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moritakathedrawer-leonaguilez · 1 year ago

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Birthright Corrin: From sheltered life in the dark, to growth in the light and selfless sacrifices in Road Taken

Preface

HAPPY 8TH ANNIVERSARY FIRE EMBLEM: IF!! (known internationally as Fates)

As it was the birth-month of mine(June 21) and Fate’s first release 8 years ago in Japan,last month, on June 25, 2015. I wrote something for my favorite Lord, Corrin in Birthright. As Corrin goes through different paths, it is a gargantuan task to talk about Corrin in all paths. As most games that has different routes, I believe a character will become a different person by taking a specific path, and I would prefer one route over another. For example, Denam from Tactics Ogre LUCT. He is idealistic and stands for his principles & justice in the Chaos route meanwhile he is cold and pragmatic in the Law route. Thus I’ll be talking specifically about the Birthright version and within the context of that route, because it is my favorite version of Corrin, and I’m very fixated with Hoshirrin.

Actually months ago I was also planning to write (especially for the CYL) about Birthright Corrin and made some notes but I was too busy with annoying school work. I later found u/NobleYato ‘s The Most Misunderstood Lord and Why We Love Them, an excellent read and we have arrived at some similar points. And I have to say that I was kinda bummed that someone already beat me to it. However I already started my drafts and made some notes. If I started something, I’m determined to finish it. Thus I’ll attempt to make mine too with my own takes and interpretations. This would be another small contribution for understanding Corrin .

In writing this, I shall refer to Corrin as Male. As it is illustrated that Male Corrin represents Birthright in the box art and even in-game that Female Kana the child of Male Corrin is grouped together with the Hoshidan 2nd generation. In the Birthright drama CD, Corrin is male and has more flavor with his title, the second Prince of Hoshido. And other games such as FEH also followed suit, I also wrote and concluded that Male Corrin in FEH is consistently from Birthright. It is implied that the Birthright Route is tailored for Male Corrin. I’ll share my observation and explanation below why Male Corrin makes sense for Birthright.

His Birthright and the Hoshidan Way

The Trio: If you look closely and notice that the princes always have a lead in the openings of later chapters, indicated by these 3 sprites

They got separated with Ryoma and the others after the surprise attack after the events of CH6 which the battle stretched across up to the bottomless canyon, so they were spread out. Which leaves Corrin ,as the 2nd prince of Hoshido and the only eldest Prince left, the responsibility lies in him and to command the remaining part of the army. As he is also chosen by the divine Yato which gives him authority and legitimacy that makes people trust in his abilities. And even later when Hinoka—his elder sister joins, he is still in-charge and giving orders as he is the elder prince and the chain of command goes to him in the absence of the High Prince Ryoma. And to prove his dedication, he embraced himself as Hoshidan and dedicated himself to defend the Kingdom yet he only truly seeks peace between Hoshido and Nohr, without unnecessary bloodshed of the innocent. He is merciful to those who surrender and gives chances to lay down arms and spare them, as it is the Hoshidan way . He learns about this from Kaze’s words from CH7, after sparing Silas and then demonstrating it in CH 10 by sparing Zola. This act shows his great commitment to the Hoshidan Ways and this shows that he is not like what they think of those from Nohr, thus earning their trust and confidence of the lost 2nd prince.

Later when Ryoma, the eldest, rejoins and assuming top responsibility , he consults and briefs his little brothers on the matters of the army planning and strategy, as we can see with Takumi for example in CH 15 & 21, where he gives his views deciding on which route to take such as pointing out a forest nearby and a short cut through the demon falls, Takumi has a good sense of geography, and with Corrin, be his second command and may lead the way at times (we’ll be discussing this role more in the following sections). We see that the princes take the lead in the army, and in the opening scenes of later chapters we see Ryoma, Corrin and Takumi have the major dialogues. This shows that princes have the highest chain of command in the army. This is his Birthright and reclaims as a Hoshidan Prince leading the way.

In the white light

Corrin’s character is shown to be good, kind, intuitive, and values life, albeit sheltered and knows little of the world. We saw in the early chapters where he effortfully tried to save Kaze and Rinkah despite all the pressure and even threatened to death. Another thing that shows his good character where he even saved an injured bird (who later reveals to be Lilith). When confronted by Xander with his overly magnanimity, he would gladly lay down his life for the greater good, and it is his nature.

Later when he was out and saw the world for the first time, he witnessed firsthand the atrocities and terrorized villages by the faceless caused by Garon when he was in Hoshido. He wasn’t able to see and know these when he was imprisoned in the fortress and was brought up that Garon as his “father” and cannot be wrong. When the special sword that was given to him exploded and his true mother died protecting him, along those at the square, this triggered his memories of the day he was abducted and remembering his real father also died protecting him. Now he knows what true colors of his “Father” Garon are.

It was a hard pivotal decision of Corrin, to stand with Hoshido and his birth family. As it is in line with his character to be good and morally upright and he stands for justice as when he spared the prisoners when ordered to. He does not side with the man that incites terror and commits atrocities because it goes against his ideals and the sacrifices to those who protected him. His parents sacrificed themselves to save him from the man who abducted and made him sheltered and kept in the dark when he was held prisoner in a fortress, albeit pampered and able to bond with the Royal family. He quickly realized that he was a pawn, and his life was not valued by his “father”. Clearly Garon is the mastermind, clearly sees his intentions and clearly sees for what he is. He condemns him and vows to never return to Nohr, and to correct his wrongs. He believes that this is the right path towards peace and is determined to achieve it.

*Note that this will be the reading order of panels in the succeeding images

From Isolation to newfound freedom

Corrin: Travel? I hope you both realize that this isn't exactly a vacation... Fuga: Of course. It's just that Hayato has not had much opportunity to leave the village. In addition to helping you, he will be exploring the world for the first time. Corrin: I see. I think I understand exactly how he feels. After all, I spent most of my childhood locked in a Nohrian castle.

As he wasn’t allowed to go outside when he grew up in the fortress and even wasn’t able to see other people. He may have grown up in Nohr with luxuries but only in the fortress, he didn’t even know the Wolfskins, the demihumans of Nohr. And now he is finally free, naturally he enjoys his first times experiencing the outside world— enjoying the forest air, mesmerized by a boat ride, that he even plans to buy one after the war, just fascinated by new things that he wasn’t able to before ,and meeting new faces along the way. Being isolated for so long, he makes up to experience new things.

Due to his experience being locked in a tower, he highlights the experience and let others not experience his sheltered life, and encourages anyone to go explore the world; we saw this when he was introduced to Hayato. And also with Rinkah, whom he sees that they may have similar experiences, he encourages the princess of the isolationist Flame tribe to have this opportunity to explore the world and learn different cultures and he shows his optimism to think positively of what happened, he also shows to be a believer of “things happens for a reason”.

With being outside, free and without the pressures of being subdued especially under Garon, he can openly express himself and can be corny and cheeky at times. He has a dry-sense of humor to liven up moments such as when he joked about taking the “5-minute staircase” instead of the eternal staircase(CH8) and when with all the moving around they no longer need to work out after reaching the peak of Mt. Garou(CH15) . Or when he said “Can I be happy for a moment?” after taking over a fortress(CH15) and being reminded that there are more to be done. He is encouraged to share his thoughts when consulted by Ryouma on army decisions and is supported when he takes the lead. With this freedom, it gives him the opportunity to grow and be himself.

Leadership, charisma and growth

“In the white light, a hand reaches through”

As I have mentioned, as the second prince and the only eldest remaining prince when Corrin got separated from Ryoma. Now, the responsibility lies to Corrin. He may have had training in martial skills when he was in the fortress yet he lacks the field experience, but has no choice but to lead an army early on. Also with his background of being raised by the enemy ,where especially Saizo was very suspicious, may be a thorn in his side. He works hard to earn the trust of others and to gain their confidence and in himself. He earned it by demonstrating the aforementioned “Hoshidan Way” of sparing Zola, and through perking up others when the other princes were missing and tries to maintain a positive outlook and puts on a brave face and tries to be convincingly confident despite he hides it (CH10),

With these experiences of leading, he grows bold, charismatic and confident that later on when they are rejoined by Ryoma and resume command, his confidence has grown that at times leads the way and be a rallying cry for the army,especially when he gives a rousing speech before their first counter offensive in capturing a Nohrian fort (CH14) and to rally themselves to take a shortcut through the demon falls (CH21) , and he does initiatives to lead the way out when facing grave danger at the Fort Dragonfall (CH21)

Besides being confident with oneself, he also learns to be confident with others and rely on them as he can be very hard on himself at times, does want anyone to get involved and be hurt and even self- sacrifice or be a martyr. When he sided with Hoshido (CH6) or went on a pilgrimage to the rainbow sage(CH19), he was ready to sacrifice himself and not anyone involved. Or when the resistance was discovered, he was all downer. Every time he recruits someone or asks someone to join his cause he would always tell them not to join and they could not because of the possible blood be shed, for example with (Kaden, Hayato, Speech at the border fort). However, time and time again,he needs his allies around him to bring him back to his senses like that slap by Scarlet and most of all Ryoma’s guidance to bring back his confidence and the right path.

However, all that confidence and cool head is put to the test. A major blow to his trust, when Zola betrayed them despite all they have gone through. This was a hard lesson for Corrin to learn and proving his naivety. To further erode his trust after the betrayal, the rumors of a spy being continually taunted by Iago, made him lose his confidence in others and himself. He began to suspect others and lose trust after earning that from his new allies, and the stakes are getting higher. The main quality of his character is a trusting charisma, and the people around him are quick to notice the change of mood, most especially Takumi as we know with their rocky first relationship who was wary of Corrin but now he trusts Corrin but got hurt with his doubts.

As Corrin cannot deal with these matters alone, time and time Ryoma, his guiding light , reaching his hand through Corrin’s troubles, lifts his spirits back. He gives advice that is encouraging to Corrin on his journey to be a good leader, and helps him deal with or settle his old life, even cordial to his Norhian siblings . He points out and highlights his natural charisma and is very trusting in that it makes it both his strength and weakness(CH17), and uses his good sense of intuition on treading on his path. As the chosen one by the divine sword Yato, people lean on Corrin. Ryoma has been a wise guidance to Corrin when he loses his way and many times to bring him to the right path, showing him the light and what hope is possible, giving him confidence and earning with worth as the chosen one. If he wasn't there, his little brother would have been lost.

Ryoma: What's wrong, Corrin? You haven't seemed yourself lately. Corrin: Well, to be honest...our encounter with Iago is still bothering me. I'd hate to think I can't trust everyone here, but I've been burned once before... Ryoma: That's not your style, Corrin. You're on your way to becoming a great leader, and you lead by example. If you don't trust your own troops, how will they trust you? Don't let what happened with Zola shake your confidence. Corrin: I don't know. I feel like things have changed. The stakes have been raised. As if they could get any higher... Ryoma: Let's take a step back, shall we? Do you trust me, Corrin? Corrin: Of course. Ryoma: All right. How about Sakura and Takumi? Think about Hinoka, Azura, and Silas too. Any of them potential suspects? Corrin: Absolutely not. I believe in all of them! Ryoma: Very well. How can you be so sure? Corrin: I...I just can. I don't know. It's a gut feeling, I guess... Ryoma: Precisely. This is both your weakness and your strength. You have a keen intuition for people and natural charisma. Yet you lack the years of experience needed to make calculated decisions. So? Follow your strength. Use your intuition. Don't try to be what you're not.

Anger, Anguish & Resolution

“A double-edged blade cuts your heart in two”

In this path he may have felt the warmth of light and growing in it, but also in this path the darkness follows to test and challenge his personal progress, and the risks involved in the road taken . Now that he’s on the other side, it is inevitable that he would face and fight his loved ones from his old life. He would face trying and difficult moments especially losing his loved ones from his old life and the innocent lives. He lost Flora when she was forced to fight against her village and then sacrifice herself. And he was forced to fight the wolfskin, by false flag incident, in self defense. These losses, yet painful, enduring it and he would carry a heavy burden, made him more determined to swiftly end the war and make Garon pay.

Despite all that, he maintains his cool head, bearing the pain yet still be merciful to his foes, he still doesn’t want unnecessary bloodshed despite all the inner rage from all he lost. He gives the foe’s soldiers a chance to surrender, and does not do wanton violence against them when they no longer fight. He gives them a chance to talk, explain their side and be patient like when defeating Silas [Ch7], Flora[Ch8], & Leo[CH18]. But knowing the stakes at hand and fulfilling his duty he knows that one could not always be nice and necessary sword-threatening should be done, but when they can explain their side, he will give them a chance to defect and join their cause.

He learns that not everyone can be reasoned with, and the language they can understand is through his Yato. He grows resolute and understandably angry towards Garon and his lackeys, Hans and Iago. As always, he tried diplomacy first with them but he keeps failing. Nothing can be done but to end them. His interactions with them will always have a comeback, sassy remarks and be contemptuous over the suffering they caused. Corrin learns that not all people are reasonable and redeemable, that peace cannot be achieved without defeating them.

After all the losses he endured, he still carries on with the burdens and heavy heart, and maintains his cool head, brave face and optimism. However he has a breaking point. After Lilith shielded Corrin from Hans and died, another one very dear to him lost. That moment finally broke him, he finally felt anguished, fell into deep despair and lost all his optimistic spirits. After all that collectedness, he finally opened up the deep pain he held for so long and openly expresses the sorrows he hides, lamenting all the lives lost and for what? He faltered, was about to truly give and yield.

Corrin: What are we even fighting for? Is it worth it? Ryoma: Look up, Corrin. Corrin: Ryoma? Ryoma: Dry your tears. Think about Lilith's sacrifice. She gave her life so you could continue fighting. And what are we fighting for? We are fighting for peace! We are fighting for Queen Mikoto and for the whole world! Do you think Lilith would want you to give up like this? Corrin: Ughhh... Ryoma: Listen. It is time for you to rise to the occasion. If we want to end this war, now is the time for us to take action! Corrin: I'm just so tired. Tired of loss. Tired of death. Ryoma: There will be a time for rest. But that time is not now. Rise up! The sacred blade Yato chose YOU, Corrin. We're all counting on you! Corrin: ... You're right. I know you're right. I will not stop until King Garon's reign of terror is over. Let's go, everyone. Ryoma: That's the spirit.

Ryoma brought him back and gave him back the light, for the sake of the sacrifices, for their mother and most of all the peace of the world, as why the Yato chose him. Give him resolution, reminding of his cause and for world peace around, bring him back to light and to push him to continue, move on, and fight for them so that their sacrifices won’t be in vain.These trials are not the reason to give up but a challenge to improve ourselves. His pain is not an excuse to back-out, but a resolution to move on and forward.

Alight

Ryoma:... Look, Corrin. Can you see the sun breaking over the horizon? Corrin: Yes...I suppose I can. Ryoma: They say the sun never shines in Nohr, but we can see that that's not true. Perhaps it's small comfort, but I take this as a good omen. Corrin: It is warm here. The same kind of warmth I felt walking the streets of Hoshido. I hope someday, both Hoshido and Nohr can share this kind of warmth. Ryoma: Anything is possible, Corrin.

With his journey comes to a close, after being in the light of hope and shining on his optimism and that the possibility of peace between nations is achievable, especially when one can do things if you put your mind into it. Corrin was shown that it is possible that light can reach the darkness when they were in mount Garou (CH15), where Ryoma telling all the things are possible and when they made a pilgrimage in the seven fold sanctuary as a test and learned that a magical object nothing better in improving but one's mindset, will power, and hardworking efforts. These experiences changed Corrin to grow and be more commanding of one’s will, which in CH23 where Elise, after meeting since his pivotal decision, notices Corrin’s change compared to the time when he was in the fortress. His outlook is now more bold and knows what he is doing. Now he has returned to Nohr as a different person, he uses what he has learned and shapes his ideals to be the light who brings justice.

