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ilsaafaust · 1 year ago

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Thoughts on Ilsa Faust in DR. Spoilers.

Thinking about Ilsa Faust's fate in Dead Reckoning and director Christopher McQuarrie's comments about it in the Empire Podcast. As a fan of the franchise and with Ilsa being my favourite character, I feel like I had to write a little something based on the movie and his reason for it. A lot of fans are upset (including me) and I want to write something properly, not just the angry tweets and posts.

To start off, they wanted Ilsa to die already back when they were making TGM. And his reasoning seems to be that he didn't want Ilsa and Ethan to be romantic. Just that baffles me, if you don't want romance, how can you not just write a script where Ilsa and Ethan stay platonic? They handled it well in Rogue Nation and Fallout, you can see they care for each other deeply, but they don't act on it. We could have had Ilsa on the team, she could have gotten out of the game but was brought back in for some reason, she could have had literally any other story. But the fact that the only thing that seemed to come to mind if he didn't want to make them romantic was to kill her off seems very odd.

He also talked about wanting to work with Hayley Atwell for over ten years and this fact seems a little too convenient when thinking about why he had to kill Ilsa off. But we'll come back to Grace later.

He explains that they killed Ilsa off before they even knew the reason why. They killed off one of the most popular characters of this franchise without even having made up the reason behind it. We know that they work without a script, but making such a huge and impactful decision (he says he knew the fans would be upset) without even knowing why baffles me.

I also need to point out, I would have been fine if she had been given a decent, meaningful death. Yes, I would have been sad, but had it felt worthy it would have been one thing. With how they handled her death in this, I can't be sad. I am just mad. Frustrated. Confused.

Let's talk about Ilsa's storyline in this film. At the end of Fallout, she got out. In this film, she is disavowed for some unknown reason, and she is brought back into the game with the whole thing about the key. Kittridge says some weird comments about Ethan and Ilsa's relationship, that Ethan has saved Ilsa over and over when it is clearly the other way around. Let's go with this just being Kittridge getting it all wrong and not McQ but.. what do I know.

Ethan finds her in the desert and the whole scene is very rushed, they barely even talk, and.. she just hands him the key? What was Ilsa's plan? Ilsa's purpose? We don't know and we never find out (at least not in part one). Maybe there was more to it, more to Ilsa's story, we know they cut a lot of the movie, and we know for sure they cut at least two of Ilsa's scenes.

Then she just shows up in the van in Rome before they end up in Venice.

In Venice, we have Ilsa and Ethan hugging on a rooftop and holding hands on the gondola on their way to the party. For someone who claims that they didn't want Ilsa and Ethan to be romantic, I have a lot of questions. Especially since we also had the desert hug where she is literally on top of him. She is clearly a romantic interest, there's no questioning that. And to be honest, that is basically her only purpose in this movie.

Now things get a little messy because we arrive at the party. I have always been a fan of McQ's writing of female characters. He did absolutely fantastic in Rogue Nation, Fallout and Edge of Tomorrow. At the party, the villain gives Ethan the choice between Ilsa or Grace. One of them has to die.

Now, we know Ethan cares about Ilsa a lot, so the choice should be simple, her compared to this woman he just met who kept running away from him over and over and left him to die on a train track handcuffed to a car. The thing is, Ethan Hunt can't make that choice. He cares about each and every individual.

We've now arrived at the reason why Ilsa dies. And I cannot begin to express my distaste for the cliché writing of having a male character choose between two women, one who is a love interest and the other who is so obviously made out to be the new female lead (and potentially, a new love interest, Ethan/Grace share some suspiciously weird longing looks but the fans are divided if it is romantic or not).

Ilsa or Grace. Apparently, there can only be one woman on the team, which the previous films have shown us, too.

I just need to add that they're working against an all-knowing AI, so why isn't "the choice" between Luther or Benji? Ethan's two very best friends, two brilliant tech minds who must be a bigger threat to the entity as well?

In the end, it all comes back to that it's not people that Ethan loses - it's women. And there is only space for one brunette woman on that team.

So let's talk about the bridge scene. First of all, Grace has been running the entire movie, why would she suddenly stop running when there is a man literally trying to kill her?

Anyways, she holds him off surprisingly long considering she's just a thief and with how in the previous action sequences she kind of came off as a damsel in distress. Eventually, Gabriel knocks her down the stairs.

Enter Ilsa Faust. Highly capable spy, Ethan Hunt's equal, a woman who we know is lethal in hand-to-hand combat. We saw her take down Janik Vinter in a knife fight at the end of Rogue Nation and we saw her take down Solomon Lane in Fallout (tied to a bloody chair).

She even has the advantage of a sword compared to the villain who has a tiny knife. They fight. For some reason, Ilsa manages to get in way too close several times (watch the choreography for the RN knife fight - she's quick, get in, slash, get out, you can't linger in a knife fight) and she somehow doesn't seem to be able to hold off the old villain longer than Grace.

She gets stabbed in the chest. Ethan finds her dead on the bridge. In the next scene, Ethan looks sad on a rooftop for a few moments. Benji wipes a tear. They never talk about Ilsa again. It's underwhelming in every sense.

But what makes it worse, is the fact that in the next scene, the team asks Grace to join the team. Not going to get into the writing of that whole scene, but the thing is, they do it in a way that is basically "look what happened to Ilsa." and the things they say honestly make the team seem very cold-hearted considering Ilsa just died. And we know the team is not cold-hearted. Yes, there's a mission and they need to focus on the job, but they really didn't have to do it like that.

When I tell you I have a bad taste in my mouth, boy, do I mean it. Ilsa dies and in literally the next scene she is replaced by Grace.

Now comes the talk about her death which McQ describes as "very heroic". I'll admit, in one way, I get why he thinks it is a heroic death. Ilsa sacrificed herself to save someone else, that would be a worthy ending for someone who dedicated their whole life to saving the world, saving people.

What baffles me is how he doesn't see how poorly executed the whole ordeal was, which is what fans and a lot of critics are upset about (see list of articles criticizing it here: https://www.tumblr.com/rebeccalouisaferguson/723559978545414144/list-of-articles-criticizing-ilsa-fausts?source=share )

Is it fridging? In one way it is; Ilsa is Ethan's love interest and we know "the choice" between Ilsa and Grace happens because Ethan cares about her. McQ also mentioned it happening to up the stakes, so..

Yes, she also died because she decided to save Grace, but there's more than one reason for her death.

I feel like what also needs to be mentioned is that article with editor Eddie Hamilton who said they cut a "badass" line from Ilsa when she arrived at the bridge. They cut it because it lowered the audience's expectations for what they were about to see. "In the audience's mind, you know that Ilsa is going to kick some serious ass. She kicks a bit of ass, but not a lot. It's not a complete, devastating, ass-kicking, which you hope Ilsa is going to give at some point." They later removed this bit from the article because of backlash. We, the audience, know that Ilsa is better than and so do they.

We know they're doing damage control, a lot was cut from the delayed Empire part two podcast. Somehow, the more they talk about it, it gets worse.

I know this movie is only part one and there might be more explanations for all of this in part two. But with what we've seen in this film, they fumbled her death so badly that the one thing that would make sense is that it is all a trick and she comes back in part two. There are many theories on that, but I'm not going into details or speculating on that here.

A testament to how badly they executed her death is that people literally can't believe they'd fail her character this badly. McQ who we all thought was a brilliant writer. McQ who wrote one of the best female characters we've seen in years only to throw her out as if she was garbage. No matter what happens in part two, one thing is for sure.

Ilsa Faust deserved better.

#It's not just her death we're mad about #It's how poorly they handled it #Ugh #Ilsa Faust deserved better #Ilsa Faust #Mission Impossible #Dead Reckoning #Deac reckoning: Part one #Dead reckoning spoilers #Christopher McQuarrie #Rebecca Ferguson

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parkminijiminie · 4 months ago

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Thank you for being honest because your thoughts about the two episodes were very similar to mine. Don't get me wrong, they were cute, adorable even and some moments made me raise my eyebrows but that doesn't make me forget about what they said in the car at the beginning. Fact is that no couple would go months without seeing each other and not even making the effort to call each other. I know Jimin was busy with creating two albums at the same time but Jungkook was free. And he still decided to spend time with Taehyung instead of trying to be with Jimin. Or even calling him. But he flew to Hawaii just because Taehyung missed him? Nah, something is really wrong there.

I also missed the softness that normally is between Jimin and Jungkook. There were no tender moments, everything was playfighting, bickering or straight up rude jokes. Of course there was skinship but Jungkook also kissed Jin's naked leg once, so that really isn't an indicating for closeness. They actually had a very bro vibe in the two episodes, at least most of the time.

What made Jikook special to me, the soft way they care for each other, they way they speak so softly with each other, the tenderness. Completely gone. There's just simply nothing there. The last time we saw it was in 2022 during the Seoul concerts. After that? Nothing.

It does make me think and question what I believe. And I think I come to the conclusion that they haven't been a couple in 2023 and 2022. At least. And I also started to wonder if maybe they never actually were. I do think they were intimate with each other before. But an actual couple? I'm starting to doubt it.

However people wish to spin it, that conversation in the car was real and honest. They both confirmed that they hadn't been seeing each other much, so we must take their words at face value. I think the whole convo is very interesting. Firstly, they admitted they hadn't met a lot due to schedules, but more than that, they simply didn't call each other, contrary to Vmin, who despite not meeting up still called semi frequently. But then JM said that *he* actually did call JK when he was free, meaning it was more JK who didn't really contact JM a lot, despite his enthusiastic reactions over JMs comments on his lives.

Then JK said that if it weren't for the show, they wouldn't have seen each other, and JM glared at him. Even the official subs used the word "glare." The conversation began funny and light, but then it sort of became serious. There was definitive tension there. No one was smiling, and they were serious. (It sort of reminded me of the convo JM and Tae had in the soop when they discussed the way they had drifted apart in that years. )

Something definitely happened to make them so much more distant than usual in the beginning of 2023, either between them or just in their own private lives, and it wasn't just schedules.

Judging from JM's comment that this is why he came to NY, I think it was JM who took the initiative to bring them together again, but it is JK's final comment that really baffles me. He said "yes you came. Finally. " So far in the conversation, it looked like JK didn't really care that they hadn't met up and also, like it was more his fault for that than Jimin's, but that last comment made it seem like he was waiting for JM to do something, to make the first move.

I think we shouldn't read a lot into JK spending time with Tae. I think both of them were much more free compared to other members and sort of left on their own, so they gravitated towards each other, especially if we go with the theory that there were some intentional distance between Jikook who were previously attached at the hip. As for Hawaii, I think JK went there to skydive.

I definitely believe Jikook was not a couple by late 2022, but had been romantically involved before then, but then again, who really knows?

I think what is missing for me is also the softness. It's not completely gone, but it's somehow not the same. They have always bantered and play fought, but their tones and vibes were different. There was this tenderness coating all of their interactions, even their banter, which I don't see now. I just don't see JK from 2021 handing JM his medicine and going "drink it or die" and then going out and saying with the biggest laugh how JM looks awful and like he is dying. Maybe it's the way the scenes are cut, but from what I'm seeing, this isn't the JK I remember who made JM the biggest pancake because of the penalties.

JM is obviously super fond of JK, but even then, it read more like "look how cute this guy is being" and not like, "My boyfriend is adorable." Again, maybe this is just the way the show is being cut and made in order to keep it more "bro-like"

Everything between them is theoretically the same, but to me, the vibes are definitely different, but somehow, I have a feeling through the episodes things will start to change. Let's wait.

#jikook

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avelera · 2 years ago

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"I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."

- Ursula K. Le Guin

It's been understandably popular to take pot-shots at Harry Potter lately because of JK Rowling's truly disgusting and reprehensible comments lately. This quote above by Le Guin, which I agreed with even while a teenager, got me thinking about my own views on the series and apropos to nothing, I felt this was a better place to expound upon them than Twitter.

I have a knee-jerk dislike of the very human condition of saying we, "Always knew something," after the fact, that we "Always knew" someone problematic™️ was problematic or we always knew this thing that was popular was Bad Art after it became less popular. I find it intellectually dishonest.

