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thekingofwinterblog · 4 years ago

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It’s all for his sake - Endeavor and the Sunk Cost Fallacy

My hero academia 301 is a pretty interesting chapter, but for me, the most notable piece of it was how Endeavour reacted to the realization that Touya couldnt surpass All Might.

upon realizing that his son might not be able to do it because of inborn physical limitations, he immediatly stopped his training, which frankly was the responsible and adult thing to do.

This stint of real parenthood did not last long however.

After taking the matter to a doctor, he is flat out told that not only cant Touya achive what endeavor wants, but it is a direct result of his incredibly selfish and irresponsible attempt to play god, by trying to breed the “perfect” hero into being.

It is how you react when you lose however, that shows who you really are, and endeavor illustrates that very, very well.

Upon being told in no uncertain terms that his attempts at Breeding an heir failed magnificently, producing a child that was not capable of resisting his own immense power, but also admonished by his doctor for even attempting it, and adviced not to try again, Endeavor instead doubled down, while focusing on the child he screwed over from the start with his attempt at genetic manipulation.

It was all for him you see. Endeavor doesnt use those words, but that is how he spins it here. it was all for Touya, all for his sake. if i stop now, then Touya was all for nothing, a mistake, im doing this for my son.

if im doing this for my son, then im not responsible for any of this.

his wife however, calls him out on it, as she understands Touya much, much more than endeavor does. or rather, she sees him fully as a human being, instead of as a thing, a weapon, a failed attempt at an heir.

Unlike Endeavor, Rei is able to see the way this all is affecting her son. She is able to see, and understand that Touya has fully accepted what Endeavor wanted him to be. a stronger, and better version of himself. however, unlike Endeavor, she only cares about him as a person.

Endeavour by comparison isnt completely uncaring about Touya. like most abusive parents, he does possess love for his offspring, but it is forever tainted by the fact that however much he might care, or not care about Touya, any familial love he has for his son is tainted by the fact that to Endeavor, he is a failed experiment, a failed heir, not his child.

He is the golden child that Endeavor was building up as his true and only heir, who he breed, trained, and molded to for that single purpose, and now that he’s reached a point where he cant continue that legacy.

so, its time to abandon him, and start over new, despite literarily having just learned how stupid this plan was, and that it can, in fact, go completely wrong, with a quirk that will fuck over the person he brings into the world.

Of course, Endeavor doesnt use those words to frame it. there is no way to pretend to be a hero, if you phrase it like that after all. Intead, this is the words he uses.

this is a very important series of panels for a great number of reasons, some that can be debated, argued, and we will probably never know the full truth to the questions because this is a series published in 2020′s shonen jump, and there are things that probably wasnt gonna fly with Hori’s editors, if it was the case.

but lets start with what can not be debated. Endeavor’s words here.

“If we want him to give it up, then we have no choice... Touya... Cant surpass him.”

These are very telling words, and however you believe The third and fourth children of the Todoroki family was concieved, there is not denying the meaning of what he’s saying here.

The only way that my son will stop being an idiot and fall into line, is if we have another baby. that is the only Right way to move forward. it is morally right, because if we dont do this, then he’s going to destroy himself.

there are two ways to interpret this scene.

The charitable way is to read it as the fact that he used Rei’s oldest son’s mental state as a justification of guilting his wife to have a third child, to give this attempt at a superpowered breeding project another shot, despite the fact that they now know that this can lead to a child who is essentially born crippled from his own powers, and despite the fact that Rei obviously understands the effect of them continuing this insanity will have on their oldest son.

the uncharitable way to look at it, is that he used this as justification for flat out raping her, and forcing a third, and then later a fourth child on her.

I personally believe the last one, given a number of factors shown in this chapter(the way this page is framed, the fact Rei obviously didnt want a third child, given she predicted exactly how touya would react, the way her eyes would latet turn when she looks at who is presumably touya which really brings to mind how she would later react to her youngest son’s face after her mental breakdown, etc.), but i’ll frankly admitt that withouth a direct quote from Hori, its impossible to know for sure one way or another.

either way however, this is a very good example of Endeavor both being influenced by, and using Sunk Cost Fallacy to justify bringing another potentially crippled child into the world for his own, selfish goals.

sunk cost Fallacy, is a mental reaction to when you invest more time and resources into a project, that you becomes so emotionally invested into said project that you will continue to invest into it, even if it reaches a point that it becomes clear that the resources you put into it, far, far outweighs the potential gains you can achieve.

because if you give up after having invested years, and years of effort to breed, raise, and train a kid, and then all that effort was absolutely wasted. hence he choose to keep going, despite having learned what a terrible idea this is.

He doesnt care about the fact that his next child might be even more crippled than his firstborn, he doesnt care about his son’s actual wellbeing. he cares about the fact that if he doesnt continue this insanity, then not only will he not achieve his dreams, but everything he did to get to this point was for absolutely nothing.

and endeavor cannot accept that. and so long as he can justify breeding more children into the world, and there being any chance they might inherit both quirks perfectly, he doesnt care about anything else.

and the moment he realised that this kid wasnt gonna cut it either, he did it again. it is not a coincidence, that the age gap between Endeavor’s second, third, and fourth children were all 3-4 years apart. because thats the age where you can usually tell when a quirk will manifest or not, as established earlier in the series.

While she isnt brought up directly by Endeavor as a justification, it is very telling that Endeavor decided on having a third child, only after his second child was old enough that he could tell that that there was no chance she could take the place as his heir instead.

So, he had his third child, and as time passed and it became obvious that he wasn’t gonna be able to fulfill Endeavor’s goals either, he dumped him, and instead breed a fourth child into existence.

and finally, he struck gold. he did it. he produced Shoto.

everything was finally worth it, and now, everything would be absolutely fine. the cost fallacy had reached its end, and it was now all full sails ahead.

except of course it wasnt.

His oldest son, now in middle school, had been raised from birth to believe he would surpass his father, only to be thrown away, and getting to see his father try to replace him, not once, but twice.

frankly, this scene is probably my favorite in the chapter, because it goes to show Endeavor’s mindset. Natsuo made a point that their father completely ignored his older children. and he did... from Natsuo’s perspective. however, having a more thourough picture of things, we can clearly see that this wasnt the case with Touya.

Endeavor genuinly cared for Touya, enough that once he got that child he tried to breed into existence 4 times, he genuinly wanted him to just abandon trying to be a hero. he genuinly thinks of himself as a good dad here, wanting his son to abandon the mission he set out for him before he was born. of course, with context, this heartwarming scene is incredibly sad and insidious, because we understand why Endeavor got so attached to his oldest child. because he WAS the golden child. he was the child Endeavor genuinly cared about, and invested in, and trained personally with great warmth and enthusiasm.

And not only did he abandon him as a failed project the moment he realized he wasnt gonna live up to his ridiculous standards, but he literarily created 2 more kids to try and replace him, just as his oldest son was old enough to understand what exactly his dad was doing. over the course of this chapter, we get to see Touya’s start as a 5-8 year old, his deteriorating mental state over the years, until he finally seemed to reach the breaking point with Shoto’s birth sometime in his middle school years 12-15.

Endeavor is in this scene, just not capable of understanding why Touya so desperately wants to become a hero, when obviously he isnt physically able to do so. he isnt able to understand that he is 100% to blame for the fact that his son is having a full emotional breakdown after literaly being replaced by his siblings.

In other words, Endeavor genuinly think’s he’s a good person. a person who has made a few mistakes along the way sure, but a person who was always justified in the end, and now that he’s having to face the fact that as dabi would later say “The past never dies” and has to face the aftermath of his inane attempt to play god for the pettiest of reasons, things simply arent going to work out.

He isnt going to have a happy family, who can now put the awful early years behind them, he put way too much effort, caused too much suffering and sacrificed too many years of his life for this not to work out as he wants.

after all, if he walks away from this project now, and lets Shoto have a normal childhood, and decide for himself, with no pressure from him, wheter or not to become a hero, then the sunk cost fallacy will have reached a negative end. it will all have been for nothing.

and we know he did eventually double down on this mentality, literarily beating into Shoto that he WAS going to become a hero, and there was not but’s or no’s about it.

there was no way that Endeavor was EVER going to let things be for nothing. His treatment of his older children could not be for nothing. His treatment of his wife could not be for nothing. His treatment of Shoto, and the way he beat him black and blue to train him, could not be for nothing.

Because if it all was for nothing, if everything he feels guilty about was for absolutely nothing, then he was in fact, a bad, bad person, who had no justification for anything he ever did.

#my hero academia #touya todoroki #dabi #endeavor #endeavour #enji todoroki #rei todoroki #character study #301 #meta

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logicalbookthief · 3 years ago

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Things Left Unsaid -- An Analysis of Rei & Touya

Apparently Rei has been getting a lot of flack lately, all of it undeserved, and since I had a post analyzing her relationship with Touya in the works already, I figured no time like the present.

Disclaimer #1: There are a lot of issues with the writing for Rei’s character that have nothing to do with her and everything to do with how the storyline is using her, which I will address and examine.

Disclaimer #2: I’m someone who, while always curious as to what kind of relationship Rei had with her oldest son before he died, never thought it would be revealed that Touya was close to his mom. I don’t think you get the Dabi we see in Chapters 290-295 without him being so warped by his relationship with his father yet so dependent on his attention that he was willing to kill his brother and himself simply for his father’s acknowledgement.

But that’s what I find so interesting about Rei and Touya -- it’s a relationship that mainly consists of regrets and things left unsaid. There isn’t the anger or resentment Dabi feels for Endeavor, because that intense level of emotion sprung from the loss of the father who used to be his whole world. His feelings toward his mother seem more amicable, but also more distant.

And while she could’ve done some things differently in regards to her oldest, I want to make it clear that the distance between them was very much by design.

After all, Touya was the end goal of their marriage. It was never any secret as to why Enji wanted to marry her and to some extent Rei must’ve realized that this child was not meant to be hers: the child was the transaction, the thing she was needed to create, to give to her husband. Of course she loved Touya and was likely his primary caregiver for most of his life, but there was no doubt that once his quirk manifested and he could begin his hero training, his life would be dominated by his father. Which is what happened.

Here, I would like to point out something I noticed in the flashback chapters. We never see any panels of Enji alone with any of his children during their infancy -- even with Shouto, the perfect child he longed for, we see Rei holding Shouto, sitting by him as he sleeps. Enji is there tangentially. Once Shouto begins his training, that is when we see him with his father.

So to see Enji with Touya when he was a baby, prior to his quirk manifesting, strikes me as a big deal. But it makes sense if you remember that he’d placed all his hopes, dreams and expectations on his firstborn. Initially, it doesn’t look like he even considered the possibility that Touya wouldn’t be his successor or that his little eugenics experiment would fail; this was his first, most optimistic attempt at a masterpiece. So I don’t believe it’s far-fetched to see him spend more time with Touya right off the bat (it’s what will make the eventual abandonment all the more crushing).

However, Rei isn’t seen at all in the snippet of Touya’s infancy, despite us knowing she was relegated to the caregiver role. Rei is literally out of the picture. Compare this to how she features prominently in Shouto’s infancy or how we see her holding a baby Natsuo. You could argue that, hey, we don’t see her holding a baby Fuyumi either, but there’s other scenes where Fuyumi’s attached to her mother’s hip or crying over her being hurt. Things that suggest a closeness, when the only scene we get of just her and Touya is one where they’re at odds.

As we move further into Touya’s childhood, though, Rei becomes the only voice we hear advocate for him against his father. I’m referencing two specific instances:

When Enji coerces her into having more children to replace Touya now that his father has deemed him a failure, something she knows will hurt their son deeply.

And after Touya lashes out at Shouto, which Rei doesn’t blame on Touya, but rather on his father. She delivers such a satisfying condemnation of his actions, probably the most cutting one Endvr’s received to date, and it so accurately sums up one of his major character flaws.

How can you call yourself a hero when you can’t even face your own son?

The tragedy of it all is that Rei never said any of this in front of Touya -- it was always said in private, just to her husband. That alone took courage, yes, but it would’ve meant everything to Touya to hear her condemn his father aloud. Instead when she does speak to him, she says this:

It’s why I can’t wrap my head around that scene in Ch 302, where after Enji admits he didn’t know what to say to Touya, Rei replies, “Neither did I.”

When we’re shown in flashbacks during that same chapter that she did understand her son. “He just wants to be acknowledged by you” is quite the indication that she, at the very least, understood the cause of Touya’s turmoil even if she couldn’t fully relate to it herself. So why can’t she say any of this to him?

The answer is in the way she addresses Touya, as it is nearly identical to how Nao addresses Tenko in this scene:

Both Touya and Tenko grew up in similar households: the father had all the power, physical and financial, so the mothers were left to try and comfort their children in a way that didn’t go against their husbands’ desires -- and so, to use Tenko’s own words, they would “reject them with kindness.”

So it’s no wonder that Touya lashes out at his mother after she suggests he pursue other things. He isn’t five like Tenko was, he’s thirteen and has a much clearer understanding of why she says this and why it’s a bit hypocritical, since he’s aware of her situation, too.

Just as she was bound by her family, who wanted her to marry Endvr for the money and status, he’s bound by the expectations of his family. I’m not sure if I’ve seen anyone else touch on this detail, but when Touya states that he knows his grandparents sold his mom into marriage so his dad could have a child, we could infer that Touya knows enough to realize that his mother might not have necessarily wanted him.

Not him specifically, but any child — the story has neglected to flesh her out beyond her marriage and motherhood, so we have no idea if Rei wanted to become a mother prior to this arrangement, despite how much she loves her kids now — although it is possible that he might’ve internalized it this way.

So you have Touya, who at least knows with certainty that his father wanted him to exist, yet he comes to understand that his father only wants him if he can meet a specific set of expectations, and if he cannot, he’ll be discarded. If he can’t surpass All Might, he can’t fulfill his reason for existing and his father will have to replace him. So to have his mother urge him to follow a path other than becoming a hero would mean, to Touya, accepting that he is the mistake he fears he is. Of course he isn’t going to respond well to that.

I don’t like when people try to compare Touya’s reaction in this moment to Shouto’s when Rei tells him he isn’t bound by his father’s blood, using that to paint Shouto as the “good” child and Touya as the “bad” one. They didn’t react differently because of any innate sense of goodness or lack thereof -- they reacted differently because the situations are different.

Telling Shouto that he didn’t have to be like his father comforted Shouto, who only knew his father as the bully who hurt his mom. He associated his father, and his father’s fire, with all of that fear and pain -- and thus, he associated the part of himself that took after his father with those feelings. She wasn’t denying his dream of becoming a hero, only assuring him that when he became a hero it could be whatever kind of hero he chose to be, that he wasn’t doomed to be like his father.

Whereas what she tells Touya sounds a lot like what his father told him, which was to give up on being a hero and pursue other aspirations.

Encouraging Shouto to become his own version of a hero still falls in line with what Endvr ultimately wants, which is for Shouto to be a hero capable of surpassing All Might. Whereas this is what happens when Touya continues to train to do that against his father’s wishes:

This is where the framing begins to bother me and where Rei’s characterization becomes inconsistent.

So in this scene from Ch 302, we see Enji abusing his wife for “letting” Touya continue to train, punishing her for her “failure” to stop him. Obviously, none of that is Rei’s fault. If anything, Enji would be more responsible for preventing Touya from hurting himself since he’s the reason his son is hurting himself in the first place.

Moreover, the fact that he hits Rei over this sort of muddies the water of an previously-established narrative. Since the Sports Festival arc, we’ve known that Endvr abused his wife because she tried to interfere with Shouto’s training. It got to the point where she was terrified of her husband and it drove her to a breakdown. Why introduce this new aspect to the abuse, when it was already established that a) he was physically abusive and b) his motivations for abusing her were explicit to the audience?

