#but i’ve always wondered how their arguing dynamic would be bc like
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odesta arguing hcs
• even though finnick must be a really good communicator i don’t think he’s a very good arguer. the art of persuasion? he’s got that down. negotiation? easy. arguing with annie when they’re upset? bye
• also since annie’s personality isn’t rlly on display in cannon im also gonna run w the Fiery Annie Cresta hcs bc i <3 those. so while finnick shies away from conflict she is a very argumentative person if the situation calls for it
• she’ll be like “>:(!!!!” but as soon as finnick starts returning the same energy she’s like woah woah woah. and then she bursts into tears
• no just kidding but she’s lowkey a hypocrite bc finnick will be like “i don’t like the way ur speaking to me” and she’s like “??? WHAT does that mean ???”
• i feel like tho when it’s a case of finnick being in the wrong they solve the problem very quickly and efficiently. meanwhile if it’s annies fault she has to take a long while to marinate in her embarrassment before reconciling. if it’s a case of them BOTH being more wrong than right then mags takes it upon herself to step in
• i mentioned this in the breakup hc list about them but i do think that even when they’re locked into the most intense passionate argument of their life they still cuddle when it’s time to go to bed
• but also annie is petty so they’ll be eating dinner and she’ll put something like salt or a pitcher of lemonade right out of reach and when finnick is like pass it over pls she’s like “huh?” as if it hadnt been her master plan for him to speak to her
• speaking of speaking, i think that their arguments either consist of nonstop communication or just radio silence. no in between
• HOWEVER since they’re cute and in love it gets resolved so quickly and then they’re like 💋💋💋 forever and ever
• their post argument tradition is baking a cake. then they go to the beach and split it with the picnic they packed
#odesta#annie cresta#this one wasn’t as silly as the other ones oops#but i’ve always wondered how their arguing dynamic would be bc like#their time is so limited together that i feel like they’d simply bottle everything up if they actually did get mad at each other
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I’ll agree that Wrecker never got his time to shine like Hunter, Tech and Crosshair did in S1, 2 and 3 respectively. (And Echo had plenty of screen time in TCW.)
But I do think he grew a lot as a character in three seasons. This is a good video outlining how his character development is subtle, but it IS there:
youtube
I’d argue that the three core characters of TBB, even from “Aftermath,” have always been Omega, Hunter and Crosshair.
Wrecker, Echo and Tech are still core characters, but like a half-step down, especially in S1 and S3 where a lot of the O/H/C dynamics are the narrative focus.
Wrecker’s role in the story is different from O/H/C’s. Same with Echo. That’s why neither of them were in the final confrontation with Hemlock on the bridge.
Wrecker had His Moment™️ in the finale when, despite getting mauled by a giant creature and getting knocked around by CX operatives to the point of unconsciousness, he goes absolutely berserk when Omega releases him.
His outburst temporarily disorients at least three operatives/commandos in the room. And then after Hemlock grabs Omega, but the CX Tank operative is still standing, Wrecker makes a sacrifice play by charging him out the window to give Hunter (and Crosshair) a chance to save Omega.
This ALSO gives Echo a chance to evade the CX operatives who were holding him at gunpoint, and he and Wrecker and Vik take out 4 of the 5 operatives who previously defeated Hunter, Wrecker and Crosshair without much issue.
Wrecker is also the only person who takes down TWO of the operatives. He shoots one and throws another into a wall. Like, holy shit.
Echo had his moment earlier in the episode. He came in CLUTCH for his brothers and Omega.
But there is no way Hunter and Crosshair and Echo would’ve made it out of Tantiss if Wrecker hadn’t fought like he did — while severely injured!!! It’s honestly a wonder he didn’t die. He looked like he was about to pass out once all the CX operatives were dead.
Crosshair and Hunter get their respective moments later, but only bc Wrecker came in CLUTCH for them earlier.
Omega understood just how important he was to the team. When she breaks into the CX lab, she’s actually closest to Crosshair. But instead of freeing him first, she goes for Wrecker. Not sure if it was bc she saw him waking up or bc the CX Tank was in the room with her and she figured Wrecker would be their best match, but it showed just how much faith she had in Wrecker specifically.
When she tells Hemlock “I have them,” she’s basically talking about Wrecker at that moment bc he’s the only one who’s conscious. No doubt he heard her and thought, “Hell yeah, kid! I’ve got your back!!”
He had the physical endurance, the mental wherewithal and the emotional maturity to realize that — once Hemlock took off with Omega — their best chance of rescuing her was for him to make the sacrifice play and remove the CX Tank from the field.
He basically pulled a Plan 99 but without dying.
He’s a far cry from the guy who was upset that Crosshair took out more droids than he did. (TCW S7.)
Look, I’ll be the first to admit that Wrecker isn’t my favorite of the TBB cast. Of the six main characters, he’s #6 on my list. But I still really like him.
It would’ve been nice to see him in the spotlight more, but I think his emotional maturity and character development by S3 is underrated.
He really is the unsung hero of TBB, both the show and the squad.
I will never forgive Disney that wrecker didn't had his time to shine. To get reduced to mostly loud, muscle guy with sporadic comedic relieve and never having the oppertunity to have a redeeming moment with tech in which he eventually saved him
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you don’t need to be happy to be manifest!! but...
who doesn’t want to be happy?
(long post alert, sorry in advance lol. but please read it all the way through, i really think it’ll be worth it<3)
ok, to preface this, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. i’ve manifested great, positive things while i was in depressive episodes. i manifested wonderful things with tears streaming down my face. BUT, i think something a lot of people overlook is that it’s really beneficial to feel positively about your desires.
this is something i realized a few months ago, saw great results from, and then forgot all about and, well, stopped seeing the progress i wanted. but i’m back on track now, don’t you worry.
(i’m going to be using the example of my sp, bc that’s what i have the most experience with, but this applies to literally anything u r manifesting)
i’ve made a few other posts saying pretty much what i’m about to say in this next paragraph, so if you’ve already read those, i’m sorry for repeating myself. just bear with me lol.
so i came to a realization a few months ago--and i don’t exactly remember how i came to this realization--that i kind of...hated my sp? like i fucking resented him. and i was like, wait a minute, that’s not right. i love my sp. that’s why i’m trying to manifest him! so why do i feel like this?
i used to focus on manifesting in steps, so naturally the first step was contact. so i’d be affirming all day every day “my sp is texting me right fucking now😡“ (and other variations) and then when he didn’t text me, it’d just make me angry at him. but technically, he didn’t even do anything wrong?? sure he didn’t text me, but he had no clue he was supposed to? idk it was all complicated and weird. and then when i wasn’t mad that he didn’t text me, i was having arguments with him in my head, preparing for some weird fight that my brain just assumed was going to happen whenever we did get into contact. which is weird, bc my sp and i never fight. like, this is my ex. yet i literally cannot tell you a single fight that we have ever had. we literally get along perfectly. we have never fought (or even argued) once in all the time that we’ve known each other. yet my brain was always fighting him. and it was just, exhausting?
and so one day, when i was troubleshooting, i realized: rem, if you were in a relationship right now with your sp, would u hate him? would u be constantly fighting with him? god i fucking hope not!
now, what would i be thinking? i’d be laying in bed at night, hugging my pillow, thinking about how much i love him. reflecting on how happy he makes me, how perfect he is, how good he makes me feel. i’d be thinking about how he is the most perfect boyfriend i could ever have asked for. i’d be content after spending a long day with him, excited to spend the next day with him as well.
and during the day i wouldn’t be wondering why he wasn’t texting me. if anything, i’d be wondering why he was texting me considering we were literally hanging out, together, at that very moment!
i would trust him. i’d be walking on cloud nine. i’d be content. i’d be...happy.
now, in no way am i saying that you need to be happy 24/7, or dancing on air, or feeling intense butterflies in your stomach. you’re allowed to have other emotions. you’re allowed to feel anger, you’re allowed to break down and cry! you’re allowed to have bad days. but if you’re feeling these negative emotions about your desire, i want you to try your hardest to release them. i don’t think any of us want to have breakdowns over our manifestations and cry about them, but if it happens, it happens. just pick yourself up afterwards--or stop it before it even really begins, trust me, it gets easier to do this--and maybe do a few deep breaths to calm yourself down, and remind yourself why you’re on this journey in the first place. once again using the sp example, it’s because you love your sp. because they are perfect for you! they make you happy. you love their smile, their laugh, the witty conversations you have with each other. you love being in their arms. you love when they’re in your arms! they did something that made you fall in love with them, or want to be in a relationship with them. what was it? focus on that.
enough with the sammy ingram (i could go on a whole rant about her) style affirmations. with the “he’s going to fucking text me, he has no choice, he’s my fucking boyfriend and he does what i say.” like....ew?? i used to say shit like this, and it was really what started making me resent my sp. i was ordering him around in my head, creating this weird dynamic between us (which, he wasn’t even aware was there), and getting mad when he wasn’t doing what i was ordering him to do. looking back, it was borderline psychotic. it was just turning it into me against him, and that’s not what i wanted at all. i want to be in a relationship with him, with mutual love. i don’t want to be his boss, or his mom, or his fucking military sergeant!! (i don’t even know if that was the proper term bc fuck the military, but u guys know what i mean lmfaooo)
(disclaimer if u use these types of affirmations and they work for you, go for it. but i used them for a while and they just weren’t it for me. carry on)
i guess what i’m trying to say is, those affirmations weren’t making me feel good. they weren’t making me feel like a “boss ass bitch”. they were making me feel...like a bitch. and strangely, powerless. i’d say these affirmations, or just bland ones where i wasn’t necessarily demanding my sp to throw himself at my feet and kiss my shoes and tell me he is nothing without me, and ultimately, if i wasn’t feeling resentment, i was feeling...nothing.
once again, i want to make this so so so clear, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. but my belief? if your affirmations aren’t making you feel joy, or excitement, or contentment, then what’s the fucking point? if you think of your desire, and don’t feel positive feelings about it, then you might have lost your way a little.
don’t worry!! it’s an easy fix. easy, and even...fun? rewarding? comforting? i just want you to take some time--laying in bed at night is the perfect time to do this in my experience--to think about why you want your desire so badly. do you want money? think of how great life is going to be once you have it. of all the stuff you’re going to buy, for yourself, and maybe even for others. don’t focus on the problems you want to fix with it right now. think of that clothing item you’ve had your eye on, or that book you’ve been wanting to read but haven’t felt like “wasting” money on. think of how excited you are to buy those things, because you’re going to! think of the good. not the bad.
remember: you create more of what you focus on. focus on the good, get the good. focus more on the bad...get more of the bad.
your manifestation is done. it is created. it is on it’s way to you. it is here! all there’s left to do is feel excited. it’ll be here any moment now, how fucking exciting is that! it’s safe for you to be happy. it’s safe for you to focus on the feelings you would have if you had it, rather than focus on affirming specifically to bring it to you. it is safe to be happy.
i used to affirm solely for contact, all day every day, and sometimes i’d get it. but it’d be short lived, my sp would be distant, etc. but then once i started focusing on truly living in the end and basking in my love for my sp, thinking about how perfect and amazing he is, i not only got contact (without having to specifically affirm for it), but he was actively engaged in our conversations, making up new topics to keep the conversation going, asking me about and expressing interest in my hobbies and interests, bringing up and reminiscing on old memories of our previous relationship, complimenting me, flirting with me, asking me to hang out, etc. shit i was not getting when i was “he is so fucking in love with me and he’s texting me right fucking now”-ing all day long. i started focusing on how amazing and perfect and good to me he was, and that’s exactly what i got in my reality. who would’ve thunk?
and you know what? yeah, he fucking loves me. he misses me and he wants to be with me. but that’s a given. but that doesn’t fucking matter. i am the only person who matters in my reality!! sure he loves me, but do i love him??? that’s what the universe wants to know. that’s what truly fucking matters. the universe brings me my desires. so i’m gonna fucking desire it!
guys, please trust me on this. just try it out, with whatever you’re manifesting. this could be what you’re missing. this could bring your manifestation to you. i promise, if you’re like i was and feel resententment or anger or hatred towards your desire, this is going to make you feel so fucking good. just stick with this for a week or two. i promise, you’ll see movement.
and remember, there is no one to change but self. don’t change them (or it), change your perception of them (or it).
let’s make manifesting fun again!!! it’s the perfect tool to bring happiness into your life. so fucking let it!!!!
so no, you don’t need to be happy in order to manifest. but....maybe, just maybe, prioritizing your happiness isn’t such a bad thing. i mean, who doesn’t want to be happy?
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hi, i love all your work! could i please request headcanons for what it'd be like to go from being enemies to lovers with nikolai lantsov.
thank you:)
A/N maybe i moved this up on my request lists bc i woke up today and went 'nikolai lantsov'
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- i'm being a little liberal with cannon bc my mind first went to 'princess! reader who hates nikolai bc they're competitive and then they have to team up together to try to get their parents to break up their arranged marriage but fall in love in the process (this might be a little undetailed but i'm thinking of writing a full fic or mini-series with this plotline so let me know if you'd be interested!! i could see a smutty ending to that fic but idk,, lmk what you thing ig lol)
- Ok so first off enemies to lovers with the loml nikolai lantsov would be SO GOOD bc he's so dramatic and obviously attractive so even though you hate him you know he's hot,, there's never a dramatic realization that he's attractive bc it's just a fact
- butttt you'd rather give up any claim you have to your family's throne than feed his already gigantic ego
- okk but lets get to the beginning of your enemies to lovers relationship
- so basically every summer your parents go and stay with Nikolai's family at this super fancy vacation home bc your parents are both royalty and your kingdoms have a very healthy relationship
- just bc it's the summer season doesn't mean it's summer vacation,, so as children for about a month you two share a tutor,, and when i tell you that created a rivalry so fast i mean it
- you're not the eldest princess and you're always trying to be the best for your parents approval, nikolai just wanted to impress the really smart girl who had a pretty laugh (poor nikolai lol,, he had no way of knowing how important being the best in school no matter what was to your self esteem)
- maybe if you two could communicate you’d like each other a little better at this point but it starts when you’re pretty young and by the time you’re like 13 it’s a solidified dynamic (and 13 year olds are the MEANEST and most insecure people in the world so that’s when your relationship turns to full enemies)
- now that you’re 13 you have more princess-y requirements, especially over the summer. So when you see that Nikolai gets to practice with swords and gets more free time while you have to practice setting tables you hate him more than ever.
- Nikolai senses that you’re extra hostile but he has no idea why,, he tries asking once but he makes a joke about how ‘maybe you’re jealous bc youre no longer the center of my attention’ and even though he’s just trying to ease the tension you feel like he’s making fun of you
- so that’s when things get aggressive, but at that point summer is almost over so it’s whatever
- next summer comes and you’re still SO MAD at him,, so when you get to the estate you’re like ‘i’m not even talking to him idc how quiet these next three months are’
- and you get there all determined to hate him,, but once you get there and see him something in you cracks bc he had the audacity to spend the last year going through puberty AND LIKE HE’S ALWAYS BEEN CUTE BUT THIS IS SOMETHING ELSE
- so youre mentally panicking bc how do you even talk to someone that looks like that now???? but then you remember that you didnt even want to talk him so in a panic youre like ‘maybe i can avoid him and he’ll just assume it’s bc i hate him bc i do,, who cares if he’s unbelievably hot now’
- nikolai doesn’t assume anything, he just gets to the estate and is like ‘why hasn’t she insulted me yet?? is she suddenly too good to give me attention?’ so during the lessons that you still share he gets an idea
- he decides to one-up you in everything bc that’s always gotten a reaction out of you
- it works,, every time he corrects you or steals an answer from you, you’re ready to snap but then you look at him and take in his stupidly perfect face and you just shut up
- nikolai thinks it’s not working so he just tries harder
- by the end of week one you can’t take it anymore so when the tutor leaves at the end of lessons you snap, you tell him off for how often he’d repeat what you said and change a few words and get all the praise from the tutor
- on the inside he’s like ‘took long enough’ but the more you rant he’s like ‘is she okay???’ he’d be more concerned if you weren’t threatening his pride and at this point he’s still annoyed bc if you were that annoyed you should have just talked to him instead of ignoring him for a week
- he’s thinking that just bc you got really pretty over the last year doesn’t make you too good to yell at him on the daily
- the worst thing anyone can do to nikolai is ignore him LMAO (lowkey relatable)
- so he starts arguing with you and you’re so upset that you forget about how aggressively attractive he is
- and you two are alone in this room and the more you argue the closer you two get
- the climax of the argument is when neither of you are yelling, you’re just so mad you’re beyond raising your voice and once you’re both at that point it goes like this:
“Nikolai Lantsov, you are the most insufferable person I’ve ever met”
“Well then, Darling, you should look in a mirror.”
“You are so entitled, so ridiculously self obsessed that it ruins your attractiveness.”
“...” he literally just like blinks twice. “You think I’m attractive?”
“Uh? No--i didn’t say that at all, maybe if you didn’t have the language comprehension of a child you’d understa--” he just reaches forward, grabs the collar of your dress, and kisses you.
- it’s your first kiss so you have no idea what you’re doing and it’s with some one you CANT STAND and you’re so mad bc you had expectations for your first kiss and he’s taken that from you--but the thing is,,
- he’s good at it. Like really good at it. Like so good it makes you curious about what he does the nine months of the year he’s not stuck here with you bc there’s no way he hasn’t had practice.
- but you’re also extremely confused and nervous and aware of how stupid you’re being (and a little hormonal bc being 14 isn’t easy) and then he places his hand on your cheek and that snaps some sense of reality into you bc it’s one thing to enjoy the kiss but another thing entirely to want him to escalate it
- so you place one hand on his chest and push him off of you slightly. He takes the hint, pulls away enough to look at you and then you two just stare at each other
- your hand is still on his chest and you have absolutely no idea what comes next, but you find yourself looking at his lips
- since you haven’t slapped him or pulled away more than a few inches he thinks maybe things are okay so he leans forward slightly and kisses you again.
- you reciprocate a little too fast, the kiss lasts two seconds before thinking about how insane you’re being so you push away entirely.
- He lets you go,, and in the most awkward display ever you’re like ‘uh I need to go,, i can’t be late to ball preparation lessons’ and you leave that room faster than you’ve ever left a room in your entire life.
- the next day you consider pretending to be sick to avoid him but that would only give him more power over the situation so you go,, and he’s just sitting there calmly
- youre on edge the entire day but he never even jokes about it
- a part of you is a tiny bit annoyed bc who kisses you and then pretends it never happened? but overall, you’re relieved
- the days pass and it never comes up but now whenever you two argue you think of how quickly kissing him both shut him up and got rid of your tension
- the summer goes by quickly, your usual dynamic has returned and you wonder if he even remembers kissing you. twice. in a row.
- the next couple of years are normal,, even when you two no longer take lessons together you still dont like him. He’s just so assured and he takes such joy in bothering you.
- and then one summer your parents sit you down and they’re like ‘we need to plan the future alliance of our kingdom’
- you’re a little confused bc you’re rarely allowed to sit in on these things bc you’re a girl and you’re basically meant to just be a royal’s bride--and then you realize why you’re there.