So I'll preface all of this by saying: I had minor issues with the Harry Potter series back when it came out that went against the mainstream view of it, in that I thought it had many good qualities as a book series, but not enough to warrant its popularity compared to other, similar YA and fantasy series. I was genuinely baffled by its superstar popularity but as a fantasy book reader in the days before it was easy to access online fandom, I would take what I could get and I certainly didn't mind fangirling about Harry Potter stuff with friends even if it wasn't my #1 favorite series of all time. I enjoyed the fanfic for Harry Potter immensely so that allowed me to sort of blend in with those who enjoyed its popularity. (Special shoutout to MY favorite Harry Potter book of all time, "Harry Potter and the Battle of Wills" by Jocelyn over on fanfiction.net, that was MY Harry Potter series lol.)

So here's the thing, it's easy to say, "I always hated Harry Potter" or "I always knew it was trash" and that's a lie. For me, the truth is:

I enjoyed Harry Potter much like I did many of the fantasy series of its day.

What they had going for them was their pacing, whimsy, and inherent mystery structure in the first 3 books. They're fast, fun, easy reads with a likable protagonist. They are not bad books. But as Le Guin says, they're stylistically ordinary and imaginatively derivative. There's a lot of books like them.

I did not think the books were better than Pratchett, or Gaiman, or Garth Nix, or Dianne Wynn Jones, or any of the many other fantasy authors I was reading at the time. I was confused by their popularity as compared to better books like Pratchett's Discworld which, while popular, never got a theme park made for them in terms of order of magnitude popularity.

Now, JK Rowling on the other hand I had some issues with from the start, if not the ones that emerged later with her being a bigot. It is worth mentioning for the sake of intellectual honesty that decades ago, she gave a lot to charity and was a voice for tolerance in the early 00's when Bush/Blair, the Iraq War, etc were in full swing. It makes it all the more heartbreaking and baffling to see her swing towards bigotry on LGBT+ issues. Truly, a lot of young people first learned to stand up to fascism and be accepting of those different from them because of Harry Potter, just like they did reading the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card, and in both cases it's absolutely heartbreaking and so very confusing to see these authors fall to the very dark side they wrote against in their books. I have no answer for how or why this happened. I don't say this to make an excuse for either of them, simply to express confusion and mourn the loss of someone who was once a voice for some level of good in the world.

Now, my issues with JK Rowling were writerly, and they are the ones I feel somewhat empowered to say I "always knew" and "always had an issue with" and that, like the worst sort of hipster, "I talked about before it was cool".

Really my dislike began when JKR very famously said in the early 00s that she didn't read any fantasy before writing Harry Potter. Considering how derivative it is (heck, Neil Gaiman already had a YA series about a black-haired wizard boy with a scar) it left one wondering if she was lying or she truly was that ignorant in the genre in which she wrote. Either way, not a good look, and it soured me towards her pretty permanently as an author.

Terry Pratchett, the author I would actually follow into Hell, criticized her for this comment and got a lot of flack for it, asking how in the world she could not realize she was writing fantasy. This solidified my opinion of her as something of a hack, even if she had stumbled upon a winning story. Neil Gaiman also chimed in saying he didn't feel ripped off but seemed to tacitly agree with Pratchett that her lack of institutional knowledge about fantasy was odd.

As a big fantasy fan of the early 00s, I can say that fantasy was still a bit of a forbidden genre (at least in the Anglosphere), one not taken seriously. So for JK Rowling to be asked if she wrote fantasy had a layer of nuance, basically she was being asked if she meant to write a fantasy novel, ie, in a "lesser" genre, barely above dime story penny dreadfuls in value.

No one literary would admit to writing fantasy at the time, it was a whole thing where if you admitted to writing fantasy you were "downgraded" as an author in terms of prestige (Stephen King went through a lot of this). BUT, if a fantasy book achieved popularity, it was labeled as "literary" so the literary folks could claim ownership of the quality genre fiction, and never have to admit that "literary" is a genre and not a mark of quality (a deep-seated rage button issue for me and a rant for another day).

So when JK Rowling said, "She didn't know she was writing fantasy." That meant something. And what it meant was she was throwing the rest of the genre under the damn bus. With her visibility she could have helped actively tear down the biases against fantasy (something she did indirectly with the popularity of her books). Or she could have simply had humility and said she wasn't as versed in the genre as she should be given where her book ended up being shelved, but there's a lot of good works there and she's honored to be among them.

She did neither. She stuck to her ignorance (what would become a common trait of hers, apparently) and did very little to elevate others in the genre, or the genre itself, and indeed, seemed to try to distance herself from it in what was the safe move at the time.

I cannot stress enough how intellectual dishonest, arrogant, and safe it was for popular writers who got dubbed "literary" when they were in fact writing genre fiction to cleave to that title of literary, guard it jealously, and refuse to acknowledge that literary is a genre of its own, not a mark of quality. To be labeled "genre fiction" was to be considered "lesser" and that stigma is still out there, though much lessened by the wave that began with the Lord of the Rings movies, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the Marvel films making so much money and really setting up genre fiction to at least be seen as lucrative if not artistic. We have come a long way from how fantasy was viewed 20 years ago.

JK Rowling also said she wrote no other books before Harry Potter. That's another puzzling instance where either she's lying, sold her soul to the Devil (and hey, maybe she did and he's collecting by making her turn into a frothing bigot), or was simply a more lucky and less skilled writer than people realized. Every writer has a closet full of short stories and novels they've written before publishing their first work. I can't stress enough how bizarre it is for her to claim she never wrote anything else before putting pen to paper with Harry Potter, that simply does not happen. Then again, her later books make it seem more likely that is true.

Writerly aside, but JK Rowling is utter garbage at structure. She lucked into the perfect scaffolding for a basic plot with the Harry Potter school year, but as Fantastic Beasts and her other, non-school based plot structures reveal, she didn't realize what a crutch that was for her because the woman does not and has not learned how to build a plot that isn't strung up on the structure of a school year for building tension and story beats.

Look, JK Rowling has always been a weird author. She really did come out of nowhere in terms of previous works. She doesn't acknowledge her peers in the genre that built her fortune, not even to confess that while she didn't know about them, she's now learning about a wonderful rich genre out there. She went the other direction and disavowed fantasy (it's possible she backtracked since and had nice things to say about the fantasy genre, I'd love to hear it if so).

There was in fact always subtle bigotry and a ton of tokenism in the Harry Potter books. That said, in the 90s, that was pretty par for the course, and she deserved some kudos for making the books so explicitly about fighting fascism, even if I'm not sure she fully understood her own themes.

To say these books were unpopular or that they had no writerly merit at all is intellectually dishonest. They were popular for a reason, mostly because they're fun. However, they were not unique, there were many like them, she got very lucky and it's bizarre how little she's acknowledged this or her peers. Of all the negative tendencies any human has, I'm shocked and dismayed that her tendency to stick to her ignorance like she did with the wider fantasy genre is the one that won out and was transferred to LGBT+ issues, to the point of doing active damage to her works and brand. But as her attempts to branch out from Harry Potter have further confirmed, JK Rowling was always a stylistically ordinary writer. Her mean-spiritedness didn't stand out as much in the 90s but it absolutely does now and it's ugly how she leaned more into sticking with the moral heights she reached at that time rather than trying to learn and grow as a person.

JK Rowling went full Whedon and figured because she was slightly ahead of the curve in the late 90s that she had nothing more to learn and it hurts when people who are creative, people whose job it is to have empathy for other walks of life, never learn or grow and stick to their old laurels that are increasingly out of date. I personally don't think myself as a hardcore Harry Potter fan, I have no horse in this race for the redemption or lack thereof of JK Rowling or the book series. I can only offer my view as a fantasy writer and someone who grew up through the cultural phenomenon of these books.

But, as usual, Ursula Le Guin was right, I agreed with her then, and her words have only borne out more and more with time.

#jk rowling critical #hp meta #hp critical

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jewishvitya · 1 year ago

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After seeing this post about a radfem confession blog, one of the asks got my attention and I can't stop thinking about how they seem to treat sexuality and attraction.

The anon basically compares lesbians to straight men, saying that if you see an attractive woman and go "I'd fuck her" you're sexualizing her and it's bad regardless of if you're a man or a woman.

So... being attracted to someone? Sexualizing them.

The idea seems to be that sexual attraction and desire are inherently dirty or dehumanizing. Which makes lesbians predatory.

I mentioned before that I have issues expressing attraction. I had partners who felt like I wasn't attracted to them when I really was. My main issue was "I want them, and I want them to feel wanted, but I have no idea what to say or how to express it."

But now there's a person who seems to be an exception for some reason. She's willing to explore all of that with me, knowing how I struggle with it. And it's fun, full of mutual enthusiasm, but I still feel like a creep sometimes when I talk about her in a sexual way. And the idea that desire is degrading is a huge reason that I feel this way.

And the fact that radfems promote this shit isn't new to me, it's not the first time I see this from them. Which makes this worse. It's baffling to me that a supposedly feminist movement has so many people reinforcing this. It's lesbophobic as fuck, but even if they only applied this to straight men... the attraction isn't the hurtful part. Being attracted to women isn't where a behavior becomes predatory. It becomes predatory when consent isn't prioritized, when a power imbalance is exploited, when someone makes explicit comments unsolicited.

Sexual desire is not a bad thing. Even when it's not mutual, there's nothing wrong with feeling it. Thinking someone is hot is harmless, even if it's a stranger, even if it's someone who'd never want you back. This is basically thought crime bullshit.

#riki babbles

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beautifulpersonpeach · 1 year ago

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Oh, if people are still submitting their toxic Tae asks, I actually do think he might occasionally purposefully rile shippers (not every time or even most of the time he’s accused, just sometimes, and I think he might do it with other members too, he even riles jkkrs up by posting jkk sometimes) but I don’t think he’s malicious about it or trying to incite the really hardcore truthers. I don’t think it’s that deep, and clearly it doesn’t hurt or bother any of the other members because they’re all obviously on good terms + you would have to accuse some of the others of doing the same thing sometimes, like JK was clearly in on that FaceTime photo being posted, some of Namjoon’s comments on JKs lives, and Jimin posted tkk hugging with their cheeks smushed so… Plus, tkk have undoubtedly become very good friends and spent a lot of time together this year, so it’s just obvious he would post and talk about him more than other members. But I do think there might have been a handful of times where Tae purposefully riled up his shippers a bit (I think he knows ARMYs like hearing about other members and doesn’t always know what to talk about on lives too, so he's more likely to mention others), but I don’t really think it’s a big deal, and I think he’s obviously just kind chaotic about other things as well when he’s in the mood. Probably toxic and a hot take because I see people either thinking he’s completely innocent and oblivious or 100% manipulative evil about it.

Ask 2:

It boggles my mind how people can watch Taehyung during his solo career so far and think he doesn't care about Yeontan because he didn't post a picture before his enlistment. This man put Tannie on his cds, on his merch, in his music videos, and in his promo.

Ask 3:

My goodness bpp, the avalanche of tae hate is just crazy,,, kinda tells you the current state of certain sections of the fandom,,, Just makes me sad, ngl

OK, I need to vent, I need to get it out of my system, I have been holding it in and but just can't anymore!!!! I hate Hate HATE Jimin's mullet in Like Crazy!!!!!!!!!! I mean Jimin looks beautiful in mullets. He was fabulous in mullets before! He's gorgeous in anything. He was godsend in Set me free pt2! They have the same base hair! just styled differently!!! why Why WHY did like crazy mullet have that weirdly straight sorta-tapered sorta-not shape around his beautiful neck?!!? The back of the head could've been wavy or curbed out or fuller or shorter or longer! WHY did it have to be THAT specific length and THAT specific shape all immortalized in the MVs for the world to see forever and ever?!?!? This like crazy era hairstyle breaks my heart,,, WHY?????????

Ask 4:

BPP how aren't you sick of all the Tae takes yet? It baffles me how people can fixate on the most minute details of Tae's actions FOR MONTHS. Is this normal? Is it mentally healthy? I realize the irony asking you since I'm a joker myself but a lot of people here sound kinda crazy. It can't be healthy to hate Tae so intensely for so long while victimizing Jimin. Just thinking about it makes me itch.

Ask 5:

I agree that Jkkrs used to be like the sunny part of this fandom's shipping in comparison to Tkkrs, and I've felt it change in the last year, but tbh it can never be compared to Tkkrs. I saw this when the blurry video of Jk dropped, especially here on tumblr.

