#feels almost as if it's an attempt to justify a character being unable to use an injured limb

[actualaster]

I know media does it to most easily showcase how much pain a character is in, but you don't actually need to be in so much pain you're screaming from it for a limb to give out from pain.

Sometimes it's just a white-hot flash of agony so sudden it takes your breath away and the next thing you know you're on the ground/bed/back in the chair/whatever.

It's so abrupt and intense and quick that it's over before you have even a chance to make a sound and all that's left is the deep, lingering ache of it.

And sometimes it's not even pain! Sometimes a limb can just... Stop working and down you go. The pain comes after.

(That's what happened to my knee where I ended up needing to be wheeled around because I couldn't walk--just gave out and hurt after it stopped working)

There's pain you cry out from, for sure, but there's plenty of pain--pain that can be literally debilitating--that you don't scream from, either, but that doesn't make it less of an impediment. Depends on the person themselves a lot, as well as the type of pain itself.

[ravenclod]

DISC: this 'essay' is NOT hating on madohomu, or hating on people for shipping them. nor is it hating on Homura, or implying that her actions should be changed. It is simply an opinion from someone who loves Homura's character who also ships Madohomu, and just wants to rant about things i feel are ignored by the fandom. Please read the full thing before reblogging or replying with your opinions so i dont need to repeat myself.

Maybe I'm just a hater, but I don't understand how people can look at Homura and just excuse everything she’s done, especially in regards to Madoka, because she "actually loved everyone!” and "Is traumatised" and "It’s just toxic yuri!". It feels like a complete ignorance of her character and disregards the complexity and depth of her writing.

Now, obviously, I don't mean when people make jokes about it, I get that, but it’s when people genuinely don't acknowledge how madohomu is unhealthy and homura is a bad person. That is quite literally the whole point.

I'm aware that she does care about the other girls, which is why she didn't try to kill Mami in rebellion, and just acted like the others didn't matter throughout the show because she was all out of hope and had to concentrate on the one thing keeping her sane, which was Madoka. But that is exactly my point. That obsessiveness, that reliance on one singular person [ who is also largely unaware of the reason for said reliance ] is incredibly unhealthy. It is unhealthy. It is toxic. I'm not saying homura is abusive, like some people have, because she absolutely is not, but she is obsessive to the point of being unable to see madoka in a negative way. Even when she criticises her it’s from a "you're so stupid you can’t tell that people love you/you’re so stupid for doing this you're gonna get hurt" point of view, rather than the view of "oh you are genuinely naïve and mess up like everyone". [1] This in turn harms both of them, as she is putting her on a pedestal which Madoka will feel guilty for being on and worry about upholding, and it ruins Homura as she will simply spiral further into this unhealthy mindset.

She takes her [ Madoka’s ] word to the extreme, the word of which has no form of context and is speaking from the equivalent of the naïve Madoka that we see in the first episode. Homura then uses that to justify what she goes on to do during Rebellion, which in turn harms Madoka. when she rips Madoka from herself, I understand it's to avoid the incubators getting to her, and it is very in character, but she still actively harmed Madoka, and went against her wish to save all magical girls [ from becoming witches ] at least, in part.

Her obsessiveness does then leech off and affect everyone else, because she is also friends with them and does care for them. They begin to lose respect and gain upset over Homura, as she is now a girl who has one goal and throws them to the side to achieve this, not attempting to make genuine connections and discarding those which she does have - namely Kyoko in the show. This behaviour affects the other girls in the obvious sense of they die quicker and more frequently as Homura is no longer attempting to intervene; affecting Madoka too, as she ends up getting stressed about her friends not getting along, before then having the trauma of seeing her friends die. [ This is not to put the blame on Homura as it happens regardless, but the point is for everyone else, it will seem like Homura could have helped, even if it was out-with her power.] This will harm Homura as a result, for it will plague her how she treats her friends like this, and will only cause her self-esteem to plummet further than it already has.

Additionally, there are points where she could be argued to be manipulative, which is up to personal judgement, but it is worth noting. Obviously, it would not be from her own awareness or intention, but it is still a plausible outcome of her actions - i.e., the way she speaks to Madoka in the show, almost threatening her before then sobbing over her and acting like she is the most important girl in the world, [2] which, keep in mind, will be weird for Madoka as she barely knows this girl. This isn't to say Homura's actions aren’t understandable, especially in the show, but that doesn't remove the negative impact that they have. Homumado may be cute, and it is cute, especially pre-timeloop, but the reality is, even now, it wouldn't work without years and years of couple therapy.

I also am going to mention kyosaya, as they are also unhealthy, and I know someone may try to bring up how I love them so much in spite of this fact. They are definitely not the most healthy relationship, literally trying to kill each other in a fight in the first episode they met. It is practically impossible to ship characters in this show and have a healthy relationship [ with maybe the exception of madosaya pre-timelooping ]. However, the difference between kyosaya and madohomu is my general issue altogether, which isn't that the ships are unhealthy, but rather the way the fandom treats them in regards to them being such.

Kyosaya is known for being enemies to lovers, its known for being unhealthy and its known for being liked in the theory of "oh this is what they could have been, had they been given more time to understand each other.". It is also an equal relationship, there are no forms of power dynamic between the two, both are equally vulnerable; both hate the other at the start, and respect and care for one another at the end - as seen in rebellion. Even when Kyoko is stronger than Sayaka, that's cancelled out by Sayaka's determination and healing properties.

Homumado, on the other hand, are known for being equally doomed, but in the sense of "Oh Homura will never save Madoka, Madoka will always die, they can never be together.". There is never that acknowledgement that they wouldn't work, even if by some miracle the looping ended. There is simply too much that has happened. The only possible scenario is arguably one in which Madoka stays as Madokami, and Homura stays as the devil, for at least both have equal memories of all that has transpired, but even that has huge issues due to Homura's abandonment issues and obsessiveness toward madoka. There is also, unlike in kyosaya, a large power imbalance, which goes both ways at different points.

In the main show, this is heavy on Homura, as she knows so much about Madoka, she's seen her at her best and worst, and she knows all that will happen. She is also stronger than her, as for the most part Madoka is not a magical girl, and is unable to do anything to prevent her friends’.

Flip that to when Madoka is god however, and she is now the topheavy one, as she is fully aware of everything that has transpired. and Homura is so obsessive. If madoka were anyone else, it could very quickly turn bad with Madoka manipulating Homura's infatuation - which obviously isn't an issue as madoka is so nice, but you get my point.

It is a point though that homura still has power over madoka, especially considering her removal of "Madoka" from "Madokami". She technically has a part madoka all for herself, and has relative power over that for the time being. No one is able to do anything. It’s almost like she’s controlling a doll, except the doll is a piece of madoka she’s refusing to let return to the rest of her.

This is what I mean when I say there is no form of permanent equity between the two, while kyosaya are a yin and yang of give and take, madohomu are simply always off balance. Which is why they're so unhealthy.

Again, that doesn't mean they're not a good ship. That doesn't mean they're not cute, and they don't deserve to be together. It could 10000% work out, just as kyosaya is also toxic but could still work out. My issue isn't with the ship, the writing, or the characters, but rather the disregard to the discussions surrounding it.

To paint Homura as a "cute girl who's a bit obsessed” is a disservice to the complexities of her actions and her humanity, as again, she is a heavily traumatised 14 year old girl. Her actions are realistic, her actions make sense. But her actions aren’t good. This is not a critique on Homura, but a critique of the denial that she has done these bad things. denying as such waters her down and mischaracterizes her. It defeats the point of her as a character.

After all, she is the devil. She’s not intended to be nice.

[1] - "How stupid can you possibly be" - episode 5

[2] - fountain scene, episode 8, where she breaks down in front of madoka

[cosmicjoke]

Levi and Zeke and the Question of Nature versus Nurture:

I just wanted to expound in a separate post upon a reply I just gave in my post about my problem with Zeke, as I think it sort of summarizes further what that is. 

Zeke professes that his actions are done in the name of mercy.  That his attempts to euthanize an entire race of people is done out of a desire to end their suffering.  But Zeke is a character that takes pleasure in the suffering of others.  There are numerous occasions in which we see this from him.  With Mike. With the soldiers in Shinganshina.  With Levi.  So what does that tell us?  What do people who defend Zeke’s actions as a product of his upbringing say to this?

Zeke was damaged by Mr. Ksavar, of course.  But Mr. Ksavar didn’t teach Zeke cruelty, and neither did his parents.  Mr. Ksavar, as misguided and deluded as he was, never taught Zeke that he should take pleasure in the suffering of others, and in fact imparted his philosophy to end suffering through extermination.  We could talk endlessly about how this shaped Zeke’s world view and how it dictated his later actions.  But I have a problem with this very conceit of Zeke’s actions deriving from a place of philosophical belief at all.  Because in spite of what he claims about wishing to end the suffering of others, this is contradicted by the fact that Zeke takes pleasure and satisfaction in the torment and suffering of others.  A fact which flies directly in the face of what he professes to be his goal.  I think this exposes Zeke as a liar and a hypocrite.  It essentially undermines the entire foundation of his claims, which is that his actions are done out of some benevolent, altruistic aim.  If he truly cared about preventing others from suffering the way he has, then why does he take such obvious and genuine pleasure in inflicting suffering?  Don’t try and tell me it’s all playacting and him trying to cope with his “pain”.  He’s needlessly cruel to his victims.  To Levi in particular.  He deliberately takes aim at whatever he knows will cause the most harm for each individual he targets, and openly revels in that harm.  With Levi, it was being placed in a position of having to kill his comrades, with Zeke even banking on the assumption that it would be so unbearable for Levi that he would let himself  be killed rather than defend himself.  I think this exposes Zeke’s entire claim of what his motivation to be as false.  I think it exposes Zeke’s actions as being dictated almost entirely by his own sense of ego and self-importance and narcissism.  He’s bitter and angry and feels unjustly wronged by both his father and the world, and so wants to take those angry and embittered feelings out on others.  He likes hurting others, but he needs to justify it to himself by claiming, both to himself and to others, that it’s because he really wants their suffering to end.  I think Zeke is a liar.  He lacks empathy for everyone and everything around him, and while he convinces himself that his actions are that of a merciful martyr, in truth, they’re entirely ego-driven and narcissistic, viewing himself in the light of the “chosen one”, highlighting his own suffering and sacrifice for the benefit of others, like when he kills Falco’s brother, and then uses Falco as a weapon.  Instead of showing any, genuine understanding of the cruelty of his actions here, he instead whines about how hard it is for HIM to do what he’s just done.  He has both a god-complex and a hero-complex, and expects others to acknowledge and understand his great sacrifices made for, supposedly, their sake’s, while bemoaning his great burden when no one does.  He thinks of himself as special, as uniquely qualified to solve the problems of the world, while at the same time he is completely unable to place himself into the shoes of others, to see things from their perspective or their emotional point of view.  

Meanwhile, Levi very much WAS taught that he should take pleasure in the suffering of others.  He was taught this by Kenny, a serial killer who murdered countless people for no reason other than personal satisfaction, who taught Levi to kill, not just to survive, but as a matter of course.  When he talks about teaching Levi how to “say hello”, he was talking about hurting and killing people just as a general mode of conduct, as the way one should operate in daily interactions with others.  Think about this.  I always laugh when people try to hold Kenny up as some sort of positive parental figure in Levi’s life versus Zeke’s supposed lack of positive parental figures, as if citing Kenny’s influence is some sort of “gotcha’” moment which proves Levi had some sort of privilege which Zeke lacked.  As if Kenny himself didn’t cause Levi immense harm by the way he raised him.  I can’t think of a worse role model growing up than a brutal and remorseless serial killer who’s sole lesson in life was that one is worthless if they aren’t strong, and by strong, specifically, meaning if one can’t kill.  But yeah, okay, Levi was so lucky to have Kenny. 

All of this is to say that Levi was being shown through constant example that the lives of others are worthless.  Some of his earliest lessons in life centered on being shown how worthless his and his mothers lives were to others.  How do people think Kuchel was treated in general, day to day?  Given the state of the room they were living in, the abject poverty and desperation apparent, and the fact that they were outcasts forced to live in the Underground, afforded no rights and no citizenship, I think the answer should be fairly obvious.  When his mother died from disease, no one even realized she was dead, or that Levi was starving to death.  So worthless was hers and Levi’s lives to others, that no one even thought to check on them for days and days, possibly weeks, to the point that Kuchel’s body was already half decomposed by the time Kenny came upon them.  Are we really meant to believe that Kuchel’s love alone was enough to counteract the horrific lessons Levi was being exposed to in terms of how the lives of others were treated and regarded?  Would his mothers love for him have been enough to nullify every other horrific experience he endured?  I don’t think so.  The same people that try to argue this will turn around and claim that the love of Zeke’s grandparents wasn’t enough to save him from what he became.  And yet Levi somehow turned out exactly the opposite of cruel or heartless, driven almost entirely by the need to protect life and make certain no one dies in vain.  

I point this all out for those who would argue that Zeke and Levi are entirely a product of their upbringings, and use that as some sort of defense of Zeke’s actions.  While each of them possesses qualities connected to how they were raised, obviously, they both also possess qualities not connected in any, clear way to how they were raised.  You can argue about how much Zeke’s and Levi’s philosophies are linked to their upbringings, but Zeke’s cruelty and Levi’s kindness aren’t products of their upbringings at all, imo, but rather, simply, their natures.  Levi’s kindness is in spite of how he was raised, and Zeke’s cruelty, in turn, is in spite of how he was raised.

[noelaniportfolio]

Paper 2

Noelani Burroughs 

Fall Writing, Literacy, and Discourse

Sean Pears

October 2024

The Story of Acceptance and Criticism in “Kindred” 

Octavia Butler’s Kindred is a very intriguing novel in that it explores so much of the relationship between the past and future, the concept of agency, and most importantly the way it handles the relationships between characters in the context of the slavery period. The relationship between Dana and Rufus is complex, even within a novel that explores time travel. Dana traveling back to the 1800s is directly tied to Rufus being in danger, putting Dana in a situation where she would have to save his life. At first, she seemed to have been eager to change the attitude Rufus had towards slaves, in the hope that she would be able to change his future and make him a “better slave owner” than his father was. As she kept going back, it was becoming apparent that her efforts showed little effect. Yet, she persisted, almost as if she believed it was a responsibility dedicated to her, and not just because this was her grandfather. It seemed that at first, the idea of heroism could be attributed to Dana’s character. She tries to encourage the black people she meets to yearn for freedom, like Sarah, she attempts to teach Nigel and Carrie how to read, and she actively attempts to change the way Rufus speaks and thinks about slaves. It was clear that her view on slavery was to strive for freedom and seek liberation for the slaves on the plantation. But the more she returns to the farm, the less we see this trait, yet her attachment to Rufus becomes clearer. Thus, this raises the question of why Butler would write a novel where the protagonist's agency goes through a decline. The answer may be both one of criticism and one of acceptance. Butler characterizes Dana as having such dramatic changes in her agency to revise the phenomenon of black women lacking the traits that made them human. 

Many instances highlight the attitudes Dana previously had towards her relationships with other slaves on the farm, especially Rufus, are changing. There's one scene that confirms how much Dana is aware of her changing attitudes, or lack thereof of toward Rufus. At the end of “The Fight,” Kevin finally reunites with Dana leading to an agonizing rehashing about her attempting to escape to find him. When they go to leave, they are confronted by Rufus, who holds them, more so Kevin, at gunpoint. At this point, Dana’s actions during this chapter bubble up into what are her thoughts in this scene, in a way that lets the reader in on the way Dana herself feels about the way she's been so conflicted about her feelings toward Rufus. She keeps going back and forth between her knowing him, and her sticking by him, even though the friends she has grown to make on the farm have warned her about the person Rufus has become. She even somehow tries to justify that because he had never acted wickedly towards her, she was able to ignore the evidence he had been abusing Alice. (Butler 1979, 186) But this isn’t really true. While he has never been physically aggressive towards her, he still lied to her that he mailed her letters when he hadn’t, he used her as a tool to make Alice come back to him suggesting he treated her too well for a “nigger”. Yet throughout all of this, she still maintains a connection to him. At this point in the novel, the reader believes that Dana was unable to change Rufus, but she still believes that she and Rufus have a special relationship. All of this calls her character into question. Dana, someone who the reader liked up to this point for her determination to change the past and everything around her, has turned into someone who would seemingly sacrifice her own ancestor to her abuser. The strong and morally willed Dana that the readers have grown to know and like is withering away, making her almost selfish or complacent. And that is for a reason. 

In the beginning, the readers like Dana. She was willing to sacrifice herself to try to use her education for the other slaves on the farm, she was strong and wasn’t afraid at first to show some resistance towards Tom and Margeret Weylin. All of these traits display the title of heroism which was attributed to Dana at the start. Traits that were common in depictions of black women in the 1900’s. Butler writes Dana’s story in a way that not only calls attention to the effects of slavery on a black American’s psyche, but also critiques the way that black women have been written in the context of slavery as a whole. The context of literature in the 1900s is much different than the circumstances that Butler is writing in, as a 20th-century writer. In the 1900s, newly freed black women had to have been palatable to white people at the time, and to do that they had to be perfect. They had to be the type of black women to sacrifice themselves for their children and for the greater good. They had to be brave and resilient. All of these things we see with Dana in the beginning, so when we see her quickly start to change, it calls into question her character. However, her attachment to Rufus, her selfishness, and her lack of firepower that she previously had are all traits of being human. No different than what many, had they been in her situation, would find themselves doing. What Butler is trying to do here is prove that black women could just be. 

Jerome Gregory Hampton's “Changing Bodies in the Fiction of Octavia Butler: Slaves, Aliens, And Vampires” brings up the idea of “Victorian ethics” in reference to a multitude of black women characters written in the 19th century. Something that struck me as the most interesting about Hampton’s argument is the comparison of Linda Brent from “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” and Dana Franklin from “Kindred” in the context in which they are written. He describes Harriet Jacobs’, Linda Brent, as being a product of 19th-century moral ethics, which he later labels Victorian ethics, prohibiting her from actually being a fully fleshed character, and instead being subjected to constraints that make her into what he calls a “race woman”. (Hampton 2010) This box that these writers put their black women characters in does the very thing that they are trying to oppose. It stereotypes black women, holding them to standards of perfection, forgetting about the traits that make these women human beings. Hampton ties Dana into his argument by mentioning how Butler should be freed from Victorian ethics, yet somehow Dana frequently falls into Victorian tropes. Where the Victorian ethics present in literature and society in the 19th century deprived Jacobs of the option to represent Brent as a mother who would sacrifice her own children to slavery in order to save herself, those same ethics didn’t restrain Butler, however, time and time again, Dana saves and harbors care for Rufus, despite the evidence of him ultimately becoming a product of his time. Alma Simba's “Octavia Butler is in Defense of Failure: Kindred’s Black Grief as a New Dawn” is very interesting in that it brings up the point of Dana’s reality being the 1970s, where she can marry a white man, and wear jeans, read, and use painkillers, and how she uses her reality to protect herself in the past. And despite all of these advancements from her present, she’s still unable to change the direction of her past. Simba argues that the grief and suffering represented in Kindred is being offered as an indubitable fact, instead of something that makes these women, and historical figures brave and heroic. By doing this, it acknowledges that crucial moments in history were devastating and came alongside immense trauma and grief, allowing them to be both “painful and revolutionary” (Simba 2023)

Both texts offer the idea that Butler writes Kindred in a way that is an acceptance of one’s past. To begin, Dana tried to suggest that she was being thrown into history to watch it unfold. And despite saying that, she tries to do everything in her power to change it, leaving her more devastated than satisfied. As time goes on, she slowly starts to accept the idea that maybe she really has no say in the way that her history is unfolding. Simba’s argument is fascinating in that she suggests that Dana’s only option was to immerse herself in her history and ancestors. Immersing herself to the point of “reincarnation” to the point where Dana turns into the voiceless slave herself in an attempt to save her. To Butler's point, it is this that makes Dana unrevolutionary. Dana is unable to leave any dramatic or long-lasting effects on the Weylin farm. This makes Simba's argument all the more interesting, comparing Dana's situation to acts of "revolution."  Had Dana tried to do more to bring liberation upon the slaves on the Weylin Farm, would it have made an impact? Would Dana have been successful? When she tries to teach Nigel and Carrie to read, it results in the whipping that separates her and Kevin. The more she tried to influence Rufus, it's as if he became more wicked. It may not be that Dana herself is revolutionary, but the way that Butler writes Dana's care for Rufus to be her fatal flaw is an act of revolution. By allowing Dana to succumb to the reality that she is trapped within history in the difficult situation of caring for her great great great grandfather, we are able to see her history continue to unfold. Though Dana was not able to be revolutionary in the way that historical figures were, her just being, surviving allows a different reality of slaves, specifically the slaves on the Weylin farm, to be told.

Dana’s relationship with Rufus is very complicated. To be thrown into a situation such as hers would drive anyone to break. While it is reasonable to question the actions of Dana, we must also question the way we view the actions and reactions of black women when faced with immense trauma. It is this way that Butler writes Dana to be a revision of the Victorian ethics that previously dominated slavery literature written by black women, while also challenging the reader's idea of both realism and heroism. 

