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rwbyconversations · 4 years ago

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RWBY Volume 7 Review

Two weeks out from Volume 8 and I finally cared enough to write this. Go team I guess.

Part of it came down to my feelings on Volume 7. It’s a complicated season that’s made me realize a lot of my overall feelings on RWBY as a series, particularly a lot of the less flattering feelings. Volume 7 is just... frustrating in general, as for all the good that it does have, and it does have a lot of great elements to it, it’s let down by a frustrating script and writing choices that feel distinctly amateurish, especially as the series moves on and gets better and better looking each year. There’s elements and kernals here of great character writing, season-wide arcs that land in a really good way and get me emotionally invested in the characters. But on the other... Ren only has two hundred words the entire season and you can tell!

Volume 7 is a season of dizzying highs, some of the best moments of the entire franchise... and some of the series lows. It’s a season where there’s no production reason for its shortcomings... it just comes down to an awkward script that focuses on the wrong elements far too often. Let’s talk about that. In a very long and drawn out manner.

Thanks to @jamesbranwen, @h-e-m-o-goblin and @retro-riffraff for help with GIFs and consultation on this review.

1) The Good Stuff!

A) Atlas is very pretty!

I cannot stress enough how on a set level, Volume 7 is leaps and bounds above the other seasons in sheer environmental detail and setting dressing. Mantle has a great atmosphere with its New York influences, the smog covered backgrounds and oppressive streets and alleys. Ironwood’s office which is deliberately designed to evoke astronomy themes to represent James’ love for the stars. The cold oppressive atmosphere of the Schnee Manor and how Jacques has begun warping it to glorify him with only lip service paid to Nicholas in public. Penguins!

There’s a lot of great set design work that went into this season and the crew deserve props for it. Genuinely.

B) Ironwood’s arc is the best character arc in the entire franchise

Yeah just wearing my heart on my sleeve there, I fucking love Ironwood and his character arc here in Volume 7 is the best written arc of the show. I simp for the tin man who just wants to do the right thing. This one season of content is better than a lot of the series-wide material being honest. I went back to James’s big volumes in the last month to rewatch the show and it’s interesting to see the early seeds in retrospect for where his arc goes. His need to protect everyone he can and the brutish measures he considers necessary for such an act, his conflicting loyalties towards Ozpin that manifest in both frustration at Oz’s seeming apathy to the growing conflict, but also desperate desire for validation from Ozpin that what’s he doing is the right call. After the Mistral seasons set up James as going off the deep end following Volume 3, having him open the season with an earnest smile, an immediate apology for the team’s arrest and trusting them with his plans for Amity and Salem is a jarring but pleasant surprise. He’s not been slacking off, he’s been trying to keep the world together in the way he thinks is best. He lets his guard down around the heroes and we see the good man underneath, which makes the moments where he raises his walls hurt all the more. While Em and Merc are still probably my favorite characters period, James is absolutely my favorite character in Volume 7 and Top 5 favorite characters series-wide. I’m very eager to see where he goes from here. He also rocks the beard and fixed his T-Rex arms so James came out of the washing machine that is Volume 7′s costume design. He truly is the Best Boi, and I cannot give Jason Rose enough credit for his performance this year. He hit every note of Ironwood’s character perfectly and I wish the fandom would give him more credit for giving James as much life as he does.

Oh, and as the obligatory comment on mlm rep that I am known for getting obsessively weird anon hate over: IronQrow hug nearly had me crying on a convention floor from how goddamn soft it was. Remember conventions? Ah good times.

This just... hits me... ya know? Seeing him lower his guard so much to come in for a hug just shows how isolated he’s let himself become to let himself have this moment of contact... Godamnit James. Also this is the second time after Martial Arcs that two guys hug and I really liked their ship for the following hiatus.

C) Soft Qrow hours are nice

Qrow’s a good guy, he went through a lot of bad stuff in Volume 6 but now he’s on the other side and purged his voice of the demon within. I think Volume 7 was a very good year for Qrow overall. It was great to see him interacting with more characters his age and lowering his own guard. His moments of letting the facade drop around James and Clover especially are great expansion for his character. Jason Liebritch hit the ground running as Qrow and gave him a far more dynamic range than I think Vic could. While I wish Qrow going off alcohol had been given more of a focus as it’s kind of done off-handedly that he’s gone cold turkey and otherwise doesn’t get brought up barring his revulsion at the wine in the Schnee Manor, he overall had a great year. And trust me I’ll get to the fights later, I have a lot more I can say about the bird boi there.

D) I liked the Ace Ops!

I was ambivilent towards the Ace Ops on first watching. They’re kinda underdeveloped in the context of the season at large and most people immediately pegged them as a miniboss squad/fodder for Salem to kill. But in rewatch they do still get to shine, if not as brightly. They’re very enjoyable. Clover especially is just really fun in retrospect, I love cocky fighters in general, and he was infectiously enjoyable (I’ve already covered the FG stuff in the past, not doing it again). Marrow came a close second because... well it’s Marrow, he is The Best Boi. Harriet got points for being a punchgirl which is always cool, I liked how her Semblance was shown and being cocky while being able to back it up is always a win. Elm and Vine are tied for dead last, I like the body diversity Elm introduces with her muscles and Vine... existed... but overall I think with the time they had, they did get to establish themselves well. I wish I could say that about their relationship with Team RWBYORNJ but this is the Nice Section so we’ll leave it there for now.

This is one of the best shots of the entire season. I adore it. God I like the Teryx design.

E) God the villains rocked this year!

I am a villain whore. I own that. I will embrace that monkier. But when they’re as cool as this, I feel validated in this Chilli’s tonight. Watts and Tyrian really make the season shine and don’t have a dud scene all season. They have great chemistry together, shining bright in even the weakest or most mediocre episodes. Watts went from “Oh yeah you exist” tier to “Oh yeah you rule” tier. His vendetta against Ironwood feels so real and pre-established, even though this season is the first time it’s ever come up. Watts just ozzes style in everything he does. The animators bring him to life and make every step, every flick of his twist and even just how he moves his eyes all bleed contempt. He’s such a rat and I love him! Chris Sabat finally gets to stretch his wings after a few years playing Watts as just Evil Scientist Guy, and he makes the most of it.

And Tyrian remains an absolute treat. He didn’t get much in V6 but here he takes center stage with Watts and also gets so much impact because of it. All the little twitches, and tilting of his heads, and dramatic gestures, he’s still just so goddamn cool to watch and we even get a little backstory of him. I know he’s irredeemable. But I just want to watch Tyrian kill people and scream. Like hot damn his line “THE GRIMM SHOULD HAVE DESTROYED OUR ENEMIES, NOT MADE THEM FRIENDS!” is so fucking raw. He’s having fun destablizing a nation with his boyfriend!

“You want more chaos than a Grimm invasion?” “If anyone on Remannt can do it, wouldn’t it be you?” There is no heterosexual explanation for how these two look at each other and yes this is me outing myself as a Nuts and Volts fan.

Watts and Tyrian really do become the absolute highlights of the season alongside James. They have a great dynamic and even during their more slower moments there’s so much care and thought put into their every mannerism. Animators, seriously, great job, I love what you did. And their fights... we’ll get there. But they’re so goddamn good.

Look they even run the same! They’re soulmates!

Honorary mention to Salem by the way. She’s only in two scenes but her presence is felt throughout Ironwood’s arc and his growing fear of her and she damn well delivers when she shows up. That shot of her arriving in person is a killer shot to end on as well.

Oh and I guess Cinder and Neo exist don’t they? Eh, we’ll come back to them.

F) Oscar got a character arc!

Finally! He did it! He got an arc that began, continued and ended all onscreen! It only took four tries!

But yeah Oscar had a really good set of scenes in Volume 7. I like him being the first to confront Ruby on the Ironwood lie, bringing up the hypocrisy after their condemning of Ozpin just last season. I like him having a more forward role (outside of not getting to be part of the celebration in episode 4 what the hell guys), and that he’s the big link between RWBY and Ironwood was a great call. Having Ozpin shelved for one more season so Oscar can take center-stage was an inspired choice. I love his dynamic with Ironwood, and how James closing himself off emotionally gets reflected in how he begins slipping in how he refers to Oscar, starting off as treating him and Oz as separate, ending with him gunning Oscar down as he doesn’t care anymore to differentiate the two.

My big issues with Oscar’s arc are that I’m first of all annoyed at the lack of followup on the Oscar stuff from V6, I’m still waiting for Qrow to apologize for punching Oscar guys! I also really wish Neo’s first attack wasn’t offscreen. CRWBY’s cliffhanger fetish meant I got to break out the Offscreen Pine jokes again. And of course, the Neo hallway punch was a bit bullshit.

G) (Most of) The fights are amazing

There’s no punchline. These fights are great, two of them are in my Top 10 Series Wide fights list and at least the duds aren’t Volume 5 bad.

If you’d told me before Volume 7 that Watts would get an extended firefight with James, I’d have felt that a bit cheap as Watts to me doesn’t feel like a fighter, more a planner who hides behind armies of mechanical soldiers. But damn if they didn’t sell me on Watts “You’ve yeed your last haw” Watts whipping out a Glock just to spite James.

This is another one of my favorite shots in the entire series.

Ironwood vs Watts is potentially my favorite fight in the entire series, and if it’s not, it’s easy Top 3 alongside Yang vs Mercury and Pyrrha vs CRDL/Mercury. It makes great use of Amity in the abandoned gravity biome meant for SSSN vs JNPR, with Ironwood and Watts deftly moving around in a manner that very easily could have been difficult to track with the constantly shifting gravity, but the crew do their best to keep it coherent as to who’s where. The credits showed their dedication also stretched into visual continuity, as James and Arthur’s route throughout the Arena was carefully considered so they’d loop around organically.

This is what I mean when I say the crew went above and beyond to keep things clean.

Ironwood vs Watts could have easily failed to impress, given its lack of choreography on the level the series usually does, but the team’s efforts went instead into showing a situation that lets Watts get a dragged out battle: James wins whenever he closes the distance here, so Arthur’s constantly on the run and being forced to tamper with the arena. Great camerawork, a GOD TIER song from Caleb Hyles that I’m still listening to today, and two characters with a fantastic history coming to blows makes for easily the best fight of the season and a series-wide highlight. Watching it develop from storyboards, to mocap, to animations and the full version is a delight to see. This is what CRWBY can do when everything comes togehter. The orchestra’s all tuned. It’s a goddamn symphony.

THIS is my favorite shot of the season.

Tyrian also gets to shine with his two battles this year. His alley fight with Qrow, Robyn and Clover is short but sweet, the corvid and the scorpion especially trading brutal blows in the cramped space. Qrow goes full Devil May Cry with his style-switching here, Harbinger being swapped between sword, tonfa and gun forms freely alongside Qrow applying The Power of Punching. His 1v1v1 with Clover and Qrow though is the true highlight of the season in terms of choreography. It’s lighting-fast, and has some impeccable shot work. Qrow gets to use his scythe with deliberate nods to the Red Trailer, Clover gets to shut up everyone who doubted his weapon, and Tyrian is just along for the ride and he makes the most of it. It’s frentic, it’s heart-pounding, it’s everything a fight should be.

Honorary mentions as well go to Ace Ops vs the Geist, which is just really fun and has a great backing music choice, the opening battle with Sabre having Ruby’s obligatory ten seconds of fighting that come at the start of every new era of the series, and the Ace Ops vs RWBY fight which has some good choreo in places.

H) Winter and Penny have good chemistry

I don’t have a ton to add here, I just like their dynamic and how they advance each other’s arcs. It’s nice writing. I also like Winter apologizing to Penny when she’s angry at Jacques and takes it out on Penny by accident with the “You wouldn’t understand” line.

Penny as a Maiden is a nice idea, I think her new design is cute. Penny says trans rights.

Those are a lot of my favorite things about Volume 7. It’s a killer season when it’s firing on all cylinders but unfortunately... it often misfires in frustrating ways, many of which are unfortunately due to core emblematic problems with the series that won’t go away.

2) The Bad Stuff

A) The costumes

It’s been a over year. It’s low hanging fruit. I don’t care. Most of them are still not good and they’re ludicrously over-designed.

Blake’s in a fetish suit and I wonder how she even goes to the bathroom. Weiss just looks like an abino Sabre alt, Yang is what a Halloween costume site would describe as “Sexy UPS Driver,” (why does she have a thigh window) Ruby... looks fine, it’s one of her better costumes. Jaune’s hair is silly, Ren’s model has lost some muscle definition and he looks like an e-boy, Nora’s costume really doesn’t fit the Atlas visual design and looks like a rejected Kingdom Hearts costume. Cinder’s is too black and I actually can’t track her in darker scenes because of it (which is kinda bad during... a fight scene... where I need to know where she is...), Neo looks like a Ren Fair cosplayer doing a bit for her OnlyFans, Winter’s is anatomically weird with super skinny arms and legs, and Blake’s hair is a fucking hate crime.

Qrow’s is one I liked at first but in retrospect it does feel like a downgrade. To quote @h-e-m-o-goblin from a Discord chat:

in a show like rwby, where color is such a vital defining aspect of every character, a cohesive colorscheme goes a long way. qrow's original outfit works great in this regard. neutral tones. greys, whites, and blacks, with red accents that pop against the otherwise sparse color. it's good! it's distinctive! it doesn't feel cluttered and it doesn't look like a clown vomited on him! the subdued colors really lend themselves to the grey, cynical energy qrow seems to carry with him. a literal lack of color in his life. the outfit itself feels like something he would wear; a combination of "clearly trying to look cool" and "a little disheveled and laid back." the design breathes, it isn't cluttered. let's contrast this with his vol 7 outfit. a lot of outfits in vol 7 suffer from this problem, but first and foremost it doesn't look like something he would wear. where his old outfit had a casual feel to it, his new look feels like someone dressed him up for a family christmas dinner. it's too... tidy. now of course you could argue this is him "cleaning up his life," but i dont feel like you have to sacrifice his own personal style in order to convey that. if that's really what they were going for, they easily could have just, oh i dont know, given him a cape that isn't tattered???

remember how i said qrow's original outfit really made his colors pop? how less is more when it comes to having a character with a specific color theme? vol 7 butchered that. we suddenly have articles of clothes that are tinted with greenish blue tones, browns, and with gold trim? on TOP of the old colors he already had in his design. it's muddy. it's ugly. the burgundy vest is fine, if they wanted to work more color into his outfit they should have done it that way throughout, shades of grey and different tones of RED. his COLOR. it just feels like they tacked so much on there without a second thought and i really think he deserves better. its just. such a mess.

The ones I did like were Watts’ new coat (I like the puffy hood), Penny’s is fine, the Ace Ops look great, Ironwood’s new outfit is stellar (those last six are great examples of how to do a lot with just primary colors of white and red), Neon’s Jolyne cosplay is cute and Flynt is slick. Otherwise, Volume 7 feels like it’s taken a lot of the wrong lessons from the costume design of the earlier seasons. Less is often more but now it feels like they have a pathological aversion to empty space on the costumes, leading them to feel like... costume vomit for lack of a better word. I didn’t love the Mistral outfits, but their modifications at least were carried by how many of them called back to the Fall of Beacon and emphasized the themes of loss in Volume 4. The new Atlas outfits... don’t have that shared theme. It feels like a hodgepodge of different design influences without trying to find a way to unify them. It’s like putting Baki the Grappler beside My Little Pony, they just fail to mesh.

Also for fuck’s sake already CRWBY just give the girls muscles already.

2) JNR suck and Ren’s arc is glorified character assassination

I don’t love JNR. They’re fine, but the show has arguably not needed them for a while and while I’ve liked them all at different points, it’s never been adoration outside of Ren in Volume 4. I was cool with the idea of them staying in Argus to help cover Mistral after its Huntsmen were wiped out, and Volume 7 has... made me wish they did that.

Jaune is just comic relief, and it kinda blows for later reasons but the big one is that he’s just not very funny. His big role in Volume 7 is basically to crosswalk some kids so we can have a joke scene during the Mantle Battle where Jaune uses his tactical genius to teach people to walk in single file. I feel like at this point Miles is just actively trying to kill Jaune’s fandom out of spite for how badly Jaundice was received. He’s never allowed to be cool or try and redeem himself. His hatedom aren’t going to stop hating Jaune because he gets more comedy guys. They’re going to stop when you write Jaune well. It’s a bummer he got some genuinely great upgrades for his sword and shield and never gets to use them outside of the opening.

Nora exists. She got a surprising amount of focus this season in that she got focus of any kind. I liked her confronting Ironwood over his choking of Mantle because we know she was once the kind of person Ironwood would have been stifling. I like her being the one to realize the loophole in Jinn’s “You can’t” line. I don’t like much else about Nora this year, or at least the Nora the writing team are pushing. She’s not funny like Jaune but Nora just absorbs so much screentime in the first half with her constant shrieking. Sam Ireland has good range but making Nora into Discount Harley Quinn is pushing her out of it. She sounds shrill, making Nora sound like she has no heart outside of the election rally. A shrill voice is one thing. A shrill voice that never lands a single joke? Yeah that character is tainted by association.

And Ren... oh God Ren what happened to you.

The Volume 7 commentary confirmed a suspicion of mine that Ren’s arc was heavily cut down from what was planned. Even watching V7 I could tell his arc was bare-bones at best, and it’s downright character assassination in places. Why is he suddenly so cold to Nora? Why is he now so obsessed with training? Why does he side with Ironwood for all of... one line which is this last between episodes 7 and 11. Ren only has two hundred words of dialoge in Volume 7 and they feel so weird in places. Ren goes from seemingly disliking Nora, to kissing her, to never referencing the kiss, to partaking in the Worst Scene Of The Season, all with no consistency. It’s not even threadbare. Ren’s arc just has no connecting tissue for so much of it! It’s insane how badly Ren was hurt by this, and I shudder to wonder how bad his Volume 8 arc will be because you know that was one of the first plotlines they cut down on when they inevitably overreached again.

I don’t know how they made Renora kissing feel unearned? But by God they found a way with how much of a trainwreck Ren’s writing is in regards to tainting this.

If Ironwood is an example of RWBY doing character writing well, Ren is the mirror image of how badly they can do. JNR really suffered from Volume 7 (also fun fact, Ren has about 200 words of dialogue? Ironwood has 4400). Maybe not to the level of irredeemable dislike? But very close to being on the same tier as Cinder of “Just go away already.” I’m not looking forward to their content in Volume 8.

3) RWBY themselves are poorly handled in Volume 7

It’s unfortunate that the actual title characters of the series are also some of this season’s weaker links. RWBY feel... superfluous to this season in a way they’ve never felt before. It’s baffling how much of the season doesn’t change if you just don’t include them, and apparently Volume 7′s first draft? Was even worse.

The commentary says that many of the RWBY moments were added later in production. Stuff like Ruby and Renora at the rally, Blake and Yang’s talk with Robyn and Ruby and Qrow’s chat were all either added in near the end of the writing or were “low priority” enough that they could have been cut which is... veyr alarming that’s stuff even the main protags have to worry about!

Ruby feels half-baked. I was looking forward to her in V7 after how V6 gave her a more dynamic personality and the focus she got in Brunswick, and having Penny’s return had me interested in seeing Ruby grapple with her emotions about it. She watched Penny die, how would it influence her to see Penny back and OK? Good question, we never get to see it. Ruby’s just OK with Penny’s return, the one time they touch on it Penny immediately glosses over it. Ruby just goes back to her old happy go lucky persona where any and all negative emotions are immediately forced down instead of confronting them and growing from them. I’m getting a little tired of Ruby bottling her grief and being teased about finally getting her snapping like a Twix Bar. We finally got her crying and it lasted all of ten seconds. And it doesn’t help that Ruby’s still getting shafted for fights. Her scythe choreography has no excuse being as flacid as it is now after Qrow vs Clover showed they can do scythe fighting! Why is Ruby being upstaged by (let’s be real) a supporting character! Why is she being limited to ten seconds of good combat then nothing for the rest of the season outside of flimsily swinging it or shooting. It’s disappointing, especially after how good V6 Ruby was.

I swear, Gravity’s not just my favorite episode of the season just because Ruby finally cries in it.

Weiss was kinda just done dirty though. At least Ruby has a good outfit. Weiss confronting her father has been a long standing plot thread for the series, it’s been Weiss’s Big Thing since the White Trailer. And when Jacques finally appears, he’s very... bland. He’s just evil corporate dude who exists less as an obstacle for Weiss and more just a roadblock for the plot through the election. Weiss finally gets a chance to take her father down and work to redeem her family name... but instead of earning said victory and it being treated with the same gravitas and emotional weight as Blake defeating Adam... Weiss has her victory handed to her. And it’s played for comedy by her abusrdly attractive mother.

Listen, I like I Willow Schnee. I think she’s a fascinating character and I like the idea of a person who is aware of the harm they’ve done by accident but is too broken to fix the issues she accidentally left. I love her calling Weiss out on her treatment of Whitley. But she is absolutely a Deus Ex Machina that exists to get Jacques out of the plot as fast as possible. You mean to tell me Hackerman Watts never once made sure Jacques had hidden cameras? Or that none of the staff found Willow’s cameras and reported them under the assumption they were White Fang spies? It’s so... convenient. It’s handing Weiss her victory on an unearned platter. Which sucks. I was really looking forward to Weiss beating Jacques. Instead she just gets given the plot device while JNR engage in the Worst Scene of The Season in that Whitley food stunt.

Me whenever I’m asked to rewatch Cordially Invited

Blake and Yang have much the same problems, in they never separate. I know they’re going to be together. I know CRWBY are making it canon (get it over with already). I still would like Yang and Blake to have individual character scenes. I’d like Blake and Marrow to talk about being a Faunus Huntsman in Atlas (another thing that got cut thanks to Robyn Hill). I want Yang and Ironwood to discuss their PTSD and have Yang thank Ironwood for his trust in her that he commissioned the arm despite Yang attacking Mercury. I want Blake to be well animated in fight scenes so she’s doing more than just jobbing so Yang looks better. I want Yang to stop hogging all the good Team RWBY choeography. I want them to interact with other characters and continue to grow instead of feeling like two halves of one character. And no, making a meta joke of how Blake and Yang don’t talk to other people doesn’t make it OK. It just means you’re self aware about your own faults.

(Also give Yang better merch or quit the favoritism. If you’re gonna milk her, put effort into it beyond crapply overpriced flannel. RT’s merch store is actively making me hate Yang.)