I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense that a man who hits his wife for one reason could find another reason to do it and justify his actions to himself. And while the scene does portray Endvr in a bad light to show how wrong his actions are, literally draping his figure in shadow, why does it even dare to suggest the idea that Rei was remiss in her duties as a mother? Again, the scene isn’t even necessary, since the narrative has long-since showed the audience that Enji abused his wife.

By itself, the scene would read as further exploration of how Rei was victimized and how it affected her children. When you look at it with the chapter as a whole, though? Remember, this is the chapter where Rei claims that all of the family shares the blame in what happened to Touya, displacing some of the blame that rightfully rests on Enji.

But my major gripe with this scene is how it reframes the sole moment we get of Rei and Touya alone. Because we know that Rei understands Touya, based on her confrontations with her husband in Ch 301 & 302. Rather than encourage him to be what he wants or acknowledge that his father is in the wrong, however, her advice falls in line with what Enji wants -- to stop Touya from training. And this comes after a scene where we see Enji beat his wife when she doesn’t stop Touya from training.

With all that in mind, it could potentially be read as Rei trying stop Touya for the sake of protecting herself and the family -- I don’t think it’s coincidence that in the scene where he hits her that we see Shouto, Fuyumi & Natsuo all as witnesses who are very distressed by what’s happening to their mother -- at the cost of Touya’s need to be validated. And if executed well or at least better than it has here, that wouldn’t be a bad choice of narrative per se, and it would fit into the pattern where the households the villains were raised in -- notably Shigaraki, Dabi & Toga -- mimic the society they live in, just on a smaller scale.

Except. Does that sort of narrative make sense based on what we already know about Rei?

Certainly, it is natural to want to protect yourself under physical and/or emotional duress by appeasing your abuser. This sort of complicated dynamic appears in the Shimura family, too. Just like in the house that Kotaro built, the Todoroki family revolves around the desires of the abuser and is dictated by his whims.

I would argue that Nao does give us a well-written example of this narrative. From the beginning, it’s established that she loves Tenko dearly. But in the house her husband built, there’s no room to love her son as he deserves. She prioritizes the feelings of Tenko’s father for the sake of maintaining peace in the household and this is established quickly and plainly.

Early on in the flashback, Kotaro exerts his control over the house, while Nao + her parents look uncomfortable. Despite this, we watch as they comply with his rules, all at the expense of Tenko’s feelings. When she stands up to Kotaro at last, it is not where Tenko can see and already too late. It’s a painful story, full of regret and sadness, but it is consistent from start to end. Nobody feels out-of-character or there to prop up anybody else.

So why doesn’t Rei feel as consistent in this narrative?

Because it doesn’t fit with everything we knew about Rei prior to her abuser’s subpar redemption arc.

The way she interacts with Touya would make sense, if this was how she was portrayed from the start. However, her behavior in Shouto’s flashback -- where she was first introduced -- contrasts what we get in the later Todoroki flashbacks.

Let’s compare this to the scenes in Ch 302. Here, Rei interferes on Shouto’s behalf. She advocates for her son in front of Shouto where he can hear. She stands up to his bully/villain and tries to protect him, while also validating his feelings in the process. Directly after this, Enji hits her, not for failing to comply with his demands, but for defying him.

It is difficult to reconcile this Rei with the Rei we get in Ch 302. And if you try to find an in-story reason for the inconsistency, the options either do a disservice to Rei or make things even more painful for Touya. But I’m sure most of you have realized that I’m going to suggest a reason for this inconsistency that goes beyond the canon.

Because when Rei was first introduced in the story, Endvr was unequivocally the villain in the Todoroki family, not some misguided patriarch trying to atone for his “past” mistakes. Years later and in the midst of his redemption arc, the narrative seems to be intent on making this man more palatable to readers, and it’s used Rei at every opportunity to prop up his efforts to be better. Often, though, it takes some of the heat off Enji by displacing it onto other family members, most significantly Rei & Touya.

Like, you can literally see the difference in the frame from early in the manga to now:

Ch 39: Endvr trains his five-year-old to the point where he’s throwing up due overextension and being punched by a fully grown adult who is also his father. Rei tries to protect her son and gets slapped by Endvr. All the blames rests squarely on Endvr, who is clearly the aggressor and painted as the villain here.

Ch 302: Endvr hits Rei for not preventing Touya from sneaking out to train, knocking her to the ground. Again, Endvr is clearly the aggressor, but oh this time it’s not driven solely by his selfish desires it’s also cocnern for his son; Rei is the victim but oh she also should have been watching him more closely, and oh well why was Touya going out in the first place, when everyone has told him to stop and he knows his mom will get punished for it?

Honestly, I can understand where some people have mixed feelings over Rei’s character, particularly since the writing has done her such a disservice recently. With that being said, however, it takes a minimum amount of critical thinking to recognize that while you can criticize some choices she made, you cannot hold her to the same standard of accountability as Enji, it’s absurd. The power imbalance was obviously tipped in Endvr’s favor, always.

It is a shame, too, that we can’t have more discussions that don’t turn into some readers (a lot of whom are attempting to make Endvr sound less horrible than he actually was) trying to demonize her. It’s doubly a shame the story itself doesn’t bother to flesh her out as a person, instead using her as a prop, because the complex relationships she has with Touya -- with all her children, really -- has plenty of room for exploration.

Like, there was no reason to add this new dimension of resentment due to her spouting Enji’s words back at Touya, when there was already a source of tension supported by previous canon -- the neglect the Todoroki kids suffered because Rei couldn’t be the parent they needed, due to her declining mental health and eventual breakdown.

Or, if you want to complicate their dynamic further, why not add something that focuses on Rei and has nothing to do with Enji? We learn in the flashbacks that Rei agreed to the marriage more-or-less to please her family, lamenting that she “intended to smile through it to the end,” essentially admitting that her hope was she could grin and bear it. It is telling that she had this attitude before entering her marriage; evidently, she was raised with the idea that she should be acquiescent to her parents’ whims and not express herself if she was only going to be contrary. Maybe she didn’t know how to deal with Touya’s very expressive, very emotional outbursts as a result. And her inability to respond would be the exact opposite of what Touya was seeking.

Not to mention that Touya died, and for the last decade, Rei was under the impression she had lost her son forever. He died while she was hospitalized, torn up with guilt over what she did to Shouto, only to find out that her other son died in a frankly horrific manner, and she could do nothing. By the time she would’ve found out, it was too late to even try to do anything. I can’t imagine what she must’ve felt in terms of regret alone, plus her grief. And I’m still mad we were robbed of her reaction to Touya being alive, because now suddenly there is a chance to do something, to change what was once written in stone.

Or what about Touya’s feelings for his mother, that have yet to be given much depth? As the oldest and most aware of his existence, it seems like he was the first to truly understand his mother’s situation and I can’t help but wonder: If Touya knew he vessel for his father’s ambition, and his mother was sold into role of creating/caring for him, did he question her love for him? Once he found out one parent’s love was conditional, it wouldn’t be a leap for him to consider it for the other. And yet if that’s true, Dabi doesn’t appear to hold any ill-will towards her for that. He was angry at her hypocrisy, because he knows she should understand, but her words to him didn’t reflect that.

All of that is fascinating and so much better than what we got in canon, so far at least. I’m hoping for them interact in the present at least once before the end of the series, and I think they will, but as to how satisfying a reconciliation it’ll be, I guess we’ll have to wait to see how the Todoroki plotline progresses from here on out.

#bnha #touya todoroki #rei todoroki #bnha meta #bnha analysis #this took way too long because I kept having more thoughts which made it even longer lol #and it actually gave me another idea for a touya & rei meta post but this is already a monster so that'll have to be its own separate post

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bunchofstraydogs · 4 years ago

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Dazai Osamu character breakdown as I understand him

Meaning that this might be inaccurate and your opinion and visage of him might differ from mine, which is just fine. We perceive the world and the people around us through our experiences and expectations. I'm curious to know how you guys see a complex character like Dazai, just please respect everyone's opinions.

Warning: Manga plot mentions, s2 spoilers, BEAST light novel spoilers, Dazai Osamu

Dazai Osamu was introduced into the scene of Bungou Stray Dogs at 14 when Mori found him.

Even at that young age, Dazai had suicidal tendencies and had been wrapped in bandages similarly as he is in the present. Already dealing with too much trauma for a child his age, the fire is fuelled as he was forced to bear witness to the death of the Port Mafia boss at the hands of Mori, the person that took him under his wing. To use him; which was becoming very apparent to Osamu if he hadn't been aware since the start. Now, I'm not saying that death of the previous boss left a particular scar on Samu, he even agrees with it and is something he himself would have done. But that that is the scene that bore fruit of the following quotes:

"Or could it be that you're afraid, Mori-san? That one day i will slit your throat and take over as the boss?"

followed by

"Everyone seems suspicious to those who have an axe to grind."

This tells us right away that he can tell what type of person you are just from the way you perceive your surroundings, which is logical, but not something many think too deep into.

Even less who have their evaluations of others on point like he does. And he has to, since Dazai's plan is always to understand his allies, his enemies, possible allies and possible enemies. He also takes into account important neutral parties that can still, in one way or another, affect the outcome of his plans or decide to align with one side out of common interest. After comes realising the main goals, along with side achievements (just in case some of those maim his allies or ruin the future plans he made) of every party. Taking in their morals and motivation, and being familiar with the ground the confrontation will happen on, he now has the view of the whole chess board and it's pieces in his head. He moves his allies in the right places, knowing how they'll react in the situation to come, and awaits the enemies with open fire arms. He was tought to think like that. At all times. Mori made sure of it. You know how specialists never really stop thinking in their areas of expertise, like doctors, for example, will naturally notice people's posture and look for scoliosis or whatever? How your foot hits the floor, if you're walking straight, your knees and shoulders, etc. Same for Dazai. His brain maps out person's expressions, reactions, choices, personality, etc. in great detail. I'm pretty sure he has eidetic memory, if his conversations in manga with Fyodor are anything to go by.

Another thing his brain does is think of worst possible outcomes.

Not in a fear of what if things go wrong, but as a possible route. He uses it to determine how big of a threat the opposing force is and what steps they'll have to take to achieve that. Knowing that, he'll know how to intercept them. Also, like everything else, it's not something he can control since we're talking about thought process here and that's just how his brain works. Can't magically turn that off. It's especially annoying to him when he's genuinely enjoying himself with, let's say, ADA members and then his brain goes brrr.

•"A lot happened recently and we're a torn in many people's eyes." *Tanizaki and Atsushi drinking punch* "There's a possibility, while a small one, about 8% at this very moment, but as time goes on will increase, that an organisation outside of Yokohama decided we're an unavoidable threat and poisoned the drinks. Don't drink that. Nothing will happen, they'll wake up tomorrow in pristine condition don't drink th-"

Yeah, i feel bad for him too.

He has PTSD and insomnia, besides the hectic brain,

so he's not getting proper amount of rest. Actually, he drinks almost every night by himself at home. Pretty sure it's canon as well, because if you search for a picture of him in his room, you'll see him surrounded by multiple bottles. Two of the PTSD symptoms are hallucinations and night terrors (no, that is not the same as a nightmare). What people usually do is use opium to cause hallucinations in a safe environment so that there's little chance of them happening uncontrolled. He's probably using alcohol to numb himself while he's reminiscing, since if he does still have hallucinations after years having passed by (which isn't impossible), they're probably few and far between. Not saying there's no chance he isn't using opium. He would know where to get what he needs, after all.

Osamu's haunted by his own actions as well, not just by trauma caused to him.

At an uncountable amount of occasions, he found himself looking into a mirror and not really comprehending his image. It was like dissociation. Looking through a fog at what's supposed to be your carbon copy, but not knowing all of your features perfectly, so whatever you're seeing could only be an impostor, yet you're not sure because that would take comprehending physical proof of your life to the fullest and how it works and he just... can't. He can but he doesn't want to. He already knows he's despicable and broken, doesn't really feel the need to see just how much. He can't, for all his perfect memory, remember the faces of the people he has killed. He hadn't even seen all of them, but he was responsible for their demise. Causing havoc and misfortune in general through other crimes besides murder as well. We've seen his expression when he listened in on Atsushi talking to Kyouka over the earpiece how the 35 deaths don't matter anymore. He knows they do and he knows that the change of heart won't justify what he's they've done. Ango thought him to value each life. But he also knows that even murderers can change and become good. Oda did that. It's also what's keeping him in the agency.

When Oda died, his last words mentioned that Dazai doesn't care about good or bad and that was correct for Dazai Osamu back then. I genuinely think that his present self does mind the difference.

He believes in necessary evil and will do dark shit to get the good outcome he's envisioned.

He doesn't separate outlaws and lawful people, however.

He knows that generally speaking, the line is thin and easy to cross and that many were born or forced into the situations they are. Those that fight the life thrown at them are an exception, not a rule. That's also why he likes Atsushi, probably the main reason. The boy has every right to hate the world and yet. Dazai is envious, he doesn't really have the same capacity.

I want now to talk about why does Dazai Osamu do what Dazai Osamu does.

The reason he attempts suicide, joined the mafia, made friends at all, is because for all his intelligence and observations, ability to understand others, he doesn't really understand himself.

He doesn't understand his worth. He doesn't understand his purpose. In all of that confusion, he finds no reason to live. He laughs but can't get the high, he bruises but can't fully heal. In all of the things people find happiness in he can't feel joy from. He is emotionally stunted. He thinks too logically. He doesn't understand actions out of emotions because to him, it doesn't make sense. Emotions cloud your mind and when you're not thinking straight, you make mistakes. Plain and simple. He just accepts it, that most people simply cannot control themselves and prefer lashing out instead of methodical approach. All the better for him, he has leverage. Even when he does act on impulse, which is incredibly rare and not as explosive and dramatic, his brain rationalises it as to why his actions were a good way to go. And if his reaction was one that bore fruit, than it was a tactical one.

"If you place yourself somewhere close to raw emotions, where you're exposed to raw violence and death, instinct and desire, you can brush against man's true nature. I though that way i could find a reason to live somehow."

From this, i can tell that he was hoping that, in a situation where he's pushed far enough, he'd realise what's important to him, what he wants to protect or destroy, what's one thing he wouldn't want to leave unsettled before dying. What is that one thing he'd regret dying before achieving? What should he fight death for. What is worth living on for? To him, it doesn't matter if that something is good or evil as long as he gets to keep it in his life.

It seems he hadn't found it exactly, but is satisfied with what he has for now, in the agency, to just keep going. But he still tries to commit suicide, hoping that one day, when the clear picture of the world around him is fading away, when he's becoming light headed from the lack of oxygen, when he's loosing control over his body and thoughts don't seem to flow well, there will be one thing, anyone, screaming at him to fight it. New day new chances. It didn't happen today, better luck tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomo-.

Now, like Mori, Dazai feels the need to, at all times, be in control of the situation. Including people.

That means no one, but perhaps Ranpo due to his own abnormal intellect, is aware of their own role. They know their mission, but they're not expecting to be given that particular one because they'll come across an obstacle they would react to in a way that would satisfy Osamu's plans.

Dazai Osamu is more of a chemist, than a chess player, if you ask me.

Throwing different people into the mix, under different conditions at different times and is noting down their reactions in safe surrounding if possible, so that when the time calls for it, he'll be able to make a perfect concoction for the predicament. A chemist and his substances; A chess player and his pawns; A puppeteer and his puppets. Now, Dazai is meticulous and never rash, but like everyone else (except effin Lovecraft what is he even) he's only human and he bleeds when he falls down and humans aren't perfect. He isn't always right. That means he makes mistakes. The issue with big shot players that control the board is that, when they fall down, everyone on their side crashes and burns as well. So the day Dazai fucks up everyone else will follow because of lack of insight on their part that's completely out of their control. All it takes is for him to underestimate or overestimate one person and chaos ensues. There is no such thing as happy little accidents small mistakes for someone like him. I have crippling anxiety and a sole thought that one hiccup could blow up in everyone's face... damn. I would try committing suicide myself. But it's his fault, he brought upon himself an obligation and pressure like that. To be fair, it was Mori that drilled that type of thinking where no one should know what you plan because they can't ruin what they don't know If they turn against you, they can't stop you.

