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xenomorphicdna · 11 months ago

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Op I love you

I was planning on making a post but you done it for me so I'm simply gonna add :]

Look, I love this game and the community here has all sorts of cool things going on, but dear god could I not disagree more from a lot of very common fanon interpretations. Iterators on the string is my main thing and I've made several posts about that so I won't be mentioning it.

There is a lot of ancient depictions as cruel assholes. Which I personally really hate because what do you mean they were all evil and horrible towards their iterators ??? They literally say how they have parental obligations for them, they literally stand up for Five Pebbles when some guys send in hate. And all the depiction of ascension being bad, oh the ancients all wanted to die and take everything with them.

Why is everything always assumed that is is done with the worst intentions??

Maybe there was IS love behind their reasoning. Ascend all the creatures? Yeah because life is hard, yes there are joys but there is also pain, survival is difficult. Creatures will die, they sleep hungry, they will lose their young, they will get hurt. There are joys in sitting in the sun, in eating the odd bugs, in playing with fellow packmates. Maybe ascension isn't bad if they can have all the good without the bad. Did the ancients see that? Did they see that and decide they were all deserving of transcendence?

Maybe all they tried to do was done with love in mind.

Ok I got super off topic cuz this post is about Five Pebbles. But yes, Pebbles ain't a kid. And I really despise how common the portrayal of him being incapable of anything is. Same with fanon arti.

And actually I will just copy n paste this from discord cuz I mentioned it there:

Arti spends a while living life in hatered. We dont start the campaign as fresh to the whole deal. Arti has been killing scavs for a while she is LOCKED at the -100 (or whatever it is) scav rep. By now, shes so far gone in this hatred of hers. When she meets Pebbles he literally says how he finds her actions appalling,, and i think after watching an animal go and dedicate herself to genocide,, yeah he has a point.

Pebbles isnt a piece of shit asshole, arti is unreasonable in her slaughter. But pebbles is willing to tolerate her, its just an animal afterall, whatever, he has more important things to do, and right now, he has a scav problem. Let the animal clear out the pests.

He reads pearls to her, but thats sorta about it. He cant hurt her, so he might as well ignore her if shes bouncing around his chamber.

And arti has no reason to be sticking around and bothering a puppet in a box with pretty lights. Arti is so full of anger, she's so willing to kill and to me, shes so deep in the rabbit hole she just isnt crawling back out. She's damaged permanently.

And while i love my happy endings, arti doesnt get redemption

and i dont think arti's ascnesion ending is about her overcoming that urge to kill, but its accepting that all this slaughter she caused,, its not about her pups anymore and that they are dead. At some point she started killing for the sake of it, she convinced herself that scavs are evil or something. It roots in getting justice for her pups but its gone so far beyond that by the time the campaign starts

the nightmares she has arent spending happy time with pups, its not her remembering them, they were at the start but they're not anymore. Its her killing a scav over and over again

Artificer is a vicious murder, and Pebbles has made mistakes looking for fairness in the world. Arti would not get along with hunter either, hunter is here trying to help moon, there is so much love in their heart and hunter stands for the exact opposite of what arti does.

i think pebbles is portrayed as a kid who is incapable of doing anything by himself. Bestie,,, that is an incredibly intelligent supercomputer not a child who cant do anything right

he makes mistakes, yes, but they arent "omg hes so stupid baby"

Pebbles got a good heart, he's also perfectly capable of doing things on his own and doing things right. But like, theres so much about pebbles just being some pathetic loser and i actually hate that representation so much. As if this isnt the same guy who saw sliver's death, saw her life cut early just to solve a riddle that if unsolved will leave them to a horrible fate and went, "its not fair"

This guy actually cares so much about everybody. He's trying so hard to fix things, to help everyone everyone find the solution so that when the time comes they have a way out, he's doing so much and all of it under a horrible disease

And its not until rivulet to where he finally gives up, and he gives his heart to moon because at this point he has no use for it, not anymore.

There boom done

(Why I Think) Five Pebbles Is Not A Child

hello, all. it is 2am and i have An Opinion. you know what that means! essay

...okay, i might have lied; this will likely not be a proper essay because (upon looking through his dialogue on the wiki) this is very fucking hard to collect evidence for. not because it is unsupported in the text, but rather because it is attempting to refute a position that, in itself, i have seen little of others' specific reasoning for. It is a response, so to speak, to an argument that does not exist.

still, I will try, even though it's difficult, because this specific interpretation irks me and one thing about me is that when someone gets my blorbos slightly wrong I will attempt to write an essay about it regardless of whether i need to, want to, or should.

of course, mandatory disclaimer that you shouldn't, necessarily, trust me on this. I'm just some creature on the internet, what do I know? I'm not necessarily right about any of this, and you shouldn't feel pressured to change your personal interpretation because i, hollow gunpowder-arti, made a late-night post about it.

THAT BEING SAID,

I, personally, believe that Five Pebbles is not a child. I, personally, am somewhat uncomfortable with depictions of him as such.

the only proper 'evidence' I have heard for this stance is that he 'acts immaturely' (i believe generally referring to his behavior before and during spearmaster's campaign? i.e. the moon incident)--which I will concede, he does. but there is a difference between acting immature and being a child.

I will point out, also, that many times these narratives push either Moon, the Artificer, or both into a maternal role towards him--you all know my grievances with Fanon Motherly Arti, but even beyond that, it feels very.... iffy, to me.

I find that many times this idea attempts (either overtly or likely unintentionally) to absolve him of blame for his actions. which... five pebbles is not an unsympathetic or villainous character by any means. I mean that wholly and fully, in fact, I do relate to him in several ways (or... did, moreso when the hyperfixation was in full swing :P).

the situation is very complex, and Five Pebbles is not a bad person. That being said, he made terrible mistakes with terrible consequences. he acted rashly, impulsively, and, yes, at times cruelly. interpreting him as a child (and therefore not to be blamed for acting childishly), however, takes away a lot of this complexity--i would say almost as much, if not as much as interpreting him wholly villainously. because he was partially to blame. congratulations, you have made a perfectly good complex character and made him into a sweet innocent mockery of himself, who cannot be held accountable for his errors because he was a child and it was in his nature and he could not help it.

...if you cannot tell, this interpretation is very, very frustrating to me.

I... would like to go on, but I feel like I would just end up restating what I've already said. So. That's it, I guess.

One last reminder (which i do not think will be necessary, but you never know) to please not harass people on my behalf of course. This is not to say those who follow this interpretation are Problematic, simply to explain my reasoning for disagreeing with and even disliking it.

...how do I end this post. Bye, I guess?

#rain word #rw talk #iterator #five pebbles #rw slugcat #rw artificer #rw ancients

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sunatoru · 2 years ago

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bottom of the deep blue. (3)

⇒ mermaid!suna x siren!reader

summary : sirens, creatures of unmatched beauty and cunning charm, they lure men in with their voices and grace, taking advantage of all the gullible fishermen and pirates. mermaids, the peacekeepers of the deep blue sea, naive and kind to a fault at times. a fated encounter between the two underwater dwellers leads to a difficult situation and a love that shouldn’t be.

warnings : incredibly mean!suna, naive reader, mentions of death, mentions of blood , mentions of being captured, short chapter !!

genre : mermaid au, pirate au, angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, betrayal

a/n : LAST CHAPTER FLOPPED SO HARD CUZ I DIDNT REALISE I WAS SHADOW BANNED, k think we’re okay now tho?? anyways this is a shorter chapter but i promise the next chapter will make up for it 🤭

w/c : 2.2k

it wasn’t fair. you felt like you were kept on a leash for the past month, your sisters continue to give you useless tasks and you’re more than certain it’s because of your one outing with rintarou.

this had been the longest time you’d spent away from the cave and from rin, you felt like you were forgetting his voice from the lack of time together. the increase in hunts also began taking its toll on you, your hands shook at the thought of killing another sailor and your stomach churned at the idea of eating their flesh. your breath would hitch and you’d stutter when forced to go with your sisters.

they even forced you to— “contribute more” placing you on the front lines to lure the men in. claiming your innocence would confuse them into thinking you were a mermaid. taking advantage of you. your sisters were taking advantage of you, and your lack of backbone. there’s only so much a person can take before they lose it all.

you were so tired, this was the most you’ve ever had to work, the most you’d ever killed, and the longest you had gone without support. you wanted to see rintarou again. needed to see him again.

so you did, your sisters be damned.

—

it’s late, you can feel the fatigue cracking in your bones but this was the only chance you had. you snuck out of the den where your sisters slept peacefully, praying you didn’t have to come back anytime soon, you knew the repercussions for running away, you weren’t a child, but to you the risk was worth the reward. you’d see your rin and the cave you two shared.

swimming through the dark depths of the ocean was much easier as a siren than any other underwater creature, you were feared, even with your pacifist attitude you were still feared. the fish would part for you, the underwater insects would scramble for a place to hide. you suppose it’s a privilege for your getaway plan, to not be stopped or distracted on your journey to the pretty mermaid man who gave you everything you wanted.

the journey wasn’t as short as you remember it being, but you soon stumbled upon the opening of your small cave and with a burst of adrenaline you sped towards the entrance. pushing yourself out of the water you saw the inside was bare, save for the jewels growing out of every corner of the enclosed space. obviously rin wouldn’t be here so late at night…

yet you couldn’t hold back the pang that reverberated in your chest, it was sharp with disappointment and sadness.

when did a mermaid become so important to you?

you pulled yourself onto the ledge and let your tail sway idly in the pool below you, a frown etched onto your face, so much had happened in such little time. it was overwhelming, you couldn’t begin to reminisce on what you had gone through, every new thing rintarou made you experience was overshadowed by the hundreds of men you had to kill. their blood could never be washed away no matter how strong the underwater current is, you could still see the red cloud burst from them surrounding you in a blanket of blood. they’d look you right in the eyes, begging for you to let them go, they had families, lovers, friends they wanted to see again. you robbed them of that, you robbed them and the people in their lives.

you were a monster…

you are a monster, you’re sick and twisted and cruel, you're no better than your sisters or the other sirens who rule over the other parts of the ocean. you weren’t a pacifist, you were a cold blooded killer. how many men died at your hands? men you couldn’t ever bring back, because the mortality of a silly little human was so fragile. you began shaking, you killed so many people.

so many humans. the silly little people from the world above the seas, humans who gasped and gaped at the prettiest jewels or the softest dresses, humans who created the most delicious foods from anything edible they could find, the humans who were so resourceful to create cities out of the materials left for them. the same humans who risked their lives travelling treacherous oceans just to discover the world. even the most selfish humans were pitiful and almost endearing, was a map marked with an ‘x’ and the promise of treasure worth risking yourself and your men?

you couldn’t choke down the sob that clawed viciously at your throat, your hand covering your mouth as you wailed and mourned for the loss of so many innocent, and maybe not so innocent, people. their fated ends should not have been by your hands. you couldn’t take that guilt anymore. it wasn’t fair.

you wiped at the tears steadily coming down, dropping your hands to grip the rocky ledge you sat upon. when your palm meets the ledges surface it knocks into a small trinket of sorts, the clinking sound of metal hitting rocks brings your attention down to the surface of your resting spot.

there, next to a withered flower, was another pretty little clip. a starfish this time, with little pink diamonds in the suction cups of the stars' little arms.

it was from rintarou, he had come, he had waited and he’d left you a gift.

you couldn’t keep wallowing in your self pity, you needed to see him again. and with a newly found motivator, you tightly gripped the clip and threw yourself out of the cave. pushing through the oceans strong pulls, you force yourself to go faster than you ever had. to go to the border of a territory that had orders to kill any and all sirens on sight.

it was a risk you were willing to take to see your favourite little mermaid.