The theme music of the Birthright route is masterfully composed; listening to it evokes feelings of Corrin and what he goes through in this final part of his journey. In the calm version, you could feel the uneasiness, highlighted by the wind instruments, the sounds of nostalgia of his old life growing up in Nohr. That heavy feeling of bittersweet feeling of coming home, now for different reasons, it evokes uncertainty, reluctance, bittersweet nostalgia, hesitation and tense & heavy feeling. And in contrast, the storm version is very contrasting with its upbeat marching rhythm, full of emotion and heroic tone ,signifying Corrin’s choice to act decisively, determination for peace of the world. Thus I named this chapter after this masterpiece.

For the greater good

Growing up in Nohr albeit in a fortress, he grew up and bonded with the Nohr Royals and was treated as a sibling. He is very attached to them and is dear to him and they cherish him. It was a hard decision for him to go against Garon ,their father, but he must do what he must for his ideals of justice, even dealing with them should they stand in his way. It was clever for Garon to abduct and to let Corrin to have a bond with his children so that he would develop Stockholm syndrome, he would become a pawn to his machinations, but Corrin isn’t fooled and cannot stand his tyranny. Despite now joining the other side, he still held his Nohr siblings dear and tried on every occasion to be diplomatic and convince them not to fight, as he tried very hard to shed light on Garon’s true colors. And in turn they tried to convince Corrin back but he is firm in his decision and mission, he must make a stand for peace and goodwill between Hoshido and Nohr. Miraculously with all his efforts and the trials he faced in this journey, he somehow manages not to end them. However that may not be the case later on when facing Xander.

They later accepted Corrin as Hoshidan and agrees that he is in the right path but they cannot make a stand against fight Garon, as he is their father and as his children, only Corrin has the opportunity to stand up against Garon, and Corrin as the truly Hoshidan only can he defy and it is his birthright to stand up to their abusive father. They may have understood that Corrin’s duty is in the right path to peace to face Garon.

(The Xander and Corrin duel is a very symbolic battle and has a complex motif , u/Visual-Function-213 may have analyzed it better with Birthright Chapter 26: Analysis and Misconceptions , but I’ll share my short take.)

As Corrin has the birthright to bring light to the darkness, Xander as well has a duty and it is his birthright to be the crown prince to defend his kingdom no matter what with pride and dignity. Corrin’s efforts to dissuade Xander are futile as they both have duties to fulfill. Corrin’s hesitation and struggle to face Xander. That sad and heavy feeling of facing the one who trained you and is close to you, he made Corrin what he is.In this penultimate major trials of this path and the climax of his journey , it duel of ideals and clash of duties, contrasting ideals, as crown prince who is bound to his standing and has no choice , contrast to Corrin is free and has a choice. In this poetic battle between a mentor and a student, who have learned much of the world and to show his mentor how he has changed and grown. Corrin has learned a lot in his journey and he’ll show his mentor what he has learned in his journey that reshaped his views that things are possible, there is justice, which Corrin went through the lessons of his journey. He is no longer hesitant and giving it all. Corrin no longer holds back indications of decisiveness. Xander is very proud of Corrin’s decisiveness but he himself was holding back, making Corrin upset that Xander wasn’t giving his all while Corrin was.

Dawn Breaks

Finally in the end of Corrin’s journey, he traveled far in this path, from a pampered sheltered prince kept in the dark and after basking of the light of experiences, growing confidence, taking risks and all the sacrifices, with the highs and lows and with the wisdoms of his big brothers— Ryoma for showing him the hope, warmth and the possibilities; Xander for teaching and training him for to be strong, be decisive and to seize the day. Corrin has grown to be a capable leader and transformed to something else. Just like Yato transformed to its Blazing form in parallel and signifying his change as a person. He will face the source of all the suffering and the cause of the war, Garon who intended Corrin to be naive and unknowing of the world so that he could be a good pawn. But Corrin stood up and is no longer a victim of this manipulation. He fought valiantly but all of it was not enough as he was knocked out despite all his efforts.

“Waking dreams fade away”

In his unconscious state, he met for the final time with the loved ones from his old life. And imparting their final words: Flora to be self-dependent, Xander, to be decisive, Elise for the bonds, And Lilith, to be a kind heart to the weak . It is a symbolic gesture when Flora tells Corrin that sometimes he has to learn to wake himself up on his own and to decide for himself. In this final farewell, this signifies letting go of his old life, embracing the new life. This is the final push for him to strive and to finish Garon.

“Embrace the brand-new day”

Revived and now determined than ever with the path he chose and for the greatest cause and self sacrifice for the greater good. He is not alone and with his allies, they will achieve world peace. After saying goodbye to his old life and all the sacrifices, he has gathered strength to defeat Garon and was triumphant in beating the source of misery and Alight the kingdom in the dark.

However, Corrin will face his final loss and sacrifice, his good friend Azura.In her final words of comfort, to remind Corrin to smile and look up and live as they finally have world peace. Corrin had faced so many losses and heart wrenching moments, but he grew strong to not let these emotions drown him and break him, but he is more determined to carry on for their sake and for the greater cause. He wishes to strive to build a new world and to make the dream peace happen and for the memories of the fallen.

“Sing with me a song of birthrights and love”

Later in the coronation ceremony, he has an emotional moment with and with his siblings. This time of tears of joy,after all the sacrifices and pain he endured, he has achieved his dream of peace and friendship between Hoshido and Nohr. He also desires to enjoy and have fun after his emotional journey.

With his exemplary decision to stand with peace, sacrifices and growth, he is a model and a hero, and together with Ryoma,Hinoka, Sakura and Takumi, his birth family, showing their appreciation and commending Corrin’s decision. Together, they will rebuild the future in a brand new day. His mother would be proud of what a fine man he has become.

“The light scatters to the sky above

Dawn breaks through the gloom, white as a bone”

Conclusion

FEH: M!Corrin's Lv 40 confession reflects in his experiences and want to be protective to those who are dear

Defeating and making Garon pay may have been the main motivator but along the way he learned new stuff that made him grow. He was intended to be sheltered and ignorant of the world and to develop Stockholm syndrome by having bonds with the Nohr Royals, but in his new found freedom, gained new experiences outside in the world.He went through trials, leading the an army, being looked up and depended on, earning trust, becoming more commanding, gaining confidence yet he is till kind and merciful to enemies and intuition to trust and earn charisma. He experienced hardships and anguish, losing his loved ones from his old life and being forced to end a tribe in self defense, enduring the pain and even acting as a martyr and taking it all by himself. But with his allies around him, most especially, Ryoma’s wise guidance and light, as a hand to bring Corrin to the right path and to remain steadfast in their great cause. He made self sacrifices for the greater good, that is beyond his comforts of his pampered old life. Peace and universal brotherhood may have been his ultimate goal, but can’t achieve that without justice. You can’t achieve that by being nice and accommodating to injustice.

An inspiration

Like many of my favorite characters, this may sound cliché or cheesy, there is something I look up to them or some positive aspects to inspire or influence me. As someone who was from the “darkness” of social anxiety, Corrin’s journey (in birthright) inspired me. His story motivated me to try new things, to be friendly and meet with people and to get along with them easily. It instilled me with confidence that I can talk with anyone, even those you just have short talk with someone, even new acquaintances.

Like anyone who got into Fire Emblem, I met him at FEH and I loved his design, though I keep hearing some bad things about him. So when I played his game in this route, he wasn't that bad and what he does makes sense if you put it into context and his reactions felt natural to me. (Though I may confess when I saw Corrin in the other routes besides Birthright, I can see why they badmouth him.) Like I said I love his Birthright version, I think it’s in character for him and at his best. I like seeing him being outside living in the light free from the shackles of darkness and his abductors. It is satisfying for him to stand up and defy Garon.A fantasy Japanese prince felt refreshing to me versus the usual European fantasy. His dragon form is unique and cool, too bad it is very underused and isn’t much significant in the plot in later points.

His Birthright story reminds me of my favorite movie when I was little, the Prince of Egypt. Like Moses who grew up and was adopted to the enemy kingdom, when he knew the heritage of his birth, he left behind the old comfortable life and doing what is right and to defend his people, even facing the “brother” he grew up with. I love that kind of story, that is why Birthright is so appealing to me.

Closing words

And with that concludes my attempt of doing “”analysis””. I’ve put more effort into writing this than I ever did with my school essays. Like this has 5,000 words! And I didn’t even resort to using redundant word extending techniques. This shows how interest and passion would make you do. As a peak of my fixation, and before this phase wears off at least I have made a writing tribute to my favorite character before I’ll move on to something else. I hope people read and appreciate this because I have poured my heart and soul to this.

It was quite harder than it looks as I am mainly a drawer, not a writer. Writing is a way different beast than art. I was so “Lost in thoughts all alone”, like I got so many ideas, interpretations and understanding but I don’t know how to express it and articulate it, so those words got lost. I had doubts sometimes like who would even read this especially a Lord who has a particular reputation in the Fire emblem fandom. In finishing this I dragged myself on and slogged through, and rushed it just to make it done. I made a self-imposed deadline, and this was supposed to be done by Fate’s 8th anniversary, but I got burnt out and delayed this. Writing is scary, I’ll just go back to art as my own way to appreciate Lord Corrin such as doing illustrations of him.

I did my best with all my abilities and limits. I hope I didn’t miss something. If something was overlooked, please politely correct me and please don’t kill me and tear me to shreds…

And as always:

HOSHIRRIN, BEST CORRIN!!

#male corrin #fire emblem corrin #fire emblem fates #m!corrin #corrin #fe birthright #fire emblem birthright #character analysis #analysis

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dreaminghour · 1 year ago

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QuiAni Omegaverse - Bath

Event: @domaystic Fandom: Star Wars Rating: Teen and Up Prompt: 10 Bath Ship: Qui-Gon/Anakin Context: Omegaverse. Qui-Gon Lives. Canon setting where alpha (aurek) and omega (orenth) are very rare, Anakin finds out that he and Qui-Gon complement one another perfectly when he goes through a second puberty in his early 20s. They've been together for a few months at this point. This is a sequel to the Stained clothes ficlet. (500 words) Words: 673

When Qui-Gon woke, the apartment felt different. Things had been changing over the last few months, more and more with each small piece which Anakin left behind, but there was something indelible when the young man himself was there.

He'd been alright without Anakin, he'd never needed help during his heat before, but he'd undeniably slept better once Anakin had settled by his side. Even now, in an empty bed, he felt better than he had in days; it could have just been that his cycle was ending — even with the pills it was so irregular he wouldn't know until it happened — but instinctively he thought it was Anakin's presence.

The bed smelled like them again, that mix of sugar and spice, of musk and floral. Qui-Gon rolled over to watch the light under the bathroom door, wondering in that vague way what time it was, it felt too early. Time always felt intangible during his heat.

When the light switched off, and Anakin returned, Qui-Gon immediately knew the last campaign had been a bad one. Anakin had won, of course. Qui-Gon could count on one hand the times Anakin had lost, but the toll each battle took was noticeable. He looked tired despite the hours of sleep which lay behind him. Even in the dark, Qui-Gon could see the shadows which clung to Anakin like smokey ichor.

"You're awake?" Anakin asked in a sleep rough voice. He didn't wait for the answer, merely fell into Qui-Gon's arms and snuggled under the blankets once more. His voice was muffled, face pressed against Qui-Gon's neck, "I could sleep for for years."

And almost like a promise, he fell asleep a few moments later.

When Qui-Gon awoke again, it felt like morning rather than the middle of the night. Anakin was curled up on his side, holding Qui-Gon's hand loosely to his chest. In the muted morning light, he looked older than his years, there were lines on his face that Qui-Gon hadn't seen even a ten-day ago. Or maybe it was something else that made Qui-Gon miss the way the war aged Anakin one day and recognize it on another. He pushed flat curls away from the younger man's face and saw the minute way it seemed to relax his entire body.

"I need my hand back, please," Qui-Gon whispered.

Nothing happened, but Qui-Gon gently extracted himself from Anakin's grasp and went to the toilet. On the threshold of coming back out, of turning on the lights and starting the day, Qui-Gon paused.

Anakin hadn't taken off all his clothes before climbing into bed, but even through the fabric the curve of his back seemed tense.

Qui-Gon went back into the bathroom and turned on the tab to fill the tub with hot water.

Five minutes later he was gently shaking Anakin awake.

"I'm going to take a bath," he said as Anakin blearily blinked his eyes. "Would you like to join me?"

Anakin soaped off in the shower stall first, scrubbing his hair for dear life while Qui-Gon settled into the large tub. He didn't use it as often as he would like, but most often when he was sore and aching during his cycle. Anakin had remarked that the tub seemed entirely too massive — until he'd climbed in after Qui-Gon the first time. It was big enough for both of them, especially if Anakin sat between Qui-Gon's thighs.

Qui-Gon held up a hand to steady Anakin as he stepped into the hot water, shivering because he was wet from the shower, still seeming barely awake.

They settled in close, Anakin laying back against Qui-Gon, the other's arms wrapped around him to keep him from slipping under. If Anakin continued to doze, neither of them remarked on it.

Qui-Gon just luxuriated in the moment, with Anakin's body pressed against him, the soft sound of his breathing, the scent of fresh soap in his hair… He'd never expected to find someone like Anakin, but now that he did he'd never willingly let him go.

#quiani #quiani omegaverse au #dreamy does fic #domaystic2023 #2023day10 #star wars #star wars fic #omegaverse fic #dreamy does domaystic #domestic fic #domestic fluff #ficlet

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daily-coloring · 1 year ago

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Best of 2023 - Albums

Unbelievable year ... Fallen pop stars are returning, long time not seen artists are turning up in a best possible shape, producers making music under their own names, ... First of all I really enjoyed a few soundtracks this year especially Anthony Willis's Saltburn and Arnaud Rebotini's L'lle Rouge. Surprisingly I listened again on repeat a few DJ mixes too. Danny Tenaglia's new Global Underground was a pure treasure, James Zabiela's home session just made me dance for an hour in the living room, as well as Andy Butler's energetic set did too.