Team RWBY’s biggest contribution to the season is the Ironwood Lie which is... a can of worms. They certainly had a point in withholding some of the bigger truths from James but I feel by Pomp and Cirumstance he’d proven himself truthwrothy enough to warrant being told the truth about Salem. But then when he’s finally told the truth, it’s offscreen’d and the consequence isn’t “Why didn’t you tell me earlier” but “Fucking Ozpin man.” Gravity has it bite them in the ass, but it’s more an accessory to Yang and Blake telling Robyn about the Amity tower. I wish more had been done with the team disagreeing on whether the lie was a good choice or not, maybe have Yang be hardline against it due to her own “No more lies and half truths” policy instead of... having Yang tell more lies and half truths (Commentary confirms she never told Ruby and Weiss about the Robyn stuff BTW). But that’s a wider problem where RWBY aren’t allowed to disagree beyond surface level “I don’t know if this is the right call” dialogue. There’s never a threat of one of them cracking and just spilling the beans to James, everyone just blindly trusts Ruby and Qrow tells the audience “No this is different from when Ozpin lied. Trust us.”

This is the most RWBY get for content in the season finale: Ruby just nuking Cinder with no difficulty after having trouble with the eyes three episodes ago. Kinda lame tbh.

Team RWBY are just disappointing in Volume 7. They’re not given good animation, their story roles are largely insignificant, the impact of their roles on the story is threadbare and... well most of their costumes suck don’t @ me even CRWBY have admitted Blake and Weiss’s haircuts looked bad. It’s a whole barrage of a letdown for the main girls. And it’s really sad that the best scenes of the season... are usually the ones where RWBY are nowhere in sight.

Why the hell didn’t Yang get to keep the sunglasses come on guys. One job.

4) Robyn, the election plot, and the Happy Huntresses

Oh God, Robyn Hill is... not great. I could and likely will write a full meta on her character and how they bungled it but I’ll just be blunt here: I don’t like her design, the colors don’t mesh well, he head’s too small, Christina Vee is sleeping through the role and her weapon’s lame. Introducing her in a scene where she threatens to attack our heroes, and her agents are actively sneaking up on them to do it, is not a great first impression for a hometown hero. And that the commentary thinks she’s meant to be the hero in that scene is... staggering.

RWBY’s greatest threat yet is a wine mom Karen and her Home Owners Association army.

The election plot is less a misfire and more the engine just exploding. There’s so little good content between when it’s introduced and concluded, with it usually being individual scenes that are more good in spite of their connection to the plot (such as Tyrian’s massacre). It drags in pacing, going on for nearly half the season between episodes 5 and 10, and it purely exists as a roadblock to keep RWBY spinning their wheels while Watts and Tyrian keep going with the main plot. I don’t know why CRWBY went for this plot. They could have easily had something else fill the gap that also allowed for a lot of the character beats (such as Marrow and Blake’s talk and Ren’s entire arc) to shine, or at least condensed it to the important elements instead of letting it become bloated. It ends in such an unsatisfying way where Willow just shows up and goes “We have four episode left, here’s the plot device to beat Jacques, get back ot the main plot.” If they wanted to do the election plot, the best route would have been to give Volume 7 more episodes or stretch out its events to two seasons, but neither is realistically possible while RWBY lives off the teat of AT&T.

Jacques and Robyn are just boring. Evil corporate man and a lame adaptation of Robyn Hood who only has fans because of thirst who also like downplaying Robyn making a racist remark at Marrow (to say nothing of that weird subsection of Robyn fans who make her a Fox Faunus who cut her tail off to join Atlas Academy which is... certainly a creative choice especially when Marrow and Neon are punching holes in that angsty BS backstory). They can’t carry this plot and the artifical attempts to make it seem more exciting with the two cliffhaners ending on Mantle under riot or Grimm attack are laughably cut short by the next episode in each case opening the morning after. On binge watch it becomes weirdly funny more than anything and that’s not a good reaction. The dual cliffhangers being cheaply resolved is a short but succint example of V7′s pacing issues, and they almost always loop around to the election plot being too bloated, slow and just boring.

Also the Happy Huntresses are just... lame. I like their Semblances but that’s it. Fiona’s OK because she gets some screentime but May’s just “the surly one” and Joanna doesn’t even get her Semblance or much dialogue (oh wow she really is just a female Sage Ayana isn’t she). Robyn should not have been leading the HH and running for Council. That’s really stupid. And kind of wrong. Having May or Fiona be running instead while Robyn leads the team in relief efforts would have been better and could have split the focus more effeciently instead of leaving May and especially Joanna feelng like roster padding. There’s also some delicious irony in the show trying to frame the HH as the resistance fighting for the people and representing individuality, only for them all to have the same boring outfit and weapons (I think even the exact same model just with different sizes) while the Ace Ops are meant to be the military drones who are “Just following orders,” only for them to be more racially diverse, more diverse body-type-wise, and have more unique weapons. It’s another one of those odd creative dissconnects between what the writers wanted and what the artists/animation teams chose to do.

The election plot is overall toxin for Volume 7, and Robyn in my opinion, has one of the worst introductory scenes of any character in the franchise (and CRWBY have tacitly admitted that V7 had a character they were surprised at how controversial they were, which has to be Robyn). In a year where they were already juggling so much content and characters, adding in this bloated subplot was something I don’t think anyone wanted, especially now that we know we lost so much content on the sacrificial altar for this. It’s a black mark on the season and I don’t really care for the return of the Happy Huntresses or Robyn in Volume 8. None of them are interesting enough to care for outside of meta reasons like “cute.”

Also fuck you Fiona, can’t believe you got a shirt before Ironwood.

5) Cinder and Neo sure exist

To be fair, this is one of Cinder’s best years, easily her best since Volume 3 but that’s more because Cinder in the Mistral era was crap. (And if I wanna be cruel, because Cinder wasn’t in two thirds of the season)Her fans were finally vindicated after years of telling anyone who dunked on Cinder that “nooooo she has a super covert backstory that’s gonna be amazing when it’s revealed! You’ll see!” And well they finally got it. All of one line during a fight about how Cinder “refuses to starve.”

It’s still something so I guess we have to take it. Seriously... how do we still not have Cinder’s backstory.

There’s just not a ton to say about Cinder and Neo in V7 barring I that don’t think they needed to be here. They feel very superfluous and just here to have a big boss fight in Cinder’s case alongside continuing her streak of ending the odd numbered seasons fighting a female side character... which for me became an exercise in tyring to find during Cinder during the damn fight.

And this is why when most people saw Cinder’s V6 outfit they went “It’s gonna be hard to see her in darker environments,” then were vindicated when it became legit difficult to see Cinder in this scene. God if they at least just made the inside of the cape red it’d be easier.

Neo is Neo, which means she makes funny faces and mocks Cinder (I like that), but she doesn’t get a super good fight which uh... we’ll get to. I’m interested to see her finally exploding at Cinder and going for a backstab, but really Neo in V7 was kinda hit hard by the double whammy of the Oscar Hallway Punch and how humiliating ORNJ vs Neo was for ORNJ. Cinder’s definitely had far worse years and after how aimless she was in Mistral this feels like a sep in the right direction, but at this point CRWBY just need to shut up and tell us her deal. It’s been seven years guys. Come on. At least make her interesting if she’s gonna say around. They’ve had worse years, but unfortunately Cinder and Neo’s role in the finale leads into...

6) Some of the fights weren’t good

I wanna be clear, I like most of Volume 7′s fights. It’s just a bummer the worst ones are back and back and make up a chunk of the finale. ORNJ vs Neo is just crap. It’s the worst fight since the Battle of Haven. There’s nothing else I can say, it’s poorly animated, paced, choreographed and written. JNR especially are made to look like complete jokes after they spent all season training, to the point where it looks like V2 Yang could solo V7 JNR after this. Oscar I expect this from because he’s not allowed to have fun stuff onscreen after accidentally stealing the Haven budget for his fight with Hazel, but JNR were just done dirty. There were ways to make the fight work in a way where Neo still won but JNR looked good. They went for the worst possible outcome that just leaves Neo looking like she got fan-wanked and JNR looking like they’re just not allowed to be cool due to Miles’ spite at the Jaune-Self Insert stuff (and that’s not even getting into JNR being forced to run from lame rent a cops who can’t even handle a single Grimm). Cinder vs Winter and Penny isn’t much better, with her dark outfit making it very hard to track the fight because she blends into the background too well. It’s not a great showing for Winter or Penny given their earlier feats but, hey, some random female character had to fight Cinder in this odd numbered volume, carrying on Glynda, Pyrrha and Raven’s tradition. It’s at least better than ORNJ vs Neo, but that’s really not saying anything. At least Cinder’s VA work isn’t too bad this time but this fight commits the cardinal sin of a finale fight: It’s just not super interesting because we know Cinder can’t kill both Winter and Penny and she’s not becoming a Maiden, while Winter’s been too blatantly set up so it has to be Penny.

RWBY vs the Ace Ops also gets a dishonorable mention due to the choreography on display here... and the lack of it for Weiss, Blake and Ruby. Ruby never once swings Crescent Rose the entire fight and is just reduced to getting the tar kicked out of her by Harriet. Weiss barely gets to use her sword and largely just sticks to her summoning and glyphs which makes for a very visually uninteresting fighting style at the best of times. Blake just swings around and gets caught by the bad guys so Yang is motivated to fight stronger. She never dual wields (again) and her best moves are just setting up Yang to do all the hard work while Yang gets to personally KO two of the Ace Ops. There’s a lot that can be said about whether or nor RWBY earn the win, but while the animation team try to sell the Ace Ops landing heavy hits, having only Blake’s Aura even flicker really undercuts the idea from the commentary that this wasn’t meant to be a stomp for RWBY and they had to work together and be in synch to win.

Which is why Yang solos two of the Ace Ops whle Blake plays support, Weiss beats Marrow alone and then kill steals Harriet from Ruby, all while the song playing is an extended diss track from RWBY to the Ace Ops about how badass they are now, and the commentary itself says the Ace Ops are hard carried by Clover’s Semblance (because you gotta love basically saying four POC were only competent because a white guy led them, and then have them lose because said white guy wasn’t around to carry them!). Great job guys, you really sold it.

And talking of Clover, I feel it worth mentioning Qrow vs Clover vs Tyrian. It’s animation wise near perfect, but unfortunately I do feel it would be remiss to not mention that I feel the writing really has to bend over backwards to justify this fight. A lot of it is stuff I would say in that hypothetical Robyn essay, but I feel Robyn, Qrow and Clover all have to become massive idiots for this specific sequence of events to occur, and for Clover especially every retroactive attempt to explain why he prioritized Qrow over Tyrian just sounds more and more desperate. Between the references to MCU Captain America (a person whose entire arc is about learning when it’s OK to defy bad orders) or the attempt in the commentary to say “Oh Clover thought it would be easier to take out Tyrian alone instead of Qrow,” none of them land and just further drive home how much the plot had to stretch and reach to get that moment of Tyrian killing Clover. I like the fight. But I hate the road the show took to get there.

Some of the misc fights are also weak like ORNJ vs FNKI and elements of the Mantle Grimm battle, but those are the big offenders. Otherwise, again, the fights are largely good.

7) The soundtrack wasn’t... great

I mean the vocal songs only, don’t crucify me. Trust Love is just lamer Let’s Just Live/Triumph, Celebrate and Let’s Get Real are so boring I thought they were the same song until the OST dropped, Brand New Day is boringly peppy and Jeff’s vocals are dreadful. I completely forgot Touch the Sky until I was checking the tracklist to make sure I didn’t forget any songs. War has good singers but tries to sell the RWBY-Ace Ops bond as way deeper than it was. The lack of a villain song did really sting though, those are always the highlights.

There are good songs. I really like Fear, I feel it encapsulates the themes of the volume well and serves as a good condemnation of Ironwod’s mentality. Until The End is finally the Ruby song I’ve waited for since Red Like Roses 2 and I enjoy that she got a melancholic song, and Hero is easily, hands down, best track of the record and probably best RWBY track, full stop. Caleb killed it, I loved the second verse, opening opera was strong, guitar riffs were a plenty. Stellar work all around for that one.

The OST has great work from Jeff and Alex as usual, but the Jeff and Casey songs are really starting to lose their appeal. Going for a peppy feel this year didn’t help cover the cracks that are beginning to show with RWBY’s vocal songs (especially Jeff’s vocal range), and while a few standouts remain such as Fear and Hero, they are the slim minority in an otherwise very boring vocal tracklist that barely scrapes above Volume 5 for weakest set yet.

8) It wasn’t as funny as it thought it was

Comedy is subjective but man a lot of these jokes didn’t land. RWBY really needs to realize that does work in traditional 2D does not translate into 3D and just comes off as making official reaction GIFs for your Twitter account. Making characters SUDDENY SCREAM LOUDLY is not good banter. Please stop making Nora into Harley Quinn. Marrow was probably the most consistently funny character but that was it. Also I dunno why CRWBY thought Forrest was funny or what the deal was with that FRWBY crap.

“Honorary” mention to the JNR food scene in Cordially Invited which is genuinely one of the worst scenes in the entire show and I hope whoever animated it has their save files deleted for a game where they were about to beat the final boss. Nothing sums up JNR’s pointlessness in the series more perfectly than this.

C) Conclusion

See what I mean about Volume 7 being frustrating?

It’s weird that I overal think of Volume 7 as a mid-tier volume. There’s so much here I genuinely adore, with some of the best stuff to do with the show coming out of this season (barring lame, overpriced merch that feels like clothing gacha), but simultaneously the whole thing is let down by outside circumstances that unfortunately are ones the show can’t ever really recover from. Put bluntly, Volume 7 is the most technically proficient season of the show with the best lighting, backdrops, (some of the) character models, etc. CRWBY definitely didn’t slack off this year, but the problem isn't with them. It’s with the writing. A wider reaching problem is just that Miles and Kerry can’t really improve to the level that the series now requires. Eddy and Kiersei’s first season could have gone far worse, but it definitely was notable whenever they took over. Volume 7’s core problems are fourfold: The comedy is terrible and none of the jokes really land, the season focuses on the wrong plots and gives them too much effort, too many episodes are spent building up to new plots only for them to be weakly resolved (especially the Mantle Riot/Grimm attacks that are shoved off-screen), and the character bloat strikes hard here and leaves a lot of the cast feeling like dead weight. CRWBY don’t need more writers. They need more editors willing to tell the team what has to go instead of them hemming and hawing themselves on if they if they can include a plotline. The election never should have gotten past its first draft, there was too much already in this season before adding that.

When this is an unironic shot in your series... you’ve got character bloat issues.

At this point, I think JNR need to go. The show had no idea what to do with them throughout the season, leading to Jaune just being comic relief while Ren and Nora became characters I actively dislike. Renora was the easiest ship in the show to land, and they still managed to blow the engines and ram at least three icebergs just to prove that RWBY can’t romance to save its life. Team RWBY themselves are little better, with Ruby’s feelings about Penny’s return being shelved, Weiss’s victory against Jacques feeling un-earned and undercut by comedy, while Yang and Blake are benched for the volume and become a singular entity with how tied at the hip they are. Maria basically yeeted herself out of the show and I didn’t notice, Pietro is just a death flag, and while the Ace Ops had a good intro, it was undercooked by how they had to play the villain role to give RWBY something to do in the final hours. Cinder and Neo didn’t need to be here. Robyn had one of the worst introductions for a character I’ve ever seen, I never enjoyed her moments and it genuinely feels like she only has a fandom because RWBY’s community are in fact that desperate.

On the brighter side, Ironwood’s arc is fucking perfect and Jason Rose deserves all the love. Great fight, great song, great design, love the beard, it was a perfect downfall for Volume 7’s true protagonist. Qrow had a fun volume and I loved his dynamic with Clover (I don’t see the ship stuff but that’s more because I’m an IronQrow main so my blinders were on). Clover was also way cooler than I remembered. His fights stood out but the guy’s just really cool at the end of the day, with Chris doing great work as a VA. Oscar even managed to do stuff this year which was a shock and a half, but a welcome shock and a half. I didn’t mention it, but the Ozpin fear monologue is one of my favorite scenes in the entire show and it and the Ironwood/Oscar confrontation in the vault save the finale. And of course, Watts and Tyrian were the MVPs. I don’t have a bad word about either of them, they fucking nailed their roles and I can’t wait to see them again.

And that’s kind of what I mean when I say Volume 7 flummoxes me. It’s frustrating at times with how it handles seemingly easy tasks and drops the ball. Renora went from “everyone liked that” to wondering how badly Ren’s stuff got butchered for him to be the way he is. RWBY themselves could be almost entirely cut and so little would change, and the fact that the finale basically hinges its entire emotional stakes on Winter, Penny and Oscar is a staggering call. And it really feels like the season was compressed beyond necessity because they decided going in that Volume 7 had to end on Salem’s arrival. There’s two volumes worth of material here, and maybe it would have been best to have broken up these events. Volume 7 does too much in too little time, and RWBY especially suffered from it. But when it works… it’s good. Never close to the highs of Volumes 6 or 3, but there’s genuinely good material here. The fights are mostly getting better with far less missteps than previously, the acting (mostly) continues to improve and it’s obvious that RWBY is a very good looking show at this point. Ironwood’s arc is franchise-wide highs, I loved Clover, and Marrow remains the best boi. But it’s frustrating that despite all the tech advances Volume 7 has made, it still makes such threadbare, rookie writing mistakes in cast management, comedy and character arcs. I’m glad Miles and Kerry finally realized that they needed more writers, but it won’t mean anything if the show just continues to circle the drain on the core mistakes it’s been making since 2013. Volume 7 has good in it. But I can see where it could have been great.

Thanks for reading, stan IronQrow and please get Whitley a therapist.

And for the love of God already make an Ironwood vs Watts shirt!

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mintseesaw · 4 years ago

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huling sandali

translation. last moment ⇀ an entry for paraluman playlist

pairing: namjoon x reader genre: angst, est. relationship au word count: 2.2k warnings: themes of insecurities being triggered, emotional struggles, a break-up drabble a.k.a not a happy ending // pg-13

drabble request by @jim-parkin with “pighati + namjoon” hi hjdgdhsgsg im sorry it took me 3254 years to write this :((( i hope you like it. Also, happy belated birthday, alyssa!!! huh i just found out like 10 hrs ago prior to posting this on my first attempt hfdkdjdh im a horrible friend but ily ;-( *unedited

Namjoon arrived home by the time you started packing your stuff. He found you sitting on the living room floor, casually sorting things and putting them in labeled boxes laid in front of you.

You were supposed to ignore him, just like what he’s been doing in the past week. You realized, days of argument after argument before seems better than a whole week of silence in the apartment. The loneliness becomes greater, the glassy tension— unbearable, and his passive treatment more than anything else, hurts you the most.

You couldn’t look at him, having no will to possibly see the indifference on his face while he watches you gradually removing your traces in his place.

As seconds turn minutes since the distinct click of the door closing snaps shut, you took notice of the prolonged silence without the tap of the heels of his black shoes on the granite floor resonating through the living room. With your curiosity suddenly distracting you out of your focus, your head tilted on your side to peek behind you.

There he was, standing so tall and so formal with a frown on his face. His eyes shone not because of the lenses of his glasses but from the unshed tears on his eyes. When your gazes met, he was quick to crane his neck to the opposite side.

You open your mouth to call him to gather his attention. But he was already walking away out of the living room.

It’s been a whole week since you told him you’ll move out. He perfectly understood the implication of it. He objected, tried to convince you not to leave. When his attempts went futile, he did stop trying. Then fostered the silence between the two of you.

He avoided you while you try to make things right by keeping the break up somewhat acceptable on both terms. His refusal to speak with you seemed to convince you that, somehow, he had given up, silently giving you the signal to proceed on your plans.

Half an hour later, you began emptying half of the wardrobe in the walk-in closet. Coincidentally, he was in the shower at the time. After work, he’d routinely clean himself up before he rests or eats dinner with you. However, he stopped taking meals with you nor stayed in the bedroom to read the day you broke the word to him. With his persistence to avoid your presence, you’re almost sure he would let you be in peace while you packed the last bit of your clothes from the closet.

You’re supposed to leave days ago. The tenant of the apartment complex you found weeks prior has been non stop bugging you to move in.

However, you cannot just leave without a proper goodbye to him. In fact, he should be the one leaving you, not the other way around. But he couldn’t do that. Because he owns this place just as much as he owns nearly everything here including your heart.

Namjoon would never ask you to leave, even if he wants you to. That’s how much goodness there is in him. You just happened to take advantage of it and live comfortably by his side.

With your emotions at bay, a silent tear spid down your cheeks, leaving a dot of patch on the fabric of your folded clothes as you fill up your luggage on the bed.

Mere seconds later just as you hear the bathroom door opening, you feel the familiar, strong arms snaked over your waist from behind making you still instantaneously on the spot.

“Namjoon—“

“Don’t… don’t leave.” He says to you for the first time in a week.

His wet hair quickly drenches the spot on your shoulder where he laid his forehead.

Squeezing his hand pressed on your stomach, you smile weakly without facing him. “We talked about this.”

You felt his forehead grazing your shoulder blade as he shakes his head, “I don’t agree with this.”

“We both need this. We need to give each other time to breathe.” You murmur under your breath, nearly admitting the real reason behind your decision. That you knew. You knew he was suffering, and he was trying not to show it to you.

“I don’t need it if you’re not with me.” Namjoon says back, the grip of his arms around tightening.

Sighing, “You’re smarter than me, Joon. You know it’s been tough for the both of us. You’ve been so patient with me and I know you’re getting tired.”

“We can s-still make this work. Fighting is normal. Arguments allow us to speak of our minds. We learn but we move on from it because we love each other.”

“We tried, Joon. So many times. So many times that there’s nothing left of me but doubts and insecurities.”

Namjoon plants a subtle kiss on the side of your head. You remained pliant to his embrace, almost not wanting for him to let you go. For him to insist his place in your life despite your determination to fulfill what you need to do.

“I can wait until you’re ready to love yourself, again.” He attempts once more. He’s always honest with his thoughts so you know he’s sincere when he speaks his heart out.

“That’s not how it works.”

“Then tell me what I should do, please don’t give up just yet.”

His words are like a twisting fire of a knife in your chest, slithering your heart apart and burning the shreds into ashes. The room suddenly feels suffocating and stiff.

Disentangling his arms around your waist, you turn to finally face him. If you’re not only so emotionally invested with the confrontation, you could have stared at him and let your eyes admire every detail on his face until he shies away from your peer that cheeks bloom with crimson tint. Just like the old times.

