still so hard.

"Why didn't she tell me, Plagg?" he asked after a moment, as he hid his face in his knees and gritted his teeth angrily. "Like, I can understand her being shy and all. I probably should have been more observant and picked some of the hints. But still... We've been friends for more than two years now and she has never made any direct comment about it – if anything, she flat out denied it.

"And it wasn't just once, you know," he continued after a short pause. "When Jagged & Co. stormed into her bedroom and made a show of those photographies, I thought for a moment that there really might have been something going on. I didn't really believe in Jagged's suppositions... But it was impossible to just ignore it. That is, until Marinette cleared it up by saying that it was all about her love of fashion which, given the esteem she obviously holds my father in, was really not that unbelievable at the time, whatever some might say.

"But that's just the beginning of it, isn't it? I can still remember when Manon brought the photos up again during our drive to the museum that other day. I thought I knew the reason for it, so I didn't care much – and even her mentions of 'hearts drawn all around the pictures' seemed meaningless, especially with Marinette 'explaining' that right after.

"It was supposed to be such a great day, too, you know. Just the five of us – four and a half, really – hanging out together on a Saturday afternoon. Friends being friends, unlike what we usually were. Unlike what I was usually allowed to be."

Another pause, another deep breath. Another retardation in his ludicrous story, as he tried to find the strength within himself to go on despite the throbbing of his heart and the stinginess in his eyes. The clock was ticking; and he was not even halfway through his speech.

And he absolutely refused to split it and return to it afterwards.

He needed to finish it in one go, or he never would.

"Anyway," he said. "As you probably recall, it wasn't a great day at all, and not because of the akuma attack that had resulted from that meeting. Marinette was tense, I was confused; and then that stupid joke made everything a thousand times worse. And yet... That's not the point."

"What is, then?" Plagg allowed himself to reply at last. "You won't tell me that you think the prank was alright all of the sudden, will you?"

Adrien shook his head.

"The joke was dumb and I shouldn't have made it. However, it doesn't change the fact that it had led to the first bit of honest conversation between us that day. Or at least, it might have done, if only Marinette hadn't made that U-turn the moment I asked her about what she'd really meant when she'd confessed to the statue.

"She... She could have told me the truth then. I didn't expect another heartfelt, flowery confession; in fact, I don't think I expected anything specific at the time. But... Would it have been so very bad for her to admit that it wasn't entirely fake? To say: 'Yes, I was serious' when I asked her about it straightforwardly? A 'yes', Plagg. That was all I needed to hear.

"And yet, she went into straight denial mode. 'It was a prank,' she said. 'I like you a little', 'like an ordinary human being'. Those were her words. How on earth was I supposed to believe she wanted anything other than friendship after a show of this kind?"

It was Plagg's turn to shake his head. "Do you really want an answer to that?"

Adrien looked up, surprised.

"Can you give me one?"

Plagg sighed lingeringly.

"I can," he admitted. "Or at least, I can suggest something that should help you come to the right conclusions. The question is: do you really want that?"

"How could I not?"

"Just this morning you said you wished you hadn't learnt any of the things about Ladybug that you had learnt last night. This might be a similar case; I thought it's better not to risk and make sure you know what you're asking for."

Once again, Adrien's forehead was pressed firmly against his knees.

"I do," he replied. "What's done is done. And I need some answers if I'm to ever make any sense out of all this. And since that's something that I know for sure I want to do -"

"Alright. Then you should probably think of Kagami's place and role in this mayhem."

Adrien's head shot up abruptly, and the rest of his body nearly followed suit. He gazed at his kwami with a frantic, searching gaze; his eyes, wide with surprise skimmed Plagg's, boring into his little face with a look of absolute lack of understanding on his own.

Plagg raised an eyebrow, allowing himself a small, lopsided grin.

"Yes, kid," he said. "Keep those cogs turning. I'm sure you'll figure it out soon enough if only you try."

Adrien frowned in response, unamused. "I don't need more time to understand what you mean. But..."

"But: what?"

"But it doesn't make any sense," Adrien explained, turning away, his gaze now fixed on the school courtyard below them. "Marinette was always the first to support me whenever Kagami was concerned. She helped me set up that disastrous skating date. She made sure that Kagami could see her as friend. And when we... When we started dating later on, she never showed any signs of being uncomfortable or disappointed about it. And then there was Luka."

Plagg snickered. "Yeah. After you'd got together with the Tsurugi girl."

"Marinette had advised me about her! She'd agreed to come with us to the rink as soon as I told her about the plan. And she took Luka with her, even though it was months before Kagami and I began dating for real."