—

back pressed tightly against a boulder, you placed a hand over your racing heart, the sounds of the royal guards patrolling the areas growing louder every so often as they passed by you. you risked a peek back at the gate, eyes gliding over each guard's face. you knew rin would have to be there somewhere, he told you he’d been training to be a guard all those nights ago.

so you waited, very impatiently, peeking out the side of the boulder every so often in hopes of finding rintarou for even a second. yet you never managed to. it almost felt like a sign, your sisters would be up by now, probably looking for you and you knew if they caught you, you’d never experience the life you fantasised about every night after ripping that life away from another man.

it felt like hours before you felt a hand harshly yank you away from the boulder, their other coming up to clasp around your mouth to hide the shocked gasp that involuntarily escaped your parted lips. the attacker twisted you around, bruising grip getting tighter as they stared down at you with such anger and rage. harsh glare burning your body inside out. such a foreign look for such soft creatures.

“are you an idiot!? why would you come here, if it had been someone else you’d be dead right now.” there was a quiver in their voice, a light shake in their body that caused their grip to falter.

it was rintarou, your rintarou.

“‘m sorry, rin— i couldn’t find you at the cave, i missed you.” mumbling guiltily, you try and pull his hand off of your arm, not wanting to be scolded by yet another person you cared about. you wanted it all to stop, you wanted to be free of the harsh words and tones of anger and disappointment.

“yeah well, you’re not the only one who’s been busy. i have real responsibilities to focus on, i can’t just keep babysitting you when you can’t handle your own responsibilities.”

you gaped at him, eyes wide and mouth parted. your heart sunk at his words, stomach twisting with the horribly uncomfortable feeling of guilt and anger, were you really just a chore for him? did the day spent above ground mean nothing?

“if i was such a nuisance, why'd you agree to take me to see the market? or buy me the starfish clip?” you pushed past him in frustration, wanting to get back to your safe haven away from rintarou and your sisters. maybe you could go back to helen, explain your predicament and pray she doesn’t hate sirens enough to throw you back out to sea.

rin scoffs at your actions, a condescending chuckle following after. “of course you’re running off again,” he swims closer to you, hand gripping your arm again. “hey, how many men did you kill in the month we didn’t see each other?” he had a grin on his face, but his eyes darkened and the rage behind his gaze was piercing through you.

“leave me alone, rintarou.” and with a final pull, he let you go. eyes glued to your retreating figure. he bites back a scoff.

“nothing good ever comes out of naivety, yn.”

—

suna places the trident on the rack, lined with many more, undressing himself of the gear given to the royal guards in training, all his mind could focus on was the pitiful look of desperation on your face. you were a disgrace to the strength and threat of sirens, how could someone so weak be from such a strong group? and how did you have the power to make him feel like he was infinitely weaker in your presence?

shaking his head free of those thoughts he leaves the training room. he didn’t need you, he didn’t want you either. he’s a mermaid training to be in the royal guard, if it got out that he was infatuated with a monster he’d be stripped of his title immediately.

he couldn’t risk his power for a woman he met a mere few weeks ago.

with a sigh he swam away from the royal military outpost, towards the gates of their kingdom and up towards the surface, ascending slowly to his own safe haven away from you. away from his responsibilities. away from anything that made him think about his pathetic future. when he made it to the rocks he immediately began dressing, already used to the feeling of the human legs he’d been bestowed with above the sea. he was quick, careless, he needed to be away from the water as fast as possible.

with a final tug on his boots, rintarou sprints along the rocks, the water crashing against the bridge lights up like crystals under the blazing summer sun, the breeze from the ocean pushed against his face, his hair, his loose clothes. he felt so free, so unchained without anything or anyone to worry about. he would let nothing stop him from experiencing this feeling, this freedom, for the rest of his life.

except for a fish net, thrown over his tall body, forcing him to the ground. his face bashing into the edges of the sharp gravel, leaving cuts and scratches on his normally unmarked skin. rintarou struggled against the nets, his desperation to be let out raising the longer he stayed trapped. he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see anything, his focus stuck on the heavy pounds of rope laying on him.

“well well well, we caught ourselves a big one boys.” a sinister voice called form above rintarou’s heaving body. “think the captain would wan’ a word with ‘im.”

—

“i always knew there was something— fishy, about you.” the captains loud boisterous laugh resonates throughout the wooden cabin, rintarou grimaces at the attempt of a joke, not in the mood for humour when he’s forced to kneel on the harsh wooden flooring of the ship with his hands tied tightly behind his back.

captain yuuji presses the tip of his blade under rin’s chin, dragging the blade down to his adam’s apple, letting the sharp point rest there as he crouched down in front of the trapped merman. “i’ve heard some things about you underwater monsters. i’ve seen things too… siren scales, incredibly rare and even more dangerous to find them, the reward far greater than any man could ever dream.”

yuuji stands back up, slowly walking behind rintarou, blade tapping against the ground tauntingly, suna gulps in anticipation as yuuji presses a firm hand into rintarou’s freshly dried strands, gripping his hair tightly before yanking it back, forcing a pained hiss out of suna. “tell me how to get a siren scale, and i won’t kill you.”

through shuddering gasps rintarou let’s his gaze slide up past yuuji’s hands to his sharp eyes, shooting icy glares at the vulnerable man on the floor. rin smirks, a laugh mixed with a scoff escaping him before he could stop himself.

“how ‘bout i bring you a siren— and you give me a spot on your crew.” with a quirked brow rintarou let his half lidded gaze fall back to the floor, grimacing at the pang of guilt that pierced through his chest.

nothing could stop him from achieving freedom.

taglist : @lomlsuna @akaashiwife @plixy @on-crows-wings @1-800-s1ya @sabztov @keiji-in-a-can @tamak00 @erintaro

#🌀. botdb #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #suna x reader #hq x reader #suna x y/n #hq imagines #haikyuu angst #suna rintaro scenarios #suna imagines #suna angst #hq angst

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real-jaune-isms · 4 years ago

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RWBY Volume 8 Finale Review/Remix: The Final Word

The finale is here, and oh sweet fucking hell we were not ready for all that it brought us. These are the notes the series is leaving us on for the next 6 months, and the majority of them are not good feelings to dwell on for half a year. Let’s try and dissect them a little bit and hope the pain is a little less painful, okay?

Before even addressing the episode content I want to talk about the disclaimer and the episode description. Mental health is incredibly important, and if you are having issues or highly stressful or dangerous thoughts, there is no shame in seeking professional help or confiding in your loved ones so they know what you’re dealing with. The content presented within this chapter can be highly upsetting to some people, and it addresses themes of suicide and death worse than we have seen thus far. If you or a loved one are having suicidal thoughts, Rooster Teeth provides a number you can call for helpful resources and people. The episode description also features a line lifted straight from this Volume’s intro song “sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall”. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s the part of the theme that plays when Team RWBY falls through the ice and into the ominous underwater clutches of Grimm arms. With Yang being the one who falls first and farthest. How symbolic.

We start off strong and stressful, fading in on the still dissolving Monstra to see Salem is still reforming herself. She’s not done yet, but it looks like it’s getting close... Going to a different powerhouse with white hair, Winter is fighting hard against Ironwood but not really gaining any ground. He keeps blocking her attacks with his cannon, and worse still he keeps trying to explain why he’s right. He shouldn’t be blamed for any of this because he’s been sacrificing so much for the mission. Except, as she points out, he hasn’t. He’s sacrificed a lot of other people or made them sacrifice everything for him and on his orders. He hasn’t actually sacrificed anything himself, because his ego won’t allow it. He thinks he’s too important to actually give up his own life even if it means saving anyone else. Cuz that’s not what this is about. He says he’s doing what’s best for Remnant but it’s really what’s best for him and his image and his confidence, such as shutting down major commerce routes and destroying half of the Kingdom just because it was lower income neighborhoods full of commoners. But might makes right in this fight, and Ironwood is currently smacking Winter around with his might so it’s an uphill battle for justice.

Speaking of uphill battles, we go back through the portals to see the continuation of Maiden Bowl 2021 as Cinder keeps blasting Penny around before Weiss comes in on a Lancer summon to save her friend and fellow Atlesian. In a very brief shift from the action Jaune reminds Nora their top priority is evacuating the civilians, so that’s our clue that they probably won’t be jumping into the fight any time soon. Back on the Lancer, Penny tells Weiss that since Cinder wants the Maiden power she can act as bait and lure the Fall Maiden away so the others can safely get away. Weiss doesn’t like that idea, but before they can think of an alternative the summon is shot down and they land hard on the main crossroads of the paths before the gate into Vacuo. Neither of their Aura’s are broken, but they do need a moment to get back on their feet as Cinder lands between them and their escape. Penny is the first back up, and stands between her foe and her friend pleading for the madwoman’s undivided attention so the Staff doesn’t get snatched and Weiss isn’t killed in this moment of recovery. But Cinder’s eyes are bigger than her stomach and she wants every bit of power and importance before her. Before she can swoop in to destroy all she sees and claim all she wants... Cinder gets double boot kicked in the face by Blake. The interruption gives Cinder momentary pause and in that time the Faunus pleadingly kicks her silver haired teammate back into high gear. That’s a whole lot of flowery language when I could just say “After she swoops in and kicks Cinder in the face, Blake tells Weiss to get up”, but this is my last review for months and I wanna give you your money’s worth. Weiss runs off to go help elsewhere, while Blake and Penny engage with Cinder.

But we don’t have time to see how that fight goes right now, because we have to turn our attention to the sky. Even though he was the one to crash through the windshield and attack her, Qrow wants to talk Harriet down and not fight. He tries to explain and apologize for his culpability in Clover’s death, but she really doesn’t want to hear that name right now. She actually gets so mad that he’s trying to talk her down that she cuts the ropes holding down the bomb and slams her fists on the floor of the ship so it’ll tilt back and the bomb will fall out onto the city below. Qrow leaps into the path of the sliding bomb and tries to stop it, which just infuriates Harriet more cuz he just keeps interfering. But the interference doesn’t stop there, because Vine grabs the back of the airship and we see he’s being held sturdily to the roof of Robyn’s airship by Elm. We can assume Marrow is inside recovering from tanking an explosion, but Hare’s fellow Ace Ops have fully changed their tune and don’t want her to finish this mission. She screams at them for making this all the more difficult for her, but they’re doing this out of kindness. As possibly the smartest yet most obvious thing she’s said all Volume, Elm admits that YES, the Ace Ops are friends and care about each other outside of the professional sense. And as a friend, Elm doesn’t want her to risk her life for a dumb act of cruelty from a bitter man. Before Hare can fully process this news and express her regrets, the bomb slips further towards the open door and Qrow gets pushed aside with a dismayed cry. In a last act of desperation that I had a hard time understanding at first, he pulls out Clover’s lucky pin and seems to pray to it. I thought he was about to throw it in the path of the bomb so it would get wedged and damage the pin beyond repair for the sake of stopping its momentum. But no, he was just hoping for a little of Clover’s good luck to have rubbed off on the pin. And as if from beyond the grave, some luck does come to them. The bomb stops moving just as it’s teetering towards the edge, and they all breath a sigh of relief... before Watts remotely activates the countdown anyway because he’s a bastard.