- you start protesting before your father can finish announcing your engagement
- the parents were smart bc they announced it at the end of summer so you two couldn’t drive them crazy or conspire
- the first thing you do when you get back to your castle is write to him for the first time ever
- your letter is basically ‘pls tell me you’re doing something’
- the two of you talk until you come up with the plan to get your parents to break up your engagement
- your parents dont really care about your feelings and they expect the two of you to argue with them,, but they care about the kingdoms
- so you two decide that if you act like youre so in love that you let your duties slip the engagement will end,, especially if you two are in love in a toxic way
- so the next summer you two make sure to flirt and act like youre totally obsessed with each other and skip lessons together and just are constantly together and acting like you’re on a honeymoon
- your parents are like ?? since when
- at one point you flirt with a random guard just so Nikolai can have a ‘jealous outburst’ while your families are strolling through the garden
- ngl jealous nikolai had you ready to RISK IT ALL,, you were ready to drop the plan and marry him on the spot
- he notices bc he notices everything about you and when your family walks away he gives you a quick kiss and youre stunned,, much to his delight
- your desire to break up your engagement takes a slight backseat in your mind bc you decide to set off on a secret goal to make him flustered
- it doesn’t take much, your dresses get a little more risky, your comments get a little more suggestive
- the only problem?? he seems to have his own personal goal and it’s to make you even more flustered than he is
- soon the two of you are lost in layers of pretend and competition
- when your parents are finally thinking about delaying the engagement and keeping you two away from each other until you calm down a little (i feel bad for them,, an entire summer of being surrounded by the ULTIMATE sexual tension)
- you’re sad and you don’t know why bc this is what you wanted, but then Nikolai stands up and says that you two planned for this and he has the letters to prove it (he was ready to drop the receipts LMAO) and youre like ??what are you doing?
- and he says he’d rather marry you then never see you again bc now all he wants is to get know you bc he has no idea how he wasted so much time arguing with you
- and you just meltttt but your in front of your entire family and his as well so you just sit there for a minute and then you tell him you feel the same way
- but the summer’s over
- you kiss him before leaving and he says you’ll have to visit bc he can’t go an entire year without seeing your ‘pretty face’
- you promise to visit him soon
- your at home for exactly a day and a half before getting an invitation to visit him
- you laugh bc the only way that letter could get to you that fast is if he mailed it before you even left
- you say yes obviously,, and spend some time having a really cute fall-dating vibes together until you figure out how you really feel
- and you feel like he makes your heart STOP and that’s why you hated him,, bc you didn’t like being vulnerable
#grisha#grishaverse#grishaverse x reader#shadow and bone#shadow and bone fic#shadow and bone x reader#shadow and bone netflix#shadow and bone imagine#nikolai lantsov#nikolai lantsov x reader#nikolai lantsov x you#nikolai lantsov imagine#fic#headcanon#enemies to lovers
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for you + yoon jeonghan
everyone in his life described you as his weakness, and he couldn’t even argue.
part one | part two
wc.10234 (LMAO) | fluff, smut, humor, etl/uni!au, ~new relationship stuff~, gender neutral pronouns for reader (but they have a pussy sorry), vague softdom/brattysub dynamics (guess who’s who!), there are - count em - 4 different sex scenes, more bff!gyu, filth, language, you know the drill, reader gets a lil tender, so does han, *sniffles* they just suit each other so well, please use condoms
this is where i admit that i wrote 20k of enemies to lovers garbage all based off a single line in falling for u, where they say they meant to drink a coffee with you but they accidentally chugged it bc theyre nervous. yup! all this mess for that one line! this is incredibly self indulgent and i apologize but also i don't because i needed this
~
visual culture was your new favorite class.
while there was absolutely no trouble making time to spend with jeonghan, your previous meditation time served as an allocated two hours every week where you could just sit and mess around with the boy you had growing affections for. the two of you would chat in hushed tones as the professor lectured, jeonghan’s fingertips tracing invisible patterns on your thigh as you diligently untangled his headphone cord for him, his thumb nails having been chewed too short to do it himself. he would bring you coffee on thursdays, when it was his only class of the day but your third and last. the caffeine was a well accepted afternoon pickmeup, and he never let you go after class without taking you out for lunch somewhere, claiming to be celebrating the end of your school day. then you might as well just come over to his apartment, he’d tell you. his place was closer than yours, he’d explain, swinging your hand in his. you didn’t wanna say goodbye yet, did you? afterall, the night’s still young, he’d tease, luring you with the promise of kisses between droopy eyed smiles.
jeonghan had become the complete opposite of your initial impression. he was sweet to you, genuinely, and if you liked him any less, you would say he was obsessed. you do say that, occasionally, when you’re hanging out with your friends and he texts you some purposefully cheesy line knowing it would make you roll your eyes, forcing you to mention him to your questioning friends, but you never truly meant it. you’d be a liar if you said every eye roll wasn’t just to cover up the faint feeling of butterflies in your gut. he always knew exactly how to make you want to see him, and you never hesitated to tell him when you did.
on one such day, when you had told him that if you went home you would need him to drive you into the woods and help you dig your roommate a clandestine grave, he stopped by your friend’s apartment after a shift, waiting dutifully by the door with his shoes still on and his hands shoved into his jean pockets as you searched the kitchen counter for your keys.
“serious, mingyu, what did you do with them? i know i left them next to the toaster.”
“i used your bottle opener, but i swear i put them on the coffee table,” he said, pushing back his hair as he looked around the small living room.
jeonghan watched you and mingyu tear apart the couch, trying to ignore the roommate that was leaning against the wall, eyeing him.
“where do you live?”
jeonghan blinked and looked at him. “uh, my apartment’s a couple streets over and a few-”
“roommates?” minghao watched as the older straightened his spine involuntarily, arms folded across his chest as he appraised his friend’s new chew toy.
“yeah, three,” he responded. minghao kept eyeing him. he fidgeted under the gaze, then coughed to clear his throat. for some reason unknown to even him, he said “they’re good people,” as though he was seeking some kind of approval.
minghao nodded slowly. “they act tough but they’re not. if you break their heart, i’ll break you.”
“what?”
“y/n,” he said, causing you to perk your head up from across the room while simultaneously clarifying. he lifted his hand and jangled your keys, holding them by the novelty hulk fist bottle opener. “found ‘em.”
“jesus christ, myungho, you had them the whole time?” you exhaled sharply, shoving a couch cushion back where it was meant to be. “don’t be a prick.”
you snagged the keys from him and shoved your feet into your shoes, taking the bag that jeonghan was holding for you.
“wo ai ni.”
you batted at minghao’s arm. “yeah, whatever. love you, too. see you guys later?”
mingyu threw up a peace sign from the couch, where he had promptly laid himself out after the search for keys had ceased, and minghao smiled as he waved you off and closed the door behind you.
you asked how work was, and jeonghan sighed, describing it shortly as work, but said he was glad it was over so that he could spend some time with you.
you giggled, knocking shoulders and slyly lacing your fingers between his. “cheesy.”
he gave you your favorite sideways smile, though he didn’t know it was your favorite, and you, again, ignored the flitting in your stomach that he always seemed to cause. “so, uh… myungho…”
you exhaled. “what did he say to you?”
“nothing, really,” he said quickly, knowing you would get mad at your friend if he told you the full truth. “i was just kind of curious if you two had ever, y'know…”
you looked at jeonghan. “you’re not jealous, are you?”
he looked back. “i don’t have reason to be, do i?”
“of course not,” you said, pulling your bag up on your shoulder. “i’ve kissed hao once, on a drunk dare, and we both agreed to never try it again. he’s like a brother.”
jeonghan nodded, thinking about the protective stance the tall lean man had taken when he tried (and maybe succeeded, though jeonghan would never admit it) to intimidate him. no matter the vibe he got, he trusted you, and he understood the intent - however, you made him want to do everything in his power to keep you happy, so he didn’t think this myungho character had much to worry about.
“oh my god, hannie,” you gripped his hand tighter, your other hand clutching his elbow. “look at that dog.”
he laughed and followed your gaze across the street to the pom that was nose up, walking beside its owner. “cute.”
“isn’t it?” you sighed. “god, i want a dog. i hate living in a dorm. i hate my roommate.”
“move out, then.”
“and go where? back to my parents’ place?”
he rolled his eyes. “into the apartment you practically live at anyways.”
“dumb, dumber, and dumbest?” you scoffed. “i would kill all three of them in under a week.”
jeonghan wondered which was which, then pushed the temptation to mention his idea of you living with him out of his brain. “sounds like you’re shit outta luck.”
you sighed, craning your neck to steal a look at the dog again. “i guess you’ll just have to get a dog for me.”
he smiled back, eyes lingering on your face even after your gaze went back to the scenery. “i have a question.”
you blinked at him. “yes?”
he watched a cloud for a second. “what do you call me?”
“hannie.”
he laughed. “i mean to your friends.”
you eyed him sideways. “are you trying to trick me into calling you my boyfriend?”
he eyed you back, a smile teasing his lips. “are you admitting that you call me your boyfriend?”
“what do you call me to your friends, then?”
“y/n.”
you rolled your eyes. “you’re the most annoying person i’ve ever met.”
“woooow,” he went, sighing and pulling his hand from yours to shove it in his pocket. “here i was thinking we were in a healthy, mutually respectful relationship.”
you giggled, tugging on his arm. “oh, shut up. we are. you call me by my name, and i call you by yours. that’s as mutually respectful as we can get.”
jeonghan rolled his eyes, but allowed you to pull his hand out of his pocket and put your fingers between his again. he had never been the type to hold hands in public, but with you it felt right. “whatever. it’s only been a month. i’ll break you eventually.”
you exhaled. “if you want me to tell people you’re my boyfriend, you just have to ask.”
“why would i want that?”
you pouted. “i dunno, i thought maybe you liked me or something.”
he squeezed your hand. “don’t flatter yourself.”
you laughed, forcing a smile onto jeonghan’s face, and he didn’t stop you when you changed the subject to the fact that mingyu had informed you that a dissected sheep brain looks a little too close to ssamgyeopsal for comfort.
one day, he told you that he thought you’d be different, back before you started dating. you were gentler than he imagined, despite your continued quick wit and sharp tongue. sweeter.
“i dunno,” he said, leaning back against the couch with your head in his lap. “in my head you would just be mean all the time.”
you didn’t take it as an insult. “the version of me you created in your head is no responsibility of mine.”
jeonghan thought you were beyond incredible. while his original judgement of you being rude, pretentious, and, well, mean hadn’t necessarily been wrong, he had found you to also be incredibly caring, thoughtful, and maybe the funniest person he had ever met. you would sigh about how broke you were that week, how you were sick of eating cup noodles, but you wouldn’t hesitate to spend the last of your budget on soju and kimbap for your friends on your walk to their apartment. you always picked up on his subtle mood changes - when he would press his hands to his temples as he tried to process his literature homework, your hand would sneak onto his thigh and squeeze his knee to remind him to let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding, despite your eyes never leaving your own textbook. he swore he never saw jihoon laugh as hard as he did when you and mingyu went off on one of your stupid arguments that only best friends could have, especially after you called mingyu a “grey’s anatomy-worthy harassment claim waiting to happen.”
“seriously, why am i friends with you?” mingyu grabbed his drink from your hand and glared at you when he noticed how much lighter it was (you had said you didn’t want one but definitely stole more than one sip). “can anyone else stand this bitch?”
“i like them,” jeonghan said matter of factly, his chin in his hand and elbow on the table as he stared at you fondly.
mingyu rolled his eyes. “you don’t count, evil twin.”
jihoon had his back on the floor, hands on his face, still trying to recover from your grey’s anatomy joke, and mingyu’s twin comment only set him off again. you giggled as you watch him roll onto his side, and briefly looked around this new grouping you found yourself in, sat around the low table covered in takeout in jeonghan’s living room. “how come you call me every day, then, dr. hate-my-guts?”
“free therapy,” he said, not missing a beat as he shoved a massive spoonful of rice and meat into his mouth. jihoon coughed, and mingyu narrowly avoided laughing as he chewed.
“i don’t buy it,” jeonghan said, running a hand through his hair and leaning back on the other. he watched you steal from his plate. “i think you like y/n the same reason i do. they’re the first person that didn’t tell you what you wanted to hear just because you’re good looking.”
mingyu kept chewing as he stared at jeonghan, his almost tired gaze going to you before he spoke. “you guys are really made for each other, huh?”
you didn’t think it before, but everyone kept telling you two that, and it definitely served as a pretty good ego boost for the existing confidence in your newfound relationship. you, of course, enjoyed jeonghan’s company even more without the validating eye rolls and gagging noises from friends whenever one of you made some praising comment about the other. you thought he was funny when he was making scathing jokes at his friends’ expense, but you thought he was absolutely hilarious when he was muttering every stupid thought that popped into his head with the specific intention of making you laugh too loud as you laid with him in your bed, his hand rubbing your back, overly aware of the fact that your roommate was trying to study at their desk as you planted your hand over your mouth to stifle your laughter.
as more time passed, jeonghan found it increasingly annoying that you both shared bedrooms with other people, considering how easily you could tease him into a bothered red-eared state with just your words. times that the two of you had gotten yelled at by whoever had to witness to get a damn room, or whispers between drinks that turned into standing too closely at parties, catching each others lips teasingly. disappearing into a bedroom only to be interrupted before anything can happen by some combination of party-goers and friends that somehow always managed to ruin the mood for one or both of you in an extremely targeted way. you had managed to help each other get off, of course, and he loved the look of you sinking to your knees in a bathroom stall, gaze catching his while you unbuckled his belt, or the way you squirmed against him, stuck between a closet door and his hard place, your breath hitching as he dug his fingers deeper into you. both activities were satisfying in their own right, but it would never be enough for him.
then there was that frustrating time jihoon had walked in, catching you with your hand down jeonghan’s pants, and he would never forgive you for the way you hesitated to loosen your grip on him despite the interruption. those few seconds of sheer terror he had felt, making direct eye contact with his roommate with his dick hard and in a hand that wasn’t his, the only thing stopping you from continuing being his annoyed “can you let go, now?"
he had decided to get back at you, and he got the opportunity a week later, when he had woken up behind you in your bed with your laptop asking if you were still watching and your roommate sleeping only a meter or so away. his lips ghosting across your neck, rousing you from your shallow sleep just to find his hand gently squeezing your hip, running over your mound until you were begging him to slip it under your pajama shorts. he had to put his free hand over your mouth to keep you quiet as you melted under his touch, your toes curling against his shins as the string in you snapped, and you punched his chest when you finally rolled over and caught your breath for getting you so needy when you weren’t alone. he just giggled and looked at you, half lidded, then kissed you like he hadn’t just been muttering voyeuristic filth in your ear.
jihoon was going home for the weekend, and the second jeonghan had found out, he told you you weren’t allowed to make any plans and swapped his saturday shift with a coworker. you had laughed in his face when he told you he intended to keep you in bed the entire weekend, but part of you had been waiting just as much as he had.
on friday night, when the two of you were sitting on the couch watching some documentary that you could barely pay attention to, seungcheol asked again if you guys wanted to go to the bar with him and soonyoung.
"cheol, i swear to god,” jeonghan said, the arm over your shoulder stiffening as he pointed at his roommate. “if you ask one more time, we’re gonna fuck in your bed, and it will be messy.”
seungcheol groaned in disgust as you laughed. “fuck you, jeonghan. i was giving them an out.”
“sorry,” you said, your head leaning back against the arm. “i’ll try to get him to wash the sheets, but no promises.”
“you guys are so fucking gross,” seungcheol said, snatching his wallet off the counter and shoving it in his pocket as soonyoung came out from the bathroom. “we’re leaving before they jump each other. do you have everything? if you forgot something, we’re not coming back,” he said, pointing. “i’m not risking it.”
soonyoung patted all his pockets, nodded, then smiled and waved at you. “see you guys! use protection!”
“don’t take the sixth shot,” you warned, smiling and waving back. soonyoung laughed as he got shoved out the door by his roommate, and when it shut behind him, you felt a chill run up your spine for no good reason.
“we should probably wait a minute,” you said, turning back to jeonghan, who was already leaning into you and letting his gaze flicker unapologetically between your eyes and lips.
“or, and this is just a suggestion, we can decide that we’ve waited long enough and that if they come back after all of that they deserve to see whatever they see,” he pitched, his fingers already brushing against your jaw.
you blinked at him from only a breath away, his honeyed eyes putting a sweet taste in your mouth. you swallowed, your stomach feeling light suddenly. “or that.”
his lips were on yours as soon as the words left them, and your hand rose to grip the front of his shirt - one of the many plain shirts that seemed to rotate around the household. you fidgeted for a second, before deciding you were impatient and pulling away from him only to swing a leg over his and straddle his lap. he grinned at you, hands landing on your thighs, lips excitedly welcoming back yours.
you really enjoyed kissing jeonghan. he always started soft, gentle, with light caresses and reassurances of how beautiful he thought you were. though you never catch him applying any, you know he has a peach flavored lip balm hiding somewhere in his daily routine, and you tasted it on him as you dove a little deeper into him, his hands squeezing at your waist as your tongue dipped past his lips.
jeonghan also really enjoyed kissing you, which was both good and bad for him. good, of course, because you could happily trap him in liplock for hours, and he never got bored of your soft sighs and adoring touches and wanton noises. bad, though, because his enjoyment becomes incredibly obvious embarrassingly fast, and he wished he could wipe the smirk off your face as soon as you noticed, but he always found himself completely powerless against you when you decided there was something you wanted.
and so, jeonghan’s eyes flicked over your chest as you pulled off your shirt, tossing it to the side as you stood and spun around, planting your hands on his knees and spreading his thighs as you sat back directly on his already straining bulge.
“holy fuck,” he managed, fingers running over the soft fabric of your gray sweatpants before kneading at your ass. you wiggled against his grip before grinding down against him, satisfied by the reaction, loving how clearly you could feel him and the way he sucked in a breath. you made no effort to stifle the noise caused by feeling him against your already dampening core, even through far too many layers. he whipped of his shirt quickly, his hands running up your back, twisting over your waist and pulling your back against his chest. you felt his lips start at your shoulder, then a hand on your chest, then the other snaking down your stomach.
you chuckled lightly. “can’t take a lapdance?”
“from you?” his lips landed behind your ear. “absolutely not. you’ll make me cum, and i have other things i’d like to try first.”
you sighed, rolling your hips as deliberate fingers moved from your stomach to inner thigh. “ever the poet.”
he smirked against your neck. “try it again later. right now, you’re making me insane.”
“mm,” you agreed. “i’ll keep that bookmarked, then.”
“god, how are you this hot?” jeonghan almost laughed. “you’re so annoying, why are you so good at teasing me like this?”
you smirked as his hand ghosted over your core. “yoon jeonghan, you make it incredibly fun to tease you.”
“i refuse to believe that it’s my fault you’re this sexy,” he said, drinking in the way your head dropped to his shoulder and a moan fell from your lips as he ran a finger up your slit. even through fabric, he felt the arousal gathering at your core, making his cock jump against your ass. you smiled, a hand snaking against his scalp, tugging gently at the hair at the base of his skull as he bumped over your clit, his reactionary groan matching yours.
“baby,” you whispered, your breath hot against jeonghan’s lips. “please.”
he licked his lips, tongue almost brushing yours in the process, using his hand on your waist to grind himself against you. “please what, darling?”
“fingers, jeonghan,” you whimpered, arching your back against his chest slightly in hopes to get friction against him, but he stopped his grinding as you did. you huffed. “please, i need you.”
he nudged at your jaw, making you roll your head as he planted his lips on your neck. his fingers undid the drawstring of your sweats to comfortably push under the fabric, and he let out a sigh as he didn’t find another layer.