Butler, Octavia. “Kindred” Doubleday, 1979

Hampton G., Jerome. “Changing Bodies in the Fiction of Octavia Butler: Slaves, Aliens, And Vampires” EbookCentral.Proquest.com, Lexington Books, 2010

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/howard/detail.action?docID=662241&pq-origsite=primo

Simba, Alma. “Octavia Butler is in Defense of Failure: Kindred’s Black Grief as a New Dawn” ProjectMyOpia.com, 2023

[todoscript]

SEQUEL TO  “don’t forget it”

SYNOPSIS: One week after accidentally blowing you off on your date, Bakugou Katsuki seeks your forgiveness.

pairing: bakugou katsuki x fem!reader

genre: fluff, very little angst

word count: 5.4k+

warnings: none really accept maybe a character sustaining an injury

author’s note: hellooooo this is a very very very late part 2 of my don’t forget it drabble that many people asked for! i hope this lived up to your expectations and was worth the wait!

Since the events that led you to leave Bakugou’s room in a fit of bitterness after attempting to penetrate that thick head of his, he hadn’t been able to speak to you for a week.

It goes without saying he did his best to chase you down the hallway from his room and toward the elevator the moment he realized his faults. But at the stink eye you shot him through the minimizing slit of the elevator doors sliding into place, he knew he had no right to reconcile with you after pulling a stunt like that. Nor did he think you’d want to spare him any more words to begin with. It was clear you were done arguing with him.

“C’mon man, it’s probably best to let her cool down before you try to make up with her,” was the advice Kirishima offered when Bakugou returned to his room, disgruntled as he heavily fell back into his seat next to the desk. He did the bare minimum to acknowledge his friend’s words with a grunt before resuming tutoring the redhead, his method of teaching suddenly harsher than how it began thanks to his soured mood. He lapsed the day away by pounding Kirishima with problems upon problems against that hard noggin of his, both literally and figuratively.

At the very least, Kirishima earned himself a passing grade on their exam as a result of his hard work and their rigorous tutoring sessions. But what followed Bakugou’s and your relationship was still undetermined.

Days later and you were relentless in giving him the cold shoulder.

Bakugou was met with nothing but empty glances and blatant disinterest whenever he crossed your path. It felt like the wall you slotted between him grew another layer at each encounter, your defenses so impenetrable, it could give Kirishima’s quirk a run for its money. He couldn’t so much as utter a word in your direction without you effectively dodging every possible interaction in favor of joining another conversation nearby.

At first, Bakugou shrugged it off, calling your “childish attitude” unwarranted for something he thought was incredibly trivial. In his eyes, it was just an ordinary date at some run-of-the-mill restaurant he just happened to suggest to you because he took a liking to their spicy food. Not like it was some fancy dinner reservation serving caviar on dry toast beside a pretty, city night skyline. To him, it was nothing special.

However, as the week continued to roll by, it became clear to him how much he hurt you due to his selfishness. In a hangout with the Bakusquad, he learned that you apparently told Mina, along with the rest of the girls, everything during one of your girls’ nights. Which included the events prior to your heated argument in Bakugou’s dorm. And Mina, being just as peeved as you were at how Bakugou stood you up that day, had to let the blond know of the damage he’d done.

.

.

“I swear, Bakugou Katsuki, I know you can be an asshole sometimes—”

“Make that all the time,” Sero quietly adds in the middle of Mina’s rant while he lounges backward on Kaminari’s bed. If it wasn’t for his current dilemma, Bakugou would have elbowed him in the back of the head.

“—but this is crossing the line!” she finishes. Her arms are thrown exaggeratedly over her chest. The amber surrounded by the black scleras of her eyes points a beady look at the ash-blond crisscrossed on the floor between Kirishima and Kaminari.

“Poor girl sat there for hours waiting for you, only to find out she got blown off because you couldn’t even properly check your reminders!” She paces back and forth in the room, feet excessively stepping across the floor as she’s engulfed by the emotions she feels for her friend. “What’s worse? She comes back and finds out you’ve been doing your own thing with Kirishima the whole time!”

“Hey! It’s not like we were playing around! We were actually having a very serious study grind, thank you very much,” the redhead immediately clarifies. Though his explanation doesn’t alleviate Bakugou’s case in the slightest, who pounds his palms against the surface of the table they’ve gathered around.

“Look. I fucking get it, Ashido. I screwed up, okay?! Now what the fuck do you want me to do about it?!” he exclaims, anger overpowering his voice, but it does little to deter Mina.

“Fix it, obviously!” she quips back with equal fierceness, leaning in eye level with Bakugou.

“And how do you propose I do that, Raccoon Eyes? Hah?” Repositioning his elbow to rest on the table, he leans his cheek against his hand. “Y/n won’t even let me within five fucking feet in front of her and you still expect me ‘fix this’?”

Despite the situation weighing heavily on his shoulders, no immediate answer is bestowed upon him. That is, except the obnoxiously loud crinkle of a chip bag popping open next to Bakugou that cleaves into the scene like a record scratch. As if unable to read the mood in his own room, Kaminari fishes a chip to throw in his mouth, stirring the awkward silence into tension.

“Wow, Bakugou. I know you’re bad with girls and all, but you really messed up this time,” he remarks. His voice is slightly muffled as he munches his chips, continuing to wrinkle the bag for more. It incites a vein to swell on Bakugou’s forehead. He amasses all the willpower within him not to blast the bag of chips to ash, and the boy alongside it.

“If you dunce faces are just gonna sit here and throw salt in my wound then I’m outta here.”

“No, wait!” Kirishima catches Bakugou’s wrist before he fully lifts himself off the floor. “Come on, Bakugou, I’m sure we can think of something! We just need to put our heads together! Right, guys?” he assures. Finding it hard to deny his friend’s hardened conviction, Bakugou gives Kirishima the benefit of the doubt, albeit with slumped shoulders and a tentative raise of his brow as he slowly sits back down.

“Right! Everyone, let’s get some brainstorming done!” Mina yells encouragingly.

The atmosphere of Kaminari’s room is consumed by moderately thoughtful silence for the next ensuing minutes. A few hums pass, followed by an exchange of contemplative looks as four of the five rack their heads together to uncover a solution. The one in need of help only hunches in his seat, waiting with mild disinterest.

“Oh hey, don’t we have hero training with All Might tomorrow?” Sero is the first to comment, scooting to the edge of the blond’s bed.

“Yeah. So?”

“He said we were going to work on group exercises this time around. You know, teamwork and stuff,” he explains further.

At that, Mina snaps her fingers, the work of a brilliant idea flickering in her head. “Sero, that’s it! Tomorrow, during training, we’ll just form a group together with Y/n! After all, she’ll have to talk to Bakugou if you two are on the same team!” She claps her hands in front of her, her enthusiasm rippling through her body and shown energetically with each raise of her voice. “Then, while the rest of us ‘split up’ to cover more ground, that will be your chance to make everything better with Y/n! It’s genius!”

“You missed one fucking crucial detail, Pinky,” Bakugou gruffs. “That will only work if Y/n doesn’t join another group. The moment she sees I’m on yours, she’s not even going to hesitate making a u-turn.”

“Worry not~ I’ll just text all the girls except Y/n about the plan later and ask them to help sort everyone out!” She solves the problem with relative ease—quick as a click of her phone lighting up and finger sliding open to her messages.

“Uh, another thing though.” Kirishima raises his hand to spare his concern. “All Might says we’ll be splitting into groups of five at most, but there’s already five of us here.”

There’s a brief moment of deadpanning until Mina speaks casually. “Oh, that’s right. Kaminari. Take one for the team and make sure to join another group, ‘kay?” She settles without batting a lash.

Kaminari almost chokes on a mouthful of chips. “H-Huh?! What?! Why me?!!” he sputters.

“Because you’ve been eating chips this entire time and haven’t contributed to anything.”

“Hey, I offered the room, didn’t I?!” He tries justifying but is inevitably rejected by Mina’s wagging finger.

“Ah-ah, no complaints! Besides, it’s only one day of training. If we want this dilemma between Bakugou and Y/n fixed then we all have to play our part, got it?” Mina finalizes with a firm point of her finger nearly grazing the tip of the blond’s nose as he leans back to avoid it, eyebrows scrunched in discontent at the role he’s been reduced to.

“Alllllright!” Kirishima springs from his seat with outstretched arms and tightened fists. “Operation: Get Y/n to Forgive Explosion Boy is underway!”

“Dude, that’s a terrible name!” Sero laughs but rises from the bed to join the redhead’s cheer alongside Mina, the group already in high spirits.

Despite rolling his eyes at their swell of confidence, Bakugou does not object to the state of things. As crazy as it sounds, one could almost decipher the cusp of a grin pulling the seams of his lips as a possible sign he’s actually all for this extravagant little plan. Quite a first for Bakugou, but then again, there’s not much else he can do in this situation except rely on his pack of chumps.

Meanwhile, Kaminari grumbles something beneath the salty grit between his teeth.

“Alright, can you all get out of my room now?”

.

.

The scowl etched on your face carries a strong air of disdain that dampens the mood around your teammates considerably. Well, no one should be surprised. With Bakugou standing across from you, staring into the void of your expression, it’s to be expected that you wouldn’t be happy with this outcome.

No, “unhappy” doesn’t quite do your circumstance justice. You are beyond livid.

You feel your eyebrow twitch as you try quivering your lips to form a tinge of a smile. Unfortunately, all that quickly falls apart when you suddenly recall the disaster of last week, triggered by an accidental glance at Bakugou’s mug.

Trying to simmer down, you release a mental sigh amidst the turmoil boiling inside you.

Okay, maybe you’re over-exaggerating. Maybe you’re still just a bit too bitter for your own good and letting your emotions get to you. But in a class of twenty or some students, how did you end up in a group with the one person you were actively trying to avoid?

The moment All Might gave everyone the go-ahead to form their teams for today’s training exercise, you swiftly made a beeline toward two particular star students. Midoriya and Todoroki.

It was simple really. Your experiences throughout the school year told you Bakugou planned on staying away from his rivals when it came to teamwork, regardless of whether you’re there or not. He’s a competitive ass whose goal is to beat anyone he deems a threat in his climb to be the number one hero. It’s only logical you partner with people he adamantly dislikes to evade him.

Yet it seems fate has other plans for you today. By the time you found yourself pacing over to the two students you had in mind, they’d already gone and picked their own group members, forming teams before you could even ask.

Your nose wrinkles like you’ve taken a whiff of something rancid. Or, to be more specific, something fishy. Hooking an arm around Mina’s elbow, you drag the pink-haired girl off to a corner somewhere while tilting your head back at the three other boys.

“Ex. Cuse. Us.” Your words sound as stiff as cardboard. It comes out in practically a hiss when your eyes cross Bakugou. Once you’re positive you’re out of earshot, you whip your head at Mina.

“Mina, what the hell? When you dragged me over here to form a group with you you didn’t tell me he’d be there,” you groan. Childish and petty as you may sound, you just couldn’t fathom the idea of confronting the boy so soon.

Mina holds her hands out, ready to rationalize the whole ordeal. “C’mon Y/n, this is actually an advantage for us! With us four plus you on our team, we’re sure to knock the rest of the other guys out during training today! I mean we showed pretty good teamwork together at the sports festival, didn’t we?”

Steadying your gaze, you hold a finger below your chin as you slowly buy into the explanation. The reasoning is there. It’s hard to argue against a case like that, fully aware that being on the same team as explosion boy will easily snag good results for you and your party. ‘Cause as much of an arrogant jerk as he is, you have to admit Bakugou Katsuki knows his way around hero action like the back of his grenade gauntlets.

“Besides it’s not like you could avoid him for the entire school year. I mean, you two are in the same class. It was only a matter of time before you had to—”

“I know, Mina,” you interject, not wanting the rest of her sentence about the inevitable fall to your ear. “I just… Agh, you know what I mean!” You ruffle your hands through your hair in confliction, unsure how to piece your thoughts together.

Tilting your head over Mina’s shoulder, you sneak a glimpse at Bakugou, watching him as he’s cast to the side with the others. He’s fending himself from Kirishima and Sero’s combined jokes, that usual look on his face sending glares at the two and yelling something you could almost pick up on if you honed your ears a bit more. Surprisingly, when his eyes meet yours for a split second, he stands there looking nonchalant again. Both of you immediately avert your gazes.

Mina pats your shoulder, bringing you back to the conversation at hand. “I know, I know, but after this, I’m sure you can go back to ignoring his ass. After all, it’s just one training exercise, right?” she says. As her words deliver some relief to your ill-timed situation, you give in with a sigh.

Unbeknownst to you, turning your back to Mina and striding toward the rest of your teammates again, you miss the small glint in her yellow eyes, along with the subtle gestures she aims at the three boys, waving her pointed thumbs over your head secretively.

“So I take it you’re on the team with us, Y/n?” Sero asks when the two of you return. You nod in reply and the boy flashes his pearly whites in a wide grin that Kirishima mirrors. He nudges Bakugou at his sides which you subtly catch in the far corner of your eye.

You raise a brow suspiciously at their fidgeting, wondering why having you on their team warrants such enthusiasm, but you’re thankful for their energy at least. Someone has to lift the atmosphere for this not to be a complete drag and Bakugou surely isn’t going to be the mood maker of the group.

The blond scoffs. “Yeah, well, if you dumbasses are going to form a team with me, you’ll follow under my leadership, got it?”

The three readily agree. Though you roll your eyes, you don’t challenge his position, considering no one else is that much up to the task as he is. You’ll simply have to deal with the fact that you’re forced to tread through the day under his leadership. So with no objections, the five of you walk back to the class, gathering around the entrance of today’s battlefield.

Jumping into the activity, All Might goes about explaining today’s lesson to the four sets of teams—consisting of a group exercise to heighten teamwork. The name of the game? Capture the flag.

In short, each team will be split off into different sections of the labyrinth where their assigned flag is stationed. The objective is to not only protect your flag from being stolen but also try and steal an opposing team’s flag from their base and escort it safely to your home field. Nice and simple.

Not long after All Might’s explanation, the gate to the training grounds opens and you all scatter off into your teams, navigating through the twists of the maze to locate your flags. Once your group situated themselves onto your home base, you assemble in a huddle to devise a strategy before the game starts.

“So what’s the plan?” Kirishima asks, eyes darting around his teammates until they rest on Bakugou—the team leader. The ash-blond crosses his arms, a confident sneer plastered on his face as he’s already thought of his plan of action the moment All Might announced the mission.

“Easy. I’m going straight to the front-lines to swipe one of those dumbasses’ flags. You lot are gonna stay here and guard ours until I come back.” He delivers the strategy in a matter-of-fact tone that you quickly don’t take a liking to. Your fist curls in irritation.

“What kind of a plan is that?” you question audaciously, your voice louder than you intended. “So you’re just going to do all the work while we sit around and wait for you?”

Bakugou grits his teeth, leaning further into the huddle to direct his senseless logic. “Look, it’s the fastest and most surefire way to snag our victory without sacrificing anyone,” he says. Playing over his words again, he finds it surprising he even chooses to offer his reasoning. Because if it were anyone other than you he was arguing with, he’s certain he’d leave it at that.

Knowing the current tension between you was a result of his misjudgment, it feels only right for Bakugou to make an effort in communication. He ignores the antsy expressions belonging to the others who signal from behind you to follow along with their original plan.

You don’t seem to catch the hint, nor do you buy into his ridiculous strategy. “Oh, so you’re that confident you won’t get taken out by the other team then?” you quip. As a result, Bakugou’s brows tighten at your noncompliance.

“I know how to take care of myself. You of all people should realize by now that no other nerd in this whole damn class can outmatch me.”

“And what about an ambush? How do you know they simply won’t anticipate your strategy and see you coming?” You fire another counterargument and the boy purses his lips, beginning to find this quarrel spiraling into a headache rather than a step in the direction of reconciliation.

While Sero and Kirishima stand there, shifting their heads back and forth throughout the fiery exchange, Mina speedily reacts. The gears of that cunning mind of hers click into place again.

“You know what, Y/n’s right. Why don’t you two go together then?” she proposes boldly. Her suggestion catches you by complete surprise. You veer in her direction with an incredulous look blown in your eyes.

Before you can open your mouth to protest, the two boys standing beside her immediately back her up.

“Hm, Mina has a point. The chances of you falling into a trap wouldn’t be much if you two work together,” Sero remarks.

Kirishima follows, “Yeah, you guys can watch each other’s backs while going to collect the flag! It’s safer to go in a pair than by yourselves I’d say.”

The three seem adamant about the idea, sharing equally content expressions, and with all that said, you find it hard to dig yourself out of this situation. In a way, you practically volunteered yourself after questioning Bakugou’s plan and doubting his abilities. The group only feels it’s right you come along as his support since you clearly must be worried about his well-being.

Pushing your objections down your throat, you reluctantly agree to tag along with the blond. What you find exceptionally shocking is how Bakugou doesn’t oppose these new conditions. Given his hard-headed temperament, you thought he would’ve scoffed and turned his back at being paired without notice, but no such things were happening here.

...Odd.

“Tch, whatever. Let’s get going then,” is all he gives, starting in the direction into the urban area of the training course.

You trail behind him. “Coming, Boom-Boy��” you mutter the last bit but don’t suppress the urge to let your words be known. Bakugou turns his head and gives you a look akin to an uptight six-year-old you just offended at your local playground. You shrug in response, a corner of your lip pinched upward. He doesn’t pick a fight over the nickname, but his eyebrows remain fiercely slanted, and coupled with his heavy steps and the excessive swinging of his gauntlet-clad arms, it tells you of his emotional constipation plain as day.

.

.

The journey toward the other teams’ flags is cloaked in strained silence and the physical gap between you two does not encourage any of you to speak up. At this point, both of your levels of annoyance for each other have mellowed out. Now it just feels... awkward—strange. You don’t see his expression, nor does he see yours. It feels like you’re being left in the dark, having only the back of Bakugou’s head to stare at the entirety of the way, and though you supposedly have his back, Bakugou feels precarious in this state as he trudges along at the front, not daring to turn his head to cross your eyes.

The ambiance is reminiscent of the ancient Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. Where Bakugou walks through the depths of the underworld, seeking you out in hopes you’d join his side once again. If he turns around now and spills his thoughts to you too soon, he fears that your forgiveness would be whisked away, thoroughly beyond his reach, and replaced with your promises of retribution.

That was the eloquent version of the situation anyway. To put it bluntly, Bakugou was just impatient as hell to say something to you. The silence suffocates him to the point where the words are nearly about to be squeezed out of his throat, but he bites his lip to snuff out the urges.

The more he keeps them in, the more fidgety he becomes, hands itchy and mouth trembling with grit between his teeth. The idea of not letting his voice be heard was something Bakugou detested. Mainly because it was already such a challenge to even keep his mouth shut, given his fiery attitude and lack of patience.

Man, what the hell am I hesitating for? he asks himself, that outspoken side of him spurring him on.

Ah, screw the uncertainty, he thinks. If he doesn’t say anything now, then he won’t get to say anything ever.

Bakugou stops in his tracks, turning his head. Here goes nothing,

“Hey, Y/n, I–”

“Katsuki–”

Words collide into each other, jumbled and incoherent, which take you two by surprise as you meet each other’s furrowed gazes. It’s quiet as you both piece your way through this, eyes trained like you haven’t seen each other in months when the reality is that a week of bitterness has somehow made you act like strangers. The bewildered look crossing his features is foreign to you; you’ve never quite seen Bakugou as taken aback as he is now.

“You first,” you grant before Bakugou could mix up your words again. Even being given permission, the blond still isn’t sure what to say, his thoughts lost on him the moment his voice clashed with yours. He takes a deep breath, calming his senses and steadying his mind for what he wants to convey.

“Look, Y/n, I don’t know how to put this as nicely as I can,” he begins, tone consistent yet wary, assessing your expression, “but I know I fucked up and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you there all by yourself. I shouldn’t… have blown you off like that and forgotten about you.” He delivers this bluntly—honestly—as open as a boy of his nature can muster with arms spread out, willingly exposing him to his faults and your reprisals.

Looking at you, he finds your eyes are cast to the floor, assuming to be reflecting on his words carefully. After some deliberation, you come across the vermillion in his eyes.

“Frankly, I haven’t entirely forgiven you just yet. But I will say that despite how I’ve been acting, I’m not as mad at you as you think,” is what you give, and Bakugou would be lying to himself if he didn’t achieve relief at your statement. He mentally releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding throughout the exchange. However, you aren’t done yet.

“I just want you to understand what moments like those mean to me. It’s during that time where I can share my feelings and learn more about you—understand who you are,” you say. Bakugou latches onto every word. “And it goes both ways, you know. It’s hard to want to stay in a relationship with someone who doesn’t make an effort to make time for you.” It’s obvious you aim that comment at him as Bakugou’s eyes soften slightly hearing it. His calloused, glove-clad hands wrap into his palms. Man, he really was a jerk.

“Still… I know you’re making an effort to be sincere and that you’re genuinely sorry for what happened, especially considering how the others seem to have set this whole conversation up, right?” Bakugou winces over the Bakusquad’s ploy coming to light and makes a note not to follow along next time unless those dummies can scrape up a more elaborate plan.

Despite that, he presses on, “So, what does this mean?” A smile settles on the curve of your lips, sensing his impatience as his voice hastens you along.

“Well…” you begin, speech drawn out in anticipation as you step toward him to where Bakugou follows your movements. That is until he catches a few shadowy figures shifting around atop the small building behind you. Before you can open your mouth to continue, his instincts flare to life.

“Hey, look out!” he exclaims, already acting on his warnings by lunging forward to push you out of the way. Your breaths draw back into your lungs, your body thrust abruptly into the opposite direction. Landing on your butt, you wince at both the shock and the pain, but your whines desist when you witness Bakugou taking a force to the head as a result of coming to your aid.

