#expect im the stupid shit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

americas1suiteheart · 1 year ago

Text

Better Off As Lovers

Patrick Stump x Reader

This was also posted on Ao3 if you prefer that platform, this whole text is the link. :)

Summary; You and Patrick have been friends since middle school and have been going to tours with him and the band to watch their shows. At one of the shows, Patrick decides to play one unreleased song he just so happened to write for you to confess his feelings. (I dunno this is kinda the summary but I'm also dumb as shit and can't make a correct summary).

Notes; I felt like writing a little something for him as I've been wanting to for a while now, and here it is! And honestly, guys, if I end up wring more Patrick x Reader fics they're all most likely to be song fics or fics based off of some of the music videos, sorry but man I'm a sucker for song fics.

Warnings; Some cursing and some bickering back and forth between Pete and Y/n over stupid stuff. Really really cheesy and unrealistic ig. Also Y/n is kind of really fucking stupid as well, but for the sake of the fic.

Word Count: 4,068

<Playing- Bang The Doldrums by Fall Out Boy>

1:32 ────ㅇ────── 3:31

God, why are these tour bus seats so uncomfortable? You'd figure that because they were meant for people to sleep in, they would be more comfortable.

You get up and stretch, heading to the cupboard where the band keeps all of the snacks to look for your hidden stash in the back.

"Where the hell are they?" You say, muttering to yourself.

You continue to scrounge through the cabinet to try and find your two twin packs of Twinkies, only to give up and walk to where the boys were hanging out.

"Hey, did any of you guys eat my Twinkies?" You call out as you walk to where you can hear the boys talking; a curtain was the only thing acting as a door for the area.

Just as you open the curtain to the "room" (aka the six loft beds that were separated by just a curtain), you see Pete and Joe munching on your beloved creme-filled cakes.

"Are you kidding me?" You say, your mouth agape and eyebrows raised.

"I told you guys so."

The two boys look at each other and then at you, a twinge of fear apparent on their faces, the creme filling on the corners of their mouths, and the wrappers thrown onto the floor.

"You two so totally owe me two boxes of Twinkies, I mean it! One box from each of you two! How did you find them?! I hid them!" You flail your arms about towards the boys, the guilt becoming more apparent on Joe's face.

Pete and Joe shuffle in their spots, licking their fingers and corners of their mouths to get the creme off from their messy way of eating.

"Honestly, you're kinda bad at hiding stuff; it wasn't that hard to find them," Pete says with a shrug.

Patrick kicks his shin from where he was sitting from across, earning a hiss of pain and a dirty look from Peter.

"I'm gonna eat all of your fucking Blow-Pops." You say, leaving the sleeping area and heading back to the snack cupboard. You can hear Pete's shouts, telling you not to touch them.

Opening the cupboard, you immediately spot a party-size pack of Blow-Pops with a large piece of duct tape stuck on to the bag, big bold letters drawn with a black Sharpie reading 'PETE'S LOLLIPOPS!!! DON'T TOUCH!!!'

Pete really liked those things, and he would individually count them to keep track of how many he had, so that way, if someone decided to take one or two of them, he would know. Which is kind of insane of him now that you think about it. Actually, scratch that, Pete was insane—PERIOD!

You grab the bag and grab three handfuls of lollipops, shoving them into your hoodie pockets and putting the bag back into the cupboard.

"Give them back, Y/n!" Pete says, grabbing your shoulders just enough to keep you from moving.

"Hell no! Buy me back my Twinkies and then I might just give you all of them back." You say putting one hand into your pocket to take out a Blow-Pop.

"Those Twinkies were practically begging to be eaten by someone, man; come on, those were in there for days without being touched."

You unwrap the lollipop, pulling your hand up to pop it into your mouth, Pete's mouth falling agape as you do so.

"Was that one of the apple ones..."

You nod your head, taking it out of your mouth. "And I've still got more. And as I said, I'm not giving them back until you buy me back, my Twinkies,"

"God, fine! But promise not to eat anymore until we get to a gas station! Especially not the Apple ones!"

"Will do," You pop the Blow-Pop back into your mouth as he lets go of your shoulders, looking defeated as he walks back to the room all of the others were still in.

You smile to yourself, sitting back into the seat you were originally in.

------------------------------

You and the boys get out of the bus, heading into the gas station as the drivers fuel up. You immediately head for the drink section, looking for a can of Arizona tea.