But your chances have run out, moments have fleeted, your time with him is almost over. Your palms harshly wiping wet traces on your cheeks, refusing to cry in front of him. With a tilt of your chin up, he struck you with his sorrowful, pleading eyes.

“Do you really want someone like me? Someone who depends on you— financially, physically, emotionally? You meet a lot of successful women and I fear that I’m not gonna be enough for you. Joon, I’ll always worry and pick up fights with you.”

Tears brimmed on his eyes, shaking his head to stress his disagreement. “You are more than enough for me. I didn’t love you because of what you have. I fell in love with you because of what’s in here,” he points at your chest.

“Why, it’s you who has a pure soul. You have everything a man could have asked for. Any woman would fall at your feet to earn your attention,” your voice deteriorating as your head falling in morose, suddenly losing the ability to hold his stare with the facade of a strength you’re putting up. “You know, I’m so lucky to have you. I’ve always told you that. But now, things changed. You’re suffering because of me. It’s how I realized I have to let you go because I want you to be happy, again.”

He gathers your face with his palms, forcing you to look at him. “No, no, no. That’s not true. You make me happy.. Please, stop this, you’re everything to me…”

His warm breaths fanning your skin with his heavy, calculated breathing.

“It’s me,” you pause, “You’ve taught me how to love but I chose the wrong way, I loved you too much than what I’m capable of giving. Now I’m lost and I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

He inches his face closer until his nose is touching your cheek. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “I didn’t mean to change you. I thought I was doing the right thing for you. I want you to dream, I want to see you soar high with your chosen profession. Please, baby don’t leave me. We could fix this.”

No, he was getting the wrong impressions. You didn’t regret going back to college when he pleaded you to. You didn’t regret setting aside your passion for art to continue the education you once took up before you left ran away from home. None of the ugly thoughts poisoning your mind were his doing. It was you and your insecurities.

“It’s not your fault. You saved me, remember? I met you at the time I was drowning in grief. Then I started dreaming. And the day you confessed your feelings to me, you made my dream come true. That was more than enough for me, Joon. Every inch of you became my happiness and it pains me to see I’m the one making you suffer.”

“Listen to me, _____. You make me happy. There’s no perfect relationship. But you’re perfect to me. You’ve always kept me grounded, made me think of my future, made me thrive for our future. No woman has had me at my worst, they only want the good things in life. You’ve been through tough times. But the kindness in your heart remains immeasurable, do you hear me? You deserve everything I have offered and so much more, baby.”

His thumbs patiently brushing the tears away.

“I can’t keep dragging you with my downfall.”

“I don’t want us fighting but sometimes, it gets out of hand. I stay at an arm’s length but it doesn’t mean I want you gone. Because at the end of the day, I’d want to go home to you even when we’re not okay.”

Your eyes fluttered close, not bearing to see the tears free-flowing on his cheeks. Namjoon rarely cries in front of you. Even before when you were purposely trying to aim his heart with your sharp words, nothing could seem to break him down. It’s always you who’s end up losing. Crying.

Silence filled the air for a moment until you heard him shifted. Then you felt a pressure on the side of your thighs and when you caught up what he did, your knees almost gave out.

“Namjoon— w-what are you doing? Stand up!”

His fingers dug deep on the skin of your thighs, head hung long, “Don't leave,” he begs.

“No, stand up!” You sob in disbelief. He couldn’t do this when you should be the one begging for forgiveness for failing him.

Hurriedly, you shuffled on your knees, fisting his shirt as you sobbed on his chest.

His arms gave you warmth as they enveloped over your back. As the room starts to drown with your muffled cries, he cups your face and in a matter of second, Namjoon’s lips are on yours, swallowing your sobs and murmuring sweet I love you’s while keeping your connected lips with his.

Seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours, your insides are a mess, dreading for the end of this moment. With his concern to your plan, he refuses to loosen his hold on you. Even when you urged him to lie down on the bed with you, he didn’t move not until you tugged his body down beside you.

The rhythmic brushes of your fingers on his hair have calmed him down but with his arm secured over your back. It was only when he finally fell asleep when the grip of his arm loosens.

It’s been hours. You haven’t gotten a wink of sleep, and the sun will soon rise in a matter of an hour or two.

It doesn’t resolve the issue. It won’t because you know the next day, things will be the same. Same insecurities will eat you up alive until you burst your anger at him. And then the fight starts, arguments will inevitably tear you two apart. It’s an unending cycle of toxicity that not even yourself can control. Not until you allow yourself to heal.

Until then, you deem yourself unworthy of his love.

You need to leave before he wakes up. You know, it wouldn’t take long before you regret your decision.

“Meeting you was the best thing that happened in my life. I’m sorry for failing you, for failing myself. I hope,” you choke as a lump forms in your throat, “... you’ll be proud of me when I get better even when you have found someone else.” You ended your parting words with your lips pressing gently on the back of his hand.

Your shoulders slightly shake, your hands tremble as sobs threaten to break from your throat.

Your thumb carefully caresses his knuckles, watching him sleep so peacefully with your blurry vision. Suddenly, you couldn’t find the strength in you to pull yourself up.

“Why is it so hard to leave?” You whisper, looking at his sleeping figure.

He is your strength. Your happiness. The owner of your heart. Your dream come true. Someday, you’ll return and take your heart back from him. But for now, you’ll have to start living without it.