“Katsuki!” you yell, immediately getting off the ground to rush to his side, but he can’t find it in himself to respond. Afflicted with a substantial blow to the crown of his head, his whole being throbs and his vision spins.

Fuck, is Y/n, okay? is the first thing on his mind, ignoring the liquid trickling down his forehead. His question is answered upon turning his head to meet your anxious expression—your eyes wide and lips quivering as they move to say words he can’t exactly make out beneath the pounding sensations consuming his mind. As he feels a set of arms wrap around him, he tries discerning his surroundings to form a reply, but can only capture bits and pieces.

“—tsuki! ...old… n!”

“...god—! I’m so dead!”

A sputter of words tangling together is the last he hears before his vision fades to black.

.

.

The next time Bakugou awakes, his eyes slowly sever open to come face-to-face with a blurry white ceiling. The lights assault his vision as his senses take time to adjust, unraveling the environment to realize he’s laying on a bed—a hospital bed to be precise.

He attempts lifting himself but is met with retaliation in the form of his pulsating head which he immediately flinches at. His hand goes to rub his scalp to soothe the ache and he finds bandages wrapped tightly around him. “What the hell happened?” The last he remembers is traversing the urban area with you for the capture the flag mission before finally confronting the subject that had been plaguing your minds for a week now. After that, he caught sight of some object descending toward you and before he had even realized it, his feet had moved on their own. Next thing he knows, he’s waking up in the nurse’s office with a headache from hell.

Wait, what about you? Were you okay? Surely, he had to have pushed you out of the way in time, right?

His head moves quicker than it should’ve, revealing the other hospital bed in the room to be unoccupied, vacant. He sighs and his relief is further bolstered by the door to the nurse’s room opening to unveil you unharmed with only your heavy look of concern troubling him.

“Katsuki, oh thank god, you’re okay!” you say, quickly pacing over to his side with a glass of water in hand. You leave it at his bedside, sitting before him. Gauging your appearance up and down, Bakugou tries making out even the smallest details.

“You aren’t hurt?”

You’re appalled he would ask this despite clearly being the one patched up in a hospital bed right now, and likely sporting some serious head trauma.

“Of course I am, you’re the one that lunged forward to protect me,” you tell him. Bakugou looks down at his lap, figuring that was what happened, but hearing it from you comforted him more than he thought. However, his comfort is wretched from him by the intense pressure persisting in his skull. Seeing him in pain, you urge him to lay down and rest.

“How the hell did I end up here anyway?”

You fidget with your fingers, hesitating on answering. At that, the blond lifts a brow, suspicious.

“Mineta… accidentally dropped a rock on your head.”

“...You gotta be joking, right?”

Bakugou leers hard, finding the reason he was out of commission to be a damn pebble hitting his head a detriment to his pride. And because of Mineta of all fucking people. Still, if he hadn’t acted as quickly as he did, you would’ve been the one to meet his fate instead, and he weighed this outcome to better than the former.

Then you explain how the teachers had temporarily intervened to bring his unconscious body to the nurse’s, where the old lady went about tending to his injury. Said she did her job and all he needed was to rest and let her quirk take fuller effect within that time.

“So did we win the game?” He switches the topic to today’s mission of capture the flag that was cut short on his end.

You shake your head, but at least grant him the benefit of knowing Mineta’s team ended up placing last. At that, his eyelids shut and he crosses his arms behind his bandaged head. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t my intention to win anyway.”

You give him a look. “...Liar.”

Bakugou cracks an eye open at you. “Hah? What do you mean I’m a fucking liar?”

“I know you, Katsuki. I dated you, after all. And the Katsuki that I dated is an arrogant, competitive jerk who thinks of being the best above all else.” Bakugou scrunches his nose, wondering what you’re implying through your... overly frank descriptions. “Still… he’s sweet and caring at times… and reliable when he needs to be,” you continue, tone softening that draws Bakugou in, “And the kind of guy I want to give a second chance to.”

Absorbing your words, Bakugou blinks. “S-Seriously?” He doesn’t mean to stutter, but the offer catches him off-guard. He replays what you just said. That’s what he heard, right? A second chance?

You giggle at how uncharacteristically astonished he sounds. “Yes, seriously.”

“Does that mean you forgive me for what happened last week?”

You hum between pursed lips in playful contemplation. “Well, maybe you can redeem yourself by going on another date with me then?”

Hearing your proposal, a wide grin arcs his lips, edging into a smirk.

“That’s it? Well, I can definitely fucking do that,” he states, confidence rejuvenating his body at the new, hopeful chance before him.

“Oh, just one more thing though,” you suddenly add.

“What?”

“We are not going to that Chinese Restaurant again.”

[mggpleasedontlookhere]

liar liar

request: I have a request, the reader is dating Spencer, and she and JJ are the ones that know that Emily faked her death. I’m thinking of it taking place in “It Takes A Village,” and she has to deal with Spencer being upset with her, like he was with JJ, but it has a fluff ending? Thanks!

for: @flklrevrmre​

word count: 3,722                                                                                     reading time: 15 mins

a/n: i) if you guys want to be added to my taglist lmk ii) can we all simultaneously fall in love with asa butterfield so i can read more fanfic about him? iii) it’s good to be back ;)

masterlist

You’d think that in a room of profilers they’d be able to recognize the antsy twitches of my ankles and the incessant rubbing of my wrists. Let alone the fact that one of those profilers was someone who knew the inside of my skin better than I did. My staggered breath elicited an involuntary gulp from my esophagus, throwing off my composure.

I pretended to stare at the blank screen of the television in the round table room, dissociating myself from the events to come. Curious murmurs and the shuffling of feet behind me became a chilling tether that reminded me of my circumstances. My breath hitched slightly at the presence of Spencer’s voice, although even the comforting thought of him only aggravated the disquietude bubbling at the bottom of my stomach.

I feel like I’m standing on the precipice of a cliff with the rocks rumbling beneath me. I knew this was a burden, a responsibility that I had to keep for the team--for Emily. I know that I’m not alone on this cliff, but I also know that the weight of this secret was slowly pushing all of us on edge.

-

“Hotch, are you sure you want to do this now?” JJ questioned him with an astonishing look. I tucked my hands into my pockets, leaning against the round table to give his proposition some thought.

“It’s time,” he sighed, lost in his world of thought. “We’ve kept this for months, and Doyle won’t speak about Declan. We need Emily,” he continued, pulling out his phone to ready an alert for the team.

“You don’t think Morgan can get through Doyle without her?” she reasoned.

“No,” he firmly answered, pulling his phone to his ear, and walked out of the room to call Penelope.

JJ shook her head in disapproval, taking a seat on the tabletop behind her. “I don’t know about this Y/N,” she announced, turning her head to gauge my reaction. “I just feel like...it’s too soon,” she expressed.

I chewed on my bottom lip, my mind engulfed by one thing: Spencer.

“What?” I snapped out of my thoughts, JJ’s voice finally registering in my head.

“It’s too soon, don’t you think?” she sought my confidence, but in all honesty, I wasn’t sure either. “I’m sorry, JJ but I don’t know,” I confessed, unable to gather my thoughts, “All I can...all I can think about is Spencer. I know it’s selfish, but…” My voice was caught on my tongue. Although there is a reason for that, I’ve been lying to someone I loved for seven months.

At the mention of Spencer’s name, JJ moved from her position to sit idly next to me. She observed the solemn and grief-stricken expression on my face, reaching over to lay a tender hand on top of mine. “I know,” she reassured.

“But Hotch is right,” I reasoned, “Emily--t-the team--they have the right to know,” I stammered over my words as I took a calming breath, exhaling out my worries. “JJ, he’s going to be devastated.”

“Then...we’ll tell him together,” she justified, a motherly yet comforting air radiating from her.

-

Together. That was the plan.

“Everybody take a seat,” Hotch gestured to the team. He folded his arms together and peered at his colleagues with a stern yet apologetic expression. “Seven months ago, I made a decision that affected this team.”

Everyone looked around at each other with curious glances. Spencer, on the other hand, turned to me for an explanation. Although when I refused to meet his eyes, it was evident that something serious had occurred.

“As you know, Emily lost a lot of blood in her fight with Doyle,” Hotch lamented, observing the sudden pensive atmosphere of the room. From the corner of my eye, I saw Morgan clench and unclench his fists, empathetic about the guilt that still haunted him. “But the doctors were still able to stabilize her.”

An audible gasp escaped Garcia’s lips, instinctively turning to gauge at Derek’s countenance. But the only emotion present was turmoil. His features had hardened into bewilderment, letting Hotch’s words resonate in his mind. Rossi looked to Hotch while Spencer faced me and JJ. The expression on Spencer’s face was similar to Derek’s, he was in between disbelief and denial. Although what I couldn’t face was his pleading eyes that begged for my confirmation.

“...and she was airlifted from Boston to Bethesda under convert exfiltration,” Hotch continued to explain, receiving pained looks from his peers. “Her identity was strictly need-to-know, and she stayed there until she was well enough to travel.”

“What does...what does this…” Garcia shook her head, stammering.

“She was assigned to Paris and given several identities--none of which we had access to for her security.” Hotch finished.

Morgan scoffed in incredulity, retreating into his mind. Standing up from his chair, he backed away from the table, clasping his hands behind his head. Garcia, frozen in her seat, spoke apprehensively with glassy eyes, “She’s alive?”

My heart broke at the anguished crack in her deliverance, remorse eating up my insides. Spencer’s posture straightened up in his chair, leaning forward to question Hotch’s place in all this. “But...we buried her,” Spencer rebutted in a strained voice.

“As I said, I take full responsibility for the decision,” Hotch nodded at the team, “If anyone has any issues, they should be directed towards me.”

“Any issues?” Morgan seethed, “Yeah, I got issues.”

The combined expressions of deception and the troublesome atmosphere was enough of a cue for the individual in question to step out. In all her glory, Emily unveiled herself by the door with a conciliatory frown upon her lips. Her fingers were tethered together, an idiosyncrasy of hers that became apparent at the times of disquiet.

“Did you...you know about this?” Spencer flipped his focus on me and JJ, “Did you both know about this?” he scoffed. The dreaded time finally came, the time of confession. I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat tightened up, and my tongue swelled. Regret had tangled me in its inescapable ropes that no noble reasoning would have freed me from my part in this decision.

“Spencer,” Hotch attempted to contend, but Spencer refused to listen.

How was he going to take the news? How could his best friend and his girlfriend lie to him like this?

“Spence,” JJ sighed, “This operation had to be covert for Emily’s sake--and Declan.” By now, everyone’s attention was on me and JJ. I almost couldn’t handle the distraught expression on Morgan’s face as I wasn’t only Spencer’s girlfriend, but his close friend.

How could I have done this? I’ve not only hurt Spencer, but I’ve also hurt the team--my family.

JJ stepped in front of me, brushing a calming hand on my arm. She gave me a reassuring glance, nodding at me to step forward alongside her.

I couldn’t do this.

My stomach curled, and my hands began accumulating sweat.

I can’t.

JJ took a breath, peering at Spencer with regretful eyes. She knew how to get through to him--sometimes better than me. JJ was the shoulder that Spencer could comfortably fall apart on besides me, and I didn’t have the heart to take that away from him. That’s how I knew I had to venture through this alone.

JJ hesitantly opened her mouth to speak, dropping her shoulders in vulnerability, but before the truth can slip past her lips, I interjected. “Wait! um,” I paused, processing the next words that would determine where I stood with Spencer, “I...I was the one that knew,” I muttered through my teeth, knowing that every syllable was a lie. I stepped in front of JJ; averting the attention away from her. “JJ had nothing to do with it. I informed her minutes prior to the meeting.”

Spencer became despondent. His once ardent expression slumped into one that resembled a Tim Burton character, although it was the dejected glare in his eyes that crushed me. Nothing else registered in my head; I knew that I forever scorned him.

With the silence suffocating the room, Hotch called the meeting to end. Everyone wearily stood up from where they were, Garcia instantly leaping onto Emily with numerous inquiries. Spencer didn’t even bother looking back, instead, he paced out of the room, giving Emily a long-awaited hug, and left.

As Emily became occupied with the rest of the team, JJ tugged at the end of my sleeve, pulling aside. “Why...why did you do that?” she questioned, her expression deep in perplexity. “I thought we were supposed to tell him together,” she shook her head, sighing at the sudden deviation from our plan.

“I just,” I took in a breath, “JJ, you know Spencer, and...you know how he gets,” I rationalized. An aching sensation spread across my chest as I recollected the events before, a film casting over my eyes as I justified my decision. “JJ, all I could think about in that meeting was how Spencer would feel afterward,” I croaked, “You and I know he’s already been through too much. I just couldn’t,” I repressed a choked breath. “You and I are the only people he’s okay about being open to, so I couldn’t let him deal with this alone,” I smiled pitifully, a single tear trailing down my cheek, reaching my lips.

“Y/N…” JJ consoled, pulling me into her embrace. I knew that she wanted to say something back--something to combat my reason. But deep down, she understood. I pulled away from her arms, gathering my composure.

“I don’t know where we stand right now,” I bit my lip, shaking my head in sorrow, “JJ, just...just be there for him. Be there for him because I love him.”

-

An agonizing week had passed in the BAU. Emily was reinstated after the team’s hearing at court, the unit dynamic languidly surfaced again, and it seemed like everything was back to normal.

Everything but Spencer.

It’s been eight days and seven nights since he’s slept at our apartment. JJ was generous enough to let him crash with her and Will, which I was appreciative to know that he was at least safe. JJ would give me updates during his stay, reassuring me to have faith and be patient with him. But each night that I spent in a distant bed, every dinner I sat through with an empty bowl opposite from me, and every eerie silence that would suffocate me when arriving home thinned out my perseverance.

Every time that I would reminisce on the warmth of his touch, it tore the remaining strands of my heart. The snarky remarks and malicious glares at work didn’t ease my state of mind either. I was on a cliff again, but this time I was alone.

We were on the jet, working a missing child’s case in New York City. Most of the team surrounded Hotch as he briefed them on the case while I notably sat at the front to evade the disagreeable tension. From time to time, JJ would text me, asking if I were okay. I found the gesture sweet the first few times, but it soon became a remembrance of my reality.

“I need everyone to split into teams,” Hotch announced, making sure that I had heard his statement. “The M.E. will be ready in a few hours, so Dave and Morgan, I need you to go to the morgue. Emily and JJ, I need you to interview a suspect back at the station. Y/N and Spencer, I need both of you to interview the second victim’s family,” Hotch delivered resolutely. However before he could finish, Spencer already had his disputes.

“Hotch, don’t you think I would be more useful in building the geographic profile?” Spencer interjected.

“Reid, I can’t send Y/N alone,” Hotch reinforced.

“Well it seems to me that she’s capable of making big enough decisions, so I think she’ll be fine,” Spencer jeered. “Matter of fact, why don’t we let her interview the suspect instead, since she’s so good at-”

“Reid,” Hotch warned him, sending him a disarming look.

Spencer scoffed, sinking back into his seat, pulling his book up to his face. JJ sent me another text, expressing her condolences about Spencer’s performance, while I sulked in the coldness of my arms.

That’s all Spencer did that week. He pulled away.

-

One. Two. Three rocks surpassed my pacing feet on the sidewalk.

It was the only thing I could force myself to focus on, considering the asphyxiating rigidness between me and Spencer. I was quiet as a mouse with every inhale I took, feeling that even the slightest disturbance would rattle the seemingly innocuous silence. However, despite the invisible barrier between us, Spencer began uttering details about the unsub’s profile.

“I’m thinking that our unsub might be a woman,” Spencer proposed, looking straight ahead of him.

In an attempt to alleviate the atmosphere, I entertained his suspects, “Why do you think so,” I inquired. My breath hitched towards the end of the sentence, sending a small jolt of nerves through my chest.

“Well,” Spencer began, “We can see from the unsub’s methodology that they still nurture the victim--a mother’s instinct--before death. The choice of disposal also indicates cleanliness which we profiled before as a women’s attribute.”

Four. Five. Six rocks.

“That’s true, Spence, but the level of cleanliness doesn’t match the M.O, and the profile points towards a male offender. If it were a female, then that would be one hell of a job to throw off the authorities,” I counteracted, feeling safer in the exchange we shared.

“It could be possible,” Spencer shrugged. “Statistically, women are presumptively better liars than men. They do one hell of a job being deceitful,” He quipped.

Seven. Eig-

My movements stilled at the unforeseen comment, while the same pang in my chest reappeared from before. Despite the wave of self-reproach invading my thoughts, I swallowed my feelings and maintained my professionalism.

“How far is the house from here?” I deadpanned, evading the touchy subject.

“Why don’t you check the coordinates that Hotch sent us. You seem to have a closer relationship to hi-”

“Can you stop?” I exclaimed, stepping out in front of him.  

“Stop what?” He scoffed, refusing to acknowledge my irritation by feigning innocence. He proceeded to project his attention towards the side garden that decorated the sidewalk, observing the various flowers that littered the grounds.  

“This,” I gestured to both of us. “This, this thing that you’re doing. Wh-what are we doing, Spence?”

“You’re acting like you’re not at fault here,” Spencer implicated with a nonchalant shrug. “It’s similar to this unsub’s psyche.”

“That’s not what I meant, Spence.”

“The unsub also didn’t mean to kill the first child so you might have that probability.” He paced off a distance away, leaving me at my lonesome.

“Spencer, can we talk-”

“What if the unsub used a lure to get to the first victim,” Spencer eluded the topic. “Possibly candy or a tactic using the transference of parental authority. Either one would disarm the child.”

I shook my head, playing his little game. “Candy is quite the killer,” I added on, supplementing his theory.

“So are tears,” He quipped. “Hopefully the family can tell us more.”

With that, he ran off once again.

-

In a matter of a week, the unsub had struck again. Unfortunately for the team, our leads had been disproven, and our patience had worn thin. Chagrin had traveled throughout the team rendering us all exhausted. With the additional stress on our shoulders, Spencer’s remarks had intensified and painted a target on my back. Solving this case was the only motivation I had to endure the onslaught of his petty slander; however, my persistence was at the end of its line.

“Spencer, can you pass me a copy of the geographical profile?” I mumbled, running my fingers over my eyelids to wake myself up. I leaned on my elbows, feeling the heat of stress warm up my face. I glanced at Spencer’s movements from my peripheral vision, although my sight proved to be unreliable as Spencer’s face resembled an expression of--what I thought was--worry for a split moment.

Without a reply, Spencer handed me a marker. I looked at Spencer bewildered, glancing between him and the marker that lay in my hand. “What is this?” I deadpanned.

“A marker.”

I bit the inside of my cheek in restraint, retracting my tongue from spitting maliciously. “Yes, I know, Spencer. What is the marker for?” I fumed through my teeth.

“To write with,” Spencer replied shortly, focusing on the file he was analyzing on his lap. I shook my head, rising from my seat to walk over to the whiteboard that Spencer assembled the geographical profile on. I tossed the marker behind me, ridding myself of the negative energy bestowed on the writing utensil.

Before I could set my focus on the board, Spencer pulled me from my concentration with another one of his random probes. “Why aren’t you using the marker?”

“What do you mean?” I sighed, sensing ridicule.

“You’re modifying the profile at one of the points right?”

He looked up from his files, making eye contact with me for the first time in weeks. By reflex, I shifted my gaze away from him, guilt making itself ubiquitous in my conscience. “I’m analyzing one of the points of the profile,” I uttered. “I think our initial impression about the unsub’s disposal area is inexact.

“Is that how you and Hotch figured out Emily’s burial site?”

An ember began swirling inside of my veins, traveling to each corner of my body. I bit my tongue once again, suppressing the build-up of indignation coursing through me. “The location of disposal doesn’t make sense. It’s not even in the area that we triangulated,” I challenged.

“What are you saying?”

“I mean, could it be possible for the unsub to transport the victims to different disposal sites?”

“Like how Emily was transferred from Boston to Bethesda?” Spencer mentioned. “Then yes, the probability of that transpiring is notable” he mocked.

The suppressed spark inside of me aggregated, overpowering the last bit of patience I harbored. The ropes tethering the frayed strands of my rationality snapped, leaving my impulses to burst through the seams. Even my best attempts at subduing myself rendered useless to Spencer’s incessant commentaries. I was done.

“You’re relentless aren’t you?” I jeered, spinning around to face him. Fire laced my veins, and the childish sneer on his face only kindled my resentment.

“Relentless on figuring out this case.” Spencer brushed my comment aside, diverting his attention to the papers on his lap.

In the momentum of my impulsivity, I seized the files away from him, forcing him to acknowledge the issue at hand. “Spencer, you can’t keep pretending like everything is fine,” I threw up my hands in the air in exasperation, catching a few lingering eyes of the team.

“I don’t have to deal with this right now,” Spencer professed, rising from his seat to walk away. But before he had the opportunity to reach the exit, I grabbed onto his wrist, halting him.

“Then, when?” I taunted. “When are you going to deal with this?”

By now, we had attracted an audience.

“Certainly not with you,” he snickered mockingly.

“Reid!” I snapped, my voice rising in volume and fierceness. “You can’t keep running away from your problems.”

“Are you serious right now, Y/N?” he vocalized incredulously, glaring at me with bitter hostility. “You’re just bothered that you did something that hurt me--th-that hurt all of us, and I sought comfort in someone I could trust.”

“I don’t care that you went to JJ fo-”

“God Y/N! Yo-you didn’t even have the decency to tell me--YOUR boyfriend--that this happened.”

