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indecisive-behaviors · 3 years

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Okay so I just reblogged a thing talking about season 2 and 3 of Cobra Kai and I have some Thoughts about what they did to everyone’s character arcs in this so if you’d like a rant it’s under the cut with spoilers from all 3 seasons plus spoilers for all 3 Karate Kid movies

Okay so my issues start with one very key scene that I personally think fucked up the whole rest of the narrative, and by extension everyone else’s character arcs: which is from Different but Same. And no not that scene- not yet at least.

The first scene that I think fucked over the narrative and killed several character arcs was the beach scene. Miguel, reasonably distraught over the idea that Sam is hiding him from her dad(which she is actually doing to be fair), gets completely drunk and when Sam and Robby arrive together he loses it, pushes Sam and subsequently gets dumped. Now why do I think this ruined everything? It completely goes against Miguel’s character up to this point. Miguel is absolutely trying to mimic Johnny in a lot of key ways but also up to this point Miguel has also been Johnny’s conscience; he’s smart and kind and had not at all shown to be anything even close to what Johnny was in KK1. He’s stood up for his friends, defended the girl he likes from bullies, he’s a huge mama’s boy and a bit of a hopeless romantic. In no episode up until that point does he ever display any tendency towards unnecessary violence, despite Johnny’s “strike first” motto. Miguel getting wasted and violent does not add up in my mind. Miguel is supposed to be a narrative parallel to Daniel for fuck sake. Also, and this is my main complaint, there is no fucking reason for Miguel to immediately jump to the conclusion that Sam is seeing Robby- literally none. They look very much alike, hell Robby looks a little like Amanda honestly, he could very well be her cousin for all Miguel knows. Robby and Sam don’t even act like a couple in the shot- they’re literally just sitting next to each other at family dinner. None of this subplot makes any fucking sense.

And then, obviously, there’s the very next scene- Johnny goes with Daniel back to his place, tipsy and happy and seemingly in a very good place with each other. Then Robby shows up, Johnny loses his shit and Daniel proceeds to get pissed and kick Robby out. Now there is one thing I point out about this scene whenever I talk about it that doesn’t add up: no where in this scene is it ever even implied that either Johnny or Daniel know about Robby’s original intentions. (Also nothing up till that point ever even establishes why Robby knows about Daniel and Johnny’s rivalry in the first fucking place for the record). There is no reason for Johnny to suspect that Daniel knew and was hiding it, or even that Robby was doing it on purpose, and there is no reason for Daniel to get mad or even suspect that Robby knew what he was doing or was lying about it; and the fact of the matter is that Robby never actually lied(also Daniel never fucking asked) about his home situation. His mom was neglectful and an addict, and his father wasn’t in the picture. That’s it, and none of that was a lie. Now I’m not sitting here and denying that what Robby did was wrong because it absolutely was-- it was manipulative and unfair to Daniel and he had a right to be angry when he found out it was the case but there is nothing to suggest that he didn’t just jump to conclusions. And also, personally, I don’t think any of that justifies kicking a teenager to the curb, and one that Daniel explicitly knows has no one and nothing to fall back on. Be angry, be furious with Robby, but leaving a teenager to fend for themselves is cruel and completely unjustifiable behavior from a grown ass adult(also there’s a whole can of worms involved in Daniel never trying to figure out where the fuck Robby’s parents are and letting him live there without an explanation but that’s for a different rant).

Now assume none of that weird subplot happens, there is another way to have the Robby and Miguel rivalry that would have made so much more fucking sense and it only hinges on one fucking thing- Robby enters the tournament. It could be with or without Daniel’s approval(maybe even with a KK3 parallel, but Daniel honestly seems pretty into the tournament these days so he’d probably be down for Robby joining and reping Miyagi-do), but all we need is for him to do it. Robby gets there, and Johnny sees him, potentially rocking a Miyagi-do gi and can have his surprised/hurt moment with him and Daniel, even potentially a confrontation between them. We can also still have Miguel beating Robby in the tournament and having Johnny be conflicted about his son losing. Hawk can even still hurt him and give Johnny his “holy shit this is wrong” epiphany and Miguel not understanding why Johnny wants him to go easy on Robby. Robby can still be hurt and upset by thinking Johnny cares more about Miguel after he loses.

Okay now as for season 2? Assuming everything stays the same in season 1, I have one MAJOR complaint. Robby becoming Sam’s love interest; and no it’s not because I think Miguel and Sam should be an endgame couple when the show is over(I do but that’s beside the point) but because it turns Sam into a plot device. This carries over into season 3 where she starts dating Miguel again and apparently just never breaks it off with Robby which is such a dick move I can not for the life of me imagine Sam of all fucking people doing it. She isn’t perfect by any means but she’s also outspoken and and much more confident by that point and should not have had a problem breaking up with someone in an email. But I digress, back to season 2- the moment I saw that Sam and Robby were going to be a couple I immediately knew the writers fucked up. There was no build up for it, nothing in season 1 to foreshadow this as a possibility(Different but Same doesn’t count because that was a whiplash of an episode) and they just decided offhandedly to put her in the middle of Robby’s and Miguel’s rivalry. There was no reason to make them a couple other than to fuck with Miguel and set up the Tory & Sam rivalry which could have happened fucking anyway with the shit at the country club, the rift between Sam and Aisha, and Miguel’s ongoing feelings for Sam even after he’s dating Tory(also a dick move what the fuck Miguel??). Adding Robby as fuel to the fire was super unnecessary and all it did was set up the clusterfuck that was the season 2 finale.

And OH BOY was that finale a clusterfuck. First of all, as a prelude- Fuck. Daniel. He pulled the exact same shit as in season 1 with dumping Robby the second he does anything even a little bit wrong. But also, as a gut punch, Robby didn’t actually do anything wrong. What was he supposed to do at the party? He couldn’t stop Sam from drinking even though he wanted to, it was her (very poor) choice. But he did what he could, he kept an eye on her, and when the cops showed up, he didn’t just leave her, he put her in the car and drove her somewhere he thought she’d be safe without having to immediately face her father(who super fucking overreacted btw) while she was recovering. This scene, which could have been an excellent bonding moment for Johnny and Robby, and an introduction to Sam getting to know Johnny outside of her father’s influence, was turned into a brawl for no fucking reason.

Which leads me to the school fight. And right off the bat I’ve got to say this; even as, and maybe especially as, a person who has written post season 3 fix it fics, there is no way for Robby and Miguel to convincingly fix what happened in the season 2 finale. Yes, what Robby did was absolutely an accident and he has already done his time for it. But the elephant in the room is this: Miguel could have died. Or at the very least, been totally paralyzed. There is not a good way to come back from that. They will always have that hanging over their heads, even if they somehow reach an understanding. And I know someone is going to try and make the argument about that being a parallel to Johnny and Daniel in KK1, but if it is that it’s a terrible parallel. What Johnny did was supremely fucked up and I won’t deny that, especially with the Halloween scene and Daniel’s knee in the tournament(which actually was technically more Bobby’s doing, but I digress), but it was never “almost permanently disable/kill someone” bad. (Again there’s a whole can of worms to open about the shit with Chozen and Daniel’s seemingly pretty easy forgiveness of a man who tried to kill him because what the fuck?? But again that’s another rant.) But the writers wanted to push the envelope so now Johnny will always have the tug of war of choosing Robby, who he loves but who also really fucked up, and Miguel, who was the original reason for the rivalry in the first place but who was also the one who, again, almost died because of his son, even if he somehow fixes his relationship with both. It will always be “why did you pick him over me?” and Johnny will never have a good enough answer for either of them. And finally the big complaint- Johnny completely regressing in season 3. Season 3 honestly felt like a rehashing of season 1 because we literally had to see him progress in his arc all over again from square fucking one. He still isn’t there for Robby, he’s still fucking up things with Miguel and his family, he’s still fucking up his relationship with Daniel, he still chooses to miss his appointment with Robby to see Miguel(who would have been there after the appointment and he could have seen him then), he abandons half of his fucking students to fend for themselves and leaves the other half with a man he knows is a dangerous psychopath. And yes we get the cool scene at the end of December 19, but is it worth it?? I’m genuinely asking because, as much as I love that scene, I really don’t believe it is.(edit: Also fuck that whole subplot with Eli and Demetri- you don’t get to just break the arm of the boy who was your best friend and just have that go away with no repercussions. Fuck. That. I hope Demetri gets at minimum an actual on screen apology, and hopefully Eli actually trying to make amends.)

We could have still had the big team up- have Johnny admit to Daniel that he’s fucked up and tell him everything that’s happening with Kreese. Have them join forces to defeat Kreese in the tournament. Have the dumb fucking bet. Introduce Terry Silver in season 4. Have Johnny’s and Daniel’s tenuous truce strained at every turn because they’re idiots. Do all of it. But y’know what? We could have had all of that- all of it- without it being at the expense of at least 2 character arcs; Johnny’s and also Robby’s.

Also before I end this I just have to add- nothing and I mean nothing will ever redeem Kreese or Silver for me. I do not give a singular shit about either of their tragic backstories, I just don’t. I get why and how Chozen got his redemption- he was a teenager when that shit happened, and while the shit he pulled is personally unforgivable in my opinion, he has actively been trying to redeem himself by spending the last however many decades making it up to his community. I’d even understand a Barnes redemption to an extent, even though I wouldn’t accept it, because he was also very young and being manipulated by, again, a dangerous psychopath. But Kreese and Silver? Abso-fucking-lutely not. They were two grown ass adults who purposefully targeted an 18 year old and put him through emotional and physical for weeks, paid someone to intimidate him through both threats of physical violence but also through vandalism, and gaslighted him and isolated him from the only family he had at the time because he beat them in a children’s karate competition. Look, I’m not sorry, I don’t give a fuck about Kreese’s tragic backstory, nothing about what Kreese has done can be rationalized by just saying “oh his mom and girlfriend died and he was in ‘Nam”. And any good thing he does for Tory, or even Robby, does not balance out all the harm he has caused. Silver is even less redeemable- I don’t care that he almost died in war, I’m an army brat I know plenty of people who almost died and don’t act like this. In canon we have evidence of him being completely, unrepentantly evil- the first scene with him in it has him basically confirmed as the BP of nuclear waste, he pays people so he can beat them up, he’s been personally funding Kreese’s child indoctrination classes. They could pull out the saddest backstory for him possible and I would not give a shit. And that’s fine. We don’t need every bad guy to have a tragic backstory- sometimes an evil villain can just be an evil villain for no reason, not all of them need a traumatic turning point that the authors shove in to make the audience sympathize with them. So please, writers, stop trying to make me feel sorry for them because I really don’t and I don’t understand anyone who does.

Okay rant over.

#cobra kai #karate kid #spoilers #johnny lawrence #daniel larusso #robby keene #miguel diaz #sam larusso #tory nichols #aisha robinson #eli moskowitz #john kreese #terry silver #demetri #chozen toguchi #mike barnes

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sunsetcurve · 4 years

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I would like to hear the why you hate dr essay, if you don’t mind

buckle up everyone. i’ve been enabled and now you’re never going to get me to shut up.

warning: this is about to get super long, because i have a lot of thoughts about this, and this might be my only opportunity to just...go off. so here’s my whole ass thesis on why i hate dr. colosso. keep in mind that this is the product of several rewatches and a lot of character analysis on my part, because i tend to do that frequently. also, i’d like to start this off with a quick disclaimer: i do think colosso’s role in the show is very important; if you asked me if i’d get rid of him completely i’d say no, but there are definitely things i would’ve done differently with his portrayal, and we’ll get into that later.

when i watched the show for the first time i really didn’t like colosso, but i kind of chalked that up to the fact that he was annoying and left it there. there’s always been something about him that rubs me the wrong way, though. i’ve been doing a rewatch recently (as you’ve probably gathered from my posts) and that combined with talking to @ciara-knightly about it for a while helped me understand why i find his presence to be genuinely problematic.

i’m gonna start with the most obvious thing: he’s a bad influence on max. they of course directly address this in the show, but what i feel like is important to understand here is that colosso’s influence isn’t like “oh he’s max’s troublemaker friends who eggs him on to do bad stuff sometimes haha”. colosso, despite being a bunny, is still actually a supervillain max’s father’s age, and he uses that to manipulate max a lot. talking about it with shona made me realize that especially early on, max really didn’t have anyone else in his life who was willing to listen to his ideas or encourage his skills, specifically inventing gadgets. in canon his parents almost never praise his work, even when he’s not using it for evil (see: phoebe’s a clone now), but colosso is shown to be someone who both helps him with his experiments and keeps him going at them. i’m dipping into character analysis instead of straight up canon here, but it’s pretty clear to understand the impact this would’ve had on max—he’s a kid who wants approval and colosso gives it to him, and in turn max listens to colosso’s ideas and often does what he tells him. i’m not saying that max is completely at colosso’s will, of course—max is very self-driven and that wouldn’t be giving him enough credit, but at the same time, we know very little about the actual process of max’s decision to be a villain, and i really don’t doubt that colosso had a lot to do with it. in the show we see colosso frequently urging max to leave his family behind, and there’s an arc where we literally see max starting to become a better person because of his friends and colosso telling him to ditch them (see: exit stage theft). we also see colosso preying on max’s insecurities, specifically his comparison of himself to phoebe, in order to further his descent into villainy.