With one last look, you stood up with all your might and let the tears fall mercilessly as you fought back the urge to run back to him.

~~~

That moment still remains vivid in your mind, as fresh as the wound in your heart a year later. If you could only turn back the time, you wish he was awake to stop you from leaving. Now, all you could do is watch him from afar at his favorite coffee shop with someone else. The same one he used to take you at. He looks genuinely happy. At least, the break up did him good.

Every time you stood up from your seat to leave, you keep reminding yourself it’s the last time you’ll hope for your paths to cross. Somehow when the pain gets too much to bear, you always find yourself coming back here. Hoping. For another chance. You have the answer to that now. Someone else has already taken your place in his heart.

Inside the coffee shop, the girl sitting across him huffs while watching you walk away out of the establishment. She shifts her gaze to the man in front of her whose attention has speechlessly zeroed in on your figure through the glass walls.

“When will you actually start talking to the girl? You’ve been dragging me here for over a month now. My time is precious, Kim. It’s so obvious you’re smitten for her!” She glares.

Namjoon didn’t answer, only because he doesn’t know how. How do I win her back?

#bayanihanboost #bangtanarmynet #hyunglinenetwork #btsbookclub #btswriterscollective #btswritingcafe #btsguild #cypherwritersnet #houseofddaeng #namjoon x reader #namjoon x you #bts x reader #namjoon fanfic #namjoon angst #bts fanfic #bts angst #bts imagines #bts scenarios

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kitkatopinions · 4 years ago

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Accidentally deleted my Tyrian and Watts asks while I was trying to fix a mistake so... Sorry about that, everyone! Here they are! Tyrian and Watts for the RWBY character asks!

Let’s do Tyrian first, because I have less to say about him, I feel like.

My top three ships for the character

Tyrian/Watts. Dysfunctional villainous romance of the century, no one knows how they’ve managed to make it to their tenth anniversary without killing each other, including them. Tyrian/Salem is my second top ship for him. Major Bellatrix/Voldy vibes with this one, but I could see it. Tyrian/Hazel is my third ship for lack of options. Does this one make sense? No. But I can at least see Tyrian being super flirty and Hazel being endlessly tired, but never really stopping it. (Also I hate Hazel so much lol.)

My three least favorite ships for the character

Tyrian/Qrow sucks for me. Like... I kinda feel like two people fighting each other just gets shippers, which is fine and totally understandable. But for me, Tyrian poisoning Qrow and almost killing him and calling his beloved niece a bitch and then killing Clover is a big no from me, dog. On that note! Tyrian/Clover is also one big no from me, since Clover murdered him. And Tyrian/Ozpin is another really big no from me. Tyrian and his crazy Salem worship can stay five hundred and fifty feet away from my son.

My biggest criticism for the character

They went a little too much on the crazy in the fourth and fifth season and it made him feel annoying. Like, I don’t mind the Bellatrix vibes, but I do mind the movie version Bellatrix vibes, sometimes. It just got kinda annoying. I wish his crazy was always more on the dangerous side and less on the kooky side, but that’s just personal opinions.

My favorite thing about the character

The way people are so uncomfortable around him. Whenever Tyrian talks to Emerald or Mercury, he’s honestly freaky. Like both me and the characters are waiting for him to snap. That’s a great quality in a villain that we’re meant to hate or love to hate. He has a real presence and it’s enjoyable.

A headcanon I have about them

Tyrian doesn’t often try to act normal, but he can, and he’s got a great ‘respectable, cool guy’ act that’s actually a little reminiscent of Qrow or Clover. He’s even passed himself as a Huntsman here and there.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

More involvement in volumes 4 and 5, and I’d treat him a bit more seriously and make him a bit more dangerous. Maybe I’d have him wound a member of Team RNJR in his attack as well as poison Qrow (maybe give Jaune a reason to unlock his semblance in season 4 and in response to the pain of a member of his team. Also, his ‘Tyrian purple’ color should be more than just the color of his eyes. Like, how come so many RWBY characters season 4 and onward have such boring colors? I’d give Tyrian some strong purple and pink.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Tyrian alludes to the animal fable ‘the Scorpion and the Frog,’ and that’s... really in name only, I think. A part of me wants to give them some kind of points for having Qrow work with him against Clover, only for Tyrian to kill Clover, which lines up with his ‘its just my nature’ scorpion stinging the frog so that they’ll both drown and die. But they didn’t mean for Qrow to really be wrong! They didn’t mean for the lesson to be ‘Qrow shouldn’t have trusted the poisonous villain’ it was ‘wowza does Qrow’s semblance hurt him. :( Too bad Clover got himself killed.’ Which makes the whole allusion kind of suck.

Now for Watts, the single best villain in my opinion.

My top three ships for the character

Tyrian/Watts. See above. This ship would be a dysfunctional mess, but it’d be a wild ride. Watts/Villain!Ironwood. I kind of hate this ship when it’s ‘fallen hero turned villain’ Ironwood. But if he actually had been written as a secret villain or obviously headed that way from the start, I can see him and Watts also being a dysfunctional mess of a wild ride ship, only with way more ‘evil power couple’ vibes than Tyrian and Watts would have. Also my favorite version of this features Watts having been the one to build Penny (maybe by stealing the plans from Pietro) and him and Ironwood raising a still bright and cheerful, still innocent and trusting, villain Penny who will attack to kill with a smile on her face and a ‘it was nice meeting you!’ And this is very weird and niche but Watts/Evil Stepsister (specifically the one with the sharp bangs and highlights.) Someone sent me an ask saying the Evil Stepmother and stepsisters should’ve been connected to Salem and gotten Cinder involved and I totally agree with this. I then started envisioning a world where the step sisters competed with Cinder and all three of them were raised in Salem’s circle. In this version of things, I could totally picture one of the step sisters having a romantic tension driven connection with Watts and the two of them subtly flirting sometimes (and bonding over their mutual hatred of Cinder.) I picked the sister with bangs for no real reason except that I like her look more.

My three least favorite ships for the character

Watts/Cinder. Watts thinks of her like a bratty little girl, and Cinder kills him. Watts/Lionheart. Kinda really hate this one because of how clearly Lionheart was terrified of him. Just a bit uncomfortable for me to see that in a relationship. Watts/Hero!Ironwood or Watts/HeroTurnedVillain/Ironwood. Sorry, but Ironwood in canon got such a bad, bad portrayal in season 8 and the end of season 7, and I just can’t help but blame Watts for quite a bit of it. I only like them as a ship if Ironwood is an antagonist from the start.

My biggest criticism for the character

They shouldn’t have killed him! He was one of Salem’s best followers and one of the best villains and it was such a big mistake to kill literally one of the only actual loyal followers. It threw off any character development for Cinder and it was a big mistake. I really wanted the Cinder / Watts / Neo team up to keep going! I’m so disappointed it got thrown away.

My favorite thing about the character

Watts is an entitled, petty bastard, and I think that’s so good for a villain that isn’t meant to be social commentary (because tbh, RWBY never should’ve tried to be social commentary.) Watts isn’t sympathetic, he’s an Atlas born and raised guy in a three piece suit, he’s posh, he’s upset because he wasn’t given exactly what he wanted. Most of the villains in RWBY are either victims of abuse, systemic oppression, or poverty, and that’s... Not fun in a show that’s never handled social commentary well and is about magical girls destroying Voldemort/Satan with the power of friendship (Ruby literally never says anything about Faunus rights iirc.) Watts is refreshing because he’s exactly the type of villain that you can expect in a show like what RWBY should’ve been, and he flourishes as that. Why would we be sympathetic to Watts when he’s just doing this all because he wasn’t picked first for his tech? Why would we feel soured towards conflicts with Watts and Team RWBY? He’s just a petty bastard being evil because he was snubbed. Why would we be frustrated that incredibly significant problems are being shoved to the side with Watts? He’s a fun villain, he’s not meant to be more, he’s not meant to make you emotionally invested only to then be gutted for it. You can hate to love him without it feeling bad. Maybe that’s why he’s just my favorite non-kid villain (other than Roman.)

A headcanon I have about them

Watts has been trying to build his own AI robot like Penny, in his spare time. He wanted it to be done in time to become a Maiden, but it wasn’t, and Salem gave that slot to Cinder and got after Watts for not contributing enough. He of course thought this was deeply unfair (especially after being made to contribute a lot to Cinder’s Beacon success without getting any credit for it.) And this just fueled his hatred of Cinder, his hatred of Pietro and Ironwood, and by extension, his hatred of Penny.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I would keep him freaking alive and keep up the pair up he had going on with Cinder and Neo! But also I’d increase his relationships with Emerald, Mercury, Tyrian, Hazel... Just some more Salem’s Inner Circle moments to flesh out their characters. Other than that, I wouldn’t change much. He’s a pretty good character.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Okay, I’ve talked about his character allusion in a very long post awhile ago, but I’m not scrolling down that far to tag it. To sum it up... I hate his allusion. XD I loved the Sherlock Holmes books and read most of them, and I didn’t realize he was supposed to allude to John Watson until I read someone else’s post saying so, and I started freaking out about how awful it was. Watts has so little in common with Watson, he’s essentially the anti-Watson. Which basically means he’s Sherlock Holmes, the opposite of Watson in almost every way, up to and including freaking faking his death which is one of the most iconic Sherlock Holmes thing ever. Watts is everything Sherlock Holmes is on his worst days, arrogant, callous, consumed with his projects, petty, smug, over the top - as well as being hyper intelligent and a genius who often just gets passed over. He has rivalries with his colleagues like Holmes did. And like I said, he faked his death, only to reveal himself to an old friend later on the cusp of carrying out a scheme. He’s evil Holmes! He has nothing to do with John Watson - caring, humble, down to earth, not brilliant like his friend but content to be ordinary and special because of his emotional depth and devoted heart, medical former doctor who spends quite a lot of time chronicling the successes of someone else because he’s content to live in the background. Don’t get me wrong, a ‘Watson’ character who is evil could work - Watson himself indulged in crime for the sake of Holmes sometimes in the original works and if he worshipped Salem or one of her followers and did everything for her while still being a more humble, more friendly, not brilliant person he could be good - but Watts is not that person. Even the gimmicks Watts is given are stupid and don’t make it obvious he’s Watson. Boy’s got a moustache and a revolver and they thought that’d be enough. Idk why they thought 'we’ll make him Watson’ when he’s clearly a Holmes! Also, he’s supposed to be ‘Watson if he’d met Moriarty instead of Holmes,’ and to that I say boo! Watson wouldn’t turn into a super genius just because he meets a different mastermind!

...That’s summing up my feelings, yeah. Because I have so many feelings about his warped, weird character allusion. If I was changing it, I’d just make him Holmes like I think he was clearly supposed to be.

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ah-ga-seven · 3 years ago

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Dude!!! honestly that was the angstiest of angsty chapters. My heart hurts for everyone..

Yeonjun - his relationship ends just as he’s starting to become a better person. Then finding out that the two people he trusted most had kept such a big secret from him. Regardless of their motives. The significant women in his life seem to have let him down. The only constant is Soobin… I would say maybe they should get together 😏 but I love SooMi too much lol.

Y/n - losing a relationship after finally figuring out her true feelings. I feel that the relationship would have come to an end regardless of when she told Yeonjun about his mother. She was always going to lose him. Finding his mother and getting answers, possibly building a relationship with her, is something he has to do in order to fix himself.

Juyeon - unrequited love

Krae-rina - for not having a life and being rejected soooo publicly

Why aren’t her friends telling her to ease up on the krae?!

Everyone should take this time for personal growth, so that they can become better people, friends and partners in the future.

We need to remember we can’t and shouldn’t try to “fix” others. We can only fix ourselves. The most others can do is provide support, love and advice.

I know a lot of people will think it’s so sweet and romantic 🤢 that Juyeon said he’ll wait for y/n… but to me it’s the most unattractive thing ever. Where’s his self respect?!

Juyeon if you’re not first choice, you’re no choice at all. He shouldn’t settle for being someone’s plan B.

Have I said how much I love SooMi?! The friends that we all need. The supportive, yet real friends, that will call you out on your sh*t.

Omg! As a Brit, Peng was the first word that popped in my head at the mention of British slang🤣🤣🤣

I tried to write less this time but didn’t quite manage it😅. It’s your fault, for writing such a compelling story, that I get so invested in and excited to talk about lol.

Really looking forward to seeing what happens next. But as usual take your time

SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER @monbabyzshoebill I always want to make sure I take the time to reply to this.

I know, so angsty 🥲 it took a toll on me while writing it i can’t explain but i’ve never felt so emotionally drained after writing a chapter it was intense.

Yes. The thing is. He’s the one that let them down first by being a cheater and a manipulator, yet he has these women care for him to extreme extends and since he’s never had healthy relationships w women (his mom included) he doesn’t know whether or not his anger or betrayel is justified. It’s....fucked up. My best friend and I were doing a balance game of ‘who’s the bigger dick’ and honestly things weren’t looking good for Yeonjun 😂😂

With y/n. Dude. She set herself up for failure from the start. It’s all because of her inferiority complex that she’s worked her way into this mess. Y/n was used to being the other woman for so long that it didn’t occur to her that she doesn’t have to GIVE Karina the power in the situation. Y/n justified her choices by thinking it wasn’t her place to interfere...but she should have because she wasn’t the other woman anymore... she was the main character for once and blew it because of the ways yeonjun has damaged her.

LMAO it felt so good writing Krae-rina’s rejection scene ugh. It was great 😂😂

Yes, you’re absolutely right! Sometimes the best thing you can do is keep a distance. All of the relationships except foor soobin and mirae are toxic but in different ways. We have yn/yeonjun, juyeon/yn and karina/yeonjun. I write the three of them from different toxic/obsessive angles, and I hoped ppl noticed but no one has mentioned it yet 😭

It’s juyeons saviour complex as a capricorn man 😂😂 i know i overdramatized the hell out of it, but oh well. I can’t say much more cause i’ll spoil shit.

SooMi are the mvp’s of this story istg 🥺 the mains would be lost without them.

HAHAHA you’re britishhhh, i had no idea!? Well. I got the idea from that british slang video TxT did for Mtv it was so cute, I had to add some crack to lighten the mood even tho it was kinda impossible with all the angst.

Ugh, don’t even apologize. Seriously thank you so much. These comments is what makes writing worthwhile. Thanks again, and until next time 💜

#ask ahga

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ceruleanmusings · 3 years ago

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mickames ship notes

I just need to put this somewhere so I can stop turning it over in my head. This is me thinking out loud so it does end up long but I also want a place to put this so I can reference it whenever I write more for them in the future. (Keep in mind this is just the version of James I see; others might have a different view on him and that’s okay!)

At a glance, James and Mickey shouldn’t work. They’re complete opposites, he enjoys the spotlight, thrives when getting attention, is vain and self-centered and doesn’t hesitate to put his wants and needs first. She prefers the background, doesn’t like too much attention, and thinks about others and their needs more than her own. But that’s what makes them work as well, they fill each other’s gaps.

James teaches her that, sometimes, it’s best to put yourself first and to go after what you want and need; there’s nothing wrong with making yourself a priority. She can take up space and demand respect and she won’t burst into flames for it. Mickey teaches him that, sometimes, you learn more about those you care about and the world by sitting back, observing, and letting others take the spotlight every once in a while; that being more empathetic and less self absorbed also serves you in a fulfilling way.

They meet at the Palm Woods (if I were to stick this anywhere in canon, it’d be near the tail end of season 2 I think. BTQuads would replace BTGirl Group. This is after retconning and fixing some things in BTQ considering I wrote that 11 years ago; if I rewrote it now I’d do it a little differently. Or maybe it would be somewhere near the beginning of the season as it’s own “episode”. I’m still figuring this out.) He flirts and she resists which comes across as him being a nuisance and her being a doormat; she doesn’t indulge but she doesn’t stop it either (hello?? a cute guy flirting and noticing her? she wasn’t going to let that go right away, even if she is being selfish about it and leading him on to a degree). And since he doesn’t have a stop sign in his face, he keeps toeing the line. Yeah, there are other girls he could be trying to win their favor, and he could do so easily, but there’s something about her not falling for it that makes him try harder.

She’s not perfect. She starts off with a very biased/judgy way of thinking of him: he’s nothing more than a pretty face, a good voice, and a skirt chaser. So the moments he is a nice, sweet, and thoughtful guy she brushes off like it’s a fluke. It takes her friends pointing out to her she’s kind of being a bitch to see how she acts towards him, first taking more offense to the accusation than the what they’re actually saying. She is justified, however, because the only time he talks to her, really, is when he’s hitting on her. She allows it to continue because she has a hard time saying no and, honestly from the beginning, she thinks it’s a joke. Because why would someone so out of her league be into her? Plus, it’s not like it will last. But it does. Eventually she reaches her wits end and tears him a new one, basically stating that he knows nothing about her and he needs to knock it off.

It works and he backs off. At first he changes out of spite. (You say I know nothing about you? Fine! I’ll learn everything I can and show you that I do! So there!) He sits back and he watches her rituals and habits and he listens, learning about her likes and dislikes. He even keeps a list of them; much like his James’ Things to Do B-4 20 List. Only this one is filled with her hobbies and interests and disinterest and the smallest thing he could think of that involves her opinion. Through keeping the list he really does end up learning more about her and having more things to talk to her about where they, eventually (and with Carlos as a tether), become friends and he sees her as a person and not a prize to be won.

It also helps with their paths crossing a lot due to being part of his backing band and going along with the schemes he and his friends get themselves involved in on a daily basis. Her loving hockey always wins her points in his book (though she prefers to watch rather than play.) They can hang out and chill and talk to each other without expecting something out of it. (And he flirts sometimes, he can’t just turn it off, but that doesn’t make his comments about liking her hair or her looking gorgeous in a dress any less honest.) At that point it’s just James being James and who was she to make him change? He takes her as she is, quiet, hesitant, shy, over-thinker and all, she can take him for all his faults too.

It’s that line of thought which brings them to the point where they eventually feel safe with one another to open up and be vulnerable about their insecurities, which end up being similar in sentiment: they both want someone to put them first. James doesn’t have the best relationships with his parents, his mom was absent emotionally and his dad splits his time chasing after his washed up rockstar dreams and keeping his younger wife happy. They didn’t give him attention so he decided to give it to himself; he pumps himself up, dresses well, overstates his talents (though he can back it up), and makes himself a priority, No one else did so why not himself? But he’s tired and, for once, he wouldn’t mind someone else putting in the effort. Being a quadruplet, Mickey is used to sharing: space, attention, gifts, classes, a birthday, anything and everything. She comes as a set. And while she shies away from unwanted attention, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want things to be about her sometimes. She doesn’t know how to ask for it, instead curling in on herself, falling in line, and boosting others and their wants and needs and dreams thinking, one day, someone will do the same for her. There’s an odd sort of loneliness she feels being a quad and not knowing how to have an outside identity, wanting that attention but not feeling it’s right to want it. So she sits back and goes with the flow; it’s all she’s ever known.

It’s when Mickey sees James as the nice, driven, focused, sweet, funny, loyal, talented, understanding, and accepting guy he is her feelings for him change. She has a hard time grappling with them, not sure if she likes him or the undivided attention he gives her. Also, she has a habit of sabotaging good things for herself (a fact her sisters and aunt Kelly point out a lot). James is out of her league, why would she want to let him in if he’s only going to end up realizing the same thing and move onto the next thing? (On the other end, James thinks she’s out of his league; she’s smart, caring, funny, creative, supportive, selfless, thoughtful, and a badass on the bass.) She blinds herself to the fact that, ever since he met her, he’s never moved on.

Not even when he chased after Lucy. Lucy was a distraction to him not wanting to confront something he doesn’t know how to handle: actual feelings. Lucy always turned him down; he expected it, he knew the outcome, it was easy and safe. He couldn’t get hurt by a friend he wasn’t entirely invested in (I want to be clear here they are friends, unlike the show I have reasons as to why Lucy is friends with them and is involved more than just to be a love interest. My wording is directed that he’s not entirely invested in chasing after her, it being a front and him slipping into what he knows more than anything). He could get hurt by Mickey. She’s his best friend (well one of them, Carlos would hate to be bumped from his best bud ranking) and, if things went wrong, their friendship could get ruined too. He couldn’t risk that.

So they’re wishy-washy, coming closer and backing away at the last minute, admiring one another from afar, pretending their gazes aren’t being held a little too long or their smiles shine a little brighter in one another’s company. James is on uneven ground for the first time in his life; he always knows the right thing to say, never gets nervous, and can hold his own but Mickey can bowl him over. And while it sends him spiraling he also dips his toe into the uncharted waters. Eventually he gets fed up with her going back and forth and lays it all on the line, letting his feelings out, very plainly, and puts the ball in her court. Maybe she actually likes him, maybe she doesn’t. But she does and it takes her a little longer to accept she does, that she’s allowed to have someone who ticks off all her boxes, that she’s allowed to be happy. So she sends a plant to share her feelings instead; words come easier to her on paper than spoken aloud. And he’s shocked at first; while he hoped she felt the same way a larger part of him had convinced himself he was chasing after a lost cause. But they’re finally on the same page and he doesn’t want to mess it up.

In fact, he tries a little too hard to be the perfect boyfriend. Overeager as he his, he pulls out her chairs only for her to fall flat to the ground when he does so too hard, he spills drinks he bought on her, he tries to make her cookies only for them to be rock-solid hockey pucks that nearly break her teeth (he probably should have learned baking soda can’t be substituted with actual soda), he tries to hold open the door for her only to hit her in the face, he tries to buy her flowers only to wind up being allergic to them. It’s his first real relationship (the three days with Selana don’t count), he has to be the best at it. He’s always the best. To save herself form more bodily harm, Mickey ends up snapping him out of it and they both realize they’re scared of what it means to be with someone else and be in a relationship (it’s her first relationship too) and be committed so they agree that it would be easier to be scared together.

As eager as James is, he lets Mickey take the lead. So she’s the one to kiss him first, she’s the one to initiate holding hands and hugging and cuddling, she’s usually the first to lean into him if she needs grounding or reassurance; forehead touching and nuzzling are her go-tos. If it were up to him he’d pack on the PDA any chance he could get; she’d rather keep the bigger displays behind closed doors.

They view their separate loves, music and cooking, similarly: the end result, the way music or food brings people together and makes memories that last and touches people, as a driving force in putting their all into their craft. Even if being a rockstar wasn’t her dream and even if he doesn’t cook, they understand that feeling of supplying for others and being an escape.

Their relationship isn’t free from its bumps. James is more open with his words and intentions so he communicates well but Mickey is more guarded on that front; she tends to put forth her effort into her actions and showing how she cares so he is taken care of. Sometimes he takes advantage of it but he learns fast to tell her how much he appreciate her while she learns to verbally communicate her feelings better. Sometimes she doesn’t mind he’s self-absorbed, he can talk about himself all he wants while she can sit back and listen. But there are other moments she wants to pull her hair out because it wouldn’t kill him to ask her how she’s doing. Sometimes he wants her to be more firm, to be confident and make a choice rather than let others take the lead for her; other times he basks in her relying on him to navigate certain situations.

They date for a while, part ways, and then get back together in the future after learning more about themselves and what they want in a partner. In the end, opposites attract hit them hard and, like opposing poles on a magnet, will always bring them back to each other. (Plus, as James points out, Mickey Diamond has a nice rockstar ring to it. Pun intended.)

#mickames #mickey x james #again this is mostly for me but if anyone has any thoughts i wouldn't mind talking about them #glad i can finally dump this from my brain #i may write all this into a fic one day. it'd be a slow burn for sure #big time rush oc #james diamond #mickey mason

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 3 years ago

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Speak No Evil (Part 40) - Story 2

It all falls apart the next day. Azula had thought that perhaps she would last a day or even a half a day longer. That things wouldn't get so emotionally brutal so startlingly fast.

It began, as many things do, with the petty discomforts. Upon waking she was greeted by a cluster of snickering spirits bearing their ugly little phosphorescent teeth. It is not yet light out, the sky is still a deeper shade of blue and the canopy lets the night linger on longer than it otherwise would. But Azula doesn't need the light to know what mischief has the spirits in such a state of amusement. When she sits up her hair, horribly knotted brushes against her back, shoulders, and biceps. Tangled quite deliberately in her licks are twigs, dead palm fronds, and whatever other little piece of debris that they could find.

She likes to think that she might have handled things better if her mood hadn’t been soiled the moment she’d woken up. She likes to think that she would have been more agreeable, easier to tolerate. But she is certain, deep down, that she is just like this and that she will always be like this. That regardless of the spirits, things would have ended exactly as they just have; with she on her own and dwelling upon the events leading up to this.

She wonders if they are looking for her or if they have already solemnly agreed that this is what is for the best. Perhaps they are well on their way back home, leaving her as just one more misery of the past.

Of course, she won’t be reduced only to a bad memory if she manages to make it out of this jungle and back to the palace alive. All she has left to do is push forward, she can’t imagine that the spirit is too far now. And now that she is alone it may be more inclined to approach her.

As she walks, she continues trying to pick the leaves and twigs from her hair. She is beginning to think, with a queasiness, that she will have to cut it. And maybe it is for the best, she doesn’t feel a though she has earned long hair.

Agni, how had she let herself become this?

She is so, so alone. Even when she had companionship she was alone. Deep down she hopes that they are worried about her. She doesn’t hold her breath on that. Perhaps, though, Seicho is worried--worried that she has found herself a new volcano.

Sometimes she wonders if she should be seeking one out, or something like it…

She squeezes her eyes shut.

She has to keep pushing forward. Against the jungle, against her mind, against herself.

And try as she may, she can’t stop replaying the day.

.oOo.

“Try to hold still.”