“Reid, that’s not fai-”

“Oh really? That’s not fair?” Spencer seethed, disdain bound to his words. “You know what’s not fair Y/N? I spent nights--NIGHTS--crying on JJ’s couch from the loss of a friend, only to find out that they’re alive,” he gestured to Emily sitting idly by the team, watching the scene between me and Spencer unfold. “What I especially loved was coming back to the same couch because of my own girlfriend’s deception.”

At this point, JJ attempted to step forward to intervene, but I waved her off. “I. Had. No. Choice,” I defended, practically speaking through clenched teeth.

“You know what?” Spencer scoffed, shaking his head. “Gosh, JJ has put in more effort into being my girlfriend than you ever did.”

I was suspended in place as the words rang out in my head. A shiver crept up my arms and sent harrowing shockwaves that pierced my chest. Simultaneously, a stinging sensation engulfed my esophagus in flames, stunting my ability to form sentences. “Spencer, you...you don’t m-mean that,” I swallowed my voice, mumbling a question rather than a firm statement.

I felt myself on the cliff again, but this time the rocks were slowly crumbling underneath my feet while burning tar glued my feet to the ground.

“You practically pushed me into her arms. When you were out there lying to ALL of us, she was the only one that stayed with me.”

“Spence…” JJ called out from behind me, attempting to diffuse the situation. Although, Spencer was far deluded by his discourse that nothing obstructed him.

“No, it’s okay,” Spencer assured, inching closer to me. With a repugnant sneer on his lips, his eyes squinted into a loathing glare, and his countenance aflame, he gave me what I couldn’t give to him: his truth.

A truth that I didn’t want to unfurl.  

“You know I don’t even know why you’re constantly reminding me that I can’t accept my mistakes or problems...” he bickered, a deliberate sneer etched into his features, “...because it was pretty damn easy to accept that YOU are my biggest mistake.”

-

I thought the rocks would crumble from beneath me, and I’d fall. I thought choosing to stand on that cliff alone, to bear the weight for someone I loved, was noble, even if it meant ending up in the abyss below.

But I didn’t fall. I was pushed.

Pushed by the very person I stood on that cliff for.

-

part 2 

taglist: @rexorangecouny​ @howdycharlie​ @honeymilk-4​ @linthebinbag​ @andreasworlsboring101​

[yesiamkai]

So I’ve been thinking about Midori (shocker) and decided to dump my thoughts and a bit of an analysis.

Fair warning: I am expressing some criticism of the game in this post, and there is some discussion of the Shin + Hiyori dynamic, so please avoid if you don’t want to see that.

My train of thought started with me thinking that GOD, what I wouldn’t give to see Midori absolutely lose it! Like, aside from his weird “BEWITCHING AND SUPREME” speech, he maintains his cool so well throughout 3a, and only loses it a little at the end of 3b with the whole “fear of dying” thing. (I have my gripes with this plot point — it’s a very unsatisfying weakness for his character to have, but I digress). And yet, even at that critical moment where we’d have the opportunity to see something deeper from him, he’s trapped in a box and he doesn’t have time to do much more than sweat and beg for his life before he dies.

This led to me thinking that honestly, the way his arc plays out is disappointing for me. He’s an incredibly compelling villain, partially because of the fact that he’s absolutely irredeemable, but we don’t get to see much of that depth that would make him feel like a character rooted in reality, or the horribly messed up individual that the game reflects.

Gameplay Midori is a cheerfully irreverent man who treats killing people like casual fun. He’s entertaining, charismatic, and makes a great addition to our wacky cast of characters. But when compared to almost everyone else, he unfortunately ends up feeling one-dimensional and cartoonish in his presentation. The plot fails to humanize him in any meaningful way, and his character suffers. This isn’t because humanizing him would “justify” his actions or make them redeemable, but simply because he would be more believable as a villain.

(Btw, this isn’t a Midori hate post. I love love love Midori. He’s actually my favorite character in the game — that’s why I feel so passionately about this hehe.)

The game attempts to humanize almost all of the other Floor Masters. We are told outright that Rio is evil because he was made that way — he is a doll who was created to lack humanity. Safalin’s depth stems from her presentation as the antagonist with the most sympathy for the participants. We don’t know exactly what her backstory is, or why she is with Asunaro, but she displays a pretty consistent internal conflict between her role as a Floor Master and any desire she might have to help the participants. (It’s not entirely that straightforward with Safalin, but this is turning into a novel and this isn’t meant to be about her lol.)

Even Gashu is a very “human” antagonist. His obsession with his work has overwhelmed him to the point where he no longer sees right and wrong, or the value of the lives being lost. He has been so absorbed in the making of the Death Game and feels so justified in his actions that he is unable to feel guilt, even for the death of his own son. He sees people as nothing more than pawns. Weirdly, it’s the loss of his humanity that makes Gashu so uniquely human.

Aside from Meister, whose true role in the plot is pretty clearly just getting started as of 3b, I think Sue Miley is the only character who falls victim to the “cartoon villain” issue that Midori has. We do have a hint of a backstory for her that somewhat explains her behavior — her fiancé being driven to insanity by Asunaro — but as of this point in the game, her motives go mostly unexplored. However, Miley is still alive, her arc is incomplete, and I have no doubts that she will reappear in the final parts (and hopefully clear up some questions when she does).

Midori, though, is supposedly dead. The game sets up the possibility for him to return using the forgotten doll head, but the plot also seems to be eager to wash its hands of him. For a game that sets Midori up to be so threatening and traumatic that his mere photograph causes almost everyone to freak out (before they even remember him!), his actual role in the story ends up being very short-lived. He undergoes no character arc, we learn almost nothing about him, and then he gets killed off.

But all of this could have been avoided if the game a) introduced him earlier than the final chapter and b) took better advantage of the single meaningful link Midori has to humanity. This link?

Shin!

The game criminally underutilizes Midori’s connection to Shin. We do get some insight from Shin directly via his memory, and their limited in-game interactions are some of the most fascinating in the entire game.

It’s pretty obvious that Midori, back when he was Hiyori, was the most important person in Shin’s entire life. Shin admired him, leaned heavily on him, and considered him his best friend (at least). It’s also heavily implied that whatever feelings Shin had were reciprocated, although Hiyori took his side of the relationship way too far and ended up damaging Shin emotionally.

The Hiyori we see from Shin’s perspective is still disturbing, but startlingly more human. Instead of a one-dimensional villain, we see a version of Hiyori who complains when it’s hot, likes robot action figures, writes poetry, and takes countless pictures of his smiling friend to hang up in his room.

We see with the Shin AI that Midori is still quite possessive over his former friend, but the game gives us very few interactions between the two of them. In fact, Midori all but ignores Shin throughout many of his run-ins with the group.

Is this a fault of the way the branching paths of the game treat Shin/Kanna as merely a stand-in for the other in their respective routes? Probably. We don’t get a lot of insightful commentary from whichever one of them lives in Chapter 3, or Reko/Alice. It’s also rough because Chapter 3 introduces so many new characters, and it’s hard to develop them all in such a short time when none of them even make it past 3b. The Dummies deserved a lot more backstory and characterization, too.

I really just wish the game would have used Midori’s ties to Shin to develop him more. Even if he would have simply appealed to Shin directly to save him while he was in the coffin, that would have been really interesting to see.

The fandom does a really great job of bringing characterization to Midori that the game lacks, and despite all of my complaining, he’s still my favorite character, lol. I just know the game is capable of creating really complex characters (Keiji and Shin himself are great examples), so it’s saddening to see it fall so flat with Midori.

Anyway, sorry for my rambling! I just had a lot on my mind that I wanted to put down somewhere.

[mistchievous]

what are your top three grace ryder scenes?

God. This has been sitting in my inbox for few days now because I was having a hard time deciding how I wanted to answer it.

Did I want to exclude RyderDie scenes and focus on Grace outside of her relationship?

Did I only want positive content? Or more complicated content that meant more to me personally?

Top Three? How tf would I rank them? There's no winner! I don't have a favorite! I'm in love with everything she does! I'm simple!

Finally, I just decided to wing it and pull from all sides. So in no particular order, these are three of my favorite Grace Ryder scenes! 😌

Scene 1: Grace + Tommy when Grace gets stuck in the backseat of her car

Grace needed a lot of help following her injury, and while she accepts the help she cannot refuse and Judd's help to a degree, it grates at her more and more that she's being hindered. That she can't do things herself. That her injuries are making her weak and a burden.

She pulls out the old "The Lord helps those who help themselves" quote to justify her stubbornness to Judd when he tries to get through to her, and she dismisses her parents who are willing and want to come help her.

The interaction between her and Tommy is the final result of this pattern of behavior.

She has a food craving and instead of asking any number of people willing to pick something up for her to get it, she drags herself to the store on her own to buy that and a few other groceries. She walks around with visible difficulty (refusing to even use the walker given to her by her doctors). A stranger even offers her assistance in the store, and she refuses. She eventually gets back to her vehicle where she ends up stuck in the backseat unable to move.

She AGAIN refuses to admit to needing help when another stranger checks on her. Grace remains stuck in that car for SIX HOURS before finally calling someone for help, and that someone is Tommy.

Tommy of course comes to help her, and they have their conversation about women (particularly black women) feeling like they have to put on a strong front, but that it's actually okay to ask for help and to lean on other people.

It's an emotional scene that really showcases the strength of their friendship and allows us to understand Grace more by showing us what could be considered one of her actual flaws. That being her own stubbornness and pride which she clung to even at the expense of her own health.

We (as the audience) spend almost every episode praising Grace for having it together. For knowing what to do or figuring out what to do when she doesn’t and then handling things like a boss. For keeping herself in control emotionally. We applaud her strength constantly.

And this was a good reminder that while these can be good traits, they can stem from toxic places. And the need to keep up that front and continue to be seen as capable by those around you can easily become toxic and detrimental as well.

It’s very easy to view Grace as a character who has all the answers and always does the right thing, and this was a reminder that no one is perfect. And the societal expectations put on women that Tommy and Grace talk about in this scene had also become the expectations the audience had developed for Grace as well. The woman who handled her family, herself, her job, etc. with seemingly effortless ease.

So I live for this entire episode and this scene in particular. It gave us so much insight to her character, and honestly a lot of things were said that needed to be said.

Scene 2: “I came here to dance.”

In “Saving Grace”, we have the scene at the bar where Judd lies to Grace’s face and tells her he doesn’t love her.

She knows he’s lying. He purposely hurts them both in a misguided attempt to “free her” from their relationship, and Grace refuses to let that ruin her night.

I’ve made a post about this episode before.

But the fact that she holds it together. That she goes out and enjoys herself regardless. That she doesn’t put her life on pause over a relationship. That she doesn’t make choices on what she’s going to do or who she’s going to be based on who she has romantic feelings for or what other people in her life try to decide for her is so refreshing to see.

Scene 3: Fifty Shades of Grace

Shut up. Not everything needs to have some sort of in-depth reasoning behind it. 😂😂😂

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Analysis on Tommy’s character’s mental state as a result of the exile arc.

Hey guys, I often makes posts discussing Tommy’s character and one thing that absolutely can’t be ignored is how his character has been traumatised by his experiences during exile. So, I thought I’d discuss in depth and how it’s impacted his behaviour.

In exile Tommy usually described himself as lonely. This is somewhat true but it’s actually a little misleading if you take it at face value. It’s not really loneliness that was his main issue, that was just the easiest one to express. Indeed, people did visit, they just didn’t really help with the issues that were really plaguing him. And there were a few.

-Tommy felt powerless. He was weak and attempting to get stronger himself only lead his hard work to be wasted. Therefore, he was reliant on others for help, and was utterly unable to give them anything back for any help offered. 

He also felt trapped, he had to stay on the island so people could find him and visit him but he was not allowed to choose to send time with others himself. He was completely reliant on others deciding to visit him. (Him building not one but two bridges to make it easier for others to visit was all he could do to increase the odds of someone coming to see him.) It wasn’t just loneliness so much as it being something out of his control. 

-Tommy felt worthless. He felt like L’Manburg had just seen him as a liability and was increasingly feeling like they were better off without him. No one really cared about him. He didn’t feel like he had value anymore as a person. 

He didn’t want someone to visit him, he wanted someone to stay with him - he wanted to feel accepted, validated. That’s why he spent time making a guest tent, so people could spend the night. And was so ecstatic at Mexican Dream agreeing to live with him. 

-Tommy is a very clingy person. He’s extremely sociable and becomes attached really easily. He has a hard time letting go too. In exile he constantly missed Tubbo and obsessed over the fact that he hadn’t visited. Leaving on bad terms hurt him. He couldn’t resolve anything and instead his frustration and bitterness grew and grew. He was put into such an awful and dark mindset! Its during this that he lets himself grow attached to Dream instead, who subtly encourages him to believe Tubbo didn’t care. 

So, Tommy said he was lonely, but he was way more troubled than he let on. 

...

Dream also took advantage of Tommy and performed abusive actions that both confused and traumatised him. 

Dream forced him to drop his items, hitting him if he refused and threatening to kill him if he continued to resist. He then acted nice, protecting him, keeping him company and joking around with him.

He lent Tommy his pickaxe and trident. He helped Tommy get primes. He repeatedly blew up Tommy’s armour. He regularly destroyed any diamond tools Tommy got and talked about ‘letting’ him keep some things, like he was being generous. Dream talked about how L’Manburg was prospering with Tommy there, suggesting everyone had moved on while he was the one responsible for sabotaging Tommy’s relationships.

Dream acted like an authority figure, dressing up all his actions as reasonable and Tommy was at fault for making his actions necessary. He lied about Tubbo not caring about his compass. He promised to invite people to his party and then didn’t, letting Tommy believe they chose not to come. Dream’s actions left Tommy increasingly dependent on him, as he was both physically and emotionally very vulnerable (as Dream had induced) and Dream took advantage of it. Finally, when Tommy did a relatively minor act of rebellion, Dream blew up everything. He killed Mushroom Henry and destroyed anything else Tommy was attached to - his tent, the campsite Wilbur built, the prime log.

Now, one of Tommy’s key character flaws is that he is rather irrational. While he can be perceptive, he often gets driven by his emotions rather than logic. (Its part of why he gets attached to things so easily). Usually he doesn’t actually let his feelings control him, but the exile put him under huge emotional turmoil.

-Logically, he always knew that Dream was responsible. He never forgot anything, he was just struggling to process it.

Dream was acting like he cared and Tommy clung on to that. Even once with Techno he described his confusion at his exile and noted that he recalled all the events perfectly but was confused emotionally and basically wasn’t able to deal with his feelings on Dream at all. He knew he ought to hate Dream but wanted to trust him still. 

Thinking more on emotions is also why he took Tubbo exiling him so personally - just before Doomsday he apologised and said he understood why Tubbo did it (I think he said it was the right decision even) but at the time he was hurt and felt like Tubbo didn’t care about him. Tommy often acts in the heat of the moment but fixes things afterwards. The issue with his fight with Tubbo was that they were unable to see each other and therefore resolve things, causing it instead to fester and get worse. 

So, that’s basically what happened to him throughout exile, but how did this affect his actions? A few different ways.

-He became extremely depressed and almost ended his life. Though he ultimately chose against this, his sense of self-preservation is notably lower. He didn’t seem to be afraid at the possibility of dying during Doomsday. And he was also prepared to confront Dream again over his discs - he had nothing left to lose as far as he was concerned. Once Tommy realised that Dream didn’t want to kill him, he took full advantage of it. He walked up to Dream completely unarmoured while Dream was in full netherite and confidently ordered him around. He was not afraid of dying. And again, he threatened to kill himself if Dream didn’t return after already killing Dream twice. Tommy’s only slowly gaining back his zeal for living. 

-He became angry and lashed out. Jack visited him at one point and Tommy spleefed him into lava, killing him absolutely ruthlessly. This is not a nice anger, its a cold destructive one, a result of all his bitterness from his unjust suffering. A minute later, he can only ask, why did he do that? Sometimes, Tommy might seem meeker, but it’s just hiding pain and rage that comes out in the worst of ways.

When no one turns up to his party, Tommy destroys part of the bridge he built for people to visit as he’s angry and has no real way to lash out - it’s not logical but as Tommy expresses: if they really want to visit then they’ll have to make an effort. A few days later he builds another, not because he’s better but because he’s so desperate for company he doesn’t even care if they don’t really care as long as they show up. 

His actions while with Techno have him torturing Fundy and Connor, interrogating Ranboo and helping Techno release a wither on L’Manberg. This is not the normal Tommy. This is him releasing his bitterness and rage in a destructive way, with his twisted mindset being vaguely approved of by Technoblade (though even he thought Tommy was going too far!) 

-He grew unhealthily attached to anything that gave him any stability in his warped, messed up world. That’s why he started fixating on his music discs so hard. And why he clung to Dream so hard for a while. And why he clung so much to Technoblade, quickly growing dependent on him, desperate for any sort of care and validation.

It’s why he even agreed to help Techno destroy L’Manburg at all. He was in such a warped mindset and wanted to trust Techno even if part of him was appalled by the idea, but his anger at L’Manberg was also clouding his judgement, and he wanted to agree with Techno because Techno cared about him. It’s not Techno or Tommy’s fault but their relationship was messed up thanks to Tommy’s trauma. Tommy was so dependent on Techno and was not able to function properly alone and he was very driven by his emotions, which were in a mess. He could barely sort out his feelings on Dream, let alone L’Manburg or Tubbo. He even let himself believe that all they were doing was minor terrorism, when Techno hadn’t hid his intentions that much at all. 

-Tommy blames himself for all that occurred. When the anger faded, and he was a little less powerless, Tommy began to get back his own sense of agency, which he’d been lacking for so long. With more clarity, he realised that of course he wanted to forgive Tubbo and make amends. His experiences lead to Tommy feeling like it was up to him to apologise - and he did. 

In some respects, there’s some excellent development here - it’s amazing to see him put feelings to one side and realise that his anger and bitterness were hurting him. And he held himself responsible - that his actions, traumatised or not, didn’t justify hurting others. He had been becoming the person he didn’t want to be - and rejected it. 

But there’s some worrying signs too - his experiences left him in some ways too apologetic. His sense of self-worth is still low. He didn’t blow up the community house but at one point said he wouldn’t bother defending himself anymore as there was no point, nothing to be gained from arguing about it. He apologised to Sapnap for releasing Mars - wonderful but it was never really necessary. When interacting with the egg, he said he didn’t want to cause yet another war, having internalised the idea that he’s responsible for most conflicts. At one point he even said he blames himself for Doomsday. It’s not healthy to have such a low sense of self-worth. He no longer blames others for not caring about him - but he does blame himself. 

....

Well this has been a long post. I hope that better expresses how Tommy’s been affected from his exile. I feel like I’ve seen posts complaining about apologists using trauma to excuse his actions. Not at all! Merely to explain. You cannot discuss Tommy’s current character without discussing his trauma. Likewise, it has been treated seriously by the narrative and Tommy continues to have it affect his character. It’s ongoing. He is improving but it has had a long-lasting impact. Indeed his mental state still feels fragile enough that us fans have been very sensitive to anything that might impact him. Tommy should be handled with care, and few of the characters on the server realise this. 

[herinsectreflection]

I really love how much of Faith there is in S6, and I mean that completely seriously. She's a constant unmentioned figure, haunting the narrative. The central ideas of her character become the central ideas of the season, and for Buffy's character specifically.

Faith is such an interesting figure because despite appearing in less than thirty episodes across both shows, she’s one of the most important characters for reflecting both leads, but especially Buffy for obvious reasons. She's Angel's mentee figure, the representation of how good desire to right his own wrongs and give others a chance to do the same can reciprocally save him. And she's Buffy's dark mirro, representing who Buffy could be if she surrendered to the mercy of her circumstances. Faith’s status as Buffy’s distorted mirror image is constant throughout the show. Cordelia was Buffy’s first shadow self, but Faith owns that role, long after she stops appearing regularly.

The season opens for Buffy with her hand stretching up out of her grave, with a visual almost identical to Faith’s dream in This Year’s Girl. You could almost see Buffy’s ressurection as akin to Faith waking from her coma to find a world that has left her behind. They both wake up alone and stagger around town, finding themselves at the burned-out site of the previous season’s finale, and both their initial instincts are to destroy their bodies - Faith by disappearing into Buffy's, and Buffy by leaping off the tower again.

Throughout the season, Buffy exhibits a lot of Faith-like behaviour. A big one is using sex as a coping mechanism. Buffy instigates an unhealthy sexual relationship with Spike to stave off her depression and hide it from others. Faith uses agressive sexuality to intimidate others and keep her pain hidden (see her initially attempting to seduce the Mayor to avoid accepting his paternal affection, or instigating sex with Xander in response to his attempts at emotional connection). Both are prone to violence against their sexual partners too - Faith with Xander in the same scene and Buffy with Spike multiple times. Like vampires, the Slayers seem inclined to conflate sex and violence (I'll let the fact that they are both prone to violence against each other speak for itself). In her dream in Dead Things, Buffy mixes up seeing Katrina's corpse and having sex with Spike in a blurry whirlwind of sex and death, bringing this conflation to the forefront.

It's also worth noting that Faith is implied in many ways to be a victim of sexual abuse, and it's in this season that Buffy experiences an attempted rape. Both are caught up in that cycle of abuse, and thankfully they manage to both escape.