What the hell man, where are they?

You continue to look for another minute or so until you finally give up, heading to the soda section where Patrick was.

You had somewhat of a crush on Patrick. You always have to be honest.

You went to high school with Patrick, so you've known him since sophomore year. You had a lot of classes with him too and often hung out with each other both inside and outside of school, making you closer to Patrick than you were to any of the other kids and considering him your best friend.

When he first started playing with Joe and Pete and officially being in a band with them, you started going over to practices with him, getting to know the two better, and when Andy joined the band, it was the same with him.

Now that you think about it, you have no clue how liking him could have been avoided. He's sweet and smart—a little awkward at times too, but nonetheless an incredible guy.

I mean, the whole reason why you started looking into learning some music technology was so that you could be with him more often. A lot of what you started doing was to get to hang out with him more often.

"Boo!" You say, grabbing Patrick's arm gently.

"N/n, there you are," Patrick says, turning around to look at you, holding out two cans of Arizona tea to you.

"What the hell, I just spent like, two minutes looking for these; where the heck did you find them?" You chuckle, taking one of the cans.

"I'll never tell.." Patrick chuckles, a cheeky grin on his face.

"Well, thank you Patrick. I appreciate your kind gesture very much."

Andy and Joe run by you and Patrick, with Pete doing the same shortly afterwards. Some screams and laughs came with that as well. You could see the cashier trying their best to make it through all the noise, with a look on their face that could only be explained as exhaustion and frustration, clearly not wanting to be at work.

You look at Patrick and sigh, knowing that you'll have to yell at the three once again as if they were children, regardless of the fact they were all older than you and Patrick.

You walk to the snack aisle, where you can see Joe and Andy crouching down, assumingly hiding from Pete for whatever reason, and walk up behind them. Andy had a bag of skittles in his hand and a sprite in the other, while Joe carried a twin pack of Twinkies—just as you asked him for—and a bag of chips and diet coke in his arms.

"What are we hiding from?" You whisper to the two, who jump slightly and look back in response.

"Pete," Andy replies quietly.

"Well, we've gotta go; you guys will have to finish this up some other time, preferably when we aren't in a public place."

You hear footsteps from behind and stand up, turning around to see Pete walking slowly, putting a finger up to his lips as to say "don't say anything," and you shake your head and mouth, "No."

"Come on guys, go check out we need to get back on the road," you say, turning back to Andy and Joe.

Pete groans and fully stands up, Andy and Joe doing the same.

"God, you're such a grump all the time, no fun," Pete says, walking up to the cashier.

Patrick comes up from behind you, putting his hand on your back. "Is everyone ready to go?"

You blush from the contact, nodding your head in response, and walk to the register where the boys were checking out.

"No, I paid the last time. It's Andy's turn to pay now, remember?" Pete argues. The cashier looked like he was about to snap; if it was a cartoon, steam would probably be coming out of his ears right now.

"I'll pay, fine dude, just chill out," Andy says, pulling out his wallet and handing the cashier his credit card.

The cashier puts their items into a plastic bag, and Andy grabs it and leaves with the other two.

You and Patrick walk to the register, putting your items down on the counter.

"Sorry about them by the way, they get rowdy sometimes," Patrick says, attempting to break the awkwardness by making small talk, leading it to get worse.

"Your total is $9.34," the cashier says with a deadpan look on his face.

The two of you pull out your cards and look at each other. "Let me pay for it, please; you had paid the last time, and it was almost 20 dollars," Patrick says with puppy eyes.

God, this guy always knows how to get his way with that look.

"Alright then, Pat. Thank you," You thank him, putting your card away.

Patrick pays and the cashier puts our stuff into a plastic bag, handing it to him, with him thanking the guy and telling him to have a good day.

You two walk back into the bus, and Patrick places the bag on the couch in the lounge.

"Do you want both of these in the mini fridge?" Patrick asks, taking one of the tea cans out of the bag.

"I'll have one now and save the other for later, if you can put one in though, that'd be awesome."

Patrick nods and puts one can and one of his sodas in the mini fridge plugged in next to the counter where the broken toaster sat. Now that you think about it, how long has that thing been broken? Why haven't any of us bothered to replace it?

You open one of the cans, walking into the bunk area, and sit on your bunk at the top, letting your feet dangle above the middle bunk.

"Y/n, here you go," Joe says, handing me two twin packs of Twinkies.