She gives it her best effort but she can’t help but to flinch when TyLee plucks strands of her hair out alongside some of the larger twigs. Apparently her utter distress upon waking was enough to wash away the argument of the day before She imagines that Mai gets a kick out of each and every wince even if it doesn’t show on her face.

“I got one!” Seicho grins. She holds up the stick and twirls it between her fingers. “It’s kind of shaped like an S!” She declares. “S for Seicho.” She mumbles.

Azula manages a half smile. For just a short span of time, she thinks that her day might not be so horrible. She truly wishes that it had been horrible from the start. Maybe then she wouldn’t have gotten her hopes up. “Hmm…” TyLee mumbles, “this looks like it’s going to be tricky.” Her fingers work to untangle a palm frond. And Azula’s tummy tickles, it has been so very long since TyLee has afforded her any affectionate gestures. Spirits, she has been so deprived. So ravenous for touch. She thinks of Seicho; she feels horrid for thinking as much but the woman had been just a raindrop on her tongue as she dehydrated in a desert.

After a few more minutes of picking and toying, Azula sighs, “we should probably come back to this later, I’d like to make some progress today.”

“Ugg, yes please.” Mai grumbles. “Standing in one place is tortured. The bugs have all found me.” Zuko accentuates her point by slapping at his own cheek and cringing.

Much to her dismay she finds that the newly reconciled couple had been correct. It is swelteringly hot and the insects are coming in swarms. Biting and sucking until Azula’s skin twitches even in their absence.

From the look of it, the rest of her party isn’t particularly comfortable either.

The sheen of sweat on her skin only seems to be drawing more bugs in and her head feels so heavy under the added weight of knots, twigs, and leaves. Her feet hurt and her mouth is running dry and she can’t even make conversation to pass the time as Zuzu and Mai do. She tries to focus on Seicho’s chatter, mostly nonsensical musings with a coherent story or two.

Azula hovers around TyLee but the woman has gone back to mostly ignoring her. She thinks that arguments are significantly worse now; it is both easier for her to ignore people and to be ignored. And right now she yearns to speak up. To ask what is on TyLee’s mind. She doesn’t dare put her hands on the woman even if it is only to simply capture her attention. She can’t do it, not even a gentle tap, not after everything. Likely it will take more than a gentle tap to get the attention she craves anyhow.

The longer she walks in silence and rejection, the crankier she becomes. While Mai and Zuko fawn over each other and Seicho and TyLee bond, she dwells on the aching in her feet and thighs. And then she begins to dwell on how much she is beginning to resent Seicho. Seicho and her quirky optimism and her fun stories. How she is starting to loathe her pretty face and her extraordinary kindness. It is everything TyLee needs and deserves and more. Spirits, they have already grown so close in only a few days.

She ruminates on it, speculates on whether this was her way of getting back at Azula for rejecting her or if she truly is that naive.

The smile that once saved her now elicates a burning hatred, a silent seething, and a feeling of isolation and betrayal.

Though she finds she isn’t alone for long.

No, the spirits rather enjoy her company. They find it quite fun to tug on her ears and leave little claw marks upon her skin. They bite her enough to ward the bugs off and her loathing only swells in her chest. And none of them seem to notice. So minor are her battle wounds that they don’t realize she is being attacked.

No one ever seems to realize when she is in pain nor how terribly she aches.

No one but Seicho who is now too invested in TyLee to care.

Obliviousness, is as vexing as pointed offenses.

They finally come to a stop in a little clearing by a stream. Azula sits down and dabs the sweat off of her forehead and wipes the blood from her cheeks and arms. She is such a mess and no one cares. No one…

“Do you want something to snack on?” Zuko offers. His brows furrow, “what happened?”

She picks up a stick and scrawls in the dirt, ‘you and Mai got bug bites, I got spirits…’

TyLee’s lips press into a thin line and before she can look away Azula scrawls, ‘why won’t you talk to me? You were this morning.’

“Because I’m still not happy about yesterday.” She confesses. “You still treat people who care about you like they don’t matter.”

Azula’s stomach lurches. They do matter to her. They matter enough that it tears her up. They matter so much that she begrudges them when she stops mattering to them.

“Seicho has been nothing but nice to you and she’s been so wonderful to me and you just say mean things to her.”

Azula shakes her head. ‘I say nice things to her. Maybe you would know if you had been there.’ Even without her voice she still says regrettable things. She is certain that TyLee had read it before she’d managed to kick the message away.

“Maybe I would have been there if I felt like it would have made a difference.”

She truly isn’t used to TyLee showing so many teeth. She really is a lot bolder now. Perhaps she should have let the woman continue to ignore her. The spirits giggle and whisper--at least she can make someone happy.

‘It would have. I need someone…’

“Not me.” TyLee says before she can finish. “My destiny isn’t to fix you and your problems.” She takes a deep breath. “Sometimes I want to Azula, but I can’t.”

‘Please don’t be mad at me.’ She underlines ‘please’, points at it even. But TyLee only shakes her head. She taps the stick against please once more. And with somewhat unsteady hands she adds, ‘I’m sorry, Ty.’

TyLee looks away.

This time she finds the courage to reach out. She cups TyLee’s cheek as gently and affectionately as she knows how. But TyLee only takes a step back and then she begins walking away altogether. Azula reaches out and takes her by the wrist, face twisted in distress. TyLee yanks her hand free, “don’t touch me, Azula. Please, don’t.”

Azula points at the apology.

TyLee only shakes her head again. “That’s not good enough, Azula.”

‘Then what is?’

“I...I don’t know.”

“Maybe you could try…” Seicho starts.

‘You stay out of this!’ Azula writes with a speed and force that nearly snaps the stick. ‘You’ve done enough!’

“Don’t treat her like that, Azula!” TyLee half-whines, half-yells. “Don’t...don’t treat her like you used to treat me. You don’t get it do you?”

But she thinks that she does. Too late, she realizes that TyLee has seen herself in Seicho. She has seen their old relationship in the one that she is forming with Seicho. And, for the first time, she considers that Seicho has been sacrificing a lot of herself just to keep Azula going.

She swallows hard. Truth be told, she isn’t sure what her driving emotion is. But it is either anger and frustration, despair and hopelessness, or shame and guilt that has compelled her to throw the stick down, sling her pack over her shoulder, and take off without a parting message.

“Azula, wait!” She hears Zuko call and then a murmur from Mai, “just let her go.”

He calls out again regardless. But she doesn’t listen. This is her journey anyways, her mess, her burden. She was probably meant to face it alone.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #TyLee #TyZula #Fanfiction

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lia-jones · 4 years ago

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Growing Pains - Chapter One - Despite You, I’ll Be Happy

I watched as the sunlight played with the curtains at the office. It revealed the dust floating in the air, reflecting itself in it, making it seem like little angels had come to visit. For two whole seconds, I allowed myself to believe that was true, and that I was being blessed, protected. But I turned again to my darkest thoughts, and those were telling me I was beyond any blessing. I was broken, and only a miracle could put the pieces all together into something that made actual sense. My therapist woke me up from my stupor.

“Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Dust and angels.” I replied, not thinking too much before I answered. She would find a hidden meaning in my words, no matter what I said. “That I’m beyond repair.”

“Andrea, what happened does not define you. You need to remember that at all times. It can severely injure you, physically and emotionally, but it can’t change you. Not unless you let it.”

I laughed bitterly. Of course it defined me. Emotional and verbal abuse is all about changing the conception of one’s self, to tear it to pieces, to make it drown it bloody sorrow. And even if I could disengage from that hopeless feeling, even if I could be stronger, which I was clearly not able to, there was a mark, hidden yet apparently visible to the public eye, the one of the weak battered girlfriend. That mark was carved in me, unwilling to heal and fade away.

Even if I could overcome abuse, even if I could become stronger, I still had to deal with that. Always having someone look at me like I was going to break at any minute, walking on eggshells around me, developing feelings of pity and compassion, instead of respect. That defined me and defined how the world saw me. The abuse I had gone through was my Mark of Cain.

“Are you still going to your Krav Maga lessons? Are they helpful?”

“Yes.”

“How do you feel when you go? Do you feel empowered?”

“Mostly angry. Infuriated.”

“And why do you feel that?”

“I wish I could punch him instead. I wish I could do to him what he did to me. I want payback.”

“Do you know what’s the best payback you can have?” My therapist came closer to me, and held my hand. Was it pity? The question made my eyes water.

“Death penalty?” I joked, mostly to disguise my incoming tears.

“You make him see he’s meaningless. Be happy, despite him.” She paused, like she was carefully choosing the words, and then she softly smiled at me. “One of these days, Andrea, you'll see he can no longer hurt you, you have taken that power from him, but that will only happen when you allow yourself to be happy again. I’m sure that you will find amazing things about yourself, things you didn’t even know existed.”

I let one or two tears leave my eyes, and no more than that. I was tired of crying.

“Your mother says you got accepted for an internship at a prestigious investment company overseas, is that right?”

“Yes, in Loveland, for Loveland Financial Group. I need an internship to finish my doctorate.”

“So, when are you going?”

“I’m not sure I should do it.” Just the very thought of embarking on that sort of journey made my stomach tighten.

“Why not?”

“Not very interested. Not excited. Not ready.”

“I think you should. You keep complaining people look differently at you here. In Loveland, people won’t know. It could give you the space you need to heal. Plus, it will get your mother out of your hair.”

Later that night, I took from my bag the green notebook I had bought on my way home. Ceremoniously, I opened it, and wrote on the first page in red letters.

Dear asshole,

Thank you for making me not care for my life at all. I hope you fall on your face and break every beautiful porcelain tooth you have.

Fuck you,

Andrea

I paused, looking at the venom I had spread on that page. I thought about what the therapist said about moving to Loveland. A brand new start. A place where I could be just Andrea, and not Andrea the abused girlfriend. Or Daniel’s girlfriend, the girlfriend of the boy wonder. I could prove to myself and others that I was strong enough to overcome it. And my family would be relieved to see me do something for myself, to start a new life, and they could finally relax. I could make them proud.

These thoughts sparked something inside of me that I couldn’t figure out at the moment, maybe it was hope. I took the notebook and wrote a few more words, closing it with determination. On the first page, in red, one could read:

Dear asshole,

Thank you for making me not care for my life at all. I hope you fall on your face and break every beautiful porcelain tooth you have.

Fuck you,

Andrea

PS: Now just sit and watch while I turn it all around. I get to be happy, even if it is in spite of you.

________________________________________________________________

Two months later

My phone rang while I was brushing my teeth, getting ready to leave the house. I pushed my toothbrush to the side of my cheek and checked the phone. It was my mother.

I ran to the bathroom sink to spit the toothpaste and rinse my mouth before I answered the phone.

“Andy, you’re on speaker. Getting ready for the interview?” My mother asked. I could clearly hear my father and my brother in the background.

“Josh is there too?” I asked, surprised. It should be around 11 pm on the previous day in Portugal.

“Yes, and Cristina too. She’s just putting Ana to sleep. So tell me, what are you wearing? Did you see the outfit I packed for you?”

I looked at the teal neck boat dress on my bed, smiling.

“Yes, Mom, thank you.”

“I think it will go really well with your peacock…”

“Bracelet, yes, I know. It’s right here.” I twirled the peacock pendant in my hands. The peacock’s wings were adorned with blue and green crystals, that glistened in the sunlight coming from my window as I moved it.

“Good luck, honey. We all love you. We are so very proud of you.” I could hear my mother’s throat catch in this last sentence.

“Sure. I love you guys.”

“LOVE YOU, ANDY!” I could hear my father and brother from afar.

After hanging up, I put on my dress and went to the bathroom to fix my hair. I had wished I had straight hair my whole life, because my hair had a life of its own. I loved the color, it was light brown with natural golden highlights, but it wasn’t exactly curly and it wasn’t exactly straight, it had these soft waves that would look nice on most days, making beautiful curls at the tips, but there were other times my hair would just decide to stay frizzy, no matter what I did. That day was a frizzy day, so I just made a ponytail and applied some styling foam, hoping it would be at least acceptable, and not look like a broom.

After careful consideration, and reminding myself of the hot weather outside, I applied almost no makeup, just the enough amount to conceal the dark circles under my eyes. Some lip balm, and that was it.

When I arrived at LFG, the hall was full of people, probably interns like me. I went to the reception to give my name.

After a while, a man with brown hair and brown eyes framed with glasses came to me, shaking my hand.

“Good morning, my name is Henry Goldman. Are you Miss Jones?” I nodded with a smile. “Good. Please follow me to the conference room. The CEO will meet us there.”

We both sat in a huge conference room with a big glass table, with some silver ornaments decorating the center of it. It had a professional and minimalistic decoration, the floor was made of black marble, and the walls behind and in front of me were made of frosted glass. There was a huge screen on one of the other walls, that were painted in light grey, probably to show documents during meetings, while the other wall bared LFG logo, in silver letters.

Goldman sat across from me, slightly to my right side, holding some documents. We sat awkwardly in silence, while he flipped through the pages. After a while, he started to fidget. Seeing him so nervous, my palms started to sweat, and I took a tissue from my purse to clean them, trying to calm my nerves. I didn’t really know what I was so worried about, I had already been accepted, this was just a formality.

“Mr. Lee should be arriving at any moment.” He said, nervously.

“I can wait. Don’t worry.” I used the calmest voice I could muster, to see if I could make him relax. The man was making me jittery.

“Actually…” He got up, seemingly unsure that he should. “I better check…. Could you hold on for a second…” He opened the door and looked outside, but saw something that made him quickly shut the door and bolt to his chair. I remembered when I was a child and the class was rowdy, waiting for the teacher in the classroom, and how we ran to our seats when we saw the teacher approaching. I bet my life that’s how I looked like back then.

A tall man entered the room, wearing a charcoal suit, black shirt and silver tie. His expression was grim and cold. Without a word, he sat next to Goldman, facing me. Goldman got up, smiling widely, and introduced us:

“Andrea, this is Victor Lee, our honored CEO. Victor, this is Andrea Jones, our new-”

“Quit the idle pleasantries and get me some coffee.”

I was surprised by his tone and quick dismissal, but tried to maintain a neutral face. Goldman turned to me to ask if I wanted coffee, looking more agitated than before. I shook my head immediately. By that time, the CEO had already grabbed the files Goldman left on the table and was skimming through them silently, his expression impatient.

I was left alone with him, trying not to look very nervous. I started playing with the peacock on my wrist.

“Why LFG?” The CEO asked, breaking the silence and my trance. I noticed his eyes for the first time, wondering what color they were exactly. Black? Grey?

“I’m sorry?” I was clearly distracted and wasn’t expecting him to start like this. He sighed and asked again, his voice dripping annoyance.

“Why did you choose to apply here?” He spoke purposefully slowly, like I was too dumb to understand. “You’re from Portugal, why choose a place so distant?”

I tried not to roll my eyes at his insult, acting the most professional I could. Remember to relax, Andrea. Believe in your qualities. The job is already yours.

“LFG is one of the most prestigious and high quoted investment companies on the market almost since its birth. I already have experience in investment companies, now I want to learn from the very best. The distance is just a happy coincidence. I appreciate the change of scenery.”

His grey eyes turned to my brown ones, holding the gaze fiercely.

“Do you know why LFG holds such a high place on the market?”

“I can imagine. High standards, an eye for business, and hard work.” I said, trying to look confident.

“You have an impeccable resume, so much that I had to confirm its veracity. Every teacher and employee I have contacted has only the best to say about you, how hard-working and bright you are. And I am pleased with your attitude. I just need a last piece of information.”

“Yes, Sir?”

“Last year, you seemed to be inactive. No work, no studies.”

“I’ve had some health issues. I’d rather not go into details, but all is well now and I don’t expect any problems in the future.”

“Very well. The job is yours.”

I blinked at him.

“Wasn’t that decided already?”

The CEO looked me in the eye, his eyes cold.

“I hope you understand the opportunity that’s being presented to you. A golden ticket. Did you notice the crowd of people at the entrance?”

“The new interns?” I asked, confused.

“The people that are after your job, and that I will have to turn down. Do not disappoint me.”

And without any other word, he left the room, forgetting about the files, forgetting about the coffee.

And I sat there, my mind foggy with the interaction. And apparently, I forgot to walk.

#Growing Pains - Series #growingpains #victor mlqc #victor x oc #mlqc #mlqc li zeyan #love and producer

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linkspooky · 5 years ago

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What are your top 5 Tokyo Ghoul characters?

I love to talk about how much I love my faves. If you ever ask want to ask me who my faves are for a series feel free to send me an ask.

1. Who do you Fight for? - Koori Ui

Seidou has the best character growth, but my undisputed favorite just in terms of character in Tokyo Ghoul has been Ui. What I like about Ui is that he hides all of the good things about him, and shows all of his most unlikable qualities on the surface. He’s jealous, spiteful, vindictive and far too judgemental on the other people around him. He basically acts like a hardass who has no friends because his entire life is his work.

But then once you actually get to know Ui as a character, you understand the profound sense of loneliness that affects him and all of his actions. The reason Ui acts so impersonally and even looks down on others so much is because he’s a soldier in a brutal and terrible war that has caused him to cauterize all of his emotional wounds with the burnt end of his cigarette in order to try to continue living.

Ui cares so deeply, but he never lets that caring show because he’s afraid of those feelings. He’s actually the most emotional character in the cast, the most sincere, the most deeply invested, but he is so afraid to let those feelings out of him because they will completely destroy him.

The most intersting thing about Ui’s character is that they do, we see his own grief destroy him. We see his mind deteriorate with loss after loss. Yet, Ui is so self aware in an ugly and visceral way of exactly what kind of terrible person he is, and the awful things he’s doing that he never stops being relatable evne in the middle of his descent to hell.

Ui can’t properly love other people, but he’d willingly walk into hell for the sake of the people he loves. And in the end, unlike Kaneki and Amon who are blind to their own selfishness, Ui admits he was doing it for himself, and his own grief. Ui’s selflessness, and his deep connection to others has the opposite effect, it does not make him a good person it drives him insane and makes him more selfish. His empathy is not a magic fix-it-all glue that makes others love him, it’s a trait that actively harms him for caring.

2. Hurry up and Die, Hurry up! - Hairu Ihei

It’s obvious that Hairu is one of my faves, she’s the other half of my all time OTP for this series. What I love about Hairu is the opposite about what I love with Ui. Ui cares too much, whereas Hairu only cares about herself. She’s physically incapable of caring about others, at least not in normal ways.

Which is why she’s such a perfect example fo what happens to children in the garden. They are all of them, broken and unable to ever be fixed, and all of them trying to live in this broken, half formed state. Hairu thinks that love is the magic glue that will fix her and lives her entire life for the sake of that love. She literally murders people en-masse because she believes that will get her a little more praise.

What is so interesting about Hairu is how affection starved she is. Literally, one person comforting her by patting her on the head once earns him her lifetime devotion. She lives and dies for the person who showed her the bare minimum of affection.

Hairu is literally off in her world because she can’t uderstand people. She can’t emotionally connect to them, because she’s broken and she’s about to hit her expiration date as well. And we see this in her character, how desperate she is to connect, and yet at the same time how distant she is from others and how little empahty she has for their pain. Hairu is brutal, she slaughters people, she plays around with them like a cat playing with their food, she could not care less about the suffering of ghouls if it gets her what she wants. But she’s so driven to that point by desperation to be loved, not geniune malice.

She’s in her own world and doesn’t understand people’s feelings because she’s always been alone, but everything she does to try to escape being alone only isolates her further until it all ends on her at once. A perfect princess, Hairu Ihei’s tower collapses on her and her head is crushed underneath a falling rock.

3. I would dream of that day, saving you guys, making me a hero - Seidou Takizawa

Seidou’s character is someone I admire for how relatable they are for all of their faults, but also how strong they are for constantly grappling with those faults. In a manga where characters constantly run away from who they are and their uglier sides, Seidou is completely honest with himself and knows the terrible things he’s done. He’s introduced as a selfish, entitled little brat, but then we see him actively get punished for that by being given everything he wants. He gets to be a special person like Juzou and Akira, he gets to be strong like them, he loses everything like them and it drives him completely insane.

Seidou is a walking inferiority complex, and he’s also someone who genuinely wants to be a better person so he can help the people around him. He genuinely desired to do good and be a hero. Seidou stays true to both of these traits at once, even when he flips from human to ghoul. They are both essential to the core of who he is.

What’s interesting about Seidou is he’s constantly fighting himself, because he thinks he’s so unworthy of the other people around him. He’s self destructive and always puts himself down, but his feelings of caring for others eventually become so sefless. He loves other people while being aware of their flaws, and aware of their own flaws.

And constantly confronting himself, his own trauma, and the terrible things he’s done like this is something that only hurts him, isolates him, and drives him insane but he’s the one who decided to live that way and he follows through until the end. No character is more human because Takizawa actually owns up to his human flaws and is constantly facing with them and deciding to live with them.

4. I hate all of them. Everyone go die, everyone drop dead. - Urie Kuki

Urie is such a bad person, and that’s such a sexy trait to have in a character. I don’t think people who like Urie grasp what a terrible person he is, and really that’s such a shame they’re missing out on all the fun. It’s not just that he’s mean to Sasaki, or verbally dismissive of others. Urie is two-faced, he secretly despises and looks down on everyone. Urie is a child soldier raised in an abusive system, and espite being a victim of that system he has no awareness at all of how much the system victimizes people and devotes all of himself to rising to the top of that system. He actively abuses and endangers the other people around him constantly to rise to the top of that system.

Urie is so selfish that everything he does in the end is for himself. His strength is to protect his weak self, his hatred for others is to keep them at a distance because he feels constant inferiority to them. Even when he tries to protect others, it’s because he doesn’t want to have to confront feelings of loss ever again.

Urie is just such a terrible person at handling his own little weak emotions, that he always buries them so deep and gets surprised when he goes berserk and lashes out on everyone around him. He’s not strong or even a particularly good leader, he’s a pitiful coward who can’t even have the smallest of humna conversations or confrontations with Mutsuki out of paralyzing fear of losing them.

His entire identity has been based around this oppressive system and because of it, Urie is utterly destroyed as a person. He’s just a total human failure. Which makes him my type of man.

5. “People who need reasons to do things are just trash” - Furuta Nimura

Furuta Nimura is the main character of the tragedy, the hero that tragically falls at the end. Nimura was born in the center of the tragedy, and let himself become as ugly as the world around him. But yet until the end he always used that ugliness in himself to fight against it, rather than succumbing to it.

Nimura is paradoxically, one of the most selfish, violent and cruel characters we see in the series, and yet he does not do a single thing for himself, and everything he does is for the sake of a peace which he himself never expected to live to see.

Furuta is a terrible person who does terrible things, but he’s also actively aware of this in everything he does. He’s so painfully aware that it crushes his identity and he has to live as something other than human, to continaully wear masks and hide himself in order to just survive. He chose to be the villain instead of the hero because that’s what the world needed him to be.

What destroys Furuta in the end is the human side he repressed, because he never allowed himself to be human. Not only that but the world around him would never allow him to be either since the day he was born. He’s a child soldier planning a double suicide with the world. He takes all of the ugliness he has witnessed and throws it back in the face of others. There’s no character driven by more powerful, darker emotions than Furuta, and start to finish his tragedy is the backbone fo the entire story. He’s the strongest connecting thread, which makes him a character as ugly, painful and complex as the world around him.

But that’s all just a joke. He’s actually just a memelord without feelings. There’s no way he’s actually sad about his life, he’s too busy laughing at others.PS: Laugh, it’s fun!

#furuta nimura #seidou takizawa #hairu ihei #spooky speaks #urie kuki #koori ui #metasks #Anonymous

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hstott · 5 years ago

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Holst’s “The Planets” and WKM Characters

Here we go people! Prepare yourself to read a lot of nerdy comparisons :)

For this, I decided to focus on the main characters that don’t include the DA.

Mars, the Bringer of War- The Chef There were many characters that I considered for this role (The Detective, The Colonel, and especially Mark), but the person that exudes the most amount of hostility toward the DA is the Chef. His tone is very pugnacious, and he frequently chops up meat quite aggressively. I believe that the famous underlying cadence pattern in Mars sounds quite a bit like chopping. He doesn’t like anyone in his kitchen, and prepares to fight them if someone is there. He doesn’t trust anyone, so he has his Little Buddy. Like Mars, the Chef is very loud and forceful. He habitually curses people out, as well as just cursing frequently in general. The Chef hides important information about the Groundskeeper, and argues with the Detective frequently. He is prideful in his decision to hide the information, like the pride expressed in the movement. The Chef leaves shouting furiously, just like how Mars ends with the very loud sustained notes.

Venus, the Bringer of Peace- Damien Poor, sweet Damien. He just wanted to be with all of his friends again. The tender tone of Venus is quite thoughtful, like Damien is. Damien calms the DA when he sees them at first: calling them “old friend”, asking about their new office, and giving them gentle smiles. Venus is about affection and love, which can be shown platonically or otherwise. He helps the DA after they are punched, expressing great concern. One can also presume that he wants the best for his city, and that he cares about the peace. When he finds out that Mark is dead, he is immediately heartbroken. Although he then argues with the Colonel, he then later regrets it. The tone of Venus can be quite solemn and regretful. He fully trusts the DA, and typically trusts the Colonel. Progressing on with the story, Damien snaps more and more out of frustration from losing a loved one. He supports Celine, and tries to protect her, not wanting to see another close friend get hurt. He also settles the groundskeeper argument between the Detective and the Chef by stating that their arguing will get them nowhere. Venus is about trying to keep the peace. When the DA sees Damien and Celine after they die, Damien is truly angry, but then persuades the DA to trust them, promising to fix the situation at hand. When we see Damien/Dark at the end, he seems very angry. I believe that he is angry at Mark, for making him take his dear friend’s body, for forcing him to manipulate his companion, and trapping them in the mirror for all of eternity. After all, he just wanted his dear friends to be together, and he had that ripped away from him, so he then must go against his original morals, and hunt the one friend that he used to trust the most. He used to always say that “life is ours to choose”, but then went to being “forced” to become the villain. One could think that Damien goes from Venus, the Bringer of Peace, but then morphs into Mars, the Bringer of War. This is especially true within Mark’s video, “Damien”. He goes from trying his best to keep the peace, to becoming the villain that Mark so desperately wanted. But even then, he just wants to help his sister, and tries to make things right. Very interesting…