And then there's the suicidal ideation. Oh god, the suicidal ideation. There's a few examples of characters being self-destructive or sacrificial in a way that evokes suicide (Angel springs to mind in multiple instances), but it's only Faith and Buffy in S6 (and parts of S5 to be fair) that explicitly grapple with this. Buffy's arc in S6 is basically her grappling with suicidal ideation, and struggling to actually want to be alive. Faith attempts suicide multiple times - metaphorically in This Year's Girl and literally in Five By Five, when she attempts suicide-by-copvampire-detective. I would even argue that Graduation Day is another example of attempted suicide-by-slayer, given that she actively goads Buffy to kill her (and therefore become her), and seems almost relieved and proud when she seemingly does so.

The kicker is really Dead Things. This is such a vital episode for understanding Buffy in S6, and it is absolutely dripping with Faith parallels. It's almost a Frankenstein episode, made up of bits of other Faith-centric episodes. The central conflict is the exact same as Bad Girls, with a routine patrol (seemingly) killing an innocent bystander at the hands of a slayer. Spike has the same solution as Faith - dump the body and forget about it. He even uses the same utilitarian argument to justify it - that one lost life is meaningless, collateral damage, against the many that Buffy has saved. But it's Buffy who is in Faith's shoes, struggling with the idea that she killed someone. Ironically, her solution - to hand herself over to the police - is in fact the same solution Faith eventually comes to in Sanctuary. At this point in time, that was the last thing we saw Faith do in the Buffyverse, and now Buffy herself reaches for that same idea to try and achieve peace.

Her attempt to turn herself in can and should be read as a metaphorical suicide attempt. Her words to Dawn saying goodbye are pretty much a repeat of her words to Dawn before she jumps in The Gift (see @impalementation 's great post on this). She's been trying to recreate that feeling of exquisite peace all year, just as Faith repeatedly turns to metaphorical and literal suicide to find her own. That idea of "peace" being equated to both voluntary incarceration and suicide makes the ending to Sanctuary much darker, which makes me glad that Faith ends up taking an active role in the world by the end.

Buffy beating up Spike in the alley - himself a mirror to Buffy in many ways, and behaving identically to Faith in this episode - is lifted from Who Are You.

"Shut up! Do you think I'm afraid of you? You're nothing. Disgusting. Murderous bitch. You're nothing. You're disgusting."

- Faith Lehane, Who Are You, shouted while crying and punching someone on the floor, but obviously talking about herself.

"You don't have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never be your girl!"

- Buffy Summers, Dead Things, shouted while crying and punching someone on the floor, but obviously talking about herself.

Both scenes come at the climax of an episode-long metaphorical suicide. Both strip away the characters' defenses and lay bare an unfiltered and messy psyche, dominated by anger and self-hatred.

So we can see that when Buffy is at her lowest, she becomes her own shadow self. Faith is in many ways a permanent part of Buffy's psyche, which comes up to the surface occasionally and has to be actively quashed (I'm thinking about her taking on parts of Faith's wardrobe along with her personality in Bad Girls, until the accident at which point she actively goes in the opposite sartorial direction). In her post-ressurection depressive haze, Buffy is simultaneously less connected to her own personhood and more emotionally volatile, so her shadow self is exposed, and that shadow self is Faith.

It gets extra interesting when you remember that Faith is The Slayer at this point. No new slayer is called when Buffy dies - nobody even suggests that one might be out there - which suggests that the sole Slayer line runs through Faith now, and Buffy is an abberation. (S7 kind of confuses the issue when it suggests that the First will have to kill Buffy last, but it makes more sense to ignore that than to ignore this). The Slayer is a core part of Buffy's identity, one that she ambivalently pulls away from and grabs on to - but technically it belongs to Faith now. In S6 Buffy loses connection to her identity, and so becomes an echo of Faith, who owns that part of her now.

Going even further - Faith only exists as The Slayer at all because of Buffy's first death. Slayers are kind of an undead like vampires in a way - they can only ever exist because someone else dies. They live because of death. Faith is the walking, talking corpse of Buffy, a reborn figure given purpose by death, for death. Buffy in S6 is experiencing her own kind of un-life, as depression so often feels like. She too feels like the walking, talking corpse of Buffy. The Slayer, Faith, and Buffy are all caught in their own purgatory, born out of death and unable to see anything but death in their near future.

It's just so much fun to pick apart this season and see how it relates to this seemingly unrelated character. Faith feels like a major presence in a season that she doesn't appear in - and I'm not sure even explicitly mentions her - solely thanks to how effective a lens she is to view the main character. Now that's effective connection of character and theme.

[rnelodyy]

C!Dream, the status quo, and why conflict is okay sometimes.

In this fandom, there is a lot of talk about conflict, who causes it, who avoids it, who is to blame for it, et cetera. An argument often heard from c!Dream apologists to justify his abysmal treatment of L’Manburg in general and c!Tommy in specific is “He was just trying to stop people causing conflict! He was protecting the server by stopping these conflict-causing maniacs!”

And it’s not hard to see where they get this idea from, because c!Dream repeats this sentiment a lot, from his “happy family” speech, to the speech during the final disc war about how c!Tommy causes constant conflict, to the fact that he always portrays himself as a reasonable authority figure trying to calm down these feral creatures always fighting with one another (and we’ll get to that idea…).

My reasoning for explaining how c!Dream’s worldview is deeply flawed may be a bit controversial, so I decided to write this essay to explore the following idea:

Sometimes, conflict is good actually.

(all /dsmp /rp, names refer to characters, not content creators)

Conflict, in itself, is morally neutral. It’s the context surrounding the conflict that allows us to ascribe morality to it. This fact makes this topic a LOT harder to discuss, because morality is subjective. What I’m writing here is all my own opinion, you may agree or disagree on some points, I just ask that you read it through and please don’t start shit over this.

Anyway, the context. It’s dependent on a number of factors.

Justification. Why was the conflict started?

Intent. What is the desired outcome for either party?

Proportionality. If the conflict is started out of revenge or punishment, is it proportionate to the wrong committed?

Power Dynamic. Is the person on the receiving end more, less, or equally as powerful as the person starting the conflict?

For example, let’s compare the L’Manburg War for Independence with the intervention during the Final Disc War.

Justification:

Dream declared war on L’Manburg because he saw them as traitors, and the land they occupied as rightfully his. Therefore, them making a country of their own where his rules didn’t apply was a violation of the status quo he wanted to uphold.

Punz and the others intervened because they didn’t want Dream to kill Tommy and/or Tubbo, and were tired of his constant meddling in their affairs.

Intent:

Dream’s intent was to attack L’Manburg until they surrendered, no matter how much hurt he’d cause or how many lives he’d take.

Punz and the other’s intent was to stop Dream from killing Tommy and Tubbo, and stop whatever plan he had to keep the server under control.

Proportionality:

L’Manburg declared independence in response to brutal violence as retribution for clumsy attempts at crime, on land nobody except Wilbur was using, were explicitly pacifistic and invited Dream to make an embassy in their land to discuss trade. Dream responded by declaring war, destroying their land, luring them into a trap and killing them, and continuing to beat them down until they surrendered.

Punz and the others intervened after Dream dragged two teenagers out into the wilderness to fight him, with little chance of them ever returning. This was after months of Dream’s meddling in conflicts he had nothing to do with, trying to control people’s actions, ripping Tommy away from his home and abusing him in secret and, in the end, destroying the place most synonymous with freedom from his rule. They intervened by getting Tommy and Tubbo to safety, letting Tommy (the kid who arguably suffered the most at Dream’s hands) take his items and beat him to death twice, then locking him up in prison.

Power Dynamic:

L’Manburg was significantly less powerful than Dream and his goons, with less skilled fighters and heavily inferior gear. They held their position fairly okay at the start, but after the Final Control Room, they were basically defenseless against Dream’s assault.

Dream had always had unprecedented power on the server. He’s leveled entire countries, crowns and dethrones kings when he feels like it, overruled the decision of a court of law, and in the end, had Tommy and Tubbo completely at his mercy before the intervention. Even beating Dream was seen as such an insurmountable task that it took fourteen people (excluding Clingyduo) to take him down.

The thing about conflict, even violent conflict, is that it’s not always negative. If your sister is being abused by her boyfriend and refuses to report it out of fear, you’re gonna be hard-pressed to find someone unable to sympathize with you if you go over to his house and break his nose.

What is a defining feature of conflict, is that it disrupts the status quo.

That’s not to say that some characters are always disruptors and others always preservers of the status quo. For example, during the Disc War, Tommy is the one trying to preserve and Dream the one trying to disrupt (the status quo being: Tommy owns the discs), and during the L’Manburg War for Independence, Tommy and Wilbur are disrupting while Dream is preserving (the status quo being: Dream has absolute power and the entire server needs to follow his rules).

It’s ALSO not to say that this disruption is always bad, because sometimes, the status quo fucking sucks, and throwing it on its head is the right thing to do. Overthrowing Schlatt is seen by everyone on the SMP and pretty much every fan as morally correct, as while Schlatt being president was the status quo, it meant he was ruling as a dictator, exiling his political opponents, imprisoning and heavily taxing dissenters, being verbally and physically abusive to his cabinet members, and forcing a guest at his festival to execute a sixteen year-old boy for spying for the political opponent he exiled.

Conflict being a genuinely good force of societal change isn’t usually brought up in the fandom though, at least not consciously. A lot of people, both on the server and IRL, see conflict only as a source of hurt and pain, and try to prevent or avoid it as much as possible.

And here’s where Dream differs from someone like Ranboo. Because while both Dream and Ranboo operate on the assumption that all conflict is bad all the time, Ranboo shows this by becoming conflict-avoidant to the extreme, to the point where he refuses to pick sides in pretty much any conflict, no matter how obviously good or evil one side is. Meanwhile, Dream shows this by becoming controlling to the extreme. Mitigating conflict isn’t enough, he needs to control everything to prevent all conflict ever.

In Ranboo’s case, this is less due to ideology and more due to personality. Ranboo is a deeply anxious person, and hates being in the middle of fights. He’s also… not very self-critical? He has issues with self-worth, but he very rarely takes a look in the mirror to inspect what it actually is he believes and says, making him very gullible and convinced of his own righteousness. But while that’s a VERY interesting character trait, Ranboo’s conflict-avoidance doesn’t make him a very good character to examine in the context of conflict and what it means.

So let’s look at Dream. Because, despite claiming to want to stop conflict, Dream CONSTANTLY starts conflicts or escalates existing ones. The L’Manburg War for Independence could’ve been entirely avoided if Dream hadn’t lashed out so heavily at a nation of pacifists who made their own area to avoid violence from authorities. As I explored in my George Vod Analysis, the griefing of George’s house would’ve been a lighthearted dispute between two people if Dream hadn’t taken over the entire thing and turned it into one of the biggest diplomatic crises in the server’s history. Mexican L’Manburg hadn’t even existed for an hour before Dream came by to kill its residents and destroy its land.

So why is Dream so focused on stopping conflict, despite constantly starting it himself? Why is THAT his hill to die on?

Simple. Dream wants to prevent disruptions to the status quo. That status quo being “Dream is the one in power and everyone has to listen to him.”

But you can’t say that out loud. If you say “everyone needs to listen to me otherwise it’s not fair”, you sound like a whiny five year-old at best, and a tyrant at worst. So, instead of saying that, Dream says “I just want to prevent conflict, keep the server peaceful.”

Remember what I said about one party being the disruptor and another being the preserver? Well, Dream’s status in the early days of the server is almost always preserver of the status quo. The only times he’s the disruptor is if disrupting that status quo serves to strengthen the status quo of him being in power. For example: Stealing Tommy’s discs is a disruption of the “Tommy’s discs are his and his alone” status quo, but strengthens the “Dream is the most powerful dude on the server” status quo, because the discs give him power over Tommy.

By fighting L’Manburg, he was trying to preserve the status quo, because having a government on the server meant he no longer had absolute power. Hell, REALLY early on, he decided to kill George and burn all his stuff because George had full diamond while everyone else was still running around in iron armor.

However, after L’Manburg’s independence, Dream’s focus shifted. Instead of preserving the status quo, he’d disrupt it in order to return to the status quo as HE wanted it, with no nations, and himself at the top.

But again, that wouldn’t look good. Making yourself the undisputed ruler of the entire server is not good for optics, so instead, Dream hides behind the excuse that he’s just trying to stop conflict, or seeking retribution for slights against his nation.

By this point, Tommy, the only person who CONSTANTLY refuses to bow to his demands, becomes his scapegoat. Tommy is loud, enjoys chaos and getting on people’s nerves, and causes, admittedly, a LOT of conflict. Lighthearted, non-serious conflict with very little actual consequences, but conflict nonetheless. It’s not hard for him to start smearing Tommy’s name, painting him as this feral child at fault for every conflict ever, mostly because a lot of people already believed something like that to be true.

The idea that Tommy is uniquely destructive or chaotic is complete bullshit. Tommy is definitely on the more chaotic side, but he’s not that much more chaotic or destructive than your average server member, he’s just really loud and annoying about it, which makes the things he DOES do stick out more. But Dream, especially during the Exile Conflict, continuously pushed the idea that Tommy is the only one creating conflict on the server, that Tommy is responsible for all conflict ever, and that without Tommy, everyone would be at peace.

And at some point… Dream started believing this himself.

His speech during the Final Disc War illustrates this perfectly. He tells Tommy that ever since he joined, there’s been nothing but war and terrorism and conflict, and that those originated from the attachments Tommy brought to the server. That, by cutting off his own attachments, exploiting everyone else’s, and getting rid of Tommy, he could restore the old status quo, before L’Manburg, before Tommy, when everything was peaceful and no conflict existed. Except, Tommy is too fun to fuck with, so instead of killing him, Dream was going to lock Tommy up in Pandora’s Vault, probably for the rest of his life, to continue breaking him.

This is a prime example of Dream falling for his own bullshit.

First of all, Tommy didn’t cause all those wars, he was actually on the receiving end of most of them. A vast majority of the wars and terrorism Tommy got caught up in were actually started by Dream, or Dream was actively helping the guy who started it.

Second, Tommy didn’t bring the concept of attachment to the server. He gets very attached to things, true, but attachment is a very basic part of the human condition. Even Dream, the guy openly shunning all attachment, isn't immune to it, in the end, he’s attached to the server as a whole, and Tommy, who he gave almost biblical importance in his narrative. Like Tommy said, if you have no attachment to things, why does anything matter at all?

Third, getting rid of Tommy and controlling the entire server with their attachments… that wouldn’t have restored the status quo, because the status quo exactly as Dream envisioned it never existed. He’s not chasing a past that was ruined by Tommy, he’s chasing an idealized fairytale version of the past where everyone was friends and frolicked around in the fields and there was never any conflict, before Tommy came along and ruined everything. Before Tommy joined, there was a SHIT ton of conflict, from minor disputes over theft, to the above-mentioned incident where Dream destroyed George’s stuff, to the lemon tree conflicts that wound up being taken to court!

Except, even this idea of Dream wanting to restore an idealized, made-up past is only partially true. What Dream is looking to return to and uphold is a world where he was the only authority and nobody questioned him. The status quo he wants to return to, no matter how much he denies it, is the one where everyone was at his mercy and he could do whatever he wanted without impunity. However, because he’s convinced himself that conflict is the issue, not disobedience, even if his plan succeeded, he’d have to keep the entire server in a chokehold to get them to follow his ideal plan.

Because conflict is inevitable. Anywhere where there’s two or more people sharing a space, you’re going to run into conflict at some point. People will have disagreements, they will fight, they will have miscommunications, they will have a bad day or accident and antagonize someone else.

Resolving these issues through conflict, whether it’s verbal, physical or legal, will result in a healthier community in the long run, because people’s pent-up frustrations will get an outlet, and people will try to hash out compromises or accommodations based on the reactions they get. It’s not always the ideal solution, but it’s better than just sitting everyone down, telling them to play nice, and smacking them over the back of the head as soon as they start complaining.

But conflict threatens the status quo. And as Dream involves himself in more and more conflict, they increasingly start threatening HIS status quo. So in order to maintain his status quo, conflict needs to be stomped out as soon as it crops up, no matter how minor it is.

So, now to paint a timeline through this lens.

Dream started off as the ultimate power on the server, able to do whatever he wanted without consequence. Tommy joined and threatened that status quo, but he was just one guy, so keeping him away and occupied wasn’t too hard. It was fun, even.

Then L’Manburg came, and posed the first substantial threat to Dream’s rule. Dream tried crushing this rebellion before it had a chance to take root, but in the end, Tommy traded his discs (the things Dream was using to control him) for L’Manburg’s independence. The status quo changed, L’Manburg was here to stay.

However, L’Manburg still posed a threat to Dream’s rule, so manipulating events to destroy it became Dream’s next priority. He supported Schlatt during the election in the hope he’d destabilize the nation, then sided with Pogtopia in secret to help overthrow the government, then helped Wilbur with the TNT to blow L’Manburg sky high, then betrayed Pogtopia for Schlatt’s side for the revival book. When Pogtopia won, Dream was egging Techno on through whispers to try to get him to go ape shit, so with Techno’s withers and Wilbur’s TNT, L’Manburg was gone, and the old status quo had been restored.

Except it hadn’t been. L’Manburg was rebuilt, with Tubbo at the helm this time, and a new status quo was put in place, with L’Manburg still there and still a threat. However, with Wilbur’s death, Tommy was left almost completely unprotected, and Dream took his chance to get Tommy thrown out of the country, hoping to get his biggest threat out of the way, as well as being able to sink his claws into the L’Manburg Cabinet.

Dream isolated Tommy in exile and tried to break him to the point where he wouldn’t put up any resistance. During this time, he also commissioned the prison, which he claimed to only be for the most dangerous members of the server, but is a pretty transparent attempt to enforce his rule by making a place where he can stick anyone who disobeys him. The server is slipping more and more out of his control, with more factions popping up and more people outright defying him, so like any dictator, he takes harsher and harsher measures to stay on top.

Tommy escapes exile, and while Dream is keeping tabs on him, he can’t directly control him anymore. So, to prevent Tommy from returning to L’Manburg and stopping his plans at disrupting the status quo, he blows up the community house, frames Tommy for it, and goes to Tubbo to demand Tommy’s disc, the only reason destroying L’Manburg was disadvantageous for him. Tommy jumps in to defend himself and takes L’Manburg’s side, but in the end, Dream takes both the discs, then destroys L’Manburg with Techno.

By this point, the status quo Dream wanted to craft is almost complete. L’Manburg is gone, there are no other major factions threatening his rule, and he’s pretty much set a precedent for what happens to dissenters. All he needs to do now is get rid of Tommy.

Except he can’t kill him. Over time, Dream has become obsessed with Tommy, to the point where he’s started seeing Tommy as the lynchpin of the server that everyone else gravitates around. Tommy is almost a living MacGuffin: he brings chaos and attachment which gives him power, but in the right hands, that power can be harnessed to create order.

(This is absolute nonsense of course, Tommy is just A Guy, his presence itself doesn’t create chaos, and controlling him doesn’t mean controlling the entire server because a lot of people just plain don’t give a shit.)

So instead of killing him, Dream tries to put him in prison. He even outright says that he wants to finish what he started in exile, this time with even tighter control and no possibility for escape.

He goes to kill Tubbo for multiple reasons: Tubbo is no longer useful to him, Tubbo can be used as leverage to keep Tommy compliant in prison (the possibility to revive someone’s best friend is a pretty valuable bargaining chip), and Tubbo would absolutely raise hell if Dream threw his best friend in jail for no reason.

If Dream had gotten his way, he’d be able to blackmail everyone on the server into compliance. Tommy, his scapegoat, would’ve been in prison, so now without a scapegoat, he could’ve probably gone one of two ways.

He could’ve created a new scapegoat to blame all new conflict on. Quackity would’ve been a good candidate, he’s VEHEMENTLY anti-Dream, and would’ve had no qualms about starting shit with him. Whether it was with El Rapids or with Las Nevadas, Quackity would’ve been the biggest anti-Dream voice in Tommy’s absence. So c!Dream would keep Quackity around, blaming him for everything that goes wrong… Until Quackity would get too uppity and either gets murdered or put in jail with Tommy, and the cycle repeats until either people rise up, or everyone who isn’t completely subservient is in prison.

Or, he could’ve cracked down EVEN HARDER on conflict. Anyone creating a new nation gets stomped into the dirt, anyone fighting over resources gets murdered, anyone squabbling over griefed property gets thrown in prison for weeks at a time, all the while their property and pets that they care about more than anything else get dangled in front of their noses. Anyone who’s ever read any more than five pages about the dynamics of dictatorships can see that this kind of repression is basically ASKING for revolution, especially since Dream has shunned all friendships at this point and his only ally is only there because Dream pays him.

(this is all speculation, we don’t know what would’ve actually happened, dont yell at me)

The status quo Dream is trying to return to never existed, and the one he creates in the process isn’t sustainable. Stopping every conflict ever is completely unsustainable and detrimental to the larger community, which Dream knows, because he uses conflict CONSTANTLY to get his way, while still presenting himself as a peacekeeper. What he’s really against is disruptions of the status quo, because the status quo allows him to do whatever he wants and control the server as much as he wants.

Conflict isn’t inherently bad. Some conflicts are harmless, some are necessary disruptions of the status quo. Conflict itself is morally neutral, and trying to prevent all conflict ever leads into some… iffy territory. Remember when Ranboo yelled at the L’Manburgians for participating in conflict the day before Doomsday?