“you’re evil.”
you giggled, gasping as his fingers quickly ran through your wetness. “and it turns you on.”
you let out a prolonged moan as he pushed his middle finger into you easily, sucking the base of your neck between his teeth. you gripped him, nails surely leaving crescents against his neck as he groaned about how absurdly wet you were, and you said something about how he was in no position to tease when you could feel every time his dick throbbed against you. he asked if you were dirty enough to admit how long you hadn’t been wearing underwear, and he watched you lick your lips before you told him all day. he smirked when you brought your lips to his, moaning against him as he pushed a second finger into you.
his fingers curled deliciously against pressure points, making you gasp as you tightened around them. jeonghan watched your heavy eyelids as you tried to focus on him, he watched your chest rise and fall as it flushed. he brought his free hand up to pinch your already puckered nipple, your temple landing on his cheek in an attempt to hold yourself together.
“i can tell you’re close,” he teased, and you only whined in response, eyes squeezing shut as his palm rubbed at your clit with the gentle movement of his fingers curling in you. “are you gonna cum on my hand, darling?”
you nodded hurriedly, your fingers curling in his hair, then opened your eyes to find his. he smiled at you, which only made you feel as though your world was crumbling. your back arched against his chest again as you came, and he held you by your core as you squeezed at his fingers, lips leaving repeated kisses across your cheek and neck.
despite the orgasm, you couldn’t help but continue to grind down against jeonghan’s hand, and he indulged your neediness by pumping them into you again before slipping his fingers out of you and pushing you forwards. “wallet.”
you groaned, pushing your ass back against him, smiling at the way his hand tensed on your side. “no please?”
he stared at where you were rubbing against his length. “i’m either cumming in a condom or your ass. your choice.”
he gave you a smug look when you turned your head to giggle at him, but his face almost completely dropped when he realized you were considering it.
“okay,” you said. “condom. this time.”
jeonghan’s cock flinched against you again, to which you responded with a wiggle before pushing off him and walking to the kitchen to retrieve a foil packet from his wallet, leaving him staring after you dumbly. when you turned around to walk back towards him, he had shoved his pants over his knees, leaning back heavily as he stroked himself using the hand you had so graciously wet for him. you gulped involuntarily, suddenly aware of how much saliva was gathering around your tongue as you tore open the condom.
he watched you kneel between his knees, his hand stilling at the base of his cock as you lapped a wet line up the underside of it, tongue swirling over his head. he tasted like you, and you had to swallow again before you rolled the condom onto him. you stood, turning your back to him as you hooked your thumbs under the waistband of your sweats and leaned over slightly as you pushed the fabric over your ass. jeonghan’s hand tightened around himself involuntarily, his other going to feel you. squeeze your hip, pinch at the soft flesh. guide you down onto him as you braced yourself on his knee. you pulled at the underside of your thigh, spreading yourself wider as you sat back onto him, sighing as he stretched you out.
“fuck,” he choked out, both hands gripping at your waist to stop you from sinking more. “shit, you feel really good.”
you whined, rolling your hips back in need. “i’ll feel even better if you let me sit.”
he chuckled. “why do you think i stopped you?”
you looked over your shoulder. “two pump chump?”
jeonghan pulled you down onto him harshly, forcing a squeal out of you as you curled over yourself. it had been a long time since anything had been this deep, and you could already feel your release building with one touch of his head to your spot. “shut up.”
“shutting up,” you muttered, voice almost cracking when he held you still and rutted up into you.
“god, i can’t believe it took us this long,” he said, steadying you with his grip so you could roll your hips on his lap. “to get me in you.”
“m-maybe if your roommate ever went to cl-lass,” you stuttered, beyond pleased that you could finally relieve this frustration as you slowly bounced on his lap. “f-fuck, you feel better than i imagined.”
you could hear the grin on his face when he spoke again, running his fingers up your side. “have i been fucking you in your dreams, baby?”
“well, you sure - mf! - haven’t been fuh-hucking me in real li-” your sentence getting cut off by a whiney moan when his hips bumped up to meet yours. “god, fuck, jeonghan!”
he pulled himself off the couch, pressing his chest against your back. he pushed up into you, almost desperately, his teeth running across your shoulder as much as his lips did. you gasped, leaning back into him, spreading your legs until your knees hooked on the outside of his, his unrelenting fingers finding your clit, just to make you beg as he pumped in and out of you.
“please what, baby?” he asked sweetly, despite the hair sticking to his sweaty forehead and the way his eyebrows knit together.
“p-please, can i cum again?”
jeonghan groaned, almost taken aback by your complete switch in attitude. while he knew you liked it when he tried to take control, he had never seen you go down without a fight. “who knew all you needed to stop being such a brat was my cock?”
“p-please, h-hannie…” you whimpered, and he could feel your walls constricting around him. “please, i wanna cum.”
desperation became obvious in his own hips, just by taking in your face. he had gone into this with every intention of milking you of everything you had, but he was man enough to admit that your begging made him too close to cumming to stop. “get my dick wet, darling.”
your mouth gaped in a silent cry as you crumpled into his chest, your legs twitching inwards as he moved his hands to your hips and continued thrusting up into you, your walls squeezing him tight until he let out a low groan, slowing his movement until he eventually stilled completely.
the two of you stayed there, a sweaty, entangled mess on the couch, both just trying to catch your breath.
“fuck,” you said finally, and jeonghan thought he couldn’t have said it better himself.
after two packets of slightly overcooked ramen, a conversation about how leaving a used condom on cheol’s bed would not be a funny prank, and a generous spray of febreze fabric refresher, jeonghan watched proudly as you walked with a slight unintentional wobble towards his bedroom, assuring you he’d be right there as he rinsed out your bowls in the sink.
when he did finally join you, you were laying on his bed with your phone to your ear, and he crawled up over you as you giggled into the phone, knees spreading to accommodate. “hannie’s. i told you, i’m staying here for the weekend.”
jeonghan could hear mingyu’s voice on the other end, saying something about how he thought it was next weekend for some reason and that getting laid would be good for you, but he just smiled as he kissed at your neck, your free arm settling around him comfortably.
“why are you calling this late?” you asked, looking over at jeonghan’s bedside to confirm the time. “are you guys going out?”
“yeah, of course. rockbox in an hour. you guys in?”
you tipped your head to the side as jeonghan continued his gentle kisses up your neck, hands running up under your shirt, making you sigh softly. “nah, we have plans. cheol and soonyoung are there, though.”
“okay, no worries,” mingyu said, then paused. jeonghan took the opportunity to bite just below your jaw, gently rolling his hips between your thighs to make you aware of what he was thinking. “are you busy right now, or can you talk?”
a pang of guilt ran through you as you held your breath, trying to not audibly react to the movement against you. you hadn’t been able to sit and chat with your best friend in way too long. “i’m, uh, a little busy? maybe we could get lunch tomorrow?”
jeonghan pulled back and glared at you, a stark reminder that he had asked you to not make plans, but you just put a finger to his pouting lips.
“as long as it’s after noon, i’m down.”
“okay,” you said, brushing your fingers across jeonghan’s cheek and pushing his hair behind an ear. “one? two? stew?”
“one’s good,” mingyu said, his voice sing songy. “okay, i’m gonna get ready. have fun! use protection.”
you rolled your eyes. “everyone keeps saying that.”
“yeah, because you guys are crazy and no one wants to risk it.”
after your byes, you hung up and looked at jeonghan, who was still staring at you with disdain. you sighed. “it’s just lunch.”
“i said no plans,” he reminded you, pouting. “now we have to go get lunch with mingyu when i could be fucking you stupid in my roommateless bedroom.”
“no we don’t,” you said, running your hands through his hair. “i have to get lunch with mingyu. you can do whatever you want.”
“oh, so i’m not even invited?” his eyebrows raised at you. “you do realize i switched a shift so i could spend all day with you, right?”
you giggled. “hannie, i would love to spend all day with you, but i haven’t sat and gotten lunch with mingyu in a month. i miss my best friend.”
he groaned, burying his face in your neck. “stop making sense, i’m trying to be mad at you.”
“you can still be mad,” you said, your fingers softly massaging against the back of his neck. “i like it when you think you’re punishing me.”
he groaned again, hating how you could so easily say the perfect thing to make him forget about anything else. “you’re evil.”
you giggled. “and it turns you on.”
he adjusted against you, trying to ignore his increasing arousal despite his original intentions. “sometimes, you seem like my own personal demon.”
“oh, fun,” you vocalised, brushing your fingers knowingly through the hair behind his ear, triggering a huff as you hit your favorite soft spot of his. “two demons trying to torture each other.”
he laughed as he raised his head, propping it up with a hand. “would you consider this torture?”
“maybe for normal people,” you said, sneaking a kiss onto his lips. “but we’re demons, remember? this is fun for us.”
his lips pouted, less to make a point and more because it was their comfortable, natural state after your lips leave. “i think i like you a lot.”
your face burned. it wasn’t the first time he had said something to that effect, but it made your chest feel funny nonetheless. “that’s reassuring.”
“i’m serious,” he said. “i really like you. and i don’t like people.”
you smiled softly. “i like you, too, yoon jeonghan.”
he adjusted his elbows on either side of you. “i want to be your boyfriend.”
you stared at him. “nah.”
“aye,” he cocked his head, making you laugh. “you said all i had to do was ask!”
“i’m kidding,” you said, putting your hands on either side of his face, pushing his cheeks in. “do you want to meet my parents, too?”
he looked at the wall behind his bed. “maybe that can wait.”
giggling, you pulled him into a kiss. “okay, boyfriend.”
the smile on his lips lingered as you kissed him, and he decided it was time to make sure everyone knew you were officially taken.
“you could have worn a scarf.”
you rolled your eyes, pulling the hood of the sweatshirt you stole from jeonghan’s in an attempt to hide the purple marks on your neck over your head. “it’s not my fault he tried to kill me,” you said, tugging on the drawstrings. “how was rockbox?”
“good,” mingyu said, leaning back. “weird. vernon ended up on stage.”
you almost choked on your water. “and i missed it?”
he laughed, then pulled out his phone to show you a video. “seungkwan made him do the features on a beyoncé song. he killed it, though.”
you watched the shaky vertical video of vernon on stage with a boy you knew but never really spoke to, watching in disbelief and laughing at mingyu’s hollering in the background. “wow. bey seungkwan and jay-v. that’s pretty legendary. i can’t believe i wasn’t there.”
mingyu laughed, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “how was your night? productive, obviously,” he said, gesturing to your neck.
“good,” you said reflexively, then exhaled as you looked at your best friend. “like, really good.”
“okay, spare the details, but like,” mingyu tipped his head and looked at you through his lashes. “good good?”
“mingyu, you know i would never say this lightly,” you put your hands on the table. “the best. seriously. man has a surprising amount of stamina for how much he naps.”
“damn,” he sighed and looked away from you. “y'know, that makes sense. i’ve always heard he was good in bed, and you two have some insane chemistry.”
you spotted the waiter coming, and before they were in earshot, you hurriedly said “plus his dick is huge.”
“oh, my god,” mingyu reeled back, then realized what you had done as the waiter put side dishes on your table. as soon as they left, he glared at you. “why are you like this.”
you grinned. “you were curious, though, right?”
he squinted at you. “doesn’t mean you should just offer up the info.”
“when’s the last time i slept with someone?” you asked. “like, really. it’s been, like, almost a year since i hooked up with rubin.”
his brows ruffled as he thought. “damn, is that true? has it really been that long?”
“let me brag,” you pleaded. “please? he’s so hot, i’m gonna lose my mind if you don’t let me talk about it.”
“i don’t know if i can be friends with you anymore.”
“dude, he spit in my mouth this morning.”
“oh-kay, so you’re buying lunch,” mingyu said, sitting up suddenly. “damn, this morning? have you guys just been going at it like rabbits?”
“i don’t wanna hear it,” you said, pointing at him. “you had to tell me about every guy you hooked up with during your 'hoe-liday’ last winter, you can listen to me talk about a guy i’ve been seeing for almost two months.”
“fair enough,” he laughed. “i don’t think i’ve ever seen you like this.”
you groaned, sinking your head to the table. “it sucks.”
he stared at you. “oh my god, his dick made you fall in love.”
“shut up,” you said, lifting your head to land your chin on the table, curling a paper napkin over your spoon. you pouted as you tried to come up with an argument, but failed. “he’s sweet.”
“he’s mean,” mingyu corrected. “but he’s sweet to you.
"and dogs,” you defended. “and kids.”
“oh, so he’s husband material all of a sudden?”
you shrugged. “i’ve dated people much less likeable than yoon jeonghan.”
mingyu sighed, eating some kimchi. “that’s true. we both have.”
“yeah, so stop making fun of me, asshole,” your eyebrows creased as you leaned back and crossed your arms. “try being happy for me for a change. didn’t you want this all along? trying to get me to ask him out?”
“i am happy for you,” mingyu said, showing some genuinity as he laughed, also leaning back as your food arrived. “you just make it really hard sometimes.”
mingyu had the courtesy of dropping you off back at jeonghan’s so he didn’t have to borrow seungcheol’s car to come get you, and as he pulled up to the familiar apartment building, he gave you his usual “say hi to your boyfriend for me,” as he put it in park, quickly checking his phone.
instead of your normal “not my boyfriend,” you looked over at your best friend and bit your cheek. “sure.”
mingyu’s neck nearly snapped to look at you. “wait, what?”
you giggled. “sure, i’ll say hi for you.”
“did you-” he started, then stuttered, trying to figure out what he was asking. “are you guys, like-”
“he asked,” you said shrugging. “i said yes.”
a grin spread across his face. “really?”
“well, actually, i said no. then i said okay.”
mingyu laughed. “yeah that sounds right. wow, y/n got a boyfriend.”
you rolled your eyes, pulling the hood further over your head to hide your involuntarily hot ears as you adjusted to open the car door. “bye, goo.”
“this is my best friend,” he said loudly, making you stare at him with wide eyes as some innocent bystander walked past the car, all while you tried to pull yourself out of the door. “beautiful, right? sorry though, they’re taken, i’m dropping them off to see their brand new boyfriend.”
“you’re embarrassing,” you said, pointing an annoyed finger, grateful the person only looked back once before continuing. “go home.”
“you have done ten times worse to me,” mingyu said, grinning from ear to ear. “have fun with the pretentious asshole that can’t make an americano right, yoon jeonghan!”
that made you laugh despite yourself, and you shot him several expletives before slamming his door shut and running up the stairs.
after punching in the door code that no one had told you but you had seen enough times to know, you announced that you had returned. seeing jihoon’s chair empty on a saturday was strange, but at least seungcheol and soonyoung were up to their usual antics of playing some game extremely poorly.
you stood and watched the screen for a moment. “you know you can catch the arrows, right?”
soonyoung looked at you. “you can catch the arrows?”
seungcheol groaned. “why would you tell him that? i’m actually winning for once!”
you giggled. “if you dodge when the arrows are coming, you catch them.”
“you can dodge?”
from the other room, you heard a muted “hurry up,” and you saluted to the boys as they argued, following your cue to exit the situation.
jeonghan was on his bed when you shut the door behind you. “what are they yelling about?”
you sighed as you walked over to him. “apparently soonyoung didn’t know you could dodge in towerfall.”
he watched you pull off the sweatshirt - the same one he had worn on your first kinda date - to admire the marks he had left on you, then blinked when he realized what you had said. “we play that game all the time, how did he not know?”
you shrugged, then crawled into his waiting arms. “he’s not very observant.”
you sighed as you settled against jeonghan, and he kissed the top of your head. “how was lunch?”
“good,” you said, smiling. “gyu is good. it was nice to catch up.”
jeonghan clicked his tongue. “you guys talk every day.”
“okay, yeah, but,” you adjusted to look at him. “talking on the phone and hanging out with other people is different. we can’t talk about the same stuff.”
“well, what’d you talk about?”
you smiled. “wouldn’t you like to know?”
he squinted at you. “aren’t we supposed to be a team now? no secrets?”
“okay,” you said, fixing his bangs. “what were you and seungcheol talking about in his room yesterday before i got here?”
jeonghan couldn’t help the tiny smile that worked its way into his face. “did soonyoung tell you?”
“i would never reveal my source,” you said triumphantly, knowing it couldn’t have been anyone else, considering jihoon had already left. “also, he was pissed that you kicked him out while he was still sleeping.”
“if i could have just dragged cheol into my room, i would have,” he sighed. “trust me. i can pull soonyoung out of bed, but seungcheol is dense.”
you inspected his lips a moment. “were you talking about me?”
“uh,” jeonghan adjusted under you, putting a hand behind his head. “no, not really. soonyoung got a job, and me and cheol are both working more now. i wanted to talk about getting a bigger place, since our lease ends in the summer.”
you vocalised excitedly. “does this mean you’d get your own room?”
“that’s the idea, yeah,” he said, grinning. “you could stay over more.” and while he hadn’t lied - they had discussed larger apartment options, and decided to start looking by the end of the month - he failed to mention that the main purpose of him isolating seungcheol was to confirm he was crazy for wanting you to join them if they did move.
“i mean,” cheol had said, barely propping himself up in bed. “it might be a bit too early to tell, but you guys seem like the real deal.”
jeonghan spun in soonyoung’s desk chair, arms crossed. “but i’m insane, right? like, we haven’t even slept together.”
“they’re coming over for the weekend, yeah?”
“yeah.”
“so let’s talk about it again on monday?”
jeonghan kneaded at his jaw, exhaling. “yeah, okay.”
now, you had slept together. not only that, but you slept together, all night, in the same bed, and jeonghan woke up with jumbled poetry in his head when he found you curled up by his side. despite living in this apartment for nearly a year, it felt most like home with you in it.
and he had told seungcheol, when he got home from dropping you off for lunch, that he was pretty damn sure he wanted to wake up like that every morning.
he wondered how you would react, if you would want to take the leap and move in with him. part of him felt as though he was taking advantage of your situation for his own selfish want to have you around all the time - you would do literally anything to avoid being in a dorm next year, but your housing budget wouldn’t accommodate for anything more than a goshiwon. while that wasn’t the worst option, you always talked about how much you missed living in a normal space, with a stove. a full sized fridge. a real bathroom, instead of a cramped wetroom. if he were to ask you to live with him, you would likely say yes, but would that put too much strain on your relationship too early? or would you think he was moving too fast and say no? his mind whirred silently as you buried your face in his neck.
“what’s on your mind?”
jeonghan blinked. “nothing.”
“liar.”
he sighed. “you.”
you lifted your head. “am i what’s making your heart beat so fast?”
he hadn’t even realized his pulse had quickened. he swallowed, briefly wondering if he would ever be able to truly hide anything from you. “maybe. what did you and mingyu talk about?”
you laughed. “i was hoping you would forget.”
“i never forget.”
“we talked about a lot,” you said, fiddling with the collar of jeonghan’s tee. “classes, summer plans, boys…”
he raised his brow at the last subject. “boys, huh?”
you smirked at him playfully. “yeah, our waiter was cute.”
he scoffed in your face and you giggled, then flattened his shirt against his chest.
“we talked about you. i told him we were official.”
“how’d that go?”
“he made fun of me, but it’s fine because i told him you have a big dick.”
jeonghan’s hand went from behind his head to cover his eyes, letting out a half-groan and half-“really?”, but the smile on his lips told you he wasn’t mad. “why? why would you tell him that?”