the reason i prefaced this by saying colosso’s role in the show is important is because i genuinely think max’s villain arc would’ve been closed much sooner without colosso’s influence. colosso was a huge factor in not only exposing max to the world of supervillains but also in deepening the rift between him and his parents. so everything i said above does actually make sense, writing-wise, within the context of the show—colosso is a supervillain, he’s supposed to be manipulating max, and he is the main factor driving the progression of max’s villain arc.

but now i’m going to get into why i think that from a writer’s standpoint, his role in the show is problematic, especially post-season three.

a lot of it has to do with the fact that none of what i said above is ever really addressed in canon. there are throwaway lines about how colosso was a bad influence on max but there was no recognition of the fact that without colosso, max likely wouldn’t have strayed as far into villainy as he did. more importantly, though, the main issue i had with the writing of max’s arc was that there was no discussion about why he felt so strongly about colosso, and what colosso’s presence said about his relationship with his parents.

like i said before, max needed someone in his life who was willing to give him the approval and validation that he was looking for. in the show his redemption arc comes down to his relationship with his family, but at no point in the show did he actually want to harm his family, so i think there’s a bigger picture here—i honestly think that a big part of it was that at that point in his life, max had sort of grown past the need to be told his worth; he clearly still had his insecurities, but having friends, a girlfriend, and a life outside of his family (where he felt unseen) gave him a more concrete role. the point here that i’m trying to make is that max’s arc essentially came down to his own perception of his self-worth. the reason colosso was able to influence him so strongly was because as i said before, he was the one who gave max the validation he wanted. and this is why i felt like max’s arc was really one-sided—his parents’ lack of attention towards him and pretty blatant favoritism towards phoebe was clearly a huge factor in max’s arc that was never brought up again. the reason that i say i would’ve changed colosso’s role after max’s redemption is because until that point, colosso had been sort of a stand-in for max’s parents in his life, but one who took advantage of him. i wish the show had gone towards a more well-rounded reconciliation between max and his parents, and an acknowledgement of their mistakes and the fact that max was able to be so strongly influenced by colosso because he didn’t feel like he had anyone else. instead, they pretty much glossed over and trivialized max’s reasons for wanting to be a villain in the first place, and the dynamics within the family didn’t actually change—his parents still showed pretty clear favoritism towards phoebe (see: thundermans: banished!) and max still went to colosso for approval and advice. i think the only really central thing that changed was max’s relationship with phoebe, and that was incredibly important for max’s development and i liked the way it played out, but i still would’ve had more conversation between max and his parents about how things went down.

(also, i think hank and barb’s decision to let their supervillain-turned-bunny bunk with their teenage—possibly preteen at the time—son is a little bit sketchy. that’s all i’m saying.)

and now comes the counterpoint that max and colosso are best friends. which—that statement in and of itself has always rubbed me the wrong way. i’m not here to argue whether or not colosso loves max; he very clearly does (see: a hero is born, the thunder games), but it’s a selfish and possessive sort of caring. colosso doesn’t actually care about what’s best for max, or whether or not he’s happy. he hated allison, he didn’t want max to reconcile with his family, he tried to separate max from his friends. he essentially just wants max for himself, and that sort of dynamic is incredibly toxic no matter how close they are. there’s also something to be said about the age difference between them: max is a teenager and colosso is at least his father’s age, and this is not me trying to dismiss the relationship that kids can have with important adults in their life—i, personally, have had really strong relationships with teachers and mentors to the point where i consider them good friends—but the issue is that with those sort of relationships there is always a sense of the older person being like a mentor and influencing the younger one, and while that can often be a really good thing it can also, like in colosso’s case, be a bad thing.

and going off of the age difference, let’s get into the final and most prominent reason that i hate colosso. the show pretty frequently makes jokes that mirror romantic partnerships when it comes to max and colosso. i can cite so many instances when colosso calls max pet names or the situation is modeled after a marriage or colosso makes sort of flirty advancements towards max, but it’s fine because it’s all for humor, right? and colosso’s a bunny, right? except he’s actually a fifty-something year old man, and max is a teenager. and while those jokes have always made me superbly uncomfortable, my general rule of thumb during my rewatch has been “if colosso was human right now, how creepy would this be?” and the answer is almost always very. very very creepy. i don’t think i need to go into too much analysis on why i hate this so much but colosso’s “flirting” with max is just genuinely disgusting and is the main reason i can’t stand him as a character.

this is veering into 1.6k territory so i’m going to try and wrap it up here. the tl;dr for this is that while i think colosso played a pretty pivotal role in the show, i wish in the end part of max’s arc would’ve been about breaking away from him instead of remaining in a very toxic dynamic with a supervillain his father’s age. i think colosso could’ve eventually been redeemed if it came down to it, but overall i wish there had been more acknowledgement of exactly how colosso affected max before they became “friends” again, and especially hank and barb’s failures when it came to max feeling unheard. if you actually read this all the way through i’m applauding you, and thank you for asking to see this essay because i love doing character/writing analysis stuff like this. until next time!

#max thunderman #the thundermans #dr colosso #nickelodeon #meta #no one cares umana #hank thunderman #barb thunderman

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joonclouds · 4 years

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The Price Of A Wish | 2

The third time you meet Jung Hoseok, you realise the last ten years has done nothing to the way you were drawn to him, with a force as sure and inescapable as gravity.

CHAPTER INDEX

Hoseok x Reader

Genre: Idol!Hoseok, Chaebol!Reader, OT7 bangtan show up too, Slow Burn, Unrequited feelings, Friends to Lovers, Pining, Fluff, (we might include some other things later let’s see)

_________________

You’re into the last leg of this evening. Between having to skip dinner, make small talk with businessmen who make it their life’s work to mansplain the workings of this country’s economy to you, and Jung Hoseok upending your world on it’s ass, you’ve almost made it through the night.

With an arm resting in the crook of Taehyung’s elbow, the two of you take a slow walk around the less occupied parts of the gallery before you have to be at the main foyer to see off the guests. It’s not hidden from everyone’s eyes, but it’s a little ways from the crowd and you’re glad for the small breather. The two of you stop in front of one of your favourite pieces in the new collection - a massive triptych that takes up almost the whole wall at the far end of the exhibition hall.

“So, Jung Hoseok, huh.”

Taehyung is speaking softer now and he tilts his head closer to your ear, like he’s telling you a secret. Even while you’re wearing heels, he’s taller than you by half a head.

“It’s nothing.”

“You left me hanging“ - he emphasises the me by pressing an offended hand to his chest - “to greet him. That’s not nothing.”

“Well, he’s an important guest.”

You think back to the fleeting hello, which really was more for the attending press than the two of you. It was like something out of a bad romance anime, complete with the slow motion and sparkly shit, just shy of having a few rose petals fly across the screen. You weren’t seventeen, you were twenty eight, for crying out loud. You could be a mature adult about this.

While your idiot of a heart had gone and betrayed you, as soon as the fluttery feeling had subsided, a tinge of bitterness and anger were quick to make themselves known. Very slight, but there, nonetheless. It made the single moment seem stupid and unwarranted, and that was exactly how you felt about Jung Hoseok.

You play it off coolly, but as you know by now, no matters of the heart (well, your heart, specifically) got past Kim Taehyung.

“Always knew you had high standards.”

“He’s not on the standard.”

“So… is it a celebrity fan crush or is it like…” Taehyung gives your arm that’s hooked in his elbow an enthusiastic shake. Whatever that meant. “Because in my entire nine years of knowing you, you’ve not mentioned his name even once.”

“It just didn’t come up, I guess. ”

“Oh, it didn’t come up.”

“He’s just a friend, okay?”

“Oh, so now he’s just a friend.”

“Did you like, lose your brain halfway through the small talk?”

He groans. “I had to talk to duck face selfie girl at one point so maybe a good chunk of it just slid right out of my ears.”

Despite yourself, you’re amused, but you tuck the smile away behind your teeth.

“Come on, ____. Your definition of making friends is holding people at arms length until they’ve all but signed a blood oath and sworn their firstborn to you in fealty.”

“Ugh. Go back and talk to selfie girl.” You shrug your arm out of Taehyung’s elbow, but he’s quick to tuck it back in place affectionately, and you let him.

“So friends… with benefits?” He presses after a moment, nudging your shoulder with his.

“Academic benefits,” you scowl. “I helped him pass math class.”

Your friend turns to you with a look on his face.

“Oh no.” You groan.

“Oh yes.” Taehyung beams at you with a smile that is way too cheeky to mean anything good. “A crush, but not just any crush, ____, a highschool crush.”

“We were close in highschool. Then he left to be a trainee when he graduated and we lost touch. That’s it, okay? Now can we please drop it?”

“If you think I’m going to be satisfied without the juicy det- ow, fuck! Stop!“

You pinch Taehyung’s arm and he yelps. To anyone not privy to this conversation, you and he are director and curator, finding time during the bustling evening to appraise the opening collection. It looks like he’s made an amusing comment when you nudge him and he laughs amicably.

You elbow him in the ribs to make a point. Hard.

“I’m running on 3 hours sleep, I can’t breathe in this dress, and these heels make me want to strangle something. So help me god I will not hesitate to throw them, and you, off the top floor balcony to christen this new gallery.”

It’s not really a surprise, but the threat does nothing to deter Taehyung. He’s a dog with a bone and not about to let it go anytime soon.

“I haven’t seen you that starry eyed since you watched Bocelli live.”

“That’s different,” you gripe. “Would you be starry eyed if you met god?”

“My point exactly.”

“Ugh.” You throw your hands up in frustration. “So I was seventeen, I had a crush, he moved away after graduation, now we’re here, nothing is going to hap- “

“Shut up.” Taehyung hisses.

“Wow, you know, that’s pretty rich for someone who - “

“Do you want to look like an idiot? Shut up, ____. Shut up right now.”

“What?” You demand, turning to him, confused and annoyed (more so the latter because he’d been the one trying to pull this story out of you). He’s smiling at something over your shoulder, so smug you just know it in your bones it can’t be anything good. You know that look and it makes the blood drain from your face when you guess the worst possible reason for it.

Your voice is a whisper. “He’s coming over, isn’t he.”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.”

Turning around, Hoseok is right there and you pray to any benevolent god for enough functioning braincells to hold a conversation. Actually, just even one braincell would be fine, because that’s more than you had going for you right now.

“Hey, Hoseok.” You breathe.

“Hey, ____.”

Hoseok offers his hand to Taehyung and smiles. “Jung Hoseok.”

“Pleasure. Kim Taehyung.”

As Taehyung accepts the handshake, he can see why you were so mesmerised. He can imagine Hoseok to be quite the looker, even when he was younger and hadn’t necessarily grown into all his features yet. The guy exuded an easy charm about him that many had fallen victim to. Many, including you (still falling, Taehyung was sure of this).

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“No, perfect timing, actually.” Taehyung replies easily. “I was just telling ____ that I should head back out to see if everything’s running smoothly.”

One of his hands comes to the middle of your back and gives it a firm nudge. Just enough for you to be slightly off balance, making you take a tiny step in Hoseok’s direction.

Horrified, you open your mouth to say something, but again, Taehyung beats you to it.

“It was great to meet you, Hoseok. You two catch up alright, bye!”

And with that, he’s turning on his heel with a tiny wave and scuttling away. When this evening was over, you were going to find that guy and burn his entire silk pyjama collection, designer or not. Even better, if they were designer.

“Just thought I’d come say hi. Properly, this time.”

Hoseok’s voice is lower now, and there’s a relaxed way about how he’s got one hand in his pocket that definitely wasn’t there before. He’d grown out of his teenage chub into elegant cheekbones, a high nosebridge, and a sharp jawline. It’s with a little twinge that you note how painfully handsome he is now - a reminder that this isn’t your Hoseok - he’s older, different.

“I hope you enjoyed the evening?” It feels formal - too formal, but you don’t know how to talk to this version of him yet, so you take the safe small talk route. He gives the room an approving once over, raising his glass to it and takes a sip.

“I did. The space looks wonderful, and it’s a really commendable initiative. I think a lot of artists will benefit from it. I’m proud of you, ____. I’m glad I came.”

“I’m glad you found the time.”

You really hadn’t intended for your tone to be quite so sharp, but the bitterness leaks, no matter your efforts to patch up the cracks.

“I guess I deserved that.” He sighs. “Look. I just wanted to say I - I’m sorry.“

“Yes, I agr- wait. What?” The apology is unexpected, and makes you draw a blank mid- small talk script.“Wait. What for?”

Hoseok hooks a finger under his neck scarf, pulls at it a little to loosen it.

“Like. For.” He gestures vaguely in the air. “The last time we spoke.. Or didn’t.”

Oh.

The bitterness rises very close to the surface now, you can almost taste it at the back of your throat, bubbling and indignant. With lips tightly pressed together, you swallow it back down.

“It’s okay. I didn’t need you to apologise for anything.” Your voice is surprisingly level.

“Well. “Hoseok looks a little lost, like he wasn’t the only one being caught off guard this evening. “I needed to say it anyway.”

“For who? For me, or you?” You’re still pretending like you’re having this conversation with the art piece on the wall instead of him.

“Well. It’s alright. Thank you for your apology,” you continue when he doesn’t reply, calm but curt. “I’ve heard it, and I hope that resolved any residual misunderstandings.”