"Well, yes," Plagg agreed, though Adrien knew there was a 'but' coming with it; he was not wrong. "Still, it was after you'd mentioned going out with her."

Adrien's voice caught in his throat as dozens of images came rushing through his mind, proving that each and every word of Plagg's interpretations was was not only correct, but also fully and entirely logical.

And it sucked.

He shouldn't have been able to recall any of them, and yet, he did. The change of expression on Marinette's face after he'd told her whom he'd had in mind, going from giddy to confused, to wistful (it was the same shift that he had noticed in her during their ride back home from the museum, actually, even though he hadn't known that at the time); her hasty escape from the rink, when he had followed her to make sure she was okay; the look of uneasiness when he and Kagami had come to visit the Couffaines, right before Desperada stroke.

He remembered hanging out with both of the girls before the whole Miracle Queen nightmare, having the time of his life until all of the sudden, Marinette was no longer there.

And he had hardly even noticed.

"This can't be true," he muttered desperately, rubbing his hands against his face. "She was a friend. The first one I've ever had save for Chloe, but at the same time, the most amazing, most inspiring, most caring friend. A friend, who -"

"I swear, kid, you call her your friend once more and I'll leave you here on this roof."

"No, you don't understand," Adrien opposed Plagg's comment, the unsettling note of terror resonating in his voice and growing more audible by the second. "You've always picked on me for calling her that but that's exactly the way I saw her, because... Because I was so sure that was exactly how she saw me. As her friend."

Once again, his gaze became hollow, and he buried his fingers in his hair, fighting the urge to pull the blond locks out in a quite literal sense. He glanced at Plagg; he turned away again. He closed his eyes, shut them tight as he slouched, no longer caring if his behaviour was or wasn't a cowardly one.

He needed to find a way out of this pit, and he hadn't got the slightest idea were to start.

"A friend or not, you still chose Kagami over her," he heard Plagg say, his voice as muffled and distant as if they'd been separated by a ten inch glass at least.

It was a voice of reason and Adrien knew it; and yet, it provoked nothing but a new wave of anger on his part; and so when Plagg opened his mouth to add something, the boy next to him did the only thing left to do.

He snapped.

"Do you really think I would've chased after Kagami if I'd known Marinette was an option?"

Silence fell over them then, and this time, it lasted. Adrien's hands were still pressed against his scalp, pulling on his hair in a desperate manner, but at the same time feeling too numb to even acknowledge the pain he should have felt. The situation that had seemed so unbelievable from the start now turned out to be straight-up surreal, not to say – absurd.

Not a quarter ago he'd been surprised to see that the few hours of thinking had not been enough for him to comprehend the events he'd witnessed – now he realised that he could spend another month on it, and he still wouldn't have reached even the most basic understanding of it.

It was simply too much for him to deal with.

"So that's what it is about."

He raised his head at Plagg’s words, not even sure what he was expecting to see next. Was Plagg going to pick on him again? Or would he continue to play the part of a consoler, remaining gentle and understanding towards him, just like he had been so many times that day?

Well, teasing or not, Adrien had learnt by now that Plagg had only ever meant well – as long as he was concerned, anyway. And given the emotional state he was in, it was all that mattered right now.

There was one thing he hadn't foreseen, however.

It was a look of pure shock.

"What?" he asked promptly, seeing that very expression reflect all over his kwami’s little face. "Don't you dare act all surprised now. I bet you're dying to treat me with another I told you so, so you may as well say it now. Go on, let's get it over with."

"I'm not acting, Adrien," Plagg replied. "And I'm not going to say that."

"Why not?"

"Because that would mean I'd seen this coming when I can honestly promise you that I didn't. I knew Marinette was Ladybug, yes. I did think that your calling her your friend was always a sort of a defending mechanism of yours, provoked by the fact that you were determined to remain faithful the spotted version of her. Hearing you admit that you were interested in Marinette... Well, that's another pile of cheese."

"You were the one who nagged me about giving her a chance!" Adrien answered angrily. "When she said she was in love with Chat Noir, you were the first to advocate her case. And even though you made fun of that unsigned valentine I got, you still brought it up like some magic talisman to cure me from my love for Ladybug. And -"

"And no matter how hard I tried, it always turned out futile."

"Yes. Because I never had a reason to believe that I actually stood a chance."

Another long sigh escaped his lips, while he prayed internally that Plagg would not contradict this final statement as well. He was so tired, so terribly, terribly run down that he really could fall off the roof he was seated at and not realise what happened until he was halfway through his descent – and yet, he was also acutely aware of how far he was from rest.

How much more there was to be said.