For his own sake, and everyone else's, Dazai needs to learn how to show his cards and share the burden.

Again, going back to the emotionally stunted guy that has commitment issues (where he either can't commit or can't let go) trope.

He never outright does something good for someone where people would acknowledge it, he uses his underhanded tactics here as well.

He casually makes himself look like a bad guy, an asshole, to conveniently move attention from the inner turmoil a person is struggling with to a present problem at hand that they can fix and let their frustrations out on. But he hopes that, one day, someone just might notice his intentions for what they are and do the unspeakable- see through him.

"I'm a very private person. You don't ask, i don't tell."

Yes, and your whole existence is just a huge cry for help. He wants to be asked. He's begging for attention. A specific type of attention. One that will see him without making him feel imposed on. One that will understand his sins without making a big deal out of it. Accept him as a person he is, makes him feel like one as well. Makes him feel alive. Makes him feel... period.

The day he finds that thing is the day he completely turns his life around and fully dedicates to it. It's where the part of not being able to let go commitment issue ensues.

Since Oda's death he's been secretly keeping an eye out on possible ways to bring him back. If you've read Beast AU you know that when Dazai gets his hands on the book, he'll create a universe where Oda doesn't die. Should he find an ability user that can bring back the dead, just tell him what it will take, he's ready to destroy his own soul for it and if that isn't enough, well, he'll have no hesitation ruining theirs. After all, BEAST!Dazai Osamu never actually met Odasaku, he just had the memories he'd gotten from his canon self and that was enough for him to do everything he did.

He's incredibly selfish and has a weird come in but the door is a wall dynamic he rolls with in his self imposed solitude.

It's like the walls of the space in my brain are ugly and terrifying, so i closed off the entrance to keep myself in. I'm doing you a favour but please break the wall down and tell me it's okay to come out i don't want to be here-

Happy little thoughts woah woah yeah~

That's what i got from what I've seen of him. I may have missed some things, some things might prove to be wrong as the series progress further, but yeah.

There is, however, one more thing i want to put out here. Since Dazai was already like this before Mori found him, that begs to question as to why? What happened to him?

Now, since the characters are based on real people, is it crazy to say that Dazai Osamu has had a horrible childhood because of his father? Real life Dazai was terrified of his dad and was very intimidated by him. He always tried to stay in his good graces out of fear of punishment. Neither of his parents felt like a parent to him, actually. His father didn't care and his mother was often ill, but did care for him when she could. Both of them died eventually.

This could be the plot Kafka based Dazai's background on, but we'll have to wait and see.

#dazai osamu #bungou stray dogs #bsd #meta #dazai osamu headcanon #dazai osamu headcanons #hc #hcs #psychoanalysis

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embermc · 4 years ago

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I’m still not over what happened to Ghostbur on Doomsday. There is no way to properly justify what happened to Ghostbur on Doomsday. And while I’m still absolutely happy that Ghostbur called out Doomsday’s perpetrators out on needlessly hurting and involving innocent pets, buildings and people in their conflict (even if he was one of the only ones that did at the time), I’m still really sad that he had to do that.

(Analysis under the cut, /rp)

Ghostbur was right, and he’s so much smarter than people think. I’m really glad that he called out how not okay it was for Techno and Phil to destroy buildings, and kill innocent pets and people just because of their conflict with a few people. That’s the main reason why Doomsday is so unjustified: because it took a conflict between a few people and needlessly involved everyone else in it, hurting innocent people and pets that did nothing wrong. Remember Ranboo sadly apologizing to his pets when he realized he couldn’t save all of them? Remember Karl’s distraught when he found out what happened to Party Island? Remember Ghostbur’s complete breakdown when he lost Friend and saw the nation he worked hard to rebuild get utterly destroyed?

Nothing could justify what happened to Ghostbur, and yes, I’m glad he finally called someone out on their Doomsday nonsense, but I’m sad at the conditions he had to do it in. Nobody ever took him seriously. Everyone just saw him as some silly, unfeeling ghost, and treated him like such. He was treated like a child by many, despite being a fully-grown adult. People like Techno and Phil didn’t even think he would feel any emotion after having everything he loved and cared about destroyed. They didn’t think he would understand or comprehend, so they didn’t even bother to take his emotions into consideration. They treated him like a small, stupid child, with no emotions of his own.

Ghostbur’s not a small child, and he wasn’t stupid. He acted childlike as a defense mechanism to cope with trauma, but he was always a fully capable adult. He forgets things that bring him pain, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a skilled, intellectually capable person able to process emotion. He build an entire nation, he weighed moral dilemmas (as in, choosing who to help in scenarios and taking into account who needed him at a certain time), and he genuinely tried to mend relationships he felt needed fixing. He was always relatively a pacifist, he didn’t want to get involved in wars, and just wanted people to be happy. He wanted to spread happiness and make up for the past mistakes of a man he doesn’t even remember.

But the physically powerful people on the server, people like Techno, Dream, and even his own father, Phil, looked at someone who was pacifistic, easygoing, and optimistic and only saw saw someone who wasn’t worth being taken seriously. And that’s another common theme on the server. People who are more powerful, particularly physically but often with charisma and manipulation as well, are regarded with more inherent worth and are taken more seriously than those who don’t possess these traits, or choose not to possess them. People like Techno, Phil, and Dream have their opinions constantly validated, their motives are taken seriously, and their threats are feared. People like Alivebur and Schlatt, who had a lot of charisma and verbal power, were taken seriously and treated as genuine threats when need be. But people like Ghostbur? People who prefer to be peaceful, non-confrontational, and want to spread happiness and joy without worrying about wars and pain, and are typically optimistic? They’re often disregarded, treated as if their emotions and opinions don’t matter.

That’s exactly what happened here, and exactly what Ghostbur gets upset with Phil about. He said it himself: “I may be forgetful, and I may be an amnesiac, and I may be the comic relief in all your stories, but I still feel this. I still feel things...” People, particularly Phil here, assumed that just because Ghostbur was forgetful, constantly optimistic, and a comic relief character, he couldn’t feel the enormous amounts of pain being inflicted on him. They assumed he wouldn’t comprehend Doomsday and wouldn’t comprehend his world being torn apart, because he was just some dim-witted, unfeeling ghost. Like a small child who doesn’t understand the world going on around him. While this can also play into Phil’s character because he lost his son, and he desperately wants to make everything seem like he has a second chance to raise his son from early childhood, this mentality is beyond unfair to Ghostbur. Because Ghostbur CAN feel things, he CAN feel pain, he just desperately doesn’t want to. He wants to avoid feeling any form of negative emotion or pain whatsoever, and wants to repress his negative feelings and pretend to be happy. But in this moment, when he confronts Phil, he finally bursts.

This is what ultimately lead Ghostbur to realize that he needed to become Wilbur again. Being Ghostbur, being somebody with little to no strength or power whether it be physical or verbal, would only lead to more hardship and suffering for him and his friends. He realizes that he’ll never be taken seriously as he is, not even by those closest to him. Phil’s line at the end of their conversation says it all, “Someday, you’ll understand.” It’s a condescending line, as if he was speaking to a small child. It’s an assumption that Ghostbur’s current emotions and beliefs are incorrect, and invalid. It’s an assumption that Ghostbur doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and still has a lot of “growing up” to do. But Ghostbur can’t grow up. He can’t change, at least not in this form. He’s dead.

Ghostbur realized, through being forced to face suffering and tragedy head-first, that he couldn’t stay the way he was. And as sad as it is, it’s honestly such a fitting end to his arc. Through a situation that is similar to the one that Alivebur put everyone through, a situation that he had tried to repress from his memories, he realized that repressing all of his emotions and putting on a cheerful, child-like facade was not going to get him anywhere. Ghostbur is confronted with a horribly tragic scenario that he can’t ignore, can’t repress. He can’t pretend to be happy anymore and simply forget about what happened, since there’s nothing left to return to if he does. The only “understanding” that Ghostbur reached wasn’t the one that Phil and Techno were trying to teach everyone through violence and suffering. The understanding he reached was that he would never be taken seriously or have his emotions validated if he chose to stay as a happy, forgetful ghost. He needed to regain the sense of strength that Alivebur had, because that sense of strength is the only thing that will allow him to be taken seriously in this world. That sense of strength, of charisma, of verbal power and leadership, is the only thing that would allow him to truly be happy and not have to suffer anymore. He couldn’t go on repressing everything, which is a positive message that sadly came from a very negative situation.

Ghostbur had a fantastic arc, but what happened to him on Doomsday is still so, so sad. It wasn’t justified what was done to him, but it ended up furthering his character arc. He did learn a lesson, but it wasn’t the one that Phil and Techno were trying to teach. However, it was still one that sadly came from much more suffering and pain than he should have gone through. In a narrative sense, it’s extremely well-written for Ghostbur’s specific arc and very poetic. Yet, it was still someone having to learn through suffering and pain. Maybe that’s what had to be done, narrative-wise. Ghostbur had to be presented with a situation that he couldn’t repress or ignore in order for him to learn that his coping mechanisms would get him nowhere. But that doesn’t mean that what was done to him, the pain inflicted on him, was justified, and in fact, it was very tragic. All we can do is hope that from here, whatever happens to the newly resurrected Wilbur leads him to a future of healing, and at last, happiness.

#dream smp #dsmp #wilbur soot #ghostbur #doomsday #technoblade #philza #dream #dreamwastaken #alivebur #jschlatt #l'manberg #l'manburg

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hyperbali · 4 years ago

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Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Alright. Finally had to sit down and write my way out of this quiet, internal temper tantrum, and a few people were interested in seeing what I had to say, so I present to you:

Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Disclaimer: MASSIVE spoilers for the entirety of WandaVision, and I am not nice about it.

I’ll start off by saying that, for all its foibles, WandaVision was genuinely a good example of a property within the MCU/Disney umbrella that stepped out of the usual ‘good guys fight bad guys action extravaganza’ in a way that pushed the envelope. The pseudo-horror aspect of the first few episodes is something I would really love to see engaged with on a more thoughtful basis in future projects.

I would say that it proved to be more than a vehicle to promote toys, but… well…

Yeah. Anyway.

I’ll assume that you watched WandaVision if you’re reading this, but quick recap: In the aftermath of ‘the Blip,’ Wanda is left broken and alone with no one in her corner. Her biggest mentor willingly abandoned his team to get his own ‘happy’ ending (do not get me started on Steve, that’s a document in and of itself), her other biggest mentor is probably off enjoying his family while ignoring the incredibly racist killing spree he’s been on for the past five years, and her lover is dead. When she goes to claim the body, she’s told nuh-uh, that’s government property, please leave.

So she goes to a plot of land in the middle of some nowhere town in New Jersey, which Vision apparently bought despite the fact they were living a pretty decently comfortable life in Scotland, where she looks at the deed that Vision drew a heart on and wrote ‘To Grow Old In’. Very sweet. Kind of weird, considering nothing of this caliber had ever been suggested for either of their characters and they’d been actively running from specifically the U.S. authorities? But sweet.

She has a breakdown and, in her grief, contains the entire town of Westview and all 3,892 of the people in it in her own personal paradise, where nothing bad ever happens beyond sitcom hijinks, no one dies, and every problem is tied up and neatly dealt with by the end of an ‘episode’. Except we learn that this is only paradise to Wanda, who apparently shares the aspect of having to relate everything to her favourite pop culture with Tony, because everyone else in Westview is more or less being psychologically tortured by the incredible amount of pain she’s in, forced to be puppeted actors to make her happy.

Bear in mind, Westview might have been bigger at some point - we have no idea how many people survived the Blip, or how many have been brought back to life within the past few weeks of the current setting. Either way, this is a town that has already dealt with a lot of trauma being dragged into yet another awful, much more specific kind of emotional damage, thanks to ‘the heroes’. Nice.

Agatha Harkness, a witch who’s been up to who-knows-what in the 340 years since she drained the coven that tried to kill her for getting a little too ambitious into jerky, feels the massive expenditure of magical power and decides to investigate. All the while, she carefully uses her own magic to try and peek into Wanda’s psyche, her motivations, all while keeping up appearances and not letting slip that anything is amiss.

I’ll point out that she’s no saint here, either - she specifically keeps one Westview resident at her mercy, and knows what’s happening to the rest of them, but doesn’t attempt to stop it. I’ll chalk that up to her pragmatism; their ‘sacrifice’ was fine to her as long as she could figure out how Wanda could have done something so unheard of in terms of power.

What we come to learn over the course of the show is that, given everything that happened, Wanda didn’t mean to take over an entire town and tool it into her own personal slice of heaven. She very quickly became aware of it; we know that she knows it’s her own personal bubble as soon as episode three, when she’s confronting Monica about how the latter could possibly know about Ultron. Wanda is made further aware of how much damage this is inflicting on others in episode five, when Vision himself tells her that these people are scared. But still, she has everything handled! It’s okay! The outside world is worse, trust her!

Her handling of the question, ‘where are all the children of Westview,’ is one that bears some thinking - and, y’know, kind of more than a little concern. They’re allowed to walk around as part of the ‘Halloween special,’ but as Vision walks further and further out towards the edges of town where Wanda doesn’t have as much full control, people are just frozen in place, or conducting the same few seconds of action over and over. And fully aware of being trapped.

How are they being sustained? Eating, sleeping? If someone isn’t part of her storyline, is she just locking them down into a coma? What made Wanda decide that keeping the children ‘out of the way’ was somehow kinder than involving them, especially given her later argument that she’s been trying to keep the entire town safe and happy?

The fact of the matter is, she only actually starts to feel remorse for any of this after she’s confronted with the fact that, after weeks of being at her mercy, the townspeople of Westview would rather be dead than endure another moment of having to play nice for her enjoyment. She finally opens the ‘bubble’ to let them out - which leads to the ‘epic’ finale of three different entities trying to take down Wanda and her happy family: the S.W.O.R.D. military led by Hayward, the White Vision, and Agatha.

Winding back to how we got here: after Agatha uses her own trapped resident, Ralph Bohner (who, given his casting and the props in place during the last episode, I’m willing to bet is actually the missing witness protection person Jimmy was looking for) in an attempt to lure out Wanda’s reasoning - and fails - she’s pretty much done pretending. She tricks Wanda into her basement, nullifies her powers, and makes her face her own past to get to the truth of the matter.

Not going to lie, favourite moment of the show. Kathryn Hahn killed Agatha’s slightly-amused-slightly-irritated observations about Wanda’s coping mechanisms, and the whole arrangement was extremely meta. I would have paid real money dollars to see her do the same thing to the likes of Tony, Strange, and Loki. Hell, even just having her meet the rest of the Avengers? Augh. If wishes were fishes.

When Agatha comes to the conclusion that Wanda is the vaunted, nigh-indestructible force of nature that she’s literally spent her entire life reading about is the ultimate source of chaos magic and will likely bring about the end of the world, she’s pretty understandably taken aback. To that matter, the fact that Wanda… has very little control over any of it, and is using what she does understand to play housemaker? After how long Agatha has spent learning control, hiding in plain sight, just to be child’s play compared to what Wanda has at her fingertips? I’d be pretty pissed off, too!

The way that WandaVision handled both of the major ‘fights’ - Vision versus White Vision ending in philosophy, and Wanda ending up beating Agatha at her own game of deception - is excellent. A little grating that they had to go with the beat down angle before they got there, but this is MCU; punches and thrown cars had to get shoved in somewhere. And, given that this series very much played with the idea of grey morality, I was sort of hopeful that Agatha would end up in a not-quite stalemate arrangement with Wanda. She’s not as powerful as the Scarlet Witch, but she has the know-how that Wanda sorely lacks; in recompense for her own deeds, she would be able to teach what she knows while also kind of scheming on her own time.

Y’know, like what they did with rehabilitating Loki?