I read many rational discussions on the topic and many Jkkrs (me included) accepted the fact that Jikook may not be exclusive/may have had sth in the past but are not together now (I'm of this opinion although the military thing has started my deluluness again and I'm leaning towards the belief that they may be something more than friends even today), and it was a breath of fresh air to see how many Jkkrs didn't just bluntly dismiss it was him (I mean we still don't know for sure if it was or not, but you shouldn't exclude all options bc they don't fit your narratives) - sth I haven't seen with Tkkrs (starting with the Taennie video and then Jk's) - on the contrary, I've seen them become more unhinged than ever.

So there are crazy shippers on both part, as well as the rational ones, but still, whenever I think of Tkk shippers, I get the ick as they give me such cult-like vibes (and this has nothing to do with Tae and Jk themselves).

***

(These asks were buried under an avalanche of other asks hence the delayed posting. These asks are related to the toxic asks series yesterday)

I'm seeing recurring themes in many points made here, some I agree with and others I don't.

#jikook #toxic quick asks

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septembersghost · 2 years ago

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The review you recently posted about Harry's house is something I felt regarding 1989. I know lot of people here consider haylor as one sided love and other sided fling but I never felt that way. In almost all harry songs he seemed confident that she loves him. I can feel your heart inside mine, will you ever love me AGAIN(implying she loved him first time), even Him is like 'I know you love me you are pretending you dont. I don't think she would take him back so many times for 3 years straight don't think he would feel this way if she didn't do things that made him feel this sure.(this is a clear contrast to camille where he is aware he write too many songs about her). The fact that Taylor compared haylor to roschel(a relationship where both loved the other) and was petty enough to like a tweet calling him immature (after yacht kiss with kendall Jenner ) tells me that she definitely had something more than 'fun hookup' . Plus harry was only ex Calvin hated to the point where he blocked everyone with harry picture in profile (god he was a d*ckhead).

I feel like Taylor let us into her and harry's relationship in a polished way. Like she says the story in 'taylor swift ' way without putting taylor in it. Because there isn't a track that makes you feel like oh fuck! And in songs that are sad she disguises it with heavy production and makes a point of "hey he made the first move". Thus it comes across as unemotional or unimportant or 'she didnt love him' way.Like you said She made a perfect pop album but not a perfect Taylor album.

i've mentioned this, but i do think a factor in the misperception is that the fact that it was extended years of on again and off again isn't as widely known, so there's this idea that it was much shorter lived. what's strange to me is when i see comments saying there's no real love on 1989 itself, because it is very present and very much the pulse of the record to me, but it's a different *kind* of love than red was, or than joe is now. there tends to be this...dismissal? of the fact that we love different people in very different ways, romantically and otherwise, and no two relationships will be the same. the glossy polish of the album and some of it being kept at arm's length or wrapped in anxiety doesn't negate the emotion that is there, you know? we just have to search a bit more for its vulnerability. but the concept that it was one-sided or not real or impactful to her is baffling to me, and not something i knew fans even thought until recently! there's nothing that suggests to me that it didn't matter to her, it was so much of them feeling that connection but struggling to be on the same page at the same time. and i guess it's difficult to talk about because if we acknowledge it was meaningful, we get characterized as "shippers," which... 😵 they're real people, first and foremost, and we're not clamoring for them like a fictional couple, we're just looking at what did happen and what's been expressed in the music, and it's interesting primarily *because* we do have his side as response.

(i wasn't on twitter and i intensely disliked CH at the time, so i didn't see that firsthand, but my friend has told me about him blocking people over their icons and it's so ridiculously petty.)

but yes that's very much how 1989 feels, it's sparkly and a little disguised and genius in its production, but it's almost like the absence of some of the raw edge she's known for makes it feel slightly less emotionally present, and so much of that stemmed from her desire to pivot away from what came before. her classic hallmarks aren't as clear because that was the intent, creating that more tightly curated pop record. it's a great listen! it's just a little less revealing.

#anonymous #letterbox #thrown out speeches

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jedda-martele · 6 months ago

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I love this bit. But this painting.

This painting has the former English major/literary analysis/knows a bit about art history part of me frothing at the mouth. The idea that anyone can look at this work and be simply cheerful about displaying it is wild (also it is 8 1/2 by 6 1/2 feet which is a lot of angry red paint to look at). Because here’s what my brain just tossed together upon seeing images of it and immediately feeling like I simply had to offer my interpretation of it as though there was a quiz in front of me.

The face and hands of the figure are the only parts of the subject that are distinct from the vivid background. But what could the fading out of the figure say? Charles is wearing a uniform referencing the unit he served in as a young man with numerous decorations on the chest. By having the body and the medals melting into the background, the artist appears to be commenting on the dissolution of not only the subject own youth (and thus his own mortality) but also the decline of influence and importance of the British empire itself. This is emphasized by the inclusion of a butterfly, standard symbol of transformation and change.

The swirls of red and black making up the background form a chaotic pool for the life and realm of the subject to fall into. Red is a color of passion and aggression. Here this could be interpreted as meaning that, despite the serene expression, this disappearance of self and kingdom is being accompanied by rage. Additionally, the aforementioned butterfly is presumably a monarch. One fact commonly known about monarchs is that they are poisonous, causing birds that eat one to almost immediately vomit. In combination with the fading figure and the stark colors, the butterfly could be part of a threat. The subject knows the end is coming but those who subsume his life and his heritage should take care lest they be tainted by their very act of destruction.

The hands appear softer and almost puffy compared to the face. That, in conjunction with the grayish tint, makes them feel like another reference to the subject’s mortality or death and decay in general. The face, the head being clearest makes sense since many modern people conceive of their thoughts, their brain, as being the seat of themselves. So it would be the last thing to go. But the flamelike tangle behind him will eventually consume all.

Like, that’s honestly how the painting comes across to me. Maybe Charlie gets the sense of anger and chaos but thinks it’s just about him being powerful. Maybe he gets some of the emotion but thinks it’s about how he’s not allowed to be messy and angry in public. Maybe he just sees surface similarities between this and the artist’s other work that has faces clear with fading bodies and accepts it as him having a hip, cool painting that he’s never going to consider for one moment. But it baffles me. Hadn’t read Yeo’s statement so that was neat.

Portrait of a Royal

(Warning behind the cut for a full-length image of the new Jonathan Yeo portrait of Charles III, which is real startling if you aren't expecting it.)

"Having met Charles Windsor," Gregory said over breakfast that morning, "I can assure you, he really is exactly the kind of man who wouldn't notice an elaborate and expensive roasting."

They had a rule about reading smartphones at breakfast -- using a tablet was fine if they were talking business, and phones were permitted for scheduling or settling arguments about the lyrics to songs or movie trivia, but overall they tried to keep the devices face-down. On that particular morning absolutely nobody was following the rule, because Jes had walked into the dining room with Michaelis, propped their tablet against a juice carafe in the middle of the table, and said, "I want everyone's opinion on what the actual living fuck is going on here."

Gerald had almost choked on his coffee. Alanna, feeding Sera, had looked up at the tablet, showing a portrait of King Charles III of England done in raw-meat pinks and muddy browns, and missed Sera's face entirely with a spoonful of mashed banana. Joan's eyes went huge as Eddie went into peals of laughter, which the twins promptly imitated, slapping their hands on the trays of their high chairs.

Gregory had carefully set down his silverware and rested his elbows on the table, propping his nose on his clasped hands to try and maintain a poker face.

"It's satire, right?" Ger had asked, looking from Jes to Gregory to Alanna. "I actually liked art history at school, and that's a painting someone did in protest, isn't it?"

"This is the official royally commissioned portrait of Charles the third," Michaelis had said, helping himself to breakfast at the sideboard and settling in between Joan and Jes. "But yes, it is also satire."

"They paid for that?" Eddie asked, gesturing at the painting. "They paid for it. And voluntarily put it on display."

"So the press releases say," Jes said. "I'm taking soundings because we are absolutely dedicating at least one episode of The Echo to it. I might have to start an entirely new podcast about contemporary art just so I can do a deep dive."

"Satire," Gerald repeated, staring at the painting.

"Not explicitly according to the artist, but his description of it is…very dry," Michaelis said. Jes held up their phone and read from it.

"The vivid color of the glazes in the background echo the uniform’s bright red tunic, not only resonating with the royal heritage found in many historical portraits but also injecting a dynamic, contemporary jolt into the genre with its uniformly powerful hue…" they stopped to snicker.

"Oh that's good," Alanna said approvingly. "Calling raw-flesh red the royal heritage is a very nice touch."

"The butterfly approaching King Charles's shoulder in the portrait adds a layer of narrative depth, symbolizing both his known advocacy for environmental causes and his personal transformation."

"It's a lie," Joan said. The adults looked at her.

"What's a lie, hon?" Gregory asked.

"I mean -- " Joan frowned at the painting. "He says he's painting the king's portrait but he's actually painting his feelings about the king, right? And being paid to paint a portrait implies you're supposed to be on the subject's side. But he's definitely not. So it's kind of like a lie. Of a painting. That's cool," she added, thoughtfully. "He roasted the king and the king didn't even notice? That's so cool!"

"Having met Charles Windsor," Gregory said, "I can assure you, he really is exactly the kind of man who wouldn't notice an elaborate and expensive roasting."

"That's sort of what satire is," Gerald added. "It's saying one thing but meaning another in a way that's really obvious to almost everyone."

"Ooh," Joan replied, digesting this. "I've had European history," she continued. "Other royal families aren't like ours."

"Well, some," Michaelis said. "Most, perhaps. Because we elect our royalty, even if we do tend to…elect in families. If you're king one day, it'll be because Gregory trained you and the people think you'd be best at the job. If you were the kind of person he is," he added, nodding to the portrait, "You probably wouldn't get elected."

"I sure wouldn't want a portrait like that done of me if I did," Joan said.

"That reminds me, we really do need to have portraits done," Gregory said to Eddie.

"Well, I say hire this guy," Eddie replied, gesturing at the painting. "At least you know you'll get an honest opinion."

"Doubt he needs the work, given he managed to get paid to insult a king to his face," Jes said. "Maybe that's the angle -- he basically ran a con on the royal family."

"Is it a con if they pay you for something and you give it to them?" Gerald asked.

"To be clear, that was con-parenthesis-admiring-close-parenthesis," Jes replied.

"I should never have told them I have a Tumblr," Ger said to Alanna.

"Don't look at me, I warned you," she replied.

"His other work is very good," Gregory said, scrolling images on his own phone. "I wonder if we can afford him. Love to see what he'd do with you, Eddie."

"I don't mind. Whatever he does, can't be worse than the haters who didn't like my TV show," Eddie replied serenely.

"Am I going to meet the Windsors, ever?" Joan asked Gregory.

"Oh, sooner or later, probably."

"We used to have to go to the birthdays sometimes," Alanna said. "Gregory and Gerald and me. We used to immediately go find Mia and then spend the parties running around with her, causing mischief."

"That's Queen Amelia of Genovia," Michaelis told Joan.

"I should call her, she's going to love this," Gregory said absently.

"I owe her money, I think," Gerald added. "Don't play poker with Genovians," he told Serafina, who burbled.

Eddie, who had apparently already thought of someone to call, had his phone to his ear. "Hey, Gee," he said, to whoever answered. Gregory looked at him curiously. "Yeah, it's Ed. Oh, don't give me shit, I married for love. Have you seen the new Yeo painting? I know! Yeah, I thought you might. Can I get his number? Oh, great. And do you know what his rates are? Well, yeah, and I want to be top of the waiting list. Okay. Huh, that's…affordable."

The entire table was silent. Eddie grinned at them.

"Oh, would you? You are the best, my man. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, next time you're in Europe, book a few days here, huh? Okay. Okay -- yeah, here it comes -- ciao, darling!" he said, and hung up.

"Who do you know who can quote you Jonathan Yeo's fees?" Jes asked.

"Gordon Ramsay," Eddie said casually. "He had a portrait done. I don't know what the royal budget is but his going rate, at least pre-Windsor, is not going to dip my bank account uncontrollably."

"You married for love?" Gregory prompted.

"Oh yeah, he likes to make fun of me for marrying into royalty, he calls me King Golddigger. I think you'll like him, I'll introduce you."

"What if you have Mr. Yeo do a portrait and it ends up like that, though?" Joan asked, gesturing at the painting. Jes picked up the tablet and blanked it, setting it aside.