“he’s my best friend!” you laughed.
“okay, why did you tell me that?”
“i’d thought you’d like to know,” you said, pouting slightly. “he might respect you now.”
he uncovered his face just so you could see him rolling his eyes before he tried to sit up. “okay, no more cuddling.”
you whined, trying to keep him in place, but failing. “but i just got here!”
“maybe you shouldn’t have left in the first place,” he teased, getting out of bed to turn off the air purifier he usually only ran at night, but had been too preoccupied to turn off that morning. “i told you i intended to keep you in bed all weekend, but you didn’t care.”
“i’m here now,” you pouted. “in your bed.”
“take a nap, then,” jeonghan said. “i’m gonna eat.”
you groaned. “you didn’t eat while i was gone?”
“too busy pouting in bed. your turn.”
you floundered and whined childishly for a moment as he laughed at you, leaving the room without another word. sometimes you hated how similar you two were, but only because it made you completely aware of just how annoying you were.
when jeonghan returned, you had completely passed out, holding his pillow under your head as you laid on your stomach. he smirked in the direction of the sleeping body and fiddled with a few things - closing the closet door, throwing a rogue shirt into his hamper, etc. - before making his way to the bed to join you.
his touch was gentle. enough to rouse but not frighten. you squirmed slightly, recognizing the way his hand dipped into even the most subtle curves of your body as you laid out comfortably. you gave a noise of approval when it ran over your ass, squeezing slightly. jeonghan smirked again, and you turned under his arm to face him, a soft smile on your lips.
“g'morning.”
“it’s four in the afternoon,” he corrected.
you sighed. “and it’s a good morning.”
“sure is, babe,” he drawled, smiling as you planted a smooch. his hand ran unhurriedly up your back, under your shirt.
you hummed. “are you really horny again?”
“listen,” he mumbled, almost laughing. “i just want to get of much of you as i can, while i can.”
you supposed that was as good a reason as any as you kissed him again, only for him to pull away and straddle the backs of your thighs. he pushed the balls of his palms into your lower back on either side of your spine, and you let out a low moan. jeonghan did this on occasion, treat you to a back rub. he claimed it was because you had the worst posture he had ever seen, but you knew it was an excuse to get his hands all over you, and you couldn’t hide how much you enjoyed it. you adjusted to lay straighter, burying your face in the pillow when he hit a particularly evil knot and had to dig it out with a thumb. you groaned as his hands travelled up your back, sliding the shirt up as he massaged into your shoulders. you sighed as you got up on your elbows and ripped off the shirt, tossing it somewhere on the floor, exposing your full back to him, your shoulders and neck littered in his marks. he admired them, even planted small kisses atop a few, then worked his way down your back, curving his hands over your ass.
you muttered a quiet thank you, and he smiled, giving you a succinct “of course” in response. he moved down to your legs, thumbs sneaking in your inner thighs and subtly spreading you out despite your pants. you hummed, pushing your hips to meet his touch, encouraging him to knead at your cheeks.
“have i ever told you you have a great ass?”
you giggled. “it’s average at best.”
“uh, no,” he said, voice pitched upwards in a teasing manner. “i think i’m a really great judge in asses and yours is fantastic.”
“yeah?” you peeked over your shoulder. “what’s so fantastic about it?”
jeonghan’s fingers dug into it, eyes shooting up to meet yours. “well, for starters, it’s connected to you.”
he ran a thumb over your crease, making you let out a small noise in response, and you buried your face in the pillow again. “shut up.”
he smirked against your shoulder, hands running up your back again and one landing on the mattress beside you as he pushed his hips against your ass. “yes, boss.”
you sighed, arching your back to get as much friction as you could while he ground his hard member against you. he sucked at your neck, and your hands dug helplessly into his hair as you whined.
“are we teenagers?” you asked, huffing. “do we have to dry hump or can we fuck like adults?”
jeonghan laughed as he lifted his mouth to ghost over yours. “impatient. if you were better, you would have asked for my cock nicely.”
“better,” you repeated, hating the way a hard wave of arousal washed over you, suddenly wakening your senses like it was from the pacific. “for you?”
the tip of his tongue barely swiped at your lips, your jaw twitching slightly in reaction. “you gonna be good?”
you tried to focus on him, your blown out eyes flickering hopelessly to his lips. “i-i can try.”
and with that, jeonghan yanked your pants over your hips and down your thighs, scooting them down as you hiked your ass up slightly, hoping to tempt him as efficiently as possible. his hands found your ass again, spreading you out as you groaned. “look at you, soaking.”
you bit your lip, making a pathetic noise into the pillow to avoid talking back. “please, jeonghan.”
two fingers ran over you, and you tried to muffle your moan as best you could as your hips moved involuntarily, pushing into his fingers. he smirked down at you, wondering how far he could take you as he messily spread your arousal. “bet you could take two right now.”
“yes,” you said, gasping slightly. “please, hannie, please, i can take it.”
he pushed two fingers into you, barely even scissoring them before pushing in a third, making you bury your face in his pillow as you groaned. “i’ve been fucking you good, huh?”
you nodded frantically, pushing against his hand as steadily as you could. he noted your neediness, and indulged you by thrusting his fingers into you until you were whining rhythmically to his pace. he pulled a finger out, then another, and you instinctively threw a hand back to catch him before he pulled away completely. he laughed lightly, his hand easily overpowering yours and pressing a kiss against your shoulder blade.
“sorry, were you close?”
you exhaled sharply. “that was so mean.”
“i’ll make it up to you,” he said, pulling your hips further off the bed and pushing you further apart. he licked a wide stripe up your core, and you moaned deeply into the pillow, gripping it with all your power as his tongue expertly ran over your clit. “you taste incredible.”
you panted as you turned your head. “i thought you just ate.”
“i have a separate dessert stomach.”
your thighs buzzed and gut fluttered, and you wondered how he always managed to make you weak in the knees, even when his tongue was buried in you. it wasn’t long before you were gripping at his wrist, knuckles white, quaking as his lips guided you through your orgasm, and he lapped at your release, licking wet stripes up your inner thighs as well.
when he backed away, you exhaled again. “jeonghan-”
“what?” he asked, pushing his own pants down his thighs. he stood to drop them to the floor before straddling you again, pulling your hips back against him. “is this what you want?”
your hand found his thigh, urging him towards you. he rubbed the head of his cock, already shiny and scarlet, against your core, and you practically begged on the spot. suddenly, he pushed you into the mattress, pushing his hips against yours but fucking into your thighs. you whimpered, his cock rubbing against you absolutely deliciously, but not at all what you were expecting. he groaned into your neck, snaking a hand up under you.
“god, you’re so wet, i almost don’t even need to fuck your pussy.”
you yelped when his fingers found a nipple and pinched. “h-hannie, please-”
“please, what?”
you squirmed. “please fuck me.”
he looked at you. “you get one more try.”
for a moment, you looked back at him and your mind went blank. “please, hannie, i need your cock.”
he smiled. “was that so hard?” his tone and kisses were sweet, but completely mismatched the frustration bubbling in you as he pulled back, making you moan again as the head bumped over your clit. “do you trust me?”
“yes, baby, please just fuck me before i scream.”
with one hand on his cock, he guided himself into you, a moan tumbling from his lips as he felt you completely unsheathed for the first time. you gripped the pillow in a tighter fist as he filled you out, and it took all your concentration to not squeal in a way that absolutely would have been heard by the entire apartment. his hands gripped your waist, pulling you back onto him as he fucked into you. as you adjusted to him, you began to curse the fact that this was only temporary - you would have to go back to unreliably private quickies in a few short days - and you suddenly got the urge to really savor the way jeonghan’s cock felt in you.
he leaned over you, changing the angle ever so slightly and just enough to make you cry out, and he put a palm at the base of your neck, wrapping his fingers around it slightly as he pushed you into his pillow. “i could fuck you raw forever.”
you tried to catch your breath to respond. “i would let you.”
you internally celebrated the low groan that escaped him, and the way his hips pushed impossibly further into you. externally, you rewarded the movement with a matching moan, though you slapped a hand over your mouth when you heard the game pause in the other room.
“don’t want them to hear you, baby?”
you whimpered into your hand as jeonghan kissed a line up the side of your neck, steadily rolling into you.
“can’t even talk?”
you shakily pulled your hand away from your mouth, trying to stifle your noises with just your will. “cheol already hates me.”
“he doesn’t hate you,” he said, his voice getting slightly more labored as he continued his pace. “i bet he’d love to hear your pretty moans.”
you clamped your hand over your mouth again, resisting jeonghan’s luring the best you could. he smiled against the hollow of your ear, nipping at it slightly.
“i know you want to, baby. just let it out.”
as he spoke, he shifted his hips, making you let out a high toned moan that was barely muted by your palm, and you buried your face in the pillow to avoid jeonghan’s shiteating grin.
“i love the way you sound when i’m fucking you,” he said, his voice never raising above his lowest register. his ability to keep his cool as you were utterly falling apart was perhaps simultaneously the most aggravating and sexiest part of the whole affair. “and you always back up against me like a bitch in heat.”
you reached back for a hand, but he swiftly grabbed your wrist to push it against your lower back. your chest heaved, and you hurriedly added your other wrist to his grip. with one hand restricting your arms and the other pulling your hip back against his, he licked his lips at the sight.
“i’m going to wreck you,” he panted. “i’m going to make you forget anyone you ever fucked before me.”
you let out harsh breaths as your chest pushed into the mattress. “already have,” you managed, peeking best you could over yout shoulder to the glorious view behind you. you enjoyed the way his tongue shot out between his lips, the way he watched his cock fill you tightly. you even liked the way his hair flopped over his eyes, even if you thought he was in need of a haircut. but you especially liked that he looked like he got lost in you. like he would never want anything but you.
you came fast and hard, squeezing him temptingly as you whined into the pillow. with that, he pulled out and rolled you over, fingers hooking at your pants to pull them off completely. you bicycle kicked to help him, then practically pulled him into you as his lips crashed into yours, hands pulling you as close as he could while you both repositioned your bodies. your hand went down to position him at your entrance again, and you gasped into his mouth when he slid into you again. his teeth tugged at your bottom lip, one hand gently massaging the back of your neck as you whimpered against him.
“you’re being so good for me,” he muttered, purposefully brushing his lips against yours with every syllable. “have i finally tamed you?”
your legs wrapped around his waist. “no chance in hell.”
he grinned, letting you pull him into more sloppy kisses as he steadily pulled another orgasm from you, and you couldn’t help but want him to cum with you. his eyebrows knit as your hands dug into the hair at the base of his head, eyes barely focusing on your lips as you begged for him to cum in you.
“you’re evil.”
you could barely smile. “and you love it.”
you choked slightly, body edging into overstimulation as you came again, and jeonghan pushed up off of you to better chase his own high. he pumped into you, hard and rough, for a few more seconds before you felt suddenly empty and he was shooting hot ribbons of cum up stomach and chest.
you bit back a moan, arching your back slightly as he stared down at your chest, leaning down to lick his cum off your nipple. you gripped his hair again, squirming as he sucked lightly, lapping more cum towards the peak. you tugged at his roots slightly, pulling him up to kiss you before he got you hot and bothered again when you weren’t sure you could handle more.
“i can’t believe you pulled out.”
jeonghan laughed in your face. “i asked if you trusted me.”
you pouted. “i thought that meant you were going to choke me out.”
he kissed you again after a short chuckle, then sat up to grab tissues. “maybe next time.”
he didn’t say it like it was a promise, but he kept it like it was one.
and when your weekend of nonstop bedroom antics was over, you admittedly had fulfilled yourselves enough that the following privacy draught was almost bearable. sure, jeonghan asked you a couple times to come sit on his lap while he worked on lab reflections, and yes, it was much less innocent than one would think, but the two of you managed to keep unfortunate walkins to a minimum, which was only made possible by finally getting it out of your system.
also because you decided your thursday 7:30 was barely worth it most weeks, and jeonghan was always happy to run over to your dorm to fool around for a few hours while your roommate was in class.
#lol#seventeen smut#seventeen imagines#seventeen fluff#seventeen scenarios#yoon jeonghan scenarios#yoon jeonghan fluff#yoon jeonghan imagines#jeonghan scenarios#jeonghan imagines#jeonghan smut#hannie#i wrote dis
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you're so right, the one thing everyone in generation needs to do is communicate with each other 😭 but what has me on edge is what's going to happen with luz now she's, like, mad with greta bc she doesn't like her. she has the "not yet" that can potentially hurt greta and im actually wondering if she's gonna tell her or if riley will first (which i kind of doubt? since riley seems to be pushing her away from the looks of it in the sneak peek?). Idk!! what are your opinions? i like reading your posts. Thank you alsjhs
thank you for reading! I just think the character dynamics and the acting and the writing are so so good and something I've never really seen done before (also I'm so sorry this got a little bit off track by the time I'd finished writing lmaoooo)
oh I absolutely believe luz is gonna weaponise that info like there is no way they specifically wrote that asshole mini-monologue for her and had her tell riley 'not yet' to not use it when they want to cause even more problems. I think riley's gonna self destruct next episode (callback to Sam in ep 9 'you don't wanna blow yourself up in the process') out of some sort of misguided sense of self loathing - you can see in ep 13 when aquarium pablo turns up she looks so guilty and upset with herself more than anything
when stuff goes wrong for riley she always makes a joke out of it but then turns the rage inward to hurt herself - all the shit with her parents has obviously just taught her that she's the root of everyone's problems. she's so self sacrificing (when she says she's happy for greta and luz and has a photo that she LITERALLY CRIED OVER for their couple photo album??? riley pls be nice to yourself) and finds it so hard to ask for what she needs (she has to force out that she's having a shit time with her parents and needs chester to come inside with her and then we find out that her mum has totally invaded her space and done god knows what with all her belongings to have her weird play room which is funny yes but also like so deeply distressing to me)
god my heart aches for her like up until recently with the GSA kids probably no one has ever really told her that she's worthy of time and love, I don't even know how she's as functional as she is but I guess kids are resilient. I could argue that sometimes riley uses sex as a form of self harm or like a tranquilliser for all her feelings because at least when people are having sex with her she knows they actually want and desire her in some imitation of honesty. but I digress and also it's a show about teenagers so maybe it's not that serious and dark.......idk
I'm not really sure where the end of that episode is going to leave us but then episode 15 according to the plot synopsis is where greta and riley finally have their cards on the table convo about where they stand with each other. I would love the luz thing to come up so it doesn't blow up everything later, but if greta is asexual and says that to riley as one of the reasons she was/is confused about them then I think there's no way riley's going to say 'hey sorry but when you rejected me and accidentally called me a slut I went and found someone who would actually fuck me to make myself feel better and that happens to be luz lol'. it's going to be so much worse that she didn't just go off and have sex with some random guy but she had her first sexual experience with a girl that wasn't greta like they're somehow interchangeable (obviously not but that's how it would feel I think)
the last episode I'm thinking riley and greta will be maybe like circling each other with ~meaningful~ eye contact and stuff like they always do which would hopefully finally culminate in one good honest mitski kiss where they actually know how intensely they feel about each other. there's footage of marisela and chase rehearsing a scene for the finale that definitely looks confrontational and given that I'm like 75% sure that luz will either tell greta or threaten to tell greta just to be the asshole she's promised to be. I hope greta understands riley enough at that point to know it wasn't personal but it's gonna be bad and painful whenever it happens
tl;dr for this unhinged essay: I agree with you that I think riley won't do it herself, luz will either have to do it or coerce riley into doing it which will make everything a disaster and I hope that it won't ruin it forever but I am SCARED
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I've been doing some thinking and realizing just how far back this all goes. Those of you who know me and my family IRL may have a hard time believing the emotional abuse and gaslighting because whenever you've met them, they seemed fine. They may have even bragged about me to you which made you think that they thought very highly of me. They also may have neglected to inform you that I have been disabled by chronic illness the past 10 years (many of my other family members had no idea until they spoke to me personally. It's... really fucking weird? To just not tell anyone that your offspring is in bed all day in horrible pain and constantly at the doctor/ER?). Unfortunately this is also part of the gaslighting, putting on a persona of parental perfection so that no one believes me when I try to talk about it. Instead people, even within my family, make excuses for the abuse and say that I should just be grateful. Behind closed doors it's always been very different. In the event that me processing this in private spaces gets out to them (which WILL endanger me): This isn't about *~exposing~* or *~revenge~* or *~punishment~*, it's about putting the pieces together and saying, yeah, I'm right to finally put my foot down about the way I have been treated. This is my experience. This is my trauma. I'm finally claiming that after a lifetime of being told that these experiences and my pain around them are apparently "not real" (gaslighting). By talking about this, I am not victimizing myself, but empowering myself. Because none of this treatment was ever my fault. None of it was ever deserved. And none of this is to be blamed on my "response" to abuse. I hope that by talking about this I can paint a picture of the dynamic and inspire investigation into the health of your own family dynamics too. "But they're family" is literally what enables this kind of abuse to continue. And I'm done. My health and survival is more important than upholding a toxic family system. They're learning that the hard way, finally. I don't think my family members are bad people. I truly do love and care for them. They have some amazing qualities. They love animals and they've come a long way to now being LGBTQ+ allies even if they don't always use the right words. But they have a lot of flaws that most likely come from their own trauma... But these aren't just self-contained flaws. Because I am the one who will be undoing the damage for the rest of my life. I don't know if they will ever go to therapy themselves, but I certainly won't be waiting around for them to work on themselves if it means I'm going to continue to be mistreated and re-traumatized. - It's always been this way but things definitely got worse in my home when I became disabled (possibly bc it triggered insecurities in them?). Both parents ignored me to my face all my life. I'd say or ask something, and there'd be no response most of the time. If I said, "hey, I'm talking to you, that's rude" they would blow up at me about "WHAT. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY. I HAVE THINGS ON MY MIND OKAY I HAVE MY OWN LIFE". This happened even when I was a literal child. I grew up believing that nothing I had to say was worth hearing and that if they ignored me that it was because I was unimportant and annoying. But if I ignore them or take too long to respond because I'm thinking, they scold me me about being rude, that they are my parents and I need to respect them. My emotions and pain have been invalidated since I was a child too. I would get picked up from afterschool care, or my bully's house, and of course I'd be crying from enduring a day of bullying. I would say, "I didn't do anything to them, it's not fair." And my dad's response was always, "WELL GUESS WHAT LIFE'S NOT FAIR. WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE AN ADULT IN THE REAL WORLD." He has continued to say this to me on a regular basis whenever I am struggling, either with work, friends, relationships, a death, or my chronic illnesses. I wonder why he has never considered my world to be real? Why is my reality not real to him? What
makes that even more painful is that I was still sent day after day to the school where I was bullied, to afterschool care with my bullies, and to my bullies' homes. No matter how much I was always crying when they picked me up, they just kept sending me back. And then a few of my dad's girlfriend's had children who bullied me too. I literally could never escape it. If it wasn't that, his response to me crying about something would be, "YOU HAVE NOTHING TO CRY ABOUT. YOU'RE LIVING THE LIFE OF LUXURY HERE, YOU DON'T PAY RENT! JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU'RE OUT THERE HAVING REAL PROBLEMS!" Again, he said this to me when I was a 24 year old who was suddenly in the span of a year so disabled that I could barely work. I was scared for my future, because I had taken the time to educate myself about my illnesses, and I knew that things were going to be hard for me. What I needed was support, not "tough love" and emotional invalidation. I was also scared of the situation I am in now. I was scared that I was going to be too sick to afford to move out and that by age 30 I would still be stuck at home with a parent who did not see my reality, my pain, as real. I am living that and it's not fun. Whenever I tried to talk to him about this invalidation, it just turned into a fight, because he refuses to admit the things that he said, and says things like "That's a You Problem" which he has said since I was a child in response to him hurting my feelings. I have always thought it was worth the effort to communicate to my loved ones this sort of issue, because that's what I was taught at school. If there's an issue, you talk about it. But my family doesn't believe that I guess. - When I first got sick, I was throwing up a lot. It had built up over several years since I was 19 but then after I was officially diagnosed with my Big 4 (colitis/fibro/ME/narcolepsy) I started having really dangerous vomiting attacks. The first attack I had lasted 6 days. I lost 12lbs. I overheard my dad complaining on the phone to a friend that I was keeping him up all night throwing up. I felt so bad for bothering him, I had learned to value his comfort over mine. But after the third day of nonstop vomiting, I told my dad I needed to go to the ER, that something was wrong. He sighed and rolled his eyes and said I didn't need to go. He was so annoyed with me for being sick. I was completely pale. I hadn't eaten anything. I could barely keep water down. I argued but he wouldn't listen. I went back to throwing up, at this point just dry-heaving. A while later I said, "I'm taking myself to the ER." I grabbed my car keys and my dad stopped me. He said, "That's ridiculous, you aren't driving yourself to the ER, I'll do it." But he still wouldn't take me for some reason. I don't know if he just didn't want to pay the copay or what. But I was literally trapped. I tried to fight it and said, "If you're going to take me, then take me. If not, let me take myself." I kept throwing up for three more days before he finally agreed to take me. The ER was packed so I ended up going to urgent care, where the nurse scolded me. She said I really should've gone to the ER after the third day of vomiting. She said that if I had gone a 7th day I could have collapsed. I didn't know how to tell her that I had tried. She asked where my family was and I said my dad had to go to work so he had just dropped me off. She had tears in her eyes and she held my hand. She said, "he should be here with you." THAT is how sick I was. That year, I went to the ER three more times. Each time I would be sobbing and ashamed of myself just for bothering my dad and for him having to pay the copay since I was too sick to earn the money myself. Again, that's how little I had learned to value myself and my health. By my birthday that year, I was suicidal from this shame. A few months later, in the new year, I started having vomiting attacks again. My dad stood over me while I was hunched over the toilet gagging and he said something I will never be able to forget, "You need to snap out of it
because I can't go through this again." He was the victim of my illness. He was the victim of my pain. This year was when my dad told me that he and his gf had been "talking" and that they had decided it was "time for me to be independent". He said they'd even help me find an apartment. I cried and said, "Dad, I'm sick. I've been so sick the past year. How am I supposed to afford even splitting rent with a roommate when I'm in bed in a neckbrace all day long?" and his response was, "But your dad needs his bachelor pad." I couldn't even identify what I was feeling. I was so shocked. Did he really think having the apartment to himself so he could have girls over was more important? But he was always telling me that I was the most important person in his life. I was so confused.