Hoseok huffs a chuckle but it’s more like a sharp exhale. “You haven’t changed one bit, have you?”

This pricks your temper. If he wanted your attention, he certainly has it now.

“No,” you deadpan. “Not really.”

“Why do you -“ he pauses, gestures to you frustratedly, head to toe, “ - always cut people off when they try and reach out to you, run away when - “

“If we’re really going to be digging up the past, Hoseok, it’s more like you ran away from me.”

He runs a hand through his hair, disturbing the way it was styled.

“ ___, If you could just hear me out, I - “

The bitterness - it rises, bubbles, boils over.

“I’ve heard you out, Hoseok, listened to your apology.”

“Look, I just want us to start over again - “

“Start over?” You let out a snort, not caring that it’s terribly unprofessional and cameras might be watching. “Newsflash, your insufferable persistence is ten years too late.”

Your annoyed outburst hangs in the air as you finally turn to face him properly.

His apology angers and softens you in equal measure. You can’t figure out what his deal is - why he’d never bothered to cross paths with or even reach out to you all these years, though you both ran in overlapping circles of art and entertainment. Until today.

You allow yourself one tiny moment of honesty, dropping all the bells and whistles that came with the persona you had created for tonight.

“Why didn’t you call me back, Hoseok?”

You’ve said it so quietly that he barely catches it.

When Hyunmin, his manager, had insisted he come to this event because his next project, it was a bit of a reluctant agreement on Hoseok’s part when he found out you were the main hostess. Since leaving town, he’d packed up all its memories, shoved them into a metaphorical basement, locked them up with a key and tossed that key to the bottom of a river called Not Dealing With Things. That included you. The whirlwind of the past ten years had done a good job of making sure that basement stayed locked.

So in his confidence he’d been prepared to show up, greet you, apologise, get over some initial awkwardness, make small talk - he’s handled worse. But he wasn’t prepared for you to be even more beautiful than he remembered. Doe eyed and glowing, lips curved into a charming smile, and dressed in a long silver gown that made it look like you were walking in a puddle of moonlight.

Maybe, even that he could handle, if all you offered him was that warm facade that you showed to everyone. But he certainly was not prepared for you looking at him with eyes as soft as the first time he met you.

He opens his mouth to explain himself, but then shuts it again, like he can’t find the right words or bring himself to spin up an excuse. You see his hesitation and suddenly your eyes are cold again and the shutters are up - he’s back to square one.

“Nevermind. Don’t tell me. I don’t care. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

Before he knows it, you’re spinning away in your moonlight dress, leaving him there alone.

He lets out a deep sigh and rubs a hand over his face. Stalks a straight line to the valet, taps his shoe impatiently as the driver gets his car, slides in without tipping anyone, and floors the pedal, heading for the highway.

He needs to get away.

__________________

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#joonclouds #POAW #hoseok #jung hoseok #hoseok fic #bts fic #hobi #hoseok fanfic #bts x reader

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land-under-wave · 4 years

Text

As promised, here’s the complete draft of the weird Scott Pilgrim Red/Green fic in its current state. For information about what’s going on with this fic, please see this post. If you’d only like to read completed sections, please start here and keep following the links.

This is very much a rough draft. Aside from simply incomplete sections, there were a lot of things that needed to be revised, such as: awkward tone shift, two sections being too similar to others, a lot of transitions I didn’t like, a really just inadequate Misty section, bad wording choices, etc. I would estimate it was about 85% done.

Content warnings: some amount of creepy old man behavior which I did my best to mitigate but was somewhat unavoidable given the premise. For section-specific warnings, in the first part, Green gets close to panic attack territory, and the ending contains physical slapstick comedy and a few references to Officer Jenny I was trying to edit out. A more detailed warning (which touches on ending spoilers and explains how I tried to handle the creepy behavior) can be found here, and the full spoilers with all the details can be found in this post (also linked above).

A year after Red finally comes down from Mt. Silver, Green gets his head out of his ass long enough to ask Red out on a date.

Surprisingly, Red agrees. Even more surprisingly, the first date is actually a resounding success. Sure, Green panics for half an hour about what to wear, and it gets off to an incredibly awkward start — Red’s mother is hovering anxiously in a corner because he insisted that it be at his mother’s diner, the douchebag, so they spend twenty minutes in stilted conversation while Green makes attempts at small talk and Red gives monosyllabic answers — has he mentioned that Red is a total douchebag? But then Green loses his temper and starts shouting, which gets Red fired up at last, so they start bickering over training regimens, Green’s childhood dickishness, and that time Red vanished up a mountain for four years, and by the end of the meal, they’ve hashed out most of their issues.

On impulse, he grabs Red’s hand on the way out, and Red lets him. His fingers curl around Green’s in response, and it sends a jolt of electricity right up to his spine.

This is . . . good. It’s new and unfamiliar and a little terrifying, and sometimes Green just wants to bury his head into a pillow and scream angrily to deal with the confused tornado raging in his chest, because what the hell are emotions, but it’s good.

A month after they make it official, Green brings Red to a gym leader meeting. Red gets a couple of surprised looks when he walks in, but it fades quickly, and Misty waves him over to the usual corner where she, Brock, and Green sit. If anyone asks, Green is prepared to point out that Red’s still technically champion, but no one does. Everyone must like him enough that it doesn’t matter.

They wait till after the meeting, when everyone’s milling about and talking to each other, in order to announce that they’re dating. That’s when all hell breaks loose.

“What? Green?” Misty shrieks, while Sabrina looks at him with silently judging disapproval.

“Oh my,” Erika says delicately, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth.

“Red, no!” Brock wails.

Green is pretty sure he should be offended. These are his colleagues, after all. He’s been working with them for half a decade — when’s the last time Red even talked to any of these people? Why are they all on his side?

Surge snorts, arms folded. Just when Green thinks he might restore some sanity to the proceedings, he declares, “Think again, boy. You’re not tough enough to make the cut.”

Green bristles immediately. He and Surge have always had a slightly contentious relationship, because Surge is all hard-nosed discipline and Green is — well, he can admit that he’s a cocky bastard. “And why do I need your approval to date Red anyways?” he sneers, with the full disdainful force of all his teenage attitude. The contempt is not hard to muster up. Nobody here is related to them, and even if they were, he and Red are both adults who can make their own decisions.

As expected, Surge stiffens at the implicit taunt in his voice, but just as the tension is about to boil over into an argument, Erika steps in with a raised hand and a warning glare to silence him. “Surge,” she says, and that one word is all she needs to restore order.

Before Green can feel grateful for their calm, sensible supervisor, she turns to him and resumes the thread of conversation. “We have a league,” Erika informs him, serene. “You may not date Red until you defeat all of us.”

Green’s jaw drops open. “Are you serious,” he says, and looks to Red, who just shrugs.

Great. Big load of help he is.

“I’m afraid not, my boy. And I’m afraid you’re no match for me,” Blaine says, before laughing at his own stupid pun.

“Why the hell are you so concerned about Red’s love life anyways? What are you, his possessive loser exes?” Green demands.

He’s expecting a response like, “Don’t be ridiculous,” but instead, to his horror, Erika merely smiles. “What do you think?” she says.

Silence.

Green stares at his colleagues, the seven elite trainers who have been charged with safeguarding all of Kanto, and wonders if he’s losing his mind. Has his hearing gone? He doesn’t think he’s that old, but maybe it’s hereditary. God knows how many times Gramps has misheard his name.

He knows Misty had a crush on Red at one point, but all of them? How the hell did that happen? Red’s never exactly been Kid Casanova here — some days, Green can barely believe Red seduced him — and when did he even have the time for that? He’s spent most of the years since he’s met them alone on a mountain! And hold on a second, Blaine is at least four decades older than him! For that matter, how old is Surge?

Green is about to have an aneurysm.

He holds his head in both hands as he struggles to wrap his mind around the concept. “Okay. So you’re saying all of you have dated Red, and now I need to defeat you to date him,” he says slowly, hoping that saying it out loud will make things sound more reasonable. It doesn’t. It just makes his head hurt even more.

What’s worse, Erika doesn’t correct anything he said. She just smiles and nods. “That’s right,” she says, and as if that’s a cue, the others fall in line behind her in a perfect V formation, sliding into battle-ready stances with smiles just shading into predatory. All traces of friendliness have evaporated, turning them into consummate professionals. Even Brock has dropped the doofy attitude for something serious. Surge’s grin is a little too maniacal for comfort, exposing both gums and teeth, and combined with the glint in his eyes, it’s downright feral.

Green takes a step back, almost involuntarily, and sees Surge’s smile widen in response. Out of spite, Green squares his shoulders and moves back in place, pretending he’s not as uneasy as he actually feels. He scans the seven faces before him, hoping to see a sign of their normal collegial acceptance, but their faces are as solid as stone.

He can’t say he really expected anything else from them. This pose is familiar and well-rehearsed, and they’re all beyond the point where they let the mask slip during official business. Still, Green was hoping that there would be some sign that things would be different for him. After all, this isn’t official business, and in any other situation, Green would be there too, flashing one of his trademark smirks while staring down whatever poor schmuck who Erika decided had earned their ire. But this time, it’s not some hapless criminal or an interfering bureaucrat. He’s the schmuck, and for once in his life, he’s feeling the part.

Green knows he shouldn’t feel this rattled by a battle stance. As a fellow gym leader, it’s easy to notice all the work that went into constructing it, and the flash of eyes and tilt of head that Erika used as a signal is all too familiar. But it gnaws at his stomach anyways, and it’s not even because all his colleagues have turned against him at the drop of a hat. It’s the space. Or the lack of it. Because the spot where he would be standing has already been taken up. Misty and Brock closed the gap without so much as an exchanged look, and in doing so, they’ve erased his years as Viridian Gym Leader like it was nothing.

He didn’t think it would be so easy to replace him.

Green looks at the inch-wide gap between them and swallows, hoping he can swallow down the uncomfortable lump at the bottom of his chest along with it. He’s always tried to ignore it, but sometimes, he gets this sneaking suspicion that they haven’t fully accepted him as one of their own. They’re civil, of course, and sometimes even kind. But kind is different from warm, and that’s what he thinks they lack.

He can’t nail down exactly what it is that separates him from the rest — in terms of join date, Janine’s less than a year his senior, and he doesn’t think any of them except Surge would hold his old, immature attitude against him, since he was mostly grown out of his bratty stage by the time he took over Viridian. But none of that has banished the [sinking feeling] that he’s on the outside, just a little.

So he’s kept his head down like an animal exposing its belly, and every time the doubt rears its ugly head, he redoubles his efforts to earn his way in. He had a hard road from the start, with the stain of Giovanni’s legacy seeped into his gym’s very foundations, but over the years, he’s earned fantastic evaluations, the loyalty of a cohort of talented trainers, and an official commendation here and there. He’s even got a sickeningly gushy page in the Viridian guidebook that made Red laugh at him for twenty minutes straight after one of his challengers showed it to him. When you’re on a mountain with bad reception, those twenty minutes count for a lot.

Green carries all his accomplishments with him, close to his chest, but they don’t do much to dispel the doubts that hang like ghosts in the back of his head. And he thinks that if he stays quiet and still for too long, they might eat him away until he’s nothing.

He sucks in a breath, but his lungs don’t feel like they’re absorbing air. He presses his hands against his thighs, but that doesn’t do anything to ease the trembling. He tries to count in his head. One. Two.

“Wow,” says Red’s voice from behind him. “I didn’t know that all it took to defeat the great Green Oak was dramatic posing.”

The sound of that innocent tone sends Green whirling around on instinct. “Oh, shut up, like you can talk!” he shouts, and it comes out as easy as breathing, so easy that he doesn’t notice how much lighter he feels at first. “All it took to defeat you was realizing Mt. Silver would never return your love!”

“The mountain and I have something special. You’ll never understand, Green,” Red says, very seriously. If it were anyone but Green, they might’ve believed he meant it, but you don’t grow up with someone and not know when they’re just yanking your chain.

“You know, the only thing I got out of being your childhood friend is the ability to tell when you’re being a dick,” Green tells him sourly.

“Love you too,” Red croons, and okay, he’s definitely doing that on purpose. But if he’s doing it to be a distraction, it’s working.

He brushes his hand against Red’s. “Thanks,” he says, low enough so that only Red can hear it. Red curls his fingers around the palm of his hand and looks him in the eye, unspoken question burning in his gaze.

In response, Green draws a breath, takes one final glance at his erstwhile colleagues, and nods.

He can do this.

What he might not be able to do, Green reflects as he starts his first match, is endure any more of Brock’s stupid rock references.

“My Pokemon and I are all rock-hard,” Brock declares proudly. He’s always been cheesy and goofy — probably because of all those younger siblings — but his horrible battle introductions have always taken the cake. And does he realize that by doing this, he’s also teaching his siblings about innuendo? Maybe that’s why they giggle at him all the time.

In all honesty, once you get past all the quirks, Brock is kind of an admirable person. You don’t raise nine kids without earning some respect from Green Oak, and he knows all too well about growing up with absent father figures. But unlike Green, Brock didn’t let that hurt define him growing up. Instead, Brock took on that responsibility without reserve and without complaint, and he grew with it to become a good man. A lot of kind, loving people would’ve broken with it. In comparison, really awful puns and a tendency to hit on every girl in the room aren’t that bad. At least he’s sincere about it instead of just being a sleaze.