"Thanks, Joe. Here are your Blow-Pops back dickhead," you say, taking the wrapped cakes and taking all of the blow pops out of your pocket, handing them to Pete, who was sitting next to Joe.

"Jesus, dude, how many of my fucking Blow-Pops did you take?" Pete exclaims.

"A couple handfuls, I think," you reply, taking a drink of your tea.

-----------------------------

"Alright guys, we've got a couple more songs to play; are you ready?" Pete shouts into his mic, earning cheers from throughout the crowd.

The boys continue playing a couple more songs.

The band had been playing for an hour and a half now, playing some of their newer songs from the newest album they were working on, those of which you had the pleasure of getting to listen to before they played them for others, as well as songs from Take This To Your Grave and From Under The Cork Tree. The crowd was singing the lyrics along with the band, enjoying all of it.

"This is the last song for tonight and is another one from the album that we're currently working on; this one me and Patrick worked on together is called Bang The Doldrums!" Pete says, wiping some of the sweat off of his forehead.

Patrick adjusts the strap of his guitar slightly, walking up to the mic. Him and Joe begin to play together, with the rest of the band joining in.

You listen to it for a bit, you hadn't recognised the name but you figured that they had probably changed it.

'I wrote a goodbye note in lipstick on your arm when you passed out,'

What the hell? I haven't heard this one yet.

'I couldn't bring myself to call, except to call it quits,'

This is great; why hadn't they shown me this one? They all sound amazing.

Patrick looks at me as he sings the next verse; his face tinted a slight red, maybe from how out of breath he was getting? God, he always looked so pretty like that.

'Best friends, ex-friends till the end, better off as lovers, and not the other way around,'

You listen to the lyrics; why did he look at me like that in that exact verse? Maybe I'm just going crazy.

'Racing through the city, windows down, in the back of yellow-checkered cars,'

You continued to listen, enjoying the sound of the way they were playing.

Then once again, Patrick looks at you, looking less nervous and giving a slight smile as he sings the same verse.

'Best friends, ex-friends till the end, better off as lovers, and not the other way around,'

You can feel your face rapidly becoming warm, oh?

You think for a bit, your mouth slightly agape as you stand still. You just hope what you think is happening and what he's implying is actually what it is. No, no way. You guys have just been friends since high school; there's no way.

'..in the back of yellow-checkered cars. You're wrong, are we all wrong?

'Best friends, ex-friends till the end, better off as lovers, and not the other way around, ex-friends till the end, better off as lovers!'

The song ends, and the band thanks the crowd before exiting the stage, allowing the stage technicians to begin striking and taking everything down.

You were still standing there as the crowd began to clear out. Shit, you should get to the boys. What do I do about how Patrick looked at me? What if I ask him about it and I'm totally wrong? Oh god, I'm screwed.

You begin to head to the door that lead to the backstage lounge, a security guard protecting it from letting anyone else in. The guard immediately notices you and lets you in.

You nervously walk to the same area that the boys were in, knocking on the door and hearing Joe shout, "Come in!"

You open the door and smile at the boys, who were sitting down, drinking water and using towels to dry themselves off.

Where's Pat?

"Hey guys! You sounded awesome tonight, what was with that last song though? I'd never heard it before." You greet, sitting down on one of the metal pull-out chairs across from everyone else.

"Thanks! We were going to show you Bang The Doldrums when we were first working on it, but about halfway through writing it Patrick had said something about waiting to play it at a gig instead, something about surprising you, I dunno," Pete says in response, taking a chug of his water bottle.

"Where is Patrick, by the way?" You ask, rubbing your hands on your thighs.

"I think he went to go and look for you actually; try ringing him or go and look for him; he's somewhere around here," Andy says.

"Shit really? I'll go try to find him now. Do you guys need anything that could be outside of this room?"

"Can you get us some more water? I'm still totally parched man," Pete asks, taking the towel he had on his shoulder to wipe his face off.

You nod and get up, leaving the room and closing the door to go and look for Patrick.

How on earth do you know where every place in this theater would be? This place is huge..

After searching around, you finally decide to go outside to check if he was in the tour bus by chance, only to see him sitting on a curb next to the door hidden from all of the different fans still exiting the venue.

"Pat? What're you doin' out here without a sweater on? It's freezing right now." You speak out, walking to where he was and sitting to the left of him.

"Oh, I went to look for you, and when I came out here, it was way cooler than it was in the theater, so I stayed out here to cool off a little bit," Patrick says, straightening his back and looking at you.