Mercury, the Winged Messenger- Benjamin the Butler I feel as this one may be quite obvious and literal. Every time we see the Butler, he always is quite sudden with his return, which corresponds to the liveliness of Mercury. I find it very interesting that near the beginning of Mercury, a bell is heard, not unlike one used to summon a butler. He also almost always brings something to the DA, whether it be champagne, seltzer with cocaine, or even “important” information. At first, Benjamin seems quite exuberant and lively. Then he begins to deteriorate as his master was murdered. He tries his best to help the DA throughout the investigation, until he must abandon the manor and take his leave.

Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity- The Colonel The Colonel has always been an eccentric, according to Damien. He is always quite courteous towards the DA, but not as much toward the Detective. The Colonel is very prideful. He is exuberant, even during the mystery of Mark’s death, joking around and being sarcastic. He tries his best to stay away from the investigation, going as far as to go swimming and golfing to avoid Damien and the Detective. He further tries to stay away from everyone but the DA. At the end, he fully believes that this is all a joke, and that he didn’t kill anyone, which he exclaims loudly over and over. In Wilford Motherloving Warfstache, Wilford still firmly believes that he is not a murderer. He is very happy to see “Dave”, and asks about “his wife”. He doesn’t seem to mind being kidnapped be the Detective, and continues to try to drink his cocktail. After he finally realizes just who has him, he is extremely happy to see Abe, and expresses melancholy for his friends. He also seems quite contempt with not knowing what is going on. He apologizes to Abe, even going in for a hug. When Abe freaks out about not remembering anything, Wilford comforts him and tries to bring joy to Abe’s life. He tries to help Abe have fun and forget about the murders. Jupiter is quite brash and joyful. There are repetitive motifs, not unlike how the Colonel has his sayings, such as “buoy” and “this is all a joke!”. Jupiter is also very majestic and resplendent, yet noble in nature. Wilford/the Colonel is a perfect comparison. In the second section of Jupiter, the tone seems very wistful, and almost melancholic, not unlike Wil when he sees the photographs of his friends in Abe’s office.

Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age- Abe The Detective This may be a strange title for Abe, but trust me. Abe is very melancholic in nature, spending quite a bit of time reflecting on his past partners. He seems to be stuck in the past, focusing on finding Wilford for presumably many years. Saturn is very heavy-hearted in tone. Saturn is also very patient and prideful. This expresses how Abe is very invested into his work, and is willing to spend a lot of time trying to solve his cases. He takes much pride in his duties. This is shown by his joy when he finally traps Wilford, from finding him in the club, handcuffing him in his car, and then tying him up in his office. In Saturn, there are brief moments of madness, which are focused around time, being projected as clock bells and chimes. Sound familiar? This is exactly like when Abe has his breakdown about not remembering things that he should. Eventually, this calms down, not unlike how Abe accepts the madness that Wilford describes, and starts getting his boogie on.

Uranus, the Magician- Mark Now, you may be wondering, “Shouldn’t Celine be the Magician?”, but on the contrary, she is not the only person that dealt with what may have been “magic”. Uranus deals with magic, and magic may constitute as curses. Mark had repeatedly tried to end his life, but was thwarted by the mystical powers of the house. When Mark invites the others to his poker night, he does it to try to get his revenge, and uses the house’s powers, as well as his curse, to execute it. To differentiate Uranus’ movement versus Neptune’s, one must consider the tone of the section itself. Uranus sounds brash and vengeful within the first few bars. Then the tone shifts to madness, with a hint of playfulness. Mark sounds quite like this as he is introducing the evening’s festivities as he waltzes down his staircase. After all, it isn’t about the poker, it’s about “you”, which includes the guests he is trying to get revenge on. Even joy is heard, as I would think Mark would have as his plan is being thought. As the movement progresses, the tone becomes brasher and more powerful, until it all collapses into quietness. I imagine this as Mark solidifying his actions by killing himself for what is the last time. The tone becomes somewhat solemn, but a deep, uneasy voice is heard lurking underneath the silence. This could connotate the shift of mood of the whole production as a whole, from the mystery of Mark’s death and disappearance of the body, to the DA seeing the true darkness that the house exerts.

Neptune, the Mystic- Celine We know very little about Celine herself; we only know that she is Damien’s twin sister, Mark’s ex-wife, the Colonel’s ex-lover, and that she dabbles with the mystic arts. Neptune represents the unknown, as well as mystery. Celine obviously has mystical powers, that end up joining with the house’s darkness when she has the DA travel their mind to see visions of what they should do. Celine grows more powerful as she uses the house, but then is taken into its darkness, along with Damien. Damien and her both disappear mysteriously. Neptune’s tone, especially with the twinkling bells, reminds one of the stars (like on Celine’s dress), and the unknown that comes with space. The portion with the angelic singing morphs into a very dissonant tone that grows more as time goes on. The music slowly fades away until one is left with nothing. The tone of Neptune is much more serious and steady, rather than the brashness and anger of Uranus’. Celine is very serious when she talks, and she doesn’t try emotionally reflect on what Mark’s death meant, she immediately tries to figure out what mystic forces are at this house. She takes control of the investigation, and everyone that she can persuade. She knows that there is more to this world than what most people know.

Sorry for the long post! Let me know what you think!

Tagging some people that I think might find this interesting:

@blackaquokat @abethedetective @clanwarrior-tumbly @raimeyl @theashofwkm @falseroar @thatonebubblebitch @miaiplier @markired @marksandrec @chelseareferenced

#wkm wilford #wilfordmotherlovingwarfstache #wilford warfstache #markiplier #wkm mark #who killed markiplier #wkm damien #wkm colonel #wkm detective #wkm celine #abe the detective #wkm butler #wkm william #wkm chef #darkiplier #mark egos #wkm #actor mark

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alixofagnia · 5 years ago

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OpheThorn II: A Slightly Less Rambling Analysis

The Missing of Clairdelune is a superb second installment in The Mirror Visitor quartet. We get more of what we loved about the first book, more pieces to the larger existential puzzle, yet it smartly stops short of resolving too much so that we stay invested for the third episode. Christelle Dabos allows herself slightly more exposition. But the novel really succeeds by continuing to follow the less-is-more mantra and the showing vs. telling style.

As you may or may not recall, after I finished A Winter’s Promise, I spent an embarrassing amount of time copy/pasting excerpts from this book into Google Translate with the result that I really did spoil a lot of the OpheThorn parts for myself—which I don’t exactly regret. But, essentially, it left me with a bit less to say. I had a good response to my first OpheThorn analysis (it’s here and thank you for all the kind words), so I did think that I’d like to put something out about Clairdelune as well, I just wasn’t sure what. After some consideration (and a re-read), I do have some more thoughts about OpheThorn.

So, here we go.

[Spoilers included this time]

[All fanart images credited to @patricialyfoung]

Intro

Since Clairdelune begins right where Promise concluded, Ophelia is still pissed at Thorn, while Thorn is still pining for Ophelia albeit in his uniquely aloof way. The only real thing that’s made me scratch my head with them is the severity of Ophelia’s anger/resentment over Thorn having withheld his true ambitions from her and her finding out about them from someone else. I just think it’s a little bit of a weak conflict for them given how pragmatic they are. I get that it’s the culmination of a frustrating situation. But I still think it’s weak.

So, once again the two begin on shaky ground, a space they occupy for the bulk of the novel. They are, at least, together a bit more than before and there’s all sorts of lovely tension, mostly caused by Thorn’s inelegant method of wooing compounded by Ophelia’s stubborn refusal to give him an inch. Thorn’s growing feelings for Ophelia were subtly hinted at in Promise and they become more apparent here, particularly when juxtaposed against Ophelia’s stubborn denial of hers for him.

And I just adore the cover art! Don’t you?

Thorn and Autism Spectrum Disorder

This is what I want to discuss. I may be alone in this, but it seems like Thorn could be coded as having autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It occurred to me while I was reading Promise and this time around, I feel comfortable in taking that perspective on Thorn. I like the notion of applying an ASD reading to his character because it explains a few descriptive quirks and makes him more than a “weirdo” or “freak”, which is reductive labeling. When considering his interactions with other characters and their reactions to him, this reading lends an added layer to his actions and overall development.

But let me make something clear.

This book isn’t about ASD, so I’m not suggesting that Dabos intended to write Thorn as having ASD or is trying to make a statement in any way on the disorder, and I’m cautious about how I use this idea to understand the character. This is purely my own speculation/take on the character.

I also want to be clear that I don’t have any personal experience with the disorder. I’ve met people with autism and ASD and they were all very different from each other and had very different needs. So, I’m largely making connections with textbook examples of ASD and they’re maybe a little bit broad because as I said it isn’t explicitly made clear that Thorn has ASD. I may very likely err in my understanding of this disorder. If that’s the case, I apologize in advance and please do correct me or give me your own opinion on this idea.

Here’s an overview from the webpage of the national institute of mental health:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that affects communication and behavior. Although autism can be diagnosed at any age, it is said to be a “developmental disorder” because symptoms generally appear in the first two years of life. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), a guide created by the American Psychiatric Association used to diagnose mental disorders, people with ASD have:

Difficulty with communication and interaction with other people

Restricted interests and repetitive behaviors

Symptoms that hurt the person’s ability to function properly in school, work, and other areas of life

Autism is known as a “spectrum” disorder because there is wide variation in the type and severity of symptoms people experience. Although ASD can be a lifelong disorder, treatments and services can improve a person’s symptoms and ability to function.

It’s been shown repeatedly that it’s very difficult for Thorn to be an inviting and easy-going person, even with people he cares about. Thorn struggles with communication, is emotionally suppressed, is both uncaring and at times completely unaware of how he presents himself socially, and obsessively consults his pocket watch, particularly when he’s at a loss for words or bored, or otherwise ready to get the hell out of any situation that causes him anxiety. He’s highly intelligent, fixated on order and organization, and has a history (as we know from Promise and learn more about in Clairdelune) of meeting intense emotion with impulsive violence.

Here’s a list (also from the NIMH website) of common symptoms:

Making little or inconsistent eye contact

Tending not to look at or listen to people

Rarely sharing enjoyment of objects or activities by pointing or showing things to others

Failing to, or being slow to, respond to someone calling their name or to other verbal attempts to gain attention

Having difficulties with the back and forth of conversation

Often talking at length about a favorite subject without noticing that others are not interested or without giving others a chance to respond

Having facial expressions, movements, and gestures that do not match what is being said

Having an unusual tone of voice that may sound sing-song or flat and robot-like

Having trouble understanding another person’s point of view or being unable to predict or understand other people’s actions

Repeating certain behaviors or having unusual behaviors. For example, repeating words or phrases, a behavior called echolalia

Having a lasting intense interest in certain topics, such as numbers, details, or facts

Having overly focused interests, such as with moving objects or parts of objects

Getting upset by slight changes in a routine

Being more or less sensitive than other people to sensory input, such as light, noise, clothing, or temperature

People with ASD may also experience sleep problems and irritability. Although people with ASD experience many challenges, they may also have many strengths including:

Being able to learn things in detail and remember information for long periods of time

Being strong visual and auditory learners

Excelling in math, science, music, or art

One can’t help but notice that we can check several of these points off for Thorn. Not all, certainly, but I’m sure you can call to mind some of your own examples of him exhibiting many of these behaviors repeatedly.

Where Does Ophelia Fit In?

Thorn has always treated his relationship with Ophelia in a very business-like manner, almost like a negotiation, which makes sense within the context of an arranged marriage. At the novel’s start, Thorn wishes to make amends, but Ophelia makes it very clear that she will not forgive him for his lies and neglect. His response to her is rather clinical.

“We simply can’t allow ourselves to be enemies,” cut in Thorn. “You’re making my life difficult with your resentment; it’s imperative that we become reconciled. […] Meet me at the Treasury, insult me, slap me, smash a plate over my head if you feel like it, and then let’s never speak of it again. Name your day. This Thursday would suit me.” [65]

I suppose this is a rather annoying response, especially if one is really just looking for a simple and genuine apology. But if we read Thorn as having ASD, then this feels a little different. He’s simplifying a conflict that he maybe doesn’t quite understand; he’s been given a different perspective on his actions and it’s perhaps beyond his capability to comprehend. To compensate, he turns this into a matter of business, which is something he can understand quite well, even going so far as to try and pencil Ophelia into his calendar. But he’s woefully unaware of the frustrating effect his language and tone have on her. Of course, what’s key here is what he isn’t saying: that she’s making his life difficult because he loves her; he wants to be on good terms, but doesn’t know how to fix this. Note that he again suggests violence as a means to deal with her emotion.

When they do meet up, Thorn says,

“I have many enemies. I no longer want to count you among them, so tell me what I must do. That is why you came here, isn’t it? You have a deal to offer me, I’m listening to you.” [152]

He’s desperate. It’s also worth noting that he’s fairly vulnerable in this chapter; he exhibits jealousy and some hurt—Ophelia missed their original appointment because she was with Archibald and forgot about him.

Modest as always, Ophelia asks only for a job, money to pay Fox, her new assistant, and to see the real outdoors again. She lastly requests that he always be honest with her, especially in matters that directly concern her. In exchange, she will teach him how to Read objects after the ceremony of the Gift and he will teach her how to use the claws that he’ll pass to her. She also reiterates, for good measure, that this will be their only conjugal duty. He grants the first three readily enough, but the fourth one trips him up. He does agree to it, but it’s obvious that it will cost him in more ways than one.

While I imagine that he’s receptive on some level to sexual intimacy with Ophelia, I think he’s more afraid of intimacy in general. Sharing things and being honest with a partner means opening oneself up to vulnerability, to weakness. The undertaking he’s set for himself—a mission he’s already devoted 15 years of his life to—doesn’t allow for that kind of intimacy; rather, it requires utmost resiliency, secrecy, and focus. Furthermore, if he were to be seen forming loving attachments (with Berenilde, Ophelia, or anyone else), then that could be turned against him over the course of fulfilling his risky endeavor. It’s that very fear, in fact, which has made him exclude his aunt (and attempt to exclude Ophelia) entirely from his investigation. His pursuit of a noble title and legitimacy is a front, an easy excuse he thought up to satisfy Berenilde’s and the court’s curiosity about why he suddenly wanted to get married and Read Farouk’s Book.

Like Thorn, it scares Ophelia to feel herself falling in love. Perhaps the womanly pride she carries with her makes it difficult for her to open up. After all, love and marriage were never apparently high on her list of things to accomplish either. Ophelia and Thorn are separately dealing with the same conundrum, which is that to love means to fear, and that’s messy. It could get in the way of a life that is humble (Ophelia) and a life that is ambitious (Thorn). Simply put, neither one had accounted for even the possibility of love in their marriage.

Perhaps because Ophelia is a Reader, I think that deep down she likes the enigma and challenge that is Thorn. Yes, he’s frustrating, but she never truly loses interest in him. Indeed, if anything, she becomes increasingly intrigued and is entirely won over when she at last learns all about what he’s doing. Ophelia is very likely the first person to make Thorn both confront and attempt to correct his inadequacy in areas of intimacy. As I touched on in my previous analysis, Ophelia calling Thorn out on his behavior and habits is surely a novelty for him.

“I believe neither in luck nor in destiny,” he declared. “I trust only the science of probabilities. I have studied mathematical statistics, combinatorial analysis, mass function, and random variables, and they have never held any surprises for me. You don’t seem fully to grasp the destabilizing effect that someone like you can have on someone like me.” [377]

Ohhhhkay.

It turns out, she’s a bit of an enigma and definitely a challenge to him in kind. This is Thorn’s way of trying to tell Ophelia that he loves her.

Thorn and Ophelia seek control and wield it differently. Thorn can be arrogant and overconfident with it, and he wants to be its sole retainer. Ophelia also wants to retain it but as it pertains to her decisions for herself, and she rebels against it when she feels like that’s being taken away from her. It’s important to them that they are in control of their own actions and destinies. But what neither one of them understands is that those we end up loving is often (or maybe always) outside of our control. Love has no explanation, and doesn’t require one. You can’t predict it. You can’t dictate it. You can’t calculate it or quantify it.

Ophelia seriously turns Thorn’s life, and everything he thought he could predict or control about it, upside down. Initially unwittingly, then actively, she encourages him to develop.

ASD Made Sexy

As inelegant as he is, Thorn does have his own way of being shocking:

“You wanted me to be honest with you. You will thus learn that you are not just a pair of hands for me. And I don’t give a damn whether people find me suspect, as long as I am not so in your eyes. You will return this to me when I have kept all my promises,” he grumbled, holding his watch out to Ophelia without noticing her stunned expression. “And if you still doubt me in the future, just read it.” [156].

You guys, this is kind of romantic, right? He’s so direct and it really flusters Ophelia, who is steadfastly resisting the decidedly non-business-like turn their relationship has taken. Skip to novel’s end, however, and she has totally changed her tune about Thorn. Right before they believe they will be parted forever, Thorn finally gives a straightforward confirmation of his feelings.

“Don’t go falling down any more stairs, avoid sharp objects, and above all, above all, keep away from disreputable people, alright? […] Oh, and by the way, I love you.” [486]

Swoon.

The fact of the matter is this: despite his unconventional looks and mannerisms, Thorn hits a certain level of sexy. Which begs the question: Can ASD be sexy? Sure, one could say that his sex appeal comes naturally with his role as the male lead, which is directly connected to his chemistry with the female lead. But I think there’s actually an important distinction to be made; it’s not whether ASD itself is sexy, it’s whether a character with ASD is sexy and I think that’s important because you don’t want ASD to be treated as a gimmick in fiction. It matters how that kind of character is presented.

Thorn’s ASD traits make him eccentric at best and a “freak” at worst, by Ophelia’s own description. Some of Thorn’s less offensive eccentricities are portrayed in an endearing light: his brusqueness with silly persons (i.e. Archibald, Baron Melchior) and their silly behavior; wearing his heavy uniform in a tropical illusion when there’s no evident dress policy for officials; preoccupied with tending to the order of his office over the tending of his wounds; launching a dangerous existential investigation all because of an illegal and unjust disruption in odds and probabilities, an utter crime in Thorn’s eyes.

But it’s also important to look at how other characters view him. Those at the Pole may look down on him, but there is no doubt that he commands a considerable level of their respect. He’s at the center of Citaceleste’s political and economical arenas, and has some judicial power as well. In short, he’s the one that everyone seemingly runs to in a crisis. Ophelia begrudgingly admires his self-control, coolness under pressure, and appreciates that he is not corrupt, like the other officials and aristocrats. Naturally, Berenilde regards him the highest. She, more than any other, gives us a glimpse of the true Thorn, putting forward the image of a protector, provider, and all-around genius.

So, the answer is yes. Thorn is sexy.

Ophelia and Asexuality

OK, I realize I’m going off on a tangent here, but since asexuality is a common reading of Ophelia that I see in reviews, I wanted to address that as well.

There are many instances of Ophelia fulfilling, for lack of a better way to put it, the butterfly trope:

Perhaps it was due to the nervousness Thorn brought out in her, or the lace veil obscuring her vision, or the scarf coiled around her foot, or her pathological clumsiness, but the fact is, Ophelia tripped on the final step of the stairs. [28]

Hearing Thorn reawakened such nervousness in Ophelia that she seriously considered hanging up on him. [63]

She did, however, have to admit that Berenilde had got it right: it was indeed out of cowardice, more even than anger, that she’d spent recent weeks avoiding him. [100]

Somewhat embarrassed, Ophelia wondered whether he felt as nervous in her company as she felt in his. [160]

Ophelia felt her blood throbbing against her eardrums, but couldn’t have said whether it was due to sudden relief or, on the contrary, heightened tension. [323]

Ophelia gets butterflies whenever her love interest is near. It’s important to note that she’s not afraid for her safety when she’s with him, although there is one incident, where she thinks he’s going to strike her, which is quickly dispelled by his sincere assurance that he’d never harm her. He gives her butterflies often by doing totally mundane things such as standing in front of her or looking at her, and that bothers her. But why?

Like Thorn, she’s convinced herself that intimacy and love aren’t for her. Some reviewers have praised Ophelia for being a representation of asexuality and, while I think there’s a strong case for her being somewhere on the asexual spectrum, I stop short at positing that she’s totally uninterested in sex or doesn’t experience sexual attraction. She’s noted, on several occasions, both in Clairdelune and Promise, Archibald’s handsomeness. In this novel, she also notes Fox’s.

With his gold braiding and red mane, he was as dazzling as Thorn was dark. Ophelia sensed herself coloring just looking at him. [165]

So, she does experience sexual attraction and, furthermore, she physically reacts to Fox’s appearance (though never to Archibald’s), which suggests that she’s not wholly disinterested in sex. In Promise, she commented that “no man had ever quickened her pulse” and lamented about whether she’d ever feel that way about someone, and I think this is probably the point at which most readers took away that she might be asexual.

But, like...

Thorn is the only man who produces intense and consistent physical reactions in her.

Also, if you look at the [323] quote above, he did in fact get her pulse up. Just saying.

Rather than label her as purely asexual or even being on the spectrum, we could instead speculate that, as a Reader, she’s experienced to some degree love in all its forms through countless objects and perhaps she can’t help having this reaction to love and intimacy. I’m not trying to be cynical or pessimistic, but love can be treacherous and people are driven to do all kinds of terrible things for it or because of it. As wonderful as love is despite that, it seems likely that Ophelia has simply decided it’s not something she wants to navigate. Or she just hadn’t met someone yet who was worth all that trouble.

I’ll Close With This:

“You’re free,” whispered Ophelia. “Free to go, free to stay. I won’t make you leave one cage for another one, although, as you’ve seen, I really don’t live in great security. I decided your fate without taking time to think, or to speak to you. I was selfish…and I still am. […] I still am because, deep down, I would like you to choose to remain by my side. I know that apologizing can no longer change anything, but anyway: forgive me.” [135]

Ophelia says this to Fox after rescuing him from the dungeons of Clairdelune and taking him on as an assistant. Now, when I read this, I couldn’t help but think that it’s precisely the apology Ophelia wants to hear from Thorn. Yet, here she is, guilty of doing to someone the very thing she holds against him. Isn’t it funny how hypocrisy and love are such good friends? As we know, articulation and eloquence are not Thorn’s strengths and some of Ophelia’s aversion to him is based around her inability to accept this part of him.

Eventually, Thorn does make, more or less, the same apology.

“I should never have involved you in my affairs. I knew it would be dangerous. I convinced myself that I had the situation under control, and that mistake almost cost you your life. […] There is one thing that I have tried to tell you several times. I’m no good at these formalities, so let’s get on with it and speak no more of it. […] Please forgive me.” [444-45]

Strangely, she barely acknowledges this; she’s too busy having an epiphany.

At that second, she finally knew with absolute certainty where her place was. It wasn’t in the Pole, it wasn’t on Anima. It was precisely where she was now. At Thorn’s side. [445]

Well, perhaps this isn’t so strange since the novel starts off posing the question to this answer.

Deep down, Ophelia wondered where exactly her first home might be. Since she’d arrived at the Pole, she’d already visited Berenilde’s manor, the Clairdelune embassy, and her fiancés Treasury, and she hadn’t felt at home in any of them. [24]

The theme of home and belonging permeates this novel in a more central way than its predecessor. Ophelia is repeatedly confronted by it, but it’s also echoed in Farouk’s obsession with the Reading of his Book and finding out where he comes from and what happened in his past. When her family arrives from Anima, she sees the Pole and Thorn through their eyes. She ends up defending both from their disapproving remarks and in doing so, she realizes that she has ceased thinking of Anima as her home.

Life in the Pole was like that: wherever one went, whatever one did, danger was part of daily life. And yet, Ophelia reflected, she didn’t hate it that much, that life. [280]

Thorn’s apology seals the deal: she understands now that she was mistaken. Home is not a place. People, those who love you and who you love in return, give a home meaning. Belonging, likewise, is only made possible by the people who accept you and give you a place among them. It’s been hard-won, but she’s found both in the Pole, in Thorn and Berenilde. Her lack of a direct response to Thorn’s words suggests that she’s already forgiven him, that it matters less to her that he struggles with communication, that she’s finally accepted him for who he is and, better still, found him lovable despite that.

If we read Thorn as having ASD, then this intense dynamic between them is a positive treatment of mental/social disorders in fiction, which is really the only point I had to make with this entire thing.

Where Does Ophelia End?

I asked this question in my last analysis. Based off of the fact that, when we left her in Promise, she was experiencing some serious discomfort in body and soul directly connected to Thorn, I predicted/semi-already-knew that she would evolve toward him.

At one point, Ophelia loses the ability to pass through mirrors. We understand that it’s because she’s been lying to herself; after all, her great-uncle made it very clear that mirror-traveling is impossible under such a circumstance. It’s ironic because, by her own admission, she’s a “bad actress” [161] and, according to her mother, “was never any good at lying” [157].

She’s just so stubborn, isn’t she? It’s gratifying then to read when Ophelia overcomes it. Thorn makes a public announcement, cancelling his marriage, refusing to Read Farouk’s Book, and handing in his resignation as Treasurer. He does this to protect Ophelia and her family from imminent danger but at risk to his own welfare and position. He’s basically committing suicide, which very nearly turns literal at novel’s end. Ophelia can only think to go to him by the quickest means possible.

She looked straight at her determined face, beyond its scratches and bruises, finally ready to face that truth that she hadn’t wanted to see. It wasn’t Thorn who needed her. It was she who needed Thorn. Ophelia plunged, body and soul, into the mirror. [416]