Back in the in-between dimension, Ruby is still trying to subdue Neo and is being flawlessly countered at every turn. Neo practically looks bored by all this, just waiting for Ruby to get tired out so she can kill her. Ruby gets knocked down but before Neo can cut through the last of her Aura for the kill Weiss skates in on her glyphs and delivers a proverbial one-two punch of attacking with Myrtenaster and the Staff of Creation. Neo blocks the first but the second knocks her backwards into a portal. Seeing this from a distance frustrates Cinder as she continues to rather easily hold off Penny and Blake, so easily in fact that she knocks Blake off the ledge with a single blast and Penny has to fly off and save her. Weiss helps Ruby back to her feet and encourages her to keep fighting for the sake of avenging Yang/ surviving so her loss wasn’t in vain. The two of them being in close proximity is just what Cinder was hoping for though, and she creates a hot spot beneath them set to explode and send them flying. I’m really not sure what else to call it, but she does it fairly frequently so you know what I’m referring to. Looks like a glyph but it’s just fire. Weiss notices the danger first, and shoves Ruby out of the way while handing her the Staff in the same motion. By the time Ruby realizes she’s being saved, Weiss has already been knocked into the air... and falls back down on the same platform. Thank goodness for small miracles, though it does take out all of Weiss’ Aura so she won’t be able to save herself with glyphs if anything else happens. Ruby doesn’t have time to help her partner because Neo comes charging back in and reengages her attack, and now it’s harder to defend because she can only handle Crescent Rose with one hand now that she’s carrying the Staff with the other. Ruby is sent flying onto a pathway while losing the Staff to Neo, and Crescent Rose fully falls over the edge and leaves her disarmed.

From one speedster panicking in the face of danger to another, we go back to the airships and you better get a tissue ready. Qrow has discovered the autopilot is forcibly engaged and they can’t undo that, so he says their safest bet is abandoning ship and trying to get out of the blast radius. Harriet has gone full depressive breakdown and says the countdown is too far along for them to flee in time, so they’re all doomed and it’s her own damn fault. I would certainly agree, but it’s hard to try and hold that against her right now. Elm and Vine share a look before Vine leaps aboard and carefully lifts Harriet off the ship and into Elm’s arms. He looks at the bomb, then he looks at his own hands, and we realizes what he’s planning at the same time Elm does. Well, maybe she realized it when they shared that look, but it certainly sinks in now. He insists that he can and will because it’ll mean his dear friends will be safe. Harriet breaks down in tearful screams and has to be dragged inside, while Qrow shares a look with Vine and jumps out to fly away. Maybe he was trying to say “We appreciate this sacrifice, thank you for choosing the right side, Clover would be proud of you for looking out for the team like this”, who’s to say? I’d certainly like to think so because that would be a very meaningful goodbye. Vine spreads his arms and brings his palms back together in front of him in a very zen pose, presumably as he gathers and focuses his Aura. Then he sends out eight energy tendrils that spread out and become an Aura bubble around the airship, and we see it keep flying for a few more seconds while we pan back to get the view from the rest of the Ace Ops and the birds. BOOM, the bubble is stretched in several places by the force of the explosion, then it dissolves and releases heavy smoke. The bomb has gone off, the ship is gone, and Vine has died. But no one down in Mantle was affected, and the other 3 Ace Ops are okay if not heavily depressed by this new loss. He was a hero.

Speaking of heroes doing bold things, Neo came down onto the path Ruby is on and the young huntresses has been pushed back to the edge trying to get some distance from her. She tells the little psycho “I hope it was worth it”, and raises her arms as if surrendering to her fate. When Neo takes the bait and lunges at her, Ruby falls backwards over the edge and swoops back around with her semblance to shove her foe over the edge, though Neo does manage to hold onto the edge and avoid plummeting to her presumed death. Before Ruby can catch the Staff Neo threw in the air, Cinder blasts her in the back with fire and wipes out her Aura. The force of the attack also knocks her over the edge as well, where she is able to grab onto Neo’s legs. Cinder kicks the Staff into the air and catches it, then looks over the edge at the two hanging on for dear life. You’d be forgiven for assuming she’ll reach down and save Neo since she just apologized to her last episode, but instead she stretches her arm further down and takes the Lamp from her. Cinder is unmatched in her ability to hold a grudge, and Neo threatened to leave her to face Salem’s wrath over the loss of the Lamp over text two episodes back. She makes the backstabbing official by kicking Hush (Neo’s parasol in case you forgot the name they’ve never actually said in canon) over the edge and telling her now ex-partner “You never should have threatened me”. Ruby seems to be charging her silver eyes, but before she can do anything Cinder tells her she should have never been born and bashes Neo’s gripping fingers with the blunt end of the Staff. Both young women fall helplessly, but Cinder’s attention is drawn by Penny flying in carrying Blake since the two of them yell their friend’s name in dismay. Cinder sends a fireball at them but Blake gets thrown ahead while Penny takes the hit. Blake grabs Ruby out of the air and throws Gambol Shroud up to anchor into a path and let them swing to safety, but Neo is not saved and disappears into the void offscreen. The save works and it seems like they’ll be safe... but Cinder shoots a fireball that cuts the ribbon. Both Blake and Ruby fall into the the void and disappear, leaving a very upset Penny. If anyone is more anguished than her it’s Weiss, who grabs Gambol Shroud and shoots Cinder, her hands trembling and eyes welling with tears. The bullets do very little damage but it gets Cinder’s attention.

Jaune and Nora meet up in front of the gate into Vacuo, and he instructs her to go through and get them backup for this fight. They part with determined smiles, but our hearts sink with the knowledge that the Vacuo portal is one way so Nora won’t be able to accomplish this last mission for him. Her self doubts are gonna take a real serious plummet from this. Stupid well played dramatic irony... Cinder is knocking Weiss around and mocks her for being the last one standing by implying she let the others die to save herself because she’s a selfish Schnee only looking out for herself. We know damn well that’s the farthest thing from the truth and Cinder has never cared enough to understand the bonds of Weiss’ friendships. As many have pointed out, this is a tragic departure from the promise Ruby made at the start of Volume 6 that Team RWBY wouldn’t leave Weiss side for even a second while they were in Atlas. But she’s still not alone because Penny blocks a beam of fire heading for Weiss and Jaune glides in to slam Cinder with his shield and use the gravity Dust to knock her back even more. As Penny points out, Cinder knows nothing of friends and we can clearly see Weiss still has some to stand with her. And stand they do, Weiss now dual wielding her own sword as well as Blake’s. Before Cinder can try to triumph in the face of these seemingly stacked odds, her Grimm arm starts convulsing and she screams with pain. The heroes share a confused look, but Cinder soon settles down and smirks with the realization of what this means. Salem has fully reformed, which gives Cinder new confidence that she puts to good use with a shockwave of fire to knock the good guys back a few paces. She tosses fiery glass swords at Jaune and Wiess but Penny deflects both of them and flies right at Cinder, who counters with a fiery kick to the ground. Whether Penny diverts the row of fire in front of her to spread to her sides instead or Cinder intentionally made the V shape to make dividers between the three heroes is unknown, but before anyone can react to this new obstacle Penny is stabbed in the chest by Cinder’s Grimm claws. The poor girl really has been made flesh and blood, because her wounds are bleeding while Cinder starts draining the Maiden power from her. Between the Amity fight and this encounter, I have to wonder what percentage of the powers have gone to Cinder by this point vs how much Penny still has... As her vision starts to blur and she falls onto her back, Penny sees Weiss charge in to attack Cinder and stop her from continuing to absorb Penny’s power and then Jaune come kneel over her and start healing her. He saved Weiss from a similar wound and this time he’s starting the process far more promptly, there are very good odds he could save Penny. But the problem here is time, Cinder isn’t going to let him complete the job and Weiss is sorely outmatched. She does see an alternative, but it’s heart shattering to hear from her. Jaune can kill her here and now and let her decide who will be in her final thoughts. They can’t risk Cinder stealing the Winter Maiden powers as well as having both relics, so ending Penny’s life quickly is unfortunately necessary. Penny begs him to trust her on this and let her choose how she dies since she didn’t get the opportunity to choose many things about how she lived. She obeyed her father’s wishes, followed Ironwood’s orders, went along with her friends’ plans, etc. Some of those times were good and she was glad she did what she did. But choice is the attribute of one of the relics for a reason, it’s a key part of humanity, and with her last moments she wants to express hers.

We cut back for brief moments a couple times during this very tense moment to see Winter’s fight with Ironwood juxtaposed with her sister’s losing struggle with Cinder, and the audience is meant to wonder which of the Schnee sisters Penny might be about to bestow the upper hand to in the form of Maiden power. Or she could think of Ruby and the power would go to her as proof she and the others didn’t die, or it could go to Nora because of the moments they shared discussing finding your whole self? We literally won’t know until she’s dead, and I’m not rushing to get to that point. Jaune looks at his own hesitant reflection in his sword, and for the first time it really seems to sink in that this is a sharpened steel weapon with lethal capabilities. It always seemed like the least impressive weapon in a world of giant scythes and wrist mounted shotguns, but we fear its blade more than anything in this moment. Weiss seems about to be killed, having had Gambol Shroud knocked from her hand into the abyss, when Cinder is distracted by Jaune screaming and weeping as we see both tear drops and blood drops fall to the floor by Penny’s lifeless body. The argument has been made that this was a bad move from a narrative standpoint, that he was only the one to get the kill or Penny only died so Jaune could get more angst and importance in the story, and various other points that add up to a lot of dislike for the character. I can’t even accurately articulate the argument because I give so little credit to its accuracy or plausibility. I even want to say, though there’s no way to back it up and its just me giving a little benefit of the doubt to theatrics, that he only made such a ruckus after the kill because he knew it would spare Weiss for a few moments longer. Cinder is going to see Penny dead and know the powers are not hers so she’ll go ballistic on Jaune for taking that away from her, and the heat will be off Weiss. Speaking of bad beatings, Winter gets pistol whipped and is about to lose too. But with the dripping of the blood soaked sword, the screen goes white and we see Penny hopping on the balls on her feet waiting for someone to arrive in this empty white void. They do, and she greets them with one last “SALUTATIONS!~” that made me cry even remembering. The one she has chosen to inherit her power is Winter, and when she finds out she’s here because she was the one in Penny’s last thoughts it seems to break her heart. But Penny would have it no other way, it was supposed to go to Winter anyway, she was the one who intervened and made things complicated. Winter disagrees with that though, Penny has proven far more worthy of these powers than an blindly obedient soldier like her. Penny was always more human where it counted and Winter was the machine, but Penny takes her hands and assures her she was plenty human enough by being a good friend. The powers start to go from one woman to the other and Winter tries to say that she’ll always remember Penny after she’s gone, or at least I assume that’s the heartfelt sentiment she’s going for, but our sweet redhead reminds her of her own words when Fria died. She won’t be gone, she’ll be a part of Winter now. That makes Winter feel a little better, and Penny gives her a smile as she fades away. Penny Polendina was a very cheerful girl, and she died happy in the knowledge she helped so many who will call her friend.