Anyway. Please examine situations with more nuance than “conflict bad”, it’ll make for much better analysis. Trust me. /nm

[x-reader-fanfics]

Heyyyy :) I saw your last post w dataxreader, and I was wondering if you’d do another? I LOVED it 😍 maybe one where reader and data aren’t in a relationship yet, but he gets super jealous when someone hits on reader, and then mutual feelings come to light? Eeeek thank you, and if u don’t wanna do this one right away I understand cause u just did one, but thank u anyway, and I love your writing ♥️

🖤 Malfunction 💛

Summary: When a new Ensign takes a romantic interest in you, a new light begins to shine on the seemingly simple relationship between you and your closest friend Data.

Requests are open!

~x~

Data had always preferred working with you.

You understood the nuances of his coding and his odd personality in ways no other officer ever had. Where most would have been confused and perhaps even discomforted by his unusual behavior, you had always found it fascinating, even going so far as telling him it was charming.

“I like hearing things from your perspective. You say such wonderful things, Data.” You had laughed, bumping his elbow with your own as you and him worked for hours side by side.

You were his partner, the completing half of his equation. No one else would get the question right. He needed you, and you needed him.

“Good morning, Data.” You smiled warmly, sliding into his side as you began your shifts together as you always had, greeting him the same way you always had before, kind and soft.

“Good morning, (F/N).” He welcomed you back, cordial and quiet.

Mornings were the moments you always shared together, the small smiles and quick touches which insinuated more but never dared to be recognized aloud.

“I barely slept last night.” You sighed deeply, gently resting your head against his shoulder as your eyes fluttered shut. You reminded him of the Renaissance angels he had often seen in ancient Earth paintings. He should do a painting of you.

“Perhaps a visit to Dr. Crusher would be beneficial.” Data commented idly, refusing to move even slightly, hoping it might persuade you to keep your head buried in the crook of his neck for even a millisecond longer.

Touching you was right. Being with you was right. It was unexplainable, but it was akin to answering a complicated question correctly, or finishing a long project. It was what he had been made to do.

“Hey beautiful.” An unknown voice interrupted Data’s rampant thoughts, causing his golden eyes to flicker toward this intruder into you and his peaceful morning.

“Oh. Hey, Brad.” You slightly sighed, bowing your head politely at him before returning to your work.

“A couple of friends and I are having a party tonight at Ten Forward. I’d love for you to be there.” He grinned, his smile all teeth and his eyes shimmering a bit too brightly.

“A party in Ten Forward. I had not heard of this before now.” Data easily inserted himself into the conversation, cocking his head as he stared questioningly at the Ensign.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Brad rubbed his neck awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable around the android. “There’ll be girls there too. If you’re even into that sort of thing…”

Data missed your eyes shooting towards his, a hopeful but anxious look dancing across your face. You had wanted to admit your feelings to your friend for months now, but your anxieties about his own feelings had always held you back. How could he possibly be interested in other people in such a way? He didn’t even have emotions.

“Tell your friends I will be there.” He smiled, over-animatedly winking as he returned to his work, a small but proud smile on his face. He needed to watch over you and make sure this Brad didn’t try anything which might make you uncomfortable. You were his partner to care for, he nodded satisfactorily within his head, as if needing to justify his abnormal behavior to himself.

You could feel your heart shatter. Data wanted to go to Brad’s stupid party? To pick up girls? You were planning on simply turning the man down and having a quiet night in, but now that Data was going…

“Well you can count me in too.” You had to force yourself to smile, fighting the urge to gag at the way Brad licked his lips and winked at your response. He sauntered away like the cat who had caught the canary, your hands itching to strangle him as you twisted back to your work station, a cheesy smile still plastered to your face.

“Are you interested in Brad sexually?” Data asked with a pleasant smile.

Your mouth fell open, your breath flooding out of you as a wild blush stained your cheeks, hot and embarrassing. You didn’t know what to say, you couldn’t even breathe!

“W-Why’s any of that your business!” You half-shouted, darting away before he could pry any deeper.

You couldn’t handle it if Data found out you were in love with him.

Ah. Data mused, each and every one of his circuits freezing on one overly-simple thought. It would appear you loved him.

~x~

You hadn’t spoken to Data all day. You were too ashamed to even consider facing him. Running away in the middle of your shift because of your personal feelings was not something a professional Starfleet officer did.

“If I may be so bold,” A familiar voice began, soft and warm in its cantor, “You are positively ravishing this evening.”

Data stood before you, an out-of-character smirk striking daringly across his face as he took your hand in his, lightly grazing his lips against your knuckles.

“Data!” You gasped, barely able to keep yourself from becoming a melted mess.

“What are we doing talking over here when we could be dancing over there?” He smirked, grabbing your waist as he pulled you by the hand towards the dance floor, a grace to his every step.

“What happened to you Data?” You asked, practically breathless.

“I downloaded some new personalities appropriate for such an event.” He dipped you low, brushing his nose against yours as he started deeply into your eyes. “Are you enjoying me?”

You couldn’t help but laugh then, carefree and dripping with affection.

You loved this man.

“Yes, Data. I always enjoy you.” You grinned, wrapping your arms around his neck right in the middle of the dance floor.

Data felt accomplished. Everything was as it should be. You were always meant to be with him, and no one else. It was just what made sense.

You were his closest friend.

“Data, there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you, but I’ve never really been able to.” You grasped his hand tighter in yours, unable to remove your eyes from the floor.

“What is it?” He asked, patient and quiet.

“Pardon to interrupt, but I couldn’t let you keep this beauty all to yourself for the whole night.” Brad smiled confidently, bending his face closer to yours as he attempted to slide between you and Data.

Data refused to budge, pulling you closer against his body. He barely stopped himself from shoving the Ensign across the room.

What was going through his systems? The more Brad talked to you the more Data wanted to never see his face again. The closer Brad got to you the closer Data needed to be to you instead, as if to reassure himself of something.

Any smiles you afforded Brad were meant to be his. He didn’t want you to look at anyone but him.

But such thoughts could only be defined as possessiveness. Something Data knew was inappropriate for friendships.

He released you, giving you one last glance before quickly leaving Ten Forward. He couldn’t bear to see his hands on you, to see the love which would pour out of your eyes for the handsome human, something Data could never compare to.

People did not fall in love with androids.

Even as his system screamed at him to correct things, to take you in his arms and kick Brad halfway back to Earth, he refused to listen. With some simple rewiring he could set his head back on straight.

You were his friend. Somewhere along the way his pathways must have set the wrong link down, convincing himself you might be something more.

His feelings for you were nothing more than a malfunction.

You watched as Data stormed away, confused and hurt by his behavior. One moment he looked ready to clock Brad and the next he was almost throwing you at him.

Did he think you wanted the slime bag?

“He’s never not said goodbye to me.” You muttered almost to yourself, staring after your best friend.

“Maybe he just forgot to.” Brad joked, grabbing you by the hips. “Let’s stop talking about that android and start talking about us.”

You scoffed at him, harshly shoving him away as you ran after Data. You were going to tell him no matter what it took, everyone else on this ship be damned.

You eventually found him in Keiko O’Brien’s garden, his face almost forlorn as he gently caressed an orchid in full bloom.

“Data?” You asked quietly, not wishing to startle him even though you knew that was impossible.

He turned his head to yours, almost in disbelief. “Where is Brad?”

“I don’t know, he’s nobody I’m concerned about.” You stated clearly, stepping towards him. He was so tall, the way he gazed down upon you with such genuine confusion causing you to smother a giggle.

“I do not understand, but it is not a topic I wish to hear more about.” He admitted, returning to his flower.

“And why is that?” You asked hopefully, bunching your dress between your fingers.

He glanced back at you, face blank as he simply contemplated himself, the color of your hair and the look on your face enough to push him over the edge.

“Because I am malfunctioning.” He said simply, stock still as he waited for your response.

You took his hand in your own, holding it as gently as a bird as you squeezed it to your chest. “What if I told you I was malfunctioning too?”

His brows furrowed across his face. “Then we must see Dr. Crusher at once!”

Your jaw dropped, disbelief to the point of amusement dancing across your face as you watched the worry on his face slowly seep into bewilderment.

“I’m not talking about my health, Data.” You laughed, sliding your fingers against his scalp as you pressed your body flush to his. “I’m telling you I’m in love with you.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

Before you could react he wrapped his arms tightly around your waist, pressing his lips against yours hard enough to bruise. He wanted you so badly in that moment he had forgotten to restrain himself, pressing against you fervently as he began to kiss the corner of your mouth, sucking and biting his way to your neck.

He couldn’t believe you would say such a thing to him, that you would allow him to do this. It was such a thrilling and new interaction he couldn’t get enough of it.

Without hesitation he pulled your flesh between his teeth, proudly marking you as his as he bruised your neck.

“Data…” You moaned, unable to do anything but limply hold onto him, knowing he would never let you fall.

“My (Y/N).” He whispered happily against your hickey, giving it a quick kiss, before standing back up properly, still refusing to release you from his hold.

Your whole body felt like jelly. Just from a few kisses Data had swooned you off your feet.

“You are so handsome.” You sighed, not knowing anything else to say but exactly what had been on your mind since you had first met the android.

“And you are so beautiful.” He murmured back gently, knowing he would spend the rest of his life saying those words.

[imhaitusncarnate]

I have very mixed feelings on that aot ending

Ok so the politics of Attack on Titan have been discussed by a lot of people, some of whom have a very surface- level understanding of the story. I would like to start by giving my disclaimer that Attack on Tiatan ABSOLUTELY isn’t fascist, its anti racism, anti bigotry and anti discrimination themes are extremely apparent in it’s examination of the Eldians inside Marley, and fascist views held by characters such as Gabi are explicitly condemned in the text and made clear to be misguided and false. 

I would now like to draw everyone’s attention to the openings of seasons 1 and 2. 

Images like these combined with lyrics like these:

You pigs who sneer at our will to step over corpses and march onwards Enjoy the peace of livestock false prosperity "freedom" of the dying wolves that hunger

We dedicate and sacrifice our hearts

And also the use of german lyrics:

Sie sind das Essen und Wir sind die Jaeger! (they are the food and we are the hunters)

O, mein Freund! Jetzt hier ist ein Sieg. Dies ist der erste Glorie. O, mein Freund! Feiern wir diesen Sieg, für den nächsten Kampf!

(O, my friend! Now, here is a victory. This is the first glory. O, my friend! Let us celebrate this victory for the next battle!)

This is the stuff that lead me to believe that this is a deliberate use of fascist imagery. If the show just wanted to go for a militaristic vibe for the aesthetic of it, references this explicit to fascist propaganda and the use of German lyrics was not necessary. Also, lines like this:

And plenty of evidence that things were not what they seemed it the world of aot and that the overly simplistic view of good vs evil (humans vs the titans) was incorrect led me to believe that Attack on Titan was a deliberate deconstruction. That it was putting the audience into the mindset of the fascists to pull the rug from under their feet later. And I was right. Sort of.

As the story progresses, the world becomes a more and more complex political landscape and we are led to believe that this black and white mentality is wrong. We are also informed that the people who can transform into titans, the Eldians, are an opressed minority, explicitly paralleled to the Jews during nazi Germany, from their living in internment camps, to them being called devils, to their armbands, to a large number of them (our heroes) being confined in an island with walls circling them, which is revealed by Isayama to be Madagascar. The island that the nazis originally meant to confine the Jewish population in before arriving at the conclusion that that would be too costly, and that genocide was preferable. 

This is the first of the story’s mixed metaphors. While the show’s heart is in the right place, being sympathetic to the Eldians and showing their plight under marleyan opression and persecution, there is one problem. The reason for the opression of the Eldians is because the world is afraid of their power, as they are a race with the ability to transform into titans. There is, therefore, a tangible, justification for their internment. The Jews were not in any conceivable way a danger to anyone, they were simply scapegoated for the complex socioeconomic problems of Germany in the time period. Also, if we take a look at those openings again, we observe that the Eldians (our main characters) who wish to free themselves from their shackles are framed as fascists. So... what is that saying?

 The idea, as I see it, is that the story is condemning fanaticism in general, as a biproduct of a militaristic black and white worldview. The monstrous titans that our (framed as fascist) heroes fight against are revealed to be human, just like them.

The same is the case for the Eldian “devils” that the Marleyans fight against. Gabi, the character who is most fanatically against Eldians (despite being an Eldian herself) is comfronted with the humanity of the people she hates once she gets to know them.

Again, Isayama’s heart is on the right place here, trying to condemn bigotry, however the explicit referencing of history is the imagery is kind of misplaced, for the reasons I previously mentioned. Now let’s have a look at Eren Yeager.

Eren starts the story as a kind of messed up kid. He kills the human traffickers who kidnapped Mikasa while screaming:

I mean, in this case he is certainly justified, but his rage and anger are definitely not normal for a child his age.

This is Eren. He can’t stand injustice when he sees it. And injustice is what happens to him when the titans attack. His already fiery attitude and mindset is what leads him to this declaration of revenge:

That side of Eren is visible throughout the story and it’s foreshadowing for what he will later become

Eren, however, is a natural product of his environment. Ravaged by socioconomic inequality, with the rich living in the centre of the walls and the poor living in the outskirts, constantly under the threat of the titans and unable to obtain any kind of freedom, Eren’s philosophy of the need to be strong to overcome one’s enemies makes sense. The mantra “the strong prey on the weak”, that he ends up teaching Mikasa (another allusion to fascist ideology) is a biproduct of the world he lives in. He does not know of the political intricasies outside the walls. All he knows is he must kill the titans.

Eren’s titan is described as the “manifestation of humanity’s rage. It is huge and monstrous, and could be seen as a metaphor for vengeful hatred in general. Keep that in mind, it’s relevant for the ending.

This manufactured and false black and white worldview shapes him as a character, and it’s what eventually, after the arrival at the much desired ocean, leads him to this:

“Will we finally be free?”

In the continuation of the story, Eren falls toward the dark side more and more, to the point of committing atrocities and war crimes that are explicitly framed as being similar to what he suffered as a child (see his actions in Liberio). He even acknowledges that, telling Reiner, the person who committed said war crimes against him, that he essentially has no hard feelings and understands that the two of them are similar, doing what “needs to be done”. The character of Gabi, who, after what happens in Liberio, becomes obsessed with revenge against the Eldian “devils” is meant to be a foil for Eren, and his obsession with killing the titans after what happened to him. 

Extremely interesting is the way in which certain ideas and images are flipped in the later seasons. Namely, in season 4, we see a character who idolizes Mikasa and supports Eren’s plans in a scene where she spouts the same mantra of “the strong prey on the weak” and says that Mikasa saving her is what showed her that only with strength she can defeat her enemies. Mikasa tells her to shut up, and she proceeds to do the salute, that has been so glamorized by the show’s openings thus far. Now, it is done by a person from a military faction with a fanatic worldview. The direction doesn’t glamorize it at all. It is a nuanced, almost masterful deconstruction. 

Levi, who has always looked for reasons for why his comrades had t die, justifying their heroism and convincing himself that their deaths were not pointless, ends up here:

At this point, I was in love with Attack on Titan. From here, it only figures that Eren ends up attempting a genocide of the people outside the walls. He has essentally become what he hated the most, and he’s a natural result of the world that created him. Despite his noble intentions, he has turned into a monster. Mikasa, the prerson who loved him the most, completes her character arc by killing him, thus rejecting her blind devotion to him and being free, while at the same time continuing to love the person he once was. It’s a sad and tragic ending, painting Eren as a tragic character and making a pretty strong political point, despite having a few mixed metaphors.

And then, chapter 139 came out...

And Eren apparently pulled a Lelouch. This is a “I purposfully turned myself into a monster to save the world and make my friends into heroes for killing me” kind of thing. It is important to state that the manga makes it clear that Eren would have trampled the world even if they didn’t stop him, because of his urge to be free. However, that urge, that fighting spirit, end up being a good thing. The death of our heroes in battle apparently wasn’t pointless after all. They say goodbye with a salute

The Yeagerists, who were previously framed as fanatics, end up in charge of the government

It is important to state that the real event, the catalyst of the ending, is that killing Eren, who has turned himself literally into the manifestation of humanity’s rage (which has now, through the intricacies of the story, taken the political meaning of hatred and intergenerational trauma), eliminates the power of the titans. The titans are no more. This, in of itself, is good, and in keeping with the spirit of the political commentary thus far. However, the war, is still not over, and Eren’s mantra ends up being correct

So the only way for the war to end is one of the races to be wiped out? 

Also, despite Eren’s genocide being wrong, it is, in the end, justified, as a necessary evil by the story. An Ozymandias kind of moment in which the ends justify the means, but Eren himself has to die, because his crime was too great for him not to suffer punishment. Essentially, this chapter undoes all of the insightful commentary the story had made so far, by proving the ideology of its main character right. Story- wise this isn’t a bad ending, but if we take into account the political references the series has made, and its desire to explicitly tie itself with such imagery makes the ending leave a really bad taste in my mouth. What it essentally says, is that, yes, bigotry and racism are bad, yes, blind hatred is bad, but the general idea of might makes right and the impossibility of reconciliation are true. Armin, who has, throughuout the story, been Eren’s opposite, in terms of looking for peaceful solutions to conflict is rendered meaningless in the end, because him alongside with the other characters were all playing into Eren’s plans. The hearts of our main characters as recruits were in the right place, their fighting spirit admirable, and the overall worldview we are presented with in the beginning of the story remains more or less unchallenged. 

So where does that leave this imagery?

The conclusion is that one must think very carefully before including allegory in their work. I am not accusing Isayama for fascism, and I appreciate the efforts at deconstructing it throughout the story. However, in the end he did an oops I accidentally justified the mentality I was trying to condemn. I still like Attack on Titan, I believe it has artistic value and is overall a pretty good anime, I even agree with its politics to an extent. However, it is very important to critically examine the things we like, and see where they may have gone south. And this ending is that for me.

[btsmosphere]

Deep Rooted | KSJ

~summary: when a group of strangers washes up in your village, your trepidation is justified. Surrounded by forest here, no one goes in and no one goes out. How will you fare when you take in the new arrivals? ~pairing: seokjin x reader (gn) ~word count: 6.9k ~fantasy au, strangers to lovers, angst, fluff ~rating: pg15 ~warnings: weapons, monsters, blood, injury, past character death, major character death (sort of)

~a/n: I wrote this fic to wish a wonderful happy birthday to the amazing @aroseforyoongi​ !!! thank you so much for being the most wonderful mom to @thebtswritersclub​ and for all the fun times we have had! I wish you the best of birthdays, even if this fic is sort of revenge for breaking my heart so many times with your writing. also I definitely didn’t get the wrong date for your birthday and bash this out in a day... nooo (I did absolutely do this so please ignore any errors, I have not proofread)

The sound of yelling accompanied the thunder of your feet down the stairs.

It wasn’t often that such a commotion was heard in your sleepy town, but what you had seen a moment ago from your window had you running immediately.

“Stay back!”

“Please, he’s wounded-“

“We mean no harm!”

“I’m sure you don’t sonny, now get away or I’ll shoot you! I’ll do it!”

Throwing open your front door, you raced towards the voices, alarmed at the rising volume. Rounding the corner as fast as you could, you spilled out into the square, a small group of people you didn’t recognise crowded by the old gate. Long since abandoned, it was swamped in ivy, tendrils of which blew into their faces as three townsfolk pushed them back.

Your eyes widened on seeing Cribbons, the eldest man in the village, brandishing a rusting pistol at the strangers.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” one of the strangers stepped forwards, the warning in his voice as clear as his hand began unsheathing a sword from his belt.

Gasping, you dashed across the remaining distance between you and the group.

“What’s going on?” you exclaimed, coming to a stop directly between the two parties.

Eyeing the new people, you saw them do the same, wary of you. But before either of you could speak, Cribbons was talking.

“They came in from the forest!”

Looking between both parties, you could only gape.

“They- that’s not possible,” you shook your head.

“It’s true, we all saw it!” Cribbons snarled, “we’re just trying to send them back where they came from.”

Frown deepening, you cast your eyes over the group that had appeared, apparently from Midbleak forest. Now you were closer, you could see one of them was seated, slumping against the crumbling gatepost. Their hands clutched at their leg, which you were shocked to see bleeding profusely.

Another stranger was supporting them, and now looked around at you.

Drawing in a breath, you found yourself unable to look away from the man, his large eyes beseeching you. Strikingly handsome, he rose to his feet to address you with a small bow.

“Please,” he spoke, “we are all in need of rest. And somewhere for my friend to heal. We mean you and your town no harm.”

Silence reigned and you realised each person was awaiting and answer from you. As the town’s apothecary, you technically had some level of authority, but it was never usually necessary to gather respect given the (usually) peaceful nature of your dwelling.

For now, though, you were grateful for your position, and turned to the new arrivals.

“I apologise for the behaviour of the townspeople,” you began with a sideways glance at Cribbons, “and welcome you to Midbleak. We are not… accustomed to having visitors. But I can make space for you, if you follow me.”

Bowing again, the man thanked you. Quickly turning to aid his friend who still leaned heavily against him, your eyes never strayed from his form until another of the party blocked your view.

“Thank you for your kindness,” he smiled, dimples showing.

“Don’t mention it,” you returned the smile, “we best get moving.”

A crowd had gathered, unsurprising given that nothing of note ever happened here. Ushering the newcomers away, you did your best to shield them from the staring eyes looking on from every window.

Once inside, you allowed the group to settle in your front room. There were seven of them, meaning most had to seat themselves at various places on the floor or your windowsills, in any space not occupied by your herbs or potions. Since you lived alone, you had never prepared for this much company.

The injured man, introduced to you as Taehyung, was granted the entire settee. Disappearing to your supply larder, you tried not to think of the bloodstains you would have to wash off later.