01. Roisin Murphy - Hit Parade - "If Hit Parade isn’t Murphy’s best album, it’s certainly her wildest and weirdest. Nowhere else is the scale of her ambition more evident than on the percussive and atmospheric “Free Will.” Murphy says she doesn’t believe in free will but that you should “just make believe that you can write the play” anyway. It’s yet another indelible statement that couldn’t come from anyone else." - Slant Magazine

02. Rebecca Black - Let Her Burn - "An acceptable stretch of Let Her Burn gives Black a chance to reform a persona she had never had any control over until now. As fundamental a shift as perhaps expected, Black warrants this change of pace but there is something inevitable about how these perspectives are formed and how retaliation to reactionary dogpiling a decade ago comes to the forefront. Working hard and pushing through with this half-hour debut LP is exceptional, with spotty highs and consistently solid mixes that give those electronic undercurrents a beat-worthy working. Destroy Me is a crucial highlight in getting to the core of reinvention but also in engaging with how buoyed Let Her Burn is by how much of an opposition it takes to the early works. Black has let her burn, whatever “her” was. Let Her Burn razes and destroys as much as it can, and it works as a successful, credible debut." - Cult Following

03. Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Hana

04. Clark - Sus Dog

05. Everything But The Girl - Fuse

06. Depeche Mode - Memento Mori

07. Mermaidens - Mermaidens

08. Kesha - Gag Order

09. Anna B Savage - in|FLUX - "So as a follow up to A Common Turn, this does feel like an album where, lyrically and thematically, we are dealing with an artist who has battled some of the previous demons, accepted the daily flux of life, and found a way to focus on the moments when life feels most complete. But in a musical context – Anna also seems to have taken that feeling, that love of contradiction, into the songs. At moments explosively ecstatic, at others wrought with emotion – and filled with influences and sounds from areas not explored on the previous LP – the album brings a bunch of disparate sounds and feelings together to create a powerful and impressive whole. Most impressive of all is the fact that, after an album that sent Picky Bastards into a spin for the whole of 2021, Anna has released something as good if not better." - Picky Bastards

10. HMLTD - The Worm

11. JMSN - Soft Spot

12. Orbital - Optical Delusion - "It’s an album of unlikely collaborations. Day One features the operatic talents of Dina Ipavic, while Are You Alive, sung by Lily Wolter of Penelope Isles, floats into moodier, more analog territory. Best of all are The New Abnormal (Golden Girls’ Kinetic turned inside out) and the anti-gammon state of the nation rant of Dirty Rats." - Record Collector

13. Spelling - SPELLLING & The Mystery School

14. Future Utopia - We Were We Still Are

15. CLT DRP - Nothing Clever, Just Feelings

16. Joy Wellboy - The Ones That Got Away

17. Pierre Rousseau - Twenty - Music for Etudes N°20 - Spring Summer 2022

18. Joyce Muniz - Zeitkapsel

19. Emiliana Torrini & The Colorist Orchestra - Racing The Storm

20. Thomas Azier - The Inventory Of Our Desire

21. Sofia Kourtesis - Madres

22. Not Waving - The Place I've Been Missing

23. Restive Plaggona - Ignis

24. Deichkind - Neues Vom Dauerzustand

25. Daughter - Stereo Mind Game

26. Daði Freyr - I Made an Album

27. Yves Tumor - Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)

28. Surgeon - Crash Recoil - "Crash Recoil is probably about as close to a live Surgeon record as we’re ever going to get. Child views producing and performing as two disparate disciplines, which they are, and he goes about each in a very different way. This also means it’s about as close to a traditional pop/rock approach to writing and recording as you’re likely to find from an electronic producer, woodshedding tracks on the road and sharpening them to a diamond sheen. More bands and producers should think of adopting the approach as it clearly can yield stunning results, as evidenced by this glorious offering." - Spectrum Culture

29. Duran Duran - DANSE MACABRE

30. When Saints Go Machine - Rosy

31. Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy

32. Maps - Counter Melodies

33. Laurent Garnier - 33 tours et puis s'en vont

34. Benedikt Frey - Fastlane

35. ANOUK - Deena and Jim

36. Anthony Naples - Orbs - "The New York producer once known for muscular house and techno continues to drift into the ether, channeling ’90s chillout and dub techno into his singular vision." - Pitchfork

37. James Holden - Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities

38. Hifi Sean & David McAlmont - Happy Ending

39. Tirzah - trip9love...???

40. Kelela - Raven

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hiddenintheveil · 4 months ago

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Ok, your turn! Tell me about something you find interesting 🌻

In the fanfiction series pray for disaster (when the world is razed we’ll still be burning) by the Archive Of Our Own user Omegalomania, also known as Zero or @graffitibible on Tumblr, there are a variety of words used by characters to indicate a person’s gender identity. These do not match up with our world’s concepts of gender. These words (starshine, earthshine, luneshine, and ringshine) are based on the word “sunshine.” As the society this series is based in is a very informal, unregulated one, “sunshine” takes the place of the formal “person” and informal “guy,” “bro,” or “dude,” albeit in a much more gender-neutral way than either of the latter. This is, at least, the case for the second generation of Killjoys, whose worldview and times we are the most sunk into. Four books are solely about this second generation, more page-time than any of the other three generations we see are given.

Starshine is the Zones’ word for “person who uses he/him.” Luneshine means “person who uses they/them.” Earthshine means “she/her,” and ringshine means “person who uses something different from the above (i.e. it/its or e/em, etc.).” “Woman” and “man” seem to have lost their meanings sometime during the first generation of Killjoys— during the Analog Wars. “Woman” appears only ten times in Peacemaker’s story; seven of those times, Peacemaker is referring to herself. “Man,” (as its own word, not part of “many” or various other words, as far as I can discern quickly) appears only a few more times than that, but no more than thirty times. The books told from the perspectives of the Fabulous Four have as few or fewer mentions; likewise, the Girl’s book only has one mention of the word “woman,” which is in reference to Battery City’s Director. “Woman” and “man”, as labels for a gender identity, became obsolete in the first generation of Killjoys, during the Analog Wars, and were replaced at some point by the various “-shine”s.

I tried to find a closer look at when they may have appeared. Peacemaker, who had not heard of these words, was dracked (brainwashed) in 2012; yet, when Party Poison and the Kobra Kid escape Battery City, all of the words are in widespread use. This means the words must have popped up between those dates. Fun Ghoul’s perspective, we put the faith back in mayhem (it's important to enjoy what you do), reenforces this; all four pop up when he's around thirteen or fourteen. In a comment made on January 10, 2024 on don't tell me to rest in peace while you're still picking the bones of my memory, the author notes that he was eighteen or nineteen when they died in 2019, meaning he was born in 2000 or 2001. Through other context, I was able to figure out that the words were spreading over the radio waves in late 2013 or early 2014. Ghoul escaped Battery City in mid- or late-2012, in the confusion of the Fires of 2012 when the Analog Wars were ended. Shortly before NewsAGoGo, who Ghoul is staying with, mentions any of the ‘shines (Faith, ¼ of the way through chapter 3), Ghoul mentions that he escaped the city “maybe a year, maybe longer” ago (Faith, 1/6 through the way through chapter 3). From this, we can determine that use of the ‘shines was definitely widespread by mid-2014.

This can be narrowed down, however. Kobra mentions the Analog Wars ending (They Made, two-thirds of the way through chapter 1) just before a quick montage of how his training changes as a result of the Wars ending; after this montage, he mentions that he is “thirteen years old, on the leaderboard for a year and counting” (They Made, three quarters of the way through chapter 1). 9 months later, “less than three months from final exams” (They Made, three-quarters of the way through chapter 2), he escapes the City with his brother. "Final exams" were to be taken when he turned fourteen. Therefore, my hypothesis is that the Analog Wars ended at least two, and at most six, months before he turned thirteen. This leaves a gap between the Analog Wars ending and his escape of at least eleven and at most fifteen months for the generation and propagation of the terms. At the very earliest, the ‘shines would have been in widespread use in mid-2013. At the very latest, they would have popped up in early 2014.

How, though, might the words have spread, and what (in-universe) could have possibly inspired them? The first question is easy to answer: the DJs, the voices of the desert, spread a truly ludicrous amount of slang around the desert. They are the reason that Killjoys have any sort of cohesive culture and vocabulary. I assume that most widespread slang, such as “shiny” (meaning good) and “red-line” (to vacate a place quickly) would have originated in a crew with a good relationship with a DJ, who would have then used said slang as a way to further encode messages over the radio.

My personal theory is that Show Pony had a key role to play in the inspiring and spreading of the ‘shines. They were close to a DJ during the timeline under scrutiny. As a nonbinary person, they would have a personal interest in generating and propagating some sort of words to easily communicate pronouns. They might have been far from the ‘original’ nonbinary person we hear of in the Zones (that title might go to El Antagonista or Zero Percent, both members of the First Killjoys), but they are shown to have enough creativity to come up with the terms, and enough sass and charisma to force them into general use.

What could have inspired the terms in-universe is a harder nut to crack. Out-of-universe, the author made a tumblr post talking about how they were inspired by the canon use of “sunshine” and used various astronomy terms to expand on the concept. However, in our world today, connecting the earth to femininity, the stars to masculinity, and the moon or astronomical rings to androgyny is a bit of a stretch. I assume, at least, that (as in our world) pronouns would originally be connected to whatever concepts of gender theory were still floating around after the apocalypse which took place in the late 1990s, even if they concepts became divorced later. Having brainstormed with multiple people on the idea, my best guess is some sort of advertisement campaign connected astronomical terms with gender in the minds of the general populace of Battery City. I am able to extrapolate further, but I will head way too far into the weeds with this, so I’m not going to go there.

So the ‘shines were a contribution to the common slang by the second generation- what did the other generations contribute to ~gender~? The third generation contributed both the combining of various ‘shines to show the use of multiple pronoun sets, alongside the broadening of the term “sunshine.” Whereas before “sunshine” had simply meant “person,” it was shifted to be also used as an identity in the same way the rest of the ‘shines were- “sunshine” became “person who does not have a preference in pronouns used for them” (Messiah, halfway through chapter 3). Before this, the only option for a person without a preference in pronouns, such as Fun Ghoul, was to say “no preference” in response to the unspoken question of someone calling them “sunshine” (Faith, halfway through chapter 4). There was also a de-gendering of “no preference / sunshine;” Fun Ghoul, despite never expressing a preference, is only ever referred to using he/they pronouns. Young Menace of the Defenders crew, on the other hand, is liberally referred to using all three pronoun sets.

I theorize that if the fourth generation of Killjoys had continued in this way, four more terms would have appeared, using “sun” as either a prefix or suffix, meaning “all pronouns, but with a preference on the other half of the word.” For example, sunstar could mean “any pronouns, but with more he and him than anything else.” This is, however, pure speculation on my part, and not to be taken as anything more.

#spokesman of the veil #i have been wanting to fire-hydrant this information at someone for a while. so uh.#why did i add the in-text citations? i was missing actually writing fully-researched essays wgen i started typing this up #(which was about a month ago)#since i finished it just now when im not missing writing essays tho. there are some claims which are thoroughly supported #and some which are... not. ah well.#anyway. to fire-hydrant information: imagine pulling the outlet cap off of a fire hydrant. but with information

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colorisbyshe · 2 years ago

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I think you've talked about this before, but it's so odd to me how the "misogyny defense" always comes out for the randomest shit. I hate gossip sites like the deuxmoi subreddit because I think anyone whose life is so consumed by gossip is weird no matter how many times you say you're not a stan if you have someone's life memorized yes you're a stan. "People hate X thing because it is female coded"/"mostly women do it" can be right in some contexts, but it's a bad hill to die on & not an excuse.

I have spoken about this before!

I just reblogged a post about people using fandom language to make points in social justice issues (the post about people accusing people of being "stans" when they defend abused women like Amber Heard or Megan thee Stallion) but the inverse is true as well--people are using actual social justice terms and concepts to "win" in fandom.

And it's kinda driving home the idea that... a lot of people are so fucking disengaged from real life that the lines are blurring between real issues that have fuck all to do with fandom (like Megan coming forward about being fucking shot) and fake issues that have fuck all to do with systemic oppression (like the boy band you like not being taken seriously because 'uwu most of the fans are teenage girls').

Social justice exists as a place to "own" people you disagree with and win brownie points for being the most progressive/oppressed person in the room rather than like... a meaningful movement to improve the material reality of vulnerable people. Like, these people have no interest in benefiting anyone other than themselves.

The same way people are trying to boycott Loona's next comeback because it seems Loona hasn't been paid ANY wages and the girls are stuck in contracts they are trying to escape but a lot of people have made their "jobs" in the boycott making it so people can still consume Loona's content (reposting teasers and videos so fans can still enjoy them, promoting pirated music so people can still listen, and creating fan spaces so "people can still talk about the girls").

The boycott to actually help these 11-12 women who are being fucked over by a company suddenly is second place to the fandom's enjoyment of the product of their exploitation. The boycott is just window dressing to make them seem progressive.

And this is all over the place. You think Wednesday is a poorly written, racist show? Well, you don't respect teenage girls, you misogynist. You're tired of the MCU's monopoly on the film industry? Well, you just hate it now that their leads are slightly more diverse than they were 10 years ago. You don't support Bros because it looks like a dog shit film? Well why aren't you supporting a film by gay people for gay people.

Nothing exists on its own merits. And real issues get swept under the rug because there is no social standing to be gained by caring about them.

OR people will promote half-assed, often ultimately harmful "solutions" to these issues to prove they care and then refuse to engage when those "solutions" end up being debunked or exposed. Because that would ruin the value they got from pretending to be saviours. (See: when people were promoting BUYING INDIVIDUAL BULLETS to help Ukraine. And then that was tied to fucking nazi groups.)

Everything is about the SOCIAL not the justice.

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kachuusha · 4 years ago

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why I think isayama did itend to hint some romance between levi and hanji

this is kind of a ranty post because I am tired of being told to not ship levihan because apparently "it ruins their friendship"

ever since the beginning of aot isayama had shown us snippets of levi and hanji's closeness and how well they know each other. yes their bond that was portrayed in the earlier stages of the series does not necessarily have to mean that they have romantic feelings for one another. yes it is valid to interpret some of those interactions as romantic but they could also be just purely planotic. but this is where chapters 115, 126 and 132. those are the chapters that I think solidified the fact that levi and hanji. what happened in chapters 126 and 132 are things you cannot simply brush off as platonic.

one does not simply ask someone to run away and live with them. people would always counter this with "but hanji only said that because they are tired!", yes hanji is tired that is an undeniable fact given what hanji was put through in that month alone. but if isayama's only intented to show us that hanji is tired so they wanted to run away, why did he go for a dialogue that may have romantic implications? why did it have to be "maybe we should just live here together right levi?" and not hanji directly stating that they are tired and they want to run away? another thing to note is that this was not the first time isayama implemented this narrative. here is a compilation of the amount of times the living together plot was included in the story. also why would isayama bother drawing hanji blushing? yes hanji does blush a lot but the context of the scene is important. why did hanji blush this time? because levi heard what they said which sounds a lot like a proposal. again I would get countered by people claiming that levi rejected hanji. but did he though? levi wakes up to hanji already fixing a cart that can transport him, this is a strong implication that hanji was not going to stay in the forest. maybe for a brief moment they had really considered of just staying there with levi. hanji actually admits to mikasa and jean that they had thought of abandoning everything. but doing that would he very uncharacteristic of hanji. maybe hanji said that because for a moment they wanted to be selfish, to have something for themself. to be able to say something that they desire which is a life of peace and with levi safe by their side. but deep down hanji knows they couldn't abandon the people who need them and waste the sacrifices their comrades had made. that's why levi tells hanji that he knows them. levi knows that hanji wouldn't be able to bear the guilt of leaving everything and everyone behind. and to that hanji agrees with levi that yes they can't. so where is the rejection? all I see are two people who have decided to walk on the same path. to me, levi's words felt more like an assurance that he is on the same page as hanji and is affirming their decision. another thing is that when levi asks hanji where will running get them. that felt like an implication that they cannot run away yet not when they have responsibilities to bear. because by simply running away they cannot achieve true peace.

by now I am pretty sure that most of you by now are aware of levi's unrequited love dialogue in 132. I also discussed this in a separate post so check it out if you want. why would isayama insert something like this in the dialogue? levi implies that hanji's love for titans is unrequited but there is a mutual feeling with someone. I've seen people say names of other characters but that doesn't make much sense considering hanji just practically confessed to levi a few days ago in their universe. whose mutual feelings is levi going to naturally confirm them? wouldn't it make sense if it was with him?

and of course levi saying dedicate you heart for the very first time and he said it as a farewell for hanji. this isn't something you can simply brush off because levi has been in the survey corps for 10 years and this was the only time he says it. not only that but he couples it with the gesture of striking up his left fist over hanji's heart. why couldn't he just do a standard salute and hanji would salute back to him? why did it have to be something that looks so personal? and the focus on their eyes and hanji's quivering lips is just something so powerful.

then we even get isayama uploading a photo of that levi panel saying see you hanji in 132 but without his bandages so we could clearly see levi's sorrowful expression. for what reason did he upload this? and first of all he really had to take a photo of it because covering levi's face in bandages.

just recently, 138 was released and it practically confirms eremika as a canon ship. and the thing about that? there are numerous parallels with levihan with the dialogues and how some panels were drawn. also made another post on it so here is the link if you are interested.

so if isayama only intended for levi and hanji's bond to be seen as platonic then why would he bother inserting hints that are romantic in nature? like I said in the beginning, some can be taken as purely platonic in context but the other ones are blatantly romantic. and them having parallels with a ship that is strongly hinted to be canon is just something you can simply brush off.

this became a bit longer than I thought. if you made it until the end then thank you. there are some things about 115, 126 and 132 that I still did not say in this because I am planning to make separate posts about them when aot ends. so basically this concludes my rant on why I think isayama was indeed inserting romantic hints in levihan's dynamic.