Except that Wanda, who has just gone through the entire rigamarole of coming to terms with the fact that she trapped thousands of people into a nightmare scenario against their will, rendering them helpless to her mercy… traps Agatha into a nightmare scenario against her will, rendering her helpless to Wanda’s mercy.

That moment actually shook me. Oh, my god. We’re supposed to still look at Wanda as a good guy after this?

This isn’t even covering the incredibly awful confrontation with her and Vision where she tries to gaslight him into believing that everything is A-OK, or the fact that the person she gets most violent with (apart from Agatha) is Monica Rambeau, a black woman who spends most of the show bending over backwards trying to say that what Wanda is doing is understandable, justified, and just needs a gentle touch to be dealt with.

That could be its own document, too - how Monica, much as she’s incredible and definitely looks to be a really exciting addition to the MCU roster, more or less gets used as the Good One to absolve and enable Wanda’s actions. One of her last lines to Wanda, after seeing how the people of Westview (rightfully) look at Wanda like she’s monstrous, is “they’ll never know what you sacrificed.”

Sacrificed what? The fake husband and fake kids she made out of her own compulsion to pretend that everything is okay? None of that would have existed if she’d been given the proper resources to actually cope with how much loss she’s had to deal with. None of that would have existed if she hadn’t caused this problem in the first place.

In the end, Wanda flies off in her fancy new gear before the FBI shows up, avoiding any real consequences to her actions - which has pretty much been the running theme of her character ever since she was introduced to the MCU in Age of Ultron. The worst kind of direct consequence she’s ever gotten was being grounded to her room for a while, then kept in the Raft for, like, maybe a day - and both times, she was broken out post-haste.

Meanwhile, she worsened the issues in Sokovia (which, I will say upfront, was Tony’s fault to begin with), unleashed the Hulk on Johannesburg, got a pretty significant amount of civilians killed as bystanders in Lagos (hey, how come Wanda keeps turning a lot of black people into casualties?), and stood back in Wakanda to let their people try to fight off Thanos from getting to Vision until it was clear that there was no other option than for her to get involved.

Great Power Comes With No Responsibility At All, Actually.

Wanda, in the several years she has maintained her identity as an Avenger, has proven time and time again that she takes on innumerable risks without any full understanding of what they mean, allows others to take on the brunt of the fallout for her, and looks sad until she’s forgiven and moves on to the next problem. She has no business casually throwing around the kind of power that being the Scarlet Witch entails, not until she’s actually made any kind of headway into making reparations for what she’s done and tried, really tried, to get a handle on what she’s capable of.

Which she’s apparently doing in the last post-credits scene, astral reading the literal Book of the Damned on her lonesome in the mountains, but… without anyone to guide her, or give her any kind of boundary?

[I ran out of images I could post, but you know exactly what image I am referring to here]

Agatha Harkness was right. And that should terrify everybody that has to deal with Wanda in the future.

(P.S. Do we know if she actually even killed that dog? We never see her holding anything but a blanket, and characters go in and out of that show all the time. Granted, she wasn’t great with the cicada-turned-bird... hmm.)

Additional Notes:

“Well, you’re a Tony Stan, of course you think Wanda’s a villain”

I like Tony because he’s such an awful mess, and the narrative isn’t exactly kind about telling him what a piece of shit he can be! He reaped a lot of problems, created practically half the villains in the MCU, and ended up dying a martyred hero. Thanks to being the tent pole by which this franchise hoisted itself into a cultural powerhouse, he will always be their golden savior. If you want to read about how he’s the true villain of this entire affair, feel free to look up any number of takedown pieces about him that are out there. He’s a dick. I will never “uwu sad baby who did nothing wrong ever 🥺” him the way people do about Wanda.

“Why are you so pressed about this”

Because something as good in concept as WandaVision could and should have been about anyone other than the whitewashed, antisemitic take on Wanda Maximoff that MCU brought upon us. They put crucifixes on her wall in Civil War, for fuck’s sake!

“Weren’t you mad about them not including Aaron Taylor-Johnson”

At this point, I am almost kind of relieved the real Pietro wasn’t resurrected for this, because god knows they probably would have killed him all over again just to inflict that much more pain on his sister.

“Anything else you’d like to tell us, turbo nerd”

This was literally itching at me all weekend to write, so it’s more or less just to get it off my chest. If you powered your way through it, uh… thanks? Sorry if I yucked your yums, but I tried to be as clear with the disclaimer as I could. 🤷‍♂️

#blah blah #long post #marvel #mcu #wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision critical #anti wanda maximoff

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innocentsshounenjuujigun · 3 years ago

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whump ask numbers 5, 10, 11 and 14 for michael! bitch boy! :D

5. What is their response to their friends or loved ones in pain?

That very much depends on who you consider “loves ones” to Michael. In all honesty, he hardly has any. There’s no one in the world who Michael can genuinely consider to be a friend. As far as loved ones go, his father is the only person who comes close. Michael is an incredibly isolated boy. No one’s ever liked him very well or gotten very close, so he missed the part of development where children learn to care about other people.

If Michael were to have loved ones, though, seeing them in pain would drive him crazy. He’s the kind of person who can’t stand sitting by and watching something he dislikes happen, and that would definitely qualify. Michael’s response to something bad that he can’t fix would either be snapping at them to get over it (if they weren’t too close) or completely freaking out himself (if they were very close). He can easily be dismissive of people he doesn’t care too much about, but if it’s someone he openly adores, seeing them in pain is beyond uncomfortable. Michael would never have any idea how to comfort someone, though.

10. How stable do they consider themselves? How stable are they really?

Michael considers himself to be perfectly stable. In his mind, he’s the perfect follower of God. The only things he does are those that are correct, and he and his actions are always led by the Lord’s will. In his mind, he’s a pillar of sensibility and intelligence in a foolish, helpless world where the majority of the population consists of mindless fools who don’t know the first thing about how to live. Michael actively considers himself to be able to handle stress and pain much better than your average person— after all, he survived the strict regime of growing up within the Church and is just fine.

The reality, though, is that he’s incredibly fragile. Michael can handle stress and hard times when they’re predictable, and only then. If something fits with his self-decided outlook of the world, he can take it. He has a high pain tolerance physically, and as long as he can justify the situation to himself, he’s not bad mentally either. However, as soon as something crosses outside the realm of what Michael understands and can accept, his attitude completely changes. That’s when it shows how delicate his mental state really is. He completely breaks down under stress when it’s foreign, confusing, or “wrong” by his own definition. Unforeseen troubles break him in no time. Michael is prone to fits, tantrums, breakdowns, and more when he’s distressed. He has no emotional control whatsoever.

11. Within their group, where do they fall during emergencies? The leader, the support, the cause of the emergency, etc.?

The interesting thing here is that Michael doesn’t really have a “group” he belongs in. Within the Children’s Crusade, he was always an outcast. He never got close to anyone or made any genuine bonds, and most of the other kids merely saw him as a strange Church child who no one needed to bother with. He never had much of a group role. In the end, Michael proved himself to be the downfall of everyone around him and a highly antagonistic figure to anyone who went against him as soon as he had any measure of control. While he was still playing stupid, Michael was just an outcast and weirdo in his group. Once he revealed his true colors, there wasn’t any “group” left for him to belong to.

Within the Church where he grew up, however, Michael had a very different role. In this situation, he was absolutely at the bottom of the pecking order... just completely unaware of it. All Michael assumed was that he was being trained to be a holy, pure child fitting of the Lord’s favor and his father’s love. The reality was that he was nothing more than a slave of the Church, living a life of back-breaking chores and endless hard work and study. The monks and other members all saw him as a pitiful child— and his role was one of occupying that low position where no one truly respected him.

14. What kind of image would they like to portray to their group? How does the group really see them, good and bad?

For a long time, the image that Michael tried to present to the Crusade was “stupid and harmless”, more or less. He wanted everyone to think he was just a helpless fool. However, as this was fully part of his father’s plan, Michael never really liked doing it. If he had a choice, the image he’d try to present to the Crusade is one of a wise, holy child knowledgable in both Biblical matters and those of behavior and conduct. Michael wants to be respected by his peers. He feels like he’s worked hard enough and become “pure” enough that anyone who knows the depths of his spiritual goodness should immediately hold him on high for it.

The way the Crusade actually saw him, though, varied. While he was still playing stupid, opinions were split between buying into it and dismissing him for a pretty little fool... and having the strong, sneaking suspicion that something was very wrong with their newest member. Either way, no one liked Michael very much. He was either a dismissible idiot or suspected of hiding something awful, so no one found him likable or trustworthy. And with his lack of social experience and pre-set ideas of what the Crusade was like, Michael either didn’t realize how unliked he was or assumed that it only made sense for such impure children to not hold a strong fondness for someone like him. He never would have let himself even think that he wanted to be liked. He was doing his job and nothing more. It only makes sense that uneducated kids would miss the point.

Within the Church where he grew up, Michael had a surprisingly similar situation— as in, no one liked him very well. He was more or less a slave of the church he lived in, so most people saw him as either someone to pay no mind to or to order around when necessary. Michael was good for chores, study, and not much more, and no one cared to try to look any further than that. Even his own father saw him as disposable and not worth keeping around. And again, Michael was entirely unaware of this. He’d grown up being told that the way he was treated was normal, so it never occurred to him that he was truly unloved.

#Innocents Shounen Juujigun #Michael #Character Questions

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saffronwritings · 4 years ago

Text

C L U M S Y | S H I N S O U PT.3

S H I N S O U | P A R T T H R E E (Final)

I let you down I've been clumsy with your heart again

C L U M Y M A S T E R L I S T

Word Count: 3.7k

A/N: This started off shorter and then I redid one of the segments and welp here we are at 4.3k words. Oops! It’s not favoritism I promise. This is the “final” part to Shinsou’s CLUMSY series! I really hope you all enjoy! I’ll make a post asking what you all want to see next! :)

Denki couldn’t remember what time Shinsou told him to meet up with him after his training with Aizawa-sensei, so he figured he was going to just sit outside of the gym until he saw his purple haired friend exit the locker rooms. It had become almost routine for the two to have after school hangouts, mainly so Shinsou could relax after a long day. Kaminari helped fill the void that he felt without being able to see you. Though, Shinsou was guilty that it had distracted him from talking to you on occasion. While Kaminari was sporadic and chaotic, it helped ease the stress that Shinsou was constantly under.

However, Kaminari was surprised when he noticed the gym door was left wide open. Usually when he had ventured over to this part of UA, he would notice that the doors were closed. A privacy thing so that the students didn’t feel pressured or on-lookers wouldn’t intimate the said student. Had Aizawa-sensei cancelled his practice with Shinsou for the day? He was acting very strange the entire course of the day. He was extra grumpy and even before coming to check in on his friend, he had particularly felt bad for Shinsou having to deal with his sensei’s foul mood.

Curiosity got the better of the blonde boy, Denki decided to peek inside the small private gym, the ones teachers used to mentor students in, only to see Shinsou standing against a wall with his face pale and expression shocked. Shinsou had looked like he had either seen a ghost or had been told someone close to him had died. This immediately made the blonde worry for his new friend. He had looked around cautiously to see if Aizawa was still in the room. When it showed that it was only the two boys just sitting in absolute silence, that is when Kaminari decided to speak up to figure out what was going on. “Oi Shinsou, is everything-” The blonde started to say before Shinsou let out a scream of frustration. It reverberated a chill down Kami’s spine, making him flinch back.

Suddenly gym equipment started to fly across the room in haphazardly ways. His screams and shouts continued while he was heaving equipment left and right. “I’VE WORKED SO HARD.” Shinsou shouted in his fit of rage. “I HAVE WATCHED UNWORTHY STUDENTS SIT IN LUXURY.” Kaminari sat in a state of shock, watching his new friend seemingly lose his mind. He wanted to go and comfort his friend, but he was afraid he was going to lash out on him as well. He opted to just let him get all of his emotions out, even if it wasn’t in a healthy manner. “I PUSHED SO MANY PEOPLE AWAY FOR A SLIVER OF A CHANCE TO PROVE MYSELF.” He spewed again, not noticing the tears starting to stream down his face. He had thrown everything within a few feet radius as hard as he could across the smaller gym room.

He had looked over to Kaminari who was just standing there awkwardly, watching him, judging him. However, Shinsou was so out of breath he wasn’t sure if he even had any energy left to yell at the blonde for looking at him with such pity in his eyes. “I don’t know what’s going on, dude, but maybe you should take a breather before you hurt yourself.” Kaminari spoke cautiously, trying to not provoke Shinsou further. “You don’t get to tell me when to calm down! You don’t understand, you’ve had the privilege to just BE in the hero course!” Shinsou shouted at him, his eyes filled with both tears and rage. “But, you’re doing so well with your training! You were just talking to the support class to design your new gear!” Kaminari still tried to direct the conversation in a positive manner.

The two had just discussed how he was getting one of the girls in the support class to design a vocal chord changing mask. Kaminari was super blown away with the idea of being able to change voices in order to trick their opponents. While Shinsou might have lacked the psychical strength, he was always good at diverting and making a plan for success. “It doesn’t even matter now! Don’t you get it deadbolt!? I not only lost my shot at joining the hero course but I also lost the girl I loved by pushing her away for this opportunity” Shinsou’s voice strained out, it being raspy from screaming and shouting.

The blonde’s eyes widened in shock, realizing the situation at hand in front of him. He was watching Shinsou have a breakdown because for some reason, he had lost his mentor-ship with Aizawa. “What? What happened? You were doing great with your training!” Denki had pointed out making Shinsou flinch in embarrassment from those words. “Don’t you think I know that?!” The purple haired boy cried, clutching his chest in desperate attempts to not let his heart fail him now. Kaminari had also picked up on his specific wording, the girl he loved. Had he gotten into a fight with you the night before? As far as he was concerned, the two of you were fine. You guys had plans to meet up after practice the prior day.

“Can’t you just fix all of this then?” Kaminari’s comment made Shinsou turn very angrily towards him. “If I could, do you think I would make this big of a mess and yell so loudly? Do you think I would have gone into a fit of rage, destroying the gym if i could just FIX it? I can’t, you dumbass! I screwed up big time!” Shinsou cried out more, finally admitting his defeat. His knees crashed to the ground and he fell over onto his hands. He couldn’t stop himself from breaking down completely in front of Kaminari.

Kaminari knelt down next to him, placing a gentle hand onto the boy's back. Shinsou wouldn’t have noticed though, his entire body felt numb. He felt like he was plunging into a sea of darkness, swarmed with all his insecurities and doubts that he was ever good enough in the first place for such opportunities. With each gasp of air he took, he could feel himself drowning further into the waters that flowed over him like a flooding hurricane. Everything he worked for, everything he was aiming for was now just stripped from him.

You always kept him afloat with positive words that always helped him breach the waters that tempted to drown him. Like a ripping current he was being dragged under so quickly it was hard to breath. Kaminari was full of panic himself, watching Shinsou progress in his panic attack without fully knowing what to do. He wasn’t like Kirishima who could easily bring comfort to those in states like this. The blonde was tempted to go get help from one of his other friends but he was afraid of leaving Shinsou alone.

What had he done that had gotten him kicked from the mentoring program and had made him lose you?

…

“Stop right there, Shota.” Hizashi’s voice rang from down the hallway of the teacher’s lounge. Aizawa was still steaming with fury that he hadn’t noticed how far away from the training gyms he was. He came to a halt to see the older blonde glaring at him. “You took that way too far. I don’t know the extent of what your daughter said on the phone, but hurting Shinsou that badly wasn’t justified.” He started spewing, getting angrier through his sentence. Aizawa narrowed his eyes at his friend. “He broke her heart.” The tired teacher said through gritted teeth. “You didn’t hear how upset she was over the phone. I’ve heard her get like that once and that was after the USJ incident with the league of villains.”