Returning with bandages and ointment, you realised you hadn’t offered them anything to eat or drink. It had been such a long time since you had entertained others that the manners your brother always taught you had almost slipped your mind.

“I’m so sorry,” you garbled, depositing your armful of supplies beside the settee, “would any of you like tea? Or, um, I’m sure I could find something to eat-“

“You’ve done enough,” a hand rested on your shoulder, bringing your attention to the man who spoke to you earlier. “Allow me to make some tea, if you have it, but our Taehyungie needs you most right now.”

“Of course,” you hastily agreed, and set to work.

Directing the man to your stove, you made quick work of patching up Taehyung. It wasn’t often you had to deal with ailments more severe than a sprained muscle, but wounds like this were something you could never forget.

Before you knew it, a warm mug was being pressed into your hands. Taehyung had fallen asleep, but on looking around, you found all the others gratefully drinking as well.

“Thank you…” you trailed off.

“Seokjin,” he prompted, “Kim Seokjin.”

“Thank you, Seokjin,” you smiled as he settled beside you, “my name’s Y/N, by the way.”

“This tea is great,” another spoke.

Thanking him, you explained that you grew all your ingredients yourself.

“Do you… do you think we might be able to take some with us?”

The man who spoke was the same who threatened to draw his sword in the square, and you frowned.

“Jungkook,” Seokjin scolded from beside you, “we’ll buy it off them at a fair price, given what they’ve done for us.”

“S-sorry,” you interjected, “but what to you mean ‘to take with you’? You’re not… going somewhere?”

“We’ll stay here for as long as we need to rest and for Tae to heal,” the dimpled man told you, “but then we will be leaving.”

You stared in horror.

“…leaving?”

“Yes, you see, we were on our way across the forest when we got delayed,” Seokjin explained, “we got lost and ended up here. So as soon as we can, we’ll try to find our original path.”

“But-but,” you spluttered, “no one leaves here! You can’t!”

“We have to,” Jungkook’s voice was terse.

“No one goes into the forest,” you matched his tone, a warning.

“Calm down, Kook,” the boy beside him held up a hand, then turned to you with a tilt of his head. “Why does no one go into the forest?”

“No one ever comes back.”

“We managed to get in, didn’t we?” one of the others argued.

“And that’s exactly why the people here are afraid of you,” you countered, “but it’s not like you came out unscathed.”

Mulling over your words, you saw defeat paint his features. The dimpled man spoke instead.

“We might be able to help.”

“Help?” you raised your eyebrows.

“Yes. I’m Kim Namjoon, and my party have had many successes against beasts, demons, and all sorts. I’m sure we can figure out what has happened to your town, and free you.”

In your cup, the liquid rippled slightly as your hands trembled around it. Slowly, you began to shake your head, the motion soon becoming vehement.

“No.” you said firmly, “you don’t understand-“

Your feet were already beneath you, taking you further from this group of delusional adventurers. In the doorway, you stopped, eyeing them fearfully for a second.

“No one goes into the woods.”

You turned on your heel, feet pounding up the stairs until your bedroom door slammed behind you.

Forcing yourself to lower your hands from where they raked over your scalp, you ceased your pacing. As you stood, sucking in deep breaths in some futile attempt to calm yourself, your eyes finally came to rest on your nightstand.

Your steps forward were softer now. You weren’t conscious of the sad smile that slipped onto your lips as your fingers came to caress the small vase of flowers that always stood there. Their petals were soft against the pads of your fingertips, but still firm with life.

You swallowed against the lump in your throat.

Letting your hand fall, you sunk onto your bed. Perhaps you should try to think of a way to tell the party downstairs to forget their death wish, or to get out.

Then again, why should you care if they want to go and get themselves killed? They only just turned up, and you had no obligation to them.

A gentle rap at the door lulled you from your reverie. Turning, you called for whoever-it-was to enter. You weren’t sure who you could expect, but of all the group, it was a relief to see that Jin was on the other side of the door.

Pushing it open cautiously, he only trod a couple of steps into the room. His eyes fixed on you where you sat with your back to him, not bothering to get up and instead only glancing over your shoulder.

Briefly smiling, he bobbed his head in a bow before speaking.

“Are you alright?”

Hi voice was as soft as his words, taking you somewhat by surprise.

“Where are the others?” you deflected.

“Most of them have gone to get supplies from the town. Taehyung’s still sleeping. I came to check if you were okay,” he pressed.

“Yes. Thank you,” you turned your eyes back to the floor in front of you, “I-I just- a lot has happened – you lot turn up, and now there’s talk of the… the woods…”

“I understand.” You heard the creaking of your floorboards, soon feeling the bed dip beside you, the warmth of his body very close. “Or at least, I can try to. I don’t mean to worry you… if you want us to leave, I’ll get the others to comply.”

“I appreciate it,” you sighed, then throwing your hands out in frustration, “but your friend still isn’t well. Where else can your group of idiots go if not into the death-trap outside the gates?”

Laughter beside you made you look around. His laugh wasn’t elegant, but it was full of joy and left it impossible for you not to chuckle with him.

When he calmed down, he looked back at you. The proximity startled you; even with splotches of red on his face post-laughter, you were struck again by his beauty. Light creases still resided by his brilliant eyes as he held your gaze.

“I won’t argue with that description of us,” he smirked, “but I really think we can help. I know whatever is out there must be scary, if it’s stopped anyone leaving this place. But we only want to help you. Is there nothing you miss from the outside?”

Unconsciously, your eyes slid to the flowers standing proud on your dresser.

“I don’t even remember what lies beyond the woods,” you confessed.

“Then wouldn’t you like to see?”

A look back showed Jin still staring at you with hopeful eyes that cracked your heart a little bit.

“We shouldn’t hope like this,” you smiled apologetically, “it’s just too risky.”

Dropping it for now, he grimaced slightly. Your heart ached even at the small sign of hurt on his face. Before you could say anything, however, he was swiftly moving on.

“But we can stay with you?”

“Yes,” you agreed, “I don’t have too much space, but you can fit three of four in here, and the others should be alright downstairs.”

“We’re much obliged,” he smiled, and you couldn’t get enough of the happy creases forming by his eyes. “But what about you? I wouldn’t like to deprive you of a place to sleep.”

“It’s okay,” you assured him, “there’s one more room I can use.”

Jin was the perfect gentleman, helping you set out the space before returning downstairs. Without even asking, he was preparing tea, insisting it was the least he could do. And as the others returned with jokes on their lips and hands full of things they had bought, you saw the way he laughed with them like they were brothers.

You found you didn’t mind having them there so much, after all. Even when they grumbled or snapped, it was never long before they fell back into familiar banter, and it was like having a family again.

For a few days, a sort of routine was established. Namjoon always hoped to gather ‘information’ on whatever evil was surrounding your town. Some went with him, others went to the gate.

Taehyung was soon well again, although you weren’t sure if that was a good thing. His regaining health was proving injurious to you, given the stress he caused. If he was still struck down, Jin wouldn’t have to fret over him so many times as he wandered stubbornly into the woods, always to become lost and end up back in the town.

But you couldn’t deny that life was certainly more lively.

One constant, however, was Seokjin. He went out the least, electing to stay and help you. It became something you looked forward to: the house emptying of others so you could drink tea and talk, or take him on small tours around your favourite parts of town.

It was pleasing to see the villagers become a little more accustomed to the new additions, too.

“You look so happy these days,” the baker told you as Jin picked out his favourite bread somewhere behind you.

At the time, you merely blushed as you thanked your friend, but on the short journey home, you realised it was true. Jin was rambling on about the time Jungkook had taken an axe to a waterfall that annoyed him once, another story of outside the woods to bring a grin to your face.

Pushing open the door for you back home, Jin held it open for you to go first. But just as you crossed the threshold, words met your ears that took your smile away in an instant.

“We’re thinking of going tomorrow.”

Whirling around, you stared in disbelief. Jin shuffled his feet, reluctant to meet your eye.

“You’re still thinking about going into those woods?” you exclaimed, incredulous.

“Yes…” he cocked his head, looking away, “we have to keep moving.”

Torn between stepping towards him or backing away, you stayed rooted to your spot.

“But… don’t you like it here? Are you not happy?”

When he looked up, his big eyes stole the breath from you. Behind a watery coating that welled up there, he looked so wounded. But, pressing his lips together, a corner dared to lift into a hopeful smile.

“…come with us?”

You inhaled sharply.

“No,” you shook your head firmly, “can’t you just stay here?”

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” he pleaded, “but if the others are going, so am I. They’re my brothers.”

“You’ll never make it out alive!” you raised your voice, breathing heavily. But all that was betrayed by the way your voice overflowed and cracked, tears springing to your eyes that you blinked away.

“Don’t be like this, please,” he was calmer, stepping forwards and reaching out a hand…

It drew towards you and you so desperately wanted to take it, to fling yourself into his arms and feel him safe around you- but he was still leaving. You couldn’t change his mind. And if he was leaving you couldn’t allow him to take your heart with him.

You shied back, flinching from his hand. In turn, Jin froze, staring at you with such pain in his eyes that you couldn’t bear to look – and so you didn’t.

Turning away, you fled up the stairs.

“Y/N!” he called from behind you.

Hurriedly depositing the bags on your table, he dashed to follow you, reaching the room you had been sleeping in just as the door swung shut in his face. He had never been in there, but didn’t think twice about pushing the door open to get to you.

Calling your name again, he could barely blink before your teary face was in view, close as you tried to push the door closed again.

“Leave!” you begged, trying to inject as much venom into your wavering voice as you could.

“Y/N, please, I don’t want to go like this-“ Jin struggled to say, to make himself heard as you pushed the door back, “I want you to come with me! I don’t want to leave you behind, goddammit, because I don’t want to be without you! I love you!”

Ceasing in your every move as his words sunk in, your trembling frame pressed against the door. Closing your eyes, your face screwed up as juddery breaths left you. You could practically feel your heart shattering while he waited in silence for any response.

“Get out,” your voice was low, not daring to be louder.

Through the small crack remaining between the door and its frame, Jin watched you but didn’t move.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed, “I shouldn’t- if you don’t feel the same-“

Casting your eyes heavenwards, you tried to form words, anything that would explain to him what was running through your head.

“No, Jin-“ you interjected, “I do! I do feel the same, I-I… that’s why I would rather you go.”

“But, Y/N,” he frowned, “if you love me, then let’s go! We can see the world together, we can do all the things I’ve been telling you about.”

“No,” you finally found your voice firmer, “because I l- because of how I feel, I don’t want to see you go into those woods. I don’t want to lose you.”

A beat as he sighed.

“I have to go… these boys are my brothers. Do you know how it feels, to have a family? Whether by blood or not, that is important. Can’t you understand that?”

For the first time, you finally raised your eyes to meet his, exhaling shakily.

“I know what it feels like to have a family…” your voice was quiet as you tried to spit the words out, “and so I know how it feels when that is all lost. If you go into that forest, you’ll watch them die. If you love them as much as you say, you wouldn’t let them go there.”

“Because I love them, that’s why I have to go with them,” he insisted, “I’ll be beside them and I won’t let them die. If anything comes for them, I’ll be in its way.”

“So your mind is made up,” you whispered with a small nod, “then why are you still here?”

After a brief pause, you felt a small push against the door instead of a response.

“Won’t you let me in?” he asked softly.

Resolve crumbling, you finally stepped back. As the door fell open without resistance, you sucked in a breath and held it, watching as he finally laid eyes on the space.

Around him, he could barely see the walls through the greenery erupting at every corner. But these couldn’t be plants for your apothecary – he would recognise those. No, these looked to be just for decoration.

Dotted around the foliage, from the leafy stems at the sides to the smaller pots lining every surface, were flowers of all kinds. Just like the ones in the vase in your room, that had never moved even now that four boys were sleeping there.

While his head turned this way and that, taking in the multitude of plants, his mouth formed words never spoken, unsure what to say. In the end, he settled for-

“What is this?”

Finally meeting your eyes, he awaited your explanation.

“This… was my brother’s room,” you spread your arms out, indicating the space as you continued, voice flat and dejected, “he loved flowers. He would always bring some back to me when he went out to the forest… He was one of the people who tried to defend the forest. Since people started going missing, all the men of the town joined together to try and defeat whatever foe was troubling us…

“But then the same thing happened to them. He was so eager to protect us, have an adventure… and so confident. And of course, he was my older brother, so I believed him. On the day he left, he gave me that vase of flowers, and told me to wait for him at dinner. Only, they never returned. A handful made it back, terrified and telling about how they fought but were defeated, and they had no choice but to run. No one dared collect the bodies, or…”

Your breathing shuddered, throat constricting as you spoke, but only now did a sob cut you off.

Instantly beside you, Jin’s arms circled you without hesitation, pulling you to his chest. You couldn’t resist if you tried, falling into them as you collected yourself.

“Shh, I’m so sorry,” he was muttering into your hair, pressing small kisses there between his comfort, “I’m sorry, I’m here, it’s okay.”

Bringing your arms around his middle in return, you held him fiercely.

At last, when you were able to draw a breath, you pulled your face away to look him in the eye.

“Come with me,” you said. Before he could question, you were grabbing his hand, leading him resolutely to the back corner of the room. As you got closer, however, it became clear it went further then he could initially see.

“This,” you sniffed, still wiping at your eyes, “is my teleportation circle. You can come here anytime-“

Dropping his hand, you walked forwards, crouching to wipe dust from the surface so the sigils around the edge could be clearly read.

“-I haven’t used it in some time. It doesn’t function between here and outside the woods, so I’m not sure if it will even help…”

Trailing off, you turned to find him watching you fondly.

“You have to be safe,” you said.

“I will be.”

Despite the darkness around you, your eyes were wide open. You should be asleep, you knew that much, but they certainly weren’t considering closing any time soon.

Jin may have told you to take care as his friends waited at the door, leaving you with one last (and your first) kiss.

It was partly that moment keeping you up; if you closed your eyes, maybe the night wouldn’t disappear from your grasp and wake you up further in time from Jin and his perfect smile, with your memory of his pillowy lips moulding to yours just right fading. No, you wanted this to live in your head for as long as you could, dedicating the still of night to replaying the moment, wishing for it not to just be in your head anymore.

Jin promised he would be alright. He promised to come back, but your little faith had not backed off. It was too late for you to save your poor heart, however, and that was mostly why you had yet to fall into the clutches of slumber.

Somewhere out there in the woods right now, Jin was probably lost, possibly fighting.

Tossing your body over, you looked out into the room, rows of plants and flowers barely discernible in the pitch black. You had remained in your brother’s old room, unable to face the emptiness of your own which was so recently filled with life.

But though you refused to let yourself cling to any stupid, childish hope, there was clearly still a child within you as your thoughts flitted unbidden to Jin’s face, the way he would smile when he saw you again.

Your sleep-deprived mind could only fight off that child for so long.

That child, that had believed your brother’s bold confidence. That had dreamed of fighting too. You had wailed and complained that day, wanting to go with him, inspired with the same flame as him to fight for your town.

But that fire was snuffed out with him.

Still staring ahead, only the empty room greeted you. The house was too quiet. Over the past week or so, the boys had been courteous and tried to be silent at night, but at the very least there was always some giggling, some whispers or floorboards creaking as they probably snuck out to pilfer some snacks.

At least you had known you were not alone.

But you had been by yourself for so long, why did it taste so bitter now?

Just as you were longing for some activity in your barren house, a sound startled you. Jerking upright immediately, you were instantly aware how close the sound was, a sort of whooshing that is soon joined by a flaring light.

Scrambling from beneath your covers, you threw your hands up to shield your eyes that have been in darkness for some hours.

“Y/N?”

The call echoed through the entire house, even though you were in the same room. You were sure you must be dreaming. That’s Jin’s voice.

Dropping your arms, your eyes searched the space in a second.

Sure enough, there he is.

Your mouth hung open, a gasping mix between a sob and a laugh escaping as he rushed over to you from your teleportation circle in the corner.

“Jin?” you dared to smile as he approached.

But then you saw his face.

“Do you have healing potions?” he asked, voice raw with desperation, “we need medicine, a-and bandages, and anything you have-“

Nodding, you instantly complied, not needing to question his motive. Grasping his hand (and oh god it’s real and he’s still alive and with you-) you dashed down the stairwell, hurrying to gather supplies with him hot on your tail.

“What’s going on?” you panted as you raced back up the stairs, arms full, “what did you find?”

Kicking the door open none too gently, Jin spared you a glance.

“It’s a beholder. It’s clearly been ravaging your forest for a long time now, and it’s powerful. I’m sure that’s what’s blocking any magical connection with the outside, too.”

You had read about beholders somewhere before. Magical monsters with too many eyes, destroying all but the most powerful in its path. That was surely not something the party would dare to face.

“So you’re coming back?”

“No,” he stopped, right outside your circle, to look at you, “we got away, but most of us are hurt. Now we know what it is, if we track it down again, we can put a stop to this.”

How a grin adorned his face, you had no idea. His friends were in the middle of danger, on the verge of death, and he still had hope.

“That’s…”

You didn’t know what it was.

Your town, free? It was beyond your imagination. Of course it was what you all dreamed of, but never dared to believe could come true.

Taking a deep breath, your eyes travelled from the man in front of you to the flowers surrounding you here.

You stood a little taller.

“I’ll come with you.”

Jin’s eyes bulged, freezing as he stepped into the circle.

“What?”

“I said I’ll come with you,” you repeated, stepping right in after him, “it’s time to stand up for my village.”

A full-watt grin broke onto his face then, and if it wasn’t for the supplies filling his arms, he would have swept you into them. Instead, he settled for surging forwards, lips pressing eagerly into yours.

Eyes sliding closed, your heart took off in somersaults as the moment you had never thought you would see again repeated, his soft lips calming any nerves with the fire it lit up in you. Too soon, he was pulling back, and you chased after him for one last peck.

Giddy smiles on your faces despite the minefield you were heading into, you broke apart at last.

Around you, the circle burst into life. Shooting from the floor, light cut through your vision, soon engulfing you as the distantly familiar feeling of the world shifting around you took over your being.

Once it settled again, light retracting back into the earth at your feet, the world was dark once more. This time, though, the darkness was more encompassing, thick tree trunks standing between the forest floor and the moon, uncompromising.

A smaller light emerged, blinking into life above your head.

Looking around, you caught the tail end of Jin muttering another incantation, before he and the light were moving forwards into the forest.

Treading in his wake, your head never stayed still, searching the darkness around you constantly as you wove through the trees. Every time Jin disappeared behind one, you would scurry to keep up, heart accelerating in your chest as the darkness encroached again.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before you reached another light between the trees, hovering above the familiar group of men.

Jin was already on the ground, tending to Jimin, so you followed his lead and headed for Jungkook. On your way, you handed some bottles to Yoongi, kneeling beside Namjoon. All of them looked worn-out, slumped against the coarse bark with bruises blooming on exposed skin.

Jungkook was unusually quiet, eyelids drooping as you crouched beside him. A gash was bleeding along his collarbone. Dabbing at it, you shook him gently, instructing him to down one of your potions as soon as he seemed alert enough.

It seemed to revive him somewhat, although this had the unfortunate effect that he was more alert to the pain as you patched him up.

But you were experienced, and it was quick work. Soon enough you were also sitting back, looking around the party. They seemed a little more at ease now. You were happy you were able to help them. Even from such a short time around these men, you had grown attached, and now you were sure they could be a family, just as Jin had told you.

“We’ll take a few hours,” Namjoon was telling everyone, “then we’ll go and hunt for that thing again. This time we’ll be more prepared.”

Agreeing, everyone began to settle down. Making his way over to you, Jin eased himself to the floor too, making your heart soar as he tucked himself behind you, arms circling you from behind.

Closing his eyes peacefully, he tucked his chin over your shoulder, muttering against your neck.

“I’m glad you came. You’re so brave.”

“Oh, shush,” you sank back into his arms.

Barely a moment later, though, and he was stiffening, sitting upright behind you. His arms dropped from their place, head lifting away from you.

“Hey,” you groaned from the loss of comfort, only to be hushed.

“No, really, shush,” he hissed at your affronted look, eyes already far away, scanning the trees.

Turning your attention to the forest yourself, you heard what must have frightened him. Not too far away, a splintering ricocheted through the trees.

“Hey, guys,” Jin’s voice carried through the secluded space easily, but just as a few heads perked up, the cracking sound swelled in a deafening crescendo, culminating in a resounding thud.

Jin was on his feet, and he wasn’t the only one.

“It’s here,” Namjoon’s voice was bracing.

Rising to stand as well, your eyes traced the path of a light sent up by Jimin. Ascending through the trees, blinking as it crossed branches, eventually a silhouette made itself known.

That was certainly no tree.

Another cacophony announced the falling of a second tree as the shape advanced further into the pool of light, seizing the breath in your lungs. The creature didn’t even touch the ground, hovering instead as it bulldozered any tree standing in its path.

Scattering, you followed Jin through the trees to avoid its advance, but you could never escape its gaze. Worse than anything you could imagine just reading about this monster, it had eyes protruding from its sickening mass of a body, which also held a grotesquely large eye above a gaping mouth of fangs.

“We discussed a plan,” Jin hissed in your ear as he positioned himself in front of you, hands already balling in front of him, a light forming within as he prepared to attack, “we’ll hit it long enough for Jungkook and Taehyung to get close. They’re the best warriors, and they can chop off some of the eyes. It gets weak quickly, so we just have to stay alive and buy as much time as we can.”

Nodding quickly, you also readied a spell.