"Then I will have deserved it, don't you think?" Gregory asked. "We should never try to pretend to a face that's better than the one we actually have. One reason art is so important is that it reminds us of that. That's why we spend so much government money on the arts. Now, finish your eggs, we are definitely going to have to have some conversations about that painting with several of the MPs, it's going to be a rowdy morning."

I think this is more or less extracanonical, but I couldn't get out of my head the idea of the Shivadh royals reacting to Yeo's portrait of Charles III. I don't think he's actually done one of Gordon Ramsay, but I think Ramsay's the kind of guy who would enjoy his work, for sure. Yeo's statement about the portrait is here; it's well worth clicking around his site, his other work is equally fantastic. I can only imagine what he'd do with a portrait of Gregory or Eddie (or Michaelis).

#long post is long #sorry for rambling on a neat story post #ART!

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nek0mars · 2 years ago

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A Review of The Ssum (from the perspective of an MM fan)

Ok, so the first thing I would like to say is:

Please be considerate toward Ssum; it’s an entirely different game from MM, and despite there being similarities, SSum is NOT Mystic!! (but you all know that, surely ^^)

However, I will be comparing things in my rant...because I am one of those Mystic Messenger Fans ;-;

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(Also I see some of you all asking Cheritz for more MM content...I get it, I want some more too but...we all have heard that Cheritz has (supposedly) said that updates for content will be sparse or MUCH less frequent

edit:

(however I have heard from someone that they said after Ray's AE, they were planning on stopping updating in general other than new start screen CGs, BUT YOU NEVER KNOW, I'M PATIENTLY WAITING FOR A VANDY ROUTE IDC)

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So first things first: Teo.

I’ve already seen people say this, but he’s sort of...bland? In fact, he actually seems like a mild mixture of Zen, 707, and Yoosung. He’s an aspiring film director who likes to game in his spare time, and is helping test developing AIs. After growing up with Mystic, it’s strange to see such a normal character!

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Second!

The typing speed is extremely slow, and you can’t speed it up.

The only way to speed it up (from what I’ve seen) is to pay $9.99 for fast typing speed. That’s...a lot more than Max Speed in MM.

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Third!

Here’s some comments I found in Ssum already, lol:

"mystic messenger >>>>>"

"give me 200 days of content of jumin han instead"

"i am confused lol"

"i really miss yoosung"

"i don't understand this HEEELLLLPPP"

"this game is so confusing lol"

Aside from the MM comments, I see a LOT of people being super baffled about the interface of Ssum. There are a ton of features that MM never had, and for former and present MM fans, it’s very new and confusing.

There’s also the fact that the purchases aren’t made to be a one time purchase. In fact, the packages are SUBSCRIPTIONS. Meaning you have to pay MONTHLY. Some people just cannot afford a subscription (myself included).

This, along with the fact that everything seems overpriced, is making MM fans a bit irritated that they can’t fully enjoy this new game without having to spend money.

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Fourth!

Here’s some of my personal opinions on the game!

The interface is really nice! It’s smooth, it’s clean, it’s modern and new :)

The voice acting is really cute and high quality, and I appreciate that.

However, the way that Teo talks with you in the chatrooms and over the phone is a bit strange. It’s a bit sudden, and feels sort of rushed.

I mean, it’s only two chats in and he’s talking about how he feels flushed talking to you!

I also understand the idea of talking to only one person to get to know them, but it is honestly strange to not have a wider option of characters. (Is Cheritz planning on adding more characters? I genuinely do not know)

Also, a little detail, but you can’t pause the phone calls. I understand that you’re simulating a real phone call but what if I’m busy? ;-;

For MM fans, it's definitely not going to overtake Mystic.

It doesn’t have the same “charm”, and I feel like MM fans are just going to hold onto Ssum simply because it’s a Cheritz game.

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We do need to keep in mind that Cheritz has spent 4 years creating this game. That’s very commendable (...despite the fact they kept telling people they’d release it, ...only to push it back another few months)

Still, I do know mystic fans want Mystic content to continue rather than have to deal with an entirely new and different game.

MM attachment shouldn’t be carried over as irritation for Ssum. BUT, that irritation is understandable considering MM is what we’ve lived off from Cheritz for a solid 6 years.

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My closing thought is that I genuinely believe that people who have never played Mystic will enjoy Ssum! Having a clear slate and not having gotten attached to the former game will definitely allow for hardcore Ssum fans to crop up.

Unfortunately, I know that I’ll always be a die-hard MM fan.

Thanks for reading!!

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ashesandhackles · 4 years ago

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The Hogwarts Express scene in Prince's Tale: A Sirius and Snape analysis

I really, really enjoy Sirius and Snape as characters and their respective narrative functions in story. But what gets me most about them is how much Rowling hints about their backgrounds and so much of it makes sense with regard to who they are as adults. So I am going to be breaking down a very small scene from Prince Tale and getting into long winded hypothesis about their respective childhoods.

So, let's start with Snape. The scene begins with Snape rushing to find Lily, already in his Hogwarts clothes. Harry notes he must have been eager to get out of his clothes - ones that look like he borrowed from his mother, as Petunia spitefully pointed out. This has always been a very interesting detail to me - first off, it indicates how poor Snape's family is. Second, this indicates his tiny rebellion from his father - he refuses to wear clothes of the abusive man, and prefers his mother's. I admit, I am partial to the reading that Snape refuses to associate with his father in tiny ways, rather than Tobias refusing to hand his son clothes.

(I have seen readings which say that it is also a sign of neglect - perhaps his parents bought clothes that simply don't fit him, but I am more inclined to think it's a hand me down, simply because Harry identifies so strongly with it. Because Harry knows what it is like to wear a hand me down that don't quite fit, that are too big for you, or the ones that make you look ridiculous.)

Lily and Petunia's relationship is fraught with Petunia's jealousy. And young Lily is upset over it when Snape meets her. "I am not talking to you. Tuney hates me" she tells him. "Because we saw the letter from Dumbledore". Young Lily shows signs of being extremely emotionally reactive and this scene is one of them. It's easier for her to deal with Petunia's rejection of her by telling Snape she doesn't want to talk to him. It's a childish displacement of her hurt over her sister's rejection. (I am genuinely baffled by interpretations that Lily and Hermione are similar. Hermione is very cognitive person, Lily, as we have been shown repeatedly in memories, is not).

Snape, however, with his bad history with Petunia and his inability/ poor social skills to understand why this matters to her, goes: "So what?"

Lily, who throws him a look of deep dislike, says "So she's my sister". This seed is important because this is what develops into "he doesn't get me" feeling she later displays in her teenage scenes with him. Interestingly, most of Lily's personal relationships have deeply interwined love and dislike - Petunia (whose rejection bothers her but she cheerfully informs Sirius that Harry nearly broke a vase her sister sent - which means there is resentment on her end too), James - who she was attracted to even before 7th year but also disliked at one point, and Snape - again, a contentious friendship filled with love and distance.

"She's only a -" we dont get to hear what Snape intended to say. And given his own acrimony with Petunia, it could be anything. However, I read it as "She's only a Muggle" because it ties into his feelings about his father. Snape, who is proud of being half a Prince, emphasizing his magical lineage from his mother's side, his refuge in a violent, neglectful home. (Barty Crouch Jr and Snape with their disappointing fathers - I imagine Voldemort is supremely attractive leader to people with broken homes like this)

Snape, by all accounts, shows a disorganised attachment style. His caregiver, his mother - and perhaps the only parent he seems to have regard for, is too preoccupied by her own abuse to be there for her son - we see this in glimpses Harry sees in OOTP: " woman cowering" where a man shouts at her, and a young, neglected Snape cries in the corner. Children born in homes like this have trouble regulating their emotions, simultaneously displaying tendencies to aggressively lash out or show disassociative symptoms. Both of which Snape displays. Statistically, this is also seen more in low income households where economic instability and resulting domestic instability creates an unsafe environment for the kids to safely form ideas of their identity, or express emotions in healthy ways, modelling instead out of behaviour seen at home.

Then, Snape reminds her that they are going to Hogwarts. He is already in his Hogwarts clothes - now, Snape gets to be the impressive figure. The one who told her about magic, who theorised about how Muggles get letters from magical people, the one who told her about Dementors and Azkaban. He has already left behind the Spinner's End version of him, he wants to bigger than that, and is keen to be in place of magical learning and to join Slytherin. Essentially, he shows signs of unstable identity, insecurity - all prime for grooming into a cult.

And here comes along James Potter, who looks around at the mention of Slytherin. James's comment uses Snape's line and directs it to Sirius instead and it becomes a conversation between them, as a way to bond more with a fellow "rowdy boy" Sirius. Effectively ignoring the other two.

Sirius as we see here, "does not smile" when James talks about Slytherin. He essentially says something that can be construed as a way to nip that conversation in bud: "My whole family has been in. Slytherin". This suggests to me that there is some loyalty to his family there and his disillusionment with them isn't entirely fixed yet. After all, Sirius's intense loyalty to his friends, more specifically James, did not come out of thin air. It is reasonable to suggest that he felt some loyalty to his family at some point and the intensity with which he regards his friends is a reaction to burned off and being a "displaced person without a family" as Rowling put it.

Interestingly, while his reaction to his mother and Bellatrix are obviously sore spots, his response to Regulus is comparatively quite soft. ("Stupid, idiot" - something he calls James later on in the same book, OOTP). I imagine Sirius has quite complicated feelings about his brother and he is capable of nuance (when the person isn't Snape, where his dislike seems to be borne of an intense projection): "The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". As someone who is grown up among them, Sirius would understand that.

His framing of Regulus's need to please his parents also further highlights what exactly is the source of disillusionment. He calls Regulus "soft enough to believe them" - which means he is crediting his own intelligence to see through his parents bigoted world view. Clearly, bigotry is not something the Blacks explained in a way that Sirius, eldest of their male line and their heir, bought it. It also probably didn't help the Blacks case that Grimmauld Place is in a Muggle neighborhood and that their eldest son is a bit of a wild boy with interest in pushing boundaries. His intellectual disconnect leads to the righteous rage he later feels but it began there. (Boy, it must suck to discover that everything you have been taught to value in the world and in yourself as the heir is essentially rubbish). Since his differences with his family began with seeds of intellectual disconnect rather than on intense empathy with downtrodden, it makes him, as a pureblooded privileged boy, unable to truly understand Lupin's fears regarding his lycanthropy. Hence, the Werewolf prank (I am not getting to the Snape bit, just the Lupin bit). To James' credit, he does understand what that means for Lupin and saves all three of them from different set of consequences.

Anyway, back to the scene. James, who has made an ass of himself in front of his new friend, who he was getting along with fine until now, then goes "Blimey, I thought you seemed alright". (Btw, I find James wildly large ego kind of hilarious here, especially in light of Snape's comment about him to Sirius in OOTP: "You will know he is so arrogant that criticism simply bounces off him"). Sirius, who I believe has been raised like "royalty" as Blacks would, has good enough social skills to defuse a situation. He grins and says: "Maybe I will break the tradition".

This line is an indication of Sirius's desire for independence, an identity seperate from his family. The use of the word "tradition" is interesting. It sounds like Sirius is expected to behave in a certain way, the heir of Black family whose parents thought being a Black "made you practically royal". Adult Sirius is contemptuous of this, or their "valuable contribution to Ministry" which means they just gave gold - it tells me that any and all conditions put on him by his family were to fulfill tradition that is either worthless or holds no meaning in his eyes. The root of the emotional abuse Sirius suffers from his family is this - realising his parents love for him is conditional on him being a certain way. (In fact, you can read Regulus desire to emphasise his connection to the family as a reaction to what he sees with Sirius - Sirius does not behave, Mum and Dad don't love him). As a child with unconscious knowledge of lack of love, Sirius then acts out, they react, rinse and repeat "until he has had enough". Sirius chafes against boundaries well into adulthood and doesn't react well to people enforcing it on him, even if it is out of love for him. Cue the fire scene with Harry where he behaves as if Harry is rejecting him instead of protecting him.