“Teenagers go through breakups and fights all the time.” Hizashi tried to reason with him. “You don’t have a daughter, Hizashi.” Aizawa quickly countered. “You wouldn’t know what it’s like to hear your son or daughter call to you for help, sounding like they barely slept the night before.” Shota knew he was going way over the top, but if there was anything he would do, it was for the sake of his daughter.

His daughter wasn’t a planned idea, but there was nothing on the planet that Aizawa could love more. There was a reason he had made living arrangements and let little know about his daughter. The last thing he needed was for the league of villains to find out about you and to attempt to take you away from him. “No, but I know that you just crushed every hope that kid had for joining the hero course. Instead of punishing the poor kid who hasn’t been given a chance since he got here, why not help him out?” Hizashi started to try and reason with him.

“Help him out? After he hurt my daughter?” Aizawa growled through his gritted teeth. He could feel the headache forming in his temples from the day. He spent it so angrily, so filled to the brim with frustration. It was like he was getting hit multiple times in the chest with blow after blow. “You don’t even know what happened between the two! For all you know it could have been a misunderstanding. The last thing you want is for there to be no hope for your daughter to be able to make things up with the boy because you scarred him.”

For once, Hizashi had a really good point. As much as it pained him to agree with the obnoxious blonde, he knew he was right. “I’m sure your daughter would appreciate the effort set forth by you.” He continued to push, making a groan leave Aizawa’s throat. “Fine, fine. If it will get you off my back, and if you really think this is a good idea, then I’ll go make things right. If not, I will not hesitate to hang you over a pool of sharks.” Aizawa threatened, making Hizashi smile widely at him.

Hizashi treaded lightly behind Aizawa to make sure he would stay true to his word. The last thing he needed was for the man to slump over and fall asleep before missing his chance to fix things with Shinsou. He didn’t want to tell Aizawa, because he knew it would make him feel even worse about the situation, but he knew Shinsou had a soft spot for Eraserhead. The way the kid watched in admiration whenever he would explain something to the student said volumes.

Aizawa was not happy about having to be the one to confront the boy who broke his daughter’s heart. Damn that loud mouthed Hizashi for bringing his daughter into the mix. He knew he was right but that didn’t make him any less happy about the situation. In no time flat he made it back to the gym only to notice that things were strewn about. Weights were all over the place, the sparring matt was upright against a wall instead of on the ground. He noticed Kaminari next to Shinsou, kneeled over and rubbed circles into Hitoshi’s back. He almost felt bad when he heard the soft sobbing that came from the hunched over boy. Until he took into account what he had done to his daughter.

Aizawa crossed the room and pointed for Denki to leave. The electric blonde did not hesitate to question his teacher’s instruction and left the gym quickly. Aizawa squatted down to Shinsou’s level and put a hand on his back. “Get up, kid.” He said in a husky voice, before standing up. Shinsou’s eyes shot open and his head shot up to look at him. Surprise and confusion flooded his face as he wasn’t sure why the teacher of class 1-A had come back to him.

“Kaminari, if you don’t scram from eavesdropping from around the corner I will not hesitate to flunk you on your next upcoming exam.” Aizawa shouted loud enough so that his lingering student could hear. Both Aizawa and Shinsou heard shoes scuttling away from the door and down the hallway. He was about to tell Hizashi the same thing, but Shinsou had interrupted his thought process by saying, “Why did you come back?” Shota had noted his tone was defeated, and almost filled with hopelessness.

“I was too harsh, I was overcome with my own emotions of protecting my daughter and lashed it out on you. You are a bright student and one that deserves a second shot.” Aizawa started to explain, rubbing the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you tell me Y/N was your daughter? I had been dating her for well over a year. You had to know what you were signing up for when taking me on as my mentor.” Shinsou questioned quickly, obviously still very confused from the situation.

“I wanted to make you a hero good enough to protect her.” Aizawa admitted, shaking his head at his own thoughts. “I don’t know what you said to her to make her so upset she called me crying, but you need to fix it. However, being my daughter, she’s a stubborn headed mess. If I personally don’t help you, you may not have a shot of fixing it.” Shinsou’s eyes lit up with just a tad bit of hope. “You’re helping me?” Shinsou’s voice came out in a whisper. “In this regard, yes. If you think I’m going to be cleaning your mess here, you are sorely mistaken.” Aizawa said, however, Shinsou could hear a bit of playfulness in his tone.

…

You had been tempted to try and communicate with Shinsou after the blow-up the two of you had. However, judging on the last text you sent him, he had your number blocked. Even if he had unblocked your number, wouldn’t he have tried to reach out and make things better? This wasn’t the first quarrel the two of you had, obviously not to this degree. It had never gone on this long. The realization dawned on you the night before you were supposed to get together with your father, that maybe Shinsou was serious about not wanting you around while he went through his training.

It didn’t help lessen the blow in the slightest bit. It felt like someone was stepping on your chest and every time you felt like maybe you had some semblance of a grasp on your own emotions, the foot would step down harder. You felt crippled without Shinsou in your life. Your phone felt like it had less purpose, even if you had texted a few of your other friends to attempt to try and fill in the void that Shinsou had left. You had missed the late night texts, staying up video calling with him and seeing the sleep slip further from his eyes during his studies. Your grades this past week alone had slipped quite quickly as you were unable to focus on a single word a teacher was saying.

Your zombielike state had concerned not only your teachers, your classmates, but also your mother. While you tried to let it seem like it wasn’t bothering you that you had lost your best friend, you knew that your mother knew you better than that. What was worse was that she was probably keeping your father up to date on the current situation. You hadn’t informed either of your parents the details of your breakup with Hitoshi, and you hadn’t planned on it. The last thing you or your family needed was your father in jail for attempting to murder a minor.

When the weekend came around, you were half-tempted to cancel on your plans with your father. You wanted nothing more than to accept the warm embrace your bed was giving you. While it was dragging you further into your pit of despair it was at least comforting. When your phone buzzed on your nightstand you weighed the options of just going back to sleep, you knew your father was persistent and would call over and over until you woke up. For a man who was tired all the time, he didn’t understand why teenagers sleep so much over weekend breaks. Groaning, you gathered all your strength to sit up in your bed and reach over to answer your phone.

“We are still on for the movies today, right kiddo?” Your father’s voice chimed not even a second after you had picked up the phone. “I was actually thinking of maybe a rain check?” You tried to push, but you could already feel him rolling his eyes on the other side of the phone. “I know you being a teenager and you probably aren’t even out of bed yet, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s not raining.” Sarcasm dripped from his lips and you wanted nothing more than to hang up and turn your phone off. You were in no mood for his antics for the day.

“I’m just not feeling up to going today, papa.” You whispered after there was silence between the two. “I figured you would feel that way. Your mother has mentioned how you have been practically among the living dead this last week.” He recounted, making you curse under your breath for knowing your mother all too well. You had hoped that maybe, just this once she was going to keep things to herself. You should have known better. “I already bought the tickets ahead of time, and I’m not taking Hizashi or your mother.” Your father warned.

“Fine, I’ll get ready. I’ll meet you at the train station?” You sighed in defeat, knowing you would not win this battle. “Sounds good to me.” He said, before both of you hung up your phones.

…

You stood at the entrance of the train station, checking your phone a few times to make sure that your dad hadn’t texted you that he was running late. You had attempted to call him twice already and he hadn’t picked up on either attempt. A sigh escaped your lips, wishing that you had just stood your ground on staying home and sleeping the weekend away. “Y/N?” If you hadn’t been frozen in place before, the voice you had memorized locked your feet into place. Suddenly your heart was racing immensely too fast and the wind felt like it was knocked clean out of your lungs.

It wasn’t even fair, the way fate had played out for you this day. Not only did you dress in just leggings and a baggy hoodie, you had chosen a hoodie that you only now registered had belonged to Shinsou. Cursing your father for following through with your request for father daughter time, you finally looked up at the purple haired boy who seemed almost sheepish. He was wearing that cursed bomber jacket that you always loved on him, a simple t shirt and a pair of baggy jeans. In other words, he at least looked a million times more decent than you had. Not to mention your hair was thrown haphazardly into a messy bun and god knows you had dark circles developing under your eyes with your lack of sleep you had gotten last week.

“You know out of the two of us for once I think you win in the department of needing some extra weekend sleep.” Shinsou tried to ease himself into conversation with you. The tension in the air was so thick that you were sure that you were suffocating on it. You had so many questions and so many emotions flooding you at once. Your mind was swirling like you were stuck on a teacup ride that you were trapped on. When Shinsou noticed your lack of response to his statement, he returned back to his awkward state of trying to figure out how to make things go back to normal.

Anything would be better than this killer silence. He hated that it looked like you hadn’t slept in over a week and hated it even more than he was the one that caused you to be like this. His guilt was suffocating him for ever causing you this much pain for being so selfish. He wanted nothing more than to pull you into his arms and to soothe your pains away. If it hadn’t been for Aizawa he wouldn’t have even been here. He would still be in his dorm, beating himself up for ever letting this distance drift you two so far apart.

“If we don’t hurry, we are going to miss our movie.” Shinsou settled on saying, before turning to walk towards the direction of the movie theater. You whipped your head up so fast in confusion, trying to stammer out a sentence that made any sense. “Wha- I mean I’m here to meet with my dad.” You finally uttered, grabbing on his jacket sleeve to get him to stop walking. Immediately, Shinsou had reverted back to his nervous nature around you like he had once done when the two of you first started dating.

“Your father gave me the tickets and wanted me to take you out as a way to apologize for my irrational behavior. I should have never snapped at you like I did or acted as immature as I did. I can’t even begin to imagine how it was for you to just be waiting for any kind of affection on my end. I blew you off after an entire month of not seeing you. I probably made it seem like I wasn’t as excited to see you, but I was too focused on my own stupidity to realize what was right in front of me.” He blurted out quickly, stepping closer into your own proximity. “I don’t deserve any kind of forgiveness, but if I didn’t try, I’m pretty sure Aizawa-sensei would personally either kick my ass or expel me.”

You were listening intently until Shinsou had mentioned your father’s last name. “Aizawa-sensei?” You reiterated, raising a shocked eyebrow at him. “Yeah, I was surprised too when I found out. I almost lost my entire chance at getting into the hero course all together because of how pissed he was at me for hurting you.” Shinsou murmured quietly. If your jaw wasn’t open in shock before, it surely was now. Had Shinsou not been standing right in front of you currently you probably would have called your father and chewed him out for his brash behavior.

However, your heart swelled when thinking about how your father had stepped in to try and fix things between you and Shinsou. It must have been why he was so insistent on you coming to meet with him today. You had to remember to shoot him a text later calling him out on his conniving ways. “I know it’s probably embarrassing, your father stepped in on the situation, but honestly if it wasn’t for him I would have never had the courage to do this.” He said, grabbing your hand to hold in his own without hesitation. His hands were ice cold like they always had been, sending a chill up your spine.

“I wanted to be a hero that you could be proud of but instead I turned into a selfish loser-” He continued, that is until you grabbed the collar of his jacket and pulled his lips into your own. The chaste kiss made the nervousness melt away from both you and Shinsou. He relaxed into your touch, snaking his arms around your waist. You kissed him like you were afraid you would never get to kiss him again. When you were laying in your bed days after your fight you wanted nothing more than to be in the purple haired boys embrace. You had feared the last time you had seen him, the month before, was the last happy memory of being together. The time he had finally told you he loved you and the last time you two brushed your lips against one another's.

Tears flowed down your cheeks when the two of you had pulled away, gasping for breaths. You felt dizzy from all the overwhelming emotions you were thrown through but you wouldn’t give anything up for this moment right here. For the boy you loved more than yourself to be in front of you. He cupped your face and wiped the tears that were escaping your eyes with his calloused fingers. “I’m here, and I am not going anywhere this time. I will fight everyday to be the hero you need me to be. I love you more than anything and I hate that I had to destroy something so beautiful to realize it.” Shinsou stated, pressing his forehead against your own. You nodded while sniffling, desperately grasping your hands onto his shirt.

You threw your arms around his neck and pulled him into your embrace and he welcomed this touch. He ran his hand over your head and rubbed circles into your back. You couldn’t see but Shinsou had also started silently into your hoodie, getting intoxicated by your scent.

Aizawa smiled to himself to see the two of you entangled in each other’s embrace at the entrance of the train station. People were walking by without having the slightest of a clue as to what was going on between the two. Aizawa took out his phone and snapped a picture of the two of you in your loving embrace. You’d probably scold him for it later, but he knew you would appreciate it later in years. He would chew out Shinsou once again on Monday, before following it up with the news of participating in Class 1-A and Class 1-B’s field training. Then warning him if he ever hurt you again he wouldn’t get off so easy. However, for now, he headed back to Heights Alliance to give you two the space you desperately needed.

To be continued...? 👀

[Part One] [Part Two]

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lazyliars · 4 years ago

Note

If you're still doing character breakdowns- Wilbur and/or Ghostbur? :)

How I feel about this character

c!Wilbur is my og favorite. The drug van stream was the first one I watched on the SMP, from Sapnap’s perspective, and was also my first introduction to Wilbur as a cc - needless to say, he won my heart IMMEDIATELY.

So. Wilbur is one of the most tragically misremembered characters in the entire cast. It’s honestly kind of a beautiful genius how skewed the narrative about him has become, considering how his story was entwined with a certain musical; he is literally now the “villain in their history.”

But early Wilbur wasn’t Burr - he was the Washington to Tommy’s Hamilton, the calming presence in a sea of uncertainty, and the voice of change in a status quo that didn’t favor him and his people.

Wilbur’s early values centered around Peace. While his first endeavors were an attempt at creating a drug empire, the speed at which things changed when Sapnap and Tubbo played cops and threatened him and Tommy was blinding - the character he played switched from a semi-corrupt drug dealer to a noble-minded leader in barely an hour, but progression was clear - the catalyst for change, for L’manberg, was a desire to make things fair for himself, and for Tommy.

He wasn’t a flawless leader even back then, not by any standards, but his men followed him because they believed in him, and they believed in what they were all creating together.

And the idea that they, a group of underdogs, could possibly challenge the ruling powers of the time? That they could challenge tyrants?

That was what Wilbur fostered. That was one of the founding principles of L’manberg.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Sally the Salmon. Next question.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I think that Wilbur and Eret’s relationship is criminally underrated. It’s hard to remember now, but pre-betrayal? Eret and Wilbur were friends. Eret was someone who Wilbur trusted to be responsible when he couldn’t trust the same the other, more immature members of L’manberg.

And listen, for the people who started watching later down the line, I’m sure that Eret is someone you probably know as being defined by his title as ‘traitor,’ but I cannot convey just how unbelievable it was at the time. Literally no one, NO ONE suspected Eret, it took everyone by surprise, cc and audience alike. Eret was L’manberg’s rock, one of it’s workhorses along with Tubbo, it’s cool, chilled out emotional support, one of it’s founders!

And Eret’s betrayal hit no one harder than it did Wilbur. The blame for allowing it to happen, the inability to fully trust another person with his burdens?

I truly believe that the betrayal dealt an early blow to the foundations of Wilbur’s mental health that he never truly recovered from, and which would ultimately be the flaw in the structure that caused everything to come falling down around him when the weight of the elections and exile was placed on him.

If Wilbur’s ability to trust had remained intact, I don’t think the Pogtopia arc would have played out in the dark way that it did. The clearest example of this is the button room, and Wilbur’s last(ish) words, echoing Eret’s: “It was never meant to be.”

(and none of this is fully on Eret’s shoulders, either. cc!Eret described their character as “one of the earliest victims of Dream’s manipulations” and beyond that, c!Wilbur is still ultimately the one responsible for his own actions, regardless of how he was hurt. But I do think that the way that Eret’s betrayal fractured Wilbur is an under appreciated moment for the both of them, as it is the core of Wilbur’s final arc and it fuels Eret’s desire for redemption, as they want to make up for the way that they damaged things.)

My unpopular opinion about this character

Ghostbur was a weak character up until his involvement in Doomsday.

There, I said it! I’m sorry!!!!