He gave me a time frame to move out and I was terrified. I thought my life was over. But most of all, I thought, "it's not fair to my dad that I'm sick." I thought so little of myself and my pain because that is what I learned as a kid. I blamed myself for not being "strong enough" to power through these debilitating illnesses. I blamed myself for my dad's money troubles. I literally could not live with myself knowing that my dad had to support me. I was so ashamed that I learned to vomit quietly so that he wouldn't notice. I was in a constant state of suicidality for several years after this. And it's no wonder, because year after year my dad has barged into my room to harass me about "it's time to be a Real Adult! It's time for you to Contribute to the household! You need to Make Money! I'm HEMORRHAGING money supporting you! I'm having to use my savings!" and because I was too sick to do this, I felt like a complete failure who did not deserve to live. I was self-harming constantly because I hated myself for "doing this" to my father. He had convinced me that I was the villain. I would start freaking out about money, forcing myself to work even if it meant vomiting literally on set (and almost being sent home bc of it, but I insisted I was fine to work). But I still couldn't make enough to afford my medical expenses. So I would shame-spiral and be suicidal again and then suddenly the story would change. My dad did a complete 180 and said, "Why are you even worried about money? We're doing fine. Even if I didn't have to support you, it wouldn't make that big of a difference in the money that I spend on this household. Don't worry about it." And then as soon as bills were due, he was back to telling me that I needed to make money. Back to saying we spent too much money on food despite me not eating that much. Back to refusing to try shopping somewhere cheaper when I suggested ways to save money. When I brought this up to my therapist back then, she said, "He's giving you mixed messages. Maybe you should bring this up to him so he realizes he's doing it." But when I did bring it up, of course my dad denied doing this and called me ungrateful even as I worked two jobs. When I eventually got a third job (fucking up my health more) to pay off my medical debt, my dad patted my back and told me how proud he was. When I told my therapist that he denied it, she suggested I bring him in so she could help us communicate. When I asked him to come with me to therapy, he got angry and said, "I am NOT going to therapy with you, that is ridiculous." But even with those 3 jobs it still wasn't enough and I was constantly being pulled between "YOU HAVE TO MAKE MONEY RIGHT NOW END OF THE WORLD" and "uhh why are you even worried about money, you need to work your mindset..." When bugged about money I would ask, "What else do you want me to do? I'm working 3 jobs. I'm not hiding money from you. I'm sending you everything that is leftover after I pay my own bills. I've even been buying a lot of my own food, I've been living off ramen and cans of ravioli." And he never had an answer except "just make more money." -- Now to the dynamic I'm currently living in. My dad moved his gf and her dog in without talking to me about it to see if it was going to impact my health. She was only supposed to stay here for maybe 4-5 days while she figured out a new home situation. But when I asked my dad about it in the days leading up to her arrival, suddenly the answer was "oh, she's staying indefinitely." I had no say in it. But we had a talk about what I needed to make this work. I said to my dad that the most important thing was that I have some scheduled quiet time. If I'm recording content or editing audio, I'm going to need quiet that morning so I can get my work done. If I'm resting, I need there to not be shouting or slamming doors happening in the house. He assured me that this was fine and that it'd all be easy for the three of us. The first weekend she was moved in, I let my dad know that I was editing audio that morning and needed
some quiet. He was cheerful and said, "No problem!" I thought wow, this is different. This is nice! This is going to be great for my productivity and health. As soon as I started editing, his gf was blasting music in the kitchen (right next to my room) and they were both laughing and talking loudly just a few steps away from my door. I thought, okay, we talked about this. But I'll just power through. When I was done, I went to my dad and said in a calm manner, "Hey, so this morning I let you know ahead of time that I was editing audio but there was still a ton of music and stuff in the kitchen, so it made it take a lot longer for me." His eyes immediately went dark. He put on an angry parent voice and said, "Okay, I am about to pop. I have enough going on without worrying about making too much noise for you." I said, calmly still, "We talked about this, though, and you assured me it wasn't a problem that I needed this quiet time for editing. So I'm not sure what to do. I'm just letting you know that there was still loud music right next to my room even though we had talked about it." He responded, "Then you need to be more specific because I don't know what you're doing in there." I corrected, "But I told you this morning that I was going to be editing audio and you said it was no problem to have some quiet in the kitchen while I did so." He got more aggressive, "No, you need to be more specific." Again, "I was specific. I told you the time frame that I was going to be editing audio in. You said you understood. I don't know what else to do to fix this other than by openly communicating to you about it." I started crying because--I mean, uhh?? This is gaslighting. I couldn't believe that mere hours after I had specifically told my dad that I was editing audio and that he had assured me it was no problem to have some quiet, that he was accusing me of not telling him what I needed, and that he had not agreed to it or something. Like wtf. He got nastier and blamed me for his stress. But me crying triggered his guilt so he tried to soothe himself by hugging me like he does and I pulled away. I tried to emphasize to him that I'm not just making content for fun. I'm literally trying to make money and contribute to the household like he has told me I need to do for the past 8 years. And when he disrupts my editing process, it just makes it take longer, and it makes it harder for me to earn extra money. His gf was also super rude to me when I tried to be friendly and have a conversation with her. I was telling her about how great it felt to have my sister initiate a conversation about my gender identity and she interrupted me (like she does constantly) to say, "YOU KNOW YOUR SISTER DOESN'T ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT, RIGHT?" (wtf...) After this, I didn't speak to them for three days. I was feeling the urge to self-harm that whole weekend and all I could do was stay in bed crying after that. I knew if I spoke to them I would just get triggered so I was protecting myself. My dad felt guilty and tried to talk to me in my room. I tried to explain how triggering this whole situation is for me and he said he would do anything to make it easier for me. I had told him what I needed but that he had gaslighted me about it. - This next and last part is going to illustrate the priorities in this household. A few years ago, I started having problems with hives. I spent almost a whole year having very painful breakouts all over my body. It kept me up all night and caused me so much discomfort during the day. I kept telling my dad about it (no response, or annoyed responses), I went to the doctor several times about it (useless ointments), and suffered month after month. I tried so many things, I thought maybe it was bugs, spiders, etc. My asthma was also acting up and I remembered that an ex-neighbor had been suspicious of mold because of their health issues getting better the second they moved out. They had told me back then that we should test for mold. I brought it up to my dad that I had been suffering from this for
long enough and that we should do something about it (mold also makes fibromyalgia and ME way worse). He angrily snapped, "What do you want me to do about it?" I suggested we ask the landlord to mold test the apartment. He refused bc he doesn't like to bother the landlord. I said that I would just order a mold kit myself and he said, "No, let me do it, I'll pick the right one." But he wouldn't even after I kept reminding him. Even after I sent him links to mold kits that we could order. After I got rid of my mattress, my hives got a lot better but I still have issues every now and then. For years I have just lived with this because I couldn't get him to even care about the fact that I was spotted with these big pink hives. When his gf moved in, we had a random rainy day, which seems to have activated the mold. His gf got one tiny little hive and the sniffles. She said to him once, "Hey, I think you have mold in this house." Want to guess what happened after that? You're right. He immediately ordered several mold test kits. I said to my therapist, "How am I supposed to feel about that? Is it really unreasonable, am I really in the wrong to feel hurt by that?" My therapist said, "I mean, I would feel completely invalidated and like I didn't matter." This isn't the first time empathy has been withheld from me obviously (above examples during my flare ups), but sometimes even when it's right in front of him he just can't bring himself to care for some reason. One time a big piece of glass was in my thumb. I said, "Ahhh, glass, help! Glass!" He was eating snacks in the kitchen and just glanced at me, didn't move or say anything. I realized he wasn't going to help, so shaking and bleeding, I managed to pull the glass out with tweezers very painfully. It bled so much and I stood over the sink trying to stop it. My dad just kept eating his snacks, not asking if I was okay or anything, he didn't even look at me. After 5 minutes I still couldn't get the blood to stop and asked my dad if he could help, maybe get me some gauze. He put food in his mouth and sighed, "Just put pressure on it" and walked away. It feels like he's just disgusted with me. I know that he does love me and that he's trying the best he can with all of his mental/emotional/personality flaws but he thinks that just because he puts a roof over my head that he can treat me however he wants and not work on his issues, that it's my fault for being hurt. He thinks that his issues are all on me to learn to endure and it's not right. I know that he resents me for getting in the way of him having a relationship because that's the only message I have gotten since childhood, with every woman he's brought into my home. But in the end his relationships always fall apart because the woman ends up realizing, and stating to him, that he is "emotionally absent". And every time, I comfort my dad through the break up. When he has tried to blame his ex I said once to him that therapy can really help him with his emotional issues and relationships. But he refuses, so. That's on him. But I refuse to believe that I am in the wrong here for saying enough is enough. But he's going to keep trying to make me believe that the problem is just me and my feelings, not his behavior. Nope. Boundary is up. I just have to keep to myself and do what I need to do to stay safe until I can move out. Because I guarantee you he's going to realize he doesn't get enough validation from his gf and then come running back to me as always and then be angry that I'm still holding my boundary strong. I know that this will hurt less as I get distance from it, but I don't like the idea of my pain being my fault when I grew up with this toxic stuff. I'm working so hard to make it hurt less but I can't heal if it keeps happening, so all I can do is back away from what is hurting me instead of being surprised when I'm hurt again. THAT is on me 100%. Hopefully he doesn't grab my desk and slam it against the wall again like in 2014 when I first tried to set this boundary. And of course when he
"apologized" he accused me of "punishing him" by not spending time with him. Jee-zus, dude. Get therapy. I can't be the only one in this family bearing this weight and working on my shit.
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i think season three is good, but there are a few things about it that absolutely enrage me to an overdramatic amount, and here i shall list them lol. also this will be in more than one ask because i have too many thoughts. ok, the first is how hopper went from trying his best to threatening children, having that "girls can't choose who they date they aren't smart" mindset, gaslighting Joyce/not believing her when she has basically always been correct, and tricking her into a date?? 1/? lol
next, i hate how they went "here, take billy's sad childhood and him saving el and forgive his racist actions! go! FETCH!" and we were supposed to be like "yayyy! what a nice guy!!!" you know? like... a sad childhood isn't redemption? it may vaguely explain things, but not excuse them? i also was disappointed with el and max's friendship being based off them being mean to their (admittedly mediocre) boyfriends? like- yall are in 8th grade dating sucks why are we being mean just communicate? 2/?
and it felt like max and el's friendship was supposed to come of as this "wow FEMINISM!" thing, and it really wasn't at all? i mean i could totally see kids perceiving this "girls rule boys drool" thing as empowering, but i just wish that if they are going to go the whole (adorable) "sleepovers, wonder woman, shopping, normal, not-supernaturalish (if that makes sense)" female friendship, they didn't base it on... well... men?
(i'm sorry i'm saying so much lol) they are also setting up problems for character development and writing. if they continue to add characters for no reason, characters are going to keep loosing purpose because there are less roles to fill than actual characters. Admittedly, the characters they add for seemingly no reason are usually so fun that i end up shutting my mouth and taking back my complaint? like max, robin, erica, not you billy, alexi, heather, etc. 4/? (i'm so sorry i'm hyperfixated)
and don'T EVEN GET ME STARTED (lmao i've clearly started) ON THE RUSSIAN STUFF?! LIKE WHAT!??!? WHO IS THIS TERMINATOR BITCH AND WHY WAS ~HE~ THE ONE TO KILL OF A NEW LOVABLE SIDE CHARACTER??? AND WHY IS HOPPER RECKLESSLY KILLING??? (sorry i am yelling the anger is not at you, you seem lovley) LIKE WHAT?!? tHIS TOXIC MASCULINITY HOPPER CRAP NEEDS TO CEASE PLEASE, I BEG. anyway there was no point to making the terminator guy other than a reference. ok i think i'm done?? thanks for listening lol.
so i’m gonna be honest man the only thing i agree with you on is that the way they handled billy was bullshit. i wholeheartedly disagree with all the rest but i’m very glad you got it all off your chest kjdcnmnd like. i’m gonna share my thoughts on some of this and i REALLY don’t mean to be rude i just like talking about stranger things so please don’t take this as me trying to argue or whatever bc that is not my intention!!
so i don’t think hopper having a problem with el and mike has anything to do with him thinking el isn’t smart or that she can’t make her own decisions. el’s a kid, and she’s only been allowed to be a kid for like... two years, max? he’s worried that she’s growing up too fast, mourning the inevitable end of her childhood which has just barely begun, and yeah, he’s overprotective, too, but he’s pretty clearly painted as being in the wrong for how he handled things. he changed his ways by the end of the season, and through the speech he wrote it’s clear that his issues stemmed from his own fears of her growing up, not from him thinking she was stupid. change isn’t typically sudden or easy, and i really do think that hopper was trying his best at the start of s3 (he lets el hang out with her friends as much as she wants, trusts her to roam freely and keep herself safe, etc). he just still had a little way to go.
i also don’t personally see how hopper “tricked” joyce into a date when she agreed to go and then didn’t show up. joyce is an adult, and she was perfectly capable of telling hopper no (she actually did tell him no once, and then didn’t object later). he was never threatening or manipulative to her. he was a total bitch after he got stood up, and they did overdo it, but he most certainly wasn’t gaslighting her. he genuinely didn’t think that there was something going on! he thought she was paranoid due to her trauma, trauma that he personally has been through and is sympathetic to. he still helped her check things out, even when he didn’t think there was a real problem, because he wanted to give her peace of mind. while you can argue he was dumb or disrespectful not to believe her, he didn’t have any intention of making joyce feel crazy or of deceiving her.
and the reason that the kids aren’t communicating well in s3 is because they’re... well, kids. have you ever seen an eighth-grade relationship where both parties communicate maturely about their problems? if they were older i would agree that the conflict was dumb, but it makes perfect sense for kids their age. i also don’t really have an issue (personally) with how the elmax friendship started. the whole point is that el came to max asking for dating advice, and max shows el that she doesn’t have to revolve her whole life around her boyfriend, she can develop her own identity and be her own person.
a lot of people in the fandom share your trepidation about adding new characters, so i’m definitely outnumbered here, but i don’t personally have a problem with it at all. i think alexei could have been better-utilized, but his existence didn’t interfere or detract from anything with existing characters. in fact, i think he gave murray some more development and allowed for more dynamic interactions between joyce and hopper. max and robin were both “new characters,” and i’m not being hyperbolic when i say they’re two of the best-written and best-acted characters in the show. when i go back and watch s1 now, things just feel wrong without max, and robin is a revelation. i think that adding new characters makes the world of stranger things feel more organic and allows for the stakes to remain somewhat high without making the writers feel like they have to kill off one of our beloved OGs.
russian terminator... yeah you’re right that shit was weird as fuck. i don’t think hopper killing the dudes down in the base was “toxic masculinity” or anything though like he’s a veteran and the guys he killed were all soldiers and he was just trying to get to the gate to shut it down no matter the cost, yknow? it was a matter of life and death, and with a giant monster trying to kill his daughter i think him killing anyone in the way of him preventing that is kind of... fair. but yeah i don’t really get the point of terminator guy like it was so fucking weird sdknckdnm
thanks for the asks!!! the fandom’s been kinda dead lately and it’s so fun to still be able to talk about st!!