Sirius asks James about where he wants to go, and Snape, who is incensed about James being insulting about a House he put stock in, which he made part of new identity (so that he is no longer that Snape boy from Spinner's End) and was in general trying to be impressive about in front of Lily, "makes a disparaging noise" once James talks of Gryffindor. Snape's response to James' : "Got a problem with that?" is interesting. He says: "If you'd rather be brawny, rather than brainy-"

This is an important value for Snape. He knows he is clever and values it. He spends his spare time inventing hexes, making great shortcuts to Potions. He has genuine thirst for learning and he hones it. In SWM, we see that he has written far more longer answers than anyone else, he is poring over his paper after exams. He even mocks Hermione's lack of inventive answers: "Answer copied word to word from the textbook, but correct in essentials". He values originality. It may be me stretching this, but I am partial to the reading: this is his way of rejecting his father once again, who is implied to be a violent man. (in other words, someone who is hypermasculine - "brawny". In fact, Snape's rejection of hypermasculinity is a huge post on it's own - Potions (brewing, cauldrons - coded as feminine arts), the doe Patronus, his proficiency in Occlumency and Legliemency (intuitive mind arts, again seen archetypically feminine) etc).

"Where are you hoping to go, seeing as you are neither?" - Sirius is quick with emotionally cutting insults. Snape hasn't even finished his sentence, but Sirius is already on his case. Which suggests growing up in a household with sharp tongues. It's a fair assumption, given Mrs Black's half mad portrait. It also tallies with Sirius's talking about his mother: "My mother didn't have a heart Kreacher, she kept herself alive out of pure spite" . The wounds are fresh enough on this. (Another interesting way Snape and Sirius act as inverse mirrors - Snape rejects his father, Sirius rejects his mother. Sirius acts as proxy for James for Harry while Snape takes on Lily's role of protecting him). However, you know who else is spiteful? Sirius.

While James is the physical bully (the tripping Snape, doing most of the bullying in SWM), Sirius attacks emotionally. ( Sample the one about Snape's appearance - "I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment, there will be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word" or even the carelessly vicious- "Put that away, before Wormtail wets himself in excitement"). Curiously, with all that talk of how his mother being spiteful, it's her room he spends time in when he is depressed. (Again, in inverse mirror way, we can talk of how Snape looks for a father figure in Dumbledore - craves his validation and is proud of Dumbledore's trust in him). We could argue it's also because Buckbeak is there, and perhaps it's the largest room in the house, but it's very telling that's where Sirius spends time when he is "in a fit of sullens". Sirius's sense of abandonment from his family, makes him look for family connections with friends - a trait he shares with Harry. Interestingly, the first time he glimpses Harry in Privet Drive, Harry is also running away from home - just like he did. Anyway, I could go on.

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merakiaes · 4 years ago

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Hate You, Hate You Not - Armitage Hux

Pairing: General Armitage Hux x reader

Requested: By anon.

Prompts: #1 & #58 from the fluff-list.

Warnings/notes: (SHOULD I MAKE A PART 2 WITH MORE ROMANCE IN IT?) This ended up being much longer than I planned so it's most likely very boring and dull😭 Might be a bit, if not a lot, out of character since this is kinda my test-run for Hux and Star Wars in general. Getting the characters mannerisms in might take some practice. Not proofread so I apologize in advance for any mistakes. This is the first time ever that I write for Star Wars and the first time in like 5-6 months that I’m writing in general so I’m a bit rusty. Please reblog and leave comments to keep my motivation going and let me know if you’d like to be added to a Star Wars taglist <3

Wordcount: 5632

Summary: One of Kylo Ren’s many tantrums results in your room being inhabitable for a night, which in turn results in you having to share a room - and bed - with the person you hate the most.

Everyone who had ever, at some point in their lives, worked alongside Kylo Ren in his quest to bring the Order to power, knew how much of a hassle and inconvenience his temper, or lack thereof, could be.

Not much was needed for him to lose his cool and it happened on a much too frequent basis than what was considered normal for a man in his early 30s, at least according to you.

Of course, however, you couldn’t actually tell him that, nor could you think it, with the risk of him probing your mind.

So every time he came back from a failed mission and completely obliterated your hard work, you could do nothing but bite your tongue, clear your head and repair the damages like you’d done oh, so many times before.

That’s what you got for being one of the highest-ranked engineers of the Order, you supposed.

But on this day you would’ve, for the first time in your life, very much preferred to repair the damages left behind by your tantrum-prone leader like you always did. Because if that punishment had to be compared to the one you were now facing, you would’ve chosen the former without even a shadow of a doubt.

But, unfortunately, that was not an option this time around, as the room that had fallen victim to the sizzling beam of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber was your bedroom.

Well, not originally, of course, but sparks had flown from the totaled control panels and a piece of supposedly fireproof metal scrap had caught on fire before you and the other engineers reached the room for a damage-control, starting of as a small flame and then proceeding to spread like wildfire as fire did, in ways completely unbeknownst to you as, like already mentioned, the place was supposed to be safe from fires.

The licking flames had managed to melt through several walls before you got to the scene, and one of those walls was the wall to your bedroom.

It was late when it happened, only fifteen minutes before you were supposed to end your shift, and as you were on the verge of having a mental fucking breakdown, you personally requested an audience with Kylo and were granted permission by him after a very carefully-worded explanation to start early in the morning.

But that only took care of one of your problems, and only temporarily at that. Now you were left with the issue of finding other sleeping accommodations since your room was currently not habitable. You had no choice but to ask for another room and, of course, Hux thought that to be the perfect time to crack a sarcastic joke about throwing you into one of the prisoner cells.

You had never, in all your years of being alive, glared so fiercely at another human being as you did then. And in your moment of anger, you accidentally let your walls down and let your thoughts run freely through your head – your annoyance directed at the General, but also at Kylo Ren, being exposed.

You felt it before you saw it – that little prickle in your head, that little sting of your mind being probed – and only a second later, Kylo Ren turned his masked head in your direction, walked up to you with patronizingly slow steps and spoke:

“I think you’ll find that General Hux’s quarters will suffice for the night, until repairs can be done to your own. He has more than enough space for both of you.”

He turned his head to look at the baffled man standing behind him, all of the attitude he had previously been harboring against you now completely melted away.

“Isn’t that right, General?” Kylo continued asking, giving him the time he needed to regain his composure.

The general in question had never been very good at holding his tongue, not even when receiving orders from superiors, and was quick to protest.

As anyone would’ve been able to guess, that didn’t go very well, and you weren't even gonna try hiding the satisfaction you got from seeing Hux be force-choked against a wall for speaking out of turn.

No matter how good both of you were at hiding your spiteful thoughts toward him, Kylo knew how much the two of you hated him. And more than anything, he knew how much you hated each other.

Kylo had become very predictable to you during the time you had been there and you knew his ways good enough to know that he wouldn’t have wasted petty energy in putting the two most hateful people he knew in the same room if he hadn’t been pushed to do so.

You knew that you weren’t the reason in this scenario, despite the fact that he had probably felt your spite directed towards him, which only left one option; and that option was the bitter, infuriatingly stubborn ginger currently walking by your side.

You glanced at him from the corner of your eye and glared, clenching and unclenching your fists at your sides in the same manner you had been doing ever since Kylo had ruled his decision final and dismissed you for the night.

His eyes remained trained on the metallic corridor that seemed to be stretched out for miles in front of you and your blood boiled at the sight.

You would’ve lost your shit if he’d had the nerve to even consider looking at you after putting you in this situation, but at the same time, you were also on the verge of losing your shit about him having the audacity to ignore you.

You wanted to scream at him like you’d never screamed at anyone before, but you knew that doing that would only fuel the petty grudge Kylo had against the two of you and give him more ways to cause you torment. The only thing you and the general would ever have in common was not wanting that.

But still, what harm could a tiny bit of friendly banter do?

“You just couldn’t help yourself, could you, Armitage?” The question you’d been sucking on for the past few minutes finally slipped out into the air, making your anger known.

“Don’t call me that.”

“My apologies.” You sarcastically shot back with a dry laugh. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you, general?”

“No, it was awfully tempting.” Was all that he replied, his eyes not once flickering and neither his stone-cold scowl nor fast-paced stride faltering.

Well, you might have absolutely despised each other but in the very least, you never bothered lying to each other. That had to count for something, right? Not that either of you cared.

No more words were exchanged, and that was probably for the best. Engineers and stormtroopers all moved out of your way as the two of you marched through the corridors, side by side, knowing better at this point than to get on your bad sides when you were together and this obviously angry both with each other and in general.

Soon enough, you finally reached the corridor in which Hux’s sleeping quarters were located and once the mechanic doors slid open, you pushed yourself past him into the room before he even got the chance to react.

He fumed behind you as he watched you make yourself at home, dropping your dirty jacket on his perfectly made bed.

“You’ll take the floor, then?” You asked as you turned around, crossing your arms over your chest and shooting him a forced smile.

“Hardly.” He spat, eyes narrowing, and you scoffed, rolling your eyes in return.

“You must be a real hit with the ladies with those manners.”

At that, he stepped further into his room, allowing the sensory-triggered door to shut behind him, successfully shutting the two of you in together.

“I don’t have time for fooling around with women.” He spat out the last word with such malice that you automatically raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that explains it.” You mused, the corner of your lip tugging upwards ever so slightly.

“Explains what, exactly?” His eyes narrowed further, and this time it was his turn to cross his arms.

“That stick you have up your ass.” You wasted no time in shooting back, and before he got a chance to reply, you continued. “I know this might be news to you seeing as you’re, well, you, but gentlemen are supposed to sacrifice their comfort and offer themselves to take the floor when a lady, due to unfortunate circumstances, is forced to stay in their room.”

You sarcastically smiled at him and sank down his bed, something that he, judging by the snarl overtaking his face, didn’t appreciate.

“You, a lady? That will be the day.” He scoffed. “Even calling you a woman is a stretch with your mannerisms.”

You could only roll your eyes.

“Well, I’m not sharing a bed with you.” The glare that had temporarily been exchanged for a teasing smirk returned to your face. “I’d rather share a bed with Millicent.”

As you said that, you picked up a single strand of cat hair from his bed, held it up for further inspection and raised your lip in disgust.

He stared at you dead serious, hands clasped behind his back and eyes burning holes into the side of your face.

“You’re allergic to cats.” He pointed out, making your head whip back around to face him with a glare equally as fierce as the one you were met with.

“Yes, that’s my point.” You deadpanned. “But it would seem that said point just went right over your thick-skulled head.”

“Do you think I am any happier about this than you are?” He scowled, and you stood up, slowly approaching him and coming to a stop right in front of him.

He took a small step back, a move that made your lip tug upward ever so slightly. The fact that he was so obviously not as tough as he wanted people to believe gave you a special kind of satisfaction and he knew it, judging by the way he only turned stiffer after that.

“You should be.” You smiled sweetly at him, keeping your eyes connected to his. “Because you’re sure as hell lucky I haven’t choked the life out of you yet for getting us into this situation in the first place.”

He glared and you glared right back, challenging, no, daring him to fight back. You knew that he wanted to, you could see that he wanted to, but in the end, not even he was that stupid.

So he said nothing, and once you realized you had finally managed to successfully back him into a corner, you backed away from him again and plastered on another forced, overly sweet smile.

“Now, I need to take a shower. I reek of burnt plastic.” You stated flatly and pushed past him, making a beeline for the one extra door in the room that you could only assume was his bathroom.

You heard the squeak of his shoes rubbing against the floor as he quickly turned around behind you, and then came the determined steps and the proximity of his body closing in on you. However, before he got the chance to object or reach you, you entered his bathroom and slammed the door shut in his face, smiling contently to yourself as you listened to the muffled string of curses that followed.

You didn’t spend any more time thinking about it, though, not wasting any time before doing what you came in there to do.

You got out of your horrid-smelling clothes, released your equally as nasty-smelling hait from its ponytail and stepped into the shower.

If there was one thing you appreciated a little extra about living at the Starkiller Base, it was that everyone used the same scented soap. Because that meant that you wouldn’t have to go around smelling specifically like Hux, but rather just like you always smelled.

Once you finished washing your hair and body, you had to stop and think for a bit.

Your clothes obviously still reeked and needed a proper wash before they could be worn again, and you obviously couldn’t go naked.

After much thought back and forth, you finally settled with your own leggings as they were the one piece of clothing from your previous attire that smelled the least of smoke, and a plain black, long-sleeved undershirt that you found in a pile of Hux’s clean laundry.

Once you vad gotten dressed, braided your hair and re-entered the bedroom accompanied by a stream of steam, you found it to be empty, Hux nowhere in sight.

