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itsnothingofinterest · 2 years ago

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Hey 👋🙂 how's everything going?

Can I run a ,not very solid but interesting, theory by you?

Do you think it could be a toga/twice clone who stops dabi from exploding?

Because Dabi can't die (and if he does a lot of setups in bnha will end in failure) and there's no one else who could realistically stop Dabi from trying to kill himself to end endeavor?

Nothing endeavor does can stop Dabi, not just because of his quirk but I can't really think of anything he could say that would have enough of an impact at this point.

And while shoto might get another shot, it doesn't really matter if he (somehow) manages to overpower Dabi's quirk, because shoto already gave his brother an answer, a somewhat poorly thoughtout one.

The rest of the todoroki family may be close by but they didn't seem intent to leave the shelter or try to confront Dabi themselves even if they did.

I don't know exactly how toga/twice clones could stop or convince Dabi not to explode but it could be cool for more Lov bonds content, and because it seems like no one else can do it.

Do you think so or different? Or did you have any theories?

Going good, thanks for asking. Regarding your theory, and going through the situation character by character:

Endeavor, until recently, I actually did think could get through to Touya in the brief time BNHA has left. All he’d need to do is finally put being a father over being a hero for specifically Touya’s sake; and for a while he just so happened to drag his villain-killing Dabi-rivalling coworker Hawks everywhere who could provide such an opportunity. It could’ve been as easy as Hawks tossing feathers Dabi’s way & Endeavor’s body moving before he could think in the way of the attack. Wouldn’t have to be lethal or anything, just taking the damage would speak so much to Touya. But alas, that’s now off the table. As is seemingly any other opportunity for Endeavor to save Touya, especially at the expense of his heroic duties. Under these circumstances they’re pretty solidly on opposite sides of a conflict where all Endeavor can do is “save the day” or die trying. Best he could do for Touya is apologize and try to reason with him; and this far in I don’t think words alone would be enough. What Endeavor has always needed to do is put Touya first, but he can’t under this set-up so…yeah.

While Shoto would be able to do more to stop at least the explosion; I certainly get where you’re coming from with his hurdles in actually talking Touya down, an important step in the process. A big part of why I keep harping on about a part 2 of BNHA is characters not being nearly ready to conclude their arcs; and that includes Shoto not being ready to really save his brother and talk him out of villainy. As you said; he gave all he had to say, it was insufficient and couldn’t reach Touya, and as much as I hoped otherwise when Stain appeared, nothing’s changed in him or what he would say since Dabi left for Gunga a few minutes ago. He could still save Dabi from exploding; but much like Deku saving Tomura from just AFO if he gets to UA, that alone wouldn’t really solve any of the core issues that brought us here. At most, it’d show that the kids have a bit more character than anticipated, maybe convince the villains they won’t be entirely hopeless as heroes, but be nowhere near sufficiently cover or make up for everything.

So as for Toga/Twice playing a part, I could see the potential. Like Endeavor, there’s not much they could do to stop the explosion besides try to talk him into not blowing himself up; but unlike Endeavor, I actually think they could have a shot at that. Mainly because, if either asked Dabi not to off himself, there’s no way it could be anything but a genuine decree that his life has value; where as Endeavor would have great difficulty sounding genuine saying the same thing. There are a few issues though; and the main one I see is that Toga’s entire parade seems to have been corralled somewhere far from all the innocent civilians Endeavor is leading Dabi too. Plus Toga has her own arc anyway to resolve. So I don’t know how she’d talk to Dabi on this.

As for my own theories, well maybe I just have trouble letting go of ideas but I still think Shigaraki should use the AFO quirk to save his allies; Dabi & Spinner in particular. I’m almost as short on details as you are on how Toga/Twice would save Dabi, this is also just an interesting theory I have; but if Warps somehow enter into play then Tomura would probably have an easy enough time both stopping the bomb and telling Dabi not to off himself. Boss-man’s word is law after all, but more importantly he’d sound just as genuine as Toga or Twice saying Dabi should live. Failing that though; maybe it’ll be some combination of the above. Shoto stops the explosion, Toga convinces Dabi to live, and they retreat to Tomura who gives Dabi Hyper-Regen to heal his injuries so he can fight another day, possibly after thinking through some stuff he'll need to think over after the war. And Endeavor is also there, maybe throwing out an apology, for what little it's worth. Maybe he dies too, I don’t know; he's got a few death flags of his own but either way's fine I guess.

(Oh, and just regarding the rest of the family; I'm actually not sure what part they'll play. They could try to help, but it's Shoto's story in the end so maybe they'll just play the citizens Endeavor Dabi endangers to show him going to far or whatever. Thought gut feeling; I'm not sure they'd have the easiest time talking him down anyway either.)

#ask & reply #bnha #bnha 386 #dabi #touya todoroki #toga himiko #twice #jin bubaigawara #shigaraki tomura #paranormal liberation front #PLF #shoto todoroki #enji todoroki #anti endeavor #anti hawks #my stupid long term predictions

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chironshorseass · 3 years ago

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I was reading some of your posts and you had pretty good takes, so I wanted to ask what you think about the whole 'Percy is a mary sue/gary stu' thing? I see a few people saying that too many characters fall for him, he's overpowered, he has no flaws, etc. What do you think?

tbh i had no idea this was a thing until I looked it up, and yep. there are people who legit think that percy is a mary sue which is hilarious. also there r some others who claim that annabeth and piper r mary sues?? that's also a thing but im less surprised abt that even tho they r clearly very wrong as well lmaoo

so let's see what makes a mary sue: according to this dictionary "Mary Sue is a term used to describe a fictional character, usually female, who is seen as too perfect and almost boring for lack of flaws, originally written as an idealized version of an author in fanfiction."

ok so it’s true that rick wrote percy to be….similar? to his son? or at least represent him. i’m not sure and frankly idc bc in the end, percy can’t exactly be considered to be the typical self insert who could do no wrong unlike *cough* paul *cough* because, what-ho he has flaws. lol. in tlt it is established that percy has anger issues. he easily gets in trouble and again, his emotions get the best of him. (tho him being a "troublemaker” is usually bc he's the type of dude who is There at the wrong place and at the wrong time. he's a demigod and he's blamed for everything but that's another matter.) with this said, he talks back at gabe knowing that it just makes his mom's life harder. this isn't coming from malicious intent, obviously, bc percy loves his mom. he just cant help himself and his hatred (which is valid obviously) is overwhelming. he has no filter when it comes to insults (tho a lot of his internal monologue he still keeps to himself), his self-esteem is crippling (probably has a lot to do with gabe) and anyone with reading comprehension can tell that he’s a little shit!!! a little shit who is also three dimensional!!! im so confused abt why they will say that percy is written with “no flaws” as if they have the best take ever. he literally strangled nico during tlo, and sure his anger was warranted, but nico was like. ten. and percy just kept choking him😭😭. i’m sorry but dude has flaws. i think mainly people confuse being fundamentally good-natured and being powerful with having no flaws and therefore boring. these two don’t necessarily correlate, and a well written character can and will have many aspects to them, not just the cool flashy powers. a well written character won’t be boring, and therefore, won’t be a mary sue. i think people forget that. percy is more than just a son of poseidon, the hero of olympus. he isn't perfect and he isn't meant to be, because he isn't a mary sue!!! he isn’t BORING!!! truly i could rant all day and make some other post abt his flaws but frankly not today. these people clearly dont know how to read lol.

on the topic of too many characters falling for him and his looks….honestly all of that felt very natural in the books? one, nico’s crush on percy isn’t canon until waay later so we as readers didn’t know he had one while reading pjo. nico admits that he had a crush in the first place bc he began to idealize percy, for who he is (and honestly it’s realistic, given nico was young and the person who saved him and his sister was percy). two, rachel fell for the idea of percy. of the world that he was part of—she literally says this shit. and they started out as friends, so, developing feelings is easy thru friendship. obviously percy jackson is a good person, and obviously rachel saw the best parts of him and went with it. then she promptly tells him something along the lines of “bye not interested. i figured out that i don’t rly like u exactly. i just liked the idea of u being part of this magical world” and that’s that. three, calypso also falls in love with the idea of him (btw there r many things wrong with this, but u know, another can of worms. yikes). she implies that it was his character (bravery, maybe?). four, annabeth starts off as his friend. she gets to know all of him, the good and the bad, and it doesn’t rly feel like, “oh, he’s perfect and awesome and sooo good looking. that’s why everyone wants to be with him.” no. on the surface, maybe??? idk this is maybe sugar coating a lot. but all these ppl “fall in love” with percy bc of different circumstances, and not necessarily bc of his looks/all of them except for annabeth don’t get to know him well at all. they don’t exactly know abt his flaws, and….obviously percy jackson is good looking. later on, he’s described as such. lol he’s the son of a greek god??? and yet. for most of pjo he’s described as short and scrawny?? bc he’s a kid? lol. another thing: his looks aren’t the most important thing abt him. in fact, it’s barely stated in the books. us as readers infer that he must be good looking bc of some throwaway comments and how poseidon is perceived as “handsome” and percy looks like poseidon. this is later on when he’s sixteen or whatever

ig, but again, not the most important part of him. not rly mary sue material if barely anyone acknowledges his looks.

tl;dr: percy jackson can’t be a mary sue bc he’s not boring: he has flaws as well as good qualities to him. his “good looks” aren’t important like they r in actual mary sue characters since they r barely mentioned. characters fall for him bc of different aspects of his character, not necessarily bc of the previous thing abt the “good looks.” PERCY JACKSON CANNOT BE A MARY SUE AND YALL CLEARLY CANT READ

#my takes and opinions r correct #ask tag🤠#anon #mari’s ted talks #percy jackson #also i don’t think he’s oberpowered per se. he hates the thought of too much power bc of authority figures in his life #he doesn’t want to BE powerful. he holds himself back most of the time #also him being the most powerful demigod is kind of an important plotline. but the most interesting thing is that he didn’t need his powers #to defeat kronos. bc the story wasn’t abt him and his powers weren’t the most important thing abt him #FOR GOOD REASON #so no. he isn’t a mary sue #I feel like this is just fanon interpretation getting mixed up w actual canon

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here-there-were-dragons · 3 years ago

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been thinkin on this for awhile(years, started before pillagers) now, the recent disaster with the fireflies and pr shitshow that’s shaping up to be 1.19 with all it’s cutting every anticipated feature until there’s no wild left for contrived reasons and it’s misleading marketing and condescending responses just dredged it a little more out of the slow-moving worthless irredeemable misery-clogged murky toxic depths of my piece of shit mind but for a long while, as far back as the original combat update maybe even before, mojangs had a serious problem with risk-reward level scaling loot and useful stuff.

what i mean by that is mojang has an issue where every single time they introduce a useful loot table or item, the consistently lock it behind a level gate so high that by the time any reasonable person could even try to get to it, they not only don’t need it anymore, but are outright past the point of even having a use for it.

oftentimes, the level gate they lock said useful feature behind is one that you practically have to already have one of the item or an even better one to get past it.

piglin bastion loot? valuable stuff, a real treasure trove of many useful things including enchanted armors and weapons-except the guards are so overpowered that by the time the average person is going to be able to even try to take on a bastion without all that lovely loot just dropping in the lava, they won’t even be able to use any of it anymore, because they’ll most likely already be having to come decked out in diamond and crap just to have a chance at getting through here alive. the loot payout of bastions is wonderfully useful-for a player several steps lower on the leveling scale than he dungeon is set for. i’ve gone into bastions in full netherite with fire resist and invisibility potions on and still gotten my ass kicked when more than three piglins showed up at one time. on the average game i manage to find a full set of mending before i find a way into a bastion, and there’s not much use for what would have been high-level gold armor a few hours ago when to get to it i’m already having to show up in self-regenerating netherite.

shulker boxes? amazing item. that you’ll never, ever get the chance to make full use of without cheating, because by the time you might get to it you’re already long past the stage of the game where your inventory is cluttered with shit because you don’t know what you’re going to need later. and most likely already to the stage of the game where you’re ignoring diamond armor loot because you can’t use it.

elytra? beautiful. except to get to where they are you basically have to already have one.

deep dark loot? same problem as the bastion loot. great stuff, for someone about 3 levels lower than the person that would realistically be coming in here.

recovery compass? the place you have to go to get it is someplace you’re going to already fucking need a recovery compass for.

totem of undying? the only way you’re getting to it is if you already have one, because like the bastion, it’s buried in a gigantic structure swarming with fast-moving high-health enemies that 1hko anyone in anything less than diamond armor. the reward you get for doing the dungeon is the item you needed to be able to start it in the first place.

villagers? ever since they standardized the trade tables for each profession, only maybe 3 of them offer services that aren’t “if you give me 7 difficult-to-obtain rare emeralds instead of taking 30 seconds out of your time to go mine 3 blocks yourself i can give you a stone hoe”. by the time you can afford anything all but the librarian and cleric and occasionally tool/weaponsmith trade, you’ve already laughably outleveled them. no one is going to have multiple emeralds before they have stone and leather tools. and it’s very weird that none of the leatherworkers buy raw leather.

do you even really get anything out of ocean monuments aside from bunch of prismarine, sponges, and some gold? i don’t even remember, i haven’t bothered doing one since they released because whatever i got out of it was so completely not worth the effort.

the only places i think the loot level is scaled relatively close to the realistic player level for the difficulty of obtaining are the old mossy cobble dungeons, the villages, the mineshafts, and the nether forts.

this ties into the second problem that’s been around equally long, which is that every time mojang adds something useful they panic and nerf it until it isn’t practically usable anymore.

potions? would be useful. except they don’t stack, and take so much to craft, and most of them are really only useful as split-second decision things you throw at your feet in the middle of a fight, and their unstackability combined with limited inventory and hotbar space which is most likely already taken up by other, more useful and efficient, less situational tools, and the resulting combat-stopping tedium of having to constantly open up your inventory to shuffle them around so you can actually use them (by which point you’re probably already dead because of the “mainly useful as a split second buff decision” thing), makes it so that outside of a few specific situations carrying something else in your limited hotbar is almost always more efficient. when i play i carry in my hotbar a pickaxe, axe, sword, torch stack, stack of useless blocks like dirt, crafting table, and furnace at all times which leaves me with at most two free spaces, and even if i cut out everything but the tools it would still hardly leave room to make much use of potions. potions are simply put, simultaneously too powerful, too situational, and too inefficient to ever use. and because of this, the only potions that are ever really useful outside of rping or specific games are fire resist, waterbreathing, weakness (to cure villagers), and maybe invisibility and night vision, all of which have extremely specific uses that are virtually null outside of one particular dungeon or situation.

combat? the entire original combat update.

shields? more useful in comparison to it’s difficulty of obtaining and nerfs than most things on this list, but unless you’re doing pvp i still usually find it much easier to use the offhand slot for food.

horses? were useful in a way that felt well scaled to the golden carrots it took to breed them, right up until mojang decided they should all run so slow it’s faster just to walk instead.

elytra? the moment they realized their insanely difficult to obtain endagme reward item that eats fireworks for fuel might be more useful for traversal movement than a regular midgame minecart they panicked and tried to nerf them. they went back on it, but they tried.

ender pearls already do damage making them basically useless for escaping death like you would naturally mainly use them for but the endermites were a clear failed attempt to nerf them even further

the enchanting table wasn’t already enough of a pain in the ass to use, so now you have to waste thousands of rare lapis on it for a chance of getting anything that isn’t “bane of arthropods ll quick shot l” again.

do most people even use beacons or conduits? what are they even for? i can’t imagine sacrificing a minimum of 9 blocks of diamonds and more individual ones on top of that just to get some permanent potion boosts in a specific area is all that useful or worth the effort in normal gameplay much less by the point you would be leveled enough to realistically get them. seems like it’s for maps or bragging rights. i forget they exist. and conduits seem extremely specifically intended for clearing out ocean monuments and little else. i also forget they exist. both simultaneously too overpowered AND too hard and inefficient and of extremely specific nonessential use to bother getting except to say that you did. i don’t even remember either of them enough to consider their use in creative builds, they’re such non-entities in realistic normal gameplay to me.

and a problem i feel like is related to this difficulty scale loot balancing and compulsive overcorrecting nerf issue but that isn’t quite the same and i didnt know how to fit it in naturally, in repeatedly buffing the warden, insisting on giving no reason to kill it, having it do and give and preform nothing except kill you, and placing it in a location where the loot payout isn’t worth the risk to the level of player the loot would be useful for, in the exact way that they did it, all in an attempt to discourage engaging the warden in combat, they have instead inadvertently created a mob that there is no reason to engage with the existence of in any way at all. it’s not even an ambient mob, it adds nothing to the world for the most part because most of the time it’s not here and when it is it’s a horror game monster. it only appears when triggered by the player in extremely specific circumstances in extremely specific place, does nothing but attack you, and gives nothing. it’s a glorified, souped-up endermite. i might sound like i hate the warden but i don’t-i’m indifferent to it the same as i am to axolotls. but i think it’s worth pointing out that the fireflies, the only ambient thing in the update that was promised to be all about overworld natural ambience and now even that’s cut out permanently for stupid arbitrary reasons despite everyone begging for them for years, legitimately added to the world overall more than the warden as it exists right now does.

everything is some contradicting fusion of overpowered, singularly circumstantial, uselessly specific, bogged down by nerfs to make it too inefficient to ever be practical, and unavailable until 3 levels after the one it would be useful at. mojang is just bad at balancing. has been for awhile.