You nod in a way of understanding.

"How'd you like the show, though?" Patrick says, after a few seconds of silence.

"It was great! You guys never have a boring gig; everyone was loving it. What was the last song about though? I had never heard you guys play it up until just now." You say excitedly.

Patrick shifts slightly, looking away from you as his face flushes, now looking slightly embarrassed.

"I mean, it's not that it sounded bad or anything; it sounded great, but, during that chorus, you kept looking at me and, well," You say awkwardly, avoiding saying what you actually wanted to say.

It stayed silent for a couple of seconds before Patrick broke it.

"Sorry about that, I don't know if it made you weirded out or anything." Patrick says quietly.

"'Weirded out?' Pat I don't think you can really do anything to weird me out honestly. I didn't mind the contact all that much really." You lightly laugh, quietly mumbling the last part.

After saying that, you notice Patrick relax a bit, as if he were relieved and a little bit of a weight was off his shoulders.

"Y/n, can I tell you something?" Patrick says looking down at his shoes, his voice shaky.

"Yeah, of course," You reply, anxious for his words, yet somehow excited at the same time, wondering what they might be.

"This is going to sound so stupid, gosh. Um," Patrick chuckles, trying to calm his nerves as he twiddles his thumbs together, then proceeding with what he was saying. "I uh, would you hate me if I said that I really liked you, and not in a friend sort of way but um,"

You stay quiet for a few seconds, mouth slightly open and eyes wide. You're glad that it was dim in the little corner you two were sitting at so that he wouldn't see how red your face was turning.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anythi-" Patrick apologises before getting cut off by you.

"Patrick, don't be sorry," You say.

Patrick furrows his brows, creasing his forehead slightly, turning to look at you with confusion clear on his face.

"You have absolutely no idea how long I've waited for you to say something along the lines of that," You continue, grinning widely.

Patrick's face softened, a small smile appearing onto his face.

"So, does that mean that, well, you know," He says, looking at some cracks in the concrete, kicking at a pebble aside.

"Yeah, it means exactly that, Trick," You put your hand on his shoulder, trying to get his attention back.

He looks back at you, smiling, his eyes that you looked into so often seemed to shine brighter underneath the dim light that the venue had over the door in the back that barely showed any light where you two were sitting.

Patrick brings a hand to your face, caressing your cheek. You lean into his touch, doing the same as he did.

His eyes glance at your lips for a millisecond, quickly returning to your eyes.

"Can I kiss you?" Patrick asks quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

You nod your head and lean in as he does, fluttering your eyes closed.

Patrick closes the gap between the both of you, his breath warm. The kiss is soft and sweet, not pressed too hard against each other but still with passion. Your lips seemed to fit perfectly with his, as if they were made specifically for the both of you and just the both of you alone.

You two pull away, pressing your foreheads together, panting ever so slightly from the lack of oxygen the both of you got during the kiss.

There was a peaceful silence for a few seconds, you swear that if it weren't for the muffled music and talking of the crowd outside Patrick would've been able to hear your heart beating out of your chest.

"God, if I knew this would be the outcome I would've told you years ago," Patrick chuckles lightly.

You smile, now realizing that this wasn't a dream and that your best friend since high school really confessed what you dreamed he would for years now. That you two really kissed and it wasn't some guy that you pretended to love in hopes of letting your feelings for Patrick disappear, and you were so glad that your mind and heart didn't let that happen.

"Oh my god finally, you two are idiots," Pete says, standing on the steps that lead to the door to get backstage.

You and Patrick quickly pull away from each other, your face burning up quickly.

"What the hell do you mean 'finally'?" You say, looking at Pete in confusion.

"We've been waiting for you two idiots to finally say something to each other for years now,"

You look at Pete for a few seconds, the cogs in your head turning.

"What?"

"I mean, you two were so painfully obvious, I'm honestly surprised that you two didn't figure it out way earlier man. Oh! Wait, wait, who confessed first? Was it you Y/n?"

Joe and Andy walk out and stand next to Pete.

"Did it finally happen? Who said it first, do you know?" Joe asks.

You and Patrick stare at each other, completely baffled.

"Was it Patrick?" Andy asks.

You flush even more, looking back at the three, then quickly looking away.

"It was totally Patrick, I called it! Come on pay up you two,"

Joe and Pete groan, taking out their wallets.