You couldn’t deny that you wondered where he’d gone off to, but you shook your head free of his face pretty quickly, settling with believing that he just went to take his frustration out on some poor stormtrooper or low-rank intern like he so often did when things didn’t go his way, much like Kylo Ren beat the shit out of any control panel he could get his hands on.

While you awaited his return, you occupied yourself with going around the room and lighting the small night-lamps like you normally did in your own room before going to bed.

That obviously didn’t take long, however, so you were soon enough once again left alone with your boredom and started walking around the room, inspecting all of Hux’s belongings.

You realized pretty quickly that he was not a person to whom inanimate things had much sentimental value, as he definitely didn’t have much to his name aside from the basic interior that all of the sleeping quarters on the base had.

He had a ring on his drawer, a few books in one of his two bookshelves while the other stood empty, a small bed in a corner for his cat, clothes in his wardrobe, and that was pretty much it. He had no pictures of family, no real personal belongings that could signify any kind of emotional value.

But then again, who did in these parts?

“Is that my shirt?”

You jumped when you heard the sudden voice behind you, quickly turning around where you stood twirling the ring you had found in the light of the lamp standing beside you.

Your eyes found his form immediately, shocked meeting stern.

“Why are you wearing my shirt?” He almost instantly repeated himself when not getting a reply the first time, slowly beginning to walk in your direction with his hands clasped behind his back.

You quickly put the ring back down on the dresser and turned towards him, regaining your composure.

“Well, if you hadn’t noticed, my room and everything in it was burnt to a crisp. The smokey smell on my clothes was giving me a headache and kind of would have ruined the purpose of taking a shower so when I just so conveniently noticed a pile of clean clothes, I helped myself.” You shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal, and to you, it wasn’t.

Hux, however, didn’t seem amused in the slightest.

“Yes, you seem to have a habit of thinking you’re entitled to everything you want.” He spat back at you, coming to a stop while there was still a good amount of distance between the two of you.

Any chill you had previously had melted right off and your annoyance quickly returned at the sound of his words.

“Oh, do excuse me. I just thought one headache would be enough.” You retorted and rolled your eyes, before sighing and crossing your arms over your chest. “So, how are we doing this? It’s late and I need to be up early to see to the repairs.”

“I thought that I made myself clear.” Hux was quick to scoff, his glare not faltering for as much as a second. “I’m not giving you my bed.”

Once again, all you could do was roll your eyes. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to suck it up then.” You stated flatly and sat down on the bed, wasting no time in starting to divide the pillows into two piles rather than one.

You took a few seconds to adjust the pillows to suit your needs before looking back up, eyebrow raised at the fact that he had yet to say or do anything.

Your eyes once again met his and you almost laughed out loud at the sight you were faced with, but thankfully managed to control yourself and avoid making the situation even harder than it already was.

Long story short, Hux had never looked more horrified than he did in that moment.

He basically looked at you like you had killed his cat, and that was putting it lightly.

You took a few seconds to just enjoy watching him squirm and silently scramble to make sense of the situation, but even you knew when enough was enough and raised a questioning eyebrow at him in an attempt to get him moving.

“Well? What’s it going to be?” You asked. “It’s either this or the floor, just like it was for me.”

Hux opened his mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again. He obviously hadn’t been expecting you to actually agree on sharing his bed with him and now that you had, he was left at loss for words as he clearly hadn’t been preparing for anything other than you sleeping on the floor.

But after a good moment of just standing there and looking like an idiot, he finally picked himself back up, squared his shoulders and walked around the bed to the other side with frustrated strides and a snarling lip.

The feigned confidence melted right off, however, when he reached his destination and awkwardly shuffled into bed while simultaneously avoiding your amused and mocking stare, silently grabbing the extra blanket that was folded upon his bedside table.

Both of you laid down on your backs and a heavy silence fell like a thick blanket over the room. The only sound you could hear for a few moments were each other’s breaths and your own heartbeats. For a moment, only for a microscopical moment, you were actually on your way to admit to yourself that it was kind of nice.

But that thought went flying out the window just as quickly as it had knocked on the door of your mind when Hux broke the silence by beginning to adjust himself to get ready to sleep, and in the process of doing so made the active choice to tug the pillows from right under your head.

The back of your head hit the mattress with a soft thump and you closed your eyes, your lips pulling into a straight, tight line and one, sharp breath being released through your nose as you attempted to keep your cool.

You took a moment to calm down, before you turned your head to his side of the bed where he now laid with his back to you and tugged the pillows back – maybe with a little too much force than necessary.

Hux had quickly rolled over to his other side to take them back and in anger and an eagerness to get to sleep, you exclaimed: “Stop stealing the pillows!”

He met you with a stare cold enough to have anyone else shaking in their boots and spat back. “They’re my pillows.”

You grumbled under your breath and let go of one of the two pillows, letting him pull it back to his side while you held on to the last one.

You stared at each other for a moment, both of you eventually coming to a silent, mutual agreement that you were too tired to fight and therefore he'd let you keep the pillow you were holding on to as if your life depended on it.

He, once again, laid down and turned his back to you, his hands holding on to the pillows under his head while you struggled to get comfortable again, this time with only one pillow.

“Why is your bed so damn hard?” You muttered under your breath as you angrily shoved your elbow into the mattress in an attempt to make it more comfortable – as if that was ever going to help.

“Stop complaining.” He only snapped back.

“How could I when I’m stuck in a bed with you?”

“You could’ve asked for other accommodations when you had the chance.”

“And what, be the next victim of Ren’s lightsaber?” You scoffed. “I’m the one in charge of the repairs that are needed every time he throws a wobbly. I’ve seen the kind of damage that thing can do and I’m not in any hurry to find myself at the receiving end of it.”

You muttered the last part under your breath as you finally managed to get relatively comfortable, plopping back down on your back and folding your hands over your stomach.

“How did you know I’m allergic to cats, anyway?” The question spilled out before you could stop yourself, and before you could even register that it was on the way.

Where did that even come from? Cats weren’t even close to being the subject at hand.

Hux didn’t seem to care much about the random change of subject, however, simply muttering back a reply. “You start sniffling and scratching your arms every time you’re in the same room as me for more than five minutes.”

He was clearly tired. Tired in general or just tired of you, you didn’t really know, but you guessed that it was a mixture of both since that was the case for you.

“Maybe I’m just allergic to you.” You muttered back with a shrug, even though he couldn’t see you, and he scoffed at that.

“Had that been the case I’m fairly certain it would go both ways and, unlike you, I don’t go around oozing snot everywhere I go.”

“I don’t go oozing snot everywhere.” You calmly protested, throwing the back of his head a disapproving glare before turning to lay on your side so that your back was now turned to his.

He didn’t say anything else and neither did you, sleep coming in and catching you completely by surprise and having you knocked out within the next two minutes.

When you woke up early that next morning, Hux was unsurprisingly already gone, Millicent instead laying in his place and looking right at you.

With a disgusted snarl and hesitant movements, you reached over to the other side of the bed and awkwardly patted her head twice, probably very much in the incorrect manner as you had no experience whatsoever with animals.

You got out of bed after that, put on your jacket and shoes, and wasted no time in getting to work once you’d gotten some food into your system, your team joining you in the damage-inflicted area to start on repairs like you’d done so many times before.

Everything was going fine and dandy, just a light-reckon day that started off like any other – if you didn’t count waking up in Hux’s bed with his cat – but a few hours into your workday, the unmistakable sound of Kylo Ren’s heavy steps could be heard echoing through the entire corridor you found yourself working in.

A big share of the Order’s pilots had been either killed or badly hurt a few days prior in an ambush. No one had expected any pilots to be needed for at least a few days but Kylo had gotten a sudden lead on the map that would take him to Luke Skywalker and was now walking around the base recruiting anyone capable of helping him get what he wanted.

Unfortunately for you, you were not only a highly-ranked engineer, but also a pretty decent pilot, and couldn’t say anything in protest when you were whisked away to a ship.

As anyone who wasn’t driven by an unhealthy obsession would have been able to guess, the lead was just too good to be true with a way too simple access.

Just like the last lead, this one fell through when it was revealed to be another ambush. You weren’t completely sure what happened, but over the comms, you had heard something about Leia Organa and some scavenger.

You didn’t have time to think about retired war heroes though, no matter how much you’d love to pry and the get in on the gossip, as you had to shoot yourself through a big fleet of Resistance starfighter corps, barely getting through with your ship intact.

Your fellow pilots were shot down one by one, only a small amount of you managing to get out of there. And even then, you were met by more starfighter corps just as quickly as you’d gotten away from the last line.

Everything was just a mess after that. You weren’t able to get through to anyone over the comms, only barely being able to make out a “pull back!” before your comm system was blown to pieces along with one of your main engines.

Along with several other ships, you were forced to crash-land on a small planet filled with thick woods and when your ship collided with the ground, your head slammed into the controls, rendering you unconscious for who knows how long.

By the time you came back to it, you were hanging upside down, the only thing preventing you from falling down being the seatbelt keeping you strapped in.

You struggled to get out of there but you managed, and had to take a moment to get your surroundings to stop spinning before moving forward to look for survivors as well as a ship that wasn’t completely beyond salvation.

You weren’t sure who you’d find, but the person you’d shared a bed with the previous night was definitely the last person you’d expect to have crashed in the same place as you.

And still, you recognized his ship immediately. After all, you were the one who had personalized it to fit his liking.

Lucky for you, his ship seemed to have gotten a pretty soft landing. As you circled around it, you were able to determine that no major engines had been blown out. Damaged? Definitely. But they looked intact enough to at least be able to put some more distance between you and the Resistance pilots and get you to a safer place. Hopefully, the inside would be as untouched as the outside.

The ramp was lowered to the ground but didn’t look broken, so you wasted no time in jogging inside.

The lights were out completely in the entrance area, and just flickering in the ceiling when you came further in.

The first thing you noticed when you entered the piloting pit was that the pilot was not breathing. How could you tell from that far a distance? Well, let’s just say that something that was not supposed to be stuck in his eye, was stuck in his eye.

Upon further inspection, you noticed another body on the floor. However, this one was very much alive.

You would’ve expected to be met by a desperate “help me”, maybe even some begging and pleading or in the very least a “please”, but instead, even when in the process of bleeding out on the floor, Hux narrowed his eyes at you as you approached him and asked you with ragged breaths:

“Is that my shirt?”

You panted as you dropped to your knees at his side, still pretty shaken up from your own crash. “What? No.” You replied in a breath, and you wasted no time in starting to inspect his injuries.

“Yes, it is.”

“Why would I be wearing your shirt?” You asked simply, struggling to see in the dark as the flickering lights weren’t providing much assistance by means of light.

“That’s my shirt.” He kept insisting, and flinched when your hand made contact with his lower abdomen.

Only then did your eyes register the glimmering piece of metal through your blurred and disoriented vision, sticking out of his side.

You flinched at the sight, not needing any more light than you had to know that it was really bad.

Your heart suddenly picked up in speed in your chest, and your hands began shaking as they became covered in his blood.

You had never been in the middle of the action before now, you’d always just been surrounded by metal and electricity. The most exciting thing you’d ever experienced was when a new engineer circuited a control panel the wrong way, resulting in it blowing up right by your workplace.

But it wasn’t the action in itself that had your heart about ready to burst through your chest, nor was it the blood in general, but rather the fact that it was his blood covering your hands.

His life was completely dependent on you at this moment and you had absolutely no idea how to behave accordingly.

But if there was something you knew, it was that the last thing you were supposed to do was to show a dying man your panic, so you took a deep breath and tried your hardest to steady your racing heart, going back to the conversation at hand.

“How could you tell the difference, really?” You asked. “All of our shirts look the same. All black, all equally as sufficient when used to stop blood flows.”

As you said that last part, you released another breath and ripped off a big chunk of the lower part of the shirt you were wearing.

A shirt that was, in fact, Hux's.

The man in question let his head fall back against the wall that he was propped against and his eyes squeezed shut when feeling your hands return to his side.

“Do you always wear shirts several sizes too big?” He managed to get out through clenched teeth and you replied without missing a beat.

“There was a mix-up in the laundry room.”

“So it isn’t your shirt?” He continued to be persistent and despite the seriousness of the situation, you couldn’t help but to let a small smile slip.

“Do you want to keep fighting about whether or not this shirt is mine or would you rather maybe, oh, I don’t know, focus on getting the hell out of here?” You asked him lightly and at that, he raised his head to meet your eyes with a distrusting glare.