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rambly inception thoughts p.2
this has been kicked off, specifically, by disliking that i failed to include yusuf in this post but there’s already so much going on there re: exact limits/mechanics of imagination in dreams, how to call down projections, moral relativism, crack chara psych, and speculating on the future of ari’s career--and i explained most of it poorly anyway so it’s probably for the best!
to start with, i’ve always imagined that there’s a huge variety in the caliber/class of chemist u can hire in dreamshare. the title probably applies even to people whose capability starts and stops at sourcing base product for somnacin and/or the finished drug. the next level up can maybe mix up different kinds to standard specifications. idk how much education/training u’d need to be able to do this, bc i v much do not chemistry, but i’d bet there’s a lot of variety in ppl’s qualifications in this category, too. a standard formula might affect different ppl slightly differently, like any psychotropic drug (is that even the most sensible analogy to real-world science? idk and i don’t want to risk hours of ultimately fruitless wikipedia spiralling), but in the same vein, the variances will all probably fall within a reasonable range of the same functionality. without, like, some sort of neuro degree, probably, the most fine-tuning a chemist could do is optimize doses/known variants of the drug through trial and error in preparation for a job.
our man yusuf definitely has a high-level neuro degree
so, just like the rest of the team, yusuf is obviously a total powerhouse in his field. like i said, it must take sophisticated knowledge of brain chemistry in order to do what he did on the fischer job, as well as the same mad genius as the rest of them. (as an aside, can i just say how utterly delightful a team dynamic is “group of geniuses who surround themselves with enough people who are the same kind of batshit to normalize it”? i’m weak) and idk how someone gets famous in like neurochem but yusuf is so brilliant he was probably p well known. js imagine the comedic potential of whatever rising-star chemist meeting yusuf and js going dr. ____?! who published those completely revolutionary but completely balls-to-the-wall studies on x and then after throwing the discipline into an uproar either a) dropped off the face of the earth and is now known as smth of an urban legend/cryptid in the community or b) still corresponds w experts in the field but now about the wildest shit and ppl kind of have to mythologize/not think too hard abt the dude who walks in ppl’s heads in order not to risk js breaking everything
so yusuf knows his shit and his initial assertion that 3 levels is impossible can be trusted to carry a lot of weight. which means the fact that he proceeded to do it more than secures his place in the cast of demonstrable prodigies
now, bc this is ostensibly a continuation of a post that’s loosely focused on charas’ moralities, let’s look at the 2 parts of the movie where we most directly confront yusuf’s: his dream den and hiding the sedation from the team. i’m going with the assumption that any legitimate/legal research and application of dreamshare has been discontinued.
come yell at me for over oversimplifying, but that makes the question of the dream den seem p straight-forward. yusuf faced giving up dreamshare research (or came onto the scene after it was already illegal, which could make for some rly interesting stories abt how he would’ve found out abt it) and couldn’t, so he had to find a way to continue on his own. and since it would be in rly bad faith to assume he doesn’t have the full consent of all his test subjects, that’s js that. (i’m not going to argue abt the difference b/w ethics and morals, and i’m laughably unqualified to discuss the ethics of human experimentation anyway so moving on)
hiding the fact that the team was sedated was a major plot point and is discussed w according frequency, so i’m sure most ppl have their own opinions abt what this says abt the parties involved. i’ll readily admit that my view is heavily colored by the fact that i js plain like yusuf. he’s a likeable guy. (i’ll try not to go off on a tangent, but i know that my reasons for disliking cobb are a little unfair; it’s more about narrative structure than any of his personal failings. the fact is i have a weakness for hypercompetence, and cobb is presented as someone who used to be the best, but is no longer reliable. he shows flashes of his old brilliance running the mr. charles gambit successfully and improvising capitalizing on the appearance of fisher’s browning projection on l2, but he’s desperate enough to be untrustworthy and further, he’s untrustworthy in a way that is eminently predictable by the audience. we know from the get-go that his shade is gonna sabotage something, and it’s hard not to blame him for that. we also know from the get-go that he’s desperate enough to drag other ppl into a fool’s mission, and that he’s hiding something dangerous from arthur, who by all appearances should be the person cobb can trust, and the person to whom it’s most important to know that kind of shit. i’m not gonna pretend i anticipated that big twist in the parking garage on l1, but it makes a ton of sense in retrospect and all this makes it easy to see why cobb is so widely mistrusted/disliked by the fandom. and i went off on a tangent, whoops.)
so picking back up at yusuf is a likeable guy--he seems p friendly and easy-going and i thoroughly enjoyed every scene of him on l1. i’m gonna say a lot of his moral considerations come in the form of deciding what is or isn’t his responsibility. mbe he avoided or suitably resolved the thorny ethical question of human experimentation in the same way i kind of did: by saying that the participants agreed to it on their own and leaving it there. this kind of reasoning is how he would’ve let cobb take responsibility for sedating and then informing the team. it’s also probably how he decided to cue the kick early on l1 and make it everyone else’s problem. which i do think was the right decision! it would be absurd to suggest that this highly intelligent man’s patterns of reasoning are always questionable. but i do see a pattern.
as for the advice he’d give ari, i think a lot of this relates back to my mention in the earlier post of whether or not she could let an institution/legislation dictate her ethics to her. i’ve since decided that it’s simpler to assume the institutions are all outside the law, though, so i’m not going to think abt that anymore unless directly prompted. one thing we do know abt ari, though, in contrast to my suppositions abt yusuf, is that she has a v strong sense of responsibility. she took it upon herself to manage cobb, and she took it upon herself to save the job, fisher, saito, and cobb when it looked like everything had been ruined. thinking abt it now, this makes for further interesting contrast w arthur, whose sense of responsibility seems to revolve around personal loyalty, eames, whose sense of responsibility is acutely pragmatic, and saito, whose sense of responsibility is on the grand scale of stopping a monopoly (suitably ironic).
again, idk if i’ve rly made any kind of point, and now i want to go back and build elaborate hierarchies of skill in each job description (architect, extractor, etc) like i kind of did for chemists but, well. if u made it this far bless u, i hope u have a wonderful day. vote
#inception#yusuf#ariadne#arthur#eames#saito#if u haven't check out p.1 cus there's a lot there that i never rly expanded but am figuring out how to#running my mouth#yes absolutely#dom cobb
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2 10 n 11 :)
this is basically an essay im so sorry. watch how hard i can infodump (ill put this under a cut hopefully it works bc sometimes tumblr decimates the keep reading things if theyre in asks)
2. Who’s your favorite of the Bound? What do you think of the different ideologies they have? Which of the factions are you most aligned with?
WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER I AM A PETER LOVER THROUGH AND THROUGH!!!!!! oh baby i love that morally questionable architect. pretty early on in getting into pathologic (it’s coming up on a year now...) i thought about peter stamatin too hard and now i’m here. but really i find him to be such a fascinating character!
the thing about pathologic that i love is how almost every character can be as complex as you want. pathologic does an excellent job of implying a lot of character traits while only exploring some in further detail, which in some games is frustrating but patho does it so well! it consistently hints at traits and lets you fill in the details yourself. peter’s character is extremely interesting to me... and maybe a little more relatable at times than i want to admit lol.
i think i’ll talk about both stamatins though! their dynamic hurts me a lot. i’ll start with andrey bc i’ve been thinking about him lately. although i’ll bounce back and forth between both stamatins.
i’ve said this before but i’ll say it again.... andrey’s role as a protector who inadvertently hurts the people he cares about really gets to me. he is not a shield but, in his own words, a battering ram. and the problem is that battering ram has a recoil.
i have to wonder how that mentality of his came about, anyways. the implication is that it’s always just been him and peter, so did he take on that role because there wasn’t anyone else to do it?
in his efforts to protect peter from... military, i believe, he kills four people. which leads to daniil getting mistaken for andrey, which leads to daniil getting shot. and almost dying. he protects peter but to a smothering extent, peter even says he’s been suffering for ten years bc of andrey which is a LOADED line. he protects on a physical level but he kinda fucks up on the emotional.
there’s a horrible irony in peter and eva being the people he cares about the most and both attempting suicide. with eva once she’s missing he immediately goes running off trying to look for her, and . ahh i can’t remember right off hand what exactly he thought happened. but ik he was probably expecting a fight. with peter he says that after that he’ll never let peter leave his side, at least “as far as his knife can fly”... it sounds cheesy but the one thing he can’t save anyone from is themself.
and god the way andrey bases his ENTIRE sense of self worth on peter fucking hurts. they’re not peter and andrey, the architects. they’re Peter And Andrey, The Architect. (thinking about “one architect, two brothers” here.) andrey thinks he’s larger than life and all but he’s constantly living in peter’s shadow. their theatre of death positions come to mind here, with peter standing up, looking down at andrey. but andrey is on his knees in front of peter, arms limp to his sides.... separated by a wooden beam...
peter’s side of this dynamic is fascinating too. his dependency on andrey is. ow. leaving all practical matters and decision making to him... there’s this resentment (That’s Fine I’ve Been Suffering For Ten Years Because Of Him) and lack of communication that especially shows through for him.
while in p2 andrey completely crumbles if peter dies, peter doesn’t seem to care...... at all....?? which hopefully is elaborated upon in p2. he’s willing to talk to aspity about worrying if andrey is angry with him but he can’t bring it up with andrey himself. when he asks how andrey is doing he stops and says andrey is a “tough man” and can handle anything. in general, while it’s definitely there for andrey, themes of dependency are really glaringly obvious for peter.
one of my favorite peter things i’ve talked about before is still his ego!!! peter has a gigantic ego!!! he really does think that even though he’s hit the ceiling and can’t go any further he is still “a true architect” and “the rock upon which is built the stairway to tomorrow”. he has a blunt edge to him and he doesn’t ever tell you more than he thinks he needs to which i love. if he doesn’t want to tell you something he isn’t gonna do it. this is a character trait i think ppl miss which is sad because it’s so good and adds another layer of depth to him!
it really does hurt me how he’s valued for his mind alone (AHEM AHEM AHEM. GEORGIY) but it’s the thing nobody understands about him. i’m nowhere near as smart as peter lol but i do know that pain of feeling like none of your ideas can be understood because you just can’t express them the way you’d like, and then feeling like you’ll never be able to make it happen.
also, here’s a little thing i’ve picked up on. this connection probably doesn’t exist but i’m making it because the stamatins make me lose my mind and start becoming one of those people who looks for connections in everything i guess. peter standing in the theatre of death, andrey below him. peter’s loft being at a high point in the town, the broken heart being underground. peter’s loft is also higher north on the map but the broken heart is lower south. just smth interesting
i have more thoughts on them of course! but this is all getting awfully long. i feel like i’ve only just gotten to the tip of the iceberg even though i’ve written so much skfjskfjs this just feels quite surface level or. at least what is surface level for me who thinks about the stamatins so hard.
anyways i’ll keep my answers to the other two parts of this question quick! peter and andrey’s more creative vs practical mindsets are rly neat. especially because i would actually argue peter is a little more grounded in reality in certain aspects. not all, but certain ones...... their take on the utopian ideology is interesting. hot take: peter’s version of utopianism leans a tad towards humility. and andrey /does/ feel “straightforward utopian” but i think in certain regards? this man has a bit of a termite streak..... (hi al if you’re reading this). but i won’t get into that right now i’ve already gone on so long. saving that for later.
i think all of the factions kinda suck in their own way sometimes, honestly? although all of them are well written and have their pros and cons. were i in pathologic and i had to choose one i’d probably be a termite but everyone around me seems to think i’m a utopian. is it bc i love peter so much
10. What would you be like as a Pathologic character?
this question is a hard one! i did make a self insert once, mile-a-minute, but they’ve become their own oc by now. i think i’d be very...... very afraid...... probably isolating myself why does every pathologic character break quarantine???? also you could trade beetles with me :) thats about all i’ve got sorry this is real short
11. What is something you would change, writing-wise, about either game?
UGH i’ve been gushing about pathologic because. obviously i love this game so much. but the way it handles racism & such (in both games!) leaves much to be desired :/
i see a lot of the points it’s trying to make but i think the way they’re handled can be very messy. there are moments that work very well but. a lot that don’t. (i am aware that dybowski writes partially from his own experiences)
all too often the game “validates” the kin’s oppression and... at times paints them as oddly antagonistic? i don’t like how often as artemy you’re able to be like “i’m not one of those beasts” and i think there are better ways to touch on his internalized racism. in general the constant comparisons to animals is weird. you get big vlad who is obviously explicitly racist comparing them to animals, but then sometimes it’s like “ACTUALLY calling them animals is fine :)”
i think the herb brides are kind of. Hm. in their portrayal. also using parts of the buryat alphabet to denote an accent is weird. making odongh and herb brides inhuman is weird. connecting the kin to Magic is weird.
and, listen, i’d really like to not be playing Artemy Burakh Experiences a Microaggression Simulator every time i’m playing the haruspex route. hate that you either can’t call ppl out on their shit or if you can it ends the conversation/bars you from getting necessary information. glad you at least get to drag the vlads, i guess?
i also was talking about this but wrt peter specifically, and this issue is present throughout the game but it’s especially visible with peter, i don’t like how often you can mock him for his addiction.
he’s obviously in an extremely rough patch! being able to be just so plain cruel to him about the dependency on alcohol (and iirc in p1 hallucinogens, bc aglaya mentions it) he’s formed to cope with his mental illness & trauma just feels bad. especially because yes it is not a healthy coping mechanism at all but... it still is a coping mechanism, if that makes sense?
the way you’re able to constantly rub it in his face feels awful. peter is fully aware that it isn’t good for him and shows a desire to quit. even if he didn’t it would still be awful to say because. it’s just insensitive. like you don’t just go up to someone and keep being like HEY YOU DRINK A LOT YOU SHOULD STOP DOING THAT DO YOU KNOW WHAT WATER IS? feels really bad to keep harping on something that causes him pain and that he struggles with every single day.
however peter does have moments where he tells you Not to say that, or if you pry into why he drinks he’ll outright say he doesn’t remember you being his friend, which is better than nothing.
in p1 moreso than p2 i hate how you can be like oh he’s craaaazy he’s off his rocker he’s delusional!!!! that “why, i never... an architect of schizophrenia!” comment sticks in my mind because it’s just... so genuinely mean. especially because if i remember correctly that line is from when he’s planning on LITERALLY FUCKING BURNING HIMSELF ALIVE
i think if they were going to have all of this they should have gone more in depth on how it’s really. not good that he’s treated so poorly. and i do believe that’s what they were going for, a la the art book w/ the whole “not to be made into a drunken clown, this is a tragic character”, etc. but it just doesn’t land. i’m holding out for the bachelor and changeling routes in p2 to see if they expand upon any of it but i highly doubt i’ll be satisfied in this regard.
i stand by the One time it was really fucking funny to clown on peter being the time you can tell him little girls eat raspberries and earthworms and he just believes you
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college boyfriend!markhyuk au series: II (mark’s pathway)
a universe in which roommates!markhyuk meet each other's s/o in class
markhyuk are roommates, my/n and dy/n are roommates, mark and dy/n take classes together and so do donghyuk and my/n — how will their fates intertwine?
genre: fluff, some angst pairing: platonic!donghyuk+my/n, surprise visit from mark format: dotpoint AU universe: non idol, college best friend warning: a lil swearing (best get used to it)
masterlist
or click here to continue your friendship with eng lit!mark!
I ⇤ | II | ⇥ III
II: relationship consolidation.. it’s platonic i swear
the fellowship continues (donghyuk + my/n)
hello again
are we ready
ever-ready i’m going whether u r or not lol idc you’re COMING
aight so ;;, donghyuk,
this boi,,
to meet someone new who he sees as almost a personal challenge,, to befriend and get to That Point™ in the friendship where you can talk about anything and everything without judging each other
he doesn’t have many friends that he can do that with tbh,, , he does have a lot of friends and people he knows and has conversed with but not a lot of friends he can crack jokes with and know they don’t take it personally
lots of dark humour and sometimes suggestive ones and political jokes and all that shit ,, intellectual puns and suicidal jokes,,, the lot
the basics for gen z humour right
he just wants someone to talk to and explore different concepts and abstract meanings and philosophical questions and get new perspectives on things he’d never thought about before
but also be able to say “ah fuck me upside down” without it actually affecting the relationship bc you’re just that close
sometimes it’s hard to have that relationship with the predominantly straight boys he surrounds himself with a lot of the time
and he’s always wondered what it’d be like to have a female friend like that and unfortunately he hasn’t befriended anyone and gotten to that point yet that he can ask genuine questions for the female point of view on certain topics
so meeting you,, and finding out you’re going for the same faculty after your undergrad course ,,,. then you being genuinely comfortable with him and his jokes and openly willing to accept his humour
he’s like /exclamation point appears above his head/
will this be The One™
so he lowkey ,, unintentionally,, in the process of getting to know you
develops a smol crush on you
it’s unintentional but he can’t help the fact that he falls in love really quickly but is also capable of getting over people fairly quickly if they don’t reciprocate his feelings and seems to be okay with that
but who can blame him for liking you??
you’re really damn cute
and genuinely good company
when he hinted that you could get married and have children in the future,,
his thought process was that ahaha i’m kidding.. unless?
so yes he was flirting but like ,, experimental flirting
and over the next couple of weeks he continues flirting with you
random lines like
“hey you look familiar, have i taken a class with you before?” he literally said this on the second day of classes with you
you honestly thought he was being genuine and actually didn’t remember you so you were like wait what ??? you literally walked me to my next class yesterday../? how? do you forget that??
and then he pulls a
“really? i swear we had chemistry” hand stroking his invisible beard
and then laughing at your reaction when you deadpan
“it was biology, donghyuk”
and sometimes u keep having that thought that u had in the middle of ur first lecture together, how he’s probably like this with everyone and he can easily befriend anyone else he’s probably gonna end up being those people that you know vaguely
but then you realise he’s been waiting in the same spot outside the lecture theatre every morning and afternoon, leaning on the wall, and looking up occasionally
smiling when he finds you in the crowd, picking up his bag from the floor and making his way over to you to walk into the lecture together
and you decide hm? he sticks around, i’ll stick around
on a separate occasion in some study session he’s like
“are you my appendix because i have no idea how you work, but the feeling in my stomach makes me want to take you out”
and you’re like “wow looks like you went ahead in the course donghyuk we don’t have human anatomy until next year. but how’s tmr at 7”
“perfect i’ll pick you up wear something nice”
hold
and then he bURSTS OUT LAUGHING and HOLLERING and yelling about how that was a good one tho right
you’re both in this sort of grey area where neither of you know where this is going
the reason he’s been saying all these things is to see what you were comfortable with in conversation and trying to analyse from your reaction whether or not you were actually flirting back or not
he’s ranted to mark in his dorms about it a couple times ,,
and so have you with your roommate
you return to your dorm after a day of doing a lot of back and forth semi flirting with donghyuk and you collapse onto your bed
your roommate looks over from her desk like “u good bro”
"i’m confused”
“fair enough”
“seriously idk if this kid is actually flirting with me or whether he’s practising on me or what”
“is this the donghek boi”
“yeah donghyuk” aka your future s/o yEET
you sit up and look at her
“uk what he said to me today”
she turns in her chair to face you fully,, ready for the tea
so you tell her the pickup line he came up with that day & your response to it and then his reaction to that bc he always seems to go for it but then tap out afterwards when you actually respond
and now you’re thinking,, do you really like him as more than a friend ??
and its???
so ?confusing to you
if you can’t tell if you like him for sure then you probably don’t, romantically
but then what effect are your responses having on him
what he actually does like you and all those flirty comments are genuine??? and you’re /internal gASP moment/
what if you’re leading him on?? what if it’s always gonna be him initiating the flirting but you’re accepting it with insincerity?
you decide this goes entirely against your morals
and you tell this to your roommate and she goes hmm,,
if you don’t feel committed to the idea of that,, then you don’t have to feel obligated to keep it going,, be honest with him ,, draw lines if you have to .. yes leading people on is a bad thing and it’s gonna affect the friendship
but also maybe it really is just part of the humour and that’s the friendship dynamic he wants to build with you?
so you decide to sleep on it bc it’s 1am and significant choices should not be made when drowsy and you’ve lost a lot of sleep these past couple days anyway
not that you get good sleep that night anyways
meanwhile donghyuk is shrugging @ mark like
“idk bro do i like her?? or do i like the idea of having someone to say that to”
“and yes she returns the gestures but then also i don’t think she means it? do we just keep it at that and keep being friends like WHAT IF I CATCH FEELINGS”
and mark is just staring at him like dude idk don’t ask me
“you’re so bad at giving advice mark”
but you wake up the next morning and decide to have a serious conversation with him after class bc that day you have a free hour after your lecture
it’s all you can think about during the class so you’re kinda distracted plus the partial sleep deprivation is getting to you
and he notices so he’s like
“bro u alright?”