But Brock makes it really goddamn hard to get past those quirks. And when he starts urging Onix to use Harden, that only proves his point.

Things go downhill from there.

With the proximity of their gyms, it’s convenient for Green and Brock to have practice matches together, and he uses the knowledge he’s gleaned from those to plow him down in their fastest match yet, one eye twitching the entire time. There’s no way Brock could be making that many hardness references by accident. “I took you for granted, and so I lost,” Brock says glumly. Then he looks in Red’s direction and cries, “Red, my love, I have failed you!” throwing an arm across his face theatrically. Geez, get a grip. Or a life. Or both.

But instead of treating him with the contempt Brock deserves for this patheticness, his traitor boyfriend pats him on the back sympathetically. Ugh, why is he even dating this jerk?

At any rate, at least this catastrophe is over. “Loser,” Green scoffs, and heads out to schedule his next match. He catches Red giving Brock a shrug before following after him.

He never thought he’d say this, but thank god Misty is the Water type Gym Leader. After rocks, they have the most potential for innuendo, but Misty has too much angry dignity to be caught dead like that. If someone tried, steam would come out of her ears and she’d probably yell something about disrespecting the beauty of water types. This shouldn’t be an issue again until Blaine.

Misty might not be a fan of innuendo, but she makes up for it with determination and skill. There’s something different about her this time, a strength in her stance that didn’t used to be there, and it centers Misty too much for him to rattle her.

The first time they fought, she was fourteen years old to Green’s thirteen, a skinny kid who bristled with her inferiority complex and hated anything to do with flowers. Provoking her was a piece of cake, and any suggestion of her inadequacy could send her into a spiral of rage or just as easily send her collapsing in tears.

In hindsight, it is funny how Misty rejected her famous family while Green embraced his too much, opposite ends of the same spectrum. Green dealt with his issues with his cockiness, Misty with her anger.

This Misty is fully in control. She holds the reins to her anger and reels it in, harnessing it as fuel instead of distraction. She’s ruling her emotions instead of letting them rule her, and in doing so, she’s taken on a bright, focused zeal he’s never seen from her before.

She’s growing into herself, he thinks, and out of her sisters’ shadows.

He’d be proud of her if she wasn’t giving him such a hard time right now.

“You definitely weren’t this hard to beat the first time around!” Green growls, sending out his Scizor.

“Oh, that was just business,” Misty says, rather cheerfully, enough so that Green wants to wring her neck. Her smile widens to just this side of menacing. “This is personal.”

Green gets out of it with his dignity intact, but it’s a close one. Not for the first time, he rues having taken over an Earth-based gym, because it means he has to keep at least a respectable amount of Ground types in his regular training rota and he’s a far less flexible trainer now.

“About time you showed up,” Surge says, arms folded, boots planted shoulder width apart. Green looks at the severe military cut and the stern expression and wonders what Red ever saw in him. It can’t be a thing for older men, everyone but Surge and Blaine are within a few years of Red. It can’t even be a thing for men. The league is half women, after all.

“Why did you date him anyways?” he hisses to his boyfriend, low enough that Surge won’t hear.

Red shrugs. “We both like Pikachu,” he said.

The utter loser.

“I can’t believe you,” Green mutters in disgust. “And people think I’m shallow.”

“It was only once or twice,” Red says, in what sounds suspiciously like a consoling tone. He pats Green on the shoulder a few times.

He stares at him in confusion until the dots connect. “What the — I’m not jealous!” Green cries indignantly. He’s just perplexed, and that’s a very different thing. Green Oak is above such petty things as jealousy.

Red just pats him on the shoulder some more.

Green Oak also does not need such things as consoling, so before his boyfriend can be even more of a passive aggressive dick, he turns to Surge. “Let’s just get this over with.” And maybe it’s sheer frustration or his natural tendency to be a brat to Surge, or maybe it’s just type advantage finally being on his side for once, but for some reason, this time the victory comes easier than all the previous.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Green?” Erika asks. She cocks her head to the side, and for the first time since he accepted this stupid challenge, Green feels a sense of trepidation. Erika is, after all, kind of his boss, and she’s also one of the most terrifying people he’s ever met.

You wouldn’t think it to look at her. Most of the people in Kanto never get the chance to see anything more than a sweet woman who likes gardening and flower arrangements. Her colleagues, on the other hand, experience a whole different side of her, with all the talents that got her appointed as Kanto supervisor. Things like her ability to calmly reason with anyone, her backbone of steel, and a carefully hidden serial killer crazy that can outstrip Surge at his worst.

He breaks out into a cold sweat. Is he ready for this? Sure, he’s beaten her before, but the first time he battled her, he was still stupid enough to think Erika was soft and beating her would be easy, and weirdly enough, that stupidity gave him the reckless brilliance he needed to take her down instead of causing his downfall. He might’ve become a better battler in the meantime, but now he’s too cautious to use those same crazy strategies and he also knows that she was taking it easy on him — all gym leaders adjust their level to their opponent’s in official matches.

More than ever, Green is acutely aware of the differences between him and his thirteen year old self. There was a kind of fearlessness that came with being young and feeling like the world was at your fingertips. He spent pretty much his entire Pokemon journey swaggering around like being thirteen meant he was now a real adult and the world would just fall at his feet, and even losing the championship to Red didn’t quite jolt him out of it. Green’s only eighteen now, but he feels unbearably older, more off balance, uncertain of everything he needs to do. It’s funny how he couldn’t wait to get older when he first set out from Pallet Town, but now he just wants the carefree bravado of thirteen again. Why did he decide to grow up? Who told him it was a good idea?

“Backing out now, Green?” says a dry, challenging voice, and all the air goes out of his lungs. But in a good way.

He didn’t have this at thirteen.

Now that he’s back in reality, Green pulls up his disdain like a barrier against his fear. “As if,” he sneers.

“Good. After all, you still have to win me,” Red says. He bats his eyelashes, and the sight is so horrifying that it wipes all thoughts of Erika from his head immediately. “Your princess awaits inside the castle.”

“Princess? Yeah, right. You’d never be able to pull off the dress,” he shoots back automatically. He feels himself ease, the seas inside him settling down as he sinks into the rhythm of the familiar. He even lifts his chin and smirks as he says, “You know what, I think I change my mind. Let’s call the whole thing off, I need someone who’s better-looking than you.”

“Aw, but nothing’s as ugly as your personality,” Red says, and that tone would sound sweet if it weren’t coming from someone who’s halfway allergic to sincerity. But at the same time, he covers Green’s hand with his and gives him a smile like a secret. “You can do it,” he says, with an iron, quiet faith.

Green breathes out, long and slow. “You’re right, I can,” he says, turning back to Erika. He flashes her a smirk full of confidence that he’s actually starting to feel and declares, “I won’t back down.” It comes out as an oath, and he’s not sure if it’s to himself or to Red, but he knows he won’t lose.

She shrugs elegantly, but it doesn’t feel like as much of a threat this time. She’s just an ordinary woman now. “Very well,” she says, and sends out Tangela.

Throughout the battle, Red doesn’t let go of his hand.

Sabrina’s waiting at the door of her gym when Green and Red walk up to the entrance. “You’ve arrived, as I predicted,” she says.

“Uh, yeah, we scheduled the match in advance,” Green points out. Beside him, he can hear Red muffling already-quiet laughter. Why does he enjoy Green’s discomfort? Is he just a sadist?

“We did not arrange that you would arrive twenty minutes early,” Sabrina responds, and turns around to lead him inside before Green can get the last word.

Green fights the urge to make a rude gesture at her back out of sheer spite. He and Sabrina have never been that close. They have a shared interest in freaking people out for fun and games, but Sabrina does it by being sinister and cryptic, while Green prefers sheer power with a dash of douchebaggery instead of mind screws. Even though he knows he’s still a total dick, being around Sabrina makes him feel weirdly benevolent in comparison.

In that regard, she’s a little more like Red—they’re both closed-mouthed and hold their cards close to their chest until something makes them give them away. But it’s weird to think that Sabrina is anything like his boyfriend, so Green shuts off that train of thought as fast as he can. He can’t really explain why he likes Red so much more than Sabrina. It’s not just shared history, there’s something deeper there between them that he can’t quantify. Maybe it’s just that the things Red holds to his chest align with Green’s own brand of awfulness, maybe it’s just that Sabrina somehow manages to be even weirder than Red.

Whatever the case, Sabrina’s tactics might have a point. This battle feels like the worst one yet, not because of the difficulty, but because of the tense, hard air in the gym, Sabrina’s ever-present smile like another ghost skulking in the background. This battle doesn’t excite him, it just exhausts him. He just wants it to be over, and in his haste, he makes mistakes. Sloppy ones, like trying to use Tackle against Gengar even though he’s grown up knowing Normal type moves don’t work on Ghost types. It doesn’t help that the mere presence of Gengar in the Psychic gym had thrown him off to begin with.

Sabrina seems to be sensing his discomfort, because the funny little grin on her face widens with his growing unease. For the first time, he truly sees what a formidable opponent she is, wielding both psychic powers and psychology against her challengers to damage them physically and mentally. It was another thing that his complete and utter self-confidence had made him immune to the first time.

Idly, he wonders if that was the point of this, one big scheme to make him appreciate his colleagues more as trainers. If so, it worked. But was he really that bad before? Maybe he’d ask Erika once this awful quest was over.

If that is the case, though, ironically, it’s also her undoing, because as the match goes on, Green also starts to see the woman he knows inside the mysterious figure at the other end of the gym, and focusing on that familiarity helps combat the unease. In the end, Green can’t really say that it’s his skill that wins the day. It feels more like luck, just a game of who can outlast the other and he happened to draw the winning card. But when Alakazam falls, it seems to break the spell over the room. The lingering tension dissipates, just as ghostly as the atmosphere that had created it, and the world comes back into focus.

Sabrina looks at her fallen Pokemon and, bizarrely, smiles as she recalls it back into its Pokeball. “Your love for Red overwhelmed my psychic power . . . The power of love, I think, is also a kind of psychic power . . .” Sabrina intones.

“Okay?” Green says. Even ignoring the psychic powers, Sabrina has always been a weirdo.

Sabrina says something else, but he’s not really paying attention. Instead, he grabs his boyfriend’s wrist. “Red, let’s get out of here,” he says. He’s ready to blow this joint, and if he has to be in this creepy gym much longer, he’s going to make that literal.

Out of all the other Gym Leaders, Green thinks Janine might be his polar opposite. Sure, they’re around the same age and their names kind of rhyme, but Green is brash and confident and walks like he owns the place, while Janine . . . well, Janine is naive and enthusiastic to the point where she’s pretty much tripping over her own feet. She seems too young for her authority, while Green wields his so easily that people are startled when they find out his actual age.

It’s weird to think that Red could date two such different people. Heck, it’s weird to think that he could get two such different people to date him. Maybe he realized he didn’t like that type and that’s why he’s dating Green now, he muses.

That still doesn’t explain why both Janine and Green agreed to date him. Insanity? That must be it, because it also explains why he’s fighting all of his colleagues over his dick of a childhood friend.

But the biggest difference between them, Green thinks, is that Janine has never gotten over her yearning for her absent father. She still desperately wants to make Koga proud. Even now, he sees in the way she forms her stance that she’s trying to follow his teachings.

Still, in spite of their [different] reactions, struggling to cope with the fame of their family line and its looming shadow over their entire lives is something they have in common. Someday, she’ll have to figure out how she wants to be a gym leader, separate from her father’s legacy. Someday, she’ll have to make a name for herself as Janine, Gym Leader of Fuschia City and not Janine, daughter of Koga. No one will ever respect her if she doesn’t — Green’s learned that the hard way.

Someday, she will have to walk her own path. But that day is not today.

“Are you ready, Green? Cause I’m not going to wait for you to catch up!” Janine calls, sounding very un-ninja-like. Green briefly mourns the loss of the mystique. He used to think ninjas were cool.

“It’s my duty to defeat you on the behalf of all evil exes everywhere!”

“You can’t be serious,” Green says.

“Sure, I am!” Janine says. She pulls out a small, colorful rectangle from somewhere with her magical ninja arts and waves it around. “After all, I’m a card-carrying member of Red’s League of Evil Exes!”

There are cards now. Green looks at his boyfriend and says, “Red, what did you do to them?”

Red just looks at them and shrugs, looking mildly confused himself. But not confused enough that he’ll actually do something about it, Green notes sourly.

Cinnabar’s volcanoes are as fascinating as always, but Green is too busy stewing to enjoy it. He marches past all the ads for hot spring resorts and into the Gym, braced for what lies ahead of him. Blaine is waiting for him inside. “You’ve made it, my boy,” he said, and the expression on his face is almost like a proud parent.

Green scowls. He used to respect Blaine. He is, after all, one of the finest scientific minds in all of Kanto, and while Green isn’t a scientist, Gramps has instilled him with a healthy respect for their work. Even the punning had been bearable. He had earned the right for a quirk.

But this? This was going too far.

Blaine at least has the decency to wait until they’re all set up for battle before he springs the next part of his awful sense of humor on him. “And now, a quiz! What makes you worthy to date Red?” Blaine asks.