Winter reawakens on the floor of the Vault with Ironwood saying she’s finally reached the destiny he chose for her, as if this will suddenly make him a good person or convince her to change her allegiances back to him. She staggers to her feet and rises in a whirlwind of blue snow, Jimmy realizing all too late he might actually have miscalculated and be in danger now. I really love her defiant response to him, but I feel like it could have been a little more powerful with a small addition. Observe. “You chose nothing. This was a gift... from my best friend.” Either way, he realizes he now has an even stronger Winter Maiden as his enemy and tries to take her down with his greek fire cannon, but she creates a shield of ice that reflects the blast back at him. From the horrified expression he makes and the power we saw this weapon have against mortal man, I fully expected this to be Ironwood’s death. Hoisted by his own petard, no one to blame but himself for this fate. He could have not attacked her and he’d be fine, he could have decided to stop anywhere along this path and been spared. Defeated by someone literally made stronger with the power of friendship and trust, while he has been paranoid and severing bonds all this time. But no... he lives cuz it was a weakened blast after the redirect, or he still had his Aura to protect him, or whatever logic you want to use. Regardless, he’s down for the count right now and Winter flies away to deal with more important problems. He’s been removed from power and is only a major threat in his own mind, she doesn’t care anymore. As could have been expected, Cinder is outraged over what Jaune has done and attacks him rather than finishing off Weiss. He knocks her flying tackle back with his shield but she rebounds with a sword swipe he meets in kind. Blood stained steel meets tempered glass, and the steel loses. Jaune’s sword, a family heirloom from the Great War that he reforged after losing Pyrrha, is broken in half by Cinder’s attack and he is left at her mercy. The mad Fall Maiden demands to know who and where the power of Winter has gone to, and receives her answer in the worst way she could have hoped for: an icy blue blast to the head. Whether that was ice or specially colored fire or lightning is unknown, but it gets Cinder’s anger and attention. She was probably really hoping the strongest and smartest of Ironwood’s elite wouldn’t get the power to match her on a magical level, but she’s too determined and cocksure to stop her assault now and the two do battle in the air. Winter uses both magic and summons to deal with Cinder, but while the latter ends up dropping the Staff in the scuffle it still seems like an even match for the moment. Cinder sees Weiss and Jaune staggering towards the exit and decides to choose some easier targets for extra emotional damage. By the time Winter can realize the danger her sister is in, it’s too late and the two sword wielders are blasted by another of Cinder’s eruption blasts. Jaune skids across the path and loses his Aura, but Weiss is tossed over the side entirely and Winter isn’t fast enough. Weiss falls into the void, the last of Team RWBY dead and gone for all we know.

I want to deeply praise Elizabeth Maxwell for her performance as Winter, both in the series as a whole and for this episode especially. She shows so many emotions so strongly and believably, and you can tell she’s putting heart and soul into it. Nowhere do I feel that more clearly than in this moment where Winter cries out for Weiss with so much despair and regret. She flies back up and collapses onto the path in tears, her reaction speaking volumes to Jaune. Cinder retrieves the Staff and Winter is ready to raise hell in revenge, but before anyone can attack Salem’s scream can be heard echoing through every portal in the place. Cinder realizes she needs to return to her mistress’s side so she can’t try and finish the job, while Jaune has to tell Winter repeatedly that they need to get to safety now so she just swears recompense later down the line. Winter flies to Vacuo while Fall goes back into the falling Atlas, and once she’s through all the portals and pathways start disappearing. Jaune tries his best to make it to the Vacuo gate in time, but he’s been cursed by the animators with a slow run cycle. Or he’s just really exhausted and weighed down by armor and weapons, who’s to say? Winter realizes she’s taken the lead too late and disappears into Vacuo just as she tries to turn around and reach out for Jaune. He dives the last couple feet to get through as the ground dissolves below his feet, but the last way out evaporates between his fingertips. Jaune Arc is the last one in the central location, and the last to fall into the void. On the other side Nora is futilely pounding on the portal trying to go back through and save her leader, while Em Ren and Oscar are putting up a valiant but outclassed fight against the Ravagers (the bat Grimm) and the small scorpion-like Sulfur Fish. Fun fact, those ones were the winning design submission from a contest last year. Before the teens and the crowd they’re protecting can get overwhelmed, a gale force wind blows the Grimm back. All eyes turn to see Winter float above the crowd as the magic door disappears behind her, including the eyes of her surviving family members. Thank goodness there was a portal available for Willow Whitley and Klein, though the look they all share makes it clear they realize Weiss did not make it. Rather than break down, Winter turns her sadness to rage and charges at the returning Grimm swarm.

We cut back to Atlas where much to my annoyance Ironwood has regained consciousness to see Cinder descending the Vault stairs with the relics in tow. But she won’t be winning the award for dramatic entrances, because Salem flies down the elevator shaft as a cloud of black smoke like a scene out of Harry Potter. She swirls around Cinder once or twice before reforming before her. And Cinder starts doing what she does best, lies out her ass to save her own skin. She claims Team RWBY used the last question for Jinn and then Neo killed Ruby while thousands were able to survive the fall of Atlas and make it to Vacuo, and that she had to make the conscious choice to let the Winter Maiden escape at the cost of all their allies so she could secure the relics for her mistress. Let me remind you what really happened. CINDER used the last question, CINDER killed Ruby and Neo out of petty revenge, CINDER killed the last Winter Maiden but couldn’t get the powers out of her or stop the stronger new one, and CINDER let thousands escape into Vacuo because she was too busy going for Penny and the relics. Oh, and Team RWBY and Neo aren’t actually dead, spoilers. So if any of those lies are revealed CINDER is going to pay a hefty price for her selfish deception. But for the moment Salem seems to believe her or at least lets it slide because she does have two relics now, and Cinder had the humility to say she was sorry. I like that Ironwood also hears the tale of Team RWBY heroically sacrificing themselves to stop the villains and actually having the nerve to give their own lives rather than the lives of others, unlike him. And, they saved so so so many more people than he did, and he was trying to arrest and foil them all this time. Perhaps now he’s a little humbled and realizes he’s not the hero of Atlas anymore. There will be no more Atlas and RWBY are the saviors of its survivors. As the two wicked women depart the Vault, Salem asks her acolyte what she made to replace what Team RWBY had created. Through another half truth Cinder reveals to us she locked Watts in the Atlas central command room and created a large fire. He roasted her savagely on an emotional level, so she literally roasted him alive with the biggest flames magic could afford. Cinder, Tyrian, and Mercury are now the only members of Salem’s inner circle. Wonder if she’ll recruit more in Vacuo to compensate? Ironwood grabs his pistol and is about to shoot at Cinder, but she turns and tells him this is checkmate and he’s too scared to pull the trigger. He knows he’d lose and even now he doesn’t want that disgrace. So instead he’ll lie here as Atlas crashes into Mantle and becomes flooded by a sudden influx of sea water. Cinder and Salem observe from the air as Atlas becomes Atlantis, while Qrow tries to get in contact with either of his nieces over comms aboard the ship with Robyn and the surviving Ace Ops... and comes up empty. Cinder’s declaration that this is Checkmate for the villains is actually the last audible dialogue, anything Qrow tried to say being silent with only music playing. It’s a depressing and somber note, and that’s where our Volume ends.

But there is more to say, of course. First of all, let me wipe away these tears and try to articulate how good the song for the end credits is.... It’s called Friend, and for the first time it is a song sung from Penny’s perspective. It sounds absolutely sweet and magical, like you’re peacefully flying through a cloudless starry sky, and she sings about how glad she was to have true friends like Team RWBY, especially one like Ruby. Even if her life was difficult sometimes, she’s very happy because it was as wonderful as a wish upon a star come true. I cannot lie, I start crying every five seconds as I try to write this. It’s probably going to be my favorite track on the soundtrack this summer. With the conclusion of the Volume I want to say how much I appreciate every bit of work every member of the RWBY cast and crew put into this season and this show. I cannot wait to see what wonderful things they do next.

Hark! There is one final scene! A mysterious tropical island with a massive tree in the center and strange hexagonal shapes in the sand, and just beyond the reach of the tide lies wedged in that sand... Crescent Rose. Team RWBY and the others are alive, but we’ll have to wait 5 months to find out where they have found themselves. My money is on a magical godly realm where we might learn more about the creation of Remnant. Until then, enjoy the last of my memes and any other shitposts!

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ncfr36 · 5 months ago

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I think you mentioned this in your fic but Sunghoon does not want to go back.

My opinion is that it is a mix of can't and won't.

CAN'T - It is incredibly difficult to go back to something you loved so deeply that its absence / presence changed the very meaning of your life. Losing it was not a choice, it was taken away from you, ripped from your hands even though you begged, screamed and cried to have it back. Things like that change you as a person, and once you fully accept that it is gone & you will not get it back, you subconsciously start to not want it back as well. You unknowingly begin to convince yourself that this is the new you, the old you is gone and you would not take it back even if you could, which is just something you tell yourself cuz the truth is you can not. That is why it is also - WON'T.

I'm projecting here to some extent so I might as well be wrong, its just my perspective.

Hi there! By any chance will you be including a scene in your fic where Sunghoon ice skates and Jay is completely mesmerized? (Ps: Your fic is absolutely amazing. I'm literally obsessed with it and my goodness. I swear it is the best fic that I have ever read in my whole life. Keep up your good work!!😌👍🏻👍🏻I'm forever looking up for any updates haha.)

Okay so ahem I'm going to answer that question here after you read chapter 12 ^^

AND FOR NOW thank you :(( ♡♡♡ you sweet little gnome. But you really should raise your standarts 😭

*the update is coming ok it's right there, just you wait*

#ramblings

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 4 years ago

Text

RANDOM REVIEW #2: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)

“This game has got to be about more than winning. You’re part of something.” Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and featuring Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, LL Cool J, James Woods, and Matthew Modine, is my favourite sports movie of all time. Of all time.

I’m not betraying my favourite sport by saying this. The Mighty Ducks is a kid’s movie. It’s okay, but it’s not a timeless classic. I don’t like the Slap Shot series, Sudden Death is fun but silly, and the Goon movies were a missed opportunity. The only truly good scene in Goon is the diner scene where Liev Schreiber tells Seann William Scott: “Don’t go trying to be a hockey player. You’ll get your heart ripped out.”