“Why are you helping me?”

You raised your eyebrow at him, sparing just a second to meet his eyes. “You have a piece of metal stuck in your side, why the hell would I not help you?” You asked and as quickly as you had looked up, you looked back down at your hands to see what you were doing.

“You hate me, and I hate you.” He deadpanned, and you couldn’t deny you felt your heart tug in your chest.

“Who told you I hated you?” You asked, and listened as he let out a dry, struggling laugh.

“You did. On countless occasions.”

He hissed when you accidentally bumped your hand against the piece of metal. You quietly apologized but didn’t stop, knowing you didn’t have much time before the enemy would catch up with you.

“Thinking that I’m entitled to everything I want isn’t the only bad habit I have. I also have a tendency to overexaggerate.” You joked with a smile. “I do find you insufferably infuriating, though.”

Another chuckle left his lips. “Likewise.” He said and dropped his head back against the wall.

You said nothing more, ripping another two pieces off of the shirt, tying them together and wrapping it around his waist like you had the first piece. You tightened this knot significantly more than the first one, though, right above the piece of metal, and just as quickly as he had relaxed, he jerked back forward with a yell.

“I need to stop the bleeding, you need to keep still.” You hurriedly scolded and sternly pushed him back down by his chest.

He muttered bitterly in return, but didn’t protest.

“I bet you’re enjoying this.” He seethed, and you raised an eyebrow, a small smile playing on your lips.

“Whenever I’m feeling down, I just think back to the multiple times I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing you being force-thrown across a room by Ren. Puts a smile on my face every time. But that doesn’t automatically mean I want you to die. So stop wallowing in your internalized self-hatred and put your hand over mine.” You told him, trying your hardest to keep a lighthearted attitude, more so for your own sake than his at this point as you were literally about to pass out.

But he did as told, contributing with the strength he had left when you got to your feet and started pulling him up and into one of the seats that were still intact.

He put a trembling hand over yours and in turn, you put your other one over his and pushed down. He hissed and you gave him a moment to adjust, and when you were sure he was pressing hard enough with his own hand, you slowly removed both of yours and fastened his seatbelt.

“Keep pressure and hold on tight. This is most likely going to be a rough ride.” You warned him, and he slowly looked up at you through a mess of ginger hair.

“It can’t be any worse than the ride here.” He retorted and you nodded, taking that as a “go ahead”.

You wasted no time in getting into the pilot’s seat after pulling the previous pilot out, as well as the thick tree branch on which his head had been impaled, and started up the controls. It took a few tries to get out of the hole the ship hade gotten stuck in when crashing, but soon enough you were up in the sky.

With a bit of dumb luck, you eventually reached your destination and got brought back in to the base by your team of fellow engineers, all ready to repair the wrecked ship.

Hux was immediately taken to the medical bay while you stayed behind to help with the ships, and from two ends of the base, the two of you silently and separately came to realize that maybe, just maybe, you didn’t hate each other as much as you thought, after all.

#hux x reader #hux imagine #hux #armitage hux #armitage hux x reader #armitage hux imagine #general hux #general hux imagine #general hux x reader #domnhall gleeson #star wars #star wars imagine #star wars x reader #kylo ren #knights of ren #the first order

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greatwyrmgold · 2 years ago

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@greatwyrmgold See, that's the thing: that each sub-game is required to be fully playable by itself, as its own standalone micro-RPG, is how we avoid descending into procedural hell. That's not an incidentally quirk, it's literally the central feature of the whole exercise.

Prokopetz said that in a comment, which is fine. But it gave me Thoughts that didn't really fit in another comment. (On a related note, I am terrible at writing 200-word RPGs.)

Thought 1 is that there's clearly some disconnect between the two of us. My second paragraph was pointing out that having to play a bunch of separate, fully-fledged RPG for different situations would be annoying, confusing, needlessly complex. His response is "Yeah, that's the whole point."

Then there's the "procedural hell" statement. Prokopetz doesn't explain what "procedural hell" means, but it feels like a response to the bit where I compared his idea to procedural programming. Which I framed as a good thing, but which Prokopetz considers hellish.

Speaking as the guy who wrote the initial criticism/Mr. Welch reference, this is a baffling response. If I expected a response, I'd have expected either a "No, it's not like that" response or a "Yes, but also" response—either one which rebukes my argument, or one which agrees but explains why my conclusion is wrong.

Instead, Prokopetz basically says "Yes." Yes, every subgame is playable; he doesn't disagree with me, he just says that that's the point, clunky or no. He doesn't explain why this is a good thing. He just says "yes".

Now, the "procedural hell" comment feels like it's supposed to explain why having a bunch of fully independent subgames would be a good thing. But that doesn't help, because Prokopetz doesn't explain what "procedural hell" is, why it's a bad thing, or how having fully-independent subgames would avert it.

I don't think Prokopetz intentionally made a barren, half-baked argument. Back at the top of this post, I said that there was some disconnect between the two of us. Something he subconsciously assumes I understand/agree with, which I don't. I wish I knew what that thing might be, so I could say something beyond "What we have here is a failure to communicate".

Thought 2 is an attempt to parse what Prokopetz likes about this idea. The one sure thing I can use as an anchor point is the fact that he considers the "procedural programming" version hellish.

For those who don't know, procedural programming is a programming paradigm which focuses on functions—separate blocks of code that can call other functions, receive relevant variables from them, and use those variables for various purposes. There are probably nuances I'm missing, but that's what I had in mind—designing function-RPGs that receive certain input and return certain output, through some black-box function irrelevant to the broader system (in this case, a microgame).

I can see three potential directions from which someone could find this conception of a game hellish. One direction is segregating mechanics into their own little boxes, but that's obviously not Prokopetz's issue. Another is complexity, but A. "like procedural programming" isn't specific enough to be dinged for complexity, and B. the idea is all about replacing die rolls with functional TRPGs.

The last direction is the way they're linked, each game producing a variable that can be blindly passed to the next. Reading the rest of what Prokopetz wrote, it feels like this is the most likely reason he finds a procedural approach hellish. He wants each game to be a fully functional RPG, not just a subroutine that links into the larger machine.

However, I think that viewing the meta-RPG as a procedural programming problem actually makes that issue easier to resolve. From the programming perspective, the "parent RPG" only cares about the contents of the "child RPGs" insofar as they produce useful results.

The child RPGs are black-box functions; input relevant information, output result. Whoever designs the parent RPG defines an input and an output, and whoever designs the child RPG (probably the same person at a different time) can do whatever they want as long as it can return that output. They can even play a whole separate game. All that matters from a procedural programming perspective (without concerns of, for instance, hogging CPU resources) is that it doesn't return an inappropriate variable or get caught in an infinite loop.

Anyways, maybe I'm wrong and my arguments are completely irrelevant to Prokopitz's points. But hopefully trying to peer into the soul of these text strings and sharing my findings has at least made my thoughts more clear.

The last thoughts I have are all about how this game could actually work. Those should be in a separate post, but for now: Cards. The primary metagame resource is your hand, cards can serve as a variable passed from microgame to narrative, and you can lean on existing card game mechanics like Poker scoring. Also, my scrapped 200-word RPG used tarot, and I still really want to find an excuse to use that in a TRPG.

Concept: full-featured tabletop RPG which consists of nested 200-word RPGs. The “parent” 200-word RPG sets forth the metagame resource economy and overall gameplay loop, and directs play to various “child” 200-word RPGs in specific situations. Each of the child 200-word RPGs is completely playable as a standalone game, but also produces game-mechanical outputs which feed back into the resource economy of the parent 200-word RPG. Each of the child 200-word RPGs uses a completely different method of conflict resolution.

#random stuff #i don't know how to tag this

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percabeth4life · 4 years ago

Text

Nico and Percy

Okay so I’ve received a lot of asks about Nico and Percy and how Percy treated Nico and someone else sent me a link to a post that had more stuff.

90% of the stuff I’ve seen is either inaccurate or taken out of context.

Lets start with the choking scene.

This scene happened right after Nico lied to Percy to trick him into coming to see Hades so that Nico could learn more about his mom. They were meant to go to the Styx in order to give Percy the Achilles Curse so they had a chance at winning the war. This resulted in Percy being locked up by Hades.

Nico did not intend for this to happen, but he did knowingly lie to Percy. Percy understandably did not trust Nico after that.

The mountain of darkness loomed above me. A foot the size of Yankee Stadium was about to smash me when a voice hissed: ‘Percy!’

I lunged out blindly. Before I was fully awake, I had Nico pinned to the floor of the cell with the edge of my sword at his throat.

‘Want – to – rescue,’ he choked.

Anger woke me up fast. ‘Oh, yeah? And why should I trust you?’

‘No – choice?’ he gagged.

I wished he hadn’t said something logical like that. I let him go. (The Last Olympian page 60).

As you can see, the initial action was taken before Percy was even awake. After he was awake, and got through his initial anger at the betrayal with Nico’s comment, he released Nico and they escaped.

He acknowledged silently later that he didn’t trust Nico anymore and Nico was aware that his actions meant he wasn’t trusted.

So the choking scene: not Percy being unreasonably cruel to Nico.

Threats is another common thing I see people bring up and... I’m genuinely baffled by that one. The closest I can think of is the scene I quoted above? But that doesn’t seem to fit? Anyone want to quote some threats Percy made to Nico? Because I don’t know any.

Next up! The claims that Percy said they should leave Nico to suffocate. Funnily enough he actually says the opposite, multiple times.

Percy stared at his jelly donut. He had a rocky history with Nico di Angelo. The guy had once tricked him into visiting Hades’s palace, and Percy had ended up in a cell. But most of the time, Nico sided with the good guys. He certainly didn’t deserve slow suffocation in a bronze jar, and Percy couldn’t stand seeing Hazel in pain.

“We’ll rescue him,” he promised her. “We have to. The prophecy says he holds the key to endless death.”

Is this first time kind? Not necessarily. But it’s certainly not saying to leave Nico. For multiple reasons, he didn’t deserve, Percy didn’t want Hazel to hurt, and (what he says outloud) Nico is an important figure in the war.

Percy also makes a comment later when they feared they’d be too late

The vision zoomed in again. Inside the jar, Nico di Angelo was curled in a ball, no longer moving, all the pomegranate seeds eaten.

“We’re too late,” Jason said.

“No,” Percy said. “No, I can’t believe that. Maybe he’s gone into a deeper trance to buy time. We have to hurry.”

Funny, this doesn’t sound like someone advocating to leave Nico to die. In fact it sounds like someone almost desperate to save him, or at least hoping strongly that they’ll succeed.

Interestingly there were comments about leaving Nico, but not from Percy. They came from Jason and Leo.

“Uh…” Leo shifted in his chair. “One thing. The giants are expecting us to do this, right? So we’re walking into a trap?”

Hazel looked at Leo like he’d made a rude gesture. “We have no choice!”

“Don’t get me wrong, Hazel. It’s just that your brother, Nico… he knew about bothcamps, right?”

“Well, yes,” Hazel said.

“He’s been going back and forth,” Leo said, “and he didn’t tell either side.” Jason sat forward, his expression grim. “You’re wondering if we can trust the guy. So am I.”

Hazel shot to her feet. “I don’t believe this. He’s my brother. He brought me back from the Underworld, and you don’t want to help him?”

Frank put his hand on her shoulder. “Nobody’s saying that.” He glared at Leo. “Nobody had better be saying that.”

Leo blinked. “Look, guys. All I mean is—”

“Hazel,” Jason said. “Leo is raising a fair point. I remember Nico from Camp Jupiter. Now I find out he also visited Camp Half-Blood. That does strike me as… well, a little shady. Do we really know where his loyalties lie? We just have to be careful.” (Mark of Athena page 125)

How interesting that they’re the ones making comments about leaving Nico...

Next of course I’ve heard the wonder bread brought up? And I had to key word search wonder bread in the books to figure out what that was about and it appears to be a single thought Percy had while they were trying to rescue Nico.

Nico started to crawl away, groaning. Percy wanted him to move faster and to groan less. He considered throwing his Wonder bread at him. (Mark of Athena page 357)

Percy did not actually throw the bread for anyone wondering, and I hardly see how the panicking thought of trying to get them all out of there and keep Nico from being noticed by the people he was escaping from is even something for you to hold against him.

Finally the thing I hear the most, Percy calling Nico creepy and spreading rumors.