“What made you worthy? You’re an old man! Red was a teenager!” Green shoots back. He’s pretty fuzzy on the timeline of Red’s awful lovelife, but there’s no way Red was any older than fifteen whenever the hell they dated. He’s pretty sure Red wasn’t in some demented long distance relationship while still on that goddamn mountain.

Blaine gives him a creaky shrug. “What can I say? Red really lights a fire in my heart,” he chuckles.

“I’m reporting you to Officer Jenny when this is over,” Green informs him. Gym leader or not, perverted old creeps shouldn’t be allowed in society. Especially not the punning ones.

But reporting him to the officer and letting her punish him for his sins would be cheating if Green does it before he beats Blaine fair and square. He doubts the rest of this stupid league would accept that as defeating Blaine and their ridiculous challenge, so he sends out Rhydon and prepares for a fight.

After an excruciating moment, Arcanine falls.

“Oh,” says Red’s voice. Green looks over his shoulder to see him standing along the wall of the gym, near the entrance. It’s completely like the sneaky bastard to come in secret and Green can’t even be mad at him as he looks at the battlefield and asks, “Is it over?”

For a moment, Green doesn’t know how to answer him. He doesn’t even know how to speak. He just breathes, as the adrenaline drains out of his lungs and euphoria replaces it. His shoulders slump. He looks at the ceiling. It’s over. This ridiculous journey is finally over. He can now date Red in peace.

And then the applause starts.

Erika is the first one to emerge, from behind one of the outcroppings of rock near the back of the gym. Brock is next, followed by Misty, while Surge, Janine, and Sabrina come out from the other side. They form a line at the head of the gym, and bizarrely, every single one of them is clapping, even Surge, though he looks like he’s been forced into it. While Green looks at them, too stunned to react, Blaine moves back to take a spot next to Sabrina.

“Congratulations, Green,” Erika says, smiling. She looks genuinely happy for him, as does Janine, but Surge still looks vaguely murderous and Brock looks like he might cry with happiness.

“What’s going on?” Green demands. On closer inspection, Brock’s “about to cry” face is more like a father watching his child leaving on a Pokemon journey, so proud that it’s spilled over to sad. It worsens the distinct feeling that something’s been going on in the background that he doesn’t know about.

Erika coughs delicately. “I’m afraid we must admit to a deception,” she says, serene as ever. “We are not actually a league of Red’s exes.”

If Green gets any more revelations in the next week, he’s going to have a stroke.

After a beat of frozen silence, he splutters out, “You’re not?” in a tone that’s half confusion, half demand for an explanation. He looks all around him and then waves his hand at the entire gym, a gesture which turns sharp and wild with his anger. “Then what was all of this for?”

“Well, we’re not a league of Red’s exes, but we are all members of ‘Red’s League of Allies Against His Evil Ex-Best Friend Who Broke His Heart,’” Misty explains. She frowns at him. “He was pretty torn up over you during his Pokemon journey, you know.”

Dumbfounded, all Green can manage is, “You can’t be serious.”

“But we are,” Janine says earnestly. She produces her card out of nowhere again and hands it over to Green, who’s now close enough to read the letters embossed on the front. It does, as she’s claimed, state Gym Leader Janine of Fuschia City to be a member of Red’s League of Allies Against His Evil Ex-Best Friend Who Broke His Heart. It’s even made out of red plastic.

Well. One part of him is touched to know that Red had valued their friendship so deeply. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, with his stoic man of mystery act.

The other part is just plain indignant. “That was over five years ago!” Green screeches. They started their journeys when they were thirteen, for God’s sake!

A new thought occurs to him. “And if this was all fake, why was Brock going on about his love and hardening?”

“Did he? Oh, that scenery-chewing ham! I knew he would get carried away!” Misty says in disgust.

“I was trying to go for realism!” Brock protests

“That’s only realism for you, you sleazy flirt!” she snaps, and yanks at his ear.

“Ow, ow, ow!” he yelps.

While Misty’s handling that headache, Green tries to replay the conversation where this all started. “I was the one who first brought up the idea that you were exes,” he mumbles, a little horrified.

“Once you made the assumption, I thought it might work to our advantage,” Erika explains calmly. “A test of your reaction to his supposedly storied history, so to speak.”

“So you just made it up on the spot?” Green says, nearly speechless. How on earth had he fallen for a hastily thrown together scheme? What had it even been centered around, seeing if he was the kind of douchebag who’d storm off and call Red a slut? He’s Green Oak. You don’t get to be one of the top trainers in Kanto by the time you’re fifteen without being a good strategist.

Then again, clearly, all of his colleagues are absolutely insane. No one ever taught Green how to anticipate that.

Erika smiles apologetically. “Please do forgive us, Green, but we had to make sure you two were serious about this. Your friendship ended so badly, and we didn’t want this to end the same way. After all, the poor boy was so heartbroken that he went up a mountain to get away from you.”

Green’s jaw drops. “Okay, that one was not my fault!” He’s willing to accept the blame for being a dick, for being generally unhelpful with Team Rocket, and a lot of other things, but he draws the line at the goddamn mountain.

“Sabrina?” asks Janine curiously.

The psychic in question is studying her nails, looking bored. “My powers aren’t meant to be used for answering this sort of nonsense,” she says. “Ask him yourself.”

“Hold up!” Green shouts, before they can get too off topic. “How was this supposed to make sure I was serious about him?”

“You can be a fickle, capricious sort of person, Green,” Erika explains. “So we thought that, with a series of challenges in your way, if this was some kind of idle whim, you would abandon your quest.”

Green tries to wrap his head around that logic and fails. “How was that supposed to work?” he demands. “What if I was just in it for the challenge of beating the entire Kanto League again and not for Red?”

Erika just smiles. “You don’t have enough of a death wish for that,” she says, like she’s sentencing someone to execution.

Green freezes and feels his spine go rigidly straight at the sound of her tone. That smile looks sweet at first glance, but it’s just a little too perfect, a little too gentle, carefully controlled in a way that says she could easily let that control snap at a moment’s notice. It’s the kind of smile that might be the last thing you see before you die.

Holy Arceus, there are no words in the universe to describe how terrifying Erika is.

Green breaks eye contact as soon as he can and shakes his head a few times, just to get out the lingering feeling of dread. He quickly turns his mind to another topic. “Okay, so who really has dated Red?” he asks, just to get everything straightened out once and for all.

“None of us. Particularly not me,” Blaine answers. “You young whippersnappers are practically infants.”

“Misty did ask him out once, but he turned her down,” Brock chips in.

“Hey! That was years ago, and I’m over him anyways!” Misty splutters, cheeks bright red. She shoulders him hard in the chest and snarls, “Stop bringing that up!” still blushing furiously.

“Ow, that hurts!” Brock yelps.

“You deserve it!” Misty hollers back, and the two of them start arguing again.

You know what, maybe Green doesn’t need to get revenge for all the innuendo after all. Misty’s been doing a pretty good job of enacting it for the both of them.

Misty stomps on Brook’s foot, and Blaine winces. “Please don’t call Officer Jenny,” he says.

In the chaos, Green realizes there’s one party they’ve forgotten about entirely. “And you!” He whirls around and points at his erstwhile boyfriend, whose expression is blankly nonchalant. To a stranger, he might’ve even looked innocent. “There’s no way they could’ve gotten away with it unless you played along! But you haven’t dated any of them!”

“Nope,” he confirms, wearing a funny little smile on his face. He’s clearly enjoying himself, and the smugness of his expression only increases as he coos out, “You’re my one and only.”

That tone he’s using is the stuff of nightmares, and Green blanches, reeling back on instinct. He can hear Red laughing at him inside his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demands, refusing to let that deter him.

“It was funny,” Red says, and then, in a perfect deadpan, “Besides, it was a nice revenge. You drove me up a mountain, after all.”

Green is at least seventy-five percent certain that isn’t true and Red’s just playing along to be a douchebag. “Why, you—!” he growls, and instinct born of ten years of childhood games takes over. He tackles him to the ground, fisting his hands into his shirt so he can drag him up by the collar. He hears someone shout behind him, and it’s probably because they’re a little too old for roughhousing, but Red, Red understands him. Red doesn’t panic or protest. Red just lifts his head to meet his glare with a smirk, and then leans up, grabs his head, and kisses him.

There’s still noise in the background, but it fades away as the world becomes nothing but Red.

Later, while they’re falling asleep, Green asks, “You didn’t really go up the mountain because I broke your heart, did you?”

“No,” Red answers, but before Green can let out a breath of relief, he says, “I went up there cause you were so annoying that I wanted a break from you.”

In a display of supreme maturity, Green kicks Red in the shins. Some things never change.

#Fanfiction #Pokemon #OriginalShipping #Green Oak #Red #Crack #Scott Pilgrim AU #At Last I Am Rid of the Albatross

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stimmypaw · 4 years

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stimmypaw reads the apprentice’s quest, a blog post

A big one, just a bunch of thoughts as I’m reading it, of course, lots of spoilers for the first book in the Warrior Cats series A Vision of Shadows. This will be covering just the first book tho, it’s all in the Read More, let’s gooooooo!!!!

Vision Of Shadows time

Lots of new cats!!! I don't remember these guys as kits or anything wrow!!! I like their names but itll take a while to get used to them

Also cant believe they printed stormcloud's dead name

Omg there's a cat named beepaw

I love these cats all of them so much im going 2 cry

All new names are perfect

I FORGOT HOW GORGEOUS THE CAT VIEW IN THE RECENT BOOKS WAS, LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT

I'm glad leafpool smokes weed

I love reading from Jayfeather's point of view, his grumpiness hasn't grown on me ever but thats just me, I still enjoy it lots he's great and its fun

Firestar and Leopardstar's characterizations are On Point i love it

OOF i feel so bad when jayfeather is mean to others, poor kestrelflight, I love those two

Lovely Jayfeather moments now its time for the first chapter

I like this duo! Also I didn't think I'd ever say this but shut up squirrelflight one can have fun AND learn with their mentors

Sparkkit sounds nice she makes jingling bell noises when she walks around

Alderkit is chadphobic /j

I can see Alderkit taking deep breaths to relax its rotating in my mind its beautiful

God this first chapter feels so good and comfortable, like eating noodles and chicken nuggets. I am so so deeply in love with it, its gorgeous!

Sparkkit is so perfect too, and Graystripe remembering Firestar aaaaaa

DUSTPELT SAID WHAT? PHDHAHAHHA OH NOOOO I don't remember their relationship much, must have been fun, I love young little creature squirrelflight I MISSED HER SO BAD WOW

I started reading the second chapter and died, I think ill take a break now 2 sleep heehhee

I love them describing twoleg stuff its always so fun and alien, like watching an animal planet show about funny sea creatures.

Also I have determined sparkpaw is my favorite, might be my favorite cat ever next to hollyleaf??? I really identify with her and also she's autistic i have decided that

Alderpaw baby noooo hhhh their mentor at least is trying to show its okay, he seems very emotionally distant so far and alderheart feels very emotionally needy, actually both of them do, did I mention I love Sparkpaw??? I might be imprinting myself 2 much on her

I love how like, its clear both of them are absolutely anxious and worried about others opinions on them, which is clearly something they got from being Firestar's grandkids, deputy kids and leader kids. And bramblestar too, I recall him being quite the anxious lad ahhah. Sparkpaw will be showing confidence and being loud but the second anyone isn't approving of her or she does something "wrong" she gets small and quiet, and she ended up setting a high bar for herself by being good at hunting and fighting so I'm curious to see how that will go. Also there's nothing wrong with being guided through a crowded place to meet others Sparkpaw!!! I bet the two of them would be stuck without not knowing how to talk to others had Needlepaw not shown up. I love them, my gf is mocking me saying I'm a Sparkpaw kinnie.

Apprentices will like learn about a thing and tell everyone about it all the time and assume its always true in every situation and thats valid I love kids like that. Also in my head Needlepaw kinda looks like a porcupine. Oh boo she's fatphobic >:(

I love apprentices they are so fun and silly, just making fun of the leaders like its nothing. The way they are clearly learning and absorving everything their warriors say and do like sponges its just ***chefs kiss***

Omg shadowclan is just full of 12 year olds help

And then the old person said "it sure is hard being old!" And everyone clapped

Shout-out to pretty Riverclan apprentice #481977 I love her

Leafpool: 👁👁

Alderpaw: I knew it im cursed and awful and terrible and I will never amount to anything

I wish the cats didn't seem to be giving up on him so easily though

Ah yes the classic thunderclan move "you suck, into the medicine hole you go"

The way sparkpaw changes the things she says and how she does when it isn't the status quo around her oooooooooooooyeaaaaaaa I love 1 autistic cat

Alderpaw considering your problems lesser than other cats won't help you deal with them better bro

I love Needlepaw's excitement about Alderpaw being a medicine cat apprentice, and her sarcasm, she feels like a preppy teenager

Ahhh this is so good, I am so thirsty for family moments like this, just Alderpaw bonding with grandma, I’ll definitely want to draw this one it’s so sweet.

Oh to be young and silly.

I really am enjoying like, Alderpaw’s struggles to seeing how he fits in the clan, how he fits in himself, how he wants to be seen and what he wants to be, it’s really good. I Am Engaged(tm) With This Plot.