Such is the sad circumstance of the hockey enforcer. They all want to play, not just fight. Here’s a link to a video in which the most feared fighter in the history of the NHL, Bob Probert, explains that he wanted to be “an offensive threat...like Bobby Orr,” not a fighter: https://youtu.be/4sbxejbMH4g?t=118 Heartbreaking. But not unusual.

Donald Brashear, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson, Frazer McLaren: they all had hockey skills. But they were told they had to fight to remain on the roster, so they fought. As Schreiber says in the film: “You know they just want you to bleed, right?” If the players don’t bleed, they don’t get to stay on the team. So they fight, and they pay dearly for it later. Many former fighters have CTE or other head injuries that make day-to-day life difficult. The makers of Goon should have taken that scene and run with it. I was so disappointed they didn’t, especially given what happened right around the time the film came out, with the tragic suicides of Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, and Rick Rypien, all enforcers, all dead in a single summer. So Hollywood hasn’t even made a good hockey movie, let alone a great one. Baseball has a shitload of good films, probably because the slower pace of play makes it easier to film. Moneyball has a terrific home run scene, Rookie of the Year does too. Angels in the Outfield was a big favourite of mine when I was a kid, plus all the Major League films, and Bull Durham.

Football has two good movies: The Program (1993) and Rudy (1993).

And football has one masterpiece. The one I am writing about today.

A young Oliver Stone trying not to die in Vietnam. ^ Now, I know Stone is laughed at these days, given his nutty conspiracy theories and shitty behaviour and the marked decline in the quality of his films (although 2012’s Savages was underrated). I know Stone is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but do you want a football movie to be subtle? Baseball, sure. It’s a game of fine distinctions, but football? Football is war. And war is about steamrolling the enemy, distinctions be damned, which is why Any Given Sunday is such an amazing sports film. I love the way it shows the dark side of football. In fact, the film is so dark that the NFL withdrew their support and cooperation, forcing Stone to create a fictitious league and team to portray what he wanted to portray.

This is not to say the movie is fresh or original. Quite the opposite. Any Given Sunday has every single sports film cliché you can think of. But precisely because it tries to stuff every single cliché into its runtime, the finished product is not a cliched mess so much as a rich tapestry, a dense cinema verite depiction of the dizzying highs and depressing lows of a professional sports team as it wins, loses, parties, and staggers its way through a difficult season. Cliché #1: The aging quarterback playing his final year, trying to win one last championship. (Dennis Quaid)

Sample dialog: Dennis Quaid (lying in a hospital bed severely injured): Don’t give up on me coach. Al Pacino: You’re like a son to me. I’ll never give up on you. ^ I know this sounds awful. But it’s actually fuckin’ great. Cliché #2: The arrogant upstart new player who likes hip hop and won’t respect the old regime. (Jamie Foxx)

Cliché #3: The walking wounded veteran who could die if he gets hit one more time. Coincidentally, he needs just one more tackle to make his million-dollar bonus for the season. (Lawrence Taylor)

Cliché #4: The female executive in a man’s world who must assert herself aggressively in order to win the grudging respect of her knuckle-dragging male colleagues (Cameron Diaz). Diaz is fantastic in the role, though she should have had more screen time, given that the main conflict in the film is very much about the new generation, as represented by her and Jamie Foxx, trying to replace the old generation, represented by Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. Some people think Diaz’s character is too calculating, but here’s the thing: she’s right. Too many sports GMs shell out millions for the player an individual used to be, not the player he presently is. “I am not resigning a 39-year old QB, no matter how good he was,” she tells Pacino’s coach character, and you know what? She’s right. The Leafs’ David Clarkson signing is proof positive of the perils of signing a player based on past performance, not current capability. Diaz’s character is the living embodiment of the question: do you want to win, or do you want to be loyal? Cuz sometimes you can’t do both.

Cliché #5: The team doctor who won’t sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (Matthew Modine).

Cliché #6: The team doctor who will sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (James Woods)

Cliché #7: The grizzled, thrice-divorced coach who has sacrificed everything for his football team, to the detriment of his social and familial life, who must give a stirring speech at some point in the film (Al Pacino…who goes out there and gives the all-time greatest sports movie “we must win this game” speech)

Cliché #8: The assistant or associate coach who takes a parental interest in his players, playing the good cop to the head coach’s bad cop (former NFL star Jim Brown).

Best quote: “Who wants to be thinking about blitzes and crossblocks when you’re holding your grandkids in your arms? That’s why I wanna coach high school. Kids don’t know nothing. They just wanna play.”

Cliché #9: The player who can’t stop doing drugs (L.L. Cool J).

Okay, so the first thing that needs to be talked about is Al Pacino’s legendary locker room speech. Now, it’s the coach’s job to rile up and inspire the players. But eloquence alone won’t do it. If you use certain big words, you lose them (remember Brian Burke being endlessly mocked by the Toronto media for using the word “truculent?”). The coach must deliver the message in a language the players understand, while still making victory sound lofty and aspirational. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. One of my favourite inspirational lines was spoken by “Iron” Mike Keenan to the New York Rangers before Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. “Win tonight, and we’ll walk together forever.” Oooh that’s gorgeous. But Pacino’s speech is right up there with it.

“You know, when you get old in life…things get taken from you. That’s parta life. But you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff. You find out…life’s this game of inches. So’s football. In either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it…one half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin difference between winnin’ and losin’! Between livin’ and dyin’!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY Somehow, against all odds, Any Given Sunday succeeds. It is the Cinderella run of sports movies. You root for the film as you watch it. The dressing room scenes are incredible…the Black players listen to the newest hip hop while a trio of lunkhead white dudes headbang and scream “Hetfield is God.” There is a shower scene where a linebacker, tired of being teased about the size of his penis, tosses his pet alligator into the showers where it terrorizes his tormentors. There is a scene where a halfback has horrible diarrhea, but he’s hooked up to an IV so the doctor (Matthew Modine) has to follow him into the toilet cubicle, crinkling his nose as the player evacuates his bowels. There is a scene where someone loses an eye (the only scene in the film where Stone’s over-the-top approach misses the mark). There are scenes that discuss concussions (which is why the NFL refused to cooperate for the film), where Lawrence Taylor has to sign a waiver absolving the team of responsibility if he is hurt or paralyzed or killed. I wonder how purists and old school football fans reacted to the news that Oliver Stone was making a football film. If they even knew who he was (not totally unlikely…Stone made a string of jingoistic war movies in the 1980s) they probably thought the heavy hands of Oliver would ruin the film, take the poetry out of every play. But the actual football is filmed perfectly. The camera gets nice and low for the tackles. It flies the arcs of perfect spiral passes. It shows the chaos of a defensive line barreling down the field. When Al Pacino asked quarterback Dan Marino (fresh off his own Hollywood experience acting in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) what it was like to be an NFL QB, Marino said: “Imagine standing on a highway with traffic roaring at you while trying to read Hamlet.” A great explanation. Shoulda made the movie. So the football itself is fabulously done. Much better than what Cameron Crowe did in the few football scenes in Jerry Maguire. The Program had some great football, as did Rudy, but neither come close to the heights of Any Given Sunday. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jamie Foxx insists that his white coaches have routinely placed him in situations where he was doomed to fail or prone to injury, and we believe him because white coaches have been doing that to Black players for decades. Quarterback Doug Williams, who led his Washington Redskins team to a Superbowl victory in 1987, was frequently referred to by even liberal media outlets as a “Black quarterback,” instead of just “quarterback,” as if his skin colour necessitated a qualification. Even now, in 2021, the majority of quarterbacks are white, although the gap is gradually closing. The 2020 season saw the highest number of starting Black quarterbacks, with 10 out of a possible 32. Quarterback is the most cerebral position on the field, and for a long time there was a racist belief that Black men couldn’t do the job. Foxx’s character is a composite of many of the different Black quarterbacks who came of age in the 1990s, fighting for playing time against white QBs beloved by their fan base, fawned over in hagiographic Sports Illustrated profiles, and protected by the good ol’ boys club of team executives and coaching staff. Foxx’s character isn’t demoted because he can’t play the game. He wins several crucial games for his team en route to the playoffs. He’s demoted because he listens to hip hop in the dressing room, because he recorded a rap song and shot a video for it, and because he’s cocky. Yes, the scene where he asks out Cameron Diaz is sexist, as if her power only comes from her sexuality, not her intelligence and business acumen, but it’s meant to show how overly confident Foxx is, not that he’s a sexist prick. Any Given Sunday isn’t a single issue film. It’s basically an omni-protest piece. It gleefully shows football’s dark side, and there is no director better than Oliver Stone for muck-raking. He’s in full-on investigative journalist mode in Any Given Sunday, showing how and why players play through serious brain injuries. How because they are given opiates, often leading to debilitating addictions (this happens in all contact sports...Colorado Avalanche player Marek Svatos overdosed on heroin a few years after retiring from injuries). As to why, Stone gives two reasons. One, team doctors are paid by the team, not the players, therefore their decisions will benefit the team, not the players. And two, the players themselves are encouraged to underreport injuries and play through them because stats are incentivized. James Woods unethical doctor argues with Modine’s idealistic one because an MRI the latter called for a player to have costs the team $20k. But the player in question, Lawrence Taylor, plays anyway because his contract is stat incentivized and if he makes on more tackle he gets a million dollars. Incentivizing stats leads to players playing hurt. And although I loathe this term, a lazy go-to for film critics, Stone really does give an unflinching account of how this shit happens and why. When Williams is inevitably hurt and lying prone on the field, he woozily warns the paramedics who are placing him on a stretcher to “be careful…I’m worth a million dollars.” It’s tragic, yet you’re happy for him. The film really makes you care about these guys. Thanks to the smartly written script, the viewer knows that Williams has four kids, and you’re pleased he made his bonus because, in all likelihood, after he retires, his injuries will prevent him from any kind of gainful employment (naturally, they give the TV analyst jobs to retired white players, unless Williams can somehow land the coveted token Black guy gig). Stone is not above fan service, a populist at heart, and he stuffs the film with former and then-current NFL players, a miraculous stunt given the fact that the NFL revoked their cooperation. Personally, I think this was a good thing because it meant Stone didn’t have to compromise (the league wanted editorial say on all issues pertaining to the league…meaning they would have cut the best storyline, which is the playing hurt one). It also meant that they had to rename the team and the league. While I’m sure this took away from the realism for some fans, I’m cool with it. It also allowed the moviemakers to name the team the Sharks, a perfect name for this roving band of predatory capitalist sports executives. In another example of fan service, the call-girl Pacino’s quintessential lonely workaholic character rents a girlfriend experience from is none other than Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, who had been unfairly blacklisted after the titular Verhoven/Esterhaz venture, a movie my wife showed me one day while I was dopesick, which I became so transfixed and mesmerized by that I forgot I was. As mentioned above, the only misstep in the film is one of the offshoots of the Playing Hurt arc, where a player loses an eye on the field. Not because he gets poked, but because he gets hit so hard his eye simply falls out. A medic runs onto the field and puts the white globe on ice. Stone cast a player with a glass eye in order to achieve this effect. No CGI! Still, the scene is unconvincing, a tad too over-the-top. But this is Oliver Stone. At least Any Given Sunday’s sole over-the-top moment is a throwaway scene lasting all of thirty seconds. It easily could have been a secondary plot-line in which government officials try to sneak a Cuban football prodigy out of Castro’s communist stronghold but the player is brutally murdered the morning the officials arrive at his apartment to escort him to the private plane. Or else the team GM is revealed to be a massive international cocaine dealer. Or the tight end is one half of a serial killer couple. The film follows its own advice, focusing more on the players growth, particularly Beamon’s (Foxx). The anonymity of the title, Any Given Sunday, elevates the game, not the players. Thank God, the movie doesn’t force Beamon to assimilate into Pacino’s mold. He buys into the team-first philosophy without renouncing his idiosyncratic POV or his fierce individuality. This is a triumph. One of my biggest problems with sports is the flattening effect it can have on creative individuals. Players take media training in order to sound as alike as possible during media interviews, a long row of stoic giants spouting cliches. It’s boring. Which is why media latch onto a loudmouth, even while they scold him for it. All sports are dying for an intelligent mouthpiece who can explain his motivations in a succinct, sound-bite-friendly, manner. Sports are entertainment. As much as I love Sidney Crosby, in my heart I have to go with Alexander Ovechkin because Ovechkin is far more thrilling, both on and off the ice. Unlike almost every other NHL star before him, all of whom were forced to kneel and kiss Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em ring, Ovechkin defiantly told the media he simply did not care about Cherry or Cherry’s disgusting parental reaction to one of Ovie’s more creative goal celebrations (called a “celly” in the biz). On the play in question, Ovechkin scored the goal, then dropped his stick and mimed warming his hands over it, as if his stick were on fire. As cheesy as the celebration appeared to the naked eye, it’s both a funny and accurate notion. Ovechkin was the hottest scorer in the league for many years and his stick was on fire, metaphorically speaking. The only celly I can think of that matches up in terms of creativity and entertainment value came from Teemu Selanne in 1993, who scored a beauty of a goal, threw one of his gloves straight up into the air, then pumped his stick like a shotgun while “shooting” his glove. Of course, Cherry took exception to it. Cherry’s favourite goal celebration features Bobby Orr putting his head down and refraining from raising his hands over his head. Cherry’s idea of an appropriate goal celly is no celly at all. This from a man who claims “we’ve got to sell our game.” But when an arrogant player shows up and he’s not white, he’s in for a shitload of bad press. Foxx’s Beamon illustrates this beautifully when he yells at Pacino after Pacino cuts him for an older QB who has lost four games this season. “Don’t play that racism card with me,” Pacino warns. “Okay…okay…” Foxx nods, “Maybe it’s not racism. Maybe it’s ‘placism’…as in…a brother got to know his place.”