I don’t think I need to spell that out.

Thorn and His Watch

To go on a little bit of a tangent, I also wanted to touch on the watch.

I believe it was mentioned in Promise that the watch had been a gift from Berenilde, which is so precious. Berenilde is the only true parental figure Thorn has known. She used her status and wealth to protect and care for him, and seems to understand him as only a mother--one with a child the rest of the world refuses to accept--can. I thought her reaction to Thorn’s suicidal announcement was especially devastating.

She had begun to shake so hard that Agatha rushed to take the baby from her arms. Bent double in her chair, as though punched in the stomach, Berenilde looked imploringly at Ophelia. “I beg you. Don’t abandon my boy.” [412]

Keep in mind that Berenilde has outlived her three biological children, none of whom survived past childhood. Thorn is such a lonely figure that it’s easy to forget he comes from somewhere. But Berenilde’s reminder to us is clear: he’s not the child of his Dragon father nor of his Chronicler mother. Thorn is her child, and she’s terrified of losing him like the others.

While there can be no doubt of her sentiment toward Thorn, it’s entirely likely that Berenilde foisted much of her maternal grief, trauma, and longing onto him without his express permission; he never seems to regard her with any particular filial warmth. Then again, he once attacked Archibald in defense of Berenilde’s honor, after he seduced her away from Farouk, and Ophelia later notes that he “suspended an investigation and jumped into an airship” to be near to Berenilde when she went into labor with her daughter [373]. Thorn is clearly defined rather more by his actions than his words. But the point is Berenilde is the one who gave Thorn his sense of belonging, and I just adore that.

Metaphorically speaking, the watch represents Thorn’s heart, which was given to him by his mother figure and which he gives to Ophelia as a token of his love and trustworthiness. Indeed, it’s even called a “mechanical heart” [156]. Ophelia has Read one of Thorn’s possessions before (dice) and was overwhelmed by the fury and breadth of his emotions. If she were to Read his watch, she’d probably die. Every time he digs it out of his pocket to look at it, to hold it, to fiddle with it, he’s engraving some emotional signature or trace onto it. Ophelia ultimately decides not to Read it.

“Before you go, I would like to return this to you. You need it more than me, and, in any case, I won’t read it. I’ve chosen to trust you—you, not your watch.” [285]

Her words have a profound effect on Thorn, rendering him totally speechless and maybe more confused than ever. At any rate, he misreads the situation and catches Ophelia off guard with an awkward kiss. It’s kind of a heartbreaking scene, because Ophelia simply reacts (by slapping him) and is genuinely baffled that he took her words for encouragement. I don’t necessarily take this to be evidence of her asexuality. I don’t discredit it by any means, but it just feels more like she was taken by surprise.

The thing is, for perhaps the first time ever in his life, he actively desired for someone to know his true heart and to trust in his sincerity, which is why he gave the watch to her in the first place. In his defense, this was quite a pretty and irresistible thing for Ophelia to tell him and I don’t think she’s as put off as she wants to be.

With ears burning and glasses crimson, Ophelia stared at the faded letters on the old wooden panel—“STAFF ONLY”—as if Thorn might, at any moment, retrace his steps, take back his kiss, and leave his fob watch with her, as she’d suggested in the first place. [286]

It’s funny. She wants to erase the uncomfortable physical side of the incident, but she also wants to retain his metaphorical heart. I mean, yes, it’s broken because of some careless action on her part and she asked for it back so her great-uncle could try to fix it. But still. It’s hard to ignore the metaphor there as well: if the heart watch has changed from beating to broken and she wants to hold onto the broken heart watch to try to mend it…

Well, good Lord, it’s just so obvious, isn’t it?

End

Well, that’s about it. As I said, I really only had the one main thought and then a bunch of smaller ones.

I just learned—and am seriously devastated—that The Memory of Babel won’t be released in the U.S. until May 2020. I’m hoping this is a tentative date and that it will be available sooner.

In the meantime, if someone could upload a PDF that I could then spend days plugging in to Google Translate (again), that’d be super greeeeaaaat…

For part III, head here.

#ophethorn #La Passe-Miroir #les disparus de clairdelune #the mirror visitor #the missing of clairdelune #christelle dabos #long book report

153 notes · View notes

jayyrayy90 · 4 years ago

Text

I'm so angry and disappointed. I'm so frustrated with my own self too bc no matter how hard I try I can't even force myself to hate you. I have numerous reasons to hate u but I can't. I guess I'll never be able to.

What's so fucked up to me is how you can just erase me like I'm nobody to you. How you can flip a switch in your brain and I've suddenly become your enemy. How you so easily can make so many promises to me, how you can look me right in my eyes and lie to my face so easily, and how you act like you've done absolutely nothing to me or act as if the things you done were something insignificant and dumb and I'm just being overdramatic about them. Like the shit you did shouldn't matter just bc of shit i did 5 years ago or simply bc u hated me so those things were justified.

To this very day you have no respect for me and treat me as if i meant absolutely nothing to u. I don't think you will ever understand how bad that hurts me Jasmine. You, of all people in this entire world, broke me down piece by tiny piece until there was nothing left of me. You drained me of my last bit of sanity, hope for love, and I will never let another human being get close to me again as long as I'm here on this earth. You took all of that away from me so effortlessly, carelessly, and easily. I never meant anything to you and I wish like hell I knew exactly what made u hate me so much that you'd even consider doing the things you've done to me.

In some sick and cruel way, I believe u got some kind of enjoyment out of watching me fall apart. You enjoyed knowing you could go do whatever you want and come back to me whenever you got ready bc like a dummy I'd always be there waiting. I was so stupid and foolish to even think any of your promises were sincere. What made me look even dumber was the fact that I believed you and in you. I had faith in you. I was so gullible and blinded to believe that the person you used to be was still somewhere inside of you. That loving, honest, sincere, faithful, and LOYAL person u used to be had been dead and gone years ago and you kept showing/proving that to me. Yet i kept fighting to bring her back. I kept praying, hoping, and wishing that someday I'd get my baby lovey bear back. I failed to even try and believe the things you were so effortlessly trying to tell me with your actions. You've been trying to tell me that you didn't love me anymore for so many years. I was trying so hard to be/say/do everything you wanted just to make you love me. I pushed the things you were doing to me so far in the back of my mind that i allowed myself to become blinded. I just kept telling myself that you were lost and didn't know what u were doing at the time, every time I would think about the things you did.

Truth is, you knew exactly what you were doing. You knew exactly what risks u were taking. U knew exactly what u were jeopardizing. You knew. Yet you still did it anyway. You didn't care and still don't about what happens to me or my life. You have no idea the amount of pain that causes me. Its honestly like I'm loving the shadow of a person who never existed.

The way you left me, I would've never left you like that, even if i did hate you. All those years we spent together and you just leave me like that knowing I was broke. I would've never in a million years plus some, NEVER left you like that. I would've bet my entire life that you wouldn't have ever done that to me.

When you came back in my life, the one thing you would always say was, "The way I left you last time was fucked up and I know it. I got my karma. I'd never leave you like that again." Something similar to that anyway. But guess what, you left me even worse than you did the first time Jasmine. And u don't even care. How can you not even care?!! I have no words to even describe the pain. Words couldn't even come close..

In the beginning i wasn't much of the person I should have been. I had issues and addictions. I wasnt really worth your time. I put you through hell and for that I will forever be sorry. If im being honest you terrified me, no one had ever saw me the way you did. No one had ever wanted me the way you did. No one had ever made me feel the way you did. I had walls that had always kept me safe and kept me braced from the world but you... you somehow made them fall over time with your undying love for me, even when i was awful. You saw me through the worst times of my life. If not for you i wouldnt be here today. you saved me.

To me, we had a beautiful bond and an amazing love. You were everything i ever wanted and i couldn't believe you were mine. Maybe looking back that is where the trouble started...I had such guilt for who i was and how i treated you at the start and i felt so lucky to have you that i started to compromise on the things that were fundamental to me. I started to give way more then i received and i started to let you think things were okay that honestly weren't. I let you start to walk all over me and looking back maybe if i had stood up for myself then, instead of just feeling like i owed it to you for sticking with me then maybe things would be different today..

I stood by you, i did any and everything for you. I let you take out your anger on me. I would pretend to sleep until i knew you were asleep so i could just make sure you were okay. I was watching you hurt in a way i couldnt fix. I didnt know how to help, so i decided to just be everything and anything you needed. I put my entire life aside and made you my priority, my world. I dont regret it, you needed me and i was there without question.

This is where it started to go downwhill, you were changing into someone i didnt even recognize and the worst part is you couldn't even help it. Our life had become one full of fights and make ups only to fight again shortly after. You were pushing me away and i didnt know why. I dont even think you knew why, so i took all the hateful words, the poor treatment, the lack of time invested and the lack of love being shown and made it into excuses for you because of what you were dealing with. Looking back i dont think this helped you the way i thought it did. It taught you that i was always going to take it. I was going to let you walk all over me and i was going to apologize when i didnt do anything wrong simply to avoid a fight. It didnt help, you left me in such an agonizing way. i was shattered, my entire life had just fallen apart and i was lost. You were my world and you were just gone!!

I was your friend. I was your family. I was your lover. You are a person that could have been any number of things to me. Heartbreak plays no favorites when it chooses people in life to let you down. I really always had faith in you. I trusted you and the promises that you made to me. I believed in your aspirations and disregarded your ambiguity. I let you in, against my best wishes. I relentlessly defended you. I saw the beautiful parts of who you were. I made plans with you and kept them in my head like a guaranteed magnificent destination. I loved you. I gave you all that I had and now I am left feeling empty and cheated. But do you know what the strangest and most unbelievably frustrating part of all of this is? I forgive you.

Your betrayal shook my foundation. Not just the foundation of us, but the foundation of everything I thought. All that I believed about love was up in the air. I wasn’t sure about anything. It wasn’t just about you. I was now questioning everything.

The truth is, you didn't really love me. Maybe you loved the idea of me. Maybe you loved having me around because I would have done anything for you, but if you really loved me, you wouldn't have destroyed me the way you did. That's not love.

I loved you so much that I lost sight in everything else, especially myself. I glued myself to you so tightly because I was so terrified of losing you. Lets be honest though, you were never really mine to lose, were you?

You always treated me so coldly, and I couldn't ever understand why when all I ever did was love you. Sometimes the harsh words you used still stay inside of my head.

I was never good enough, or at least that is how you would treat me. I was always wrong, I was the crazy one after the break up, it was never you. It was always me. You were poison to my heart, and I wanted so badly to save you, but I couldn't. You destroyed me mentally and emotionally to the point where I can’t even feel emotions anymore. To the point where I am literally completely numb to feeling anything or having real true emotions towards anyone or anything.

When I met you, I knew. I knew in some way, shape, or form, you would hold incredible significance to my life. I knew you were going to be a constant. I knew you would change me.

Yes, we had our disagreements, but we always made our way back to each other. I always felt you in my heart, there was nothing you could do to make me that upset for long. I already needed you. I knew, the second I held you close to me, I knew, that this was it for me. You were it. All I wanted, and all I would ever need.

You have issues, my love. Internal struggles with yourself, external issues with your family and others around you and it weighs you down. I never have held that against you. But the struggles you faced made it impossible for you to love me the way you wanted to, the way I needed you to. Still, I held on, praying you would stay with me, praying you would get better. Through all the fights, the petty disagreements, and the abuse, I stayed. Why?

I loved you blindly of course. I loved you without restrictions, and without caution. I loved you wildly. In my head, I knew you could be better. I wanted to see that happen for you. I wanted to help you get to where you should be. I believed in you. I loved you so deeply, I would have, and did do, anything on Earth for you.

The truth is, you are not who I once loved. That person is gone. That person took some of the deepest parts of myself with them. I will always love them.

Had you tried for me, love, had you tried for you, we would have been in love forever. But you didn’t, and sitting around waiting for you only made things harder on me. I’ve accepted the fact that the you I once knew is gone.

I didn’t want to move on from you. I hoped in the deepest cell of my heart that you would come back and sweep me up and make things better. But eventually, I chose to move on. I chose to heal myself. I chose to fix what you shattered. It didn’t come easily, and nearly everyday is a struggle… but I have to. You are the love of my life, but you are long gone now...

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angelicthor · 6 years ago

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life support

in the lonely hour: part 6

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

summary: Bucky Barnes has spent his whole life waiting for you but after the fall and his time with HYDRA, he thought his chance of finding you was over. But after joining the Avengers and meeting you - the girl he’d been waiting his whole life for - Bucky starts to question if he really can get his happily-ever-after, or if it really is too late.

warnings/genre: angst

masterlist | in the lonely hour masterlist

I've been waiting for an answer Because I built this bed for two I'm just waiting on your answer I built this bed for me and you

Could you see that I am yours? So will you be my life support? You're my life support

Ever since your fight with Chad nothing had ever really been the same; there was something that just felt off about the whole thing, like he was trying too hard to be perfect. Like it was all an act. You tried to push those thoughts aside, tried to focus more on the fact that he brought you fresh flowers every day and the fact that you two hadn’t had a single argument since then but you couldn’t escape the feeling that it was all so forced.

You knew you didn’t love Chad, how could you when you were pathetically in love with your best friend? But that didn’t mean you weren’t going to try to love him, or at least use him in order to move on from Bucky. Not your most elegant move, you knew that, but you were becoming more desperate for release from your growing feelings for Bucky every time you saw him.

The illusion of your ‘perfect’ relationship completely shattered when you walked into Chad’s apartment, you had finished your work load for the day sooner than expected and decided to head over to his earlier than you had planned as you were going out for dinner that night, or at least you were supposed to be.

The front door was unlocked and you let yourself in like you had done a hundred times before, only this time Chad wasn’t sitting on the couch watching TV, nor was he in the kitchen fixing a drink. No, this time Chad was very clearly keeping someone very occupied in his bedroom.

His groans and his guest’s moans filled the air, only getting louder the closer you got to his bedroom door, your blood boiling with the betrayal you felt. Pushing the door open, you were met with the sight of Chad and the waitress he couldn’t help but want you to be in throes of passion, completely oblivious to your presence until you loudly cleared your throat, watching as the struggled to untangle themselves from each other, scrambling to cover what little decency they had left with the bed sheet.

“Y/N, Babe I-” Chad tried to stutter out some bullshit explanation but you weren’t standing for a second of it.

“Oh no, please, continue. I sure as hell won’t be interrupting you again,” You cut him off, snarling at them both as you turned on your heel, slamming every door behind you and practically marching back to the tower.

You didn’t even think twice about seeking out Bucky, finding him lounging in his room head buried in some book you had recommended before he looked up at your sudden entrance, brows furrowing in concern as you made your way over to him. Bucky had been distancing himself these past few days, the pain of seeing you with Chad too much for him to bare - especially when he knew you weren’t truly happy - but seeing you come to him with tears in your eyes pushed every single idea of distancing himself out of his mind, his concern for you overriding every thought he had.

“Y/N, Doll, what’s wrong?” You collapsed into Bucky’s awaiting arms, burying yourself in the familiar warmth of his chest as your body wracked with sobs. “Babygirl, please talk to me,” Bucky pleaded, his arms encasing your form, pulling you even closer to him as he soothingly stroked up and down your back to try and quell your cries.

“Ch-Chad cheated on me, I just walked in on them fucking each other’s brains out,” You stammered out, choking on your tears, voice thick with emotion and slightly muffled as you were still pressed tightly into Bucky’s chest but you knew he had heard you as every muscle in his body tensed, the super solider going completely rigid beneath you as an intense anger overtook him.

Knowing that right now you didn’t need revenge, you needed comfort, Bucky said nothing instead pressing his lips to the crown of your head and tightening his arms around you. You didn’t know why exactly you were so upset by Chad’s adultery, it wasn’t as if you were deeply in love with him, your heart belonged to Bucky that much you were certain, but still here you were.

Maybe it was because now the distraction was over, you would be forced to once again confront your every growing attachment to the super soldier. Or maybe it was the fact that being cheated on was just plain painful regardless of how emotionally invested you were in the relationship; it was humiliating and degrading and instead of just ending it he decided to go behind your back and make you look a fool. Nevertheless, all ties you once held with Chad were cut completely.

It was strange how quickly things reverted to how they used to be, you and Bucky once again becoming inseparable and soon it was if Chad had never been a part of your life. Everything went back to how they used to be, how they were supposed to be; Bucky was your partner on missions, he was who you sat next to at breakfast and dinner, whenever you needed to talk he was there, whenever he had a nightmare he’d crawl into your bed and seek your embrace.

You were the person he went to for everything: if he needed comfort he’d search for you, if he heard a funny story you were the first person he thought about telling, if Sam pulled another prank on him then you were the one he complained to. You were more than a part of his life, you were becoming part of him and Bucky decided to not let you slip out of his grasp again, not caring how selfish he was being by doing so.

But nothing ever goes to plan. Especially for Bucky it would seem.

It was supposed to be a simple mission, in-and-out for the information before anyone could even notice where you were. But what was supposed to be an abandoned base of operations was anything but empty, there were agents at every corner of the building and the team was thrown into active combat whilst being completely unprepared for it.

You and Bucky were on the south side of the building, fighting in perfect sync as always like a well-oiled machine. Until the explosion sounded behind you with no warning and you and Bucky were both flung forward by the impact, your skull making direct impact with the ground with a sickening crack.

Bucky wasted no time in taking out the rest of the agents, a slight glimmer of his former Winter Soldier-self shining through as he mercilessly killed any agent that came near your unconscious form. Once he had disposed of every agent around him, he dropped to his knees in front of you, checking your pulse and heaving a sigh of relief at the faint thud-thud of your heart under his fingertips before he took to his coms, calling in that you had been hurt and that immediate evac was needed, his voice frantic as he shouted out to anyone that could hear him.

Steve ordered everyone to head back to the jet, the mission was a bust and now their main priority was getting you to med-bay for treatment. Bucky gently lifted your limp body from the ground, cradling you to his chest as he took off for the quinjet, running light on his feet as to not jostle you any further than he had to.

The rest of the team weren’t far behind and Bruce tried to do as much as he could to stabilize you before you got to Dr. Cho, Bucky’s hand not leaving yours once the entire journey back to base, his sole concern being you and only you, his heart beating wildly against his ribcage as his mind raced with all the possibilities of what could happen to you, dark visions filling his head that made his hand cling tighter to yours.

Cho was waiting with her team when you landed and Bucky watched as they swept you away to where he couldn’t follow, forcing him to pace around the waiting room of the medical centre with the rest of the team, everyone eyeing him with concern but now knowing what to say to pacify the assassin, their own worry for you building with every passing minute where they were left staring at the ticking hand of the clock.

Two hours later and Cho emerged from you room, Bucky leaping to her at her entrance, desperate to hear any news about you.

“She’s going to be ok; the injuries to her head lead to a concussion but she should wake up within the next few hours, there’s no brain damage and she sustained no other injuries apart from a few cuts and bruises. We could try to wake her now but it’s best she sleeps through and wakes naturally. You can go in and see her if you want?”

Helen hadn’t even finished asking before Bucky was marching into your room, the rest of the Avengers heaving a sigh of relief and deciding to let you and Bucky be, knowing that he would be spending the rest of the night by your side, not moving until you were awake again.

The sight of you hooked up to so many machines all keeping track of your vitals made Bucky’s stomach twist into knots, taking the seat next to your bed as his eyes roamed over every inch of you, taking in the small gash on our forehead, the bruise forming on your cheek and the cut on your lip. He kept reminding himself over and over that you were going to be alright; you were strong, he knew that better than anyone, you’d pull through this in no time and be back with him before he knew it.

And then he’d tell you. Tell you just how much he loved every single thing about you because he couldn’t risk going another day where you didn’t know that he was head over heels in love with you.

Bucky’s head snapped up from where it had been laying on your bed, realising that he must have fallen asleep some time during the night as he groggily took in his surroundings; the bright white walls, the beeping of the machines, you sat up, staring back at him with an arched brow and amused smile.

Wait. You were awake?

“Y/N!” Bucky jumped up, his arms wrapping around you as he brought you in to a bone-crushing hug before he remembered you were indeed injured and quickly let you go, brows furrowed as he searched you for any sign of pain but only seeing your smiling face.

“Oh my god! Are you alright? Did I hurt you? How long have you been awake? Do you need a doctor? I can go and get-”

“Bucky! I’m fine!” You cut off his never-ending questioning, calming him down enough to sit back in the chair once more and taking his hand in yours, “Cho’s already been in, I’m all good I promise, she’s just sorting through some papers and then I can leave, I just didn’t want to wake you.”

“God, I was so worried about you, you just- you wouldn’t wake up you know? And then I started to panic thinking you would never wake up and then I started thinking about all the things I never told you and…”

Bucky trailed off, watching as you traced circles on his flesh hand to calm him down, looking up at you with tear-filled eyes as he saw the worry for him swimming in your own.

“Y/N, I love you.”

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes series #bucky angst #angelicthorwrites

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rosilyfucked · 5 years ago

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What I've come to realise is that when someone is the Sun, you can't ask them to shine just for you. Whether you deserve it or not, whether you selfishly believe you are the only one who can appreciate them enough, you still can't ask from them to be only yours.

Dear yellow,

All I know is that you're not mine, and never will be, because I can have no claim on the Sun. Actually I can have no claim on any person or being, because each once belongs to themselves, we are no body's property, unless we choose to become. Honestly, I thought I wanted to become your property. Ever since your light shined on my skin, I thought you had marked your territory and that I was yours. I found solace in that thought for a while. I liked being somebody's. I've always felt so alone. I liked sharing me with somebody. Especially while that somebody was you. I still do. But I also realise that the more I grow, the less enough sharing my wholeness with you feels. I know I am with you because you give me things I haven't found on anyone else. But you also cost so much, I hadn't realised you would. I have spent so much time trying to convince me that you are the best thing that could ever happen to me, that you are the warmest place I could rest my head on. Dissappointment after dissappointment, red flag after red flag, warning after warning, I don't know if I insisted because of how much I loved you, or because I lack of self-dignity, or because of my low self-esteem, my self- loathing, or because I always insist on fixing things that in themselves never asked to be fixed because they never considered themselves broken, or because of all of them. That's me. Taking on unsolvable cases, knowing from the start they would lead to a deadend, but still wasting so much time and energy trying to make them work, trying to make something out of it. I get angry because it's not you to blame. It's me, it's just me and everyone blames you, because you look like an asshole who treated me badly, an asshole who doesn't consider me enough or special enough, to only want me. And in the deepest of my heart I do feel that. But it's not because of you. I felt that anyways. I just made myself fall in love with you so you could, without being aware, confirm my unworthyness,

The thing is that now I understand why I compromise and try to act all mindless and cool. Because I am afraid I will lose you, if I don't, and I am afraid I will never find someone to love me like you do, or that I will never love someone like I do you. And I probably won't. You will always be my first big and epic love and nothing ever equals to that. I am also afraid that walking away from you might be just as bad as staying with you. I cannot secure my heart either way. And in no way can I ask you to settle for something less than what you want. How can i restrain you? When I know that you finally feel more yourself that you've ever been? Knowing that part of it is thanks to me must be enough, mustn't it? I will not ask you to be with me. Because I also know you won't. You prefer having me in your life as a friend. Everything else is just too complicated. I know we both love one another so much, but sometimes things just don't work. We are total opposites and we may spent our entire lifes six months apart. But I know we'll think of each other every summer and every Christmas and every spring, and we'll have a stupid smile on our faces and a couple of sad eyes to match it with because nostalgia will hit us in the gut, hard, everytime.

If what I want is someone who will love only me and be with me, then I must deserve it. I don't believe it yet, I don't believe I deserve a lot of things, but if everyone arounds me says so, if you yourself wonder whether you're good for me, then that must count for something.

I shouldn't settle for less than I deserve, and you shouldn't either. And maybe in a parallel universe, the perfect Harris and the perfect Marina, are absolutely compatible, happy and worthy of one another, but in this one, maybe they're not.

I cannot believe what I write. But I know it in my heart that it is the truth and I also know that I truly can't tell what the best thing for me is right now. I can keep swallowing my pain, just to be with you, and be constantly angry for a while or I can feel it, being away from you, and be constatly sad for a while. My body will miss you, my mind will miss you, my very soul will be disoriented if it doesn't have your smile and smell to guide it. But how can I hold your hand knowing that it would just as easily hold another hand and still shiver? How can I kiss you knowing that another pair of lips were there and made you moan with so much better technic and confidence? How can I touch you knowing that she was touching you hours ago, and you enjoyed it just as much or even more? Can I be selfless enough to be okay with the fact that she enjoys senses that you rediscovered through me? Or can I not doubt how special I am when you let her touch your most vulnerable body parts with the same ease you let me?