SPARKPAW NOOOOOOO but also Yes I want her to be shown vulnerable and weak please

POP, god watching this stuff always awful, the cats must have thought he broke her ahahah

Also, really great that they learned from Dovewing and now like leave choices and discussions about prophecies between adults

And plus Brambles seemed to take the time to explain stuff to him, seems he wont be going alone either the 1 thing is that he will be the only one knowing what the journey is really about, why though??? I didnt read Firestar's Quest or whatever why does Skyclan need to be secret??? Seems quite silly really!

YESSSS SANDSTORM GET HIS ASS FIGHT FIGHT LOVE THIS LOVE SANDSTORM

I could feel squirrelflight nearing explosion here, this was very fun, i wish they werent hiding this though!!!

The secret thing is showing to be a plot point so I am once again Very Engaged

Also, wonderful dialogue bit, someone asked Bramblestar why an Elder is going and:

Lovely perfect perfect

I miss you dovewing

SQUIRRELFLIGHT LOVE YOU

Oh boy this is it

Traveling book moment

Graystripe: Soooo you're excited to go on the journey to the old territories and Skyclan?

Sandstorm: Yes! It's been ages and-

Graystripe: I'm sure the tribe will love the visit too

Sandstorm, groaning: Oh noooo I forgot about how the tribe is in the way of every journeyyyyy noooooo they're such a racist caricature, please tell me you have a plan

Graystripe: Yes don't worry about it the writers forgot about the tribe in my comic book so you can just use the excuses i did to actively avoid it

Sandstorm: Oh thank Starclan

Sparkpaw's desperation to prove herself oof, her anxiety with understanding the prophecy, oh boy, and Alderpaw feeling too overwhelmed by the questions and not managing to talk!!!! I am so glad they are both autistic

Hoping "Being Leader" wont mean theyre putting nonsense responsibility on the apprentice again

Ah good Sandstorm is on the lead again, as she should, she should have been leader she would have been great

I can't believe Alderpaw thinks I look stupid and diseased :( /j

Everything about this twoleg scene was scandalous I loved it, Sparkpaw just toppled over a trash bag and they are eating from it, iconic, also did those twolegs throw out a whole turkey? Damn

Its not that Sparkpaw is freakishly good at hunting she is very hungry and constantly on the watch for things to eat

BRO Ive never been in a road where the drivers are this wild, throwing bottles out of the car????? Ive seen Fruit being thrown like once or twice, what the fuck!!! I'm glad they are going to wait until the morning to continue

Okay I was not expecting Needlepaw to show up this girl is chaotic I love her

ACTUALLY YEAH WHY DIDNT THEY TELL THE OTHER CLANS ABOUT THIS SINCE THE PROPHECY IS ABOUT ALL THE CLANS???

Needlepaw is like Rono from Bambi 2 if he wasnt a mean bully and thats very epic

Very curious character though, how come her mentor isnt teaching her the warrior code properly? Is that an issue with all apprentices?? Is the clan overwhelmed by 12 year olds and they won?

Having lots of fun trying to play the game "what animal are they describing this time" the erins made here, im glad they're in a farm. Worried about Sandstorm though :c

Fuck im worried about sandstorm a lot, her wound hurt on Me

Yeah water is good youre right sandstorm

Aw man I hope she's okay let her at least survive to meet skyclan please

NOOOOOOOO SANDSTORMA A AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Sandtteooonrjrbbbmmnnnnnnnnnn

I am so sad

Alderpaw denying it, Starclan shining upon their vigil, everything crushed me i cried

Alderpaw considers Nihilism

Haven't seen a cat thank starclan for prey in a while its

Oh look they time skipped a journey! They don't tend to do that thats nice

I'm so excited to be meeting The Skyclan that everyone in the fandom knows now

So far they seem kinda mean but thats most clans at first glance really

Okay somethings up

I uh have heard of Darktail pretty sure he's a bad guy so yeah something really bad happened to Skyclan

Am worried

Darktail sounds like an evil himbo* i may be enjoying him actually

*himbos are usually nice by default so he's just evil and stupid and strong

Does needletail know these cats already?????

Shit

Oh okay fuck

I've been quietly reading the rest because I am just concerned and I want them to be okay as quickly as possible

Waterfalls are a classic nice

Oh boy time for our unlikely duo of Alderpaw and Needlepaw to get out of a Mess!

I did not expect this to end up with the two of them journeying into parenthood, but I'm happy it did

Well actually I'm very unhappy theyre so lost and there's no sign of Skyclan I am very worried for everyone involved Sparkpaw must be feeling awful!

Twigkit is a great name

Yeah this ended terribly

Overall! Frigging loved it this book was GOOD and a great start for the series I am very excited to read the rest, SO WORRIED ABOUT SKYCLAN THO AAAA the characterizations were great the characters were great the pacing was fun and I didn't get bored once!

I think o only wish I had read this sooner really so I could look up others thoughts without getting heavily spoiled about the last books, I can watch a few videos already though thats a start ahhaha. But yeah it was great and it felt very good to read, haven't swallowed up a book so quickly in a very long time!!! Very happy I finally got my hands on this 💕💖💕💖💕💖 cant wait 2 start the next one

If you read all this, hope you had fun hahaha, ill be making more of these cus theyre fun and I like talking about warrior cats thats just my thing

Til next time

#wc #the apprentice's quest #warrior cats #a vision of shadows #avos #warrior cats avos #avos wc #wc avos #avos warrior cats #warrior cats a vision of shadows #alderpaw #needlepaw #sparkpaw #violetkit #twigkit

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memecatwings · 4 years

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Don’t know if you got my update but apart from whining about destiel, ok boomer lady has posted “I don’t give a tiny rats ass if someone is offended by my age... hey... it offends me too lol but, since this is my life, I hope to one day be that 90 yr old lady with 6 cats, 15 tats, still watching SPN reruns and shipping wincest. I do not require anyones approval on that.” completely missing the point that she was called out for being rude and sending anon hate, NOT bc of her age. They dumb af

this is exactly what i hate about some adults who’re active in fandoms - they act like teens and young adults who criticize them for their behavior are doing it just because of their age when in reality it’s because their behavior is immature and harmful, and at their age they should know better. If a teenager messaged me and told me something I said or posted made them uncomfortable I’d apologize, delete it, and fix my behavior. As an adult on a platform with lots of teenagers, that’s my responsibility. If you’re 53 years old and think that being hostile towards someone on their post, stalking their blog, calling them out for things they posted years ago, and sending them angry anonymous messages is appropriate behavior and that the backlash you’re facing is simply because of your age then you need to reevaluate yourself. I dunked on her age because a full-grown adult picking fights on other people's posts and not being able to accept any sort of criticism of their media is, quite frankly, ridiculous - she’s acting like a 13-year-old. Yes, what I said about her was mean i admit that but it wouldn’t have been an issue if someone had Stayed In Their Lane and not gotten condescending about me being upset that someone was rude as fuck to me on my own post that they misinterpreted.

#all that CW tv has given them brainworms i think #because the critical thinking abilities demonstrated by them are in the Negatives #Anonymous #the disk coarse

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dogbearinggifts · 5 years

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I was doing the math and Harold Jenkins was released 5 years before the start of the show. He didn’t make a move until all those years later. I’m curious as to your thoughts on why. My guess is he is super patient and wanted to take out the whole academy at once. If he picked them off one by one then whoever was left would have some warning of being hunted. Getting Reggie’s journal finally gave him the means to take everyone out at one time.

I think a lot of it comes down to the fallout from the day he killed his dad.

That murder was super impulsive. After being publicly humiliated by his idol, he had to go home to the same dad who, in addition to being an abusive alcoholic, didn’t seem to approve of Harold’s love of the Umbrella Academy. Harold came home in his homemade Academy uniform, telling his dad what he’d been up to without having to say a word. As if having his hopes of joining what he believed to be a better family dashed wasn’t enough, he came home to abuse that quite possibly was more severe than usual (it’s the first time we see Mr. Jenkins knock his son to the ground with a single blow) and would likely have grown even worse. Harold had reached the end of his rope and then been forced to go a little further. That’s not to say killing his dad was okay under the circumstances (because….no, just no) but it was an act of passion. He got the idea in his head, and he acted on it without thinking of the consequences.

And then the law stepped in.

Harold showed very little immediate remorse, and I doubt he called the police to turn himself in. He probably had no idea how to hide evidence, how to properly clean the murder weapon and crime scene, and he probably didn’t hide the body because it would have been too heavy for him to move. So, when his crime was inevitably discovered, I’m sure he tried unsuccessfully to cover his ass with a few flimsy lies (”A gang came right into my house and killed my dad! They, uh, they didn’t kill me because I was, uh, hiding in the bathroom! I was taking a shower. And the door was locked. I know it was a gang that killed my dad because…uh….”). I don’t think he was tried as an adult; however, I do think his attorney had their work cut out for them. The crime itself would have made a lesser charge like manslaughter all but impossible (there’s no way a thirteen-year-old wouldn’t know driving a hammer to the back of the head of an inebriated man would be fatal) and if he did a bad enough job at faking remorse, he’d look unsympathetic. Twelve years was probably the best deal his attorney could get.

All of this probably taught Harold a great deal about planning ahead. Acting on his first murderous whim got him tossed into the criminal justice system without a life jacket and led him to spend all of his teenage years and a good portion of his twenties incarcerated. I’ll bet he went over that day in his mind again and again, thinking of what he’d do differently. If he had friends or allies behind bars, he probably got them talking about what they’d done, learned from their mistakes. And as he plotted his revenge on the Umbrella Academy, he was probably confronted again and again with the fact that he knew next to nothing about them.

Vanya’s book was probably a great help. If he thought the Academy was better than his home life, then chances are he spent a good long while assuming they were a strong and happy family; so seeing that they were actually quite dysfunctional likely gave him hope, if not a few ideas. She apparently went into enough detail on powers and weaknesses to give Cha-Cha enough material to work with, but I don’t think it was enough for Harold to formulate a solid plan. He might have thought divide-and-conquer would be the best approach—but as you said, taking them all out at the same time would’ve been more pragmatic and appealing. That family might be “a real friggin’ mess,” but they were also raised to fight as a team, and to watch each other’s backs. Take out one of the easy targets like Klaus, and Luther’s going to have something to say about that. Manage to hit Diego, and Allison can force you to stick your face in a blender. He needed a secret weapon powerful enough to take them all out before they had a chance to fight back, and he knew it. And he was willing to wait for it. He’d learned his lesson about acting without all the necessary pieces in place, and he was not about to make that same mistake again.

#the umbrella academy #umbrella academy #tua #harold jenkins #reginald hargreeves #physical abuse mention #trials #laws #prison #murder mention #vanya hargreeves #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ben hargreeves #anon #answered

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krreader · 5 years

Text

one idea, one hope.

pairing: lee jooheon x reader fandom: monsta x warnings: non idol!au ; enemies to lovers!au ; sex ; language ; mentions of underage drinking genre: angst ; smut

summary: your friends were tired of this unnecessary feud between jooheon and you, so they decided to take matters into their own hands to make you two see that you didn’t have to hate each other.

a/n: aaaah, had so much fun writing this, so I really hope you enjoy it!!!

If your friends are genuine friends, they only want what's best for you at all times.

They will kick your ass if they think it's necessary, but they will also have your back and fight anyone and anything if need be.

However, as much as you'd like them to fight this one, they didn't. Because all of them, literally all of them, didn't think that Jooheon and you should be enemies in the first place.

It had started out in high school.

A few pranks here, a few insults there, but nothing major. It was playful at first, it was as if you'd been married for over a decade and were playfully exploring that relationship.

But over time and once you got older, it just seemed to escalate.

You remember the exact time that it did.

You and a male friend had been out to eat and Jooheon and his group of friends had come into the same restaurant. And for some reason, he just snapped. He said mean things to you, laughed at you and mocked you, but because you were stubborn and didn't back down, you did the same. You insulted him just as hard as he had insulted you, told him that he didn't have to be jealous and that one day he'd surely find a girl who was willing to fuck him.

And that’s how it had started.

Now, whenever you passed each other, you would throw each other death glares and threaten to beat each other up – which you knew would never happen, but the threat was important.

Your friends that were also friends with Jooheon's group of friends knew the real reason behind it all.

They knew that before this turn in events, this playful mocking was a way for Jooheon to show you that he was interested in you.

Again, before that day, the insults were never meant to harm you in any way. He was tickling you or ruffling through your hair, was telling you to go to bed when you looked tired as fuck and laughed when you did something clumsy, but also always kept a lookout to make sure you were okay.

He thought you might feel the same way for him and it would develop naturally.

But when he saw you on that date with that guy, he just snapped and then.. well.

It's been like this for about three years now.

And because life hated you, you were unfortunately working in the same building and were seeing each other more than you could actually take.

But your friends were tired of this and so were his.

They were all tired of you two complaining about the other so much, when they knew it could all be over if you two just talked like the adults you had grown into.

But instead, you remained the 16 year old teenagers that screamed at each other and refused to even try to fix this.

And so at an office party when your boss had his sixtieth birthday, they decided to make you two talk to each other.. or kill each other.

But they had to take that chance.

“Why couldn't you just ask any of the guys? Why do I have to help?” you complained to your friend as she led you into an office.