Creepy is used in MoA 5 times, in HoH 2 times, and BoO 8 times.

In MoA it’s used by Percy once, and that time is describing Persephone’s garden, not Nico. This comment is also only made in his thoughts, not outloud.

Funnily enough Leo does mentally refer to Nico as creepy in MoA

Nico and Hazel shared a look, maybe comparing notes on their Hades/Pluto death radar. Leo shivered. Hazel had never seemed like a child of the Underworld to him, but Nico di Angelo—that guy was creepy. (Mark of Athena page 396)

In HoH it is used once by Jason in regards to Nico, not at all by Percy.

Nico gave him a thin, creepy smile. ‘Ah … that legend.’ (House of Hades page 164)

In BoO it’s actually used by Nico about himself.

By now, Will Solace realized just how creepy and revolting Nico di Angelo was. Of course, Nico didn’t care what he thought. But still … (Blood of Olympus page 317)

And once by Reyna about Nico

Reyna had stitched up the gashes on his biceps, which gave Nico a slightly creepy Frankenstein look, but the cuts were still swollen and red. (Blood of Olympus page 140)

So uh, no Percy did not call Nico creepy. And I have found no evidence of Percy spreading rumors so like with the threats, feel free to find me quotes proving that claim.

Concluding all of this I will point out that prior to book 5 (TLO) Percy was doing everything in his power to find Nico and protect him. After book 5 Percy only had one physical altercation with him (when he was half asleep and right after the betrayal occurred) and otherwise did not hold it against him beyond having his trust broken. As time went on we know from Percy’s thoughts that he doesn’t trust Nico, but he makes no comments saying such and agrees to help rescue him and does everything he can to do so.

Their conflicts are understandable due to their history. Percy’s feelings on Nico are complicated but understandable and he has not let it interfere with their jobs, if anything it interfered in a negative way making them risk the quest to save Nico (though Nico was a key figure needed to succeed in the end).

Overall I don’t know where these claims come from beyond people wanting to find issues with Percy (to the point they make stuff up).

#life analyzes #pjo #hoo #percy jackson #nico di angelo #leo valdez #jason grace #reyna avila ramirez arellano #reyna arellano #this is not anti anyone #this is me stating the facts #pjo analysis #pjo meta

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jangmi-latte · 4 years ago

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>♡< may i order some cheesy pomefiore headcanons with an s/o who's a ballet dancer?

➻ content: almond chocolate cocoa

➻ warnings: none

➻ comments: i've always wanted to try ballet. makes me wonder how weak my legs are. i've broke my boots one time attempting to stand on my toes :'D this was fun to write. i do be having mad respects for ballerinas.

i. vil schoenheit

➺ with him as a model and actor and you as a ballerina, there is no doubt that both of you will have strict self-care schedules for yourselves. daily yoga and workout with him during the mornings (maybe even late at night) is one of the ways you two would bond with each other.

➺ you may have your own healthy diet and vil somehow keeps track of what you eat to keep your slim figure.

➺ your diet is probably not as strict as vil’s so there are times you would tease him when it comes to any cheat day.

“look vil, i bought fried donuts.”

“get those detrimental calories away from me.”

“but they’re yummy :D”

“no.”

“come on just have a small bite for me.”

“y/n no--!”

➺ vil is a very supportive partner. he values and respects the hard work you went through just to master balance and grace. he would be there for your rehearsals and performances. if magicam had a story function similar to instagram, he would totally add you to his stories.

➺ being a ballerina includes inevitable bruises and wounds while practising. vil makes sure these instances are taken care of instantly. he cares for your physical wellbeing.

➺ dance practices with each other is one of your dates. he would catch you doing a grand jete and would smile in delight. like, damn look at his lover go.

➺ you're a sub mentor during the vdc.

➺ struggling to do a certain dance routine? vil is there to help you. we all know how strict he can be as a teacher and he’s no different when he’s helping you. you handled his teachings before anyways, there’s nothing new to it.

➺ he also uses that as an excuse to touch you (affectionately).

➺ imagine having his hands on your waist while he helps you posture properly during a certain step and then it wanders towards your stomach. the last thing you know he’s already hugging you from behind.

➺ if you’re a popular ballerina then it’s no doubt the paparazzi already caught wind of your relationship. vil would, one day, post a picture of you together and there you go, shippers everywhere.

➺ pomefiore students would be baffled by how flexible you are. you know those flexibility challenges on tiktok? you would definitely do that and the students would question if you have any bones. it’s possible you’re more flexible than vil, he’ll totally ask how you stretch during yoga.

“stretching that far back is scaring me,” he said, watching as you bent back while you sat in a front split. “be careful, you might break your spine.” you sat back properly, smiling at your boyfriend while you brought your legs back together. sitting doll-like while stretching your feet, “that’s my favorite stretching position. really helps with the back.” you stretched your arms this time, arms rising above your head before standing back up. vil simply sighed, knowing not to question the capabilities of a ballerina. you are far beyond your liege. his eyes wandered over to the shelf in the dance studio. there sat both your awards, his from modeling and acting, while yours are from your magnificent dancing. the real epitome of hard work.

vil’s mind began to wander at how far you two had gone-- until he heard a loud bang against the studio floor that his head snapped over to your fallen form. “ow…” you giggled while he clicked his tongue. “see, from stretching too much you got weaker. doing too much of one thing isn’t good.” his legs swiftly brought him to your fallen form. strong arms lifting you up bridal style towards a chair. “are you hurt?” he spoke with concern laced in his voice.

“this fall is nothing compared to how hard i’ve fallen for you though,” you shrugged.

“okay, that’s enough bonding with rook and epel,” he sighed.

“i love you though.”

“thanks.”

“vil! ow- ow okay okay i may or may not have bruised my knees--!”

ii. rook hunt

➺ most supportive boyfriend you had.

➺ it’s likely he fell for you after seeing you dance. would compliment you in the most poetic ways possible and even knows the words to ballet steps.

➺ his phone gallery and camera will be full of pictures of you. ranging from you in your ballet costumer to you during rehearsals yet in the most elegant pose you can do. you would think his wall would be adorned by your pictures too, but no, he has a corkboard just on the other side of his room with pictures of you.

➺ you bet, he’s there during your performances.

➺ would call for your help concerning the vdc since he knows you have potential that can help vil training the juniors. he really just wants you there since he, himself, gets tired from practicing yet he doesn’t show it.

➺ you accidentally kicked him on the face once you did a high split and damn, even with a bleeding nose, was he impressed. let’s not ask how you even kicked him, he just popped out of nowhere.

➺ if you were able to use a bow and arrow using your feet then… just imagine hearing a thump somewhere in the room because rook probably fell off a tree seeing that. that’s some hard ass skill to do and he just fell for you more.

➺ totally your videographer and photographer!!! taking confidence in your skills and looks considering you have to look fit and need to feed your fans with some content, rook would be your best go-to person when it comes to taking videos and pictures. he has got the best angles to capture your utmost beauty.

➺ people wouldn’t even question why rook is smiling while staring at a distance again. yet, as vil and epel had observed, his smile was more soft and sweet while he watched you suddenly dance in the school’s courtyard. he can’t believe you were actually his lover.

➺ is willing to run around and help you with what you need. leg warmers? check. water bottle? check. just as long as he gets to watch you perform he’s contented.

➺ if you have a performance outside of the country, rook would try his best to watch via social media but before you leave, he’s going to give you encouraging words and how he’ll miss you. when you come back home, you got, not only rook with a very proud smile on his face, but also vil (who apparently watched after seeing rook so immersed).

you cried and yelled awake as another cramp hit your calf. oh, those very painful cramps when you stretch your legs after continuous leg workout. rook was jolted awake by your screams and immediately sat up and bent your toes backwards. his hair disheveled and eyes panicked and concerned despite having sleepiness in them. “mon cheri...” his husky (still sleepy) voice called as you whined, feeling the pain immediately leave from the aid of your boyfriend. “are you alright?”

“sorry…” you sniffed, carefully adjusting your leg after rook had let go of your toes and laid back beside you. “that was your third cramp this week,” he spoke worriedly. half-lidded green eyes looking in concern. “aren’t you overworking yourself?” he asked. rook is, no doubt, a very supportive boyfriend when it came to your talents, but that doesn’t mean he’ll support the fact you're getting hurt and tired from overworking yourself. he has woken up to your screams of pain for three consecutive nights. he didn’t mind waking up to aid you, he’s just really worried unto why you’re even having cramps in the first place.

“maybe…” you mumbled, hiding your face on the crook of his neck, “scold me next time please… i don’t really like waking up to this or even disturb you from your sleep.”

rook chuckled quietly, whispering, “your dancing is one of the reasons i love you. but if i do need to watch out then i’ll call vil. i’ll be too immersed watching you dance to even notice.”

“rook,” you whined.

“alright, alright. now relax yourself, mon cheri. bonne nuit.”

iii. epel felmier

➺ is amazed at how high you jump and how flexible you are. he’ll attempt to do the same even though he has no idea how to do it exactly. when you mentioned it’s ballet, he went red and exclaimed, “t-that’s ballet…?!”

➺ remember when he complained to vil about the dane being meandering and girly and now he needs to do ballet? guess who he ran to.

➺ is actually quite skeptical that he may not look manly as he wanted to be but after you said that learning ballet can help with his muscles, he’s already bombarding you with questions.

➺ thanks to vil, both him and deuce already have ballet shoes. since they didn’t have to do a releve, it was just simply stretching and balance to teach.

➺ “epel, you need to look like a swan not a seal having an asthma attack.” “wHAt?”

➺ sure, you’re both in a relationship, but epel would still get flustered by your touches during dance rehearsals. like come on, he’s supposed to be the guy holding your waist to look attractive and not the other way around.

➺ even so, he’s thankful for your help. you’re not as ‘demonic’ (as ace would put it) as vil.

➺ when he’s just watching you, damn, the admiration in his eyes was oiling your gears more. he really wants to be strong and you know even your talent can help him go where he wants to be with vil’s guidance as well.

➺ deuce would downright be confused on how close you two are until you kissed epel’s cheek when he successfully spun without toppling over. the first year was dumbfounded.

➺ “all thanks to y/n!” he would cheer when vil pointed out epel’s improvement. man, seeing vil’s proud smirk and epel’s victorious grin-- you had to hold onto rook to avoid fainting.

➺ epel would want to have an innocent competition with you on who can spin the most without getting dizzy and he instantly lost while you’re still spinning. and you’re on a pointe.

➺ your magicam would be videos and photographs of him attempting and succeeding certain ballet routines or even just him practicing for the vdc. relationship goals and ace feels stupid about love.

➺ you would let him smack your ballet shoes (to soften them) on stairs or something if he’s pissed. at least your shoes will be easier to use.

“shit, this is harder than i thought,” the first-year pants as he collapsed on the floor. you rubbed your nape, watching as deuce’s knees quivered while balancing on a board. “alright, enough you two,” you called and gave them water bottles. you assisted the both of them epel by removing his ballet shoes and there, your eyes softened. he hasn’t even experienced the full ballet course (like what you’ve experienced) and you can already see bruises and the evident veins prodding on his skin.

“we’ll do some stretching tomorrow. you both did enough balancing for today. no legs shall be strained too much, who knows what’ll happen if you got injured during the duration of the vdc.”

“no, wait! i can do more!” epel persuaded as he stood up, only to wince and drop back on the floor after feeling the pain on his ankles. “see, that’s what i mean.” knowing the ice bags would come in handy, you approached your boyfriend and laid them on his feet. “you’re excelling enough, epel. do it more slowly. you were able to do a pirouette even without doing a releve and that’s already an achievement.”

you heard him sigh, watching his face grow solemn as he looked at his feet. “i just want to prove myself to vil…”

“and you’re proving yourself enough. he’ll see your progress and i can already see him being proud. all i did was guide you, you did all the hard work yourself and that’s what’s important to vil. chin up.” you smiled, pecking epel’s nose as he immediately looked away. his lips quivering to a small smirk before nodding. “t-then...i’ll make sure i can be strong enough to even beat vil! that’s my promise!”

poor deuce being a third wheel.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst x reader #pomefiore #pomefiore x reader #vil schoenheit #vil schoenheit x reader #rook hunt #rook hunt x reader #epel felmier #epel felmier x reader #twisted wonderland headcanons #twst imagines #night raven college

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