He gritted his teeth and kicked the airs at the realisation, the feeling of utter helplessness taking over him. This conversation was supposed to be beneficial to him, even if not in the direct way. He had not expected it to be comforting, no; but he'd hoped it would at least allow him to cleanse his head at least.

That by answering Plagg's questions, he would also answer some of his own.

However, all it did was hurt and confuse him more. The thought of Marinette having feelings for him has been mind-blowing from the start – and yet, Plagg's suggestion about her hiding them because of Kagami of all people was a turn could not have anticipated.

How would it have played out if he'd known about it before?

"Listen, Plagg," he picked up again after a moment, once more deciding to just lay it all out in the open now and overthink it later. "It's not... It's not like I am in love with her. Or that I was at any other time, for that matter. You know that the main reason why things didn't work with Kagami was because I was still head over heels with Ladybug, so... So it probably would've been just the same with Marinette, as up until last night they had been two different people as far as I'd known. But I can't know for sure, right? I mean, she is important to me, she's always been... She's smart and funny and kind – In fact, she's about the most selfless person I've ever met in my life, which is all the more true if your suspicion about her cheering for Kagami and me despite her own feelings is correct. So maybe... Maybe..."

"Maybe you could've fallen for her after all, too."

Adrien groaned and fell down on his back, his legs still dangling from the edge of the roof. He wanted to punch the air above him or better yet, the hard surface he was lying on; to yell with all his might, so that the frustration in him would finally find a vent.

For a split second he wondered if someone would hear him if he'd done that.

"Perhaps I could," he moaned instead. "Even if she wasn't Ladybug, it still might've happened. You know, just because it didn't really click with Kagami doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't be different with someone else! And since Marinette is very different from her, it's more probable than not."

"Mhmm. Not to mention that she is Ladybug."

"It's not like she acts like her, though," the boy mused. "I know now that her shyness around me was caused by... very specific reasons, and even before that, I'd suspected that it's not her typical behaviour. I wasn't that blind after all; I saw the way she interacted with other people around her, and not only the ones closest to her. She can be confident and not only with the people she likes, or people she knows or, I don't know, just girls. There were moments when she was like that with me. And still, it wasn't enough for me to recognise Ladybug in her. Because it's still not exactly how Ladybug is."

"You're one too talk," Plagg answered with a grin after landing on his Chosen's chest. "I don't think the differences between your precious Bug and her civilian self are half as significant as the change you go through every time you transform."

"It doesn't change the fact that I still have trouble blending those two girls into one in my mind."

"Look, kid. That list of qualities you've just enumerated? To me, that's Ladybug's character to a t. And from what I remember, you did point out the similarities between the girls at least once."

Adrien raised his head a little to look his kwami in the eye, surprised. "I don't recall doing that."

"You did call her your everyday Ladybug, didn't you?"

His eyes widened a little at the indication; he regarded his companion for a while as the words sunk into his brain, the smug grin on Plagg's face making him feel even more of an idiot now. With another groan, he let his head bump against the roof once more.

There really was something wrong with him.

"I did. Gosh, I did," he whined. "And you heard me say it when you'd already learnt her identity yourself. You've known all along and haven't said a word."

"Hey, I had no right to do that. And as you've already pointed out today, I did all I could to have you realise it on your own."

"Except that time when I nearly did figure it out when Kwamibuster attacked and you made sure I stopped thinking about it before I did for real."

"I didn't mean realising she was Ladybug, you moron. Just that she's the girl you can love and be loved back by her."

Adrien opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by the sound of a bell going off on the school corridors. So he sat up and rubbed his eyes, his brow furrowed in thought as he tried to decide on what he should do next.

"I'm not ready for this," he said quietly. "I thought I would be, especially after talking to you, but somehow it only got worse, and now all I want is to transform back and run away, as far as possible from this place. Can I run away from this place?"

"I think you know the answer to that, kid," Plagg responded with a wink as he flew up to rustle the boy's hair. "Though you certainly will have to transform if you want to get down from this rooftop in time. Or any time at all."

Adrien smiled weakly, but his voice trembled when he answered, "I'm a little afraid that I may not be able to fight off the temptation once I'm suited up. I really don't want to see her right now. I don't think I can see her and not flee on the spot."

Plagg shook his head.

"There's no way you can avoid that now. That is, unless she's not at school, due to some terrible events that happened to her last night... But you won't know that until you get down."

"Now that's reassuring," Adrien muttered under his breath. Determined to ignore his kwami's sneers, he stood up and, after making sure he really was out of everyone's sight, he said the only words left to say.

"Plagg, claws out."

Not a minute later he was quietly sneaking into his locker room, transformed back to his very civilian self and pretending that he really had just entered the school grounds.

Meanwhile, his whole soul burned.

He was so going to regret going back.