so you just think fuck it and go
“hey real talk tho”
“ya”
“maybe i’ve been overanalysing this so,, tell me if i am but”
“sure”
“do you ,,, actually mean all those pickup lines ,, like are they based off, , real feelings or is this just part of the friendship dynamic”
and you’re almost surprised when he gets serious with you
he’s always been so lighthearted and sarcastic about things
but when he listens to your side of things and how you’re worried about whether or not you’ve been leading him on or something
he lets you finish and just tells you his feelings as well
“i’ve always wondered what it’d be like to have that dynamic and i guess i tried it on you without being honest ,, half to see if you would flirt back and half to just joke around ,;; i’m sorry that you got confused but i guess this means you don’t have? romantic feelings?”
so you have to reply honestly
“not necessarily ,, it’s been fun to have these conversations and laugh at pickup lines but”
“nothing behind it right”
“..yeah”
and instead of putting a damper on the atmosphere
it’s actually
refreshing
it clears the air in a way you didn’t expect
“right? nah it’s fun what we have going”
and you agree
aside from the confusion behind the flirting it’s been really fun talking to him and getting to know him
half of him was a lil disappointed that it didn’t go the romantic path but then again he wasn’t sure he had romantic feelings anyway
so he settles for
The Best Friend™
and so the friendship turns into sibling-like teasing and petty arguing from that day onwards
legit you’ll catch him staring
“what” “wHat” “what u lookin at” “whAt U loOkIn At” “stop copying me” “sToP CoPYinG mE” /you slap his arm/ “oW”
whimpers a lil clutching his arm uwu babie
“you hit harder than the bass drop”
sending each other bio memes and yelling at each other to go commit lysis
“lysosomes can take you out because you’re TRASH”
“i would send a macrophage after you you PATHOGEN”
calling him a parasite when he asks u for notes that he missed in class but it happens vice versa anyways lmfao
then one morning lab class he forgets his pencil case in his dorm like he forgot his laptop on the first day
except this time you call him a forgetful dumbass
all while offering a pencil from your own pencil case
which he takes
so he calls his roommate who “has a noon class and is probs still sleeping lol” to ask him if he can bring it down for him bc he’s got more lab classes that day
so after the class you wait outside the building for his roommate to arrive
and when he does he gives you a rlly nice smile and says “ʰᶦ”
“oh hello”
“yes this is my adoptive younger sister and my/n this is my roommate the Elder”
“ah you’re overreacting” the roommate turns to you and u ,, gotta admit ,
he’s really cute ,,, “don’t listen to anything donghyuk says, all he does is lie”
“hEY i am a SINCERE MEMBER OF CIVILISATION”
the roommate points to donghyuk again and goes “see he’s even lying about being civil”
so you laugh and gang up on donghyuk like “oh i saw through him a long time ago”
“wow he even lied about how” /puts up air quotes/ “ugly you AREN’T”
“wHAT”
“HE SAID IT NOT ME”
donghyuk is flabbergasted at this point
“wHEN DID I SAY THAT MY/N WAS UGLY”
“WANNA TELL ME THAT YOURSELF MR LEE DONGHYUK HUH”
which results in a sulky hyuk and you two laughing at his reaction of being Wronged™
he regrets letting u two meet in that moment
oh but we don’t
“ok u did ur mission. u can go now”
“so mean :((”
but donghyuk’s roomie waves at you while turning to leave and you wave back ,,
trying to calm yourself bc you’re highkey feeling kinda hot ur cheeks r burning up
he said ?? donghyuk was lying when he said u were ugly?
damn
donghyuk’s pickup lines had never been direct compliments about you
but this one from his roommate wasn’t a pickup line it was just
a statement
and it made u feel a typa way
dw baby it’s gonna be a happy ending uwu
and u tell ur roomie that night abt it too
“bRO his rOOMMATE”
“what’s his NAME i gotta FANGIRL WITH YOU”
“.. idk”
“.. oh”
/short pause, lip smack/
“.. lib tomorrow?”
“.. ya sure”
the next day after classes you check your phone and see that she’s texted you asking if her friend and his friend from eng lit can come and join you guys in the lib
and, naturally, u don’t see why not
so u reply
“the more the merrier”
the more the merrier for us too sweetie hmm hmm
eeeeeeéeeeeeèeeeeee
mhm mhm mhm it’s finally getting somewhere
click here to continue your friendship with eng lit!mark!
I ⇤ | II | ⇥ III
#dreamwritersnet#neohours#neowriters#nct au#markhyuck au#nct 127 au#nct dream au#nct x reader#markhyuck x reader#nct 127 x reader#nct dream x reader#mark x reader#haechan x reader#donghyuck x reader#Mark AU#haechan au#donghyuck au#nct college#nct college au#eng lit mark#paediatrics haechan
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this is gonna be the third time i blog abt this manga ever but haru no noroi (the 1st 2 times i talked abt this manga were not on this blog though, they were on my main blog which i doubt any of you know and i will not be sharing it sorry. although i am most active on this blog these days lol so maybe i should just say ‘fuck it’ and reblog those posts here so i can collect all my reviews in one place). i reread it again yesterday bc i was suddenly reminded of it and this time around i focused more on the dynamics of natsumi/tougo and haru ... for example, the messed up fact that tougo just did not love haru the same way she loved him ... i mean i think it was supposed to be a mirror of what happened with natsumi and haru’s biological parents and the implication that maybe haru would do the same thing that their mom did (i.e., eventually leave the dad and also her children behind bc there wasn’t truly any love bw the dad and mom), esp since tougo did not seem to ever be developing an interest in her. but that’s still really sad esp with the later development of haru realizing that tougo liked natsumi and thus she couldn’t grab hold of him for herself, and then the later stuff with natsumi and her stepmom where natsumi was like ‘maybe ... we could become a family fr despite starting our relationship kind of distant? but no ... i can’t stay in this house anymore. my dad doesn’t approve of me’ (also just thinking abt the dad all of a sudden. while this author does write strong female characters, the men are usually fuckers with toxic masculinity traits ... like when natsumi was like ‘i’ll tell my dad i’m moving out and also dating tougo. you [stepmom] and my lil bro should go hide somewhere else in the meantime’... that’s messed up)
i think the natsumi liking tougo development was not particularly strong/obvious ... like i know them hanging out together is due to tougo’s suggestion and she’s also trying to mourn haru but honestly not too sure why she felt so strongly abt him later. i guess it’s bc they hung out together a ton over a series of months and also the ‘oh they have a crush on me. i never thought of them like that but now that that concept of us potentially being together is in my mind ...’ and also natsumi was like ‘oh tougo is the only one who knows everything abt me, stuff that not even my family and friends know’ and you know what i just answered my own question. anyway the confession scene in the hospital: i didn’t have chills or anything reading it this time bc it’s like the 3rd time i’ve read it now but i still felt something when tougo was like ‘being with you exposes my desire. natsumi, i like you, i want you’ ...... (yes i looked it up and directly quoted that from the manga. it hit me so hard the first time i ever read the scene)
again, i like this manga bc i like the similar conflicts tougo and natsumi had about leaving their toxic families/environments and forging into the future on their own terms. and also how natsumi, previously always being the unwanted one, is finally wanted and desired... (this isn’t meant to be read as a ‘oh haha romance is super important!’ but just the concept of being valued when you haven’t been before) this reread, i was a lil like ‘oh uh... right. hm’ abt the “love triangle” happening where haru basically was sadly never really an option (i guess. i mean natsumi had so much emotional turmoil over her during her first relationship runthough with tougo that you could argue that she was indeed a major part of the triangle). i read through my 2 previous reviews before writing this and it’s interesting to see the different things i focused on during those 2 reads ... the 1st time around was me just consuming the story at face-value, the 2nd time around was me focusing on natsumi and tougo as individuals that eventually come to support each other. this 3rd time i feel like i was focusing on the story again (mainly bc it’s been a long time since my last read) and the romantic relationship ... i mean when someone dies, i feel like eventually the person left behind CAN and sometimes maybe should move on to date other ppl so that’s not where i have the issue but idk. it just feels sad here bc tougo didn’t really care that much abt haru... not that he was like ‘OK I’M IMMEDIATELY MOVING ON TO NATSUMI FUCK HARU’ but it just feels bad to read ... tougo is also kind of an asshole in general but that’s another thing. and then natsumi in the end being like ‘yeah part of the reason i’m moving out is bc ppl are definitely going to talk bad abt me bc i went and am dating my dead sister’s lover and i don’t want my fam to have shit talked abt them too’ which is sad (wow i am just saying ‘sad’ so many times). i mean i appreciate that the ending isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and they’re also like ‘yeah living with you is prob not gonna be a walk in the park/will be irritating, but this is the choice i want to make’ but also a part of me is like ‘damn .....’
there wasn’t really any point to this review/write-up. i just wanted to talk abt it bc the actual reason why i got reminded of it was bc my sibling was telling me abt a book they read where the mc, a woman, found out that her husband was actually having an affair with her brother (both husband and brother are dead so she was never able to confront them abt it or anything) and i thought of haru no noroi. which was why i was thinking a lot abt the relationship dynamics this time around, but i also want to say the aspects of this story that i like and thus why i like this manga despite the kind of weird social things going on with natsumi and tougo’s relationship. i mean it’s not really problematic since there’s no actual cheating going on but it still can rub ppl the wrong way a little... it did occur to me the weirdness of natsumi/tougo before but this time i focused more on it so... interesting readthrough this time around.
EDIT: ok i just looked at the dates of my last 2 reviews and i literally read the manga for the first time and then reread it literally a month apart. and this next 3rd read is literally over 2 years later. jesus no wonder i had a different experience this time around bc i legit did have to focus more on remembering what the story actually was
#reading#it has this vibe to it that i like ... a realistic slice of life esque downer story with a happy ending#and it's not too long just 2 vol of 4-5 ch each#anyway i haven't read raise wa tanin ga ii in a while. wonder how shit is going down there
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(1) hi!! this may be a really dumb question but you seem kinda knowledgable and i really want to learn bc i’m clueless. basically, i’ve always wondered what the purpose (for lack of better word) was behind lesbian femme/butch roles? like ik it’s historically pretty significant, but is there a particular “revolutionary” reason behind a masculine person and feminine person being paired together and it being such an iconic part of lesbian herstory? like ik that gender non-conformity is p important
(2) within women, specifically lesbians, especially as a way to signal to other women/lesbians that they are, well, lesbian. it’s also rebelling against assigned cultural and gender roles and the idea that femininity is required to be a “real” woman, and also mainly bc most people assume feminine women and girls are het. but like, there are some lesbians who are feminine themselves and mainly like other feminine women/lesbians. is this a “wrong” or incorrect/narrow minded pairing somehow?
(3) are feminine-presenting lesbians somehow “less” revolutionary than, say, a gnc bi or straight woman? and like, w the femme/butch complementary roles within lesbianism, is this to show that a masc/feminine pairing isn’t inherently hetero/doesn’t exclusively belong to het couples? are feminine lesbians who date other feminine lesbians betraying lesbian culture and appeasing straight men somehow just bc they want to be feminine for each other? i’ve just always wondered about this and
(4) i’m a woman who presents pretty feminine, although if it were up to me i’d just be like. casual feminine. maybe a snapback or sth. but i am attracted to other feminine women and i don’t particularly have a desire to “look good” for a butch/masculine-presenting woman in a sort of complementary yin and yang role/dynamic, i.e “strong butch and soft femme” stereotypes which we see often in the lesbian community. so i was curious about your thoughts on this. thank you and sorry for the spam! 🌷
😭 i’m such a bad person to ask any questions about butch/femme because tbh i don’t really get it.
i think the historical reason for the pairing is that there really was no model for lesbian relationships, so women defaulted to a relationship model that resembled heterosexuality–butches and femmes had to date each other, butches who were fucked by another butch were ridiculed and feminized, people who didn’t fit into either category were seen as outsiders and called kikis, butches had to pursue femmes, etc, but with a little more fluidity because people would sometimes have different roles in different relationships. i think this is a contentious thing to say because it implies that butches are like men but… i’m not sure how you could argue that a system where masculine people Have to date feminine people isn’t drawing deliberate parallels to heterosexuality? especially when people in that time period said that it was safer to be out in public when at first glance you looked like a man and a woman? and i don’t think saying that there are obvious parallels is the same as saying that butches Are men. butches and femmes will also talk about how they each play different roles in the relationship–the butch protects the femme, the femme is a safe place for the butch, the femme protects the butch by existing at her side as a ‘respectable’ looking woman, etc.
i don’t think it’s intended to show that masc/fem couples aren’t inherently het or to rebel against gender norms (although people will say that femmes are revolutionary because they perform femininity for women and not men which i do Not get because the world doesn’t care why you wear a dress & makeup so long as you do it)–people will talk about how they knew deep inside that they were always femme/butch, that they always felt drawn towards protecting feminine women, that they always wanted to give themselves to a masculine woman, etc. i don’t really get it lol and i think @a-real-lesbian-speaks said this mooonths ago, but when i see poetry about like… work boots next to stilettos or a butch needing the arms of a femme and a bunch of people saying that it made them emotional and they can relate so much, i feel the same way that i do when queer people talk about their gender identities tbh. it seems like some internal lesbian-specific gender experience that needs that yin/yang complement and i literally don’t understand when people talk about it, but there you go lol.
i think feminine lesbians disobey cultural standards more than gnc bihet women, but it is a weird question to me because calling one more revolutionary than the other sort of gets into… homosexuality as revolution, when it’s just something we’re born with and that is given this deviant, rebel status by society. feminine lesbians and gnc bihet women also deal with different problems, so it feels like comparing apples and oranges to me.
also, it isn’t narrow-minded to be a feminine woman attracted to other feminine women! butch/femme is a subculture that tbh has gained this weird revered status on tumblr. the amount of people who talk about it compared to the amount of people who actually participate in it is very disproportionate, at least from what i’ve seen. there are many, many lesbians who are neither of them and we can go be confused in our own little corner lol. and who you’re attracted to or choose to date shouldn’t be political anyway.
#it's so weird to me how butch/femme has gained this Mythical status on tumblr#radfems historically thought butch/femme was regressive but now a lot of tumblr radfems worship it#i'm not saying some larpers have latched onto it bc it's stereotypically lesbian and bc it superficially resembles heterosexuality#so is more comfortable to them#but.......#Anonymous
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alright, so. i beat remake last weekend, but i didn’t want to come out with my newfound yufi information + meta right off the bat. i think this is an appropriate time to do so now, though. naturally, i’ll tag as spoilers, but if you need anything else, let me know.
also, my verdict? i am so glad i went into this blind, without any hype or expectations or people from fandom whining about it. yet again, i am so happy + i had an incredibly joyous experience. this game fed me + also took over my life in a way i’ve not been possessed in some time so like......... good for it.
also no, i truly don’t miss hearing everyone’s hullabaloo + i don’t wanna hear ur complaints of “ it didn’t say when part 2 is ” so like miss me with that.
also warning: if u didn’t know already, fandom is WILD towards y.uffie for some reason and i also addressed that, so like if you’re from vii fandom u might seriously wanna read this bc... it’ll be pertinent to u understanding my feelings behind it. i did address some questionable topics like the underaged oversexual portrayal + beastality that’s popular for her and i am NOT HERE FOR IT so if u came for that................. issa no from me dawg. when i say unbearable.... i mean it. fandom grossed me out. y’all wild.
anyway. thoughts below !
some things that were CONFIRMED for me were:
> midgar is lax around its anti-wutai rhetoric in its most important parts ( namely, hq, wall market, and avalanche ). for propaganda’s sake among the common people, it stands to create a united front. but in consumerism & in strength, they consider the wutai equals just as anyone else.
see: tseng in the turks; madam m in wall market; the supplier for avalanche.
i would even argue that sector 5 / wall market is the safest place in midgar for wutaians, given don corneo’s obvious fetishism ( and that really............. isn’t saying a lot ).
i’m not going to entertain that it’s an “ admiration for culture and architecture ” in true weeaboo fashion given that of all positions he could give madam m to hold, her duties are to screen women that would be appealing to his aesthetic and to run a massage parlor where the highest bidder gets to have a happy ending. she is literally the “ asian parlors are actually fronts for brothels ” stereotype except in this sex trade, all women go to don corneo. i will have no apologists in this house.
i have more developing thoughts on madam m like how she might be doing the sex trafficking part in her own self-interest / as a type of self-preservation, like the don might say “ well if u don’t want to be a wife then u better find some for me ” but... 1) this isn’t the post for that and 2) that logic does not explain why chocobo sam and andrea rhodea are also apart of the ring. but in my opinion, you can tell she’s not crazy about it bc as soon as aerith mentions it to her she becomes so wildly upset that she breaks character. i don’t think she’s a sell out. i think she’s an exploited and fetishized woman in a tough place, and i feel for her.
despite this, it’s clear that because of his obvious ‘ preference ’ they’re [ wutaians ] held at a higher standard ( i.e., he doesn’t dispose of madam m immediately like he does with every other woman who is unfortunate enough to meet him ), so i’m willing to go out on a limb and say despite the high amount of shinra foot traffic that goes through wall market ( and we know this bc everybody who is everybody from SOLDIERS to Turks go to honeybee inn ), a wutaian would probably be fine there.
> wutai is the strongest world power by natural means. without SOLDIER s & g programs, midgar’s biggest claim to fame is to reach first-world status as a metropolis by siphoning mako via its reactors. without its reactors, the whole town would either be: 1) slums, like below the plate; or 2) as common as every other area in the nearby vicinity ( i.e., kalm, costa del sol, nibelheim ). by siphoning mako energy, midgar truly is unnatural, so... hm...
corel could have been a contender ‘cause they use fossil fuels ( and look at how successful gold saucer is! ), but the failed reactor really threw them out the loop. costa del sol + icicle inn are both partially shin-ra owned / managed, so i’m not counting them.
> infiltrating midgar / shinra isn’t difficult. nor is navigating throughout the sectors. while there is the mention of the ID scan on the trains, we see this is not applicable on foot ( freely able to walk through sectors 5, 6, 7, and 8 as party; jessie + co are able to go above the plate to go to her parents’ house despite already being listed as AVALANCHE and that their fake IDs had already expired ). given that yufi entirely travels on foot because of her airsickness / motion sickness, she’d be undetectable. also note that the first 59 floors of shinra hq by stairwell are not monitored... and neither was the front door, so she could easily sneak in whenever the need called for it.
> established multiple points of contact between rufus + yufi ( and by extension, the turks + yufi ). i’m really going into this in the next section ‘cause... their dynamic became so much more interesting. but we already know that at minimum, there was contact bc she had the phs rufus had provided to godo + was using it to communicate with zack for treasure.... but let me hold off on this bc there’s one more thing i want to add here.
regarding the turks: it’s established that even if a person is someone of interest to shin-ra, they won’t necessarily act on attacking or abducting immediately ( see: aerith ). we already know they’ve known yufi since she was a child, and if they’re working with rufus they’d know what she looked like as she aged, so the excuse of “ she looks different than when they worked with her in wutai ” is out the window. it’s more than likely that they’re enabling her to continue her business with rufus + have probably assisted her with not being caught.