#levihan #levi #hanji #snk #aot #ilevihan #isnk #i

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waithyuck · 4 years ago

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beautiful

pairing: cambion! lee donghyuck/haechan x reader (f) **halloweenie special**

genre: smut, supernatural au

word count: 4.6k

warnings: brief allusions to darker themes, brief thoughts/desires to harm the reader in a consensual sexual context (reader is really into it and encourages it), explicit language, sexual content, unprotected sex, cumming inside, blood, rough handling, hyuck has a big dick whoops, hyuck is also a half demon so he gets a lil sadistic you have been warned

a/n: this was really fun to write and I’m really excited to see all of your reactions after reading lol

{cambion: offspring of a demon and a human; commonly has physical deformities and can exhibit evil and malicious behavior.}

< previous | next >

~10/17/2020~

~~~~

the world you lived in now was one that society probably could have never predicted back a hundred years ago. you were sure no one thought that humans would live amongst creatures far beyond the common imagination, nor did you think that they thought the human race would still come out on top.

most would assume that supernatural creatures would have taken over the hierarchy easily, but that was not the case for this world. even though there were demons, angels, dragons–you name it, they existed– somehow the humans still ruled.

from what you could understand, it was because the supernatural were threatened since the very beginning of their known existence. unfortunately for them, the human government now had the means (and the firepower) to keep them subdued. they were essentially forced to keep their powers subdued, for the “greater good of the population”, as the people in charge put it.

ever since you were a child, there had been at least a handful of non-human children that were part of your classes at school. not many, since there were fears of bullying and harm from other students toward them, but enough to make a lasting impression on you.

at first, you were curious. you remember one instance back in grades school where you wouldn't stop staring at a young werewolf boy; too young to hide his teeth or his tail. you didn’t stare because you hated him or wanted to pick on him; you really thought he was amazing, but didn’t have the words to explain that to him at such a young age.

you’re proud to say you’ve grown a lot since then. now in college, you treated those different to you as equals, as you should. you try not to stare or question, and of course you’re never mean and you don’t bully, nor do you condone bullying.

seeing the supernatural constantly being picked on was something that always made you feel sick. they weren’t legally allowed to use their powers or strength, leaving them at a disadvantage to cowardly human bullies. you didn’t doubt that if the supernatural were able to fight back, the humans would cower in three seconds flat, and you would have yourself a good laugh.

speaking of bullies, you unfortunately had to pass by a group of girls who were berating a boy you’ve seen across campus a few times. as you walked, you couldn’t hear what they were saying, but you could see the boy becoming visibly more upset (or angry, rather) as time went on.

lee donghyuck was usually an individual who kept to himself, most definitely because of his genetic makeup. the experts around the school determined that he was a cambion; a half human half demon offspring, to which donghyuck apparently confirmed. people would constantly come at him for his singular red eye or the talons that were only on his left hand.

to be honest, you were always a little afraid of him. sticking up for him was very heavily outweighed by the fear he might lash out at you for helping, making him feel weak or something. but today something inside you screamed for you to help him, no matter the consequences.

you just hoped he didn’t tear you to shreds with his sharp talons.

you changed course and walked straight up to the group of nasty girls, them not even noticing you until you stepped in front of donghyuck, much to his surprise as well as theirs.

“can you guys leave him alone?” you stupidly asked, your voice not coming out as strong as you would have liked it to. the ‘leader’ of the pack looked shocked for a second, before laughing in your face.

“oh my god!” she laughed, clutching her stomach. “why are you trying to defend this freak? hoping he’ll fuck you or something?”

you felt your face heat up in embarrassment but you held your ground, not tearing your eyes away from her or moving from your spot in front of the half-demon boy.

“no,” you firmly stated, “I’m just trying to defend him from low-lifes who think it’s cool to pick on him for things he can’t control.”

you gave yourself a mental high five for maintaining your composure. you couldn’t see donghyuck’s face but you were really hoping he wasn’t angry. you didn’t turn to face him just yet.

the girl in front of you dropped her smile, a scowl replacing it as she scoffed in your face. she let out a “whatever,” before motioning for her posse to follow her as she walked away.

well, that was easier than you thought it was gonna be.

“why did you do that?” the boy behind you suddenly asked, his voice soft but it still managed to startle you. you turned to face him, putting on your biggest smile.

“I can’t stand when people pick on others for things that can’t be controlled.” you explained simply, looking him in the eye even though your heart was ready to explode out of your chest. “you didn’t decide to be what you are, so no one should belittle you for that.”

he cracked a small smile at you, and at that moment a friendship formed, whether the two of you realized it or not.

donghyuck allowed you to grow close to him, which you thought was the most amazing thing. he opened himself up to you, and you became great friends over the course of the winter semester into the spring. in turn you opened up to him, and the two of you had a pure and healthy friendship.

he smiled with you and joked around, laughing and being playful in your presence. not many people bothered him when you were around, most likely because they didn’t feel like fighting with someone, which you and hyuck were grateful for.

hyuck was always gentle; he never wanted to hurt anyone or anything, not even the smallest ants on the ground. he was very careful not to touch you, in fear he would be unaware of his inhuman strength and hurt you or accidentally scratch you with his sharp claws. you didn’t mind him being wary, but there was a part of that wished he would be comfortable enough for at least a hug.

of course you didn’t push him.

currently you sat with him in an empty art classroom, helping him with his literature paper while you painted the way the sun reflecting off the walls on your canvas. the sun touched his face beautifully, and as much as you wanted to paint him instead of the boring room, you kept your mind on track.

you worked in silence for a few moments, enjoying each other’s presence in the warmth of dusk, but of course no good thing lasts forever, and your peace was rudely interrupted as you heard the door slide open.

“hey, half-breed!” a girl shouted, causing hyuck to grip his pencil so hard it splintered completely in half, shocking you as you watched the top half fly in the air. “who’s this? your new little girlfriend?” the girl smirked evilly, looking at her painted nails before going on. “best be careful you don’t scare her away with your demonic tendencies. I bet you can’t even touch her without wanting to tear her to shreds with those ugly claws.” she snickered along with her posse of friends, and at that point you scowled at them, ready to rip them all new assholes. as you prepared to stand up to defend your friend, he stopped you with his own actions.

donghyuck let a loud growl rip through his throat, turning to face the bullies and effectively silencing them with the menacing sound. it shocked you, but you stood your ground and gripped his jacket sleeve to ground him despite your trembling fingers.

“I didn’t ask to be this way!” he practically screamed, intimidating the group standing before you even further. “do you think my mother asked for this? to have a burden of a son?” his voice was starting to fill with despair, and you could feel it inside you that he was struggling to keep his composure.

donghyuck sniffed and glared at the wall, not giving his tormentors the time of day any more.

“just leave me the fuck alone, would you?” he asked quietly, an aggressive air still present in his low tone.

one by one you watched the bullies file out, most of them shocked at hyuck’s sudden display of hostility. you supposed that they weren’t expecting him to finally fight back after all this time.

he stayed brooding beside you, and when you tried to find his gaze with your own, he shut his eyes as a stray tear fell down his cheek. before you could comment on it, he roughly wiped it away, still not meeting your kind eyes.

“donghyuck…” you whispered, your voice gentle as you tried to get his attention. “will you look at me?”

when he didn’t move or respond, you grasped his hand gently, failing to ignore the way he jumped at the contact.

“come on,” you spoke softly, tugging his arm slightly. “let’s go back to my place.”

he didn’t say anything in response, but allowed you to lead him back to your empty dorm room across campus. it was a silent walk, but you never let go of his hand, and he didn’t seem to want you to let go either, the tight grip he held on you being a clear sign.

when you arrived, you lazily pushed the door open, and led him to sit down on your creaky bed. you tried to pull your hand out of his own to go switch on the lights, but his grip only grew tighter, pulling your arm and causing you to fall down to sit next to him. you didn’t comment on the sudden slightly aggressive way he handled you; you only worried for him as he sat in the darkness of the room.

“...are you alright?” you asked, silently cursing yourself after a moment for asking such a stupid question.

he was silent for a moment, only breathing softly in the quietness in the room, before he sighed shakily and spoke up

“she should have gotten rid of me when she had the chance,” he whispered, his gaze cast downward as he shakily breathed before you. “she told me she couldn’t do it. she told me she wanted to be able to love me.”

you could safely assume he was referring to his mother, and the solemn tone in his voice made you fight back tears. you still never let go of his hand.

“I’m a living reminder of the trauma she went through…yet everyday when she looked at me, she never complained.” at this you saw a tear escape his left eye, the red iris glassy as the tears spilled forth.

“I’m a fucking monster.”

you felt your heart shatter.

here was this broken boy in front of you, claiming he was a monster for things he could have never even hoped to control. he was never malicious; he was always so gentle with everything, especially toward you. He stayed quiet when people relentlessly picked on him, never fighting back until today. as far as you were concerned, there was no way that he could ever be considered a monster, no matter what his genetic make up was or how he looked to other.

“what?” you questioned abruptly, your voice raising sightly above a whisper. “how could you say that? you’re not a monster, lee donghyuck.” he turned to look at you then, his eyes wide with curiosity as he watched you continue to speak. “you have a heart of gold. you’re always so gentle and caring with me, and other living creatures around you. you never fight back and i’ve never seen you hurt anyone.” you tore your eyes away from him, panting as you looked down at your lap, the rant you were going on making you emotional. “you are absolutely not a monster.”

he looked conflicted and turned his back to you, and you assumed it was because he didn’t want you to see what he was feeling. your hands were now apart, no longer in the comforting embrace of each other's warmth.

“...I could hurt you.” he mumbled quietly, and you weren’t able to detect the emotion in his voice. your eyebrows furrowed at the sudden statement, and you were quick with your rebuttal.

“you won’t.”

when he turned around and abruptly gripped your throat with his clawed fingers, you flinched instinctively but didn’t react further than that, challenging his angry gaze with a hard and confident stare. even though your heart was beating through your ribcage, you decided to grip his wrist with your own fingers as you looked at him, preparing to speak with a hard swallow that he surely felt against his palm.

“you can’t hurt me,” you said in a small voice, your lips quivering despite you trying your best to keep your composure. “you won’t. I know you won’t.” you continued, watching his face subtly change into one of confusion. his eyes were still transfixed on you; one crimson red like the blood flooding through your veins, and the other warm and brown, almost inviting you to get closer.

your grip on his warm wrist tightened, your other hand coming up to daringly caress his face, not hesitating to smooth over his soft cheek as he stared at you in complete awe.

“I trust you, donghyuck.”

fuck, you really wanted to kiss him.

he beat you to it though, pressing his lips against yours tightly, causing you to squeak in surprise. you kissed him back with as just as much feeling, your mouths moving together in sync. his clawed hand moved from your throat to rest on his leg (a little to your dismay, if you were being honest), and his other came up to gently caress your cheek as he deepened the kiss with his tongue.

“h-hyuck,” you played, pulling back only a centimeter, hips lips chasing yours. “is th-this okay? are you—“ his lips on yours cut you off, and he hummed into it before pulling away.

“I-I want you,” he stated quietly, looking down at his lap before flitted his eyes to yours once more. “if you’ll have me.”

you stared at him for a moment, overwhelming emotions filling your eyes and heart before you nodded and practically pounced on him.

the two of you kissed like there were no other worries in the world; it was just you both enjoying each other in the dim light of your room, feeling one another.

his hands didn’t touch you, but he allowed you to pull him over top of you on the bed, your back against the sheets as his body laid on top of yours.

with every moment that ticked past you grew more confident, and after a while you began fitting your hips up against his, delighted at the small friction you were creating.

“hyuck,” you whined, your hands moving to grip at the hair at the base of his neck. “pl-please, I want your fingers,” you were begging, but didn’t feel an ounce of embarrassment as his lust filled eyes stared back you, his plump lips parted. “please,”

he didn’t hesitate to help you out of your clothes, careful of his claws as he removed your pants and shirt. he freed you from your underwear and bra, leaving you bare in front of his full clothed form.

his right hand delicately smoothed down your thigh, spreading your legs apart so he could take a good look at you. you were wet and you knew it, and you threw an arm over your face to suppress your moans as he experimentally drug a finger through your soaked folds.

you didn’t have to wait long for him to sink a single digit inside you, and you let out a drawn out whine in response as he started gently thrusting it in and out of your clenching hole.

“is that good?” he asked lowly, not taking his eyes off the sight of his finger disappearing inside you. he was bold enough to add a second finger and even moved his thumb to press on your clit, and you keened at the sudden feeling.

“yes, so good baby,” you breathed in response, gripping the sheets beside you on both hands.

donghyuck eventually worked up to push a third finger inside you, and you practically howled at the feeling of being filled. his fingertips pressed into all your sweet spots, making you feel dizzy.

“mmnnff, hyuck,” you whimpered, catching his attention. he looked at you with dark eyes, his mouth parted as his tongue poked out to lick his lips. “what do you w-wanna do to me?”

it was a valid question, and it seemed to catch him off guard for a moment. hyuck seemed to be holding himself back from doing what he actually wanted, or behaving like he actually wanted to.

he quickly recovered, and withdrew his fingers from you in one quick movement. he moved them to your mouth and you caught the hint, only able to take in two of them. you suckled on his digits as you stared at him with doe eyes innocently, like you weren’t sucking off the excess juices from your pussy.

“I wanna fuck you,” he simply stated, watching you like a predator as you released his fingers from your mouth. “I wanna feel you, y/n. all of you.”

you couldn’t deny him that.

you sat up quickly and moved to tear at his shirt, the fabric peeling over his head before being thrown across the room in your haste. you worked at his pants and was successful at undoing the button and zipper, and he kicked them off his legs in one swift move.

you stared at the impossibly large bulge in his boxers, but didn’t allow yourself to become intimidated.

you would make him fit. you wanted to feel him stretch you out. you would make it work.

once his underwear was discarded, you watched his cock twitch against his stomach in awe. he sat at the edge of the bed, his feet planted on the floor as you moved to situate yourself on his lap.

you kissed him once more before a determined look graced your face, and you positioned your entrance above him, ready to begin.

“what do you really want to do to me?” you asked him again as you sank down onto his cock, watching as his nose scrunched up at the feeling of your wet and hot walls surrounding his painfully hard member.

in your periphery you could see his fingers flex like he wanted to reach out and touch you or grab you, but he was fighting himself. you sat still in his lap, his dick buried to the hilt inside you, pressing against your cervix because of how deep he was. you reached out and grabbed both of his hands, placing them on your hips.

“I w-wanna…” he started, gulping as his hands stayed feather light against your skin, still afraid to touch you fully. you clenched your walls around him playfully, watching as his expression changed from innocent and hesitant, to cold and dark in mere seconds.

his fingers gripped you fully, but he was still careful not to pierce your skin with the talons on his left hand. his right hand gripped your hip posessively, and it felt like he was close to crushing the bone. you gasped at the feeling, but welcomed the pain.

“I wanna hurt you,” he snarled, moving forward to nip at your vulnerable throat, causing his cock to move ever so slightly against your walls. “I wanna make you scream, cry, bleed...everything.”

you gasped at his words, your pussy clenching at the thought of him absolutely annihilating you, leaving you broken and unable to function as a normal human being ever again.

he must have taken your gasp the wrong way, and definitely must have not felt your walls clamp down on him, because he pulled away from your neck to look you in the eye, looking ashamed at his confession.

“you must be scared of me now,” he mumbled, looking away. “I knew this would happ–“

you cut him off by gripping his jaw in your hands, forcing him to face you as you crashed your lips against his. you moved your hands and gripped his hair, tugging roughly as you both made out messily, your body still impaled on his insanely large cock.

“fuck, donghyuck,” you panted, pulling away. “that’s so fucking hot, please,” you began rolling your hips against him, causing you both to groan. “I w-want it, please,”

he looked at you briefly before nodding his head, a movement so slight you would have missed it if you had blinked.

even though he had nodded his head, he didn’t go rough on you like you knew he wanted to. instead, he began helping you lift yourself up and down his cock, effectively fucking you onto himself. he threw his head back and moaned, and you took the opportunity to kissing along his throat and around his adam’s apple. you shivered as he growled, feeling the deep vibrations against your lips.

it felt so incredibly good to be filled with him; your walls clamped tightly around him as you swiveled and lifted your hips up and down on his lap, continuously making the both of you moan out in pleasure. it was indescribable; the way you felt almost overwhelming and you felt wetness forming in your eyes as you buried your face in his warm neck, the tears finally spilling. your broken cries egged him on, causing his hips to lift in time with you, thrusting his hard cock in and out of you with more force.

his soft grunts and groans in your ear had your walls fluttering, and with every grind against him you felt his skin brush your clit, pushing you further and further toward your impending climax. you were more worked up than you originally had thought.

“I-I thought you wanted to hurt me,” you provoked, the pace not faltering as you fucked each other with abandon. he let out a low snarl in response, but still didn’t become rough like you really wanted him to. “ come on, hyuck,” you whined out, tugging on his hard harder.

he seemed to be growing close to his end, his hips moving faster and with less precision. an idea popped into your mind, maybe not a good one, but an idea nonetheless.

you weren’t sure if it was going to work, but it was worth a shot.

you smirked to yourself.