#minecraft #depressed bluescreen posting #depressed shower thoughts #i might just be very bad at the game like i am with everything else #that is also possible #just less likely because normally i'm only that horrible at things that actually matter to me #that i really care about protecting and doing right #that are deeply important to me #which minecraft is not and has never been one of

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angstymarauder · 4 years ago

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His Time of the Month {R.L} (Part 2)

Remus Lupin x Female!reader part 1

summary: You know about your boyfriends lycanthropy and you love him regardless, but sometimes the words he speaks on the days leading up to the full moon still hurt. A lot.

word count: 1.1kish

contains: angst, troubles with self-worth, ending is left up to interpretation

a/n: the reader has trouble with self-worth in this and I would just like to say that your feelings and self-worth should NEVER EVER rely on the words of others, especially those of your loved ones. I know how hard it is to hear people, who say they love you, ridicule you, and say things that make you feel like shit. And its like - you know they don’t mean to hurt you, but it doesn't change how much pain you feel. I’ve been there (and sometimes I still go there) and while it is a big process filled with tears, cutting people off, arguments defending yourself, and just a lot a lot a lot of self-acceptance, it is possible to stop letting them get to you. YOU are the only validation you need. I love you for who you are and you should love yourself for who you are. My messages are always open, loves <3

He messed up.

And he knew he messed up, but his own mind was working against him and at that moment his rational mind couldn’t overpower the anger that had been building up all day.

Always his enemy, he wanted to blame the lycanthropy, but his rational mind knew that this was all his fault. You have been nothing but loving and understanding about everything when it came to his condition. Night after night you had sat there, taking his screaming and yelling, trying to calm him down, never leaving an argument with unresolved issues, but tonight he watched himself jump over the line that you had pushed back for his time and time again.

Remus stood in the now-empty tower, the sounds of your fading footsteps running down the stairs, each step another ache in his chest. The anger in his mind was screaming at your retreating footsteps. Words of detest, saying that you hated him. That you gave up on him. That you thought he was a monster just like everyone else. But the rational part of his mind sat in the back of his head screaming the truth over all the other noise and he knows he can’t blame you for this. He knows this is his fault. And somehow that idea just made him even angrier.

Angry at his lycanthropy. Angry at the world. Angry at everyone else.

But most of all, he was angry at himself, because he never wanted to hurt you.

Because he doesn't know what he would do without you. Losing you would be the worst thing that could ever happen to him. It would be like ripping all the pieces of his human heart straight out of his chest, leaving only the animalistic urges that show themselves once a month. Without you he might as well never transform back, find a way to stay a werewolf forever.

Suddenly Remus’ senses pick up on footsteps, coming up the stairs this time. He knew whose steps those belonged to, so when James opened the door to the West Tower, Remus was not surprised. Breathlessly, from running up all those stairs, James said “what…. the fuck …. is happening ….up …. here?” taking a breath in between each couple of words.

Running his scarred fingers through his hair, Remus turned to look at his sweaty friend. “I fucked up. I fucked up big time.” He began pacing, the events becoming clearer and more realistic in his mind with each word, “With y/n, I fucked up big time.”

· · · ∞ · · ·

“HE SAID WHAT?” screamed Marlene, now pacing around your shared dorm room, “I’m going to kill that lanky-ass son-of-a-bitch.”

“Marls, please,” Lily spoke softly after glancing at your tired expression. Heartache tends to wear a person out.

The redhead sat down beside you at the edge of your bed, running her hand up and down your back, allowing you to relax a little more. Whispering in your ear so the others didn’t hear, she spoke, “listen, just wait until Tuesday, after the full moon once he’s all cooled down, and then talk to him, ok?”

You nodded at her words even though they barely entered your mind, your head already racing with thoughts you couldn’t bring yourself to say out loud. Lily soon ushered you to sleep, the exhaustion evident in your eyes.

But you couldn’t fall asleep. Questions floating around as your brain sprinted marathons in your head, trying to answer them, and coming up with nothing. Could you ever trust Remus again? How do you know that the next time you fight he won’t say those words again? Did he mean them? Or was it his lycanthropy? How much of these arguments can you even blame on his lycanthropy? And when does it become his fault? You can’t use his lycanthropy as an excuse for everything, but you also don’t want to use it against him….

Did he mean them? That was the question your mind kept circling back around to. Did he mean them? Are your worst fears and deepest insecurities true? Are you good enough? If the person who has told you they’re in love with you, time and time again, doesn’t think so, then how are you supposed to?

Tossing and turning, you woke up, no less tired than the night before. It took effort to get dressed that morning, almost wanting to stay in bed all day, but knowing you couldn’t. Marlene, Lily, and Mary persuaded you to breakfast in the Great Hall. You avoided Remus, in fact, you avoided all of the Marauders. Their presence, only a reminders of your bleeding heart. Remus seemed to be giving you space and, for that, you were grateful. But just the mere sight of him sent you back to your bedroom where you spent the rest of the day, claiming illness to your professors.

· · · ∞ · · ·

It was 3am, you assumed, as you got out of bed. In only your pajamas you quietly made your way through the halls without interruption. Your feet leading you to the top of the astronomy tower where you stared at the sky.

The full moon. Your voice quivered above a whisper as you cast a small silencing spell before allowing sobs to begin escaping your mouth. You thought about Remus as you stared into the moon. Hearing his howls in the distance, you couldn’t help yourself from asking the stars to keep a watch over him.

· · · ∞ · · ·

They found you passed out in the astronomy tower, Lily and Mary, your tear-stained cheeks and dark circles made your previous actions evident. Your roommates came searching for you as soon as they woke up to find your bed empty.

Mary insisted on taking you to the infirmary. Lily, as the only other girl who knew about Remus’ lycanthropy, tried to stop it, but Mary wasn’t hearing it.

Your body began to wake up, your consciousness returning to you slowly, allowing yourself to regain feeling in your fingers and your toes before attempting to open your eyes.

You’ve been in the infirmary plenty of times to visit Remus, but you’ve never been in one of the beds before. You don’t even remember how you got here. Sorting through your memories you last remember being in the astronomy tower staring at… the moon. It was the full moon last night, which means -

“Hey.” He spoke softly. You could feel his eyes staring into your figure. Remus was so surprised when he woke up in the infirmary, the night after one of his worst full moons, to see you two beds over. Your skin lacked its normal shine and tears still stained your beautiful lips. His heart ached over knowing that it was he who caused them. He knows that James said to give you some time, but seeing you here like this, he had to let you know how sorry he was.

You turn to face him, your eyes locking almost instantly, “hey.”

His eyes bore into yours, an expression of complete love, sorrow, and vulnerability filled every inch of them and as he spoke the words, “I’m sorry,” you knew they were true.

lol i was so confused on how to end this and every ending I wrote felt wrong so I'm just gonna leave it up to your imaginations, sorry

#remus lupin #remus lupin angst #remus angst #lupin angst #full moon #marauders #marauders angst #marauders era #angst #remus one shot #remus drabble #lilypotter #lily potter #remus x y/n #remus x reader #james potter #marlene mckinnon #mary macdonald

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todomitoukei · 4 years ago

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Please, give us your feelings about BNHA's female characters. Tbh, I just don't care about them? Even Toga-and I consider her the best female characters. Imho it's not that they are all bad... it's just they are so flat and who was Midnight again? The one with thi scandalous outfit that was just plain bad? Like it wasn't even funny it was just a nope for me.

Alright, here are some thoughts I have about the female characters, or rather how Horikoshi writes female characters. Disclaimer: this post is going in all sorts of directions, mainly because there are so many ways in which Horikoshi manages to write awful female characters!

The problem starts with the fact that the bar for female characters (especially in shonen) is very low. For some reason, many if not most stories seem to be unable to include female characters that are more than just fan service or just there to serve the male characters. Despite the fact that bnha does have both fan service and characters that are far too flat, some people in the fandom don’t think so?! Anyway, let’s look at some of the reasons why the female characters in bnha are not as progressive as some people claim they are (under the cut because there is just too much):

Okay so, out of all the female characters I honestly only somewhat care about Toga, Momo, and Jirou, and it’s even difficult to care about those three (minus Toga) because they just aren’t included enough in the story to leave a big enough impression or stand a chance at getting a lot of character development.

Jirou I mainly love because I love the whole rock vibe, so I’m biased with her. I do think she’s a cool character, but I also feel like a lot of her lines/appearances are tied to Kaminari. Although he is supportive of her, there is one thing that bothers me about the scene where he encourages her to perform at the festival, which I will mention a little later.

I do like that she has an interest outside of hero work (aka music) and that it stems from her parents, who are both musicians. That small scene we got of her parents showing their full, unconditional support when she tells them that she wants to be a hero is a cute scene, and I love that she is later shown to teach some of the girls how to play instruments. The problem is that those scenes are very few, and we already get so few appearances of her (won’t forgive them for not even including her in the newest OVA).

Momo is another good character - she is smart, strong, and brave. She also has the most amount of relevance out of all the female students, especially with her being involved in rescuing Bakugou. Momo has a lot of potential, but there are three main issues that I have with her character though.

One, her hero outfit. It makes zero sense. You’d think her outfit needs to show skin due to her quirk, but then we get scenes that make it even worse, like during USJ when she created that large sheet through her back, which resulted in her outfit ripping apart and almost exposing her in chapter 61:

^also it’s panels like this where some people praise Horikoshi for giving her a realistic stomach?? Please raise the bar a little bit

And in regards to her boobs... that outfit is not supporting them at all??? It would make far more sense to just give this girl a sports bra and pants. Anywayyy, let’s not forget she is a teenager so maybe also give her a shirt? Even a loose shirt would make sense, so she could have larger creations come out of her stomach/back area without ruining her clothes every time.

Two, her quirk is far too strong, but because this is a fictional story, it doesn’t get used in the most efficient way. As other people have already joked about, the story could be told in one season if Momo was the main character and just went wild with her quirk. Horikoshi doesn’t really make an effort to explain to us why Momo doesn’t just wrap this all up real quick. You can talk about how overpowered Green Ketchum trying to catch all quirks is, but he has nothing on Eri and Momo.

Three, after the sports festival, Momo had an issue with her self-confidence, similar to how Jirou didn’t feel confident enough to perform at the festival. And similar to how it was Kaminari that first made an attempt at boosting Jirou’s confidence, it was Shouto who helped out Momo. Now, I don’t have a problem with guys supporting girls - it’s just annoying when female characters aren’t allowed to be confident or find confidence on their own, or with the help of other female characters.

I get that she was comparing herself to him, so him showing her that he believes in her is the most helpful for her, but it becomes a problem when this is the biggest character development she gets. It’s almost like after this scene, she’s cured. And whenever a tiny hint at self-doubt crosses her mind, she just remembers that Shouto believes in her, and then she’s back on track. Not great.

Because of this, it’s really nice whenever we get a scene of just the girls hanging out, the problem is simply that those scenes barely exist because most of the female students are each tied to one specific male character: Jirou to Kaminari, Momo to Shouto, and Uraraka to Deku. Out of the three, Uraraka is the most unfortunate one, mainly because she is tied to the protagonist, so he’s always going to play a bigger role for her character than she will for him.

I think Uraraka, Momo, and Jirou all have a lot of potential and could be really interesting strong female characters. I even really love Uraraka’s motivation for becoming a hero, since she wants to help out her parents. This is actually a very selfless reason, despite the fact that most of the fandom constantly paints her as someone who would do anything for money. People even make it seem like her doing this for money is selfish, even though the money isn’t supposed to be for her, but for her parents?! And to be honest, even if her motivation was to get money for herself, can we please stop claiming that doing something for money is selfish?? Like hello? We all live in capitalist hell. We all have to work and make money to live, so please stop pressing that idea of everyone having to be passionate about their jobs. It’s okay if you hate your job, we can’t all get paid for things we’re passionate about. And guess what? It’s okay because you can still have things your passionate about outside of work and just do your job to afford shelter, food, and your hobbies!

Anywayyy, whenever people aren’t claiming that Uraraka is just after money, her other personality trait is Deku. This mainly started when Aoyama claims that she has a crush on Deku in chapter 67:

Ever since, whenever she looks, thinks, or mentions him, she can’t think clearly anymore. No matter what she does, she seems to always think: “What would Deku do?” - instead of just asking herself: “What would I do?” To be fair, this expands to other characters as well - Bakugou and Shouto both have that same problem of constantly bringing Deku up, so this is just a problem in general with bnha, where somehow everyone is obsessed with the protagonist. The difference is just that characters that aren’t Uraraka have more to them than just Deku (Bakugou being on thin ice though).

You know what other female character has no personality outside of Deku? His mom. I know that this one might not matter as much to other people because she is a supportive mom and we love to see supportive parents, and she just doesn’t get enough screentime to give her a personality that doesn’t revolve around Deku. And I’m not saying a woman can’t just dedicate her life to her child - but since we’re already talking about female characters in this story that fall flat, could you name me anything about her that has nothing to do with Deku? What’s her hobby? What are her dreams? Yes, she has the role of mom in this story and that is her purpose, but she would just feel a little more human if we knew a little more about her. We know more about Jirou’s, Bakugou’s, and Shouto’s parents. But what about Inko? What does she do all day long?

Also now that I mentioned mothers... a big debate in the fandom (for whatever fucking reason) is whether or not Bakugou’s mom is a good mom (she isn’t). I don’t know how Horikoshi manages to write a story where one of the character’s whole plot is all about his abusive upbringing, and then he turns around and writes Mitsuki as some sort of comedy relief??

^Here in chapter 96, we have Aizawa and All Might making the home visits because of the dorm system U.A. wants to implement. Despite these two Pro Heroes seeing her smack Bakugou and call him weak, thus blaming him for having gotten kidnapped, they don’t do anything about this. They never bring this up again, or even ask if Bakugou is okay; but that’s a topic for another day. The point is, Horikoshi doesn’t seem to put much thought into his female characters as individuals but rather writes them for the sake of one of the male characters. In this case, I assume, his thought process was: I want Bakugou to be a rough character, what could possibly be a cause for that? Oh, right, how about his mom?

How we’re supposed to view the characters just depends on what their overall role is - while the Todoroki family is all about the horrors Endeavor has done to them, Bakugou’s mom doesn’t get addressed as such in the story. The only time this sort of gets brought up is during the remedial course in chapter 165 when Bakugou says violence is okay because “that’s how I was raised” - to which Shouto responds by telling him there are better ways:

Hell, even this little Monoma lookalike can understand that Bakugou’s upbringing wasn’t normal:

But despite the fact Horikoshi brings this up here, it’s overall never mentioned and I’m not sure if that will ever play a more significant role, despite the potential.

I absolutely understand that parents that don’t play an actual role in the story, are going to be written with the characterization of their kids in mind - yet it’s not great to just include an awful mother without properly addressing this and instead, making it seem more like “Oh, that’s just how mothers are, nothing wrong here” - which is something a lot of people in the fandom say btw. Please note, it is not okay to hit your child. Bakugou easily could’ve been given overly supportive parents, and yet Horikoshi looked at his creation and thought: I’m now gonna create a horrible mother for this child.

It just shows that it doesn’t actually matter what female characters are like; they are solely an extension of a male character and thus it doesn’t matter at all what they are like, what they say, or what they do. There are no consequences for characters like Mitsuki because her only purpose is to explain to us why Bakugou is the way he is. But his character is about how his obsession with Deku negatively affects his life and so since his family problems are not the focus of his character, the story doesn’t bother telling us that she is bad or that she should apologize to Bakugou and better herself.

Aside from the female students and mothers, we get the Pro Heroes. Midnight and Mt. Lady are two of the female Pro Heroes that come to mind first. The problem? They don’t get along because women can’t ever be supportive of one another<3

Aside from that toxic stereotype that girls are always gonna be jealous of another and can’t ever be supportive, we also have their hero outfits, which are pure fan service. And if that wasn’t enough, we get panels like this one from chapter 241:

that are drawing even more attention to their boobs and butts because that is all more important than them being heroes. Could you name me a single male character that was mainly reduced to fan service? Like yes, Dabi is serving looks all the time, but he also has a personality, motivations, goals, etc.