> yufi’s clothes are absolutely normal for her age. it always annoyed me that somehow tifa’s clothing was like considered “ impractical but acceptable ” because she’s a legal adult and because cishet men were too drawn to the boobies to complain. but then yufi was either like HELLA sexualized as a minor ( the amount of ecchi / hentai that exists of underage y.uffie despite there being of-age content [ i.e., her portrayals in advent children + dirge of cerberus ] is.......................................... ridonk ) OR she was like hella slut-shamed and i’m out here like.... hello??? what kinda anti-wutai rhetoric is this? anyway. i’d like to call attention to kyrie, who looks like she’s wearing like 60% of y.uffie’s dirge of cerberus outfit. if anything, this only reinforces that yufi’s fashion choices are.......... legit normal, age appropriate, and anyone who wants to argue otherwise can shut the fuck up.
if you’re really gonna ask “ how come her shorts are unbuttoned ” like go check your privilege. the short answer is probably that rufus stole all of her damn belts to make into his coat. the long answer is that a youth traveling the world SOLO she is probably slim on money to be frequently shopping for clothes ? and the clothes that are available in the slums vs on the plate are probably not great quality ( idk if y’all have ever shopped at a freesized open market before but like... buttons pop off INSTANTLY sometimes and those seams will tear if u stretch the wrong way. like fast fashion but like........ hella wild ). she could find better clothes above the plate, but given the anti-wutai rhetoric up there... probably not a wise choice.
since you’re looking at her outfit anyway.. can i bring your attention to her sweater, and have you note that it’s made of the same material as cloud’s? i.e., she’s wearing shin-ra/SOLDIER brand quality? ( need further proof that it’s SOLDIER? zack and angeal wear the same one ) probably gotten from either a trip to hq or........ someone on the inside............ but obviously cropped to fit her. she might’ve even had it for some time. now let’s keep looking.... i’m willing to bet the latter, and here’s why! ( prepare for galaxy brain time )
now for standard SOLDIERS, they’re assigned colors. we know third class / infantrymen are blue; second class are burgundy / red ( think kunsel ); and black / dark blue for first class. don’t nobody wear green.... in this whole damn universe.... as a main character.... except child y.uffie. HMMMMM. here’s the sweater again to compare.
i’m just saying.
now, the ideas INTRODUCED to me were:
> there is only one AVALANCHE, but it is splintered into different factions.
now i always wondered like, how come they just picked up the name AVALANCHE when it was established already. like idk i don’t think people would be like “ ah yes we’re the n.azis and we’re different than the other ones, but we wanna evoke the same fear ” u know what i mean?? usually u would carry the same ideology... but it was always so apparent that barret held different views and goals than elfe, so i was always so confused.
but not anymore. now it’s established that they’re the same group, begun in midgar + just carrying out different methods of “ fuckin’ shit up for the shin-ra ” over the last 10 years, spreading the word about the danger of reactors + it’s suckin’ up the lifeblood of the planet to anyone who would hear. now that makes sense. in the same chapter that this is established, however, they also claim...
> yufi as a benefactor to AVALANCHE.
now this shit had me like AAAAAAAAH. now there is no damn way you and i played the same game if u didn’t see this. they literally say “ AVALANCHE is being provided weapons by someone to fuck shit up, in return for all the materia in midgar. ”
who would want all the materia in midgar? HMMMMMMMMM.
> with that point established, let’s go back to rufus + yufi having multiple points of contact. so i already introduced the idea that rufus clearly has to have contact with yufi bc he’s the one spouting all the secrets to shinra treasure via the PHS. and yufi has claimed ownership of the phone by literally labeling it as “ treasure princess ” so there is no question that he thinks he’s talking to godo versus yufi.
but we also know that rufus is the person behind AVALANCHE. my man has TIME on house arrest, obviously. we also know that he’s on house arrest in junon, not midgar. now, if he’s out here giving them logistics like places to go to spout their rhetoric, and yufi is providing weapons ( remember, wutai is the strongest power by natural means, and apparently hq is free real estate to explore, so she’s got multiple ways to provide gear without it being an inconvenience to her ), so it’s.........pretty obvious to say that the way she would go in connection to AVALANCHE would be through rufus. also, remember she has bad blood with AVALANCHE because of their actions in wutai, so... she’s not gonna be keen about them anyway. it seems much more practical for someone who already views them ( and tbh, lots of people ) as tools ( rufus vc: “ i own you ” ) to accomplish one’s tasks to help her connect with meeting her own goals ( “ all the materia in midgar ” ).
this would also explain why yufi is found hanging outside junon.
if you opted to grab her outside nibelheim... you might argue that it’s because nibelheim is obviously suspicious + truly the evidence at how shady shin-ra is, given the whole place was rebuilt + is filled with actors to hide the fact that the whole place burned to the ground + was once the site of jenova + currently remains the site as hojo’s secondary lab + other secret, vincent valentine with the protomateria slumbering. she could have been tipped off by rufus as “ there’s another treasure here ” but like... there’s no way she would have known it was vincent. even zack is like “ idk wtf is happening here so i’mma leave this alone. ”
also, i love that rufus uses “ heir to the throne ” verbage, which is so akin to yufi also being “ heir to the throne ” & look at them: spiteful children rebelling against their useless ass dads to create new world order + to destroy the old shin-ra company. i love that for them.
so in conclusion........ this game FED ME. god i wanna play it again and again. i beat it on normal and got everything except 1 treasure and 1 task from chadley. i also need to do all the combat simulators. but given i did what i could in.... 3.5 days, i’m not too upset by it. this game has so much replay value and... i can say i’m glad i bought it twice.
g.amestop give me my freaking shinra badge i’ve damn well earned it.
oh and two more things going forward:
> nanaki continues to sound old as hell. which duh, given advent children. but u know how they established him as a young teen in the og + so it made sense for y.uffie and nanaki to be friends ‘cause they were mentally the same age? i don’t...... see how that works now.
also.....y’all could have missed me with this shit already but STOP SHIPPING HIM WITH YUFI. NOW UR ONLY ARGUMENT IS GONE. STOP. i saw some art of nanaki & y.uffie fucking in the tags + floating around google and i was like....... WHY!!! and then there’s also weird hybrid art like what if they had a kid or something and i just........ STOP.
i have flashbacks of when i first started writing on tumblr + how i was bombarded by furries wanting to fuck bc of this. like deadass king dedede from kirby. later on i also saw sonic & even alligators ( not an alligator man.... tho i did see king k. rool + donkey kong as well........ i hated y’all for a hot minute ). it’s not even “ monster fucking ” it’s bestiality and I’M BEGGING YOU TO STOP. y’all can truly MISS ME WITH THIS.
however, u know, bigby wolf + everyone from castlevania could easily get it. stardust platinum where ya at. if i had to pick it would be....... more humanoid than a penguin or a “ lab rat dog ” u feel?
> i am not crazy about y.uffentine. look. i know it exists. i know it was big bc fandom was like “ optional character ship ftw! ” + then dirge of cerberus came out and y’all went wild ( to be fair, i get it, it was the only ship outside of NANAKI and BEING KIDNAPPED/ASSAULTED BY SHINRA SOLDIERS AS A CHILD that people could feasibly comprehend for y.uffie for some reason............................................................... it was an actually “ NORMAL ” person........ ) but like. i’m sorry. it’s not doin it for me. i’ve seen like two other y.uffie blogs out here that actually stick to canon so like if u want your y.uffentine that bad, like maybe ask them. but please don’t ask me.
ok i’m done for real now! thanks for reading !
#♝ meta.#♚ verse iii . travail.#spoilers /#ffvii spoilers /#remake /#remake spoilers /#ffvii remake spoilers /#idk if y'all need this tagged as anything else.#let me know if u do!
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I absolutely love your Dad Hopper adopting Billy headcanons! I eat that shit upppppp. I was wondering where in that whole family dynamic Max fits in? She’s still Billy’s sister right even if they’re not blood-related or legally-bound, right???
I’M GLAD YOU ASKED!! (also you’re so damn sweet ohmygod you’re too sweet thanks dear ♥♥♥ you’re always so damn sweet and any time you like and reblog my stuff i cry, it means so much)
She is 1000% still Billy’s sister. Pretty sure you sent this in before I answered all those other things about Max. i thought about adding this into the other asks i did w/ Max but i really just wanted to write more about Max w/ the Hopper family bc i can nEVER GET ENOUGH. I just love Max ♥
Also for those of you who may not know I’ve written it/want to read some more Max and Billy and the Hoppers, I’ve talked quite a bit about it! I’ll link a bunch of stuff here: x x x x x x
oKAY so I’ve talked before about how Max is super duper fucking jealous of El’s relationship w/ Billy. He’s so nice w/ her and soft w/ her and friendly w/ her and it makes her upset bc she feels like she lost her brother. I c r y thinking about Max leaving the Hopper home and going back home to no one. Just her draining mother and her dickish step-father and a new guest room that she knows no one is ever going to use bc she really can’t imagine anyone coming to visit them out in Hawkins fucking Indiana.
So she spends a LOT of time at the Hopper residence. Like, you know how in sitcoms there’s always that one friend that is over at the other friend’s house all. the. time. And the parents are always like: “Don’t you have a home to go back to?” as the friend flops themselves on the couch and burns through a bag of chips??? That’s Max at the Hopper home.
Except, and I’m gonna say it: Hop really likes Max. She might be his favorite kid of the group (except for his own daughter but she doesn’t really count, y’know??) bc Max is basically Billy (snarky, sarcastic, sharp) just w/o all of the aggression and destruction and teen-boy horniness. She’s really chilled out and she’s only slightly disrespectful sometimes but overall she’s fun to talk to and she seems to be a good influence on El. Any influence on El that steers her away from stupid boys is a good influence in Hop’s eyes. Hop knows her favorite TV shows and what her favorite subject is in school and the fact that she prefers the strawberry ice cream to the chocolate when he buys Neapolitan ice cream.
So she’s over allll the time. She’s always doing El’s hair or vice versa. They’re having fashion shows in El’s room. They’re dancing around to music on El’s stereo. They’re reading comic books or magazines on El’s bed or on the ground, laying around in funny positions and always touching be it their feet or their arms or their legs. They’re just always together. Joined at the hip. Pulling each other around hand in hand or arm in arm. Whispering and giggling and laughing.
And sometimes Max comes over to see Billy. Bc she’s hanging around her room missing hearing the stupid sound of his weights hitting the ground or of the heavy rock playing from across the hall or the way he pulls her hair when they pass each other. Even in their house where he would frequently shrink away in fear of being targeted, his presence was larger than life. Now the house is empty and she hates it.
But Hop said she’s always welcome and El is always excited for her to come over and Billy always gives her a smile before shifting into a smirk and asking: “Here again, shitbird?”
He doesn’t give her too much shit, though. He’s always very, very soft about teasing her about it. Bc she would never admit it to him, but he knows she misses him. He misses her too. He lived w/ her for years, they’re siblings, she’s fun to annoy bc she annoys him right back and it’s just what they do.
Max stays over just about every weekend for extended sleepovers with El. The first few nights she stays over, Hop doesn’t let her even help cook, but eventually Billy makes her help him so that Hop can sit down and relax. Max pouts about it a little that first time, but she’s actually happy about it bc it reminds her of when she would cook dinner w/ Billy when they were home alone and their parents hadn’t left them anything to eat. El likes it too bc she thinks it’s fun to watch people cook. Plus, Max lets her eat little things like pinchfuls of cheese or a nearly cooked pasta noodle, whereas Billy and Hop always make her wait.
Sometimes, when Max and Lucas are dating and on good terms, she’ll invite Lucas over to the cabin to hang out and watch TV or something. Hop likes the kid, El thinks he’s fun, and Billy thinks he’s one of the lesser annoying ones (Mike and Dustin are definitely way more annoying in Billy’s eyes)(plus, Lucas drinks New Coke w/ him and laughs w/ him while everyone else gags in their direction)
Except…
“Why does she get to bring her boyfriend over and I can’t?” Billy asks one day, gesturing to Lucas and Max on the sofa watching reruns. Max sticks her middle finger up at Billy w/o turning to look at him. Billy swats it out of the air w/o looking at her.
“Because she’s not my kid.” Hop says, but his jaw is tight.
And it screws into Max’s heart. It solidifies to her that she isn’t really part of the family. They’ve kind of adopted her, but more as the pestering friend than the 2nd daughter.
Except… the more she does it, the more she comes over, the more she sits under Lucas’ arm, the more it gets into Hop’s skin.
To the point where Hop is taking Lucas’ arm off of Max’s shoulder and pulling him towards the door, telling him: “Your dad called, he needs you home.”
“I didn’t hear the phone ring-” Lucas whines but Hop silences him with a look.
“He called. Get home.”
And when he closes the door and turns around, he sees Max turned around on the couch, looking at him like she’s waiting for an explanation. He just shrugs.
“I didn’t like how he was looking at you.” He grumbles.
And let me tell you, it warms her heart. She’s not even that irritated at all. She turns back to the TV and huffs, but there’s a smile on her face that’s hidden from Hop. Not from Billy though, as he flops on the couch and shoves her head away gently and chuckles.
“Welcome to the family.” He mumbles, before he reaches for the remote and the two of them argue over it.
#max mayfield#billy hargrove#chief jim hopper#eleven#el hopper#lucas sinclair#stranger things#ask#mythicalbeyotch#thanks so much love you seem so cool and sweet and i see everything you respond w/ it's so sweet#anyway thanks for this ask i love max + the Hoppers#billy hopper#hopper is a dad#and he's adopting everyone it's like...... an issue#he really did used to hate people#but here he is adopting everyone in Hawkins#like?????? whatta dad#anyway#i loved this i love max i lovE HER#should i save this so i can post it tomorrow????#maybe#do i wanna post it right now bc i'm on a max and billy roll??????#yes#so i'm gonna do it#try and stop me
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tmnt but as humans for the au thing? or even if say they didn't have to live in the sewers bc "talking turtles strange". you can pick/interpret this however you want, haha
hm okay so if i were to narrow it down i think i would make it so they still were trained/raised by splinter but none of them were mutated. it has been. some time since i've seen tmnt so i can't quite remember if all the villains were mutants/monsters too or all the backstory details but if say the spill or mutagen had never happened then i wonder how that would change? i also would wonder how different dynamics would be if they weren't forced underground. lmk if you still need more specifics!
That’s great, Anon! Thanks for giving me a little more direction. I’m going to apologize in advance, because I got waaaay preoccupied with certain details, so it’s a lot more worldbuilding than it is putting together a definitive plot, but I’m hoping it still fits the ‘what would this entail?’ bill. Let me know if I missed the mark, though!
And standard disclaimer: even though this is an AU, it’s still heavily based on 2k3′s characters and versions of events. What can I say? It’s My Brand.
I’m not 100% sure what you meant by ‘none of them were mutated’, but I’m choosing to interpret that as something akin to Rise’s yokai situation, where non-humans are born that way. In this case, the “yokai” society and human society would be integrated, but that might be a newer development (within the past 100-300-ish years). TMNT has always used mutants, aliens and other non-humans as allegories for groups that have been discriminated against, and I feel like, even in a more tolerant setting, that would still stand. The humans and non-humans put up with each other, but aren’t on the best terms, and the humans are usually the aggressors. (I also want to make it clear that non-humans are human in all but body/looks-- some have features that provide some benefit or drawback (shells, for example), but there are no supernatural abilities inherently associated with it.)
Bear in mind that I’m writing this as someone who has only left the west coast to visit Ohio of all places, so if I make a Glaring New York Mistake, my bad. I feel like there’s no way the Hamatos live in New York County, so I’m going to tentatively say they’re based in the Bronx. Yes, I know. That was not the intention. Shenanigans can still happen in NYC, but I was breaking my own suspension of disbelief. There’s still some ninja-adjacent training, but most of it is more martial arts-focused-- both for protection in a potentially hostile world, and as a tradition. We still have the chain-of-adopted-parents-slash-teachers going, with Yoshi taking Splinter in, and Splinter raising the boys. An important butterfly-effect here is that if we’re classifying the Utrom as a subsect of non-humans, then a bunch of other stuff didn’t happen, and we could easily argue that Tang Shen would still be alive. She and Yoshi live together, and see their adoptive family somewhat regularly. In this version of events, I’m also thinking the guys know Casey from when they were kids. I could put together an AU variation of The Lesson to mesh with what we’ve already established, but this really isn’t the time.
Personality-wise, I don’t think a lot changes-- the most dramatic would probably be Leo, who, while still the eldest, doesn’t have the responsibility to lead his brothers. I mean, he still tries, but it’s less because he has to and more because of who he is as a person… and also because it drives his brothers up the wall. Splinter has the support of his own adoptive parents in this ‘verse, and I think that would take a lot of pressure of of Leo. Raph, while still frustrated with the state of the world, has learned better coping mechanisms and has more outlets to rely on; he’s easy/quick to rile up, but unless it’s something serious, he can deal with it, and he’d never go to any pipe extremes. I feel like, if anything, Donnie might inherit a bit of Raph’s temper; he’s still very much the ‘I want to help however I can’ humanitarian type, but would be fighting against all sorts of prejudices in order to do so. Still fairly self-conscious and thoroughly adorkable, though. Mikey still has his major vices, but he’s also in a situation where he can network properly, share his art and collaborate with other people, so I think that would become more of a focus for him, and he’d be a little more chill. Between Mike, Don and Raph, they know someone who can help with practically anything they need; Leo’s more reserved, and, while he can and does talk to other people, too much socializing can be a bit outside of his comfort zone.
So, in terms of plot, it feels appropriate to draw primarily from sociopolitical arcs. Thrilling, I know, but since the basis of this AU is ‘what if they lived on the surface’, I would want to focus on what all that entails. That being said, the Mouser intro is a series mainstay, and I don’t want to exclude all fantastic elements, but some things can/should probably be toned down. (I think current events have also proven that, even without the mutation danger, Outbreak would still be a perfectly viable threat.) So, maybe, under the guise of reducing the rat population, Stockman starts using the Mousers not to steal physical assets, but to collect data, which he then uses to anonymously blackmail/extort residents. This may or may not be part of a larger plan-- I wanted to draw inspiration from City at War in particular-- but I don’t have the galaxy brain to figure out what that is, right now. (Stockman’s the kind of recurring villain who, while people know he’s at fault, either can’t be definitively linked to an incident, or is just on the right side of the law. Every time he crops back up, people trust him less and less. Eventually, desperation drives him to work for/with Saki, and then Bishop, so he really should have quit while he was ahead, it’s just not a pun this time around.)
Just because I haven’t mentioned her yet, April’s definitely a part of this, but I’m not entirely sure how/where she fits in. I’m thinking that, instead of threatening her with the Mousers when she discovers what he’s been doing, Stockman might use some of his new connections to try to take her out as she goes home. Cue the classic rescue sequence. It’s kind of an abrupt change of topic, but I also want to keep the ‘Saki’s an Utrom’ reveal, though the impact is somewhat different here; I’m just not sure how to accomplish this without turning him into Sophia the Robot. There are so many things I haven’t even mentioned, and I feel bad that I haven’t really established a proper plot, but this is getting wildly out of hand, and I need to rein myself in.
As a parting point, in addition to City at War, I’d definitely want to incorporate parts of/themes from Still Nobody (wrt the Turks/gang recruitment), Garbageman (the homeless), and, of course, utilize the Purple Dragons.
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