youtube

Here is the original theatrical trailer, featuring Garbage’s classic “Push It.”

youtube

Above Lawrence Taylor begs Matthew Modine for Cortazone. There’s also a great scene where Pacino is trying to figure out where he has gone wrong and Diaz just looks at him. “You got old,” she says simply. No enterprise is more cruel to an aging human being than sports. And this movie makes football a big giant corporate machine that chews players up and spits them out, injured and drug addicted, after four or five years. Those who play for a decade are lucky. This is still how the NFL works. And the NHL is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. Experience matters less and less.

When I started watching hockey in the 90s, players regularly competed into their late 30s. Not so anymore. Players peak at 23-24 now, and are often out of the league by age 35. Thornton and Chelois are exceptions, not the rule. After more than two hours, Any Given Sunday finally lurches across the finish line, bravely refusing to give its viewers a traditional happy ending, in the great tradition of underdog sports films like Rocky and Rudy. The bombshell dropped by Pacino’s character at the end feels less surprising than inevitable, but by now the movie has explored so much of professional sports' seedy underbelly that you're glad it's over. The film is great but exhausting. Stone seems to be advancing the notion that the sport itself is pure, but the people in it are corrupt. If money weren’t involved, the game would be played for its own sake.

I agree with this. People playing pond hockey are engaging in wholesome fun, not necessarily practicing to make a professional league. Commerce corrupts the purity of the game, and the extent to which it corrupts is directly proportional to how badly the individual in question needs the commerce. Of course, the sport is highly racialized, with people in positions of authority white, and those being told what to do with their bodies Black.

Any Given Sunday is an important film, but it never sacrifices entertainment for the sake of moralizing. That it pulls off such a strong moralistic stance is a testament to the actors, who are all incredible, and the material, which is among the strongest of Stone’s career.

He never really made a great movie after this one. So check it out sometime.

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #anygivensunday #al pacino #jamie foxx #dennis quaid #james woods #matthew modine #jim brown #lawrence taylor #cameron diaz #ll cool j

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tk-writer · 4 years ago

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Hello, I am back, again, for a part 2 to my rant cuz I read it again and while I gushed a lot before, I feel like I wasn’t specific enough with any of the things I wanted to compliment. I was too enthralled in just how much I loved (and still love) it.

Okay, first, Tsukki’s characterization. I love Yamaguchi, he’s my favorite character and you characterized him beautifully (so so so fricken well), but I feel like Tsukishima’s always been a bit more difficult. He’s more complex and nuanced, bless his annoying lil heart. And in a tickle fic, which is generally pretty fluffy and often a derivative of the actual characterization (to fit our Special Interest™), it’s pretty easy to make him immediately a lil OOC.

But you wrote him?? So perfectly?? (I’m using that word too much, I know, but I cannot think of a better one honestly) like the balance of this smothered affection and his external cool/aloof image is 👌🏼👌🏼 incredible. The way you describe his train of thought as he slowly loses the battle to his want to just go full Ler Mode sounds so well-characterized. And his TEASING. Taunting and teasing are such actual in-character components to Tsukishima as a character and the voice you wrote them in for him— I could hear it. Like, I know we’d never get a scene like this irl (😔) but the way his words taunt and pick at Yamaguchi with a specific accuracy to make him a little embarrassed and more sensitive, it sounds just like something he’d say. It didn’t once stray from a Tsukishima I could see in canon and I am just—floored honestly. Your Ler Tsukki is my prototype for him now. He is astounding.

The characterization in general too. This is a Tsukishima Yamaguchi story but down to Noya introducing the concept and Suga being a teeny bit chaotic and a tad mothering in his affection toward Yamaguchi. It just fits~

Also the concept. Lord knows a ‘coming to terms with liking it’ kinda tickle fic isn’t uncommon, but I just love the way this one progressed. Like, first of all, we get a dual lee/ler perspective, boo yah. Then, I dunno how to explain, but it’s like so natural? It flows. We live this experience personally so it’s very relatable and it doesn’t always turn out all butterflies and rainbows, but seeing shy lee Yamaguchi get acceptance and affection from his friends and emotionally constipated ler Tsukishima come to terms with wanting this type of affection and being comfortable enough in his relationship with Yamaguchi to pursue it? Then the mutual understanding that doesn’t come as a deep, adult conversation—because it wouldn’t be, not for these kids at this time in their life—but as Tsukki and Yama chilling together, observing, talking, and interacting like their long-lived friendship would have them do. Tsukki teases. Yama stammers. It’s the natural course of things and it goes on step by step until Tsukki is actually taking him apart and somehow I find myself wondering how this HASN’T happened yet in canon when it just flows so perfectly.

Not to mention the actual tickling which, as a member of the community and someone who’s written a fic or two occasionally, can get pretty repetitive and hard to describe after a while 😅 yet the way you described it was was so visceral. I wasn’t ever taken out of the scene due to an awkward description of body position or over repetitive description of the actual ticking. (Side note: the way you write the laughter-interspersed speech is adorable 10/10) Writing tickling is surprisingly difficult after awhile but I’d say from this that you’ve honed the craft quite nicely~

Okay, okay. That’s what I’ve got off the top of my head without having the fic beside me to analyze paragraph by paragraph so— In conclusion: talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular— all that jazz and more. I absolutely adore your writing on these two, and if you ever decide to do another I will be your personal cheerleader through it all. Thank you so much~

i'm

i just

asfjdhs ok let me start over

honestly, i wasn't planning on coming back to this blog anytime soon, if ever. i was ready to leave fandom behind and quit fanfiction writing forever, for reason i'll elaborate on later. but today i got an email about this ask (along with your first one, which i accidentally deleted like a dumbass and i'm so sorry), and after reading it at least eighteen times while tearing up i had to log back in to answer it.

i have never received such detailed and utterly specific feedback for anything i've written. ever. not even for my non fandom related works. lately, i've been feeling really self conscious about what i've written as well, to the point where i can't reread anything cuz i hate it so much, so reading this restored a lot of that lost confidence i had.

the fact that you took the time to type all of this out and tell me about all the little details you noticed and loved... it means the world to me. i worry about all the things you mentioned: making sure the pacing is just right and not too slow or fast, maintaining the relationship dynamics, the laughter and speech patterns, creating a scene that could happen in canon, keeping characters in-character, etc. so to hear that i did all of that right is so reassuring.

i know i'm taking this more seriously than i probably should, cuz after all "ItS jUsT a TiCkLe FiC", but this is important to me! it's my one talent in life and blessed feedback like this is what makes me want to continue with it!

this fic in particular was extra challenging to write too. the two-role perspective is difficult to get right, so i wasn't sure i was gonna be able to do it. i was especially concerned that Tsukkiyama was believable. i'm SO happy that you enjoyed my take on him! i was really inspired after reading another fic with ler!suga and lee!yama so i wanted to include them too.

anyway, before this gets super long too: thank you, genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing your kind comments. it makes me want to keep writing and to give up on giving up. people like you remind me why i love creating content.