Aside from Horikoshi deciding to objectify them most of the time, he shows us that he is a multitasking king by also making them predatory adults who should not be around kids (and with that, should also not be heroes or teachers), like later on in that same chapter when Mt. Lady is talking to Shouto:

And because we - much like Horikoshi wants us to - find Shouto’s reactions/responses so funny, it distracts from the weird comments Mt. Lady makes, like “if a looker like you suddenly showed up, I think my heart would burst out of my chest” and “he’s cute. I want him” - please stop. You are literally an adult. I get that his inability to understand social cues can make him seem really cute and funny, but there are more appropriate things to say. Or to quote Mr. Compress (once again proving that the League has more standards than the heroes): “What an odd thing to say. [He] doesn’t belong to anyone.”

Similarly, we also have this panel from chapter 67 of Midnight talking to Mineta:

Like... what the fuck?? Who thinks this is okay??

I know all of this is supposed to be for comedy purposes, but this is just outright disgusting, especially when it comes from an adult and is said to a minor.

The female characters already get treated awfully, no reason to make them weird too.

Another thing that is common in bnha in regards to female characters is how they are treated in comparison to the male characters. There is already an obvious trend of treating the villains worse than the heroes, by having villains either receive long-lasting damage (i.e. Compress losing his arm during the Overhaul arc and now losing even more of his body; Dabi’s body constantly being burned more etc.) or just get killed off altogether (i.e. Magne and Twice). The heroes, on the other hand, constantly survive everything (i.e. Twice died from being stabbed once, whereas Bakugou essentially survived the same kind of situation). That same logic also gets applied to gender: of course the male characters also get their fair share of damage, though this is more due to the fact that they make up the majority of characters and get more involved in fights than the female characters, who are usually not part of the big/boss fights. However, the women get treated a whole lot worse - out of all the heroes that got hurt during the current arc, Miruko was the most explicit one, where we get panels of her losing her limbs, whereas several chapters later when Aizawa cuts off his own leg, we only see the knife being moved toward his leg.

We also constantly get very questionable panels for the female characters, like this one of Tsuyu from chapter 66:

This panel of Toga from chapter 226:

Or him just straight-up including a panel of a naked Toga, aka a minor, earlier this arc when she met up with Uraraka.

Speaking of Toga, she really is the most interesting out of all the female characters - she isn’t just a one-dimensional character, but one with her own deep backstory: judged for her quirk by everyone in her life, forcing her to pretend to be someone she isn’t until she couldn’t hold it in anymore. The League is her family and her home because they are the people that always accept her. She plays a big role in the League and gets plenty of action and screen time; she is significant during every part that includes the League. While Dabi, friendly as he is, calls her crazy (an attitude that isn’t just limited to her), they all respect her and never judge her for her quirk or treat her as less. Although much like Uraraka, she has an annoying obsession with Deku, she is still mostly shown to have other significant people in her life (= the League) and even earlier this arc when she wonders whether the heroes saw Twice as human or not, she wants to ask this question, which is very important to her, to Uraraka - not Deku.

To kinda sorta sum it up: Toga feels like the most realistic out of all of them because she has equal screentime to the rest of the League. She has her own reasons, ambitions, and dreams. Yes, she likes to talk about her love for Stain and Deku, and that is due to Horikoshi adding a bunch of stuff for comedic purposes, even though they do more harm than good. Toga as a character is written really well, but even she can’t escape Horikoshi’s inability to not be a creep about female characters.

As for the adult women, in cases like Mitsuki, Midnight, or Mt. Lady it’s absolutely fine apparently for them to be inappropriate with kids because those words and actions are all supposed to be funny. Even Mineta gets constantly called out for being inappropriate, but none of the female characters seem to matter enough to Horikoshi to actually put thought into them and call them out for weird behavior.

There’s probably a whole lot more I could say here, but that’s what I could think of at the top of my head (which is far too much btw).

I really wish Horikoshi would put more effort into writing layered female characters that aren’t just there for fan service, comedic purposes, or exist for the purpose of male characters and their development. I wish he would stop being creepy about them and drawing weird panels of them, or more explicit panels of them than the male characters. Yes, he draws them with slightly different body types, but that’s really not enough to claim that he is good at writing female characters, especially when there is so much evidence against it.

#i really appreciate any manga that actually has good female characters but bnha isnt one of them #meta #ask #bnha #Anonymous

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whumperscorner · 3 years ago

Note

Heyo! Am loving your bthb so far! Please could I ask for Prompto being used as bait for papa Cor?? Love your writing, it feels so intense!

Thank you! I’m glad you like it :3

Love this prompt, and it took me way too long to get done cause I started uni and stuff, but I hope you still enjoy it

BTHB #5- Used as Bait

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV

Characters: Prompto Argentum, Cor Leonis, Nyx Ulric (very, very briefly)

Whumpee: Prompto Argentum

Word count: 3563

Warnings: kidnapping, some descriptions of injury and blood

This can also be found on ao3

The first thing Prompto notices when he wakes up is that he's cold. He wonders for a little bit why his room is so cold, and why the bed is so uncomfortable, and then it all comes crashing back. He's not in his bed, not in his room. He's still in the dirty, clammy cellar room he was thrown into and fell asleep in. Prompto groans and sits up straight, wincing slightly at the throbbing pain in his temple. He lifts his hand carefully to check, and sure enough there's blood on it when he takes it back down. A gift from one of the captors, and an unpleasant reminder of yesterday's events. Or maybe yesterday. Prompto assumes it was yesterday but isn't entirely sure how long he's been sleeping or how long he's really been locked in the room- it must've been hours at the very least. A lump forms heavily in Prompto's throat at the thought. He wants to go home.

With considerable effort he swallows the lump back down and stands up. He takes to circling around the small room, partly to see if- against the odds- there could be some way to get out and partly to distract himself from the horrible pit in his stomach. As expected, there isn’t anything useful. The only windows are too high on the wall to reach and boarded shut, so that’s no help, and any tools one would normally expect to find in a basement must have been removed beforehand because Prompto can’t find any at all. He’s about to move over to the hatch in the roof, seemingly the only way in and out, when his wandering is interrupted by sudden noise from the other side. Someone fumbles for a moment with the lock, and then the hatch creaks as it’s lifted up and a heavy pair of boots appear.

Prompto stops dead in his tracks. Then, when the man is so far down the staircase that his face is visible, Prompto recognises him as one of the ones who grabbed him yesterday and something swirling and uncomfortable rises in him. Their eyes meet, and Prompto takes a subconscious step back.

"Come here." The man’s voice rings through the small room. A twinge of irritation is already present in it at Prompto’s retreat, but Prompto doesn't move to comply with his order for another few seconds. He doesn’t want to be anywhere near the man if he can avoid it, but a dangerous twitch near the man’s eyes makes it clear refusal isn’t really an option. Prompto takes some reluctant steps forward, feeling like he’s walking towards the gallows. When only a few feet separate the two of them, the man reaches forward and yanks Prompto closer with a vice like grip around his arm. He begins walking back up the stairs almost immediately, giving Prompto no time to recover his balance before being dragged along. They reach the top of the staircase and Prompto is almost certain the grip on his arm will leave some nasty bruises as the man drags him through a hallway and into a different room.

In this new room, plenty more faces greet them. There's a group of five men lounging around the room on various couches and chairs with the man who seems to be the one in charge sitting near the centre of the room. All eyes go to Prompto when he's shoved forward into the room, and it makes the skin on his back crawl. He recognises a few of the men from yesterday, but some are completely new to him. What strikes him though is that all of the men, even the ones he has never met before, are eyeing him with weird knowing looks and smiles. It rubs him entirely the wrong way. Prompto doesn't realise he has stopped at first, not until a harsh shove from the man behind sends him stumbling forward. He braces himself, but still lands hard on his knees on the floor.

Behind him, the man who had shoved him says in a loud mocking voice. "If you're good now we might even let you see your daddy during the meet-up."

Prompto's eyes widen slightly, and his heart jumps in his chest. Cor was coming? Then he feels a bit dumb for wondering, of course Cor was coming for him. However, he doesn't quite get to feel relieved at that before the room explodes in snickers and laughs at the remark. It's like they're laughing at a joke he's not in on yet or laughing at his expense. At Cor's expense. Prompto's eyes dart around the room until the man closest to him, having seen his questioning expression, leans in to talk. Almost immediately Prompto's previous assumption that this is the man in charge is reinforced. At his movement, the others go quiet and look to him expectantly.

"Yes boy, we are going to go see The Marshal soon," He begins, drawing out every word carefully, "or rather he is coming to us." At this last part his eyes glint with something Prompto can't quite put his finger on and his stomach churns.

"And I, for one, have waited for a long time to see him again." Someone else chimes in from the side. Prompto recognises him especially as the one behind the gift staining his hair and the side of his head red. There’s something crude in the man’s wide smile, and he cracks his knuckles as if to further drive in his statement. Prompto’s mind races, and the sudden worry must be apparent on his face because the men suddenly chuckle again.

"He could take you on easily-" Prompto blurts out so fast he nearly trips over his own words before cutting himself off. It’s partly in an attempt to reassure himself that his dad will be fine, and partly an attempt to disprove those shit-eating grins the men all have on while talking about Cor. Prompto didn't think before saying it, and now the air in the room is changing drastically.

"Maybe so, under normal circumstances." says the leader nonchalantly, to spread mumbling from the men sitting around him. His mouth spreads into a mocking smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, and then he lunges out. Prompto flinches but has nowhere to go as the man grips his face and drags him to his feet with him. "but we've found a pressure point of his."

Prompto's breath hitches, and his heart beats hard in his chest. The man is taller than he had expected, digging his fingers painfully into Prompto's face and forcing him to stand on his tip toes. The man keeps talking, quieter now, and his face is so close that his breath brushes against Prompto's face. "If he wants to ensure your safety, he won't resist too much." Prompto's eyes widen at this. He doesn't want to be the reason his dad could get hurt, but it hits him hard now that if anything happens to Cor it will be because of him. His fault. He lets out a breathless 'no', to which the man laughs. "Oh yes, and you are making this so much easier for us."

The man is then distracted by someone else approaching from the side and telling him something quietly. The two of them have a whispered conversation that Prompto can't make out more than a few words of. His mind is reeling, and he can't seem to focus on what's going on around him. The man's pseudo praise settles heavily and uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. Then he's ripped away from his tumultuous thoughts and gasps loudly when he feels himself being shoved back and the hand gripping his face disappears. He stumbles backwards, struggling for a moment before regaining his balance.

"Let's go then." The man says, no longer directing his words at Prompto. He shoots him only a mocking smile before gesturing to the men around. "Load him up."

On cue and before Prompto has any time to react, strong arms grab hold of him from behind, keeping him still as three of the other men in the room close in around him. The leader hangs back, watching and waiting. Cold dread rises in Prompto’s chest as his eyes dart around the closing circle. The closest approaching man reaches out towards him, and in a split-second decision Prompto jerks back. His arms tense up as he rips away from the one holding him. There's no real plan to his resistance and Prompto knows well that he has no realistic way to escape on his own, but he can't let himself be taken along quietly now. Used to lure his dad into an obvious trap set for him, he doesn't want it. So despite there not really being anywhere for him to go, Prompto backs away as fast as he can. Adrenaline and fear rushes in his ears so he can't quite concentrate on the commotion now breaking out in the room. Multiple of the other men in the room have rushed to grab him and are talking over each other.

Prompto feels himself being shoved and dragged by many more unwelcome hands, but his own struggling is intensifying too. He kicks and pushes away desperate not to let anyone get the upper hand on him, but it doesn't take long before he's overpowered and unceremoniously brought down. He hits the floor so hard it takes his breath away, and immediately strong arms pin him down. Prompto doesn't even know which of the men is holding him until he looks up again and is met with the face of the man from earlier, the same one who had brought him into the room, now twisted in anger. Still running on fear-fuelled energy, Prompto squirms and struggles in the hold. Somehow, he manages to twist himself over on the side, unbalancing the man and giving himself some leeway. He has only just started crawling away when he hears a loud curse from behind and feels a fistful of his hear gripped painfully tight.

"Shouldn't have done that." says the man. Then he pushes down with terrifying strength, slamming Prompto's head into the hard floor. Prompto's eyes water and he hears himself cry out in shock and pain. Something warm gushes from his nose and down his face, dripping and staining the floor red.

"Someone tie him!" another voice says, and Prompto doesn't recognise it. Too dazed to fight it, Prompto only winces as his wrists are brought together behind his back and something tightens around them. Then he's being moved, hauled back onto his feet, and held up by strong grips on his upper arms. Without them Prompto thinks he would have fallen. Again, there is speaking around him, and someone enters his blurry field of vision with some kind of object in their hand. He's not sure what it is at first, not until the person is close enough to grab his jaw tightly and the previously undefinable object is brought closer.

"Nn- no-" he tries to protest when the gag is forced in his mouth, but it comes out as more of a soft whimper than anything else. The cloth is rough and unpleasant in Prompto's mouth and he tries to spit it back out, unsuccessfully. At a sudden new gesture from the leader, still standing back and enjoying the show, they're on their way. Prompto stumbles along, and on their way the two lock eyes. Through the haze and tears Prompto can see that he's smiling.

The way out of the building is a fogged and confusing affair for Prompto after that. It's almost like he's a passenger in his own body, feeling himself being dragged along and hearing the men talk among themselves as if it's far away. His head hurts, and he's vaguely aware there's still blood running from his nose. The sudden change in temperature when they step outside catches Prompto off guard, it's cold and dark and he shudders involuntarily, but it does help clear his head just a little bit. The area they're in is seemingly deserted and in the dark Prompto doesn't recognise it. It might not be too far away from the safety and familiarity of the city, he muses in a half-hearted attempt at making himself feel better, but deep down he knows he's not that lucky. Then he's pushed along, and when he straightens his head and looks forward again, he finds something he definitely doesrecognise. Though he's not sure if that makes it any better.

The dark cars with black tinted windows are exactly the ones he was brought here in, and those aren't exactly pleasant memories. Prompto’s breath hitches through the bloodied gag. He knows what’s coming and braces himself to be stuffed into the, regrettably very familiar, trunk of the closest car. The men are anything but kind and gentle with their handling, and Prompto thinks he’s sure to have gotten a number of new bruises by the time he’s been situated in the trunk. The door slams shut, causing him to wince, and Prompto is left in the cramped darkness.

For a moment all Prompto hears is his own laboured breathing, then the engine starts, and a steady rumbling fills the trunk instead. They're on their way now and Prompto is so tired. He wants Cor, wants his dad. He can almost trick himself into being happy that wherever they're going now Cor will also be, but with that thought comes the fear and the guilt again. He had been momentarily spared from these feelings earlier, distracted from them by the altercation and the bleeding nose. But now there isn’t anything left to distract him, and though everything above his shoulders still throbs painfully, the worries return with full force. The car passes a particularly bumpy part of the road- or maybe they’re off-road even- and Prompto groans. His shoulders aren’t enjoying the strained position they’re in and scream out in protest at every bump and sharp turn. If he can change his position just a little bit, Prompto thinks, he might be able to relieve the pressure a bit. Okay no, bad idea he finds soon enough. The less stable position combined with the rough ground proves disastrous as Prompto’s head for the second time that evening slams into the hard surface beneath him. His eyes go wide as the throbbing pain intensifies and he bites down hard on the cloth in his mouth.

At some point Prompto might have passed out because he can’t remember most of the drive. He doesn’t even fully realise the car has stopped, not until someone on the outside bangs their fist against the trunk hard. Prompto flinches at the noise and makes a choked terrified sound. He half expects the trunk’s door to be opened and for rough hands to drag him out of the car. So he braces for it, but that’s not what happens.

"You’ve been so helpful Prompto," sounds the familiar voice of the group’s leader. "now be a good boy and wait here ‘till we’ve dealt with dear daddy."

The taunting tone is impossible to miss, and Prompto can just imagine the sneering grin on the man’s face. There’s muffled laughing from the other men also apparently outside and then the voices gradually get more and more faint, and Prompto is left to his lonesome. He’s in disbelief. They’re not even letting him see his dad? Then the panic sets in, it surges in his chest and grips around his heart tightly. Cor is coming for him. He’s going to come trying to find Prompto, and Prompto won’t even be there.