"Did you guys place bets on us?" Patrick asks, getting completely ignored by them.

"How much was it again, I don't remember it's been like 5 years now," Pete asks, looking at Andy.

"I think it was either ten or twenty,"

"Can we just say it was ten? I don't have a twenty or two tens on me and I don't want to go to the ATM tomorrow morning." Joe says, rummaging through his wallet.

"Sure that works," Pete and Joe both hand Andy one ten dollar bill each.

"What the hell, was Andy the only one that thought I would confess?" Patrick says. He seemed more upset at the fact that Pete and Joe put their bets on you confessing first rather than him.

"Come inside, it's freezing out here and we still haven't gotten our waters yet," Pete says, holding the door open for Andy and Joe.

You get up and gesture for Patrick to do the same, walking to the doorway.

"I fucking hate you and I hope you know that," You whisper to Pete jokingly, proceeding inside with Patrick and Pete behind you.

"Love you too N/n.." Pete says sarcastically, walking to the table where a load of plastic water bottles were, grabbing three of them.

"I hate him," You say, looking at Pete walk away and disappear into the room the three were in before.

"Me too sometimes but honestly if it weren't for him I probably would have never said anything," Patrick looks at you.

"What do you mean?"

"He's the one that organized the whole plan of playing Bang The Doldrums and not showing it to you until earlier during the show," Patrick answers, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Huh, he told me you said something about not showing me until now. You know, maybe I don't hate him as much anymore now."

Patrick laughs, grabbing your hand and pulling you along to the table, grabbing two bottles for himself and you.

You smile to yourself, looking at your entangled hands then at him as he walked you to the room the boys were in.

You couldn't have been happier in all the years of your life up until now, and you wouldn't change or trade it for anything in the world. You were happy that you finally got to be like this with Patrick, the boy that was always so nice to everyone no matter what, the boy that knew exactly what to say if anyone was ever down, the boy that never left you no matter how difficult or bad it got.

This was the boy that you fell in love with since the moment you saw him, and he loved you back.

3:13 ─────────ㅇ─ 3:31

This took me forever to finish, and thank gods that I hyper fixated on FOB again (more than many times throughout the making of this fic,) because if not it wouldn't have ever gotten finished. I think I might end up writing more fics for Patrick, let me know if you would like for that to happen, send in some requests if you would like as well! Thank you for reading this seriously, regardless if your new or if you've been a follower since I started posting my fics on here, I appreciate you all for continuing to read my stuff because it makes me truly feel like I'm getting better and that people enjoy my stuff.

#patrick stump #patrick stumph #patrick stump x reader #patrick stump imagines #fob x reader #fall out boy #fall out boy x reader #fob #infinity on high #post hiatus fob #song fic #Y/n is kinda stupid #one of those oblivious towards one another types of fics i dunno man im a sucker for that shit #kinda cheesy but sweet ig #if you were looking for something more realistic then you wont ever get that with band fic i dont know what you expected man #pete wentz #joe trohman #andy hurley

118 notes · View notes

skrunksthatwunk · 7 days ago

Text

idk if i've discussed it before (i have certainly THOUGHT about it) but someone on my kuwa suffering ep 89 comp mentioned it and i just had to go off about it like. ok. sensui tells yusuke something along the lines of "you heard itsuki" when itsuki's inside the uraotoko, implying that not only can sensui hear those inside the uraotoko, but that he expects yusuke to be able to as well. which means that yusuke Almost Certainly Heard And Kind Of Ignored kuwabara's prolonged mental breakdown and wailing about how much he needs yusuke to live etc. which. guHHH i hate him yusuke you ass but also listen.

the only acknowledgement yusuke gives to this (if any) is when he says something like "sensui you're sooo fucking cooked this plan's going perfectly (my friends are going to get strong and kill you when i die)." he's trash talking to sensui, ignoring the others because, i think, he doesn't want to acknowledge what he's doing to them.