“c-cum inside me,” you whimpered quietly in his ear, and you heard him slightly gasp at the request. “pl-please,” you begged further, your nails digging into his shoulders in result of the stimulation you were being subjected to. “I need t-to f-feel you cum inside…”

as you trailed off he roughly gripped your hips, lifting you off him with a loud growl, causing a sharp whine to escape you at the feeling of his cock slipping from your sensitive walls.

he had you on your back in seconds; lifting your legs to wrap around his waist tightly before he grabbed your hips and hoisted them in the air, pushing his cock into you again and starting a fast and rough pace immediately.

you were seeing stars at this point, not even acknowledging the pain of his talons suddenly ripping into the skin of your right side, causing blood to trickle down onto your clean sheets. it didn’t matter to you, and in some fucked up way, you seriously enjoyed the pain.

your orgasm was building very quickly, and with one final and brutal thrust from him, you were coming undone, his cock buried incredibly deep inside you.

he held you against him as he shot his cum inside you, not allowing you to squirm away as your walls clenched hard around him to the point where it was almost painful. he growled lowly as he emptied himself in your pussy, watching your face as it contorted in pleasure with an almost sinister smirk on his face.

as you came down from your overwhelming climax, you realized that he was still hard inside you, filling you up to the brim with not only his cock, but his cum as well.

you looked up at him surprised, and he only looked back at you with that same sinister smile.

“I’m not done yet,” he growled out, his voice deeper than you’ve ever heard it before. you breathed out heavily, looking up at him and taking in the largeness of his pupils; they were blown out so wide that you could barely make out the color of his irises.

he leaned his body down over you, his head moving next to yours as his lips brushed up against your ear. his movements caused his still hard cock to nudge even deeper inside you, and you gasped at the sensation.

“can you take it?” he asked, lightly nipping at your ear as he began softly grinding his hips into you once again.

you were sensitive, but the feeling of him moving inside you had your stomach fluttering, causing your walls to clench around him. you could practically hear his smirk as he chuckled, and your heart jumped at the sound.

you breathily begged for him to fuck you again, to really fuck you how he wanted to, and of course he couldn’t say no to that.

his hips pulled back and plunged into your core, the mess of both your juices squelching and spilling out as he ravaged you completely. he kept his face buried in your neck, his panting breaths tickling your skin as he groaned out with each powerful thrust.

you gripped at his back and allowed your nails to scratch down his skin, a desperate attempt to keep yourself sane. each hoarse whine that escaped from your throat only encouraged him further, and he quickened his pace to an inhuman speed.

your clit barely needed any stimulation for you to cum again.

“I-I’m sorry hyuck, I c-can’t,” you breathed out, gasping for air. “I can’t h-hold it,”

he bit your throat lightly in response, soothing the area with his tongue before speaking.

“It’s okay, baby.” he grunted, his hips losing their rhythm slightly as he pressed on. “I’m close too. just let go.”

that was all you needed to allow the band to snap, your second orgasm washing over you in waves. you didn’t realize you had sunk your teeth into his shoulder until he moaned loudly, causing you to open your eyes as he shot his cum inside you for the second time.

his hips continued to buck reflexively, and he lifted his head to capture your lips in a messy kiss, his tongue finding its way inside your mouth immediately.

it was quick but passionate, and you swore you could feel every emotion he felt for you with just that one kiss.

when he pulled out, you observed carefully as his eyes watched his cum drop out of you, his pupils still wide as he licked his lips. he snapped himself out of it when you opened your arms, inviting him to lay with you as you both came down from the exertion.

you played with his hair softly in the silence of the worm, the only sounds being of your breaths. as you closed your eyes, you heard him mumble.

“I think I love you.” he said quietly, trailing his finger up your stomach.

you immediately smiled, your heart warming with happiness.

“I think I love you too, hyuck.”

#haechan smut #nct-writers #neothestars #neowritingsnet #nct #nct 127 #haechan #donghyuck #lee donghyuck #nct dream #nct smut #nct 127 smut #nct dream smut #haechan scenarios #nct scenarios #nct dream scenarios #nct 127 scenarios #halloweenie special

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just2bubbly · 3 years ago

Text

Sometimes Love Stays

Masterlist

TLC Ship Week 2021!

*written for tlcshipweek2021- kaider for the prompt 'In another life'

@kaiderforever

Summary

"Hmm.."

"Do you?"

"Wish you happiness? Yeah, Kai, I do- with all my heart."

"I wish you were happiness!"

Sometimes love becomes stronger overcoming the obstacles thrown along your path, but when the obstacles never end and you become tired enough to want to stop, will 'Love' help overcome the new problem or would it be succumbed to obstacle?

When their future doesn't play out as they want to, will they dare to take a chance or lose everything without trying?

Reading an article, Cinder is thrown back into the past, trying to figure out if the choices she made were right.

A look at Kai and Cinder's relationship through newspaper article fragments.

Ship: Kaider

Words: 3.2k

Genre: Angst

Prompt: 'In Another Life'

Note: A Canon Divergence AU from Winter- major character/ relationship reflection. Bold contexts are newspaper articles!

Cinder's Perspective:

"Sometimes love stays."

The article read and Cinder could not bring it upon herself to understand the implications of those three words. She considered it was the most preposterous sentence to start a piece of news informing about a break-up. Her mind could only fathom that a hopeless romantic had written this article, one who most certainly believed in unrequited love and stuff- That she could be sure from the very first line. "Many times love seems to not reside in a relationship as the lovers struggle to continue to live together after years of togetherness, but this does not appear to be the case in the infamous royal courtship that lasted for over 10 years but was suddenly called off 2 years ago- Yes, we are talking about no one but The Emperor of Eastern Commonwealth and The Queen of Luna- " Cinder seemed to convince herself that she was only reading it because it was the most trending news on Earth. Yet it was no new news to her or even anyone on Earth and the saint forsaken rock Luna as well. The article had become famous only for its illustrating language and artistic words that seemed to give the entire ordeal a new look. Hence, after having ignored, overlooked and unseen the article, its rumours and the stink eye that her aristocrats sent along her way. She finally decided to read it and fucking get over it- just like she got over him. It was fucking simple until it was not. "The infamous break-up of The Emperor of EC and the Queen of Luna happens to be no news to us. It has been two years since the two royals called off their relationship in the name of diplomatic and personal reasons. However, it appears that the years apart have done no good to their awkward and unresolved heartfelt tension." She wondered which newbie journalist had decided to write about this- about them, the two lovers madly in love with each other, stubborn enough to put others above themselves and naive enough to let it all go. She could feel her body going stiff as she tried to muster up the courage to continue reading. Her mind going numb just like it always did when thoughts of Kai resurfaced. The memories and the murmurs, their banters, his adoration all seemed to drown her with misery- one where she could not shed a single tear but only carry the overwhelming weight of the past of what they had- of what they had lost. It had been good- going at first with the frequent comms in their free time, flying kisses from literally two different worlds, exchanging gifts thanks to the Rampion, jumping at the first chance to meet each other. They were happy and yet they were not. With near to 10 years into being the Queen of Luna, she had thought that maybe she had given her bit to the moon, and now she could step down from her role and convert Luna into a republican state. She had planned her future, their future, the future of thousands of people and had acted accordingly to liberate Luna from the clutches of a single person, forgetting about what the people would have to say about it? Apparently, Lunars loved royalty more than equal representation! Consequently, when she had put the matters of 'abolition of monarchy' to vote she had been made a fool in her own court with the outcome - her vote against all of them. When she had demanded an explanation out of Iko for such a bizarre scenario. She had acknowledged, "They seem to like you as their Queen. It is clear they don't want you to step down!?" "But what about equal representation?" "Cinder you are already giving it to them!" "And what about the aristocrats- Don't they want more say in the administration?" "They do want it but not with the responsibility. Thus they have started preaching about royalty and stuff..." she trailed. Dumbstruck, she had thought how can one gift someone freedom when they don't want it? That's where things started looking down. This made all her plans go downhill. Because hadn't she planned that she would step down, abolish the monarchy and turn it into a Republican government? Hadn't she decided she would be free to live her own life on Earth?

Hadn't she wondered how she would travel with Thorne on Rampion- be truly free for once in her life before having to settle down? Before having to go to New Beijing.

Hadn't they planned that they would stay together- and with every passing day weren't they coming near to achieving their intention to constantly stay together and make up for all the physical affection they had been deprived of over the years? Wasn't it what their future was going to be off? With this new hurdle, plans had to be changed and when she had mentioned this to Kai, he was grief-stricken. Even then, they came up with alternatives, for at that time it was clear- they wanted to spend the rest of their together. They had discussed spending their time between Earth and Luna, tackling the barriers of distance and royalty. It's not like they did not try, it's just that every time they strived harder to stay together- fate made it impossible to. A year later, the realization dawned upon her. It had really taken a long time but it had finally crashed- the full reality of their long-distance engagement relationship, that maybe it was taking a toll on them. That maybe they would not survive through all the distance separating them. She had been avoiding thinking about it lately but she knew even if they tried it was not going to work out, that sooner or later they would have to call it off. 'Call what off?' She had asked herself, wondering how things were going to change. 'All of it' a tiny voice in her mind replied. The engagement, the relationship. Everything. That night she decided against comming Kai, instead, she confronted Iko speaking of her troubling thoughts aloud and from the dark blue, somewhat grey colours of her eyes, Cinder understood how truly sorry she was.

She sat in the arms of Iko, wanting to whine, yell and cry. However, the cruel fate left her with a throbbing sensation in her head and an itchy feeling in the throat. She wanted to see Kai, but she had not the heart to tell him the truth. She presumed he already knew what was troubling her- troubling them. She had not the courage to see the sorrow on his face, so she pretended that everything was fine even when it was not. She smiled and teased him at all the opportunities she could possibly get knowing very well that one day that they would have to stop. One day he would have someone else do that to him. Therefore the next time she had gone on Earth she had confessed it to him. He had listened patiently without a word and had calmly accepted it. The unforgettable silence that followed would haunt Cinder forever. She thought they had fooled themselves enough trying to make the impossible happen, justifying their actions as a result of love. In the end, he had sighed, tears reflecting in his copper-brown orbs and croaked, "I guess this is the end?" She had nodded failing to meet his eyes. "Sorry, Kai", she had uttered, feeling every ounce guilty and sorrowful. They had stood like that for a long time, feet shuffling- gazes never meeting each other until he was called. He did not shed a single tear before her. On her last night at the Palace, she felt a sort of Deja-Vu for all the things around her. Her thoughts roamed around only a single thing- 'After today, this place would no longer be home'. He had come to her room that night and once they had gotten over the awkward small talk of the breakup, he had launched at her and hugged her till her bones crushed. "I love you," he whimpered. "Don't forget it- don't forget it, Cinder. Even when you go to that fucking rock in the sky." And Cinder could feel something warm- not inside her but on her shoulders.

Kai's tears had been falling on her shoulders and she had chanted sorry all the time they stayed like that.

'What do you do to calm two heartbroken souls?'

He was in her arms hearing her speak, though her words were not soothing, they did not reduce his grief like they ought to. They were bitter truth of their future, their fate. They were apologies for what they had lost. Her words were not comforting. She was not going to tell him how they will be fine when she knew they would not. There was no point lying- telling him nicely painted lies of their future when their present was broken like that. She had no idea how but they fell asleep together, a mess of tumbled limbs on the carpet for the last time. And when the streaks of sunlight fell over their sleeping forms, it was not out of hope.

"It seems that it's over for the two royals, one of them the Queen of Luna and the other The Emperor of Eastern Commonwealth. Queen Selene, 26 and Emperor Kaito, 28 called off their relationship yesterday. Emperor Kaito in his latest press speech stated that "Myself and Queen Selene are no longer together- we have parted ways on good terms. However, we are no longer involved," when one of the reporters asked if there was any wedding to be expected soon. The Queen of Luna also addressed this in one of her official posts, saying "It's been great 10 years with Kai but we can no longer stay together," with a bittersweet smile. The two refuse to brief about this. It just seems like just yesterday they were THE happier and attractive couple dancing at the Annual Peace Ball and -well now they are not, we are sure their fans all around must be heartbroken but worry not you can catch up on their relationship through the years-" Two months later, they formally announced their break-up. They called off everything- all of it just like she had thought. The world did not know- they did not know how Kai had gone down on his knees and she had said yes before he could even ask. How she had pieces of her never- going to happen wedding vows drafted somewhere in her brain. It was only them, Torin, Iko and their friends who knew the disaster of grief they had unrolled in their life. He had refused to take the ring back, "Keep it to remember me by." He had insisted and she had not-so jokingly replied, "I don't need jewels to remember you by." Returning to Luna had been the harder task, She-They had cut off all ties except maybe friendship (?) but things were going to be different- they are different.

It felt hollow for months later, she drowned herself in work to forget about the messy-haired boy, to forget that there was no one waiting for her comms now, that she did not have someone to whisper 'I love you's too', to kiss him and be found by someone, no reason for Thorne to shout 'Get a room.'

She had for the first few days been hopeless- locking herself up, both metaphorically and literally only to realize that Kai had been an integral part of her daily schedule and world even from thousands of miles away. The breaks that she once looked forward too, taunted her of what she had lost- so she was hell-bent on working the day without breaks. She forced her mind to not stray around to the boy on Earth. The only moment she had let her guard down was when Thorne was visiting- because he was her BFF and wasn't he the one who teased her all along about Kai and his heavenly copper-brown eyes? Wasn't he going to be her rock where she had lost her anchor? At the sight of his friend's dark circles, thinner than the usual frame, Thorne and Cress had bear-hugged her and the only thing that she felt was it felt good to be embraced by someone other than Iko. 'I'm so sorry, Cinder', Thorne had said and she had croaked, "Don't be sorry." She had cracked that day.

"I DON'T WANT PITY THORNE, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR HOW PEOPLE THOUGHT WE WOULD GET MARRIED AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. I DON'T WANT THE MEDIA TO TELL ME HOW WE LOOKED GOOD TOGETHER. I FUCKING HATE LUNARS TELLING ME THAT THEY HOPE I FEEL BETTER. AM I NOT IN THIS CONDITION BECAUSE THEY CHOOSE TO BE SELFISH? THORNE, I WANT TO CRY AND MY STUPID CYBERNETICS WOULD NOT EVEN ALLOW BE TO CRY FOR MY EX-FIANCEE." She might have been a bit tipsy to blow up like that but she was past caring. She had been pretending that everything was fine while she was falling apart inside. "What sort of cruel joke is this? Haven't I already endured enough? I don't want anyone's fucking apologies. I don't want that crap, I- I want K-Kai."

She yelled as her face echoed pain. "Do I not deserve love, Thorne?" She had demanded, looking very vulnerable. She never said a word after that. The next big blow came when she had attended the world leader summit. Thankfully, it was a virtual thing or she could not have gone through the entire ceremony without a mental breakdown. She had felt the air knock out of her lungs at the sight of Kai after six whole months. He looked paler than normal, his always messed up hair looked neatly fixed in place with layers of hair gel. And his ever blinding grin present at even stupid meetings like this was now merely his lips pressed together in a thin line.

How was Kai who was her joy in human form suddenly became the picture of grief? She wondered how she looked to him if even he was out of breath at the sight of her- realizing how she was drifting away from the main reason she was attending the summit, she forced herself to look at anywhere but him. That night she slept thinking about how she was not the only one suffering. "-The Emperor of EC starts a new journey in his life at 30. However, there are no wedding bells in the air as of now, making the world and the EC anticipate the future of their Emperor and their nation. At 30, the Emperor not committed to anyone nor having any living heir had caused multiple questions to be unanswered about the legacy after him. Hopefully, he will find his partner to secure their future until then we wish him a Very Happy Birthday!" Marriage. Wedding. Love. Hadn't it been what they had lost? She knew this was going to happen. Then why did she feel like drowning all over again? Why did her heart shatter yet again? He was no longer hers to worry about...Was he even part of her world anymore? She knew it very well that he was supposed to marry someone. He must marry someone and have an heir to the Commonwealth. Cinder was asked to do the very same thing. They were monarchs who had to keep their legacies alive. The next time she was invited for the Annual Peace Ball, Kai had cornered and said, "They want me to get married." "Tell me you are saying this because you want the ring back." She had jokingly said, swallowing the sadness and jealously that threatened to submerge her. Her mind asked if he would go down on his knees at the Ball just like he had done for Levana. But that was just her stupidity, misery and desperation mixed together. How was her tyrant aunt going to manage her marriage with Kai by living on Luna along with her sinister motives?! "Cinder" "Kai", she pleaded, underlying the please without saying it. She averted her eyes and nonchalantly asked," Have someone in mind?" "No", he replied without a beat, making her at ease but what he said next crushed her healing heart again. "But I have someone in my heart." She could not stand around him without wanting to kiss him senseless. Therefore, she said, "I wish you happiness, Kai." And tried to walk away until he questioned, "Do you?" "Hmm.." she replied, looking back at him. "Do you?" He repeated. "Wish you happiness? Yeah, Kai, I do- with all my heart." "I wish you were happiness!" Looking at his lean frame dressed in the colours of EC she dared to speak, "I wish that too." She had not returned after that episode but maybe she would have to. Soon. "The Emperor has been sighted with Chen Daiyu, daughter of Chen Zian, the Chief Commandant of Light Chariot, she is an activist working towards the liberation of perils faced by cyborgs in modern society, along with being a psychotherapist by service. It's not the first time that they have been seen together making people hope that it's not the last. There are rumours about their courting with no confirmation from any one of the two-It appears the Emperor has finally moved on from his last date with Queen Selene. Only time will tell if the Emperor has found his Empress or not." She could not blame anyone. They were just pressing time trying to avoid some inescapable future- yet why did her mind ask if he had learned Chen Daiyu's favourite flowers? or Did he hold her as he had held her once? Wondered if he explained to her why there was a cyborg's foot in his room? She was cursing goddamn every star because it was not just him but even she was looking into suitors!? She had gone on dates with a few, noticing how one of them grinned like Kai with a dimple on his left cheek, how someone scratched their necks when they were flustered or how some of them had a struggle keeping their hair in place- without wanting to she was searching for Kai everywhere in them. None of the two was married yet. It was okay to imagine about him for a while. It was okay for grief to overwhelm her. Maybe that's what she needed to