He has to get out. He has to. The trunk seems smaller all of a sudden, the darkness pressing in on him from every direction. And the gag isn’t helping Prompto’s already rapid breathing either. He thinks he can hear voices again, but they’re too faint for him to make out who it is or what they’re saying. Then a bark of a laugh that he most definitely does recognise rings out, and Prompto’s mind immediately goes to the worst possible scenario. A small, terrified squeal slips out of him. Despite the aches of his body Prompto squirms and struggles against the restraints. They might be zip ties, he thinks hazily through the panic, but he’s not entirely sure. Cor taught him a trick for getting out of zip ties once and Prompto desperately tries it, but either he doesn’t remember it correctly or there isn’t enough room to do it in the trunk. Regardless, the ties only dig deeper into the skin at his wrists when he struggles against them.

A gunshot rings out through the night. The sound catches Prompto off guard and he flinches, momentarily stopping his struggling. Then there are more gunshots, and faint yelling. The sounds of a fight, he realises. Prompto isn’t sure how long it keeps going, but he listens in captivated horror. In his head are gruesome visions of what could be going on right this moment. Prompto is still listening, breath coming in ragged gasps through the gag when a different set of sounds stand out from the rest. Are they- footsteps? Yes, multiple pairs of footsteps and hushed whispering. His heart makes a jump in his chest. He’s convinced it’s the men from before coming back, but then he hears a different voice, one he knows well, and his eyes widen.

Prompto tries to yell through the gag, though he’s not sure how well that can be heard, and he kicks against the sides of the trunk. He has to let them know where he is, has to warn them. The familiar voice is back, closer now.

"Shit- Cor here!"

And Prompto thinks he could cry, or maybe he already is. To be honest he’s not sure whether what’s running down his face is blood or tears or both anymore. There’s swearing from outside, and some fumbling with the trunk’s door before it finally cracks open.

Prompto recognises his dad instantly, even from the dark silhouette alone. He yells again through the gag, and strains to get closer to his dad. Cor on his end lets out a soft curse at the sight of his son, and he wastes no time leaning in and gently pulling him closer. Cor helps him sit up in the trunk, and it makes Prompto’s head spin. Then the gag is removed and Prompto heaves, the metallic taste of blood still in his mouth.

"Dad you have to leave-" Prompto hasn’t even gotten his breath back properly before he starts talking, but he has to tell Cor. His dad’s brows furrow.

"Prompto, wha-"

"Please- they’re going to- it’s a trap- I-" Prompto can’t breathe. Tears pool in his eyes. His dad swims in and out of focus, but he keeps a secure grip on Prompto’s shoulders.

"No- Prompto it’s-"

"Please Dad- please-"

Cor pulls him into a tight hug, and Prompto’s breath hitches. The words seem to be stuck in his throat now. He’s shaking, but the hug feels so nice. It’s warm and safe. A sob bubbles up Prompto’s throat, and when he speaks it’s barely more than a whisper.

"I’m so sorry-"

"Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay." Cor cuts him off. His voice is soft and gentle in a way Prompto has rarely heard before. He buries his face into Cor’s chest, ignoring the pain it causes and the blood stains he’s sure to be leaving on his dad’s clothes. "Don’t worry about those guys, we got them. Okay, don’t worry." There’s something strained to Cor’s voice when he mentions the men, but otherwise he keeps his voice low and reassuring, and Prompto nods quietly in response.

"Nyx, we need those off." Is what his dad says next, gesturing with his head towards the zip ties on Prompto’s wrists. Cor would do it himself, but his own hands are busy rubbing soft circles on Prompto’s back. And Nyx doesn’t need to be asked twice, he’s already working on removing the ties. As soon as they snap off Prompto lets out a relieved sigh. His arms feel so heavy now, but he brings them up to grab a secure hold of Cor’s jacket. Even when Cor carefully loosens the hug and retreats to get a better look at Prompto’s various injuries, Prompto doesn’t let go of his jacket. He finds he can’t. Because his dad is there and he’s okay, and Prompto is so tired now. Feeling the jacket’s fabric in his hands grounds him.

Cor’s expression darkens upon taking in the bruising on Prompto’s arms and the blood on his face. It makes Prompto feel abashed all of a sudden, and he’s made acutely aware of how much trouble this whole thing must have caused.

"I’m sorry." Prompto mumbles again. To which Cor shakes his head.

"You’re okay." He says, shaking Prompto’s shoulders ever so slightly as if to really get through to him. "We’re going to get you checked out, and then we’re going home. You’re okay." His eyes are so intently staring at Prompto’s and his voice is so genuine and soft. Finally, Prompto believes him when he says it, and the last bit of tension in his body ebbs out.

#whump #bthb #bad things happen bingo #rasko's bthb #final fantasy xv #used as bait #ffxv whump #Prompto Argentum #cor leonis #prompto argentum whump #kidnapping #tw kidnapping #captivity whump #papa cor #my writing

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sortavibing · 4 years ago

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what the karasuno team smells like but ✨realistic✨

daichi: like old spice cologne. this is so obvious, lets be honest here. his dad wore the same thing, so it’s just like a tradition for him, and he never thought about changing it, and since it isn’t bad, no one cares enough to tell him that maybe he should try and switch it up.

sugawara: he smells like oranges and cedarwood. suga knows how important it is to smell good, and he knows how to match scents well because he is a bad bitch. he isn’t afraid to call people out for smelling bad, so he has verbally attacked kageyama, hinata, tanaka, and noya many times, but they still refuse to change their ways.

asahi: he smells like vanilla, since he uses vanilla scented lotion and shampoo, and he really likes the smell of it, but he wants to seem tough, so he also bought a “tough guy” cologne, which smells like leather. those 2 smells actually smell pretty good together, and neither overpowers the other, so asahi likes it a lot.

nishinoya: you cannot convince me that he knows what a shower is, like he just hoses himself down every week and he calls himself clean. he didn’t use deodorant or cologne up until his 2nd year, when suga couldn’t handle the smell anymore and told him to wear something to cover the smell, so he asked tanaka for advice (bad idea), and he recommended him to use axe, so that’s what he does, but he doesn’t put enough, so he still smells like b.o. (i’m sorry noya simps but this is true)

tanaka: this man reeks of axe body spray, because he thinks it smells “manly” so he puts a shit ton of it on him because according to him, the more you put on the more manly and intimidating you are. the whole team (except noya, who agrees with him), has tried to convince him that the smell is suffocating, but he refuses to listen to them.

ennoshita: he smells like book pages. he uses a lightly scented deodorant, that smells like “fresh air”, but most of his scent is natural, and he doesn’t really notice that he naturally smells nice. suga told him once, and he became so much more confident in himself, and he silently gloats about it to the other 2nd years.

kinoshita: he smells like cinnamon, but like the smallest amount of cinnamon ever. you can’t really the smell it at first, but the longer you are around him, the more obvious it becomes. he doesn’t really know why he smells like cinnamon, because he uses unscented deodorant, but he doesn’t care because he thinks it smells good.

narita: like fresh cut grass and b.o. there is no explanation for this, he just looks like he smells like this and i take no arguments on this topic.

kageyama: he doesn’t realize that there is anti-perspirant deodorant, so he just uses normal stick deodorant that smells like “clean comfort” idk i found it on the dove website and it seemed right, but since he is playing volleyball literally all the time, he also smells like sweat, but he doesn’t notice until someone comments on it, and even if someone does, he won’t do anything about it.

hinata: he couldn’t care less about how he smelled, so he just smells sweaty 100% of the time, but it isn’t as bad as noya, so no one has decided to call him out on it yet. suga tried to introduce him to cologne once, but hinata accidentally sprayed it too close to his face and got it in his eyes and mouth, which made him hate it more, so he just doesn’t wear anything that would cover or stop his sweat.

tsukishima: like fresh linen. he doesn’t use really strong colonges, because he thinks it’s obnoxious and gross (another reason why he hates most of the guys on the team), so he uses stick deodorant, and you can only smell it if you are really close to him that's never going to happen

yamaguchi: he smells so nice. like- he uses dove body wash, and strawberry scented lotion, so he always has a slight strawberry smell. he also doesn’t like super strong smells, so he uses stick deodorant like tsukishima, but his smells like lavender. he also uses shampoo with lavender undertones, so he literally smells perfect. we stan this man so much holy shit.

kiyoko: like roses and jasmine. she once was out shopping, and she found this perfume and it smelled perfect. so now she religiously uses it. she really hates the smell of axe body spray, so whenever she’s around tanaka and noya, she carries a small container of a cologne that smells like sea salt and sandalwood, and she sprays them with it whenever they come close. the third years are very grateful

yaichi: she smells like the sugar cookie scent from bath and body works. there’s not really a reason for this, but she just gives off those vibes. it smells really good, so no one is complaining about it.

ukai: he smells like cigarette smoke with a hint of aftershave. he tries to use the aftershave to cover up the smell of smoke on him, but it doesn’t work that well, and it just makes the cigarette odor smell worse. his whole convenience store smells like this, and he doesn’t notice it, since he’s been in the store for so long, but it’s super strong.

takeda: he doesn’t use any strong smelling scents, because they hurt his nose and give him headaches, so he just uses dove charcoal scented deodorant, so he barely smells like anything. he is very aware that some of the volleyball boys smell bad, but he won’t say anything, he’ll just silently judge.

i hope you enjoyed!

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#karasuno #haikyuu headcanons #haikyu #haikyuu imagines #karasuno headcanons #karasuno imagines #haikyu imagines #haikyu headcanons

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benperorsolo · 5 years ago

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I promise I am not sending this in bad faith but it kind of surprises me that so many intelligent and well-read people in the Reylo fandom did not see Ben’s death coming in a mainstream American piece of media aimed family audiences. Unfortunately, a (redeemed) murderous villain settling down with the heroine was never a realistic expectation to have from such a massive franchise. Especially not on screen. But I can see them bringing him back in a book with a niche readership.

Not meaning to be rude, but it 100% was a reasonable expectation to have. Star Wars is (was) very unique among American franchises. It already eschews many models of American storytelling.

The entire Force in the OT is based on your "feelings", a concept ridiculed by modern unsentimental storytelling and culture. Luke is told to "trust his feelings." Luke wins not because he physically overpowers Vader or Palpatine but because he throws away his weapon because violence will only turn him to darkness, declares that he won't fight Vader because he "is a Jedi, like his father before him", and is saved by Anakin coming to his senses and redeeming himself by protecting Luke after Luke shows true love and compassion for his father. The day is not won by punching a guy, as it usually is in American storytelling. The day is won because a son refused to fight and instead merely reminded his father that he loved him.

Star Wars is explicitly based on mythic storytelling as interpreted and given lens by Joseph Campbell. As in, Lucas was friends with Campbell and literally told Campbell so. Lucas intended, very clearly, to make a story in the fashion of old myth. And in the fashion of old myth, old men may die, but youth must live. Lucas even is quoted as saying, "I believe you are redeemed through your children." Ben, being young, being the child in this scenario and not the father, 110% should have lived under SW's original mythic logic.

I have explained why Ben needed to live here in this pre TROS post and I stand by the logic which TROS abandoned and which therefore breaks the integrity of the story. Anakin did not die as Vader because it was punishment. It was framed as a release for an old man who had suffered for twenty years in a broken body. Obi Wan, Luke, and Han dying also do not die to be punished because they are old men who lived their lives fully and now die with purpose. Ben is none of these things and his death is a cynical exception.

It is pandering to the lowest common denominator to act like SW was always this way. Original Star Wars was created explicitly to counter the cynical American storytelling you are talking about.

"Rather than do some angry, socially relevant film…I realized there was another relevance that is even more important — dreams and fantasies, getting children to believe there is more to life than garbage and killing…Once I got into STAR WARS, it struck me that we had lost all that — a whole generation was growing up without fairy tales. You just don’t get them anymore, and that’s the best stuff in the world — adventures in far-off lands. It’s fun.” (x)

"You can’t, and how do you explain a Wookiee to an audience, and how do you get the tone of the film right, so it’s not a silly child’s film, so it’s not playing down to people, but it is still an entertaining movie and doesn’t have a lot of violence and sex and hip new stuff? So it still has a vision to it, a sort of wholesome, honest vision about the way you want the world to be.” (x)

Anyway. I am trying not to be aggressive but I have answered so many asks on this topic in the past. Those of us who insisted that Ben needed to live did not do so with some blind spot in our literary vision. Star Wars, until TROS, was not a Marvel movie, was not an "American story", was very explicitly textually by its creator built on ancient myth and non-cynicism. Ben dying breaks the integrity of this ancient myth logic and it therefore breaks star wars. SW wasn't about, in George's words, "garbage and killing." That it has now betrayed itself isn't my problem or our fault for believing in the shape of George's vision, not sorry.

#asks #nonnie

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muffintonic · 3 years ago

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Alright, I think i’m done BOTW 2 spamming for today. Anywho, time for some thoughts in general!