#asks #long post #i'm actually in tears #sorry to be dramatic on main #this month has been hell but this gave me the push i need to keep going #thank you #so much

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albatris · 4 years ago

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can... i perhaps... ask... for details... about avery 👀

yes!!! avery!!!

an oc of mine who’s been around for many many years and has been through many many iterations............... unfortunately his stories generally do not end well for him and he might legitimately be the one exception to my “not killing anyone” rule which is......... hm. not sure how I feel about that

also despite him existing for ages and ages I actually have very few concrete constant facts about him at my disposal ahaha

uhh

he looks a bit like this! though not always Like That (I can only find a few old drawings of him)

he’s somewhere between 19 and 25, depending on which iteration of him we’re talking about, his age jumps around a lot

he can speak a few different languages though I always forget which ones

he likes cats and classical music and most people find him lowkey insufferable if I’m being honest? he’s a little bit pretentious and can give off the vibe that he thinks he’s better than everyone else :P he can be a bit prickly and judgemental, but he does care about others (though he will try and hide the fact and doesn’t like people Knowing when he’s done something nice for them)

he’s uhhhhh difficult to get along with! but he’s not a bad dude, I guess?? just kind of edgy and thinks he’s too cool, probably. imo definitely doesn’t deserve what happens to him in basically any iteration of his story that exists lmao. n for the most part in most stories he’s ended up in, he spends the majority of his time just trying to get away from whatever bullshit marrick’s roped him into so he can relax and have a nice quiet life

I can talk a little about what he gets up to!! but it’s under the cut because I’m me and I ramble ahahaha

so like. as a general rule, any universe of mine marrick shows up in, avery is there also, and they always come to blows one way or another? I think avery would be happy to just leave marrick the fuck alone and have a nice quiet life, but marrick is generally the instigator so avery never really gets the opportunity :’)

originally he was a main villain!! in the first version of him I wrote, it was a story that took place in a world that was waiting on its regular chosen one but was running out of time, so marrick took it upon himself to try and create an “artificial” chosen one. avery steps in to take on this procedure in place of his younger sibling who marrick has manipulated, and it goes Very Fucking Badly and leads to avery losing control and becoming the main villain against his will

in other iterations he’s been presented as the Big Bad and then it’s later revealed he’s being used as a scapegoat and marrick is the one pulling the strings as per usual in classic marrick style

in his most recent appearance besides this current one, he was someone who had somewhat of an amicable relationship with marrick as partners in their work, but was sacrificed by marrick in order to open a gateway to another universe (whose basis I would later fashion into ATDAO’s unreality) and was just sort of left for dead all beat up and bleeding in the forest

in some versions of this version, he survives and leads a bit of a righteous vengeance quest against marrick. in other versions of this version, he survives and just ends up vibing in the unreality doing sick shit and finally enjoying some peace and quiet (hence the drawing being Like That)

he and marrick and mel eventually became characters I didn’t have any real use for, so I tossed them into undertow, and I’m not sure what they’re doing there aside from going about the general constant interdimensional beef they have with each other

now they’re back!

in ATDAO, he’s someone who shares a similar experience to noa in the sense of, kinda.......... accidentally becoming a vessel for interdimensional energy? which is a phenomenon marrick is extremely interested in because of Reasons and Spoilers, especially this idea of links between people being a means to open doorways to different universes

and I’m really trying so hard not to fucking spoil what marrick’s goal and endgame is for ATDAO because it’s kind of sick as hell and real cool and I want it to be a surprise. like. it’s bad! and he should not do it! but it does kind of fucking slap in terms of villainy and in terms of Vibes

and avery, in terms of his whole thing, I’m still figuring out the details...... he forges some accidental connection to another reality and I think ends up falling in love with someone there or at least just becoming incredibly close with whoever his link is and it just doesn’t particularly go well for him cuz like

y’know, as mentioned previously, marrick doesn’t much care who he hurts in the process of achieving his goals, and in order to kinda.................... test the waters of one particular element of his plan, marrick intentionally pushes avery way past the limit of what’s safe and into some extremely unstable territory, which results in (most likely, though not technically confirmed) both avery’s death and the death of the person he shares a link with

but it gets marrick the data he needs so??? it’s fine???? apparently???

look, avery kind of gets the short end of the stick no matter what universe he winds up in and I do feel for him

in universes where he and noa meet, they always get on each other’s nerves because they have clashing personalities (and music tastes)

in universes where he and tris meet, avery is vaguely fond of tris because tris reminds him of his younger sibling, while tris is confused and terrified because avery’s suuuuper fucking intimidating and kind of mean

he has a terrible time in every universe except for undertow, probably

in undertow, I feel like he’s involved with marrick and mel when he’s young, but has long since fucked off into the wilderness and dropped off the grid so they can’t find him, and is currently enjoying some well-earned peace and tranquility lmao

like, I think he deserves at least one version of his story where he gets 2 just have a nice life probably?????? I think I owe him that

#thank u for the interest!!!! sorry for rambling!!!!#i talk about avery like he legitimately exist across multiple realities and he kinda does but mostly it's just like #he's always been around various stories and he's someone i was continually changing to fit whatever #role was needed #so he's a longstanding oc of mine but at the same time he's changed a lot #as most of my longstanding ocs have i guess but avery in particular #avery is. not a major character in ATDAO he's just sort of There and then he isn't #he crosses paths with noa a few times #goosemixtapes

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imaginedcreaderinsert · 5 years ago

Text

She's got a boyfriend anyway — Jason Todd x Reader

WARNINGS: some cussing words here and there, implied fighting and blood, allusions to depression? or at least anxiety, and sexual implications.

WORD COUNT: 2575.

10. “Friends don’t do this kind of shit!

He is frustrated, and has yelled so out of emotion – and yes, you know it, you know how impulsive and unstable he can get to be when he spirals down in strong human emotions. And well, you were the one correcting him the first time he said so about himself (like he wasn’t human, like they were foreign, which made you sad), but right now you strongly emphasize them because out of the two, you feel like a monster, and he is pure and raw emotion.

—No, I-I refuse!—. He stammers with his own words out of rage as he bolts up from the sofa you’ve been previously kissing on—. I can’t believe you-I won’t, (Y/N)! Fuck no, you don’t say or do that shit with friends! And don’t fuckin’ bring Chad into it.

Chad. He pronounces it like it burns, like it disgusts him, and he is in his own right to do so, but it makes you sigh. Briefly, you wonder, what would have happened if you had invited him over instead of accepting when Jason just called you with the tempting offer of just pizza, Netflix and Chill and some cuddles. Maybe you’d be sexting instead of shouting (and maybe you wouldn’t feel as guilty as you do now).

—Todd, I told you-

—Lose the Todd, sweetheart, we’ve been fucking for months now, is a bit late now, isn’t it?!

He won’t understand. He doesn’t want to understand. Nothing that comes out of his mouth will help, and it will only dig a grave deeper than it really needs to. And, even if right now it’s not the best example in your favor, you really care for him. And fuck yes, you only wanted to spend a sweet and careless night of making out in the sofa, moving it to bed and having some pancakes in the morning. But as of right now it seems out of the question, and there seems to be no possible scenario in the future where you get him to tone it down a notch and it all ends up with both of you okay. And you don’t want to cry, you don’t want to make him more upset, which is probably the only outcome you visualize at this point. So you stop him.

—Just go.

—No, fuck no, we are going to talk about it now, cuz’ I know-

—Jason, I’m not going to repeat myself. You came here for the fuck and stayed for the feelings, Christ, deal with it. I didn’t ask for it and I was perfectly clear the first time it had happened and you agreed to every single thing. So just… Go. We’ll talk in the morning.

You had nursured him. You had seen him broken (with eyes just like the ones he’s giving you now, but younger), beaten up – which is why you two failed as youngsters your first year in uni; why it was the worst because of that. Restless nights of wondering if he ever got home, if he would appear with new marks, bandages, in the hospital! No, you couldn’t deal with it, it was too distressing. And you didn’t actually mind much the fact that he stood you up a couple of times. Gotham was quite big, after all – and even with his resources, the Wayne resources he had been slowly accepting, it was still impossible to get that fast to places that were that far away. No, you didn’t care much about the tabloids and the gossip magazines that “caught him” in the company of one or two pretty girls, you weren’t actually the jealous type and really trusted him, but you couldn’t rest. Ever. He took your heart with him at every single mission, patrol, stakeout… And all you ever wondered was if he would come back okay. And you shouldn’t have deal with that alone for almost an entire year; not with your projects, your anxiety and the pressure of succeding in uni like every other familiar you have. You couldn’t fall back or rely on a comfortable trust fund, unlimited resources like he could, if he wanted to. And by no means you are saying, implying, that he is entitled, that he has it easy… You are with him every night he stays in, when he wakes up in cold sweat, heart in his neck beating like its going to explode and sometimes (they were becoming fortunately more and more rare) shouting. He once choked you – almost did so. He cried after, and you comforted him all night with sweet nothings and reassuring kisses.

But you did have enough. And the question had been quite easy, quite simple: “Would you be able to resist that dangerous lifestyle in the future? Would you able to drop it all?”, to which he had, obviously, hesitated. Jason had feel cornered, and you knew you were not fair, since you both knew all your vulnerabilities, your weak points, but he had pushed you to that limit the night he almost did not make it, the time that Dick had to come inform you after it had gone wrong. You couldn’t stop crying at his side, in his bed – it was truly a cumule of everything academically and emotionally speaking – as he rested in the Wayne Manor. You had skipped exams, you had given everything up, which is why you didn’t hesitate to ask the same thing perfectly knowing your own answer when he threw it back at you:

—In a heartbeat.

So you two had been at different places in the stages of love, but it didn’t mean he loved you any less, he didn’t care when he heard you got a new boyfriend on campus at the ending of the second year. He was brilliant: part of the Student Committe, came from an excellent family, had both the grades and the looks… It was like the only thing that he didn’t have he achieved without making much effort. He didn’t actually see you fall in love with him, but you shared friends, even when you two broke up they tried to keep it “normal” if there was ever a defintion like that applied to him. But he too had eyes, with which caught on the smallest things: the small presents; the occasional blush on your cheeks and faint smile when you received a certain text; the rush with which you picked up your phone when “someone” called you; the hangouts you passed on not because of him, but because of “Him”.

Year three had come, and Chad and her had been dating for some months, but something felt on, and Jason interceded. He reappered in your life with a blank slate, apparently – no resentment, no blaming, no love. Maybe that’s why it had been so easy to fall back into his arms that night Chad had presented you to his parents. They hated you, and you had a breakdown in a freaking Wayne gala in which the only thing he said was “Don’t worry about them; just go to a bathroom and get yourself pretty again. I like it when you smile” which you assume should have made you smiled, but it only made you cry harder as soon as you were out of sight.

Jason knew about the difficult relationship you had with your own family: having another one hating your guts wasn’t the best outcome, no. But Chad hadn’t asked; you didn’t bring the topic to the table, but you assumed he should have asked at some point, because he cared… Right? Full of doubts, feeling broken and pathetic, Jason Todd had come to the rescue. He had noticed you, had seen everything: he wasn’t the jealous type, but he knew that one wasn’t the right for you. And no, he wasn’t stating that he was but… He would treat you better. He would try, at least.

You both that night attacked the secret shelf which Batman, not Bruce Wayne, used to attack whenever his bad went kind of wrong (never fully, he was always proud like that) to get back up. The alcohol was strong and it made your nose burn, but it also made you giggle to the stupid shit Jason said, and you had comfortably (just numb enough) accepted his kiss. You were both in front of the fire, and he had been trying to take the bottle from your drunk ass who was stumbling in high-heels, complaining about dresses and galas and parents… And he had simply growled something (you can’t remember, didn’t care much) which made you almost drop your panties. Jason had a fucking sexy mouth and-

That was the only clear thing you remember from that night. Memories can’t be relied on, but on that one you can count on. He kissed you, and he backed you up to the wall, grinded into you: you had moan in his mouth, had sticked out your tongue for him to take, and just like that, it was spring again when he had kissed you for a second “first” time (the first had actually been on a game) and your fingers were laced on the grass, sun bathing his form, his beautiful white lock, his incredibly attractive jaw, his beautiful and gorgeous eyes-

You didn’t make it to bed. It sounds cliché, but he didn’t let you, as much as you almost crawled into your room; the sofa had been nice enough the first time. Not much better for the second. But at the third, you explained the situation, the rules: “no love, no drama, no strings or uncomfortable questions. Just lust”.