“It's nothing heavy, I promise. Just.. wait here for a second, I'll get the boxes, alright?”

You let out an annoyed huff and looked around while she ran out. There was a lot of clutter on the floor.. this would surely take a while..

..and why the hell did she want to do that now?!

“I don't understand why we have to do that now,” a voice came from outside, saying aloud what you had been thinking, “Can't we do it tomorrow?”

“No can do,” another voice said and pushed the guy into the room.

And as you turned around and saw who was standing in front of you, his friend locked the door behind him.

Both Jooheon and you walked over to the glass wall, staring at your grinning friends with a confused frown.

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” you hissed.

“Trust me.. this is for your own good!” she yelled back, giving you a thumbs up.

And even Jooheon's friend did, but when he saw how angry Jooheon looked, he quickly gulped and ran away.

“Great.. I knew this party would suck, but this just makes the night ten times worse,” you rolled your eyes.

“It's not like I wanted to be stuck with you inside a room. This is my worst nightmare, trust me.”

Well, at least you haven't killed each other yet, so.. that was a start, right?

Twenty minutes.

That's how long you lasted without talking to each other.

He was leaning against the window on one side of the room, trying to look out at the city instead of staring at you, while you were lounging in the office chair and turning from one side to the other.

However, you were blunt and stared at him like you were contemplating on how to murder him.

“Let's be honest for a moment.. you followed me into this company, right?”

“What?” he snorted, “Why the hell would I do that? I'm not crazy.”

“Well, I started working here first and then you came two weeks later. It's as if you wanted to annoy the living shit out of me.”

“Don't think so highly of yourself, sweetheart. I applied the same way you did.”

“Yeah, but they approved me two weeks earlier, so,” you grinned and wiggled your eyebrows at him.

However, instead of insulting you, he just laughed and shook his head a little.

Which was odd, because usually he'd fire back.

And that calmed you down a little.. made you less hostile, almost.

For a moment you thought back on the first few years that you knew each other. How he would pull on your ponytail, but then gently pat your head and smile at you.

How you would steal his food only to take a bite out of it and then give it back to him, just to annoy him.

How you would chase after each other with water guns and then playfully mocking the other one when you won.

“How did we end up here, Jooheon?” you asked, surprising yourself by that question.

“Our friends suck, that's how.”

“No, I mean.. here, as in.. like this. We used to be different with each other. Sure, we always kind of hated each other, but not this way. Not as seriously as now.”

He didn't reply right away.. it was as if he was considering whether or not to even say it, but then he admitted: “I don't hate you. I never hated you.”

“What?” now it was your time to snort, getting up and walking around the desk to lean against it, “Is that why you called me a bitch more times than I can count?”

“Well, to be fair, you call me a son of a bitch regularly too, so I think we're even.”

The corner of your mouth raised when he grinned at you and then you nodded, “Touché.”

You watched him think, could literally see the wheels turning in his head and almost wanted to say something again when he said: “I used to really like you, actually.”

“Huh?”

“In school. I always thought we'd end up together or something and before you say anything, I know how stupid that sounds.”

Not at all.. because you used to think so too..

..but then rumors had been going around that Jooheon had slept with this extremely beautiful girl in high school and that's why you had even gone out with that boy on that night everything escalated. You just wanted to heal your heart a little. Because you had been hurt.

“Why did you never ask me out then?” is what you asked instead. Because you had always wondered..

“I don't know.. I was shy, I thought or.. I hoped it would develop naturally and we'd just.. I don't know, make out one day,” Jooheon laughed, turning his head to look at you again and letting out a small sigh when he found you laughing too, “When I saw you with that guy in that restaurant.. when I saw you holding hands, I just kind of lost it, I guess. I said things I regret now and.. well, you remember the rest.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, then you licked your lips and replied: “Should I tell you a secret?”

“What?”

“I only went out with him because I heard you slept with Mihye back in High School. And.. well.. we were always competitive, you and I.”

“You.. went out with that guy to get back at me?”

“So you did sleep with Mihye?” you crossed your arms in front of your chest.

“No.. well.. I mean..-” Jooheon closed his eyes for a moment and tried to think very hard about that night, “Hyungs and I were drinking and don't even lecture me on drinking underage, my parents already did that. We had a bunch of girls over and I was pretty drunk. I don’t remember much, I remember going up to a room with her and she wanted to make out but.. I didn’t want to, because I had feelings for you, but people didn’t know that. They had all assumed that we slept with each other, but we actually just talked.”

“So you're telling me this extremely hot girl wants to have sex with you and you say no?” you were obviously flattered that he had declined because he had liked you, but you were also a bit upset. All of this had only started because of a fucking rumor. However it was too late to be upset about that now so you just laughed wholeheartedly when he blushed, a lot more at ease now, “And here I thought I was a loser.”

“Well, you were the one that went out with that exchange student that every girl wanted to bang just to get back at me, so I think you and I are even,” he waited for a moment, waited for you to stop laughing before he added, “Did you do it, by the way? Sleep with him?”

“After you interrupted our date? No. He never called me back after that night and I can't blame him.”

“So I ruined your first time, huh? Sorry about that, but also not sorry, because you deserve better than him.”

“Oh, is that so?” you raised your eyebrows, licking your lips once more, “In what way?”

“You deserve someone who treats you well. Emotionally, but also.. sexually.”

Okay, how did this go from 'I fucking hate you, don't even look at me' to 'I kind of want to fuck you on that desk right now'?

“And let me guess.. you're that person?” you asked, almost challenging him to come over to you.

“I wasn't the best at giving you what you deserve emotionally, I'm sorry about that. But.. maybe I can make up for it and we can start again?”

You didn't reply..

..but you grinned.

“Come on, hurry up,” your friend said, “We've left them in there for too long, if one of them is dead, it's our fault.”

“Chill, I need to find the right key,” the two of them ran through the hallways, Jooheon's friend fidgeting with the keys and without looking through the glass wall of the office – which they should have – the unlocked the door and burst in, thinking they'd find you and him scratching each others eyes out when instead..

..you were scratching open Jooheon's back, because he was naked, you were naked and he was fucking you on that desk.

And then all four of you stared at each other, with Jooheon still being buried inside of you.

“Uhm.. we.. we were just,” you started, but your friend shook her head right away.

“No, no, no, please don't let us interrupt anything,” she grabbed her co-workers hand and pulled the open-mouthed man back out, “Enjoy yourselves! And we're very happy for you!” and with that she pulled the door closed again and both of them stared at the door.

“Did they just..-”

“Did we just..-” both of them said at the same time.

And then slowly but surely, they turned their heads to look at each other, started grinning and high-fived each other.

Mission accomplished.

#lee jooheon x reader #jooheon x reader #jooheon imagine #lee jooheon imagine #monsta x imagine #monsta x #lee jooheon #reader #requests

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cath-with-a-c · 5 years

Photo

This is the comment I woke up to on Friday morning. The amount of bigotry hiding behind the almost polite and seemingly thoughtful wording is astonishing.

I’ve responded to it already, informing the individual behind it that I won’t be discussing the points of the comment with them, as they’ve resorted to personally attacking me, which is...dumb. I mean, attack my work all you like, it either helps me grow as an author by learning from my mistakes or as a person by growing a spine and defending my work. But coming after someone who has no connection to this and can’t defend themselves because they are no longer with us? Low and disgusting. (Also wow, they’ve taken the time to find the only truly personal post I have on tumblr, and it’s more than a month old, what a commitment to come off as pathetic, really)

Anyway, while talking to that particular individual is out of question, I still kinda wanna address the certain things in the comment because wow, my first queerphobic comment and an excuse to talk more about “Nothing and Everything”, my boys and myself? How can I pass that?

(this is like... a long-ass one... prepare yourselves)

(I’m gonna refer to the commentator as “Fox” and, probably, “them” because well, I don’t know what their preferred pronounce are)

NB! I’m using the term “queer” as an umbrella term to mean everyone who isn’t strictly straight and/or cis-gender.

Let’s start from the top

The best part about slashfic writers is that when they write about child abuse, child sex abuse, and drug and alcohol abuse while including gay characters, is that they’re really writing about the lives of gay men without realizing it. To you, gay men being abused and that being the arbiter of their homosexual identity is too homophobic to fathom. But you still confirm it in subtle ways, and that always brings a smile to my face.

Now, English isn’t my first language, so I might be missing something, but If Fox meant being the arbiter of as in defining, being the reason for, than no, it’s not homophobic. It’s just dumb. One, there isn’t a single relevant scientifically accurate study on the abuse causing someone to “turn gay”. Two - there might be a correlation (and it’s not necessary there, I’m just guessing), but the cause and effect will be the other way around, queer kids get abused more because they are queer, not become queer as the result of the abuse. And, most importantly, three - in terms of sexual orientation, you can’t turn someone queer, as well as you can’t turn someone straight. It’s something you are born with and discover as you go along.

And also the other two queer characters, Rob and Penny, weren’t abused by their parents and/or other family members, but we will touch on that later.

“The Brotherhood had no problem with homosexuality” - Of course not, and neither do the Templars. It’s the Current Year. You can marry/have sex with whomever you want, whatever you want, whenever you want.

Ignoring the fact that this was taken out of context, and the whole phrase has a slightly different meaning, there are two things that are factually wrong with this statement. First - even in the Current Year, there is a ton of places where being openly queer is dangerous, from the countries that have “anti-gay” laws (ranging from “you can be gay, but stay quiet or go to jail” to “die a horrible death for being gay”), to certain, let’s say, traditionally oriented places in the US. Second - this is not Current Year. The bulk of the story takes place between 1998 and 2003, this phrase is taken from the chapter taking place in 2003, 16 years prior, things were, let’s say, slightly different.

Also, I don’t understand why Fox tried to make this sound sarcastic, we are talking about two societies, with one canonically being for freedom and choice and the other one relying on public favor to propel their agenda, of course, none of them will have qualms with the GRSM community,

“Honorary gay parents of a gay kid” - Well no wonder the kid is gay. Look at the environment xe/xim/xer grew up in.

I like how Fox uses the non-binary pronounces referring to Penny, when the only thing that has been said about her/them is “I’m into girls.” Also out of 16 kids on the Farm, only 3 are confirmed to be queer. They’ve all grown up in the same environment, so that statement is... meaningless. And in case Fox was referring to Rob and Des turning Penny “gay” well, they’ve also been close with Sam and he’s - what a shock - straight! So again - meaningless.

I’m gonna skip Fox shitting on my friend’s art, again - such remarks are low, pathetic and not worth discussing, let’s get to the juicy stuff.

It’s amusing, no, to have a pansexual – an individual who is attracted to ‘all genders’ - writing about gay men so much? How many genders are there? Thousands? 51? All on the spectrum? Regardless, tumblrinas are as big on their sexual identities as they are on their activism. In this case, we have a person – presumably female – getting wet over two dudes banging. I’m simply wondering if they packed enough lube and had their enemas. Maybe it was hidden in their stash?

Well, as a matter of fact - they didn’t have lube in their stashes because the only way to get it was to essentially ask one of the adults going to the city to get it for them, can you imagine a 16yo asking something like that? Death from mortification would be the most likely outcome.

Seriously though, I write what I like about whom I like. The only thing it has to do with me being pansexual is that I have more confidence in writing non-straight characters and relationships because I know it’s fine, and my queerphobic background can’t silence me anymore. Also - Desmond isn’t gay, he is bisexual. Rob is gay, true.

The amount of genders is still up for debate, in my personal opinion it’s all on the spectrum, and the only reason gender issues don’t come out in fiction as much as sexual orientations do is that gender in a lot of cases is a more personal thing than orientation, that’ll inevitably reflect on the inter-character dynamics. A lot of genderqueer people are fine with using male or female pronounces, which to an outsider would put them in respective categories. There are, of course, androgynous people, trans people, non-binary people and others for whom gender and the perception of their gender are important in day to day life - and there are more and more stories featuring them.

Also, on the note of pansexuality - it’s not “attraction to all genders,” it’s having an attraction to the person regardless of their sex or gender, those labels play an insignificant part in me deciding to pursue a relationship. (Also also there might be like a ton of things to discuss in regards to how sexuality relates to gender identities, but not here, not now)

And yes, I’m afab, so yeah, “female” and I do “get wet over the two dudes banging”. Fox got me. Now what? Shame Fox seemingly can’t conceptualize that I “get wet” because I wrote those boys in a story that contains a hard emotional journey full of heartbreak, and I do revel in the short happy moments they’ve got together. The sexual/sensual part is hot because it’s those particular two guys, not just random two guys.

Oh, and the last thing here - I don’t know if it’s news for Fox, but not all people in a homosexual relationship engage in anal sex. Especially teens in their first relationship. Just saying.

Let’s skip another personal attack part, here we go, sorry that the phrase is broken up

she educated a pansexual SJW into confirming every negative and dirty secret in the gay community: a brutal, abusive father, societal ‘homophobia’, drug and alcohol abuse, and feeling inadequate compared to heterosexual people.

Tbh, this is the part of the comment that had me confused for a moment, as I mistook Fox for one of the “hardcore gay” people, that think that with letters added to LGBT and by putting everything on the spectrum we somehow affect negatively the “real” gay community. The next paragraph cleared this shit for me tho.