1) I hated how the shrines in BOTW were so cold and dark compared to the bright and lively nature outside (I wish they had all looked like the Master Trials challenge where there were trees and stuff incorporated inside), so I hope if we’re forced to have dungeons they’ll be more like the Wind Waker ones. 2) I hope they don’t make us use the grappling hook or anything like in Wind Waker to move around the sky islands (I hated that mechanic). 3) I’m probably one of the few people who wanted less Zelda and more of the Champions in HWAOC since i’m only really attached to BOTW (and we saw a fair amount of Tetra in Wind Waker)/apparently Zelda’s been sidelined in all the other games, so i’m hoping in vain that we get more Champions material in BOTW 2. Also, Link could stand to have some more cutscenes centered around him as well (the few we got in some of the sidequests in BOTW were great). 4) I only really somewhat care about Riju and Sidon, so I won’t mind if the new gang gets sidelined in BOTW 2 (I still think Nintendo wasted the found family/band of brothers aspect on the dead characters--I love them so much and they’re all I want!! The problem is, they’re dead and I don’t really care all that much about their replacements!!! I dunno, maybe i’m hampered by the fact that I can replay the original champions’ memories whenever I want/read their diaries, but I can’t rewatch the new gang’s cutscenes AKA i’ve forgotten their characterization since they don’t talk to me much now that the game’s over). It’d be great if they have some weaving storylines in BOTW 2 that will get me more invested in them, but currently i’m not that interested. 5) Speaking of which, I know it’s 100% not going to happen, but goddang if I don’t want the Champions to have been returned to life. Nintendo totally squandered HWAOC by not making it a true prequel/canon to BOTW (the Champions Ballad confirmed that the Divine Beasts had trials in order to be synced to the champs, so the new gen use of them wouldn’t have happened without that + Mipha thought Link had changed in BOTW yet says in HWAOC that he hasn’t changed + some scenes like “Champion Revali’s Song” never happened at all/got replaced with alternative scenes that really changed some dynamics + basically all of Revali’s time-relative characterization from his diary/pre-100 years of solitude got thrown out + I feel like Daruk got totally sidelined), so i’m still craving that Champions content. Also, I feel like it’s totally unfair that Zelda came out of 100 years totally unaged while everyone else died. Life seems to really suck for people in the LoZ universe who aren’t chosen by divine powers. 6) They’d better keep it open world and non-linear. I can’t go back to being forced to backtrack/trudge through things, I just can’t. BOTW was everything i’ve ever dreamed about in a game (truly open world + non-linear + interactive + meaningful story + lots of outfits + beautiful landscapes) with Skyrim previously being the only thing that came close to what I wanted, so I really hope BOTW 2 doesn’t deviate too much from that. 7) I really liked Kass in BOTW, but i’m not sure what direction they’d go with him in BOTW 2/i’d be fine if he sat BOTW 2 out. I worked so hard to complete all his quests in BOTW so he’d go back home to his family, GODDANGIT, KASS. 8) Someone mentioned that since the first trailer had underground aspects, we’re probably going to be playing as Zelda with the Slate there, and I agree. They didn’t make a playable model for her in HWAOC for nothing. 9) I want to be able to stable the deer and bears and stuff, but I know that won’t happen. Being able to ride the moose and rhino things from the Hebra area probably won’t happen either, but I want to ride them!!! 10) I hope there’ll be at least a few new buildings and stuff in the towns/they’ve started construction on some areas in Central Hyrule, but I guess that’ll depend on how long it’s been in-universe since BOTW. Or maybe not, considering how there’s still Karson and Hudson even though Bolson retired from Bolson Construction--insta-towns like Tarrey Town could totally be feasible if they wanted! 11) I have one foot in the camp that believes there’ll be time shenanigans in BOTW 2. HWAOC totally threw me off with it being an alternate timeline, so i’m not sure whether we’re going to be experiencing that again or time travel itself, but I definitely won’t be surprised this time around if Nintendo goes that route again (and it would be super interesting to see the Link from 10,000 years ago). I’m not entirely convinced that the Link we see exploring the sky in the second trailer isn’t our Link, mainly because he seems to still have on the blue boxers from BOTW. 12) I also heard that maybe this will be the last LoZ game ever since something something Demise something Skyward Sword something something lore from games i’ve only vaguely looked into (i’ve only ever played BOTW --> Wind Waker --> HWAOC)??? If so, it kind of sucks that I came in just when they started making games with playstyles palatable to me (I had to look up every single thing when playing Wind Waker, but BOTW let me solve things according to MY logic/I missed being able to explore in HWAOC), but at least it’ll end on a super high note/I won’t experience later disappointment, I guess. If BOTW 2 involves breaking the reincarnation cycle for the Triforcers, I would be really surprised. (On a related note, Nintendo making Ganondorf good would also be a 100% shock to me, but it would be great to end on that as a subversion. Yes, I want them to bring back the semi-complicated Ganondorf from Wind Waker.) 13) I hope they don’t rush releasing it. I heard they pushed back BOTW originally (I got it in 2019), but it came out fantastic for it! I know COVID’s been affecting things, so I really hope they’re treating their staff right and are mindful of crunch. 14) I want even more outfits (there seem to be at least two new ones, if the variant of the Hylian Tunic crossed with Link’s Champion’s Tunic counts). Give me all the outfits!!! Also, I hope we get even more hair variations in addition to the hair down option (which is all i’ve ever wanted since I saw the mod that altered the Ancient Helmet). 15) I wonder if we’re going to get a bonus for having both BOTW and HWAOC save data. 16) I wonder if we’re going to be keeping the Champions’ skills. I’m going to miss being super overpowered, if not. 17) I hope Nintendo doesn’t cave in and make surfaces climbable in the rain. Having that limiter is more realistic and Link would otherwise be too overpowered with a super climbing ability. 18) I liked BOTW’s scattered music that got more noticeable in populated areas because it was fitting for the post-apocalyptical/nature aspect. Hearing your footsteps in an open field and the buzzing of insects was super nice and prevented me from getting music fatigue (which i’d probably experience since whenever I play BOTW it’s for 5-10 hours at a time). I hope Nintendo either keeps that or makes audio options. 19) I heard that BOTW 2 is going to be super dark or something, and i’m okay with dark, but not GRIMdark, so I hope it doesn’t go that far. From what we’ve seen in the second trailer it still looks beautiful, but I hope it doesn’t do that thing that some games do where after the midpoint/a certain story point all the scenery permanently changes to be dark and scary (that’ll seriously hamper post-game playability for me if so). 20) If they expand on the Zonai, that would be super cool! Doubly cool if the time travel shenanigans involve them/ancient Link being one! 21) I kind of want windstorms to be a weather feature. We had lightning, heat, and cold, but no wind! No, I don’t count the wind geysers and the occasional breeze in Tabantha. 22) I want a chest in my house to hold more weapons than just the gear mounts. BOTW only had enough mounts for the champions’ gear, but it also had rare items like the Kite Shield and Forest Dweller’s Sword that you can’t get anymore once you use them up! 23) I want to be able to stable my horses at my house. What’s the point of that little area if you can’t stable your horse there! 24) Speaking of Link’s house: where is Zelda going to live? If the castle’s not reconstructed, it’d be neat if Link adds an extension to his house for her. 25) I hope they open up part-time jobs (think Mabinogi) as an option to earn rupees. Having to hunt for Luminous Stone deposits or feed Trott to make money can be such a chore. I think some of BOTW’s minigames/sidequests might count as those, but those minigames were either frustrating if your goal is to earn money (since most of them cost money to play in the first place and the mechanics weren’t always easy), or didn’t earn that much in general. 26) I wonder if Kilton is going to have updated items since the monsters seem to have changed. 27) I want to be able to dive underwater (mainly so I can explore the beautiful reefs over at Lurelin). A dive meter like the one from Super Mario Sunshine would be cool. Also, it’d doubly be neat if you had a separate stamina wheel for swimming and could permanently upgrade your swim/diving stamina (the speed+ swimming items just consumed your stamina faster, which was a pain)! 28) It’s definitely too late for this, but it’s a shame that the Hylians have so many face/body/hair and outfit variations, but the Zora, Rito, and Gorons don’t. The Gerudo were kind of okay with the hair and body variations, but the other races seemed to have a serious copy-paste problem. I guess technically some of the more important NPCs (ones with quests/cutscene triggers) had different coloring, but they were severely lacking in clothing variation. Also, the only old Rito was the elder??? At least the Gorons and Zora had some old folks besides their leader walking around. Very weird, but I don’t think BOTW 2 can fix any of this. 29) I wonder how they’re going to do the final boss battle, considering how epic/cinematic the BOTW 2x battle was. What can top fighting (on horseback, no less) a giant, flaming boar made out of malice? 30) I wonder what the Yiga are going to be up to, considering how Ganondorf seems to be somewhat kicking in BOTW 2.

#in other words: BOTW 2 HYPE REAL #i'm still going to queue things so there'll probably another BOTW 2 glut from me in a few days bwaha #(and probably some general BOTW stuff because MAN am i hyped)#i'm so glad i got into BOTW in 2019 because there's been content for me every year since and i am Living #botw 2

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dreamiesdotcom · 5 years ago

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[11:27] Dating Lee Donghyuck is playing with fire, and everyone knows it. He's everything everyone wants — good grades, Soccer Team captain and handsome face. It's not hard to see why they like him so much, with his eyes a beautiful shade of brown, skin gracefully tanned and attractive proportions, he's quite a sight. Not to mention the positive vibes he radiates, his existence so bright you could only compare it to the Sun's and it still seems like an understatement — and with this, it's a given fact that the boy, or Haechan as he likes to go by, can get what and who he wants easily.

What makes being in love with him like playing with fire, though, isn't his popularity — it's his lack of interest in anyone who trips over their feet for him; you could fall for him for as long as you want but he would never reciprocate. Lee Donghyuck can get what he wants easily, but Lee Donghyuck doesn't like easy. What he likes, or more specifically, who he likes, to everyone's clear knowledge, is you.

Unfortunately, you happened to be the 'most dense, cold hearted, oblivious person to walk on this planet' according to his very own words, and Jaemin has to shake his head no, with a whispered "She just isn't interested, let her be, let her have her peace". Another unfortunate thing, though, is that listening is not a skill Donghyuck was given, and following advices is not something he's known for.

Just to add to the list of the boy's misfortune, you're absolutely willing to do everything to not have to cross paths with him because despite the rather flowery descriptions provided, you're not exactly fond of the boy — you hate him. You hate his guts, the cocky grin that never seems to disappear from his lips whenever he's looking at you, and the teasing from your schoolmates whenever they catch him flirting with you. You hate him, Lee Donghyuck, with every fibre of your being, passionately. Or so you want to believe.

But that isn't enough, apparently, because even if you're bursting with the will to avoid Lee Donghyuck, it proves you hard escape this situation when he's standing at the door of your classroom like he owns the school, "Hey, Y/N-ah, the professor said you can't leave without giving me a hug first. What's up?"

The room echoes with cheers, and it only makes the boy's grin wider. Some of your classmates nudge at you and others whine in jealousy — you cross your arms. The last thing you're about to give Haechan is satisfaction from getting a reaction out of you.

"What's down?" you roll your eyes at him. He's popular, isn't he? Why don't he just ask for a hug for someone else? Pretty sure half the University would trip over their feet rushing to him — why would he even ask you for a hug? "Literally, shut up."

"Why are you so mean to me?" he feigns hurt in his voice and you feel annoyed because the lingering stares only means more teasing you about this later. Somewhere behind Hyuck, you see Jaemin's apologetic eyes and the other boys' cheeky faces, "You were hanging out with my friends just as fine a while ago! I don't like feeling excluded, include me!"

"It's because they don't annoy me and they're pretty cool," you mentain a blank face despite being really pissed, "Unlike you."

He opens his mouth to make a comeback, but before he gets on your nerves, you roll your eyes and does the thing you do best — you run away from your problems, in this case, the problem being Lee Donghyuck.

The rest of the day wasn't anything interesting. Everything went pretty normal — you go home, eat dinner, finish up your homeworks earlier than expected, and you think of things. Okay. Maybe the last part was a bit out of the ordinary, but these days you find it easier to think about things more than just letting the thought slip off your mind.

Things change, people leave, families aren't perfect — you try to convince yourself, and it works. These thoughts are mostly suppressed in the back of your mind, preoccupied with whatever nonsense you have to accomplish, and you wanted to keep it that way.

It makes you heart hurt and you're not afraid to admit that you think it will never stop hurting. Time will heal it, you believe. Realistically, maybe not completely, but you're sure it will heal you to the point where the wound only hurts on the bad days, and you're gonna make sure to have less of those. You succeed, as you expected, keeping the thoughts to the very far back side of your mind until you eventually forget you have them.

But just because you do a good job keeping them away, it doesn't mean they're not there.

On times like this, silent and lonely, a huge house to yourself; when the house you're supposed to call home is empty besides you, your parents absent again, you're reminded of all the certain happy memories and the melancholy they bring; the people you'd rather not yearn for, and the feelings you'd rather keep burried, bottled up until they eventually get left behind, cold, forgotten. Just like they all did to you — just like he will once he gets what he wants, and that's the exact reason you wouldn't give him that.

You shake your head as soon as the words ring inside your head, closing your eyes and luring yourself to sleep to prevent yourself from dwelling on it. You wonder what tomorrow had to offer with a solemn expression, hoping to sleep soundly for tonight — you didn't.

Today was just as bad as the others, you narrate to yourself with a spent sigh, wondering how pitiful you look pinned against one of the book shelves with your nightmares towering over you, "Fancy seeing you here, sugar."

"Yeah. Can we not do that?", you try to push him to no avail, your eyes automatically searching for Jaemin so he could help you but the absence of his friends leaves you helpless. You try to look away, trying to distract yourself from the close proximity of your bodies and the lack of space in between your lips, "Is there any way I could unsubscribe from your life? If there's none, for the meantime, move."

"Say, mom wants to invite you for dinner tonight to say thanks because you know, you helped me with subject I'm struggling with," he says with a low voice, body unmoving, "Come over?"

The smile you lend him makes you look stronger than you feel, and the push you served him lacked in strength, "If your mom didn't tell me back then that you're indeed her son, I would have thought you're adopted because of your parents' kindness. I'm busy. Don't worry, I'll make sure to come over when you're not there."

"Oh? She's playing hard to get?" Hyuck says, still dangerously close and all of a sudden, you feel a sudden urge to wipe the grin he's sporting in his lips with your own, "I — like — that," he punctuates each word with a mocking tilt of his head and your fists shake.

Donghyuck's known for his bad boy reputation, and it's getting on your nerves now. The display on power he shows everyone, the teasing smirks tugging up his lips and the way he flirts — they don't matter, because you just see him as bad. Bad for your health, bad for your mind, bad for your heart. He's not the type who does crazy shit, offends laws and overall throws their lives away, no. He's the type that screams danger, walks on burning wires with a wicked grin on his face — one look at his eyes and you're gone, a taste of his lips and you'll want more. You don't like it.

Whether it was out of anger or just to stop yourself from doing something stupid, you didn't have the time to figure out because not even two whole seconds after the words left his mouth, you're doing the thing again — running away. Although it was not as simple as you made it seem. No, your life is never that simple and Donghyuck just never gives up — you learned that the hard way. For the rest of the afternoon, Donghyuck doesn't stop appearing in your line of view, popping up with the same words as the last.

You would say it angers you that he just won't back off, but that would be lying to yourself and you already lied to yourself a handful of times. To be true, you lived for it — you love the chase, and you notice. You notice the way his eyes linger on you every now and then, the heart fluttering smile he sends you when nobody is looking and the way it drives him crazy when you smile at everyone that is not him, playing the oblivious card to all his antics.

It's like a sick little game for you, and what's crazy is that you don't really want to win. A stronger emotion overpowers your coldness towards him — a feeling you're not yet ready to admit — making you want to give in, but also wanting him to earn it. You don't want the victory — you want to wrestle and lose. You want to feel his love and be overcome by it, you want to be in his arms but not willingly. You want a chase, you want him to play the game that you planned to lose, you want him to drive you wild until you have no choice but let him in. You want to see what he has under his sleeve. You don't want to defeat him — you want to challenge him. Never did you feel guilt.

There is a first to everything, as people say, and if the way something bubbled up your chest during dismissal when you saw Haechan's devastated face after Jaemin came up to you, all sweet smiles and gentle eyes, was something to hold onto, then it's most probably right. "I'm throwing a party later. Wanna come? I mean you always do… but since you know, were kinda friends now, I'd like you to come with us as our friend."

"Later?" you tilt your head to the side and smile, and you weren't even doing this to rile Donghyuck up but you lock eyes with him before grinning widely to Jaemin and the others behind him, "Sure, I don't have anything planned later, anyway."

"Thank God you agreed! I thought you wouldn't," Jaemin's smile was bright but it did not distract you from the sad glint in Haechan's eyes, "I'll make sure to have extra cherries for you, since you seem to love them."

"Oh babe, they're my favorite," you scrunch your nose up, and you watch Jaemin laugh before waving them bye with the words 'I'll see you guys later' and walking away. Once you're out from their sight, you lean to the nearest wall and clutch your constantly hurting chest — guilt is something you hate, and with the pain it brings you, it sure seems to hate you just as much, if not more.

The guilt is long forgotten later that night when Renjun shows up in front of your house by 8pm, making a comment about how nice your house is. You shrug at him, not really fond of the place but you still offer him a kind smile and tell him that he's free to come by whenever he wants, so as the other boys. The ride to Jaemin's house was surprisingly not long, the two of you live pretty close to each other. The whole time you were inside the car was fun, Renjun playfully complimenting you through insults and you two share a banter with the radio tuned down. By the time you arrive at the party, it's already in full swing and you see the rest, Jaemin and Jeno waiting for you and Renjun outside.

"Hey," Jaemin says before slinging an arm to your shoulders, "You look pretty, but I hope you're comfortable because those shoes like a pain in the ass."

"It is," you hum, "and it will be a pain in your ass if I kick you with it later because your party disappointed me."

Jeno just grunts beside you, Renjun following closely behind, and he clicks his tongue, "You get so bratty once you're comfortable with people, don't you?"

You only shrug, offering him a smile as they lead you to the drinks. As promised, Jaemin's left you a bowl of cherries for you to snack on, Renjun not leaving your side even when you insist he go alongside Jeno and Jaemin who are currently enjoying themselves. You already know how to spend your night — just like this, and Renjun assures you that it's totally fine to want to go to a party just because and not socialize, because that's exactly what he does too. You smile at his thoughtfulness, the gentle aura around the boys you never expected but is not unwelcomed, and you wonder if Hyuck is like this too.

Hyuck? Did you just call him Hyuck? You're not even that close!

You planned everything so clearly, you go to the party looking peachy, sit down with the bowl of cherries Jaemin gave you and maybe have a few shots — you had two, and that's enough, but boy, parties can drive you wild. That's the only excuse you have on why right now, you're in the middle of a circle with Lee Jeno, stuck in a game of Too Hot, pressed up against each other with hands behind your backs, "Wait, we have to do it here?"

"Well, how else are we supposed to know you're not touching each other if we're not watching you?" a girl from the circle says, and you remember her from your Math class. You shake your head, "No, I'm not kissing Jeno in front of you, perverts," your comment makes Jeno giggle, agreeing with you but you just roll your eyes when they all just shrug at you — you have to do it, just because you're Y/N and you're too stubborn to back down.

You sigh, offering Jeno a smile which he mirrors and makes a snarky remark about how you're probably gonna give up after five seconds. You roll your eyes playfully, "I'm not drunk enough for this," you say, wanting to grab a shot but before you can do so, Jeno is pulling you close to a kiss, and the last thing you remember was the cheers around you before you drown into it, mind focused on keeping your hands to yourself.

He tasted like the dessert Jaemin served, but there was no trace if alcohol in him nor Jaemin, you realized. You want to laugh at how ridiculous it was, them not even drinking when they were the ones who wanted to throw this party. Through the whole thing, you realized something. Jeno is soft spoken, all about eye smiles and cats but for the whole time you hanged out with them, you realized that Jeno is someone who possesses strong duality, and that's exactly what kissing him felt. He started soft and playfully, ever so often giggling with each other but it only takes a scream of 'you're supposed to make-out, not all that mushy shit' for him to dive in deeper and the moment you to dared to push your tongue out, you knew you were in for a ride, the smirk tugging on his lips proving that he's amused by your daring action.