yusuke is explicitly recreating the experience he had with kuwabara's "death" at the hands of toguro, complete with the announcement of intent (and power) to kill, the inability to impede the threat in any way (barring a power-breakthrough), and the target in some way racing towards/volunteering for their death. yusuke learns through doing, and through tough love-style approaches. it's only effective if it hurts. watching kuwabara die like that was devastating to yusuke, but it sure as hell fucking worked. he beat toguro because of that maneuver. so even if he has to (re-)traumatize his friends in the process, this method will make his friends stronger, and he feels confident in that. but he never had to live with the consequences of kuwabara's death, not really. that's something hiei makes clear before they enter the cave as well, that there are no fake-outs ready to make him or anyone else stronger. the only deaths here will be real. the only power gained will come at a high, permanent cost. hiei's warning is an attempt to keep everyone alive, to keep yusuke from being stupid. and then yusuke decides to take that fatality into his own hands, but it's kind of his friends who would pay the price. he's going to make them live through the days, months, years without him, the actual permanency of loss (assuming they survive for that long), something he never experienced with kuwabara (a new facet of that traumatic scenario), AND he's escaping the emotional fallout of this choice through death. he doesn't have to see them mourn, won't get yelled at, won't watch them fail to move on. he's tapping out and choosing to believe they'll be fine.

but i think he feels guilty. just a little. i mean, yusuke couldn't even believe that people cared about him enough to want him alive in episode one. he's staked everything on his friends, which means he still kind of... doesn't value his own life, at least not compared to theirs. but he believes his friends love him and want him around, and we know that because he has to, or else he wouldn't make a plan that depends entirely on that love. he is actively leveraging the care he doesn't think he deserves, trying to hurt them in a way he is intimately familiar with (only worse), for.... what, exactly?

this is kind of my sticking point tbh. i don't think the answer is... super clear, but let's start with what it's not.

yusuke is not doing this because it is the most practical way to save all of humanity; that would be the mafukan, which he stopped. it could be a gamble to save all of his friends? the mafukan strategy would guarantee koenma's death/eternal imprisonment, whereas this strategy gambles all of humanity on the chance that his friends come out of the Easy Break Oven strong enough to avert the end of the world. if the sacrifice of even one friend is completely intolerable, perhaps he'd accept those slim odds and their steep consequences. yusuke tends to take risks like that, especially when he's got fight-induced tunnel vision. he doesn't think things through too much; his schemes are usually dependent on surprising his enemy enough to oneshot them. truthfully, i think this is the closest we'll get to an answer, and it's a more conventional one for this kind of story. but there is another layer i haven't been able to get from my mind.

i think yusuke is gifting each of his friends an honorable warrior's death.

so, in case it needs saying, yusuke, kuwabara, kurama, and hiei all (at least once, if not several times) exhibit a desire to die in combat in a way they deem noble to give their lives purpose (usually by self-sacrifice, but sometimes by another metric of honor, like hiei's duel with shigure and his desire to die in mutual defeat against an evenly matched opponent; or even kurama's decision to fight shigure in his human form, displaying a sort of passive suicidality via placing being true to himself in this (somewhat symbolic/inconsequential) way over survival). they need to make their lives count for something, because they feel guilty for being alive (kurama and hiei feel guilty for their past actions (hiei's is most evident in his distance from yukina, though that's not its primary reason), hiei, kuwabara, and yusuke have all been ostracized and made to feel like burdens on/unwanted by their caregivers and general society; all four of them have felt profound isolation even from their loved ones (yusuke and hiei are rather obvious; kurama can never tell his mother about the majority of his life nor what she truly means to him in the context of it; and kuwabara is separated from his peers for his spiritual awareness and his "stupidity" (plus his parents aren't around? and he is Desperate to define manhood/manliness through a broader pop cultural one which includes the warrior sacrifice thing bc he has no male role models BUT that's for another post) (i will admit kuwa's the most tenuous one here irt isolation)). they want to die for a cause so badly it's actually physically painful to me. it is passive suicidality, and they define their lives and identities by their relation to, engagement with, and skill at doing violence, etc. they live to die by the sword. anyway. nobody talks about it but i think it's very important to understanding what yusuke's doing here.

because i think he knows that about himself and his friends. they're kindred spirits. at the very least he knows this about kuwabara, who literally made a speech about this before diving into toguro's fingers In The Event That He Is Recreating Explicitly. he is dying nobly like they all want to on the chance that they'll get to break out and fight sensui rather than dying without even getting to take a swing. it's about his pride and theirs. but i don't think yusuke necessarily believes they'll win. he knows better than anyone how strong sensui is, and how wide the gap is between sensui and team urameshi. his stated position that humanity is doomed and that he doesn't care about its fate is, i think, not completely genuine, but if we take it at face value, he's not killing himself so that his friends can survive the end of the world. something's going to come around and kill them eventually. he's doing it so they can survive long enough to fight sensui. he needs them (specifically kuwabara) to be strong enough to free themselves to begin round two. but he's given up on their side winning, on humanity surviving, on his own victory---why should he think his friends are capable of winning? this could be another case of yusuke's fight-blinders. it could be another gamble, more blind faith put in his friends. but honestly it reads more to me that yusuke's giving them a chance to die together on the battlefield. them winning would be great, but it's not his goal. it's a pipe dream.