move on from her past.

Had they moved on? Had they stopped loving each other? 'NO!'- she shook her head violently to no one in particular.

She loved him even now. There will always be some part of her mind that will love him. Maybe it was treasuring their memories while making new ones. Two years later reading an article about them, she thought if maybe she had tried harder, would they be together? Alas, there was no point fantasizing when both time and distance had separated them? Could they start from where they had left? Or would they be two broken pieces no longer fitting?

"Sometimes love stays," The article read again. "But lover's don't." Maybe if distance, time and qualms of royalty were not preventing them then things could have been different, their lives could have been different. Perhaps in a life with different circumstances, they would have been together unlike this one- where they had briefly touched, in another life possibly their tale could have had a happy ending. Maybe if she was Cinder and not Queen Selene Channary Jannali Blackburn of Luna, and if he was just Kai and not Emperor Kaito of the Eastern Commonwealth then they would have made it till the end.

But they were not and that's what mattered. __

A/N: We are done! :)

I know you would likely want to hit me right now since I promised certain someone that there would be no angsty fics for at least a few months and yet HERE I AM!

I have kinda portrayed Iko in this really bad, so sorry about that! And you have no idea how much frustrated I was that Cinder could not cry, like crying is such a essential part of human behavior and having to describe her grief without tears was certainly a challenge. I hope I did her character well- You guys have no idea how much break-up articles I have read just to get the news articles right. I might as well do a course on journalism later ;)

Was that a bit too much angst? and yeah in this fic they are secretly engaged!

This was written for the TLC Ship Week, the word prompt for this one was 'In Another Life'. However, I had already planned it beforehand with no idea of how the ship-week was going to give me the perfect opportunity to post this. I know I'm cruel right?

This idea had been going a lot in my mind since I made @salt-warrior write her fic 'Anyone Else', and read the fic 'After' on AO3, along with 'Once' by @/betaluz. I just thought that maybe Cinder failed to get past the boundaries of royalty on Luna and converting it into a Republican, wondering if that happened what would happen to her relationship with Kai. Hence, this sudden angsty take.

Tell me which is your favorite part from this?

And don't worry I have more angst lined up for you! <3

Taglist: @cinderswrench @gingerale2017 @linhcinder686 @shellyseashell @ladyvesuvia @shelbylmkaider @levanariddle @cindersassasin @kaider-is-my-otp (Tell me if you wanna be added/removed)

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tenthgrove · 4 years ago

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An (Incredibly Loose and Unfounded) Analysis of Dolcio Cioccolata

Content Warnings: Typical Cioccolata behaviour such as murder and manipulation. One mention of suicide. Discussion of child abuse.

(A/N: I do not know much about psychology, nor do I pretend to. Instead, I'm essentially going to be listing out headcanons of educated guesses about his motivations and behaviours based on his canon actions.)

Cioccolata is one of the most rightfully despised villains in the entirety of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Beyond his egotistical, rotten behaviour around other characters, the reason for his notoriety arguably lies in the disturbing reality of his evil. He isn't motivated by a cartoonish desire for world domination or an explicable feud with our protagonists that could really only arise in fiction, but a simple, sadistic desire to observe the suffering of others and revel in the power it gives him. Although he is in possession of a highly lethal stand, his weapons of choice are natural tools. Medical tools. He scares us, because his evil is grounded in reality.

One of the most perplexing things about Cioccolata's behaviour is the inconsistency in his demeanour. Despite initially appearing to be a flat, one-dimensional incarnation of pure sadism, he has a number of highly distinct moods that, despite their diversity, are all recognisably his. There's the manic joy that usually comes to mind when you first think of the character, but there are also moments of uncontrolled anger, fear, and even calmness.

It's the fact his emotional exterior can change very suddenly that makes it so unnerving. Notice how calm he initially appears when he carves into one of his victims during his backstory segment. Until the point he breaks into a sickening smile, there's not even a hint of a twitching lip to indicate his usual sadistic joy at doing what he loves.

There are other similar instances, such as occasions where he suddenly bursts into emotion during his fight with Giorno, or interacts very inconsistently with Secco.

One possible explanation for this behaviour is that he treats his life like a grand piece of drama in which he is the star actor. You know that trope of the actor character who's just a bit too full of himself and takes his performances to an obnoxious level of serious? That's how Cioccolata treats his whole life. It pleases him to turn every word, every expression, every movement of his limbs into the work of an intellectual genius, something the audience in his mind will clap and cheer for as he enters the scene.

Unlike Kira, a more major villain who follows the similar role of a serial killer who at least some of the time follows 'realistic' urges and methodologies in his crimes, we don't have anything in the way of an explanation for Cioccolata as to how his murderous urges arose. Nonetheless, I believe there are most likely some similarities between the pair.

Some might assume that the sheer brutality of Cioccolata's crimes would point towards a highly traumatic childhood, with abuses to rival the fates of some of his victims. In real life, while it is common for serial killers to have had such childhoods, they don't usually create the behaviour patterns seen in Cioccolata. Such killers often lash out against specific groups, women being a common target especially if the killer was abused by a maternal figure. As far as we know, Cioccolata has no specific target demographic other than the incredibly broad category of 'the weak.'

Additionally, we know from canon that Cioccolata was able to seek voluntary work at a home for the elderly at the tender age of 14, and judging by what he got away with, was clearly trusted by the institute's staff a lot. This would point towards Cioccolata having a family life that at least externally appeared respectable, and left Cioccolata stable enough to hide his deviancies where necessary.

The backstory I have created for Cioccolata is a middle-ground between a childhood of abject misery and trauma, and a childhood of perfect normalcy (in which Cioccolata's evil would have arisen purely from nature).

It begins with Cioccolata's birth to a teenage mother, hailing from a wealthy conservative Italian family, and a foreign tourist who had already made his getaway months ago. The circumstances of the birth brought about great shame that caused the mother and child to be severely chastised by the rest of the family. Within a few years, the shame brought the young mother to a breaking point and resulted in her suicide, beginning Cioccolata's fascination with death.

After this, Cioccolata's life continued roughly the same. He did not mourn his mother as the pair never properly bonded and his grandparents continued to treat him with the same coldness. That was until, around the age of 10, it became undeniable that Cioccolata possessed a profound innate genius, and would likely go on to be incredibly successful. Suddenly, the boy was showered in praise and encouragement, teaching him the crucial lesson that love is conditional, and only owed to those who are strong.

On this subject, we arrive at the most tantalising question of Cioccolata's psychology, that being whether he is truly capable of love. The short answer is: yes. His love for Secco is genuine in the context of his own behaviour, and if he were to have lived a full life it can't be ruled out that he would have experienced love of some form again. Everything we see of Cioccolata's relationship with Secco points to a genuine love, from the way he apologises for throwing one of the sugar cubes too far to his heartfelt goodbye over the phone. Even if their relationship is unhealthy, Cioccolata has goodwill towards his companion.

The issue that then has to be reconciled is how Cioccolata is capable of this kind of companionship when the vast majority of the population are nothing but lab rats to him. In short, Cioccolata's morality is whatever he wants it to be. He is the ultimate worthy being and hence, if he cares about someone, he can break the rules of his philosophy to do so because, if they weren't deserving of it, why would someone so important as him have feelings for them?

You can take this back to the point about Cioccolata's life being a performance to him. We already know the fascination he experiences with fear, so perhaps he has similar curiosities about other emotions, like love? Perhaps having someone like Secco fills him with a grand sense of poeticism, as though he is the misunderstood hero of some acclaimed play, playing out the scene of a beautiful romance against the backdrop of a bloody tragedy.

If there's one thing to be taken away from this, it's that Cioccolata's entire existence, his whole world-view, is built around his self-importance. A fairly moot point, now it comes down to it, given everything about the character's actions, but it's interesting to see how this profound egoism plays out in his more subtler interactions. Perhaps it's not only the realism of his crimes that makes him so terrifying, but also the realism of the particular way he regards his fellow humans like dirt. If you survive him, it's for his pleasure.

#cioccolata #child abuse cw #suicide cw #jjba #jojo vento aureo #jjba part 5

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anntoldst0ries · 4 years ago

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shinrin-yoku (Ethan x MC)

Book: Open Heart Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Noelle Valentine) Word Count/Rating: ~1.7k, PG Summary: When life's difficulties hit, Noelle navigates her way through them by turning to the nature. Category: Hurt & Comfort Warnings: mentions of trauma

A/N: May is a Mental Health Awareness month and here in the UK the theme is nature. My MC, just like me, runs to the woods when things get tough. It helps her clear her head and reconnect with inner strength.

I struggle with mental health myself and it’s important for me to speak up and address the subject. There is nothing worse than shaming or discrediting someone’s difficult feelings. It’s fine not to be fine.

If you struggle alone, please don’t. My inbox will welcome you with open arms. Two heads are better than one, even if we just complain, at least we can complain together 💜

For @choicesmaychallenge2021 Day 13 - Mental Health

SHINRIN-YOKU - A Japanese term for ‘forest bathing’ or the sense of well-being you experience while in nature.

It all starts with a seed. This tiny element which, without aid, is sentenced to certain death. But give it the right soil. Give it water, sun. And it can grow. Into something big. Powerful. Scary.

She is five years old.

They live in a townhouse, a classy Victorian era building. Undistinguished, one of many merging into the background of a typical London street. The colors are also very standard, dirty white married to ivory beige, bar for the deep green door - their rebel child.

For the random passerby, it’s nothing special. But for her, the walls of a storey house encapsulate the whole world.

The garden behind the house is neat and clean, visibly well taken care of. She doesn’t remember exact details anymore, but she remembers begging her parents to go camping in the garden with her brother. The ticklish feeling of long and slim blades of grass on her tiny feet. Looking at the stars with pure awe and delight, that only the unspoiled mind of a child is capable of.

The plot of land that the house has been built on borders a beautiful forest. A wooden fence separates the two.

To her, it’s a passage to a magical world.

A world without any particular order, living its own life, unconstricted by rules. Not in the slightest does it resemble the garden on her side of the fence, where things grow according to the rules laid out by the adults.

There is a feeling inside her that she’s too young to name, to throw it in lingual context. It’s not until years later that she realized what it had been. Freedom. To grow however you please. To be what you want to be.

Robust, effuse trees tower over her, making her feel so small. As if she hasn’t already been feeling small enough, living in a world full of giants.

But they mean something else too. They bring a secret and a promise. Promise of a bigger world out there, far from the confines of the place she calls home.

The forest draws her, singing a melody that only her heart can understand. One day, she will be a part of it.

She lives the teenage dream life.

That’s what everyone says.

She doesn’t have any real problems. She’s lucky not having to worry about money. She’s got friends. Her family is great. She just needs to stop whining. Her life is perfect.

Their words, not hers.

None of them know what happens behind closed doors.

The childhood forest is a cloudy memory. Her home is now thousands of miles away, in a city with a giant red bridge, which for some bizarre reason has ‘golden’ in its name.

But the call from nature doesn’t care about distance. It can find you about anywhere. It’s different and yet the same.

Because nature beats in one rhythm and speaks in the same language, everywhere.

The morning is chilly and humid. She’s wearing a wooly coat, carelessly threw on a pair of PJs hiding underneath.

Her steps are brisk, breathing short and heartbeat elevated. Something’s bothering her blanched face.

The voice, again.

When it first appeared, she thought it had her best interest at heart. Used to give her advice and like a good friend, ream her out when she did something bad.

Over time, things took a turn for the worse.

Snarky comments. Casually mentioned wrongdoings. Feedback on what she could have done better, differently.

Noelle hoped the voice would go away on its own.

It hasn’t.

Not only did the voice not go away, but it was actually growing stronger with each passing day. Became more vocal. Judgmental. Openly hostile.

It fed on her fears.

It’s your fault - it told her - that your parents are getting divorced.

You are not good enough.

Even a lie, repeated enough times, will finally become the truth. And so it did for her, to the point where she couldn’t distinguish her own voice from the voice of the tormentor. Sounds faded into one.

Whoever said words can cut like a knife was right. But those who knew thoughts could leave scars that are much deeper, were truly wise.

The young, beautiful girl who never hurt a soul, became a hostage. A prisoner locked in the jail of her own head.

A giant tear rolled down her face. Made of all the words her heart couldn’t say.

She hugged the tree tightly and inhaled the woodsy aroma, the scent filling her lungs fully.

It’s sensuous.

Just like that, she is small again.

She’s got all that she ever wanted.

Degree from one of the best medical schools. Graduating with honors and glowing recommendations from even the strictest professors, who kept assuring her that her future in medicine is so bright it’s actually blinding. Then, a dreamy residency in one of the most prestigious hospitals in the country.

Pretty impressive, right? Even a fool could see that. But the only fool whose opinion she cared about, couldn’t. All these things were clearly not good enough for Ethan Ramsey to stay.

She wasn’t good enough for him to stay.

Not longer than a year ago he was just a concept, an ideal without a face, body and voice. To her, he was a celebrity, a hero, someone whom mortals don’t have access to.

It was preposterous to consider for even a second Dr Ramsey could actually see something in an intern.

Standing among the moss-covered trees, every fiber of her being was filled with the thought of him.

Did the Amazonian forest remind him of her, just like every forest around reminded her of him?

Just when she won the battle for her career, she lost another. Because life had to be a zero-sum game.

As painful as that would have been, she wished she had something to hold onto. A scene she could replay in her mind. An image of him walking away. Or saying goodbye.

But he left without a word.

That was the pattern. That was history repeating itself.

She took her shoes off and stepped on the soil frosted with morning dew. It’s cold and wet. It’s refreshing. She is grounding. Reconnecting with Earth.

Tunes in with the rivers of grass, towers of trees, fences of bushes.

If the trees could speak, they’d tell stories not many people would believe in.

Tales of heartbreaks. Parables of spirits.

They are all nature’s poems.

Hauntingly beautiful. Riveting. Written without a single word.

Because nature speaks its very own language that only the soul, not the mind, can understand.

Pain is ripping her apart. But it reminds her that she’s alive. And this, in itself, is a miracle.

She doesn’t know who she is anymore.

Some people call her a survivor. But it doesn’t feel like the right word. So many things in her died. So much was lost.

The attack took a lot from her. Danny. Bobby. Sense of security. Identity. Direction.

Right and wrong, good and bad, righteous and vicious. These are all just words. Someone needs to come and teach her the meaning of them anew. Draw lines, mark out frontiers. Save her from herself.

The ground is soaked. Torrential rain turned the soil into soft mud, warm and easily slipping through her fingers. She falls on her knees, praying for the ground to consume her.

Fill every part of her. Silence the internal cacophony. To sink into oblivion.

Not many people knew about the panic attacks and recurring nightmares. They’re always the same.

She’s standing in the middle of a swamp. Danny and Bobby are drowning, their arms reaching out for her. She knows she can only save one of them. She runs out of time trying to figure out how to save both. As a result, they both die. Time stands still and yet everything is spinning, moving, racing. The reality is a riot of overbright colours.

Suddenly, a ring breaks the silence. A polyphonic intruder. She looks at the screen through hooded eyes and notices the caller’s name. It’s him. He’s petrified. Worried to death. Asks her to stay where she is.

Some time later, maybe 10 minutes, maybe an hour - who knows? - he emerges from the gathering of stocky oaks.

The moment he catches the sight of her, he starts running. She notices a lab coat underneath the jacket. He’s soaking wet.

Even though he is so close, he doesn’t slow down. Crashing into her, he scoops her in his arms. Catches her in the tightest of embraces.

Asks her if she’s fine. No. Not that question again. She’s tired of people fussing over her and gets angry.

Had it not been for the attack, would he even be here? The voice asks mockingly. It doesn’t matter to her. He’s there now.

Deep baritone is gentle and full of concern. It’s not like that. It’s not his intention to fuss. He’s simply worried. Because she is the most important thing to him in the whole world. Yes, he wasted so much time. That’s why he refuses to lose even one more second.

A dam breaks within her. Eliciting a quiet sob. She clutches his shirt, holds onto him for dear life. Moments later, she’s screaming at the top of her lungs. Singing her poignant birdsong.

How is she supposed to cope? Will things ever go back to normal? What is normal anyway?

In the confines of the infamous patient room she never felt more scared in her life. But here, out in the open, she feels so safe. As if she’s had a silent agreement with nature, which vouched to protect her at all costs.

And this time, nature had an ally. Because Ethan will protect her, even if it’s the last thing he does. Holding onto each other, they stand in the nothingness.

It keeps them grounded. Connected to their roots. Turning over new leaves. Bending before they break. Growing.

They get lost. Mother Nature has a reward for those who do. They have a chance to find themselves. Over and over again.