Jeno is competitive, almost as competitive as you, you're willing to give him that, but letting someone overpower you without much struggle is not something you're known for, and you figure that you should find a way to make him lose after seven minutes passed and neither of you was near losing. You let a moan slip past your lips, Jeno's hands flying to your waist to pull you closer as if on instinct and the two of you burst out laughing alongside the crowd. Somewhere along the blurs, they joke around about how cute Jeno is and the boy just laughs.

You go back to where Renjun is, finally done with the game of Too Hot and he shakes his head at you, showing you that he filmed the whole thing. It's probably not the best idea, but even if you only became friends a couple of months ago, you have been schoolmates with Renjun for so long and you know the boy is harmless. You just laugh at his antics, "Don't use that weirdly, Huang."

"Oh, believe me, I won't. I just want to show Jeno how pathetic that was," he laughs alongside you, shoulders shaking, "You're really wild. I never understood how people approach you when you're so quiet, but maybe they all already saw this side of you and now, I know."

"Yeah, at one point, they all did. And our school is not even that big, everyone knows everyone and I'm friends with them. Well, except…", you shrug instead of saying his name. Renjun nods in understanding, "And I'm not wild. I just do really bad things… and I do them very well."

Renjun almost choking on his laughter was the highlight of the night, and that says a lot because the people who played the game saw you and Jeno almost make out in the middle of the whole party. A half smile forms on your lips as you look around, bodies pressed against each other around you, Jaemin and Jeno stacking cups to build a tower on the side, everything surrounding you felt so close yet so far, soaked in red lights but all you could see is yellow.

And it dawns to you.

This is what cool people do. This is what you don't want to do. And so, with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, you left the boys behind at the party despite their offers of driving you home — you have no intentions to go home; you have no home to go to. What you have is a house, people who gave you life and deprived you of everything else that money can't buy.

You're out of it, walking carelessly without a clear destination. You had enough fun for tonight and it's time to be sad now. You walk, and walk, and walk with nothing and everything inside your head at once, unbothered by the horrors of the dark and humanity. You're out of it, maybe that's why you're in this situation. Your brain is foggy and messy and you're inside your nightmare's car, eyes occasionally meeting every now and then.

He didn't bring you to a romantic place up the hill, he doesn't drive you to a nice park, but he drives you up to a high place, to an abandoned building, led you to the rooftop and offered you the sight of the city of stars and the glistening city lights under your feet — the whole drive was silent, unlike the one you spent with Renjun, but it felt so nice to be silent for a while. It also feels nice that someone found you worthy enough to bring you to a place so dear to them.

Donghyuck seems warm outside the school — his thighs still clad in tight jeans, but instead of the leather, another shitty stereotype he goes along with, he's wearing a much more comfortable hoodie. Outside of the school, you needed to play no roles; Donghyuck is the soft person he is, and you're still his exact opposite.

"Why were you outside?", he breaks the silence, eyes locked to the view in front of you. Your shoulders shake, "I was from the party, and decided it's the perfect time to not be happy," you smirk, "You're probably mad that I went to Jaemin's party and lied to you, but I'm just not the family dinner kind of person. It's fine, you probably hate me right now."

"I don't. I was just curious," he shrugs and it takes you everything to stop yourself from cooing at the way his lips is forming a pout — he's your enemy, you remind yourself, but damn, the things he makes you wanna do, "Although I'm quite surprised. You don't leave parties unless they're over, so why now?"

"Things change." you simply say as if you weren't just thinking about the cruel ways you could leave him wanting more after a kiss, about the way you could treat him good, as if it's the most normal thing in the world, "I already got my fun, I got what I want. I figure I take my leave."

His expression remained lost, ever so subtly scrunching his brows and you laugh at the words that spurt out his mouth, "You, you're interesting."

"I know. That's why you like me, right? Don't try to look shocked now. Yes, I, Y/N, know that you, Donghyuck, is flirting with me more often than not," you roll your eyes at his pout.

"Can I ask a dumb question?", he mutters silently, eyes still not meeting yours and you had to hold a laugh, "Better than anyone I know, if you're wondering."

"You're always mean to me even if you're friends with my friends, and this is the longest conversation we had," he shakes his head, finally looking at you, "Why do you hate me so much?"

A bittersweet smile makes it's appearance on your face, nothing compared to his crestfallen one. You're out of it, you remind yourself again, and maybe that's why you're currently spitting out shit you'd most probably regret later, but you allow yourself to fall apart, the wall you built around to protect you disappearing slowly as a sad smile overcomes the bittersweet one, "I don't hate you. I just know what you want and I like the chase."

His face screamed confusion, and you know it would have been the best if you just let him be instead of providing him with answers — there are things that are better left unsaid, and you're sure that you're pretty sober and conscious, just stupid, "Why do you want the chase so much, then?"

Your lips dripped of sweets and honey as you spoke, a wistful look in your eyes as you stared down to the city lights under the building, "I want to feel wanted." A silence envelopes the two of you and you take it as a request to continue, "People have a tendency of leaving me when they get what they want. My parents stopped being parents when I could already live and take care of myself since they are confident they already have a child to take over the bussiness, and my best friend left when she already knew all my secrets. People stop looking for you when you're no longer interesting, when you no longer serve purpose to them, when they already got what they want. The chase is better than the end game."

Donghyuck makes a sound similar to being punched in the throat, and at that moment, he felt something fall — maybe his heart broke for you, maybe it fell deeper for you, maybe both. Eitherway, that night, the two of you was closer than ever, crying together, and at that moment, you were sure that everything is now changed with Lee Donghyuck.

Your life is a huge spiral of wrong decisions and thoughts, you prove when Monday comes in the form of Lee Haechan harshly pulling you out to a more secluded place, only some students around the corner, and his angry expression tells you that nothing really changed.

"Why the fuck were you kissing Lee Jeno?", you frown at his words, and you remember Renjun's text earlier that day about Donghyuck stealing his phone and most likely seeing the video. You knew it won't end well when he showed it to you, but nobody really is to blame here because why the fuck would Renjun think that a certain Lee would steal his phone? "Y/N, answer me!"

"Jesus, Lee Donghyuck! You can't just lose your temper like this when the slightest of inconvenience happens! You're not entitled of me!", you strip his hands of your wrist, "I kiss whoever I want. My body, my choice — and if you don't respect that, I'll make sure nobody finds yours, Lee."

He finally breathes, arms crossing and clearly annoyed, but his pout almost makes you want to apologize, "I really hate you."

"It was just a game, for the love of fuck," the profanities keep going out of your mouth out of annoyance, and you just want to end this now — possibly with your lips against his, "And in case you're wondering, I hate you too. Why are you even mad?!"

"Hey, what's happening?", Jaemin comes running, panting and moves in the middle of you and Donghyuck. Renjun and Jeno was behind him, the two moving to Hyuck, and the boy just whines, "Jeno! Why were you kissing her?"

"I just told you!"

"I'm not talking to you, Y/N!", he grits his teeth, "Jeno!"

"Why are you so bothered by it anyway?!", you yell loudly at him, annoyed because you're aware that people are starting to stare. Haechan snaps his head towards your direction, annoyed that you won't even let the others speak, "Because I like you, Y/N, and you just kissed Jeno!"

"Oh my God, Hyuck! Can't you just be Elsa and let it go? It's just a kiss — it's not like Jeno and I married behind your back? I literally have to watch you suck faces with people who confesses to you every day of the week, and you're losing your shit over me and Jeno kissing?", you roll your eyes. Now, people are actually staring, "So annoying. Why am I even in love with you?" you make a show of childishly stepping at his foot before walking away, leaving them and the people watching gaping, a hint of smile on your lips.

You walk towards the lone tree on the field, Donghyuck following shortly after, catching his breathe. Once he looks decent enough, he speaks, "W-was that a confession?"

"Eyes up here, loser." you say to him, and once he complies, you step on your toes to catch his lips in a chaste kiss, "You owe me a date, and thanks."

"What?" he says, dazed, and you take pity on the boy. For the first time in years, a soft expression creeps up your face, and you shrug as you speak, "Thank you. Just thank you."

Donghyuck's smile mirrors yours, and it feels like game over to you; there are two ways this would end, you break each other or together, the two of you goes for forevermore. Eitherway, loving Lee Donghyuck is art — there's no right way to do it, you just have to do what feels right. As your hands intertwine, you realize that by the end of the chase, you never really lost. You had Donghyuck, and that's enough to consider it as a win.

Loud cheers from behind Donghyuck erupts, the three boys laughing crazily and basically wheezing. Friends. Finally, they're your friends too, and as they tackle the two of you into a group hug, you felt something you never felt before.

It feels warm, it feels like you belong, it feels like purple. It feels like something you never felt — home. You're home. A place where you don't need to play shitty roles, a place where you can cry and smile and laugh freely, a place where you don't need to be interesting to be worthy. People usually are the happiest at home, and it never made sense to you until now. Maybe you thought wrong before, maybe the end game is better than the chase, and this is the reward for holding on that long. You could live like this. You want to live like this. Forever.

Forever and more.

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like-twilight · 4 years ago

Text

The Last of Us 2 thoughts eyyy longgg and spoilers

This is my opinion before hearing anybody else’s opinion about it.

I only want to discuss the story as it is the only thing I can really speak of since I didn’t play it for myself. All I can say is I wish I could’ve and I’ll always regret not being able to because I really wish that could’ve been my experience as it was with the first game that I could play myself. It’s also probably noteworthy that the first game was the first video game I’ve played in my life so I’m probably biased.

So I’ll go all over the place because why not.

The false advertisement is extremely scummy and I don’t really know what to do with it, I blame it all on the No Spoilers Culture we currently have going. I don’t think anybody would’ve watched any of the promotional stuff a better marketing team could’ve put together and said “ah you can’t see old Joel in action, I bet he dies early in the game, I won’t fucking play this”. There was plenty of buzz around the game and there was no reason whatsoever to falsely market it. That part’s bullshit and I condemn the company for this.

From the story side though, Joel dying was honestly not that huge of a surprise or shock to me. TLOU is a game that has you watch a kid die in the first section of it then does more than enough to establish itself as a game without taboos. Now whether that’s something you like or not is not important, what cannot be said about the game is that it didn’t establish itself as a game that would do this.

I also think arguments like “Joel wouldn’t go out like a bitch” are silly. The beginning told me Joel, the badass and smart survivor he is, was very quick to adjust back to a small town life with a now pretty much surrogate daughter. I’m not saying that excuses the unceremonious death but to me Joel is not a gun-blazing badass hero, not even an anti-hero. He’s just a dude. He got overpowered and then he died.

See this is where the game could never win. If you leave Joel alive and he’s in the story then it’s just a repetition of the first game. If you leave him alive but he’s not in the game much then you underutilise him and people miss him. Also if you leave him alive then people will just say you’re a little bitch because it’s fanservice that Joel is technically invincible because he’s the face of the game. But if he dies, people riot. The creators couldn’t win either way and so I’m glad they made up their mind and stuck to it. It’s also very useful to get people talking.

Before I tie that into the rest of the story, I also have to mention that one of the few things I heard about the game was the expression “torture porn” and maybe I’m just desansitised but I didn’t feel like it was that overwhelming or unjustified. I didn’t watch too much of the promotional material but I saw what I think was the gameplay reveal where the devs said in this game enemies would call each other by name when you kill someone or they find someone dead. And I think that’s a neat detail but I think it also has a lot to do with what the game is... about.

That the hundreds of faceless people you slaughter during the game all have a video game or more worth of story behind them. They are people with their own twenty plus years of survival in a world gone to hell whose story ends the way Joel’s did. By meeting a person who just... wins the fight over them.

So that the deaths are really personal and intimate in that way feels justified. You also have this crazy technology that allows them to animate people very realistically. This is the last big game for the PS4 and they really just brought the technology to its limits, I feel. For them to then say “oh a sledgehammer to the face doesn’t look that bad” or “we just won’t add more types of weapons and have one type of death animation just cause we don’t want to overdo it” is just. It’s not gonna happen.

I never felt like those were glorified, I think they all added to that feeling that bubbled to the surface towards the end of Ellie’s first stretch of the story where I just couldn’t stop shaking my head, going Ellie... Ellie, what are you doing, look at yourself... look at what you’re doing. So to me that wasn’t really an issue.

I can imagine some people, maybe even most people would play the first stretch of the game in revenge mode. You know, let’s get this bitch. But in the same time, I also couldn’t really deny that Abby was like... kinda right to want revenge. I’m not saying I’m glad she killed Joel I’m just saying she had a reason to. (On that sidenote, Abby being that surgeon’s daughter did nothing to enhance this feeling. I could’ve imagined Abby in a settlement much like Jacksonville where they’re all hopeful because they found a surgeon who’s leading research about the cordyceps, maybe he’s a super good leader, inspires the Fireflies to keep up their spirits, all that. Maybe Abby’s group could’ve been his super close-knit group of soldiers taking care of him and running errands for him, even then the rage would’ve been justified.

I get they wanted to draw the parallel between Joel-Ellie, surgeon-Abby, dad-daughter relationships but that added nothing to the story for me. It didn’t take anything away either, I just kinda rolled my eyes like okay, whatever.)

So when Ellie was on her revenge quest, I liked that she and Dina were in Tommy’s footsteps, I thought that was a nice touch and kinda foreshadowed another section of the story where we would meet up with Tommy eventually.

Now, Dina and Jesse, I found nothing wrong with Dina or her being pregnant (except that it reminded me of Aniara and I hate that movie with my whole being). I thought it was a good enough source of conflict and I really liked Jesse being around. When he shows up and they’re just saying they’ll get Tommy and then get the fuck outta there you can already tell Ellie is obsessed but you’re still holding out hope that Dina will be enough to get her mind off of it but she’s just too far gone.

So the shift to Abby and the scars.

Jacksepticeye said it while he was playing that Abby’s part should’ve been like a DLC or something but I honestly don’t agree. I mean I don’t disagree but I think it worked the way it was. I definitely think most problems people have with this switch that doesn’t stem from the fact that people disliked Abby or that they can’t admit to themselves that they were caught off guard by the changed narrative style, could’ve been solved with different pacing. Now I don’t know if they would’ve had to constantly switch between Ellie and Abby for it to work or figure some other way out because I’m no expert but still.

I liked the beginning when it switched to Abby, the whole atmosphere was so eerie like you could tell they were on a collision course and it was going to get ugly. Maybe something like that could’ve worked but it could’ve just been either too suspenseful and tense the whole way through that it draws the attention from the gameplay or it would’ve been even more on the nose than it already was with the parallels between Abby’s group and Ellie’s group.

Now I honestly really liked that Abby’s story was so different because when she returns to the stadium, the part of her story that involved Joel is over. She got her revenge then she goes on with her life. She had a life before Joel entered it, she has one after she killed him. And it just so happens to be a good opportunity for the game to showcase some of the shit that goes on outside of what we’ve known so far and what Ellie knows.

I didn’t mind the religious aspect, I think it makes sense, like enough time passed since the apocalypse that the then grown up generation is distant enough from their old lives, and the generations after them are growing up in the ruins of the old society, that a messiah figure like that lady could emerge. That it just had to be transphobic and shit sucks of course and I do understand the frustration with it. I can imagine better writers coming up with a way to make the Scars despicable without them having our current society’s problems. They could still have the trans and the Asian characters still of course, but without them having to face the struggles trans characters do in our current world.

So that Abby only realises Ellie’s just one step behind her when she still has the climax of her individual story to get through was just. To me it worked so well. Like here we play as Ellie for half the game, this girl is consumed with rage and then Abby’s just fucking off and doing something entirely different because that’s... how little... it affected her. Or at least she personally got her closure and is ready to move on.

I personally liked the conflicts she had in her group, it was believable, it felt reasonable for the kind of life they lived. Of course we already spent one full game with Ellie so Abby was never going to catch up, but if you’re thinking like me then by less than half of Abby’s story you already don’t want Ellie to kill her.

The confrontation in the theatre was messy but since it’s not the end of the story I sort of don’t mind. I know some people don’t like how Jesse died or how little time we have to process certain deaths and story beats and of course it can just be bad pacing but that was again something that to me just brought the player’s world on the same level as an NPC’s world. That for one enhanced the experience for me.

Okay. Let’s talk about the last part that starts with Dina almost dying at Abby’s hands, especially after she says “good” when Ellie tells her she’s pregnant. Of course there’s the callback to dead Mel. But I liked that Lev was there and his presence sort of switched Abby’s role. Up to that point Abby had been Ellie. But then when she has Lev, and she acknowledges him as “her people”, she becomes Joel. And then she becomes a better version of him. Or at least a version of Joel that has mercy.