So for everyone’s surprise you were instantly friends again. First they thought you were just fucking, but soon after you had finally introduced Chad to them and all rumors died, which was the main purpose. Jason was just a comfortable fuck where no questions were asked and where you just felt… Good again. Your boyfriend was good to you, yes, but too perfect sometimes, too unberable for someone with anxiety and a constant pressure of being just like him. But the truth is, there’s no point of comparison: for him is just as easy as breathing to be that kind, that good – but it takes the life out of you to be like that, so docile, so good and so excellent all the time. And Jason knows, understands. He murmurs into your hair that you are perfect and you believe him.

He makes you feel pretty, enough; and you need when all Chad cares is his own family, his grandes, his status, his position. It’s him him him all the way. And this time you mind being stood up, you mind him being late, you can’t stand him flirting with other girls, even when you have no right to complain (having fucked Jason for three months kind of takess off the right).

Were you his charity case? The broken girl from the bad neighborhood who made it into uni who he had comforted “and saved”?

It’s been eight months, and even through your second anniversary, you are more and more sure of it. And you actually start cancelling more dates, being more passive with him and start fucking Jason more. It’s just that, it’s nothing more – and while you run from your “perfect” future by his side (you try to, knowing perfectly Chad is everything that would make your family happy, would keep you content and safe), Jason falls more and more in love with you.

The way you need him: your nails digging in his skin, your hands pulling his hair like you need something desperately to hold onto – him and only him being able to do so, bring you to your peak everytime before he can even come close… Your perfect legs that open with a kiss on your thigh, how you trust him to make you feel good without questioning. You love the way he makes you feel about yourself, which is probably selfish, but you couldn’t care less. He accepted, he was fine with the rules: and thus you exploit his love, he gets way into it, into you, even when alarms go all around his head telling him “no”, trying to stop.

But it’s too late, and you feel just a little bit cruel:

—You are great.

—Really now? Does it have anything to do with the pizza, or the fact that I eat you out like a champ?

—Why can I only choose one? God, Jason, it’s like you’ve never read Tolstoi. Things are not all black or white. Dumbass—. You giggle, getting closer to him in the sofa where your hair is spread, almost naked; Jason has put his boxers on, and he’s tracing lazy patterns in your skin.

—First you quote Tolstoi, paraphrase him rather, and then you say “dumbass”. Yer’ an idiot.

It makes you both laugh, and when it kind of dies down, you press your forehead against his and you search for his lips. He concedes, biting the inferior one, marking it.

—Oh, come on, you know you can’t leave marks on. He will see.

—Yeah, and we wouldn’t like that, would we? End this rendez-vous or affaire, however fancy way you want to call it because you love him soooo much—. You roll your eyes, and he smirks. You hate it when he feels he is right (he never is).

—Two things: one, I do like him, however i decided to manage our relationship it’s between him and me; and two, I don’t like to be marked because I’m not “a thing”, Jason. Definitively not yours.

His smile falters. You know you are on dangerous ground. Pizzas are about to get there, why couldn’t you just shut down your mouth?

—So you’re his?—. He gets all possesive. You know when he slightly puffs out his chest. It makes you get up, search for the cushions you both had dumped to the floor. It makes you not look at him directly, distract you—. Then who-no, what are we? Fuck buddies?

—Try friends?—You sarcastically try and throw, but it ends in the most of the miserable ways.

—Let me back up a bit, but I’m pretty sure Roy and I don’t do this at least once a week. Do you have any other special “friend” you do this with this ritually?

—I didn’t mean it like that…

—Well now I do, so answer, (Y/N). Do you?

You massage your nape, bite your lip.

—No, Jason, I don’t. And you know I don’t—. You answer and it kind of feels like he sighs in relief, which annoys you—. It wouldn’t matter anyways, because we would just be friends!

—Friends like what, you and I?

—Yes, Todd, just like you and I!

—Well newsflash (Y/N)! Friends don’t do this kind of shit!

The anger, his voice, had scared you, and it brings you to the present. His eyes beg at you to say something; any sense of regret and he will stay, he will make it work somehow, but you are too tired. So you just give him your back and turn around to face Gotham and its darkness: one that has taken you over the years, that has fucked you up and that will probably break two hearts in one night.

#jason todd #jason todd x reader #dcu x reader #reader insert #reader #dcu #jason todd angst #jason x reader #red hood x reader

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might-guys-acorn · 5 years ago

Note

Do you do hc's? If you do, could you do Akatsuki relationship hc's please?

Ive never done hc's before, but Im gonna do my best :) hope they turn out okay! -🦎

P.S. this post will be super long, so my apologies in advance folks❤

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Pain

Super quiet baby.

Shows his affection through actions, not words

Has difficulties showing his emotions, but genuinely tries his best.

Isnt sure how to be in a relationship, so is very awkward. Stutters a lot when talking to or about you: "Uh.... Y/N.....I think you look, uh, s-stunning today."

Blushes all the time.

You love it

So you do literally anything in your power to cause it. Brushing his hair out of his face, complimenting him in front of others, kissing him on the cheek randomly, etc.

Loves kissing in the rain. It overwhelms his senses, from the feel of the drops on his skin, to the smell of your hair, to the light shiver he can feel run down your spine after a while. He loves every second.

Will do anything for you. Legitimately ready to end the world for the one that he loves

Konan

Super sentimental type

Talks about her past a lot, and wants to hear all about yours.

Emotional connection is an absolute must, looks are always second in her book

Want you to get along with her friends, specifically Pain. You two are the most important people in her life, so its essential that you get along.

Thinks its precious that youre interested in her hobbies. Plenty of nights will be spent trying to help you learn origami, but at the end of the day, theres just a bunch of lopsided cranes and crumple flowers around the two of you asleep on the carpet.

I dont think shed be much of a cook, so meals are a must for you. She'll always compliment you on it though : "Y/N, this breakfast looks lovely. How'd I end up with a catch like you?"

She does make a mean cup of tea though

Likes to leave little notes or origami figures around for you to find when shes away :)

Deidara

Super obnoxious ngl

Likes to show you off to everybody. Like. Everyone. Other members, enemies, people on the street. You name it.

"LOOK AT MY S/O! ARENT THEY THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BEING YOUVE EVER SEEN? THEY ARE ART ITSELF, I ALMOST WANT TO BLOW THEM UP, THEYRE THAT GORGEOUS."

Theres never a quiet moment with him

Especially right before bed, when he starts to babble nonsense because hes tired. You never knew a person could have so many thoughts until he never let one pass without it leaving his mouth

His babbling is pretty endearing though, because he is forever thinking about how amazing you are

But the only way to shut him up is to kiss him

Luckily, hes an incredibly good kisser

Will forever refer to you as his muse. And model many an artwork after you. Its very sweet until he makes them explode to show off the 'true beauty'

Sasori

Very detached at the beginning

Doesnt like having ties to this world

But he soon realizes there's no way to get rid of you, and he doesnt particularly want to either.

After that realization, he spends as much time with you as possible

Expect lots of cuddles, quiet nights, and endless hours of talking. About his past, his parents, his puppets. He wants you to know it all, because he feels like with all of it, he has to be unlovable

Is very shocked when you stick around and accept him, becomes very attached to you afterwards.

Doesnt do dates often, but on the occasional one, hes incredibly punctual and expects you to be

Hes very insecure about his "heart". He absolutely melts if you take time to let him know that its wonderful, just like him

Overall, hes just very relieved to have you in his life

Itachi

Truly surprised to be in a relationship at all

This isnt part of his mission

100% soft boi™️

Loves to hold your hand, kiss your knuckles, gaze into your eyes, all of it. Anything he has to do to remind himself that youre real, and that you love him.

Becomes a literal puddle when he realizes youre trying to name and differentiate all of his crows

Lets you feed them regularly and marvels at how sweet they are to you

Doesnt understand how someone so pure could be with someone like him, but wont complain simply because he hates the thought of losing this light he's found in his life.

Spends all his time making sure youre happy. Taking care of you when your sick, reading to you on long nights, cuddling you when you get sad. He just wants you to feel better

Doesnt give gifts often, so when you find your favorite one of his crows (Midnight, youd named it) sitting on the table with a red bow around his neck, you cry for hours.

He gets confused and thinks hes done something wrong, but you just kiss him and tell him that its perfect.

Kisame

Doesnt realize hes fallen for you until he sees you wading in a river late at night, singing softly to yourself

Really likes holding your hand

Has some jealousy problems, but not because he doesn't trust you. He just doesn't trust everyone else.

Lots of beach dates

Thinks it's adorable how he has to convince you to get out of the water when its gotten dark and cold

Prefers you don't give him nicknames, just really likes the way his name sounds when it comes out of your mouth

Loves that youre not scared of Samehada, and thinks its precious when you talk to it like its a pet and not a sword

Is even more smitten when Samehada coos back at you, its loyalty to you both means the world to him

Hidan

Insists on your belief in Jashin

Wants you to believe and become immortal with him

The eternal Bonnie and Clyde

Also the kinkiest of the bunch

Has zero issue talking about bedroom business in front of anybody

Likes how you blush when he brings it up in front of large groups of people

"Aw look at how red your cheeks get, thats so cute"

Does things to get on your nerves, because he loves watching you react. Seeing how flustered he can make you is a frequent game he'll play, cuz your anger is just as cute as your smile

Likes to casually hand you his scythe even though its too heavy for you to handle

Watching you try to hold it up makes him laugh, and you yelling at him for laughing only makes it worse honestly

Will try to get you to go on missions with him, simply because you two work together better than anyone else. No one knows him like you do, so sacrifices are always more fruitful with your presence.

Kakuzu

The most distant of the organization

Will be very difficult to connect with

But when he realizes that you seem to know the bingo book better than he does, will insist that you work on his team

From there, he'll see your personality and be thankful for all the hearts he has, because there can be an extra to give to you.

Your smile makes his day, and seeing the way you squeal when the pay comes in for a takedown melts every heart he's got

Thankful that youre just as much of a tightwad as he is, it means you make a very cheap date

Appreciates your intellect, and is happy to have a partner that is as smart as they are attractive, unlike his past partner Hidan.

Silences are an essential part of the relationship, but niether of you mind. Your presence is all he needs to feel at ease, rather than filling the air with meaningless small talk

Tobi

Never fails to laugh at your jokes

Enjoys making you laugh, even if it means making himself look like an idiot

Definition of silly romantic

Will spend lots of time telling you that youre special to him, even if its in a way that doesnt make sense

"I dont need gravity when Im with you, Im always on cloud 9"

Likes to mess with you when you try to touch him by tranferring his body to other dimensions

"Youll have to try harder if you really want to hold my hand, Y/N"

When he does get serious, though, he'll pull you to his other dimension to talk. Its quieter and theres no risk of interruptions

Likes to hug you from behind, and always has a dumb joke on hand if he ever sees you crying

#akatsuki #akatsuki headcannons #pain #konan #deidara #sasori #hidan #itachi #kisame #tobi #naruto imagines #naruto #kakuzu

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