~~~

If you made it this far - thank you & you're awesome 🥰

Tag list: @genevievemd @gryffindordaughterofathena @terrm9@starrystarrytrouble @the-pale-goddess @jamespotterthefirst @lisha1valecha @writer-ish @maurine07 @drakewalkerfantasy@iemcpbchoices @liaromancewriter @lem-20 @lucy-268 @oldminniemcg @queencarb @qrkowna @mercury84choices @lsvdw-blog @utterlyinevitable @stygianflood @udishaman @romewritingshop @romereadingshop @alina-yol-ramsey @stateofgracious @xxsugarplumfluffsxx @binny1985 @tsrookie @fayeswiftie @archxxronrookie @tinkertailorsoldierspy @schnitzelbutterfingers @wingedhairstylemusicweasel @theinvisibledreamergirl @custaroonie @irisofpurple @chasingrobbie @ethandaddyramseyx @quixoticdreamer16 @coffeeheartaddict @takemyopenheart @aworldoffandoms @potionsprefect @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

#open heart #Ethan Ramsey x mc #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week #mental health awareness

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96thdayofrage · 4 years ago

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The Supreme Court agreed to review two aspects of the actor’s case.

The seven judges reviewed Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill’s decision to let prosecutors call five other accusers to testify about long-ago encounters that never resulted in charges or police reports.

And they reviewed the questionable judge’s decision to allow the jury to hear unsubstantiated testimony from two-decade old depositions taken out of context at trial.

Judge Steven O’Neill has never explained why he allowed five women to testify in the second Cosby trial after allowing only one to do so at his first trial in 2017.

On Dec. 1–when it came to the Commonwealth’s rebuttal of the defense’s points of appeal attorney—Adrianne Jappe did not get through her opening comments before the judges began interrupting and interrogating her on the relevance of the five prior bad acts witnesses.

Justice Dougherty pointed out that one of the women – Lise-Lotte Lublin – had ‘no actual recollection of sexual contact’ but merely of losing consciousness.

Bill Cosby to be Released from Prison After Pennsylvania Supreme Court Deems Trial Tainted

Cosby DA reaches level of desperation as Supreme Court decision nears, fines comic for unkept grass

Cosby DA accused of prosecutorial misconduct for charging YC reporter amid heated email battle

Cosby DA won’t release emails that may reveal ‘locker-room banter’ about Pa. Supreme Court

DA Under Fire for Admitting Bill Cosby Gave ‘Exculpatory Account’ to Cops, Tricked by Phony Immunity Deal

Jappe angered members of the court after instructing them not ‘to consider’ statistics in their decision making, according to an aide of one of the honorable justices.

Your Content exclusively revealed on Oct. 22 that Police in Arizona are stunned after a Pennsylvania prosecutor accommodated a fugitive prostitute to testify against the comedian in 2018.

Cosby, 83, has spent the past two years in a prison outside of Philadelphia after a jury convicted him in 2018 of three aggravated indecent assault counts—and the court deemed the elderly inmate a ‘sexually violent predator’ for posing an ‘imminent safety risk to women.’

From the moment the first witness took the stand, Your Content readers were spot-on in their questioning of trial tactics and backhanded deals cut amid the retrial—going as far as filing a motion to intervene in the trial after politicians tried to silence our publication and banish Your Content reporters from the proceedings.

But we conducted more than just research, providing game-changing scoops that impacted the trial to its core:

» Jun. 1, 17′: Bill Cosby to face a jury 13-years after allegations of sexual assault were made and ultimately debunked by investigating detectives.

» Jun. 5, 17′: Cosby arrives for his first day in court. Attorneys called the proceeding ‘an attack on human dignity.’

» Jun. 6, 17′: Jurors were drowned in reasonable doubt ‘on day two’ of the trial when attorneys revealed the motivation behind the ‘witness cult’s’ testimony: a $100 million payday.

» ‘One lie begets another lie begets another lie’: The judge finally cracked down on overzealous prosecutors after they tried tricking him by rephrasing the same question six times.

» Jun. 9, 17′: The trial’s briefest yet most powerful cross examination that derailed the questionable proceeding in just fifteen minutes.

» Jun. 12, 17′: Moments before the jury left to deliberate, Cosby’s lawyers moved for a mistrial on the grounds that the chief accuser had changed her story nearly two-dozen times.

» The ‘defining moment’ of the trial erupted as lawyers outed a hand-picked George Soros district attorney who prosecuted the funnyman solely to ‘bang on his throne.’

» Jun. 13, 17′: The chief Cosby accuser unleashed a tsunami of reasonable doubt upon jurors, who continually asked the court reread her testimony to weed out the conflicting statements.

» Jun. 15, 17′: Blockbuster revelations by Your Content funneled to our tipline by a juror claimed they would not be reaching a unanimous verdict.

» Despite a deadlocked jury, the hard-nosed court ordered they return after the weekend to continue deliberating until reaching a unanimous verdict.

» Jun. 17, 17′: After the jury informed the court once more of their deadlock, the judge declared a mistrial.

» Oct. 20, 17′: The former district attorney files a lawsuit against chief Cosby accuser Andrea Constand for working hand-in-glove with his competitor, Soros-funded Kevin Steele, in effort to secure an election and conviction.

» Nov. 9, 17′: An explosive report by Your Content reveals new information about Constand’s potential motivation behind the trial.

» Nov. 22, 17′: Your Content discovered Soros’ hand-picked district attorney worked closely with Constand to coordinate television commercials amid the heated election.

» How prosecutors initially claimed the former district attorney was ‘suing Contand more or less because he blames her for cooperating with police.’

» Jan. 11, 18′: Your Content attends a dinner with the funnyman for an exclusive tell-all before the retrial: ‘We’re Ready.’

» Jan. 28, 18′: Soros’ hand-picked district attorney is accused of destroying evidence and allowing perjury to secure a conviction. The FBI ‘cannot confirm nor deny’ an investigation into the accusations.

» Mar. 28, 18′: An exclusive Your Content investigation revealed that the presiding judge carried out an extramarital affair with a staffer of a key witness.

» Apr. 7, 18′: A juror is overheard by a Your Content reporter calling the comic ‘guilty’ immediately after being selected to serve on the panel.

» Apr. 10, 18′: Your Content exclusively reports that the prosecution intends to fly a wanted fugitive to testify, and they wined and housed the prostitute-turned-witness.

» Apr. 12, 18′: A key witness makes a bombshell revelation and confirms she previously sold Quaaludes to friends and never obtained the pill from Cosby.

» The moment Janice Dickinson revealed Robert De Niro partied at a nightclub that was full of ‘sex, drugs, cocaine and tea.’

» As their stories collided, accusers turned blame to magazine editors at New York Magazine of ‘condensing and editing’ their statements to publish on the cover.

» Your Content was first to report that the chief Cosby accuser claimed the comic tricked her into the situation by bribing her with ‘baked goods.’

» The powerful opening statement that painted the chief Cosby accuser as an ‘inconsistent money-hungry con artist.’

» How Gloria Allred’s representation of too many victims nearly derailed the case on day one.

» Apr. 15, 18′: Chief Cosby accuser Andrea Constand officially provides the sixth conflicting story as cross examination continued.

» Apr. 16, 18′: Constand is asked to reread all of her inconsistent statements back to the jury.

» When Hollywood’s heaviest-hitting private detective Scott Ross served Constand with a second subpoena as she left the courtroom.

» Apr. 16, 18′: At one point, testimony from the chief accuser became too confusing for the court and jurors, and Judge Steven O’Neill ordered she go home and do ‘homework’ over the weekend before returning to court Monday.

» Apr. 17, 18′: Your Content captured exclusive photographs of a staffer employed by the hand-picked Soros district attorney documenting each move Cosby made outside of the courtroom.

» Apr. 18, 18′: A key witness lost credibility when it’s discovered Cosby hadn’t been dubbed ‘America’s Dad’ until 1984, not 1982, as she claimed.

» It is discovered that Cosby never called Temple University to speak with chief accuser Constand, university staff reveal.

» Apr. 25, 18′: Closing arguments for the second trial begin. The defense drops a powerful remark: ‘A case that was rejected. A case that was revived. I’ll show you the sequence.’

» Jurors asked the court to re-play the testimony of Margo Jackson, who said the chief accuser confided in her and claimed she could accuse Cosby and ‘get money to go to school and open a business.’

» Unsatisfied jurors question the court: ‘We understand we could see things again?’ The judge allowed it and replayed the chilling testimony that accused Cosby’s accuser of falsifying her claims in pursuit of money.

» Prosecutors pulled an unprecedented stunt and compared Cosby to Casey Anthony in effort to hide the jurors from the media and public.

» Your Content flies the Canadian ex-boyfriend of chief Cosby accuser Andrea Constand to Philadelphia for an exclusive sit-down interview. He reveals the accuser’s family ‘despises black people’ and ‘used Cosby for revenge on all black people.’

» Soros’ hand-picked district attorney went through great lengths to keep his Florida father in the loop at all times—even divulging information about what jurors munched on during breaks.

» Oct. 10, 19′: Your Content obtains thousands of exclusive e-mails from the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. Among the exclusive e-mail revelations:

» ‘First Order of Business, Lock Up That Creep Bill Cosby.’

» ‘Old Man’ Cosby’ Would Die If Jailed, Prosecutors Joked

» DA Mocked #MeToo Before, During & After Trial

» In 2015, DA Steele Claimed There Was An ‘Air-Tight’ Case Against Bill Cosby, Turns Out There Wasn’t

» Jun. 23, 20′: Bill Cosby is granted the opportunity to go before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in a first-ever virtual hearing.

» Aug. 26, 20′: Your Content makes a groundbreaking discovery that indicates the presiding judge assigned himself to the Cosby trial.

But we are not done. If the court has proven to be just, it has also reinforced how few voices in American media can be trusted to listen to you.

This exceptional moment serves as a call to action for Your Content. We refuse to fall in line with the out-of-touch media establishment—and we will not accept the ‘official’ version of events as told by news agencies that side with power and ignore the untold stories.

Your Content will continue to deliver the truth, and not the spin of politicians or those who failed you.

As the world of professional story-tellers spend the next several months trying to explain their embarrassment, while the lamestream media is held to the fire, we proudly declare: Your Content is the people’s paper, and the only publication that power fears.

As Your Content readers know, Judge Steven O’Neill assigned himself the privilege of presiding over the Cosby trial.

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hellowkatey · 4 years ago

Text

Febuwhump Day 10

Prompt: “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Read on AO3

Ghosts of the Past

"And med supplies?" Obi-Wan asks, glancing up from his datapad. "How are our bacta levels?"

"Good, sir," Cody nods.

"Yes, I suppose we've had a good streak going. Okay, now fuel levels?"

"Half tank."

"Weapons?"

"Forty units short, I believe."

Obi-Wan nods and types the order into the datapad.

"Alright, then the last things on the supply lists are..." he trails off as a strange feeling washes over him. He looks up, his eyes scanning the hanger. Troopers mill about in the usual bustle of days where there are no battles, just some administrative duties, and down-time. He can feel Cody staring at him, and is about to ignore the feeling when he spots a non-military ship on the other side of the hanger.

It's a modest ship, but it's not the vessel that is bothering him. Two mechanical troopers talk to a man standing next to the ship. From this distance, Obi-Wan can't quite see the man, but he can feel him.

In the Force, this person is familiar in a way that causes chills to run down his spine and the distant sound of bombs exploding to echo in his mind.

"Sir, is something wrong?" Cody asks, and Obi-Wan's head snaps back to him. He points across the hanger to a ship and a small group of humans talking to the mechanic clones.

"Do we have visitors?"

"Uh, diplomats I believe. Requested to land for maintenance on their cooling system. Is there a problem?"