And you’d think being this close to losing Dina is where Ellie would snap back to it. And she does, for a while.

Here’s when I admit the pacing definitely needed some work regardless of anything. Up until that point we go through three days, albeit twice, but three days. Then suddenly we’re nine plus months later and the setting is different and we don’t get enough time here before Tommy shows up with the end of the story...rope... we got cut in half in the theatre.

I’ll take some time here to genuinely express my what the fuck at Tommy here.

My memory is a little fuzzy here but wasn’t Tommy on board with returning to Jacksonville when they return to the theatre? I actually just checked, Tommy says “they got what they deserved” to which Ellie says “but she (Abby) gets to live” and Tommy says “yeah”. And then when he visits Ellie and Dina suddenly he’s a dick about it saying Ellie made a promise? Is that something that was supposed to happen off-screen or a plot hole? Did that conversation in the theatre have more versions they went through and the wrong reaction got included? Maybe I just didn’t pay enough attention but it felt out of the blue for me and I can safely say that’s the character moment I’m disappointed in the most, especially because we never see Tommy again.

One could argue that the choppiness of time is supposed to symbolise the dissociation and out-of-body experience you can have when you’re living with trauma but I truly just have it down to bad pacing here. I get that they wanted to show the baby but I truly believe with enough polishing they could’ve come up with a scenario that works better and flows better.

I truly could’ve had Ellie maybe leave with Dina and Tommy and then have her turn back before they leave Seattle and then they have the conversation with Dina and then Ellie starts tracking Abby. Here we could’ve had more of what was in the beginning of the story, sort of switching between the two, maybe slightly altered gameplay, etc. Even though the last level as Ellie was really cool and once again I liked how we just barely got a glimpse of how other people live, you know. Those prisoners in those cells have a hell of a 25 years behind them and being freed by this stranger might be the best thing that will have ever happened to them, but to Ellie they’re just a background noise to her mission.

I truly liked those parts.

I could imagine Ellie being kidnapped similarly to Abby but they are treated differently and somehow still end up escaping together, maybe even helping each other the way Ellie almost did with cutting Abby down and letting her get Lev to the boat. And then you’d have Ellie still be consumed by her rage.

The whole time I wanted her so much to just scream everything at Abby. Because look, life for these people is a whole ass trauma. Some people like Dina might handle it differently, or it’s easier with a community around you, but Ellie’s life has been very strange, with her immunity, with the realisation that Joel killed and lied for her, all that. She would need a fucking good therapist. I wanted that catharsis, for her to scream at Abby, to sob until she can’t even breathe, for Abby to do the same, except she realises she got her closure while Ellie never did, and then maybe for Abby to give some sort of... forgiveness to Ellie. For her life not having meant anything in the end.

I don’t know, I wanted that for her.

If there never is a last fight, if Ellie never so much as punches Abby, that would’ve been fine for me.

Two more things that I liked were that Ellie actually started down a path of forgiveness before Joel died. You know, when we see the scene where Ellie tells Joel off you’re like “oh that’s the last thing she said to him, no wonder she feels so guilty” and then you realise, oh no wait, they were actually eventually going to be alright. They just never got the time. To me that hit so much, that was a good scene.

The other thing I liked is Dina leaving. Once again this could’ve been something like, Ellie goes back to Jacksonville and there they tell her Dina left or sum shit idk how that could’ve worked, I’m just saying that losing that farm life didn’t really make me feel anything because we didn’t get the time to grow attached to it.

So Dina leaves, and suddenly you’re back in the room with Sam in the first game when this bitten boy asks Ellie what she’s most afraid of, and she says she’s scared of ending up alone. And this immune girl Joel killed and lied and died for, eventually ends up alone.

So I understand that a lot of TLOU’s fanbase that belongs to a marginalised group, especially those part of the LGBT+ community would be hurt by this ending. By this interpretation. The LGBT+ community, as far as I know, at least a huge part of it, seeks to heal. We use fiction as escapism in a way people who don’t know, who can’t know our struggles will never be able to sympathise with. And as such, we as a community in a large part, have moved on from stories of pain. Not necessarily in that we turn a blind eye on it or anything, but I think it’s a mostly universally agreed thing that after so much suffering we’re ready to see ourselves, and people like us end up happy. And as such the demand from this community towards creators have shifted to not necessarily fully happy endings, but some sort of relief. And as such, this ending is cruel.

It is heartbreaking. My heart breaks for Ellie because I can practically feel the weight in my chest that she carries around when she walks away. She lost everything and she never got the closure. She never got that relief and neither did we.

Once again, if you personally have a problem with this ending and it ruined the game for you, I understand it completely. That’s your own experience with the story, and even though I feel much of the same things, I’m once again left here thinking this is the way the creators wanted to do this and that they did it like this makes sense. It makes sense for the story, the characters, it just does. If it had happened differently in a way that also makes sense, I would not think “oh this should’ve had a heartbreaking ending, this is bullshit” but I do think the ending makes sense.

Overall, I’m pretty much pleased with most everything, except fuck false advertising, fuck Tommy, and fuck uhhh, I’m pretty sure I mentioned something else too. Oh yeah, pacing. Jack actually offered a really great alternative to the beginning, where the museum scene of Ellie’s birthday should’ve been the first scene, and then you could’ve had Ellie wake up four years later at the end of the countdown. That Joel told Tommy about the hospital could’ve been implied through dialogue and interactions.

I also don’t think Joseph Anderson’s theory is hurt by this, he said personal decisions and morality aside, the Fireflies were fucking idiots and they couldn’t have come up with a cure even if they had given Ellie the chance to say yes, because of how unprofessional they’d been and how much they rushed into the surgery. Just because Abby’s dad was a good dude and a good surgeon doesn’t mean shit when you’re dealing with something you’ve not seen before, such as Ellie’s immunity. And I think knowing that wouldn’t have mattered to Ellie either to change her mind about forgiving Joel. And this is what I’ve always said. Like the Fireflies or not, believe in them or not, taking a choice like this away from Ellie because you can’t stand losing your daughter again (and that is why Joel kills the Fireflies, not because he shares Joseph’s opinion) is objectively wrong and borders on the same obsession we see consume Ellie. Joel is just as unhinged by that point as Ellie is, he’s just more... mature about it, I guess.

That could’ve been even more painful, sort of, to not have Abby be the surgeon’s daughter but just for her and her group believe in this doctor that might just be talking out of his ass so much that them avenging his death sets off this terrible cycle of vengeance. I think that could’Ve been very “gritty” and shit, that would’ve hurt because it’s even more pointless. People killing over lost hope.

So, pacing, Tommy, false advertising, bad points, everything else, yeah alright. 7/10 sounds good to me. I will play this one day >)

#the last of us spoilers #tlou2 #tlou 2 #tlou 2 spoilers #the last of us 2

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moniwaskaname · 5 years ago

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BSD CH. 80 SPOILERS.

Okay now that I’ve calmed down. I want to put out some more thoughts.

1. Ranpo, and underrated MVP. I feel like he’s constantly overlooked for not having an ability. The antagonist knows he’s smart but I feel like they underestimate him as a whole person. Like, “yeah he can think, but what can he do?” and he continued to prove them wrong. I feel like antagonist usually think Dazai is the only one capable of intellectually do something because of how ambiguous his actions are. And they think Ranpo is an easy target because he doesn’t have an ability or something physically strong to protect him.

Example one is the Chuuya-Ranpo fight in the Cannibalism Arc (the manga one, they fucked up in the anime), because Chuuya doesn’t see Ranpo as a thread until Ranpo reminds him that even though Chuuya could rekt Dazai in terms of power, Dazai had beat him before, just like Ranpo can even if he doesn’t have an ability. Results; Ranpo overpowered, what a king. Example two is this arc. I don’t think Fyodor underestimated Ranpo’s intelligence but maybe he thought that he would be over if he was restrained by police. Like, “what could he do being locked up?” But never actually thought Ranpo is not defenseless and would getaway or that he’s actually very resourceful in every way. (tbh, I feel like Fyodor’s plans have huge wholes in it, but whatever bcs we don’t know his real intentions yet).

2. Kenji and Junichiro. They are separated, but the Hunting Dogs haven’t found them yet. I feel like something bad might happen to them. This is where I think Fyodor’s plans are actually poor. He wanted to culprit the ADA with the casino, and to put the Hunting Dogs after them, but he has no control over how it works out (like I won't believe you if you tell me Fyodor knew Ranpo would jump out of a window, or that Kenji and Tanizaki would escape). I still think Fyodor’s purpose will be complete, I just don’t think he planned every detail like this. Kenji and Junichiro could be crucial for the final outcome (hopefully they will have time to shine tbh). But for now, I just hope they are okay.

3. Kunikida’s hands. Alright, I love Kunikida and want him to be okay and to smile and to achieve his ideals because he’s my fave okay! But realistically speaking, I don’t think he could recover his hands UNLESS he joins the Hunting Dogs. There is no point or impact if he can get them back magically or by Yosano’s ability. This whole arc is so dark (point 4) that whatever the outcome might be, I feel like Kunikida might be torn apart. If the ADA survives and stuff, his ideals are still broken, and even though I don’t think he needs an ability to achieve them or continue, Kunikida feels broken. Maybe the outcome of the arc is going to make him join the Hunting Dogs. In conclusion, I want him to be happy but also character arc and depth.

4. Plot and outcome. Until now, in every arc, the end had been happy (kinda). I mean, there hasn’t been ANY consequences on the ADA (or the PM, or the government tbh), everything is merry and happy, but this arc is going to change everything. And I’m here for it. Even if Atsushi manages to get the page and erase the terrorism shit Fyodor did, Dazai, Yosano, and Kyouka have charges against them besides the terrorist allegations, and if the government knows that they were played like dolls by the Decay of Angels, I don’t think they would just let the ADA go away. I feel like the government might want to make the ADA theirs to reinforce their power (let’s remember that basically, Japan is weak in terms of ability power, since Europe is the stronghold and they lost the war). They might want to control it (again, they offered Kunikida to become a Hunting Dog to get his ability back).

There is also the possibility of the ADA never been restored, so they become an illegal organization which is less likely tbh but it’s possible.

Personally, I would love for it to be consequences of their actions, to enter in another arc where characters have time to develop themselves, and to be consequences for the plot.

And I hope that the mafia doesn’t interfere anytime soon. I know people want to see their faves (I would sell my kidney for Higuchi too) but I really really want to see the ADA, to give them their time to shine (like Kenji and Tanizaki), for us to see their actual bond and that. Also, this includes Poe and Lucy, that are basically already ADA members, you can’t change my mind.

#bungou stray dogs #spoilers #bsd spoilers #bsd 80 #rant #so many feelings!

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fieryanmitsu · 5 years ago

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Operation: No Curry | A3! Week 2020 – Day 3 (Tsumugi/Izumi)

The rest of my A3! Week entries are very late! But here’s my piece for Day 3! It’s just something light and silly this time, but please enjoy~

OPERATION: NO CURRY

PROMPTS: Summer|Dorm Life/Roommates|Confession

CHARACTERS: Tsumugi Tsukioka, Izumi Tachibana, Sakuya Sakuma, Tsuzuru Minagi, Tenma Sumeragi, Banri Settsu, Taichi Nanao, Hisoka Mikage

PAIRINGS: Tsumugi/Izumi

My fanfic masterpost: Here

AO3: Link in my Blog Menu

“Hot… it’s so hot… I’m going to meeeeelt!!” Taichi lamented from his spot on the floor of the Mankai Company’s lounge. The redhead was already wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt, but sweat still covered his entire body.

“Damn Sakyo! I can’t believe that cheap old man won’t let us turn on the aircon!” Banri growled from his spot at the table, fanning himself desperately with a paper fan. “And I can’t believe I have to use this stupid fan!”

The fan was one of many that Sakyo had asked Sakoda to prepare for them. The kanji for “Simplicity. Frugality. Temperance.” were emblazoned on the plain white fans in Sakoda’s calligraphy. They had only cost 800 yen for a pack of 20, and Sakoda’s labour was free.

“Well… Sakyo did say he would turn it on when it hits 35 degrees at least…” Sakuya replied, looking up from the script he was reading with one hand – the other also limply held a fan. Even the ever-chipper Spring Troupe leader sounded less enthusiastic than usual.

“It’s freakin’ 34 degrees!! We’re only one degree off, but he still won’t turn it on!” Tenma cried, lifting his head up from where he had laid it on the table. After his outburst, he immediately dropped it back on the table, all energy drained out of him. “Banri… fan me too… I can’t move…”

“Maybe we can ask him to count the humidity level… It’s 87% humidity after all… that’s got to count for an extra degree, right?” Sakuya suggested with a chuckle.

“I’m going to dieeeeee, it’s too hooooot!!” Taichi wailed.

“Shut UP, Taichi!! You’re making me feel even hotter!!” Banri snapped.

Suddenly the door to the lounge slammed open and Tsuzuru practically collapsed into the lounge.

“It’s an emergency!” the older boy exclaimed, his face pale and dripping with sweat.

“Tsuzuru?! What happened?”

“The director… I just saw her walking back from grocery shopping with Tsumugi. And I overheard that… that… that she’s making extra spicy curry for dinner tonight!!”

The lounge was silent for a moment as the gravity of what Tsuzuru just uttered sank in. Then, the room immediately erupted into a flurry of panicked voices.

“E-extra spicy curry?!”

“GYAAAAH!! It’s too hot for curry!!”

“IS SHE FREAKIN’ CRAZY?!”

“NOOOOOO! We’re going to dieeeeee!”

“GUYS! Pull it together. We just… we have to stop her!” Tsuzuru interrupted, hauling himself back onto his feet.

“How do we do that?!” Taichi moaned.

“Don’t panic! I have a plan!” Banri replied, his brain already churning. “Taichi! Go get Omi! Make him take over dinner duty to make something normal to eat! Sakuya, you and Tenma intercept the director and distract her while she’s putting away the groceries. Make sure she doesn’t start prepping those ingredients! Tsuzuru, you’re with me! ‘Operation: No Curry’ officially starts right now!”

“You’re the boss, boss!” Taichi responded, jumping to his feet with a salute. Despite having been glued to the floor in exhaustion mere moments ago, it was as if the thought of eating hot and spicy curry in the heat had shot energy through his veins. A second later, he was dashing out of the lounge to hunt down his roommate.

Almost immediately afterwards, Izumi and Tsumugi walked through the door, hands weighed down with numerous shopping bags.

“We’re back!”

“D-Director! Let us help you with those groceries!!” Tenma exclaimed, scrambling off his chair.

“You should sit down, Izumi! You must be tired!” Sakuya said, taking the grocery bags from her arms and passing them to Tenma.

“H-Huh? Oh, you don’t have to do that—Whoa!” Izumi started to protest, but a moment later, Sakuya had already forcibly pushed her to sit down on the couch.

“TSUMUGI! We need to talk to you!!” Banri jumped in immediately.

“Th-That’s right! It’s urgent!” Tsuzuru added, taking his cue from Banri. He took the bags from Tsumugi and dropped them on the table before joining the Autumn Troupe leader in pushing Tsumugi into the hallway.

“W-Wait, what’s wrong, you two?!” Tsumugi exclaimed in confusion as the two younger boys jostled him out of the lounge.

As soon as they were in the hallway, Banri and Tsuzuru cornered Tsumugi against the wall.

“Tsumugi…” Banri’s voice lowered as he stared intently at the older man. “How could you betray us?”

“B-Betray?” Tsumugi gasped, looking back at Banri with wide eyes.

“You went grocery shopping with the director. It was your duty to stop her from buying ingredients for curry,” Tsuzuru added in an equally grave voice.

“Huh? Is this what this is about?” Tsumugi said with a chuckle.

“This is no laughing matter! It’s so DAMN hot!! How could you let her make curry for us in this heat?!” Banri responded, shaking Tsumugi by the shoulders.

“Ahaha, er, well, she was really gung ho about it. Saying how the best way to beat the heat was to overpower it with more heat. Something about sweating would cool your skin off?”

“We’ll die, Tsumugi. If we have to eat extra spicy curry in this heat, we’ll literally die,” Tsuzuru responded bluntly, his eyes already looking half-dead.

“Look, Hisoka’s already dead from the heat – we’ll be next,” Banri stated, suddenly pointing down the hallway. Sure enough, Hisoka was splayed out face down on the floor in the middle of the corridor.

“H-Hisoka?! Maybe we should check on him?!”

“No, we’ll take care of him later. You have something more important to do,” Tsuzuru replied, waving his hand casually.

“I do?!”

“You need to get Izumi out of the dorms so that she can’t cook dinner,” Banri responded. “We need her far and away from here. Distract her for the next two or three hours while we get Omi to cook instead. He isn’t a curry freak and will make us something normal to eat.”