Right off the bat - SJW isn’t a dirty word, Fox shouldn’t try to sell it as one. And I won’t label myself as a SJW, because as of now, I lack the commitment to the cause.

For the next part, I’d really, really like to quote a line from one of my fav vines “Bitch, where?” but for the sake of politeness, I’ll go with “Citation needed,” because from all of the things mentioned, the only one that is really prominent in the text is the “brutal, abusive father”. Societal homophobia isn’t exactly in the text (pay attention, teen Rob is cautious about adults being homophobic, it’s a valid fear a lot of queer teens have prior to coming out, but the general atmosphere isn’t homophobic. If I wanted it to be, adding a scene of public shame/shunning for someone caught in the act wouldn’t be hard), no drug and\or alcohol abuse (1 scene of teens trying drinks for the first time doesn’t count - surprise, teenagers try drinking), and feeling inadequate is mentioned once as a fear of a nine-year-old Penny, who has no frame of reference other than heterosexual behavior of the others, and is corrected almost immediately by Rob.

Was this about Assassin’s Creed? No, not really. Despite you being a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE fan, you don’t really respect these characters. Miles is a douchebag, it’s true, but he’s respected even by Otso Berg. That should tell you something.

(I’d like to see an example of Fox-approved, really-about-Assassin’s-Creed fanfiction, for a future reference, but alas, they’ve commented from as guest)

Interesting how me not liking or respecting Bill, canonically abusive douchebag known for alienating people because of how cold and manipulative he is, translates into me automatically not respecting every other character in the series.

Also, I don’t see how Otso Berg respecting William as an opponent should sway my judgment. I’ve mentioned here on my blog that I like Garnier de Naplouse as a villain - how self-assured he is, and how much quiet intelligence he has. Do I like him in general as a person? No. Do I respect him? No. He tortured people. I relished in seeing Altair murder him.

With Bill, him being a douchebag and abuser is a deciding fact for me, I do not respect abusers, no matter how great they may be. But tbh, on the leadership front, I can’t quite decide if Bill is a fine leader given the circumstances, or if the number of instances of him being canonically shitty as a leader is big enough to call for his removal.

You crafted him into a predictable homophobic dad, albeit he isn’t Christian. I was waiting for the Bible to be thrown at Desmond.

Again - citation needed. One instance in the text of Bill being homophobic. Not abusive, not overly-demanding, but homophobic.

(Spoiler alert - there isn’t one.)

As for the Christian associations - well, it’s in the tags. Literally. In this story, the Brotherhood is a cult, like the JWs, or the LDS church, but with Creed instead of a holy book. And I guess I succeeded in conveying the feeling.

In another Tumblr post, you wrote about how William is very abusive to Desmond, and how that is inexcusable. You bring up Nikolai and putting his child out in the cold as punishment, and earlier, cited Philosophy Tube in regards to solitary confinement (which really shows a lot). How do you explore this concept?

I wonder what me citing Philosophy Tube shows, except for maybe that I find Olly to be a very pleasant narrator and that the themes he touches on are rather interesting (Olly is precious, protect Olly).

I think I was rather unsubtle with showing what exactly abuse, inflicted by Bill, did to Desmond. And not, not “turn him gay”, about that in a moment. I don’t delve like deep into what was happening in Desmond’s head because this story is from Rob’s perspective. Not Desmond’s.

This story isn’t about the relationship between Bill and Desmond. It’s about Desmond not living in a vacuum all those years on the Farm.

Write William being SO abusive he turns his son gay. You make him so homophobic Desmond reacts by engaging in self-destructive behaviour and, in turn, becoming your average gay man. Your OC, Richard, Robert is merely the bridge.

“Bitch where?!“ (c)

1. Desmond isn’t gay. He is bi (because I’m keeping it as close to the canon as I can and I love Elijah to death). It’s in the tags, and it’s in the tags rather than stated because Desmond’s sexual orientation isn’t the point of this story, 2. Bill isn’t homophobic, at least not openly. There’s a different issue within the Brotherhood, the fact that they expect everyone born into the Brotherhood to have kids of their own. This is the source of Rob’s unease and perceiving adults as not reacting positively him or any other kid in a queer relationship. 3. If I wanted Bill to come off as homophobic, I’d portray him like that. Using slurs, for example. 4. Bill abuses Desmond not because he thinks his son is gay - he thinks his son is weak. In general. Not related to orientation. Like in the fucking canon. I’m merely turning the abuse factor up to eleven. 5. No one abused Rob, his father is shown in the text to be one of the best parents on the Farm - and Rob is gay. No one abused Penny, her family is mentioned briefly, but I specifically did it in a way that shows that they are nice - and she is a lesbian. Another boy, Colin, got abused by his strict mother - and he is straight. Desmond got abused by his father - and he is bi. There is no correlation between abuse and being queer. 6. Desmond's self-destructive behavior came from him being abused on a daily basis for most of his life and having no way out. Again, if it was linked to his orientation Rob would do that stuff too. He doesn’t.

You make these characters gay because, as a ‘queer pansexual person’ you can. But you don’t really make them human. In fact, every single negative stereotype you want to protect yourselves from our oh-so-bigoted society are confirming them, while simultaneously denying that they exist.

In short, everything and everyone acted the way I expected to, and was written the way I expected a queer pansexual to write them: meaningless, with only the sexual identity taking place. Funny how that’s the only identity politics that’s allowed. Everything else is oh so bigoted.

I’m not denying the existence of the stereotype, I’m just not acknowledging it as valid, because it’s not. It’s like blaming violence on video games - you’d be hard-pressed to find a youngster who doesn’t play a semi-violent game of some kind, with blood and murder, but every time someone brings up that another shooter was playing those games, they forget to mention how many youngsters play and don’t commit murder as a result.

The same way Fox keeps bringing up the “abuse turned Desmond gay” without acknowledging that there’s a ton of straight teens that get abused worse than Desmond in this story, or the two queer kids right in the text who weren’t abused.

It’s also funny that Fox is adamantly holding to the “sexual identity” thing, despite the fact that it came up only in 5th chapter (with 4 chapters before that having nothing to do with sexual orientation) and it’s not even an identity/orientation thing. It’s the “relationship between Rob and Desmond” thing and “Desmond is clinging to as much happiness as he can because he has none” thing. The only time orientation comes up in term of identity it’s when Rob talks to Penny and thinks of himself as a closeted gay man, but it immediately switches back into the “relationship between two people” again.

10.

You call yourself an AC fan?

Yes. Yes, I do. Ain’t nothing some bigot on the internet can do about it ;)

(If you read this through to the end, I applaud you, thank you for your time <3)

#Assassin's Creed #Desmond Miles #william miles #my writing #nothing & everything - AC #bigotry #queerphobia

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saltyslack-toast · 5 years

Text

How I deal with my puberty

“Teenagers are the most misunderstood people on the planet. They are treated like children and expected to act like adults” – Anonymus.

Facing the ‘youth age’ seems to be very interesting for most of the pre-teen age kids, they thought it will be filled with good memories, cool friends, hangouts, parties, and probably some of charming boyfriends. Well for some of kids, teenage phase is the way it is, they called it for a ‘stupid phase of life’ because they have been through all those reckless and dumb things yet so exciting and memorable events at the same time, but for me teenage life is probably the most broken phase of life.

Start in my early teenage which was in the 5th grade of my elementary, I started having a crush with my one year older senior. Everything was went smooth, I used to have a lot of guts to actually approach him and surprisingly he responded it very well, I’m gonna count that shit as my real first love (since I already have a crush to boys since I was in kindergarten). He was soon graduated and I CRIED SO MUCH, I don’t even understand why would I cried so much back then, but it is kinda sad because that was the first time a boy actually like me back lol and also bc me and him not gonna be in the same school again because he decided to continue his education in Islamic boarding school which was so far away from the area we lived and obviously school which my parents not gonna approves me to go to. Last year of my elementary was the first time I got period, the changes all over my body was so appalling, my voice was getting more shrill and my breast swelling so much i started used a fucking mini-bra that has a cute character printed in it. Also, this stage filled with academics stuff to prepare the junior high school and fighting with my own teacher (she was terrorizing me through anon messages, dude not gonna lie but that shit is scared me as fuck) because…. That’s a fucking long-ass story I’m going to tell you a whole complete story on different page. I got a very terrific result for my academic stuff but I also start to received a lot of bullies from the boys in school, well that was poor but I still have a very good girl pals in school that always accompany me until I managed to graduate elementary school with a very keen grade and also knowledge that my body is changed A LOT.

My middle school life would probably the darkest stage of my life, I did enter one of favorite school in Bandung which I wanted to, but I’m not as happy as I thought to be. I’m amazed with all the bewitching seniors and that’s quite tempted me to have another activity outside the academic stuff which I hoped I could get close with the seniors and try my luck to actually dating with one of them (I was so obsessed to approach to the seniors because dude just admit it, u need that RECOGNITION to survived a new phase of school life, especially when u had a popular life back in previous school stage), but I joined a fucking scouting which was the most unpopular extracurricular activities in school (Pffffttt……….). The first year was quite so so, and up to the next years I really gulping a lot of bullies from the boys (again) more than I received my whole life that was so awful I even got scared just to attend the school. At this point, my level of confidence just dropped so bad until it penetrated the last form of earth soil, I was so insecure, I can barely made any eye contact with people, since then I became more closed to people, I was so scared for getting rejection, bad and all the harsh word from people I met. And for the record, I still remember all of their names, I’M NOT GONNA TO FORGET ALL OF U BITCH, U’VE RUINED MY LIFE.

Due to all the bullies I seized, I’m not maximizing my potential and have to accept the fact that I didn’t went to the high school I wanted so bad (which was the number one in Bandung, perhaps in Indo as well), instead, I have to go the high school (still one of the most-favorited high school in B-town though) that is filled with the most popular peeps in Bandung and known for the superiority of the all the seniors there, CAN YOU FUCKING IMAGINE THAT? A girl who was traumatized so bad, scared of might get bullies since she’s not as beautiful, popular, rich or even attractive as most of the other girls in school. I was crying so bad to accept that difficult truth that I might got bullied again. But hey, there’s always a rainbow after the storm, turns out I did quite well in high school, I joined the student council and got so many good friends and capable of having group of girls squad (eventhough I always be the duff) and more active in non-academic stuff that lead me to a very bad grade result.

The relationship with my family is not went so smooth at all, I used to buried all my problems deep down on myself alone, and the result is no good. I was overly sensitive and got upset and explode VERY EASILY. My family doesn’t help at all, they also blame me for anything, made me hate myself more. I need to run away from this situation, I need to shed my resentment over something, AND THAT’S THE BEGINNING. I started to slashed my fingers with a cutter, not really bad, just until I saw blood drops over my fingers. But then the problem got more serious, I am addicted, after I had through a big fight with my family I start cutting up all over my hands, the blood is overwhelming (yet, I still had the time for doing the documentation, but obviously I’m not gonna post it in here anw, or maybe I will, ofcourse with a proper sensor), even when my sister have taken away all the cutters, I still use my nails to scratching my skin harshly until it get bleed terribly and left a very bad scars on my hands until now.

I failed academic stuff in high school miserably, and had to be genuinely accept the reality that I have to go to not-so-favorited-private uni in Cimahi, I took International Relations because that is the only major that is accredited with an A, lol but yeah my sister realized that I like to talk politics a lot and I’m not so bad in English (kinda true, nah still sucks). And yeah until now I just currently finished the 3rd semester very well. I got a very good grades (Probably because I regret my academic stuff so much in high school) and hoping that nice event will come up to me. My goals right now is to graduate college as soon and as perfect grades as possible, and got a very good job soon after I graduate, Oh God I want… No, I really need that things so bad.

Now I am 20 on April this year, so much things has happened in my teenage life but most of all is not that impressive because I came to be more ignorant(?), but geez I grew up doesn’t care about people, they are all so mean and cruel. But at the same time, people are so interesting to learn, including yourself. Teenage phase could be so difficult for some of you (just like me, or perhaps worse), but chillax that shit will over soon if you able to learn about yourself, finds out about anything you like and don’t, stop hearing all those shit opinion about you, what matter most is what makes you happy, focused on it and leave all the bad and negativity behind, and TRUST ME you’re gonna get over your hard-teenage-life phase soon! And if you were angry to your parents (I’m pretty sure that fight with parents happens all the time in everyone’s teenage life), take a deep breath and thinking something funny in your head, after u have control all the madness inside yourself, get over your parents nicely because that shit will never get over if you were just as emotional as them.

The more you grown up the more you understood about people around you, there are people that is fake, people that is actually care about you, and other types of people out there. Puberty might be shocking for some of you, you finds a lot of changes both in your physical and mental conditions, no need to be worry about that, is normal and very understandable. The passion for being ‘seen’ would be very strong, it would be good for you to use this ambition to achieve many great things in life but don’t forget to take care yourself and those people who care about you.

“Tough time never last, but tough people will do” – Robert H. Schuller

So yeah, that was the end of this boring and so weird writing of mine. I am so sorry if this shit was that bad and also the grammar errors that is whack (even though no one probably read it lol), this was my first experience to actually writing and posted in on any platform online, hoped my writing will get better next time!

Xiao!

#puberty #teenage #teenager #teenagers #teenagelife #bullied

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