Obi-Wan doesn't answer him, just hands him the datapad with the supply orders and starts to walk in their direction. He doesn't know what he hopes to accomplish he just... has to find out.

He weaves through the various groups of troopers, only giving himself time to nod as they salute in his presence. The closer he gets to the man the better his view gets and the greater the buzzing in his stomach grows. Though Cody described him as a diplomat, he isn't dressed as so. He wears modest travel clothes and boots that are nearly as beat up as Obi-Wan's. The only true indication that he is some sort of political leader is the golden pin that secures his dark green cloak.

The man brushes his fingers through his short brown hair, pushing it off to the side, his dark eyes flickering up to meet Obi-Wan's.

And he stops dead in the center of the aisle, his entire body feeling numb and his throat tight. He must look like he's seen a ghost because a moment later he feels Cody's hand gently touching him at the elbow.

"General?" Cody sounds worried, which is enough to get Obi-Wan to tear his eyes away from the face of a man who might as well be a ghost. He doesn't know what to say to his commander, who is looking back and forth between him and their guest.

A guest that just handed his datapad to the mechanical clones and now approaches them.

Obi-Wan generally considers himself well prepared for most situations that may be thrown at him. War has taught him a lot about always being ready for a fight or a hasty retreat, and how to properly read a situation to decide which is appropriate.

But now, Obi-Wan is at a loss. All he can do is stand there as a piece of his past he never thought would be dug up again walks right up to him.

"I take it you're the Jedi General," he says in a thick Outer Rim accent. "I thank you for your hospitality in allowing us to get repairs."

"It is fortunate we were on your route, I suppose," he smiles weakly. "Where are you coming from?"

"Right, I haven't introduced myself, apologies," he bows respectfully. "I am Representative Nield of Melidaan."

Nield. Oh, Nield. No wonder the Force felt so familiar and so heavy. He hardly looks different than he did three decades ago-- just a bit older, but time has been kind to him.

"Melidaan?"

"Outer Rim. We've avoided this war so far so I'm surprised you haven't heard of us... though that's not an invitation."

"Of course not. I just..." It's obvious Nield doesn't recognize him, and a part of him is hesitant to reveal his identity. They did not exactly part on friendly terms, and Obi-Wan doesn't have the same face he did when he was thirteen. But there is a curiosity there he can't help. He wants to know what happened after he left the Young in their victory. "I hadn't realized the name was changed."

Nield blinks. "What did you say your name was, general?"

The moment of truth. "Obi-Wan Kenobi."

Now Representative Nield looks as though he's seen a ghost. His jaw literally drops, eyes growing wide. He reaches out, looking as though he is going to cup his cheeks before resting on his shoulders and Obi-Wan sees Cody flinch out of the corner of his eye.

"Obi-Wan?" Nield says, barely above a whisper. Suddenly it is like they are thirteen again, two of the oldest among a group of children fighting for peace. "How the hell did they drag you into another war?"

__________

Cody watched as the men embraced-- Nield, he called himself. A political leader from Melidaan. Cody has never heard of that planet, but General Kenobi appeared to be familiar with it. Somehow he is also familiar with this Nield despite looking uncharacteristically petrified by his presence. It made Cody nervous that maybe this would be some sort of old enemy that they mistakenly cleared, but now that he examines the men talking quietly to one another, he realizes they look at one another in the same way his brothers do.

How the hell did they drag you into another war?

He didn't know General Kenobi had been in another war-- in fact, nothing in his knowledge of recent Republic history indicates there were any other major wars fought unless he found himself in a small scale one. Though, General Kenobi is often talking about how foreign it is to be a soldier when Jedi training is to be a peacekeeper. He has given no indication that he has a history of being a veteran, but it would explain how he is so skilled with battle strategy.

Cody thinks about this as he heads to the mess to find a cup of caff. It's late in the evening, but new orders have come in that he has to prepare for.

Unsurprisingly, General Kenobi seems to have come to the same conclusion. Cody finds him pouring his own mug.

"We seem to always be on the move," the general says with a weak smile as Cody walks up next to him to grab his own mug.

"Did they mistake us for General Skywalker again?"

He chuckles, moving out of the way so Cody can pour his own mug. "I believe Anakin and the 501st will also be joining us."

"Yes sir, I saw. Rex sent me a comm as soon as he found out."

"It's been a while since we've seen them, I'm sure the men will enjoy the reunion. Hopefully, we can get some more reprieve after as well."

They start walking back toward the briefing room, caff and a few ration bars in hand. Speaking of reunions...

"Was your visit with Representative Nield... enjoyable, sir?"

"I did not expect to see him again. The last time I saw him he was quite adamant about how much he hated me."

He looks at the Jedi with surprise. "I wouldn't have guessed, sir."

"We were young. Headstrong and passionate about what we believed in."

"You met him on Melidaan?"

"In a way," General Kenobi's pleasant disposition clouds. "Back then it was called Melida/Daan, though. I assume you heard him marvel at how I ended up in another war?"

Cody nods, suddenly feeling as though he is impeding on the privacy of General Kenobi's past. He opens his mouth to assure him he has nothing to explain and it is none of his business, but then the Jedi is talking.

"The Melida and the Daan were two groups on this planet stuck in a bloody civil war. They hated one another so vehemently they couldn't decide on a name for their planet, so the Republic eventually gave up and hyphenated. A Jedi was sent there to try and facilitate peace, but she was captured. Qui-Gon and I were sent to extract her."

General Kenobi stops outside the briefing room, leaning his back against the wall. "The Master was taken by a third group-- the children of the Melida and the Daan who were fed up with the fighting. They called themselves the Young. Nield was one of the Young, which is how we met."

"So the Jedi stayed to help?"

He tucks his arms into the billowing sleeves of his cloak, exhaling deeply "Not the Jedi, no. Qui-Gon had to get the injured Master back to the Temple, and we had no jurisdiction to fight their war. I was given a choice, and I felt my place was to help the Young."

There's a tightness to his words that doesn't go over Cody's head. His time in the war is obviously not something he has talked much about-- he's never even heard it referred to, and they are certainly in the context in which it would come up. Cody has learned General Kenobi isn't usually keen on talking about himself. He seldom mentions his master, and talks even less about his apprenticeship. He doesn't want to push the subject, but something is nagging at him...

"How old were you, sir?"

General Kenobi looks from the spot he fixated on behind Cody's shoulder to making eye contact. He doesn't say anything for a moment, and Cody has a horrible feeling about the answer.

"Thirteen," he mutters. Were the corridor not empty, he may not have heard it at all.

"Thirteen? They left a kid alone to fight a war?"

"I was one of the oldest among the Young, actually."

He says this as though that doesn't make things all the more horrifying. Cody feels bad enough when the shinies come through, barely ten standard years, but at least they have the bodies of grown men. But true kids? An army of children younger than Commander Tano?

"Pardon me for speaking freely, sir, but the Jedi allowed this? Your master let you stay in a war zone?"

"Well I..." he looks at Cody in a way he has never seen General Kenobi look before. There is this deep sadness behind his bright eyes that reminds him that he is not just a High General and a Jedi Master. "Cody, the choice I made was between going back with Qui-Gon, or leaving the Jedi Order."

Cody's throat goes dry. Suddenly his vague references to choices and the Jedi not being involved make sense, and dammit, he shouldn't have been so dense to make him spell it out. "I'm sorry. I didn't know..."

"Cody," General Kenobi says with a kind smile that Cody doesn't feel he deserves. "You couldn't have known. To be honest, and I'm not proud of it, not even Anakin or Ahsoka know."

"Sir, then why tell me?"

He shrugs. "I trust you with my life, commander, why not with my teenage war stories, too."

Cody is relieved to see a glimpse of the usual dry-humored General Kenobi coming back through, but he still is at a loss of words from all of this.

"In all seriousness," General Kenobi continues, "I don't often think about my apprenticeship. Anakin has me to remind him about all his embarrassing moments, but I usually don't have to face my past like I did today," he pauses. "Can I ask your advice, Cody?"

"I'm not sure what help I could be, sir, but sure."

"Should I tell Anakin about Melida/Daan?"

Cody is certainly not qualified to give padawan parenting advice, but the general doesn't seem to care. He tries to consider if he has any relatable experiences in his short life, but clones were not raised with such individualized instruction. But he does remember nights spent with his batchmates, talking about anything and everything to pass the time. And when he sees Rex again they will try to find a time to sit down with glasses of brew, talking about every dumb plan Skywalker implemented and how it somehow worked out for the best and continuing their count of stupidly self-sacrificing things Kenobi does that threatens to give the entire 212th a heart attack.

He always considered the Jedi to be like little families-- families that train each other to be excellent warriors, but families nonetheless. In a way, the clones have adopted that familial mindset as well. With the galaxy unsure of what to do with them, they at least have one another to get through it all.

So maybe he does know a thing or two.

"It can't hurt, sir. It's probably something Skywalker would want to know about."

"Oh yes," the Jedi Master muses. "He was outraged when he found out about the time got to ride a varactyl for a royal a hunting party."

Cody raises an eyebrow. "Sir?"

He smiles, shaking his head. "A story for another time, Cody."

#febuwhump #febuwhumpday10 #im sorry i didn't know #really going for the last minute aren't i #obi-wan kenobi #commander cody #i wrote as gen #but feel free to consider it codywan if you so desire

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fromtheplanethexagon · 4 years ago

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the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

#wordgirl #becky botsford #tobey mccallister #tobecky #tobecky critical #has anyone ever used that tag before LMAO #anyway: i may come back and reword the ending because i am not totally happy with it #but wow this is so many words. so many. send help

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black-paraphernalia · 4 years ago

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Black Panther Party, original name Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, African American revolutionary party, founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

The party’s original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality. The Panthers eventually developed into a Marxist revolutionary group that called for the arming of all African Americans, the exemption of African Americans from the draft and from all sanctions of so-called white America, the release of all African Americans from jail, and the payment of compensation to African Americans for centuries of exploitation by white Americans. At its peak in the late 1960s, Panther membership exceeded 2,000, and the organization operated chapters in several major American cities.

Origin and political program

Despite passage of the 1960s civil rights legislation that followed the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), African Americans living in cities throughout North America continued to suffer economic and social inequality.

Poverty and reduced public services characterized these urban centers, where residents were subject to poor living conditions, joblessness, chronic health problems, violence, and limited means to change their circumstances. Such conditions contributed to urban uprisings in the 1960s (such as those in the Watts district of Los Angeles in 1965, among others) and to the increased use of police violence as a measure to impose order on cities throughout North America.

It was in this context, and in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, that Merritt Junior College students Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on October 15, 1966, in West Oakland (officially “Western Oakland,” a district of the city of Oakland), California.

Shortening its name to the Black Panther Party, the organization immediately sought to set itself apart from African American cultural nationalist organizations, such as the Universal Negro Improvement Association and the Nation of Islam, to which it was commonly compared.

Although the groups shared certain philosophical positions and tactical features, the Black Panther Party and cultural nationalists differed on a number of basic points. For instance, whereas African American cultural nationalists generally regarded all white people as oppressors, the Black Panther Party distinguished between racist and nonracist whites and allied themselves with progressive members of the latter group.

Also, whereas cultural nationalists generally viewed all African Americans as oppressed, the Black Panther Party believed that African American capitalists and elites could and typically did exploit and oppress others, particularly the African American working class.

Perhaps most importantly, whereas cultural nationalists placed considerable emphasis on symbolic systems, such as language and imagery, as the means to liberate African Americans, the Black Panther Party believed that such systems, though important, are ineffective in bringing about liberation. It considered symbols as woefully inadequate to ameliorate the unjust material conditions, such as joblessness, created by capitalism.

From the outset, the Black Panther Party outlined a Ten Point Program, not unlike those of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and Nation of Islam, A number of positions outlined in the

From the outset, the Black Panther Party outlined a Ten Point Program, not unlike those of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and Nation of Islam, to initiate national African American community survival projects and to forge alliances with progressive white radicals and other organizations of people of color.

A number of positions outlined in the Ten Point Program address a principle stance of the Black Panther Party: economic exploitation is at the root of all oppression in the United States and abroad, and the abolition of capitalism is a precondition of social justice. In the 1960s this socialist economic outlook, informed by a Marxist political philosophy, resonated with other social movements in the United States and in other parts of the world. Therefore, even as the Black Panther Party found allies both within and beyond the borders of North America, the organization also found itself squarely in the crosshairs of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its counterintelligence program, COINTELPRO. In fact, in 1969 FBI director J. Edgar Hoover considered the Black Panther Party the greatest threat to national security.

Source:Britannica.com - Black Panther Party Legacy

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PART 2 ALL ABOUT THE BLACK PANTHERS

Ten Point Program address a principle stance of the Black Panther Party: read below for the 10 point which was the pillar of the party

1. We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black and oppressed communities.

We believe that Black and oppressed people will not be free until we are able to determine our destinies in our own communities ourselves, by fully controlling all the institutions which exist in our communities.

2. We want full employment for our people.

We believe that the federal government is responsible and obligated to give every person employment or a guaranteed income. We believe that if the American businessmen will not give full employment, then the technology and means of production should be taken from the businessmen and placed in the community so that the people of the community can organize and employ all of its people and give a high standard of living.

3. We want an end to the robbery by the capitalist of our Black and oppressed communities.

We believe that this racist government has robbed us and now we are demanding the overdue debt of forty acres and two mules. Forty acres and two mules were promised 100 years ago as restitution for slave labor and mass murder of Black people. We will accept the payment in currency which will be distributed to our many communities. The American racist has taken part in the slaughter of over fifty million Black people. Therefore, we feel this is a modest demand that we make.

4. We want decent housing, fit for the shelter of human beings.

We believe that if the landlords will not give decent housing to our Black and oppressed communities, then the housing and the land should be made into cooperatives so that the people in our communities, with government aid, can build and make decent housing for the people.

5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history and our role in the present-day society.

We believe in an educational system that will give to our people a knowledge of self. If you do not have knowledge of yourself and your position in the society and the world, then you will have little chance to know anything else.

6. We want completely free health care for all Black and oppressed people.

We believe that the government must provide, free of charge, for the people, health facilities which will not only treat our illnesses, most of which have come about as a result of our oppression, but which will also develop preventative medical programs to guarantee our future survival. We believe that mass health education and research programs must be developed to give all Black and oppressed people access to advanced scientific and medical information, so we may provide ourselves with proper medical attention and care.

7. We want an immediate end to police brutality and murder of Black people, other people of color, all oppressed people inside the United States.

We believe that the racist and fascist government of the United States uses its domestic enforcement agencies to carry out its program of oppression against Black people, other people of color and poor people inside the United States. We believe it is our right, therefore, to defend ourselves against such armed forces, and that all Black and oppressed people should be armed for self-defense of our homes and communities against these fascist police forces.

8. We want an immediate end to all wars of aggression.

We believe that the various conflicts which exist around the world stem directly from the aggressive desires of the U.S. ruling circle and government to force its domination upon the oppressed people of the world. We believe that if the U.S. government or its lackeys do not cease these aggressive wars that it is the right of the people to defend themselves by any means necessary against their aggressors.

9. We want freedom for all Black and poor oppressed people now held in U.S. federal, state, county, city and military prisons and jails. We want trials by a jury of peers for all persons charged with so-called crimes under the laws of this country.

We believe that the many Black and poor oppressed people now held in U.S. prisons and jails have not received fair and impartial trials under a racist and fascist judicial system and should be free from incarceration. We believe in the ultimate elimination of all wretched, inhuman penal institutions, because the masses of men and women imprisoned inside the United States or by the U.S. military are the victims of oppressive conditions which are the real cause of their imprisonment. We believe that when persons are brought to trial that they must be guaranteed, by the United States, juries of their peers, attorneys of their choice and freedom from imprisonment while awaiting trials.

10. We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, peace and people’s community control of modern technology.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Source: Wikipedia Ten point program

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#black paraphernalia #black panthers #no justice #when the revolution come

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