“But, why me? I’m actually fine with eating curry—”

“No, it’s your responsibility. You have to atone for your crime.”

“What crime?!”

“Let’s go!”

And in another whirlwind of limbs, Tsumugi was suddenly shoved back into the lounge and pushed in front of Izumi, still seated on the couch where Sakuya and Tenma were bombarding her with (fake) questions about the script in Sakuya’s hands.

“Izumi!” Tsuzuru hollered.

“Tsumugi has something to tell you!” Banri announced, clapping Tsumugi on the shoulder with an iron grip.

“Hmm? What is it, Tsumugi?”

“Uh… Umm… I… I…” Tsumugi stuttered – what exactly was he supposed to say?!

His eyes flickered from Izumi’s face to Tenma’s, and then Sakuya’s, and then landed on a magazine on the coffee table before them. Flustered, Tsumugi snatched up the magazine and pointed to the cover without really reading it.

“Th-This! I-I need to go here. With you. Right now!”

Everyone froze as they all stared at the front of the magazine. It was a bridal magazine, probably Yuki’s for costume design inspiration if the bear-shaped sticky notes sticking out of the pages indicated anything. The front-page splash was a photograph of a church with bright and bold words written across that read: ‘Top 10 Churches in Tokyo to Hold your Summer Wedding!’

No one seemed to know what to say. A cold bead of sweat dripped down the back of Tsumugi’s neck. Finally, after what felt like ages, Tsuzuru was the first to recover.

“Th-That’s right! This is for that… that guest performance that you have tomorrow right, Tsumugi? You were telling me about how you had to play a groom!”

“Y-Yes! I… I just realized that it would be good to get in some last minute practice! I figure this would really immerse me in the role – being at an actual church!” Tsumugi ad-libbed, working off of Tsuzuru’s line.

“H-Huh? B-but why do you need me there?” Izumi asked, stunned.

“Well, it would be better to practice with an opposing actor, wouldn’t it?” Banri replied.

“In that case, I should definitely not go with you – you know I can’t act,” Izumi dismissed breezily. “If Tsumugi needs someone to practice with, why don’t one of you go? It’ll be good practice in case any of you play a female role in the future! Anyway, I need to get started on dinner—”

Banri suddenly elbowed Tsumugi in the ribs and the older man, literally spurred into action, fell to his knees and grabbed Izumi’s hands in his own. Suddenly, it looked like a switch had been turned on, and his expression changed completely.

“No, it has to be you, Izumi,” Tsumugi said softly, his face serious and intense. His hands grasped hers tighter, gently drawing them closer to his chest, and he leaned his upper body closer towards her. “I want to make my practice as realistic as possible – to be as immersed in the scenario as much as I can. I could only do that with you as my practice partner. As my bride. After all… you’re the one I love, Izumi.”

For the third time within the past ten minutes, the entire room fell silent. They had all unconsciously been drawn into Tsumugi’s performance, and his sudden confession had been so heartfelt that every one of them had stopped breathing. Izumi could only stare back at Tsumugi with a slack jaw, wide eyes and bright red cheeks.

“Won’t you come with me, Izumi? Won’t you be my bride?” Tsumugi asked softly, one hand reaching up to cup her cheek tenderly and his eyes looking up at her imploringly.

“O-Okay,” Izumi answered, half out of shock.

“You don’t know how happy you’ve made me, Izumi! Let’s go then – the boys will take care of dinner,” Tsumugi replied with a wide, toothy grin.

He gently tugged Izumi to her feet, intertwined their fingers and swiftly led her out of the lounge by the hand. As the door closed behind them, the remaining actors could only look at each other in disbelief.

“Tsumugi… He was acting just now, right?” Sakuya asked.

“Wow, he seriously is a pro when it comes to those subtle emotions – He hooked me right in…” Tenma responded with a shake of his head.

“No kidding… But, well, that’s that! Let’s go check on Taichi and Omi and get this non-curry dinner started! I’d say ‘Operation: No Curry’ is a grand success,” Tsuzuru added, clapping his hands together.

“Of course it was a success – I was the one who came up with it, after all,” Banri boasted, already heading towards the dorms.

“Hey! Somen! I want somen! Do you think Omi would make somen tonight?!” Tenma exclaimed excitedly.

“Oh yeah, someone needs to go check on Hisoka… I think he’s still sleeping in the hallway,” Banri remarked, suddenly remembering the older man.

“Uh, I hope he’s just sleeping…” Tsuzuru muttered, causing Sakuya to whip his head to look at him in alarm.

“Wait, what?! What happened to Hisoka?!”

Outside of the Mankai Company, Tsumugi led the still-dumbstruck Izumi up a side street, distinctly aware of the feeling of her hand held tight in his. They proceeded in silence for a few minutes until they arrived at a nearby park, where Tsumugi finally slowed down their steps.

“Izumi, let’s take a quick break here,” he said, sitting her onto a bench under the shade of a nearby tree.

“Oh! Ah, sure, sounds good,” Izumi responded, finally recovered from her stupor.

“I’ll be right back!” Tsumugi said, before he quickly jogged over to a vending machine. Pulling out his wallet, he counted out a few hundred yen and bought a bottle of cold green tea. Returning to Izumi, he suddenly dipped himself into a bow and proffered the bottle to her.

“I’m sorry, Izumi! I tricked you just now! I don’t have any guest performances tomorrow – I don’t need to practice anything! Please accept this drink as an apology!”

Izumi stared owlishly at the drink floating in front of her face. A moment later, after Tsumugi’s words sunk in, she let out a laugh.

“Oh man, you really surprised me earlier! We had just been together too, and you didn’t mention anything about a guest performance, so I was so shocked when you came out of nowhere and said all of that!” she replied, taking the drink out of his hands. “And, of course you’re forgiven – though there’s nothing to forgive, really. But, why did you trick me anyway?”

“Ahaha… Well, I’m sure it’s obvious in hindsight, but Banri and Tsuzuru asked me to do it. Er, well, maybe that’s not quite right. Rather they asked me to distract you and get you out of the dorms,” he responded sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

“Huh? Why did they want you to do that?”

“Errr, something about wanting to make dinner… or something,” he responded evasively, his eyes glancing away briefly before returning to her face and crinkling into a mischievous smile. “But, well, since we’re already out here, why don’t we honour their wishes and go enjoy ourselves for a bit? We could go somewhere with aircon, since we don’t have it on at home.”

“Oooh, that’s actually a great idea! Let’s go to the shopping mall, then! I haven’t had a chance to browse around for a while!” she replied.

“That sounds good to me,” Tsumugi agreed, falling into step beside her as they started walking again. They were only a few inches apart, and Tsumugi felt his hand twitch, wanting to reach across the short distance to grab a hold of hers again.

“But you know… you never cease to impress me with your acting, Tsumugi,” Izumi said suddenly, turning her head to give him a smile.

“Oh?” Tsumugi prompted. He could feel his heart rate quickening.

“When you grabbed my hands and confessed that you loved me… I couldn’t tell you were acting at all – it felt so real. You seriously made my heart beat so fast! My face felt like it was on fire! I’m so embarrassed!” Izumi responded, looking away shyly. She held the bottle of tea up to her face, trying to cool off her flushed cheeks.

“Ah, that’s probably because I wasn’t acting…” Tsumugi muttered quietly, half hoping that the woman next to him heard.

A second passed by without a response. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Izumi continued to walk without having missed a step – still smiling normally as she held the bottle to her cheek – and he knew that his words had been drowned out by the call of the cicadas.

This ended on a much more wistful note than I had intended, haha. But, maybe that’s just how it was meant to go since I was working with Tsumugi! Precious Tsumugi is my second favourite A3! boy, so I’m happy to write something where he gets a bit more of the spotlight! I also had a lot of fun writing the silly, overdramatic Mankai teenagers (and poor Tsumugi who got roped in), so hopefully you all had fun reading!

A3! Week 2020 is almost over at this point, but I will still be putting out content for the rest of the prompts that I haven’t gotten to yet! Please stay tuned if you’re interested, and likes and reblogs are always appreciated! Thank you~

-Anmitsu

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tshowtime · 4 years ago

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Fight Me

S1 E1

OK, here’s a little bit of a backstory…

Mayumi is the daughter of pro hero’s Spirit and Blackout. Her parents have been together since they attended UA together, they were the perfect match. Complete opposites they balance each other out.

Even though they’re both pro hero’s, Spirit doesn’t usually fight villain’s like Blackout does, she uses her light manipulation more for healing and defending. Blackout uses his quirk for fighting, when they get called together, they make a great team for that reason.

Their love for each other is very real, and miraculously, Mayumi has both quirks. Light and dark manipulation. She has learned her mother’s abilities and is constantly training with her father; her light quirk came almost as a more natural extension.

Her dark side she must work on a little more, only because her father’s quirk requires a lot of strength and control.

It’s easy to get tangled with the darkness and lose yourself a bit, it’s a very overpowering quirk. Mayumi is very strong willed though, she’s level headed and down to earth. Training with her father has helped shape their bond.

Mayumi takes mostly after her mother appearance wise but when it comes to her personality it’s mostly her father.

Which causes her to be a very formidable opponent for any challenger, she is realistic to know she isn’t the best, but confident enough to know she has what it takes to get there.

Growing up Mayumi was raised to be kind and helpful to others, although she is very introverted and usually quieter and observant, she has no problem speaking up when its needed.

Mayumi is somewhat acquainted with Bakugou Katsuki and Midoriya Izuku, they went to the same school but those two were in a different class than her. Nonetheless she was always friendly to Midoriya, Bakugou on the other hand she usually tried to ignore.

It’s hard especially when he needlessly bullies Izuku and challenges Mayumi all the time.

They’ve had normal days believe it or not, her and Bakugou, but those moments would end when he saw Midoriya or his other friends. Then he would start yelling and acting like an animal and she would just leave at that point.

She had a better friendship with Midoriya, but there was always a disconnect because Midoriya never got his quirk, it’s not a problem for Mayumi because she has known him for so long but he distances himself from time to time.

Anyway that’s it really, Mayumi will grow more in the future, for now she’s pretty simple. Just how she likes it.

Back story done

“So that’s it? I don’t need to take the entrance exam?” Mayumi asked her father at the table during breakfast. It was the last day of school and her parents just told her about some recommendation that allows her into U.A. for the hero course.

“That’s right, we still want you to take the written exam to make sure you’ve kept up on your studies, but you’ve been judged and evaluated by the faculty there and they recommended you.” Her father stated. Mayumi thought back to a few times when her and her father were training together she remembered seeing unfamiliar faces a couple of times, just watching for a little and then just leaving.

“So that explains that.” She mumbled to herself. “What?” her dad questioned. She perked up and shook her head. “Nothing, just thinking out loud.”

“Mayumi” her mother cut in this time, with a serious tone as well. They both looked at her and waited for her to continue. Mayumi confused from the sudden change in attitude.

“Just because this offer is being given to you doesn’t mean everything in life will work that way, you need to use this opportunity to prove yourself. Your studies come first always, and you will be expected to train harder and give more of yourself. This line of work is not easy and you won’t make it if you slack off.” She said seriously. Mayumi sighed. “When do you know me to slack off?” she said with slumped shoulders. “She’s right, people are going to come at you thinking we got this for you and that you didn’t work for it, you need to constantly show you deserve to be there just the same as anyone else.” He said. Mayumi just nodded.

She wasn’t one to disappoint her parents, not them, and she understood what they were getting at.

That’s what people do when they see someone get a boost, they assume you didn’t work for it even if you sold your soul to get there.

“Why do you want to be a hero?” her dad asked, she looked at him a little surprised and then looked down when she started thinking about it. “Whatever your answer is, remember it, hold on to it. The reason you have, is what will help you get through the hardest obstacles that you’re going to be up against.” He said.

“I will. I’ve got to go, I love you guys!” she said getting up and heading out the house. She always walked to school, sometimes with Izuku but she didn’t see him yet.

Mayumi was thinking about training, and what U.A. might be like when someone bumped into her almost knocking her over. “Ah!” she shouted at the sudden impact. “Sorry Mayumi!!” when she looked up it was Midoriya. “Why are you running?” she yelled at him as he didn’t stop. “There’s a villain in town! Gotta go!” he waved as he continued running towards commotion.

She just shook her head, “Idiot, he’s always running INTO trouble. He’s going to get himself in some kind of trouble. one of these days.” She mumbled continuing to school.

Mayumi was just sitting in class scribbling on paper bored. The teacher was talking to some student about quirks and different jobs and opportunities. They have already done the aptitude tests every third year had to take. The teacher said it was pointless since many people would just try and be hero’s anyway.

She decided to lay her head down and rest, she can at least fall into a light sleep until lunch. She did manage to drift into a dream state before hearing her phone vibrate in her bag. She opened her eyes and reached in her bag, it was an alert message.

Quickly getting up out of her seat she rushed out of the classroom, it wasn’t a big deal since everyone was just relaxing and talking. She went to the gym where it was empty and played the message.

ALERT:

Spirit and Blackout are summoned due to criminal activity in the east district of the city. Three villains have been reported to be causing destruction to local businesses in the area. Please assist the local authorities in apprehending the villains.

Mayumi starred at the phone for another moment waiting, then it came in.

Mom: hey

She started the response. She texted back that she got the alert as well and that she would be fine.

Dad: we shouldn’t be long, we’ll see you tonight for dinner, I’m cooking!

She smiled and shook her head. She put the phone back in her bag and turned back towards class.

Her parents set up for her to receive the same alerts they do so she always knew where they were in case they couldn’t reach out. She didn’t mind it though, some days it was lonely, but that is the worst of it.

They always made up for it, honestly, Mayumi was super grateful for her parents. It didn’t matter that they were pro hero’s they were great parents at the end of the day.

She wanted to be a hero for them, she wanted to be like them, better even. She wanted to be a good hero so they can relax and enjoy themselves, like they let her enjoy her life. She wants to make them proud.

“All their hard work will be worth it, I swear it.” She mumbled to herself.

She was in a better mood now, a small smile on her face. She was walking past Izuku and Katsuki’s class when she heard Katsuki shouting like always. ‘Does he ever get tired of his own voice?’ she thought to herself listening to the sound of yelling.

She inched forward and watched the class through the window on the door, although everyone was busy listening to Katsuki that nobody noticed her.

“That’s why I’m getting into U.A. because I’m going to be the best!” Katsuki claimed standing on the desks. The teacher cut in, “Ah yes, Midoriya didn’t you want to go to U.A. as well?” a small gasp escaped her lips.

The whole class got silent and looked at Izuku, they all busted out laughing and picking on him. She didn’t realize it but her hands balled into fists. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone?

She was fed up with the bullying and when she heard Katsuki’s voice she used her quirk to manipulate the shadow under his desk and move it causing him to crash on to the floor. The classroom erupted in laughter and she nodded in satisfaction and walked back to her own classroom.

When she got back to her seat she texted Izuku.

Mayumi: wanna walk home together after school?

Izuku jumped when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. While the class was busy laughing at Katsuki he took the opportunity to check it real fast.

It was a text from Mayumi, he blushed a little. They’ve always been good friends, but her quirk is so strong, he always felt so insignificant compared to her. Almost like he wasn’t good enough to be her friend, he would always be in her shadow because he had no quirk.

He shook the thoughts out of his head, he knew not to think like that about Mayumi. She was always there for him and genuinely nice, they were friends, real friends.

Izuku: Yeah! That would be great!

He was almost satisfied with leaving things at that, but when he looked up and saw Kacchan shouting at another student, his spine shivered at the thought of him and Mayumi running into each other.

Izuku: I’ll meet you in your classroom

Mayumi: Ok I’ll see you later

Izuku sighed a breath of relief, he thought back to when they were all friends at one point when they were younger.

“Guys! I can’t see! Its too dark!” a younger Izuku wined as he sat still crying. Then a moment later Katsuki came out from hiding and made small sparks to make light so his friend wasn’t scared. Katsuki smirked for a second but then a bright light came out of nowhere and both kids looked in its direction and saw Mayumi holding her hand out while it glowed.

She smiled and walked up to them. Izuku cheered and jumped, “Yeah Mayumi you’re so awesome!” he said making her bashfully smiled and rub her head. Katsuki just crossed his arms and pouted.

At the end of the day Mayumi was sitting at her desk packing her books and waiting for Izuku to show but after a little she realized he must have gotten held up.

She walked out into the hallway to start heading out when she heard a familiar sound…

#bnha #fanfic #bakugo #bakugou katsuki #mha oc #izuku midoriya #anime #aizawa #bnha todoroki

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