The first beam of light shot through the night from between trees somewhere on the beast’s other side. It spun, furious roar gargling from its belly, but Jin had already shot from beside you.

Reeling from the fire that struck it, the awful mass of eyes flailed, and another cry was drawn just after you caught sight of a shadow below the beast, a glint of metal slicing through the air.

“Nice,” Jin muttered, darting behind the trunk of a tree.

For once, you didn’t follow. Stepping resolutely into the space, face set, you raised your hands, light firing from your palms in bursts. It had been a while since you practised magic this way, but you had no time to doubt yourself before the creature was bellowing again, turning your way-

Ducking behind a tree, your eyes met Seokjin’s where he stood pressed against the next one.

You couldn’t help the grin bursting onto your face, mirrored by his own.

Behind you, the night lit up with flashes that bathed the trees around you, illuminating the deep blackness. A shadow with too many limbs writhed among the branches, mingled with loud and angry roars.

The monster began to retreat.

Already missing several eyes, thick blood sliding down its body, it sent out a blast of its own. Above you, the tree branches ignited, crashing down in flames just as your feet raced away, jumping over thick tree roots.

“Let’s get on the other side of it,” Jin urged, an arm finding its way around your back as you darted together through the undergrowth.

Still running, he sent another bolt flying towards the beast, knocking it into a large tree which creaked, slowly beginning to topple to the forest floor.

In panic, your eyes searched the ground around it as your feet came to a stop in what had become a clearing due to the fallen trees. The others seemed unscathed from this distance, all of them racing to join you, surrounding the monster.

Before the beast could act, you were firing again. Barely hitting as you caught your breath from your previous sprint, you caught it nonetheless, giving enough space for Taehyung to lunge forwards again, taking a leap and succeeding in hacking off an eye.

Wincing, you flinched back from the appendage as it crashed to the ground, but a whoosh of magic was already being fired again, fight still not ceasing.

As it weakened, though, the monster was becoming more enraged. Growling, it lashed out, colossal teeth gnashing towards the fighter who had just robbed it of an eye. Tripping over a gnarled root, Taehyung was inches from the clash of the beast’s teeth as he fell, but soon the thing was spinning again.

With horror, you found the target it had selected next. Apparently Jungkook had seen a way in when the creature was diverted, but as his sword raised, the eye in question swivelled to focus directly on him.

Eyes widening, you saw the beast rear back in slow-motion, preparing its attack but your feet were glued to the ground, rendering you helpless as the split second played out like an hour in front of you, magic sparking and fizzling through the air towards the youngest-

“Jungkook!”

It wasn’t until the cry met your ears that you realised Jin had left your side, speeding across the clearing.

Then time hit you like a train, every moment rushing by in a blink as you cried Jin’s name, raising your hand on instinct, summoning your magic without a thought.

Nothing happened.

Blinking in surprise, you looked at your hand, feeling the magic flow towards it and… stop.

A faint glow surrounded you, emanating from the beast’s eye, holding you still, keeping your magic captive within you as you watched Jin jump at his younger brother-

The bolt of magic sliced through the air. Jin was in front of Jungkook. The blow cut the darkness, driving straight into his chest, both men flung backwards from the impact.

Movement.

You saw it as the glow finally released you, too late. Stumbling forwards, your feet had to remind themselves how to move but then they were overtaking each other in haste until you crashed to your knees at Jin’s side.

The movement had been Jungkook.

He fought his way from underneath Jin, who merely flopped to the side.

“Jin!” your voice came out an unstable cry, alien to your ears. Jungkook beside you was frozen, watching as you tugged his friend, his brother over onto his back, only to be met with an unseeing face.

No response.

Shaking him, desperate, raw pleas falling over and over from your lips, you already knew it was too late. The blazing lights still flashing through the night only lit up paling skin, your hands as they searched his neck for the steady pulse of life that it never found.

Tears burned down your cheeks long before you were even aware of them.

And then they were soaking, breath refusing to enter your lungs as you gasped, hands now surrounding you, the night still. That cool light Jimin cast earlier was the only thing hanging over the scene as the boys gathered round.

Taehyung sheathed his bloody sword, the giant forgotten where it lay on the ground somewhere behind you.

All you could see was Jin’s face. He did what he said he would do: get in the way of that monster and his brothers.

The boys held each other. They even held you, although it was not the same. Just a hand on your shoulder, a pat on your back.

You could go with them.

You went back to your town.

The house was empty again, and your kitchen began to fill with tea, just as the room upstairs stacked with plants. You made Jin’s favourite mixtures, and they sold well.

You never drank them.

Your house was still again. The darkness was never alive. You were alone.

And no matter how hard you wished, you would never conjure the feeling of his lips on yours. He would never turn up just as you needed him.

The circle in your brother’s room gathered dust again.

People flooded from the village, his name on their lips, their saviour.

You would walk to the gates often. Sometimes you strayed into the woods. You cared for the fire he had reignited within you, wanting to keep him with you in some way.

But the baker didn’t think you looked happy anymore.

You sold your potions, accepted adventurers that came more often now, but you stayed out of their way. And at night, you would be encased by a glow as you kicked and screamed with magic frozen in your veins. You never did escape it.

Seven sets of eyes blinked at you from around the table. Their mouths hung open in something akin to horror.

Your face was split in an irresistible grin.

“…you actually killed me?”

A bubble of laughter finally rose, spilling from your lips at the sight of Seokjin’s enraged expression.

“That was traumatic,” Yoongi sat back in his chair as you calmed down from your laughter.

“But I was gonna spend my life with your npc!” Jin argued, hand slapping the tabletop, “or do you not want to be with me?”

“That’s probably why she had to kill you, hyung,” Jimin hid a giggle behind his hand, “we already have enough members in this campaign.”

“Yah!” Jin spluttered, face reddening, “b-but, why kill me? And not them?”

“Rude!” you pressed a hand to your heart, pausing where you were shuffling away your pages of campaign notes. “Did you not have fun being my boyfriend, Jin?”

“Yeah, you seemed to be having great fun,” Taehyung smirked, jabbing at Jin with his elbow.

“Just say you want to date and go,” Namjoon agreed, shaking his head in exasperation.

Jin pouted, only eliciting more laughter from the group as he folded his arms.

“Shut it, you lot!” he complained.

Eventually, your friends were filing out of your house, thanking you between laughter for another good campaign and the promise to play again the same time next week. Only one lingered by your doorway.

“I can’t believe you really killed me off,” Jin spoke.

“Cut it out,” you chuckled, “I know you’ll miss being my lover terribly, but I’m sure you can manage.”

He eyed you as you kicked the living room door shut, joining him in the hall.

“Of course I will,” his lips quirked into a smug smile – unfortunately a very familiar look on your friend – “your loss.”

And with that tossed over his shoulder, he was stepping outside.

Shutting the door behind him, you listened to the sound of his engine beginning and rumbling away outside. A large breath left you.

He was right. You knew the real thing would be better, but you would take what you could get.

Your loss.

Thank you for reading! Reblogs always appreciated 💜

Again, to Eva, happy happy birthday!! In case you were interested, the prompts I was given were ‘dungeons and dragons’ (again haha) and ‘intelligent’, just like you! I love you lots and hope your day was great xx Also one last big thank you to @eternalseokjin​ for all the help with this, whether dnd related or just me ranting about the angst😅I appreciate it!

Taglist: @aianloveseven​ @preciouschimine​ @kb-bangtanenthusiast​ @ttaechwita​ 

[x0401x]

Violet Evergarden Movie Summary

The initial plan was to make this a short bullet-point thing, but I felt like there was too much to clarify and I had no choice but use novel references to explain certain parts, so I decided to just write a normal summary. Many thanks before-hand to my friend Yuuki, who gave me all this info.

Apologies for taking relatively long with this thing. Not even I expected that I would end up writing this much. Buckle up for the ride, ‘cause it won’t be fun.

Nope, not kidding. It really won’t.

First thing I need to make clear is: this movie is one and a half hour long and divided into three parts and two different timelines: the times when Violet existed and the times after she dies. Already in the beginning of the movie, Violet is dead.

Yes, you read this right. She’s dead.

Now, I don’t mean that she’s dead in the literal sense. This is 60 years in the future. She might be alive or not, but it’s never said. However, the timeline of 60 years later is considered an era without Violet, apparently because she has retired and her “legend” is over, so to say. It’s also a time where Auto-Memories Dolls don’t exist. That’s one good punch in the face. Let’s keep counting.

The movie is sort of like a tale being read by someone else, which at some point goes into Violet’s first-person POV. The whole thing is kind of a look back on Violet’s life tragectory and how it took a new turn when she decided to continue looking for Gil despite all the mess of the TV series.

The era where Violet exists is an era where telephones are being introduced to the people, so Auto-Memories Dolls are starting to become unnecessary. I would argue that the creation of the telephone isn’t enough for an entire occupation to start disappearing so quickly, since new inventions are normally extremely expensive and not everyone has access to them (or even knows about their existence) so immediately after their conception. Realistically speaking, ghostwriters would still be important as long as there were still so many people unable to buy phones. Not to mention that this is a steampunk world where compulsory education doesn’t seem to be a thing yet, so even in the off chance that everybody can buy a phone, there would still be a lot of people who can’t read or write on their own. But all of this clearly went over the animators’ heads, so not only ghostwriters but also the mail business in general are nearing their doom in the movie.

The one looking back on Violet’s life was Ann, who was telling it all to her granddaughter, Daisy (who, by the way, is voiced by Morohoshi Sumire, the same girl who voiced the seven-year-old Ann). Ann had kept all the letters that Violet ghostwrote for her mother, as well as the newspapers about the CH Postal Company. Looks like the article was printed after Violet left CH, since she isn’t in the picture with everyone else.

In this era, CH’s main office has been turned into a museum. Nerine is shown working in it. Of course, she’s a grandma by then. Speaking of the CH personnel, Erica also quit being an Auto-Memories Doll and became a playwright like Oscar. She appears in the newspaper, though, so she probably a while left after Violet did. Taylor also appears there.

Back to Daisy, she was writing a letter to her parents, in order to learn how to properly convey feelings with written word. The message of this scene seems to be that, no matter the tools, what’s important is that we convey our feelings to the people we love.

As we see in the trailer, Gil’s mom has passed and Violet runs into Dietfried when visiting her grave on the anniversary of her death. To anyone who is wondering: yeah, Gil never went to see his mother and she died thinking that he was dead.

Nobody knew that Gil was alive. Not his mother, not Dietfried, not the Evergardens and not even Hodgins. No one.

Here’s what happened to Gil in the anime: he survived the incident at Intense, of course, but got separated from Violet in that explosion. His tag miraculously stayed on the same spot, though, as we saw in the TV series. Now, since this isn’t explained in the anime at all, I have to make it clear: the tag is that necklace the soldiers wear. It contains their names and ranks, so that their bodies can be identified even when they’re irrecognizable. Without the tag, the people who rescued Gil had no idea who he was, so he was sent to a different place to get treated. He ended up at a monastery hospital instead of the one in Enchaîné. I would debate that his uniform alone is enough to identify him as someone from the Leidenschaftlich Army, or maybe they could’ve just asked him which troop he belonged to after he woke up and relocated him to where his fellow men were, but who even cares about all these plot holes anymore? Definitely not me.

Anyway. After Gil was discharged, he ran the fuck away. Like, literally.

If anyone out there was hoping that Gil would finally have his moment to shine as the self-sacrificing, thoughtful and ridiculously kindhearted character that he is in the novel, I have bad news for you. What we had here was even worse than it being Gil’s excuse movie. It’s like the whole thing was made to drag his character so deep through the mud that he’ll never be able to get up again. There’s pretty much nothing in this one and a half hour that actually justifies what he did to Violet. I’ll elaborate on this as we go on.

Anime!Gil became a nomad and went traveling. He offed his ass to the island where that lighthouse displayed in the most recent official art is located (that’s why Gil and Violet were at the beach on the movie poster). He doesn’t have a prosthetic in the anime because, apparently, he was more worried about disappearing as fast as possible to somewhere he would never be found, and never attempted to contact anybody. So nobody knew that he was alive, hence the grave, which, as we feared, was not a fake one. His family really did think he had died.

This is a point that I have already addressed before, but that also means Gil really did abandon Violet to luck. If anything dangerous ever happened to her (as it did, and it was always very obviously likely to happen, since she was the southern army’s most outstanding soldier and quite literally fled from the military), he wouldn’t even know. If word ever got to him, it would probably be too late. And even if it weren’t, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to help her. More than allowing her to live freely, it felt like he was running away from his responsibilities regarding Violet.

Punch on the face count is currently at six.

By sheer coincidence, Violet learns that Gil is living in that island. She goes to see him and Hodgins goes with her after trying to stop her at first. When Gil finds out that they came to see him, he outright refuses to meet them. It pretty much takes the near entirety of the goddamn movie for them to see each other face-to-face. I say face-to-face because all of the following shit happens:

Hodgins goes to talk to Gil. It lasts about 20 minutes.

Gil talks to Violet from behind a door. This one is about 10 minutes.

Dietfried also comes to the island to talk to him. Also about 10 minutes.

At long fucking last, Gil goes to see Violet. But that, too, is only for about 10 minutes.

Hodgins gives him a speech very similar to what happens in chapter 8. Now get ready to fall back from your seats: Dietfried basically goes there to tell Gil that he won’t run away from taking over the family anymore, so Gil can live freely. Yes, Dietfried is officially a better Gilbert than Gilbert himself. I crave death.

So, after much ado, they come to a conclusion: Gil will stay in the island. In order to completely free himself of the shackles of his bloodline, he stays behind, living the way he wants to. ‘Cause all anime!Gil wants is to rot away alone by the sea, apparently. Now prepare yourselves, for it gets worse. Ready?

Violet stays with him in the motherfucking island.

That’s right, ladies and gents. Another fear became true. She quits her job at the CH Postal Company and goes to live with him. Well, at least, not as a housewife. She starts working with mail services in the island, and Gil helps her with it. Her life goes on like this and she dies in the island as well.

This is where the timeline after Violet passes away comes into light, parallel to the era when Violet was alive. Daisy talks about what happened after Violet left CH, as if it were a tale from the distant past.

That’s it.

The movie paints this as a happy ending. I can hardly see it as one. I know it almost looks like everything was solved, but it just got swept under the rug.

The main point that makes me sad in this ending is that Violet’s character development did a 360 degree flip. In the end, she threw everything to the air and went to live in someone who she always put before everyone else, even herself, but who didn’t do the same for her (in the anime). She’s gone to a crammed little island, where she led an uneventful life away from everyone and everything that’s ever had a positive impact on her. All she has is Gil.

Of course, he’s all she needs, but he isn’t all she should have, and that was the entire point of pushing her to go live on her own. Which is exactly what she earns in the novel: two loving parents, a father figure, a brother figure, a best friend and several other friends and acquaintances whom she formed a bond with. She has all she needs, so she doesn’t have to cling to Gil for any reason. There’s no emotional dependance on him anymore. She doesn’t need him to be whole. She just wants him because he happens to be the best person she’s ever met.

Anime!Violet is most definitely not whole. She almost got there, but then she backtracked completely. And anime!Gil... in my friend’s words, is a weakling. There’s nothing in him actually worth all this undying blind love. Sure, he’s full of regret and shit, but it’s too easy to only act upon it now, by vanishing into thin air like a coward.

The deal with novel!Gil is that he looks around at everything he has, everything that had been burdening him and killing him on the inside all his life, and decides to make use of it for Violet’s sake. He continues being family head and working in the army, amassing money and connections in order to have every means possible to protect Violet should anything happen to her. And as it turns out, he does end up having to use those means, more than once, but he will keep this up for as long as he needs to, because he lives for her now. That’s what makes him worth all the blood, sweat, tears, mental sanity and even body parts that she gave away for his sake: he pays it back. Every cent.

Punch in the face count ends at twelve. Thirteen if I include the fact that the movie ends with a last shot of Violet after she and Gilbert do a pinky swear. Looks like they were really trying to buy everyone with tears.

Oh, well.

I hope this has been a good enough summary. Sorry if I rained on anyone’s parade. I’m pretty sure we won’t get a remake ever, so I really wish we all can get over this soon.

[causeicanmakethedevilcry]

how I think snk might end

With chapter 138 out (finally) I can finally put my two cents in this. Again feel free to add any other theory to this, whether it is a ‘epilogue of all the characters’ or even a uno-reverse moment from the vile mastermind evilest of mangakas: Isayama himself (though I doubt it).

disclaimer : I am spewing bullshit, I am broken as of now.

First of all, with Eren dead (as we think so) we might in the last chapter have about three options for Isayama closing the shitshow that was SNK.

Ist Possible Ending : Eren being revived.

This isn’t anything new anyone hasn’t theorized before. But Eren coming back to life in the last chapter (thus we might finally get a fucking idea on what this idiot was thinking while choosing the Rumbling and totally letting us inside his mind) has to have a more optimistic view. Before we name the improbabilities of this, we must see the evidence backing up this. 

Zeke, a royal blood and titan holder, got revived not once, but twice. First time even as we desired for this quite unliked character to kick the bucket, did in fact not, and made a second come back for what I call whatever “Isayama-reason”. As for the second time, you could argue that Zeke coming back to life as the rest of the other late-Titan shifters (Ymir, Porco, Bertholdt, etc) was either a “power of friendship” event or possibly Ymir’s doing to serve to her advantage. (A miscommunication of the manga because isn’t Ymir out of PATHS? Did they themselves snap back to life?) 

Even so, with this, our homicidal crazy MC might make it back. For what? I do not own enough braincells to process what else he would want to accomplish after, well, killing half the population and attempting against everyone he ever loved, so unless for revealing a baby-daddy theory (which I am somehow still semi on-board for, don’t judge, one can stupidly hope), OR ending up with whatever girl of his dreams and get a nice cliché ending to fit the narrative of all shipwars and shippers alike, hell, even Isayama’s usual “gotcha” ending where the reversal of idiot MCs dying and sacrificing themselves being overthrown by this manga? We might get Jaeger back (chances are low, however when in doubt, don't undermine Isayama)

2nd Possible Ending : Historia’s POV (finally) + desired Epilogue

With Eren *actually* dead (Thanos’ no resurrections this time) Isayama might (and thats a big might) give us more entail with Historia’s POV that has been avoided for, again, some strange Isayama-reason. ‘Eren being revived’ can be debunked, due to Eren setting Ymir free from PATHS (or what we can tell with her being outside during the Alliance trying to stop the rumbling and even Armin witnessing her). Her not being in PATHS longer (theorizing again) might not allow her to build Eren back like she did with Zeke.

In this case, Historia could be the final key to seeing what Eren wanted to accomplish, given that he confided in her (for some reason) besides pro-genocide Floch, who is dead. The last one remaining is the queen herself, who we might come to know why she supported/kept silent about our deceased anti-hero. Probably confessing if Eren was a crazy homicidal son of a titan, or, most likely confirming most of the reader’s suspicion was: “He DId iT aLl fOr HiS FriEnDs” and we can proudly see Eren’s actions as almost honorable, miraculously revealing Jaeger as actually doing some good for the sake of our detrimental minds. Given so, finally setting a proper ending to SNK and maybe getting a glimpse about life of our character’s and the Eldians as Marleyans moving on from the as time passes by. Mikasa, Armin, Levi, Jean Connie, Annie, and everyone else moving on from Eren, and living that “free” life their friend tried to give them at the end of the day. (It would be really wishy washy for Isayama’s taste in storytelling). Better yet, anticipatedly allow our beloved characters to live peacefully and well, live. An epilogue sounds just right, and in my mind, fucking earned by everyone involved.

At this rate I do not wanna appear dumb and follow the baby-daddy theory any longer, as I said Isayama ain’t one for happy endings, so Historia’s last minute explanatory true conception is downright time-taking and LATE ; fit that? in around 41 pages? it’s more impossible than you think.

3rd Possible Ending : LETS START THE LOOP AGAIN

With the coming of chapter 138, we have gone all the way to the beginning, tying the plot perfectly, and confirming the Loop Theory (well, somehow). Thus, besides a small recount of how all the survivors are doing after the events of the Uprising Arc, we might even get a small scene where Grisha is the man from the ‘last panel’ holding baby Eren. I have seen many theorizing this, even me supporting this idea, that since Isayama, mentioned the last panel being this:

We are not dumb, guys. It’s probable we’ll end the story with the loop just as the beginning with Mikasa and Eren “see you later” scene, and how amazing/whack is that? With this, horrifically demonstrating just how hellish this world/story really is (similar to Grave Of The Fireflies heh?) 

Who knows? After all this time, when we thought Eren figured this all by himself and grew attached to the poor Ymir, it’s likely she instilled the idea of freedom since he was small, making him unable to escape this loop, reliving it continuously (with seeing with memories/altering through PATHS) and falling prey to Ymir using him every time to ‘free’ herself from PATHS. This story might be how a suffering person takes it all out on the world forever, echoing how we as a society are in reality guilty of this or some sort of thrown-in-you-face last minute self-refectory moment? (or maybe this is them breaking the loop, at this rate we don’t know, I don’t claim any of my theories since the release of ch.138, I am in shambles).

As depressing as it is, it is the most fitting end to this story. Dare I say, even Isayama-worthy. All I do not want, is for Isayama to make this manga a type of “take it as you will” or leave it up for everyone’s own way of perception. Imagine? Him saying everyone can interpret this manga however we see, with our own justified take of events from start to finish? And that this story can is anything you want to believe. It would be new for a genre in manga, but in my opinion, very unsatisfactory (again, 41 pages to fill? there is only much he can do).