he knows he's going to be killed. they're probably going to be killed, too. but to make it so they last a little longer against sensui, to make the odds a little more even, so they are killed not like livestock, but like worthy fighters, he'd die a little faster. it's the best kind of death someone like them can have; and he'll deprive himself of it just to make their ends a little sweeter. even if the road to that is far more bitter.

but it's not like yusuke's friends know what he's thinking or agree to it, and he can't exactly make his case for it in the moment. he's making that choice for them. whatever his intentions, whatever odds he thinks they have of beating sensui, he's kind of sealing all of their fates. so how the hell is he supposed to acknowledge kuwabara screaming at him not to die, trying desperately to express what yusuke means to him in what could be their final moments together? this plan is going to hurt his friends terribly. it is already doing so, and he can hear it. his choices to stop koenma from using the mafukan and to die for his friends' strength are both selfish in some way, no matter how you read the scene. if yusuke comforts kuwabara, he might not get strong enough. if he twists the knife, well... how could he forgive himself? and either way by responding he would have to face them all and say yes, i'm doing this regardless of your feelings (with the intention of hurting you). so i think he does what he often does. he avoids it. he lets that emotion glance off him and his bravado and his one-liners so he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he's hurting people, that he's scared and guilty and unsure of himself. that he's about to die again, about to put kuwabara through the grief he saw at his wake again, only worse; about to put his quieter friends through something similar.

yusuke is confronted with the responsibility one has to the people who care for them, and he runs from it in an attempt to give them some small peace. just like when he died before and thought hey, at least my mom and keiko won't be burdened by me anymore. because the only thing he can really do for them is die.

#UGH. sick of this stupid show (<- pathologically obsessed with it (it's just on a downturn rn))#anyway hi welcome back to my terrible mind here's another excruciatingly long yyh meta post no one's gonna read that i should just make a #video essay because nobody wants to squint through all that text but MAYBE they'd listen to me read it out. anyway #i actually made and then abandoned another post comparing yusuke's sacrifice here to genkai's death by toguro if anyone's interested in tha #anyway yeah sorry if im rusty in uh talkking about these guys. they're still rattling around in here dw #that comment just fucking hijacked my brain. my first thought was to make an ep 89 yusuke pov fic but since that's Probably not #gonna ever Actually get done (sorry) i figured i'd put the analysis behind it here bc this fucking choice makes me want to rip my hair out #(in a good way in a painful way)#yeah this gets derailed. ugh i hope all that stuff about yusuke's motivation in this gambit makes sense bc i still don't feel 100% about my #reading of it. his ass IS very much an unreliable narrator. but in what way? ehhhhh it's hard to say for sure in this case. to me.#yyh #yu yu hakusho #yyh meta #yayyy #yusuke urameshi #literally wrote for so long the sun started rising (<- not impressive since you don't know when i began writing. but i can't tell you bc i #don't remember lol)#also: his relinquishing of this fight is very interesting to me. he loses his shit when raizen kills sensui and deprives him of that victor #and he tells the others to stand down once he returns. so clearly he still Cares about beating sensui himself #but when he thinks there's no other choice he's willing to settle for passing that torch to his friends #he's like well they've earned a good revenge killing. as a treat #the real answer is probably something like 'it would fuck with the pacing' but fuck that lol it's in the show i'm going to talk about it #and a lot of this still applies even if he Can't hear them bc he Has to expect the begging and crying bc 1. he's lived it via toguro 2. his #plan depends on it. even if he's only imagining his friends' heartbreak he's choosing to ignore it for the sake of his plan #ANYWAY the real answer for. pretty much everyone is to give up fighting and find something healthier to attach their worth to #which is why kuwa not being in the final arc is a good thing (as much as it hurts me not to see my boy)#yyh really said YOU HAVE TO BECOME WELL ADJUSTED. DYING WILL NOT GET YOU OUT OF IT #i only skimmed thru this once sorry if it's ass

8 notes · View notes