...This opinion comes mostly from my own wish at the time for Alivebur/Deadbur/whatever to, like, face up to his mistakes and failings, and how Ghostbur just was not there to do that. He was fundamentally not a continuation of the character I was invested in, and even as an individual character on his own I think that a lot of his additions to the story weren’t played out as strongly as they could’ve been.

I think a good portion of this is for meta reasons, as cc!Wilbur just wasn’t active on the SMP as much at that point, and had said as much was going to happen, I just personally wish he had done things differently/only gotten on the server to chill with people non-canonically.

And then that aaaaaaaall changed in the aftermath of Doomsday, my abhorred. Ghostbur is one of the highlights of that event, he pulls some of the most disparate narrative conflicts back together to create something coherent and utilizes his role as a very minor character to drastic advantage by displaying the cost of the “ends justify the means” mentality that was a “focal point” of the conflict, focal being used loosely here because the narrative was so all over the place that it’s difficult to pick out singular parts to focus on.

Since then Ghostbur has been a more platable character for me, as it gave him what I as a viewer personally consider necessary to fully enjoy and be drawn in by a character: a character motivation. Ghostbur wanted to be resurrected.

He’s fallen off again in terms of activety, and that goal has changed a little, but ultimately the character revelations that Doomsday gave us still make him a “good character” to me.

^^^The criticism here is all on a very subjective level, and I hope it goes without saying that it is truly just my opinion... my, unpopular opinion.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I will be real, I am such a fan of the Eldritch Wilbur theory/interpretation/whatever. Essentially, the idea that Wilbur will be revived and become a worldwide, existential threat due to having stewed in the vast emptiness of the afterlife.

Now, my initial reaction was very skeptical, as I am very interested in a Wilbur who comes back and regrets what he’s done, rebukes his own “villain arc” so to speak.

However, I am also enamored with the idea that the Afterlife changes you. That the time you spend there can warp you into a facsimile of yourself - if you stare into the void long enough, it will stare back.

I also think that there is a thematic draw to the idea of facing Wilbur as an antagonist again, especially for the OG L’manbergians. He is, in a lot of ways, their greatest failure.

I think what that means is different to each of them; To Tommy, he failed to save Wilbur from himself, to prove to him that it really wasn’t too late to take it back; To Tubbo, he failed to be Wilbur, to be president, to fit those shoes and make him proud. To Fundy, he failed to get what he wanted from his relationship with Wilbur, to find a time where the affection and love was going both ways; To Eret, well, It’s obvious.

So if Wilbur is coming back as an antagonist, I want those four to be the ones to fight him. I want them to prove him wrong. I want them to be better than him. I want them to reach out. I want them to tell him what he always needed to hear, and I need it to be true: “It was always meant to be.”

I want them to prove to Wilbur wrong, that he is right for this server; I need them to succeed this time, and save him.

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aros001 · 3 years ago

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Going in blind: Watching season 5 for the first time. Random thoughts.

Episode 1: Well...that dinner got dark. From what other fans have told me apparently Glimmer gets a lot of hate for her decisions during the series and I just find that odd. I was more annoyed with her in the early seasons where her actions were more harmless simply because she had no patience and wouldn't listen because of her immaturity. Season 4 and here though? Even her most reckless and risky actions have at least been fueled by the genuine desire to keep people safe during a very hard situation. Even here, yeah, she tells Prime something it's very bad for him to know but he was going to have Adora and everyone else literally murdered before her eyes if she didn't. I can't really be mad at Glimmer for making a bad choice when it flows logically and fueled by the desire to keep the people she cares about from being slaughtered.

I don't think we've ever seen Catra this completely at the mercy of another person before, save maybe for Shadow Weaver when she was a child. She has nothing to offer that Prime doesn't already possess. Nothing he wants that he can't get for himself. Her relationship with everyone these past few seasons have been either "I'm your commander and you have to do what I say" or "You are my commander and here's the reason you have to keep me around". This time she has nothing to protect herself behind and the only reason she's still around is because Prime might think of a use for her later.

I love having Scorpia on the heroes' side.

Episode 2: That ending though.

I think what helps elevate Entrapta for me and keeps her for being annoying or irritating is that the show really sells that she just genuinely has trouble understanding why she should/shouldn't be doing certain things. It's not stupidity or even pure self-absorption, she just struggles with people and social ques while machines and science is a lot more straightforward. Heck, she was probably able to bond so well with Hordak because work together in the lab was them meeting on a common middle ground she could understand and relax in. The way she's trying to overcome the issue to help save Glimmer reminds me a little of Mob from Mob Psycho 100, feeling a little frustrated in not understanding something that she knows she should be.

Episode 3: Anybody else get a Disney's Hercules vibes at the end there?

Catra: "Besides, O Oneness, you can't beat her! She has no weaknesses! She's gonna kick your...!"

Prime, smiling: "I think she does, little sister." [Strokes Catra's hair] "I truly think...she does."

This episode really sold how completely isolated Catra is. With the sole exception of Glimmer, she's in space, no idea where exactly she is, onboard a ship filled with nothing but Prime and hundreds of cultist clones. Throughout the entire series we've seen Catra push everyone away and now that she's in a situation where she is almost well and truly on her own with no power, freedom, or authority, she seeks out the one other person around to find any sense of comfort in. Despite everything, Catra doesn't like being alone.

Little child Catra lashing out because she didn't want Adora to have any friends other than her kind of reminds me of Glimmer and Bow during the Princess Prom episode. I imagine it's the same mentality. Growing up in isolation, even if in different forms, and finding only that one person they feel thay can really lean on, there is that fear that they'll find someone else they like more and start caring about them less, or even outright stop. The difference is Bow set Glimmer straight, assuring her he'll always be her friend no matter what but he's not going to be just solely dedicated to her. Her fear was understandable but she was not respecting him as a friend either. Adora never really had that with Catra, one because she was much younger and less mature than Bow, and Catra was probably all she had too, to an extent. As we saw season 1, she was always trying to look after her, even when Catra needed to take responsibility for herself. Bow is not Glimmer's keeper, while Adora too often was that for Catra, so Bow and Glimmer have a better foundation of mutual respect while Adora and Catra's dynamic has been really screwed up for a long time.

Kind of tying into that, despite all that's happened between them, the minute Adora hears Catra's in distress she starts panicking and tearing up. The last time they saw each other they were very much enemies and Adora was done reaching her hand out to her. I suppose you could make the argument she's really been hoping all this time that Catra would finally do the right thing for once, just probably didn't expect it to be like this.

Prime better not mind wipe Catra like he did Hordak.

Episode 4: See, calling the heroes the rebellion now makes sense since they are rebelling against the established power, which is Prime.

Love that trick with the reflections, where you can sort of see/sort of can't see She-Ra. A nice little tease for what I imagine will be a big reveal later.

I really like that explanation for what Bow's going through. Last season's finale was the last he'd seen Glimmer and was desperately trying to save her, and he's been consistently worried for her since then. Now that she's safe he's starting to let himself process his other emotions towards her, and I totally get it. It's hard to be mad at someone when you're also terrified over what might be happening to them, even if your anger is justified. While I get why Glimmer last season did what she thought she had to, it was still a big risk that Bow warned her about and she didn't listen, putting them all in danger. This situation and Glimmer's words is a very mature way of handle this topic. He's not wrong for being mad and it's not a contradiction to what we've been seeing from him this season. Humans and emotions are complicated.

Episode 5: SHE HAS PAAAAAAAAANTS!!! (I will miss the cape though)

That almost makes up for them cutting Catra hair. Seriously, that mane was beautiful!

But boy, speaking of Hercules, that return of She-Ra definitely felt like Hercules emerging from the pool of souls to save Meg.

With the one clone being disconnected from the hive mind and having a breakdown over it, that does make me wonder if Hordak has been connected to it. Wasn't he deemed a defect because Prime couldn't connect to his mind? I suppose it's possible that flaw was corrected. Clearly Prime can take over minds other than just his clones, like with Catra. But if he could do that I'm wondering why he just didn't when Hordak was first created and he instead cast him out to Etheria.

Was Catra purring at the end? I swear there was a sound that sounded like purring.

Episode 6: Assimilation is easily one of my biggest fears in fiction, be it zombies, Borgs and Cybermen, Get Out, the freaking Sapphire Dragon from Xiaolin Showdown that scared the hell out of me as a kid! Just the concept of having your free will and autonomy completely ripped away from you, potentially with you still being aware but unable to do anything about it, is horrifying! At least with Prime's chips the process is reversible.

Anyway, in lighter plots, I kind of love Wrong Hordak. He's really funny. I feel bad that he's being deliberately misled, but he really shouldn't be following Prime anyway, so...

I do like that Adora is being a little more tough on Catra. She needs kindness, yes, but she also needs honesty and discipline, the kind that has actual love and care behind it, unlike what she got from Shadow Weaver. Adora is genuinely trying to help so Catra needs to stop acting like a brat and LET HER HELP.

Episode 7: Catra was definitely purring.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume people probably ship Scorpia and Perfuma. Not that I have any problem with that. It's like the Midoriya/Todoroki ship; I don't ship it myself but I totally get why others do. It's a relationship based in mutual respect and one of the characters having a significantly positive effect on the life of the other. As long as the shipper themselves is not horrifically toxic, I don't care.

Also, I don't think I've ever been so intimidated by Mermista before than I was with that one shot of her in silhouette, just before the reveal she was chipped.

Episode 8: Okay, I definitely love Wrong Hordak. Just that realization of his. "Horde Prime...lied to us..." There's just something about it that's so full of character. Obviously he's a brainwashed clone but he was truly devoted to Prime and just to find out that he would keep something so big from them, from the hive mind that's supposed to be so open to him and each other, it destroys everything he ever believed in. It's hilarious to watch him prepare to lead his brothers in a revolt against Prime.

I assume magic is Prime's "weakness" in that he himself cannot control it. Obviously he can control magical beings like Spinnerella and have them use magic but magic itself is too free and too powerful for him to contain and fully fight back against. He's all about order and stillness and magic is basically chaos.

Episode 9: I like to believe the mushroom kingdom they saved is a Mario reference.

Something I like in hero stories is "the power of a name" or "the power of a symbol". Something as simple as Superman's S-shield can have so much weight and meaning behind it just because of the person it's tied to. She-Ra isn't just a powerful warrior to the people of Etheria, she's a hero of legend. We saw it touched on even back in season 1 how much Adora returning She-Ra to the world meant to everyone. She-Ra to them is a symbol of hope. If they have her on their side, then they believe they might be able to win and with that ordinary people can find the strength to fight too. It's something I think the Green Lantern put best with how the Blue Rings of hope supercharge the Green Rings of will but lose a lot of their functions when the greens are not around. Hope is useless if you don't have the will to also act, but in turn hope can give people the will to act. The more hope they have that they can win, the more they will fight to win.

That was the nerdiest comparison I've ever made.

Episode 10: I appreciate a good bad dad joke and that's why I can't approve of "punderstand". It's too much of stretch to flow well. "Ruined" was good though.

I'm less surprised that Scorpia's been chipped and more that she's even alive. She was at the bottom of the ocean when the roof broke and she's a scorpion woman. I don't think water is a very friendly element for her. She's even commented on how good the desert was to her.

I wonder her She-Ra mode is not working for her simply because Adora is exhausted; mentally and physically. I don't think she's ever used the form this continuously before, and she's been doing it without the First Ones' sword that she has experience with. Her new sword and its transformations may be made out of her own energy for all we know. And then there's just the emotional toil of having Catra back in her life while it feels like more and more of the world is being turned against her.

Episode 11: Oh, I'm definitely shipping Hordak and Entrapta.

I think Re:Zero has spoiled me on dark magic. While Micah with his dark magic is a threat, in this show and many others dark magic basically just equates to "spooky, evil, bad stuff" magic that isn't that different from most other kinds of magic other than being either harder to control or more geared towards causing harm. In Re:Zero, dark magic was DARK. It felt unnatural, like a perversion of how their world's magic is supposed to be and that it didn't belong in this reality. Micah's dark magic is basically "I'm attacking you with shadows, oOoOoOo so scary!"

Not really surprised Catra left. She just got Adora back and now she's potentially about to let herself die. Perfuma said it best, letting people in and letting herself be vulnerable is hard. Caring about Adora and watching her die would be a huge blow, so Catra would rather curl back up into her shell and block out Adora again than have to risk taking that hit.

Episode 12: I keep saying it but now having them right next to each other, yeah, Mara's She-Ra outfit is better than Adora's. I don't know, there's just something grander about it. Anyway, on topic, I'm a big fan of superheroes and legacy and all that and I really like Mara's words to Adora. All she did and sacrificed was so that others, especially the next She-Ra, wouldn't have to do the same. It doesn't matter how noble and heroic it is, tragedy is tragedy and anyone who knows that kind of pain doesn't want anyone else to have to go through it.

I'm not surprised by the love confession between Glimmer and Bow. I felt it could go either way with them either hooking up or just staying really good friends, but that in itself is a sign of how good and natural their friendship is. I can easily buy how it would evolve into something more between them. The situation they're in probably helps. When Glimmer was taken they both thought they might never see each other again and that fear and worry probably caused them to reevaluate how they feel about the other. They've been clinging to each other since getting back, as every day could be their last. Something like that is naturally going to push two people together.

Episode 13: So...are there any plans for a season 6? Or a comic continuation like Avatar and Korra got? Because this was a good finale...buuuuuuuuut I feel there are definitely some things that needed a bit more exploration.

This is typically why I like stories with epilogue endings, especially those set some number of years in the future. Little glimpses of what everyone's doing now, allowing the audience to fill in for themselves what happened in-between. There's nothing wrong with this episode but it does just kind of...stop. They beat Prime. Everybody's cheering and happy. Adora suggests they bring magic back to the universe. And...that's it. We don't see anything more. No aftermath, no post-war, nothing. We end on the moment of victory, and while it's not a bad moment it leaves the ending feeling a little incomplete.

It kind of feels like the writers either really had to rush to the ending to make the 13 episode deadline or simply didn't want to address whatever happens with Catra and Hordak now. With the bigger threat of Horde Prime it makes sense why everyone puts aside past issues and works together. But now that the crisis is over, naturally everyone would have to address everything the Horde had done to Etheria for years with Hordak and Catra leading it. Don't get me wrong, I believe that Catra loves Adora, I believe Adora loves her, and I believe Catra wants to be a better person. It's not like I'm saying she needs to be locked up or executed. But she did cause a lot of damage and put Adora especially through hell, and just because Shadow Weaver is the one who screwed her up so bad doesn't mean she doesn't have any responsibility for her own actions. So it just would have been nice to get even a little bit of lip service to show that Catra would be trying to right her wrongs from this point forward, instead of just "Prime's gone, everyone's happy, bye!" At least with Entrapta she seemed to genuinely not understand why what she was doing at the time was wrong and Scorpia, like Adora and Huntara, defected from the Horde to do the right thing despite it being even more part of her upbringing than anyone else. I can't even imagine what happens with Hordak now.

Don't get me wrong, this is far from the worst I've ever seen a redemption handled. I haven't read/watched any of Boruto outside of the movie and Gaiden tie-in but I've read all of Naruto and there is no reason that Orochimaru should just be walking around and casually talking with people after all he's done. Kaiba in the Yu-Gi-Oh manga built an entire theme park to try an murder Yugi and his friends and they bring it up like twice after that arc. Kylo Ren turning back to the light was one of the potential paths for his character, so that made sense in TROS, but they essentially did "He died heroically and therefore totally redeemed himself for every terrible thing he's ever done."; basically a cop-out. Catra's alive and can at least potentially still own up to her actions and work to redeem herself. And I love Steven Universe, but kind of like with Catra nearly killing everyone (including herself) via the unstable portal, fans have naturally pointed out that the Diamonds enslaved and committed genocide on multiple planets and really faced no consequences for that other than "Stop it". Catra's not at the gold standard of redemption stories, which for me is probably Zuko and Endeavor, but she's far from the bottom. I think the best way to describe it is that Catra had as good, if not better, reasons for being so bad and screwed up as Zuko did, just as good step-up for turning good as Zuko did, but she didn't have nearly as much payoff afterwards to make it feel like a full journey like Zuko did.