I'm sorry I can't. I can hate myself enought to do so, but I also know I shouldn't and I won't. Because what I rediscovered through you is that I deserve to be treated as I want to be treated. I love you too much. So much I can make an exception and let you hurt me. But I know this is not good for you either. You warned me from the start. I hope there was a way to protect both of us. But we got too invested now. Too emotionally invested. Know that I don't regret a thing. Because you are the Sun. And I couldn't have asked for more. I wish I will never stop being your favorite color, because I was my best self as long as I was with you.

love, blue

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roggling · 6 years ago

Note

Prompt can you do kallura nd wiht a dash of plance of Keith asking allura out instead before they leave to fight ( basically like s8ep1)

A/N: I got so invested into this one shot I got all the way up to 5,000+ words. uwu. This work is just a ball of fluff tbh (except for some angst that immediately turns to fluff) I just…I love this piece. It’s probably my favorite fic I have ever written.

It’s been a couple months since they’ve recovered from Honerva’s robeast and they’ve spent every waking moment improving and preparing the ATLAS for launch. It’s hard to believe they were leaving tomorrow again.

“Tomorrow, the defenders of the Universe, Team Voltron, and Earth’s very own ATLAS will be launching tomorrow to search for the creator of the robeast that attacked our beloved Team Voltron and tried to take all our quintessence. There will be a celebration in their honor before they leave and a select few are invited to watch them depart along with their families they’re leaving behind. The Garrison has invited…”

The voice of the reporter faded into the distance as he sat with Lance, Hunk, and Pidge for lunch. He could hear Lance talking animatedly with Hunk and Pidge, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He felt a void. Allura didn’t get to eat with them yesterday nor today. She was so busy dealing with the Altean and prepping the ATLAS for launch, she hasn’t been able to spend much time with the team since they discovered the Altean.

“I think they’re hinting at something between Keith and Allura, too.”

That sure woke him up.

“What?”

At his incredulous tone, Pidge and Hunk smirked knowingly and Lance rose a suspicious eyebrow before responding, “We were talking about the Voltron show that just came out. Weren’t you listening?”

“Sorry,” Keith sighed, “I was just…thinking.”

Hunk bit into the mashed potatoes in his plate and asked with his mouth full, “Does it have to do with Allura?”

“Yeah.”

At his confession, Hunk and Pidge high-fived and pointed at him excitedly, though he was still in haze, and they yelled in unison, “I knew it!”

Keith jumped at the sudden exclamation and looked like a deer caught in headlights, “What?”

“You like Allura, don’t you?”

Keith was slightly creeped out by how interested Hunk looked in an obvious question. He scoffed, “Of course I like Princess Allura. I like all of you.”

Pidge facepalmed, “Not that kind of like, Keith. We know you like us. We’re asking if you like like Allura.”

Keith narrowed his eyes in complete exasperation, “There’s more than one type of like?”

“Oh for goodness sake,” Lance mumbled, “Do you have a crush on Allura, Keith?”

Keith stabbed his green beans and shrugged, “I don’t know.”

Lance gave him an unamused face, “What do you mean, you don’t know? You either like her or you don’t.”

Keith shrugged, “Then I guess… I like her? Like doesn’t seem to describe it”

“You guess? Then what would describe it?” Hunk asked, munching on his steak and listening to their obliviously lovestruck leader try to form his affections into words.

“Well, I mean, I care for her, there’s no doubt about that. But I don’t get the butterflies in my stomach or a ridiculous blush on my face. I just want to see her happy and hear her laugh everyday and make sure she’s okay. I don’t want her to get hurt any more and I want to see her grow stronger and wiser everyday. She’s amazing and, yeah, she’s beautiful, she’s so much more than that. She’s helped me become comfortable in my own skin and- why are you all looking at me like that?”

Hunk had a knowing look on his face, “That’s the most you have ever spoken in a conversation.”

Pidge smirked, “And I thought I was the rambler.”

“You still are.”

“Hey!”

Lance was quiet while Hunk and Pidge teased Keith for his newly revealed crush. He wasn’t expecting Keith to say so much, really. It was much deeper than a simple crush. He paused. It’s deeper than my crush. Looking back at Keith he couldn’t help but notice that Keith was much more fidgety than usual. Lance fought off a smile. If Allura was the only one who managed to get the ever-stoic Keith flustered, heck, she’s the only one who should be with him.

Lance chuckled, catching the attention of the bickering three and smirked at Keith knowingly, “You’ve got it bad, man.”

Keith blinked, “I do?”

The team nodded and smiled proudly at their leader who’s finally showing some sort of emotion other than ‘indifference’ or ‘annoyance’.

“But I don’t blush.”

Pidge sighed in exasperation, “You’re not an anime schoolgirl in love with her senpai, Keith.”

“Now that I think about it, our senpai would be Shiro,” Hunk added.

“Actually,” Pidge fixed her glasses and had slipped into her gremlin grin, “Keith’s also our senpai. He is a year older than us.”

Lance leaned into Keith and whispered, “Notice me senpai!”

Hunk and Pidge lost their sh!t laughing and Keith just decided he shouldn’t ask.

“Okay so I have a “crush” on Allura, what’s the big deal?”

Lance sat back down in his seat and got serious, “This is a big deal! You need to take her out on a date, man.”

“A date? The day before launch date?”

“Well,” Pidge started, waving around a piece of steak on her fork, “It’s our last day on Earth, who knows when we’ll be back?”

Keith pondered for a while and considered, “Well, I guess you’re right.”

“Of course we’re right,” Pidge chewed on her meat.

“But how do I ask her?”

“Oh come on, Keith,” Lance scooped up a spoonful of his mashed potatoes, “It’s not hard, just ask her out.”

“Okay, loverboy Lance,” Keith teased and turned his body to look at him directly, “With all the girls you’ve dated, you must’ve had a lot of first dates. What do you think I should do?”

“Oh,” Hunk cut in, “Lance’s first date was at Chuck E. Cheese when he was 12.”

Lance’s eyes widened and he yelled at Hunk with a look of betrayal evident on his face, “Hunk!”

“And a little eight-year-old stole all his tickets from his pocket when he tried to flirt with the cashier into giving him a few extra tokens.”

“HUNK!”

Keith shook his head fondly at his right hand man’s flustered and betrayed banter back and forth with Hunk. He turned to Pidge, who had a small blush on her face and a lingering smile playing on her lips as she swerved her fork left and right in her mashed potatoes. He rose a brow in question, “What about you, Pidge?”

“Huh?” She jumped up and paused swooshing her fork, almost dropping it.

“Do you have any first date experience you’d like to share?”

“I don’t think my input would help at all. If you haven’t noticed,” Pidge sassed, “I’m a tomboy and Allura is very girly. We’re both on the opposite ends of femininity.”

“Come on, Pidge,” Lance encouraged her, “You must know some advice for our emotionally constipated leader.”

Keith sent Lance a glare but the latter just winked.

“Oh, well, uh… no one’s ever asked me out on a date…” she trailed off.

“Really?” Lance was the first one to ask and Pidge almost jumped in her seat at the attention. Keith rose a brow at the two and he soon caught Hunk’s gaze, knowing immediately that the Samoan teen knew exactly what he was thinking about.

Phase 2 of Date Night has officially started.

“Then why don’t you three go out too while I take Allura out on a date?”

The two lovebirds blinked up at Keith and then looked at Hunk. He rose his arms and with a faux apologetic look he helped Keith out, “Sorry, guys, I can’t join you too. I already asked Shay if she wanted to go to my favorite restaurant with me and I can show her the jewels in a nearby abandoned mine.”

Keith rose an amused brow, “So it’s a triple date night?”

Pidge flushed immediately, which amused Keith because people did blush like that in front of their crush, and she stammered, “A d-date?”

Lance beamed at Pidge and leaned on his elbow, “Why not pigeon?”

“Don’t call me that,” she warned, an adorable “angry” (read: amused) face.

After a second of consideration she relented, “Fine. You better not screw it up, Lance.”

Lance smiled, “I would never.”

“That still doesn’t help the fact that I don’t know where to take Allura.”

“Come on, Keith, just think,” Hunk advised, “What’s something that Allura would love to see?”

Keith stopped and took a moment to consider his options. Allura is actually really homesick right now and is striving to find her people. She needs a break, though. She would really love to see anything that resembles something from Altea after seeing the Castle of Lions be destroyed and after losing her planet.

Keith paused.

He smiled.

He knew exactly where to take her.

He convinced himself that he will ask her after the meeting and before she can head for the med bay again. He had to. He wanted her to relax and also…he had to apologize for many things. He followed her out, but she was engaged in conversation with Romelle. Behind him, he could feel Lance, Hunk, and Pidge’s deep stares at his back and he took a deep breath.

Once they were out the door, he jogged behind the two girls and called out, “Allura!”

The yell came out a bit louder than he intended and he definitely got her attention. Allura turned around and smiled, “Hello, Keith. What is it?”

Keith stopped in front of them and he smiled softly, “Oh, nothing, really. I was just…uh…”

Allura smiled as she waited for him to finish and dang it there go the butterflies, Pidge you quiznaking liar.

“I-Would…Would you like to go out…tonight? Mom will be out with Acxa tonight making last minute preparations with the Blades so I’ll be alone. I was wondering if you’d like to eat dinner with…me?”

He was sure he had to be blushing right now. He’s never felt so nervous before. Behind her, he could see Romelle smiling knowingly at him, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge all joining her with the same look on her face and he was sure he was going to melt into a puddle of embarrassed blushes. Especially when he sees her dazzling smile and sympathetic face.

“I would love to, Keith, but I can’t,” he could see Hunk, Lance, and Pidge droop their heads behind them and he’s sure he would be doing the same if he wasn’t in her direct line of sight.

“Allura,” Romelle put a hand on her shoulder, “I know you’re worried about Luca, but we’re worried about you. It’ll be good for you to relax one night and clear your head.”

“Yeah,” Keith added, “You deserve some rest, princess.”

He blinked.

“Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be with me. You can still relax without me. But I’d like to…relax…with you?”

He really wanted to die right there.

Allura turned to look at him and she smiled warmly and, almost immediately, his worries went away and he smiled softly back and he practically beamed when he heard her answer, “Dinner would be nice. I’d love to.”

Keith beamed, “Great! I-uh-I’ll see you tonight. In the truck garage. At six.”

“Okaayyyy,” Lance stepped in, grabbing Keith from his shoulders and pulling him away from the Princess, “Let’s go away slowly before you scare her off with your awkwardness.”

After Allura made one final check up with the Altean, both she and Romelle headed for the garden to find the Green Paladin. When the doors slid open, they found her working on some plants with her mother on the other side of the room. Allura walked in, followed closely by Romelle, and smiled, “Hello, Pidge. Do you have a moment?”

Pidge turned around, Allura noticing she’s unusually giddy this morning since lunch, and smiled, “Sure, Allura. What’s up?”

“Well, uh,” Allura trailed off, looking at corner of the room and way too flustered to continue.

Romelle, however, had no problem speaking out her thoughts and she grabbed Allura’s shoudlers in excitement and blurted out, “We need to go shopping! She has a date with flippity hair!”

Pidge’s smile faltered, “Shopping?”

The dreaded word sent shivers up her spine.

“Yes!” Romelle exclaimed, “Where do you buy proper courting vestments?”

Behind the trio, an amused laugh interrupted their conversation and the three turned to Colleen, who was eyeing her daughter with the same mischief Allura has seen on Pidge’s own face multiple times before.

“Katie? Fashion? That’s a good one.”

Allura smiled at the older woman’s joke and turned to Pidge once the girl started speaking, ignoring Romelle’s whispered, “I thought her name was Pidge.”

“I heard the mall has reopened. I’ve been wanting to check it out,” she eyed her mother, “but I’m grounded.”

“Grounded?” Romelle asked, “I wasn’t aware humans could float.”

“No, no. It just means I’m not allowed to leave my mom’s supervision. It’s a form of punishment.”

“What are you grounded for?” Allura asked, concern clearly etched on her face for her grounded friend.

“She’s grounded because apparently my daughter thinks that running away from home and gallivanting off into space without her mother’s permission is an acceptable activity for a 15-year-old.”

Allura blinked in surprise, but she really didn’t even have time to react before Katie-Pidge exploded, “Well, apparently finding my brother and saving my father from an intergalactic tyrant doesn’t get me a pass!”

Romelle hid behind Allura at the face-off of the Holt women, and Allura couldn’t blame her, she would have too after she saw Mrs. Holt’s face when she said, “Not on your life, young lady.”

Allura smiled nervously and intertwined her fingers together in a pleading way, “Please, Colleen. I could really use her help.”

Immediately, the air calmed down and Colleen smiled, “Well, now that you mention it. I was thinking about going to the mall today. I guess I’ll join you girls.”

“Moooom, please,” Pidge begged.

“Besides,” Colleen ignored her sulking daughter, “I won’t pass up a chance to help my daughter choose her outfit for her first date.”

“A date?” Allura asked, turning her body to look at Pidge and raising her eyebrow.

“With who?” Romelle asked, placing both hands on her shoulders and set her head right beside Pidge’s.

The girl in question fixed her glasses and looked away, “Well, uh, with Lance…”

“Pointy chin?!” Romelle exclaimed brightly.

Colleen smiled, seeing that her daughter was uncharacteristically flustered and decided to tease her further as an extension of her punishment, “Yes. Lance came by and asked Sam and I if we would let her off her punishment for tonight. Of course, we wouldn’t have said no to such a well-mannered boy. Also, Pidge seemed quite smitten when she introduced us the first time.”

“Mom!”

The older woman chuckled and decided that she’s provoked her daughter enough and decided to tend to her plants instead.

Allura smiled at the woman in thanks and plucked a growling Pidge off the ground and slid her way out of the room, “Thank you, Colleen. We’re going to go get the other girls while you watch over your plants.”

Keith stood in front of Coran’s door and he could already feel the intense overexcitement wafting out the door. But he had to do this if he wanted tonight to go right. He sighed and knocked on the door, surprised for it to immediately open once Coran asked, “Yes?”

Once the doors opened completely, Coran flipped his shirt and he grinned once he saw Keith at the threshold, “Ah, Keith! Come in, young lad! To what do I owe this visit?”

“Hey, Coran. I wanted to ask you about Allura.”

“Sure. What is it? No one knows her better than I do. Except for maybe the mice, but they have a telepathic connection to her, which seems like cheating to me.”

“Uh… yeah. Well, I have a date with her tonight and-”

“What?! A date?! But you’re not even royalty nor Altean. Much less Altean royalty!”

Keith backed up from Coran’s invasion of personal space and placed his hands on the older man’s shoulders to lightly pull him away, “I don’t think she cares about things like that Coran.”

“Did you even ask her primary guardian?”

Keith rose a brow, “Is that you?”

Coran grinned, “Yep!”

Soon Keith found himself being pushed out of his room, “Now count to zingor and knock.”

“But I don’t know the Altean numeri-”

Before he finished his sentence, Coran’s doors slid shut and Keith was left staring at the door and hearing buzzing and thumping on the other side of the door. He sighed and knocked, the buzzing and thumping immediately stopping and the doors slid open.

It looked as if Coran completely changed the room’s layout. Is that a fireplace? Keith blinked in surprise and then he saw Coran in a big chair facing a small bench and he was “smoking” a pipe, bubbles coming out of the end.

“Ah, Keith. Please come in, have a seat.”

Keith could already feel himself regretting this as he sat down in front of the exuberant man.

“Exactly what makes you think you’re qualified for such a prestigious position? For example, who are your references?”

“What are you talking about, Coran?”

“You see, I’ll need at least two notarized certificates of commendation speaking of your greatness from reliable sources before I’ll even consider giving you my approval,” Keith sighed.

“But since I know you to be an honorable young man, I’ll make an exception for you.”

Keith sighed in relief.

“But… you must do something about that outfit. Altean courting vestments are essential. Seeing as we’re not on Altea, we’ll just have to make do.”

Coran pulled out the most ridiculous get up Keith has ever seen and he inhaled deeply, “No way.”

Coran was left alone in the room.

Keith made his way inside the garage, grateful to see that Allura still hasn’t arrived yet and rushed to one of the garage doors and pressed a button to open it up. Behind it was a replica of his old bike there sitting in the dust. He flicked out a rag dangling from one of his belt loops and got to work.

He heard the doors of the garage slide open when he wiped away the last streak of dust on the bike. He stood up and leaned up against the bike. He realized he doesn’t exactly look cool with a rag in his hands and he threw it away from him in a second and crossed his arms. Allura emerged from behind a few trucks, looking around for him and he stayed quiet to just watch her and appreciate how she looked.

But she didn’t give him much time to check her out because she turned in his direction and smiled when she saw him. He smiled in return and took a few steps to meet her in the middle. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, not really knowing what to do with them and prayed to the ancients that he would somehow know what he was supposed to be doing.

“You look beautiful.”

He assumed he said the right thing because Allura’s cheeks got a soft blush on them. She smiled back warmly and pushed her hair behind her ear, “Thank you. You look very handsome.”

In reality, Keith was lucky enough that Lance had forced him to go out shopping a few days ago when he admitted that his old clothes don’t fit him any more. If not, he probably would have been wearing his Garrison uniform tonight.

He smiled, “Thanks.”

Once the two reached the hoverbike, he patted the seat and asked, “You ready?”

Allura looked at its side and rose a brow, “What is that? Some sort of pod?”

Keith chuckled and handed her a helmet, “Not really. It’s a hoverbike. It’s not really suited for transportation in space, but it’s really fun to ride on the surface.”

Allura slid the helmet on and watched Keith get on, “Have you ever ridden one?”

“Yeah, I used to ride these all the time with Shiro when I was a kid.”

Allura nodded and she clasped her hands together, waiting for some sort of instruction to handle the contraption. Keith turned around after prepping the hover bike and he held out a hand, “Get on behind me.”

Allura’s eyes widened, “What?”

Keith took her hand and led her to the open space behind him. Allura held on tight as she swung her leg over the bike, inwardly chuckling at how scandalized her mother would be if she saw how Allura was dressed and how close she was to Keith. Once Allura was situated, Keith brought her hand to his abdomen and squeezed her hand, prompting her to squeeze his shirt. With his other hand, he brought her other hand to do the same.

“You’re gonna want to hold on tight,” Keith suggested, a sense of pride swelling in his chest when he sees the faint blush on Allura’s cheeks grow with each passing second. He flicked his wrist, powering up the hoverboard and Allura gasped as the contraption glowed and lifted off the ground. She chuckled incredulously as they were floating off the ground and Keith smirked as he flicked his wrist again, prompting the hoverbike’s engine to rev and they both took off out of the Garrison’s garage doors.

Allura laughed in absolute joy at the wind pushing her hair back and squeezed Keith’s abdomen tighter as she leaned her head on top of his back to watch the desert whiz past them. A few minutes into the ride, she yelled, “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see soon enough. We’re almost there.”

She held on tight when she felt Keith go faster and she whooped as they descended down a hill. At the far corner of her peripheral, she could see a small, run-down building sitting in solitude before they took a sharp turn and headed for some rock formations.

They entered the rocky terrain and she marveled up at the rocks above her, awing at it’s strange beauty. Keith slowed down eventually and he stopped in front of a cave opening. Once the engine purred to a stop, he swung his leg over the seat and held a hand for Allura to get off the hoverbike. She took it gratefully and did the same, stumbling a bit since she was still a bit dizzy from the ride.

Keith quickly gave her his second arm for her to balance herself and asked softly, “You okay?”

She nodded, “Yes, thank you.”

He smiled and let go of her hands and Allura could have sworn he was blushing. She followed after him, carefully stepping over stray rocks and the rough terrain on the ground. Once Keith was deep enough inside, he turned around and smiled as Alura just looked around at the cave’s carvings.

She rose an eyebrow and studied them carefully, “Are these drawings?”

Keith held an amused look as she walked around the cave’s opening blinking at the drawings carved into the walls and suddenly it clicked, “Is this where you all found the Blue Lion?”

Keith nodded fondly and Allura’s beaming smile was brighter than any he’s seen before. This is amazing, she whispered and she lifted a hand to brush it over the carvings and, before she knew it, they all light up in a dazzling, glowing blue. She jumped away from it in surprise and awed at the beautiful display.

She turned around in a circle gasping when she saw the beautiful color light up the whole cave. She saw dazzling blue embers dancing around them both and she twirled, causing a small flurry of to spin around her. She laughed and opened her palm, beaming when a couple landed in her palm and glowed brightly before she blew them away to join their buddies again.

She turned and looked at Keith, surprised to find his gaze resting only on her. She blushed slightly and opted to watch the small embers again and whispered, “This is beautiful.”

Keith turned away too, convinced that his cheeks must also be flushed, and smiled fondly, “I thought you would say that.”

He offered her his hand again and Allura looked at it before looking back up at Keith. She took his hand slowly and allowed him to pull her along a small pathway. Eventually they came upon a flat opening and, there on the ground, she saw a small blanket and a basket sitting in the middle. Keith led her down the jagged steps and Allura giggled, “Are we having a picnic?”

He looked up at her with such insecurity, Allura just wanted to hug him. He broke eye contact and looked at the side, “Is that alright?”

Allura smiled encouragingly, “Of course! I haven’t had a picnic in deca-phoebs.”

His smile returned and Allura let him help her sit down on the floor, she folded her feet under her and smiled as Keith prepared the dinner. She looked around, noticing that there was a rush of water right beside them and found the sound calming. The area was lit up by multiple carvings, each one depicting a different story.

She was only entranced away from the carvings when a delicious smell wafted in the air. She turned her head and gasped in delight when she saw a plate before her and a strange food sitting and waiting to be devoured.

But it smelled delicious.

“Keith,” she trailed away.

“I’m not much of a cook. Nothing close to Hunk,” he started, looking away shyly, “But I did have to cook for myself a few years once I moved out of my foster parent’s home. This is something I would cook all the time.”

She took a fork in hand and stabbed one of the small bits of the dinner, being smacked in the face with the appetizing smell, and took it all in one bite. She sighed in content at the burst of flavor and almost moaned as she chewed.

“This is absolutely divine, Keith,” she stabbed another small bit, “What is it?”

“It’s macaroni with beef and tomatoes. It’s really simple, not that big of a deal.”

“This is better than anything I’ve ever eaten at home. It’s truly delicious.”

Keith chuckled and looked away, “Thanks, Princess.”

At the foreign nickname, Allura paused and dropped her hand beside the plate. She sighed, “You don’t have to call me that, Keith.”

He blinked and finished chewing before asking, “What do you mean?”

“I’m no longer a princess, Keith. My planet’s gone and my people don’t even know I exist.”

Keith furrowed his eyebrows, “And?”

“Well-”

“Princess, no matter what. You are who you are. Nothing changes that. My whole life… I was light years away from anything related to my mom. That doesn’t change I’m part Galra, does it?”

Allura looked up at Keith and was immediately struck by his soft features looking back at her. He shifted his hand a bit to brush against hers and whispered, “No matter what the circumstances are, you are the Princess of Altea. That will never change. So I’ll always call you the title you deserve.”

Allura returned his soft smile and she enveloped him in a tight hug. Keith froze for a second, not expecting the sudden affection, but he eventually returned the embrace and hugged her tight. Allura whispered a soft and broken, “Thank you.”

Keith sighed and pulled away, meeting Allura’s happy smile with sadness in his eyes and he whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

Allura rose an inquisitive brow and prompted him to continue, “I said horrible things to you when we were stuck in space.”

“Keith it’s alright, you weren’t yourself at the time.”

“The thing is,” Keith whispered breathlessly and turned away in shame, “I was actually thinking along those lines. Not about your father. That comment came up on the fly. But what I said about you and Lotor? Yeah, I was thinking about that for a while.”

Allura gasped and whispered softly and slightly hurt, “Keith…”

“I never blamed you, though. I actually always blamed myself,” he admitted and looked up at her apologetically, “Maybe if I was there with the team, I wouldn’t have let Lotor hurt you guys so close,” he turned away again guiltily, “I was mad at myself for leaving you all. I was mad for leaving you, Allura.”

His voice hitched when he felt Allura grab his hand and he looked up, finding her own guilty face staring back at him, “Well, to tell you the truth, my comment also came the heart. I was always wondering why you would leave us and I thought to myself that it was my fault that you left. That I didn’t act to stop you from leaving us in the most crucial moment of the war.”

She squeezed his hand and Keith found himself unable to look away from her blue eyes and she whispered brokenly, “We needed you with us, Keith. Why did you leave?”

Keith licked his lips, “I guess it’s because I didn’t feel like the leader you all deserved. I was becoming so attached to you all, I got scared.”

Allura grabbed his cheek and whispered, “Scared of what?”

Keith looked up at her and his eyes shined a low indigo under the blue highlights and whispered back, “I was scared of losing you.”

A deep sense of dread was in the pit of her stomach when Keith continued, “Everyone I’ve ever loved was taken away from me in one way or another and I didn’t want that to happen to you guys. You all became my family. I didn’t know what to do.”

Allura smiled and nodded softly, “I felt the same way. You all became my family when I lost Altea. You all became my only. Here though,” she exhaled, “I feel like everyone has a home to return to. All except for me.”

Keith was the one who initiated the hug this time, softly wrapping his arms around her and whispering a faint, “I love you.”

She pulled away slowly and she stared at him incredulously and whispered a faint, “What?”

Keith lifted a hand to cradle her head and his fingers scratched her scalp. He looked down at her lips and back up to her eyes, “I love you.”

He joined their foreheads together, “I love you so much…I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Not really. It’s like a part of me was telling my that my place wasn’t on Earth. But meeting you? Working with you? I truly felt at home. I wanna be your home, Allura. Just like you are mine.”

Allura smiled softly, having never been more moved by anyone’s words in her life and she saw Keith leaning in slowly. She closed her eyes and closed the gap in between them, finally joining their lips together. She lifted up her hand to lose itself in Keith’s scalp and her other laid flat on his chest. His other hand laid on her waist and the two stood there comfortably, sliding their lips against the other softly and lovingly, drinking up everything the other had to offer.

They only let go when they heard a soft beep from Keith’s phone. They pulled apart reluctantly, smiling and chuckling once they saw the other’s red lips and Keith took out his phone to check what it was in case it was an emergency. Allura laid her head on his shoulder as he checked what it was and she giggled softly when she saw what it was.

On Keith’s phone screen was a selfie that Lance and Pidge took. Pidge was smiling up at the camera, her eyes closed as Lance plopped a kiss on her cheek, slightly lifting her glasses off her face. There was a small caption at the bottom saying a short, “Thanks, Keith,” with blue and green hearts. Keith chuckled along and asked softly, “Do you want to send them one?”

Allura nodded and Keith lifted his hand at an angle. Once Allura was smiling up at the camera, he plopped a kiss on her forehead. Even after the picture was taken, he planted one final kiss on her lips, prompting her to giggle, before he sent the picture. Theirs was sent with a short caption too, “My pleasure.”

Later, once Keith finally cleaned up from their date, he led her out of the cave and towards his lion, which she assumed he summoned while they were on their date, and helped her climb up onto Black’s head. He sat down with his legs extended and helped her take her seat in between his legs. She leaned back against his firm chest and they both watched the sun set. After a few more kisses exchanged, Allura was sure that this was her new favorite past time. Being cuddled up in the arms of the man she loves is the best feeling: safety and warmth and love.

She pauses.

She smiles and nuzzles into him more.

She realizes that she feels at home.

#kallura #my works #allureith #rosegold #juniblade #sharpening my juniblade

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