But enough about all that. Love the basically goddess She-Ra Adora became. Given the emphasis on healing powers with She-Ra we've had, I'm guessing that's essentially how she destroyed Prime. She purified Hordak and Prime was basically an infection within him. I like when heroes snatch victory from the jaws of defeat but I also when there's an implication towards the villain that "Wow. I never stood a chance." She-Ra's power just dwarfs his. Full potential realized by Adora and he was just gone.

Also I don't know how I forgot that Prime could jump into the bodies of his clones but his possession of Hordak got me. I genuinely couldn't think of how he'd survive after Hordak shoved him off the edge (set free by the power of love!).

And even if the ending feels a little incomplete, the episode itself still did well with my emotional investment. I was gripped by during Catra's confession and the tension within the heart.

Season 5 and overall series verdict: I'm very glad I saw this series. Even though its ending falls a little short for me, this was still really good. Seasons 3 was probably my favorite overall but this story had a very good flow to it. It steadily built up bigger each season, with Catra and Hordak being really compelling villains driving the whole thing. Not that Prime was bad. He was a genuine threat and his cult of clones is a good creepy concept. He's just not as good as the other two. I'm sure part of what elevates him up is because I'm thinking of the JL director's cut but Hordak really is just better Steppenwolf. Everything that worked about that character, Hordak is that to an 11.

Given how I've talked about her more than any of the others, Catra is probably my favorite character. Just the damage that girl has been through. I always understood why she was doing what she did, even though there was rarely a moment I'd agree with exactly what she was doing. Again, it's one of the reasons it feels like the series just kind of ended. There's a lot to be seen with Catra's character now, a lot that can be done, and it just feels like a shame to really not show any of it. This isn't a fault of SRPOP itself because so many series, especially animated and anime, are guilty of but it always bugs me when a series ends on two characters hooking. Relationships are interesting, I'd argue more so than the build-up to them, but no writer ever wants to actually explore them after the hook-up. I never cared about Korra and Mako being a couple but I still found their relationship as a couple more interesting and character building than any of the will they/won't they build-up to it. And I actually like the idea of Adora and Catra as a couple. It's a big reason why I'm so happy the Harley Quinn animated series got renewed for a third season, as it otherwise would have just ended on a hook-up between two characters who, like Adora and Catra, love each other but have had a complicated dynamic for a while. I believe Adora and Catra love each other, but they've got a lot of stuff to work out and I want to see that! Catra's got abandonment issues and that in turn caused her to be unhealthily possessive over Adora. Just seeing the two of them try to work through that alone would be fascinating.

Like I suspected early on, Scorpia's my favorite supporting character. Entrapta's a decent 2nd. Took a small dip when it seemed like she was joining the Horde over feeling abandoned by the princesses when they thought she was dead but that picked back up once it was made more clear "Oh, okay, you're not being petty or stupid. You genuinely don't understand." It made her a more interesting character, and I love her and Hordak's relationship.

Least favorite characters...probably Sea Hawk and those three former Horde friends of Adora and Catra. I never hated them but I never cared about what was happening when they were on screen. They fill out the world a bit, they drive the plot, they're not wastes of space, they even get some laughs. There are just so many other characters in the series way more interesting than them.

Biggest surprise for me was definitely Glimmer and Bow. I never thought I'd dislike them but the best friends characters in series like this can kind of go one way or another with how relevant or deep they are. Glimmer especially I was surprised how much I was invested. She really grew a lot as a person throughout the series and I thought the dilemma over the Heart of Etheria was a good one.

Honestly there's a lot more I could talk about but I have only so many words and my thoughts are a jumble right now so I'm going to leave it at that. I will say I really appreciate how supportive you all on this Reddit have been. It's something I hate about some other fandoms I'm in where they basically are so toxic that they make no one else actually want to watch/read the thing they're fans of because they can't help but associate it with them.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o2p6wq/going_in_blind_watching_season_5_for_the_first/

#she ra #she ra spop #random thoughts #reddit repost

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princesssarisa · 5 years ago

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I just reread Wuthering Heights for the first time since high school. Thanks to @theheightsthatwuthered, @wuthering-valleys, @astrangechoiceoffavourites and others for inspiring me to do it!

Here are some of the things that stood out the most for me.

1. I can’t believe how ambiguous all the characters are! “Morally gray” doesn’t begin to describe it. Even the most sympathetic characters are deeply, deeply flawed, yet just when a character seems unredeemable, they’ll show their capacity for love and altruism. It’s hard to say how Brontë meant us to feel about any of them. I won’t even touch on Heathcliff or the other leads: the example I’ll use is the short-lived yet important figure of Mr. Earnshaw. On the one hand, he’s framed both by Nelly Dean’s narration and by Cathy I’s diary as a kind, benevolent man. He takes in the homeless, orphaned young Heathcliff, raises and loves him as his own, treats his servants almost like family, is reasonably warm and indulgent to his children before his illness worsens his temper, and is very much loved by little Cathy in particular. After he dies and Hindley becomes the tyrannical new master, Cathy and Nelly remember his lifetime as a paradise lost. But he blatantly favors Heathcliff over his own children, sewing the seeds for Hindley’s abuse and degradation of Heathcliff, and during his illness, the disparaging way he talks to and about Hindley and Cathy definitely feels like emotional abuse, at least by modern standards. His harsh words to Cathy are especially heartbreaking given how clearly she worships him and it makes you wonder if her future arrogance is really a cover for self-doubt. But since Nelly depicts Hindley and Cathy as difficult and bratty from childhood, and both become truly toxic adults, maybe their father’s harshness is meant to be justified or at least understandable, and since Heathcliff was a poor orphan who faced who-knows-what horrors in his first seven years, we might argue that he needed more care and affection. But Heathcliff also becomes a toxic adult and Nelly implies that being the favored child made him spoiled and arrogant. And none of the above even touches on the theory that Heathcliff might be Mr. Earnshaw’s illegitimate son, which would definitely cast the latter in a less favorable light. Any claim of “This is how we’re supposed to feel about this character” can only fall flat, because there’s so much ambiguity.

2. The recent reviews by @astrangechoiceoffavourites of the 1939 and 1970 film versions point out something interesting: that in both of those versions, which only adapt only the first half of the book, Cathy (I) is more of the protagonist than Heathcliff. This insight raises a good question: who really is the protagonist of the book? Of course the traditional answer is Heathcliff. He’s the character we follow from beginning to end, whose actions drive the entire plot. But he’s not the viewpoint character; we mostly see him from Nelly Dean’s perspective, and Heathcliff sometimes disappears for months or years at a time from her narrative. Yet Nelly can’t be called the protagonist because she’s more of an observer than an active participant. I think we can argue that, at least in terms of plot structure, the two Cathys are the book’s real protagonists: Cathy I leads the first half, with Heathcliff as the deuteragonist/love interest, while Cathy II leads the second half, with Heathcliff as the villain. Of course this is debatable, but so is nearly everything else about this book.

3. I never realized until now what a perfect inversion Cathy II’s character arc is of her mother’s arc. There are so many parallels, but they happen in the opposite order. Just look:

** Cathy I is born and raised at Wuthering Heights, but as a young girl she ventures to Thrushcross Grange, meets her future husband and ultimately lives there./Cathy II is born and raised at Thrushcross Grange, but as a young girl she ventures to Wuthering Heights, meets her future husband and ultimately lives there.

** Both are raised by widowed fathers whom they adore, although Mr. Earnshaw is stern and critical to Cathy I while Edgar dotes on Cathy II; eventually both fathers die prematurely, leaving their daughters in a tyrannical new patriarch’s hands (Hindley/Heathcliff).

** Cathy I initially loves the rugged, dark haired Heathcliff, who lives as a servant at Wuthering Heights; she helps to educate him and they wander the moors together. But as she spends more time at Thrushcross Grange, she absorbs its snobbery, treats him with increasing disdain (though she really does still love him), and favors the refined, prissy, blond haired Edgar, whom she eventually marries./Cathy II initially loves (or at least cares for) the refined, prissy, blond haired Linton, whom she eventually marries. Having been raised with Thrushcross Grange’s snobbery, she initially disdains the rugged, dark haired Hareton, who lives as a servant at Wuthering Heights. But as she lives at the Heights after Linton dies, she looses her snobbery and becomes increasingly drawn to Hareton; ultimately they fall in love, she helps to educate him and they wander the moors together.

** Because of the above, Cathy I’s story ends tragically, while Cathy II’s story ends happily.

It really is too bad that most screen and stage adaptations only adapt the first half and leave out Cathy II, because it seems to me that Cathy I’s story was always meant to be juxtaposed with her daughter’s mirror-image arc.

4. If I was ever half-tempted to believe the theory that Branwell Brontë was the book’s real author, I don’t believe it anymore. There’s no way a 19th century man, especially one who was allegedly a bit of a womanizer, could have written such nuanced, realistic, non-objectified female characters. Even male authors whose characterizations of women I respect, both of the past and of today, tend to have problems with sexualization, madonna-whore stereotyping, etc. But the women in Wuthering Heights are thoroughly non-sexualized three-dimensional characters: all of them flawed yet (arguably) all sympathetic, no better yet no worse than the men around them, all fully human.

5. The circumstances of Cathy I’s mental and physical breakdown are different than I remembered from high school. I was under the impression that Heathcliff married Isabella to hurt Cathy the way she had hurt him and that Cathy’s brain fever was caused by jealousy and heartbreak at being “rejected” for another woman. I think the screen adaptations tend to frame it more that way. But really, Heathcliff marries Isabella less to hurt Cathy emotionally than to gain power over her husband by gaining a claim to inherit his property and fortune. Nor is Cathy’s breakdown caused by jealousy (she knows Heathcliff doesn’t really love Isabella, after all), but by the conflict between Heathcliff and Edgar that the Isabella scandal triggers, which culminates in Edgar punching Heathcliff, making him flee for his life, and demanding that Cathy choose between them. It’s the crumbling of Cathy’s attempted double life with both men that breaks her, not rivalry with Isabella.

6. When I first started the reread, my dad suggested that I try to see if I could find more sexual tension between Heathcliff and Cathy I than I did in high school. But I didn’t. Their love is just as strangely, fascinatingly sexless as I thought it was. I suppose the question remains: did Brontë purposefully write it as sexless, or does it just reflect her own lack of sexual experience?

7. If I were to write the screenplay for a new film version of Wuthering Heights, I think I’d present it in anachronic order, similar to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. Scenes from the first half would alternate with scenes from the second half. This way the second half would really be given its due, the mirror-imagery between Cathy I and Cathy II’s character arcs would be especially apparent, and the Hareton/Cathy II romance could be highlighted as a healthy alternative to Heathcliff/Cathy I. I would also make a definite point to de-romanticize Heathcliff, not only by portraying him as a tragic man-turned-monster and not downplaying his cruelty, but by leaving it ambiguous, as I think it is in the book, whether the love he shares with Cathy I really is romantic love or a strangely intense, codependent brother/sister bond. I definitely wouldn’t age them into young adult lovers on the moors the way most screen versions do; I’d portray them at their correct ages, just 12/13 when they roam the moors together and still just 15/16 when Cathy accepts Edgar’s proposal, and highlight that they were only truly happy together as children. That in some ways their love is always the love of two children, both in its selfishness and in its purity. Cathy’s ghost at the window would be portrayed as a child, as in the book, and if I were to show Heathcliff’s ghost joining her in the end, I just might have them both transform back into their 12/13-year-old selves. That could make for an interesting contrast with Hareton and Cathy II in the end: Heathcliff and Cathy I reunited as free, half-savage children, while their foster-son and daughter appear as a mature romantic couple embracing civilization and adulthood.

#wuthering heights #literature #commentary #rambling

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toalltheficsivelovedbefore · 5 years ago

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Blind Date || johnny

childhood friend!johnny x fem!reader • fluff, tiny angst, friends to strangers to lovers, mention of cheating (not between the characters) • Your best friend sets you up on a blind date, but when the date doesn’t show up, Johnny swoops in to the rescue!

“I already told you no.”

“C’mon, please? It’s just one date!”

“Yeah, you said that last month too. And a couple weeks before that. I’m done meeting strangers.”

Kara, your best friend, pouts, flopping backward onto your bed, so she’s looking straight up at you. Luckily you moved your laptop in time or she would’ve fallen on it.

“Please? I swear this’ll be the last one. Hyuck vouched for him! He’s really nice and super sweet. And he’s not even anyone’s reject as far as I know.”

You quirked an eyebrow up, eyes still focused on the email you’re composing on your screen. “Obviously he is, or he wouldn’t be single. And like I’m gonna trust your boyfriend’s taste in men?”

“Going through a breakup and being rejected on a first date are not the same thing.” She sits up, folding her legs underneath herself so she’s crisscrossed. A hand comes to rest on your knee, finally dragging your eyes away from your work. For the first time, you notice how concerned your best friend looks. Concerned and worried for you, but you honestly don’t know why. “YN, it’s been so long since you broke up with… him. You keep refusing to put yourself out there and let someone love you. And refusing to let yourself fall in love again.” She patted your knee gently before standing from your bed, headed toward the door. “Just one last date, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll never set you up again.”

————

The date is set for a Saturday, and Kara happily helps you pick out the perfect outfit and decide on makeup. She drops you off at the restaurant and promises to pick you up if you need it. You’d agreed to meet him at the bar, and now you’re wondering why you didn’t push her for more info on the guy. You were going into this practically blind, while he knew your name, face, and occupation. But Kara trusted him, so you just had to trust too.

No one stood out at the bar, no heads wagging around to get a look for any newcomers, so you found two open barstools. Your butt claimed one, and your purse the other.

Ten minutes passed without anyone coming up to you, so you ordered a drink. Maybe the wine would distract you from the fact it looked like you were getting stood up. Or walked out on. That was really the thought weighing on your mind, so of course, you didn’t turn the bartender down when he offered to refill your glass.

“YN?”

Oh, thank god! With a smile plastered to your face, you turned to greet who you assumed could only be your date. But the smile dropped when you saw the tall man occupying space next to you.

He was just as tall as you remembered, maybe taller. And he’d filled out in the shoulders and arms. Even though he wore a dark button-up, you could tell he’d added definition to his upper body over the years. Not that you were checking. And you definitely weren’t totally entranced at the way he had started styling his hair back with gel, a single piece slipped out to rest on his forehead. That one strand of hair calling back memories of being teenagers and carding your hands through his shaggy, overgrown hair while you told him he needed to start using gel to tame it. Oh, and that grin on his face, that caused whisker-like wrinkles that had always made you laugh and poke his cheek.

This could not be happening right now.

“Johnny Suh, I thought you were living in South Korea.”

You didn’t mean for your voice to sound so aggressive, but it did, and that gleam in his eye was disappearing.

“I thought you had moved away too.” He just stood there, looking over you, the grin faded, but still smiling. Always happy. Usually anyway.

“I moved back a few years ago.” Johnny looked at the stool you had your purse on, obviously signaling that he wanted to sit. Your watch told you that you’d been here for 30 minutes and there was no sign of a blind date. So with a sigh, you removed your bag, and let him climb onto it. Or slide onto it rather.

“Were you saving it for someone?” He waved for the bartender, his shirt sleeve slipping down to show he still wore that silver linked bracelet he’d got when you were 15 years old.

“Apparently not.” Your glass was empty again, and you let the bartender fill a third glass while Johnny ordered. “When did you move back here? Or are you just home for a visit?”

A cool, easy smile splashed across his face. “No, I’m here permanently. About a year ago I got offered a job here, so I made the trek home.”

“What kind of job?”

“Photographer for a magazine.”

You nearly spit your wine all over his expensive looking shirt. “P-photography?” He looked over at you confused, handing you a napkin to wipe your chin, a nod in answer. “But you said you were going to school to be a doctor. We argued over that for so long and then you just—” You cut yourself off. No reason to dig back into those old emotions.

He nodded again, understanding perfectly where you’d been going. He’d always been good at that. “No, yeah, I was originally going to school for that. Make the parents proud kind of thing. But once I got there, I realized it didn’t really matter. My parents would be happy as long as I was happy.” You nod. “Yeah, you told me that plenty of times. So I changed to an arts university but stayed in Korea. I liked it there and I’d already started to make friends anyway.”

It’d been too late, but at least he had finally taken your advice.

You looked over at him. He was drinking from his bottle of beer, and for a moment you remembered being 16 and sneaking into your parents’ liquor cabinet to try vodka for the first time. Johnny had nearly thrown up, and you’d told him you loved him for the first time. Your face went red at that memory.

“You should’ve told me. I would’ve been so proud.”

Johnny’s eyes found yours, a sad lift to his lips. “I tried. You blocked me everywhere, remember? Not even your friends would get a message to you from me. I gave up trying after your parents told me you’d left for college.”

You wanted to hang your head in shame. All those years of friendship down the drain because you were too stubborn to unblock him on social media. It occurred to you that he was still blocked, no wonder you hadn’t heard the news he was back.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled. You’d never been very good at admitting when you’re wrong.

But his eyes perked up none the less and a grin found its way back to his mouth. “I’m sorry, what was that? What’d you say?”

You rolled your eyes. But a smile had crossed your face too, so you relented, just this once. “I said I’m sorry. For just ditching you back then. I should’ve been okay with the choices you made, even if they took—” You snapped your mouth closed real fast.

His eyes were nearly twinkling. “You’re not gonna finish that either? Nearly 10 years later and you still can’t admit that you cared for me?”

Brows furrowing, you turned to fully face him, a finger coming up to poke his chest. “I couldn’t admit my feelings? Are you actually being serious right now, John Suh?”

“You wouldn’t even tell me why you were so mad that I was leaving, just that it changed the future. What was I supposed to understand from that?”

“Are you saying that if I had told you I was in love with you, you would’ve stayed and gone to Northwestern with me like we planned?”

His face fell a little.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” You turned back to the bar, glad to have the break so you could take another sip of your wine.

You nearly jumped when Johnny’s hand brushed yours on the bartop.

“No, I wouldn’t have stayed. But we could’ve tried to work things out.”

You sighed.

This is not what you had signed on for. This was supposed to be a night out to meet a stranger and have a drink, not to open up wounds from the past. “Johnny,” you hesitated, took a breath. “I did tell you. I told you a lot that last year.”

His eyes went wide, mouth slightly falling open. “What are you talking about? When?”

A blush covered your cheeks. “Every time we got drunk and you kissed me.”

He looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. “What?” He pulled away, trying to think back to being 17 and 18 years old, getting drunk in your basement. Something seemed to click cause his eyes shut and he took a long swig of his beer. “I thought I made that up.” Another drink. “I thought I imagined the kissing and the confessions because I had gotten so drunk.”

You couldn’t help the laugh. With his eyes squeezed so tight, it was like he was trying to prevent them from falling out. “Nope, those were real. I thought you refusing to acknowledge or talk about it meant you didn’t actually feel that way.”

His eyes finally opened and he looked down at you, all soft and open and warm. “That explains why you had as much of a breakdown over it as you did.”

“I did not have a breakdown.” You felt indignant for all of 5 seconds before his eyes were calming you down again. “A tiny one, really. And like you said, totally justified. Mostly.”

He laughed then, and you felt like you could drown in it. You didn’t even know you could miss a sound so much.

Things were smooth from there. Johnny told you all about Korea and school, the friends he’d made, the jobs he’d worked. He told you about his two short, failed relationships, and about how he got the magazine job (“They liked my Instagram more than my portfolio!”). His parents were doing well, nearing retirement, and they were happy he was home (“My mom basically had a party the first night I was back, can you believe that?” Yes, you totally could.).

But then it wound around to you. You talked about school, how you’d decided to try California since you didn’t have a best friend for Northwestern anymore. You shared your horror stories from the part-time jobs you worked, and the excitement when you finally got hired as an intern at a publishing company when you’d moved back home after graduation. You’d worked your way up to assistant editor, and things were looking bright.

And then he asked the question you’d been hoping he wouldn’t know to ask.

“Now, I thought I had heard you were getting married.” You wanted to choke on your water. “But, no ring, you didn’t mention anyone, and you’re sitting at a bar alone on a Saturday night. What gives?”

A big sigh. You hated talking about this. But, maybe it would be nice to get it off your chest to someone who had never even known him and wouldn’t find some way to defend him. You gave Johnny a smile.

“Yes, I was engaged, almost two years ago. Things seemed good.” You shrugged. It wasn’t that you were sad about it, but the sting still felt fresh. “People tell me I worked too much and drove a wedge between us. Some people say they saw it coming a mile away. Which, if someone knows your partner is going to cheat on you, shouldn’t they tell you?” Johnny stiffened at that. You sighed again. “Some combination of us not being right, me working too many hours and not giving him enough attention, and him… not being ready to settle.” You looked over at Johnny, who sported a sweet frown and furrowed brow. “Honestly though, I don’t think we ever really loved each other.”

It felt like a boulder lifted off your shoulders. It was the first time you’d been able to get the words out. And you didn’t worry that Johnny would judge you.

His hand brushed over yours. “Why’d you say yes?”

“Cause I thought I had to. That’s what was expected of me after three years with someone.”

He nodded, but you could tell he didn’t really understand. Not that he needed to.

You let out a big breath and a giggle. The four glasses of wine were maybe starting to hit you now. But not too bad that you would regret your words tomorrow. “I don’t think I’ve loved anyone since you. You were the first boy I ever loved, and I don’t know that I’ll find someone worthy again.”

Johnny bloomed right in front of your eyes. His smile was blinding and his eyes soft, and you just wanted to bask in him for a bit longer.

But the bar was closing, and Johnny was offering you a ride home, and you accepted.

He walked you to your door, exchanged numbers, and promised to message soon so you could maybe have lunch. Before he could leave though, Johnny grabbed your hand.

“You know… I’ve never loved anyone but you either.”

His goodbye was a kiss to your forehead and a shy wave as he headed for the stairs.

————

You hadn’t even unlocked the door yet before Kara was calling. Her voice seemed exceptionally loud after the quiet goodbye from Johnny just a moment before.

“So? How was it? Did you have a good time? He’s cute, right?”

You laughed, sticking your key in your lock, and pushing your door open with your shoulder, just a bit wobbly. “He never showed.”

“What? What are you talking about?” She sounds absolutely scandalized. You’re sorry to ruin your friend’s (and her boyfriend’s) perception of this guy, but you weren’t going to lie to spare her feelings.

“He didn’t show up. I sat at the bar waiting for him until I was joined by an old friend. I kept an eye out, and no one ever came looking for me. Maybe you didn’t show him a good enough picture and he couldn’t recognize me.” You shrug even though she can’t see. Your shoes are kicked off by the door and you reach around to try to wiggle the zipper of your dress down.

“That—that doesn’t make any sense, YN.”

“I’m sorry babe, but that’s the truth.”

“But… YN he just told me he had a really nice time.”

You froze in the middle of your room, dress dropping from your shoulders. “What? But I didn’t talk to anyone else.”

“I swear. He texted me that he’d found you, that you shared drinks, and that you talked for hours.”

The both of you sat in silence for a moment, trying to process exactly what was happening.

“What’s your friend’s name? The guy you set me up with. You never told me his name.”

“His name is Johnny Suh.”

The noise that escaped you was halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“YN? Are you okay?”

“Hah, um…. I don’t know.”

“C’mon, talk to me. What’s going on?”

You ran a hand down your face, feeling hot and cold, and a little bit agitated. It would be just like him to pull something like this. “That’s who I was with. That’s my childhood friend.”

“Really?!” You pulled the phone away at her shrill voice. “Why didn’t he say anything? He recognized you? Why didn’t he say anything to me? I don’t understand...”

You laughed this time, finally moving toward your dresser to pull out pajamas. “Yeah, well that’s John Suh for you. He’s quite the enigma.”

She’s quiet, thinking over something quite hard. “What do you want me to do?”

“What do you mean?” You drop onto your bed, pulling your laptop open to search for his profile on your social media site. You’d got his number tonight, it was probably time to unblock him.

“He messaged me earlier, asking to set the two of you up for another date. What do you want me to do?”

You’d found his account. His profile picture was of him and his mom, and you couldn’t help the little smile that came to your face. After all these years, Johnny had been able to maintain a spot in your heart. Maybe you could give him the second chance you’d both been craving for so many years.

Even though the dork had just promised to set up a date while asking your best friend to do the same thing.

You let yourself smile more widely at the thought. “Yeah,” you said, closing your laptop and shoving it away. “Set us up.”

MASTERLIST

#johnny #nct johnny #nct #nct au #nct fanfic #johnny suh #suh johnny #johnny seo #seo johnny #johnny fluff #johnny drabble #fanfic #au #toalltheficsivelovedbefore

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finallyrecoveringforgood · 4 years ago

Text

okay, this time an actual TW

i'm serious, it's my past and not recent, but contains mentions of sh and s*icide attempts, although nothing specific

i'm kind of terrified, kind of unstable, but it's not even about food. it's like, hey, i'm working on getting better, trying hard and i have for so many years now. what the fuck is going on?

my whole past seems so surreal. are my parents ... really my parents? they seem just like strangers, on the other hand it still makes me feel strongly to interact with them - just different feelings every time. sometimes i get panic attacks, sometimes i turn into a full on zombie and won't show any expressions or talk, sometimes i get so angry and it is far from any normal kind of rage that i have ever felt, sometimes i feel fragile and very sad, and sometimes, rarely, i even feel hopeful and i am okay with seeing my mother

the group homes, psych wards, moving out when i was 14, it really did something to me. sure, i was one of the lucky ones, getting out in time and ending up in a therapy group home, being offered many opportunities and getting chances. unfortunately though, these places always come with tons of triggers and unstable people, and a group home can never really be family-like, it does not even come close. these different groups, new caregivers, people moving in and out constantly, people freaking out frequently

also, the 3 emergency/short-term group homes i went through before, all while i was still 14, some things have happened there that i still fail to understand. back then, i somehow survived it, clinging to my writing, food restriction and some sort of numb acceptance. but ... it probably cannot end well to keep up to 20 young girls, ages 13-18, in a house like that. no phones, no money, not allowed to go outside - to protect those who were there anonymously. nobody there who wasn't taken from home for a reason, nobody who wasn't in some way traumatized or had mental issues, and if you didn't look out for yourself, nobody did. this place ... it turned many of the older ones into monsters. selfish and aggressive and angry, leaving out their frustration and fear on each other, but also on those who just went numb and quiet. i suffered, writing being my saviour, but most of the time these memories are repressed. when i read my writing from back then now, it makes me shiver. nothing was safe, people even stole used underwear, and you never had space for yourself, we did not even have a garden, and it was not uncommon to have new roommates every day. it was like being imprisoned, but to protect us, i guess. people coming and leaving every day, nothing unusual. yet i would always have chosen to stay, if my other option had been to go back to my parents, yes, if i had been given a choice

afterwards, the therapy based group home i was referred to, mainly because of the suicide attempts (all while i was still 14) and selfharm ... oh, in comparison, a dream. i had sworn to myself i would do anything within my power to never be forced into a psych ward again, i worked on my issues and actually managed to avoid that step - there were relapses with selfharm, especially hitting myself was something that flared up over and over again, i had started it in the emergency group home, being out of opportunities, and i also still had these suicidal thoughts, terrible mood swings, increasingly often panic attacks, depressive episodes, boundary issues and of course my food problems, but despite some very bad moments, i always was able to avoid being taken to the psych ward. breakdowns still come frequently to this day, including everything, but i am able to handle it a lot better, reaching out before it is too late, riding out the waves, keeping everything in a safe way without longterm harm to my body or mind. something else i have learned is to ... not deal with everything at once. sometimes i'm tired and i don't want to take a shower, you know? i still do, although on my bad days i sit in the shower, but that's fine - i still do take the shower. which i know is not possible for everyone, sure, nobody feel offended or bad please, it's just not one of my biggest struggles. i do things bit by bit if possible, to avoid being too overwhelmed. usually, it's pretty good

no idea what my point is in writing this? well, everything that happened in my life, it feels very far away and surreal at this point. i suppose i will never be able to fully let it go - for example how very jumpy i am, it is something everyone around me is aware of, because it cannot be hidden, my reaction comes instantly and is out of my control. will it ever go away? or is the way my father treated me forever going to haunt me like this? who knows ...

i'm better than i used to be, for sure. i can cope with things better, i'm legally an adult and i do not depend on my parents, i live by myself, i managed to still finish school with a 1,1 gpa and have all the opportunities, am right now doing my dream job. hell, it could be a lot worse, right? also, how i was diagnosed and labelled - it's not what i base my worth on and i do not see it as a constant, but to this day it makes me feel strange to think that ... yes, during the general diagnosis they also tested my IQ, which was done in primary school as well due to me being overly bored and hating school, both times resulting in me being declared "gifted". well, i guess i have a good memory, i can read pretty fast and understand things easily, but do we need this label? those who know about it, like every caregiver in the group homes for example because they read all the papers, have always treated me a bit differently. it's like people have higher expectations, which sometimes may sure be justified, but in general it is so offputting. the human brain and "intelligence" are way too complex to be described by a simple number, and me, it is true that i get bored easily and often have to wait for others to understand things, but that's about it. i'm human, please just treat me as that

but there is this problem, how easy it is to let go of people, how hard to let them in. how i turn on people, suddenly feeling no emotions toward them anymore. i do have friends and i am social, but it always feels like i am just pretending? pleasing people, craving closeness, but not actually feeling it and being scared of commitment? i have learned how to behave, how others behave, i know how to act in certain situations, but it does not come from my heart?

i am weird today, sorry to everyone who actually read this far. despite a lot of guilt and a need to procrastinate, i'm going to prepare and eat dinner now. my weight cannot slip further

#ed recovery #?#tw #tw suicide attempt #tw sh

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elsb-hrngtons · 4 years ago

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We can help each other, You and me- Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Links to Ao3 in notes

Well isn't this a pleasant surprise, Steve fucking Harrington caught literally with his hand down his pants. Billy is delighted if not a little awkward, the situation isn’t exactly ideal, but it's a vast improvement from the last time he and Tommy ran into Steve.

How he managed to sneak in without either of them hearing him he’s not sure, he guesses he was too caught up with Tommy’s dick in his ass to really pay attention to his surroundings, which is very bad form especially if you’re fucking at your work place. Billy would be pissed, and very worried about being caught in an incredibly compromising position, with another guy no less, if it were not glaringly obvious that Steve the dirty little pervert, had just got himself off to the very same compromising position.

In fact this whole thing actually presents them with a pretty sweet opportunity, and if handled well all three boys could be a winner in this. Or it could all go wrong again and Billy and Tommy will be left licking their wounds.

Harrington looks like he’s ten seconds from throwing up, and honestly Billy can sympathise, getting caught jerking off has to be embarrassing, and well he and Tommy are no better, he did just have Tommy’s railing him not 5 minutes ago. If he didn’t know any better he’d say Steve has a really severe case of sunburn with how hard he’s blushing, avoiding their gaze sat uncomfortable with cum drying on his hand and no doubt in his shorts, but when Billy chances a look at Tommy, the poor boy’s not faring much better, freckled splattered skin, complemented by a rather deep shade of pink, he’s staring down at Harrington, mouth agape as if he can’t quite believe what he’s witnessed, and to be fair Billy can’t either, but Billy is the only one in the scenario who appears to be functioning like a human being, so to break the tension he decides to open his big mouth.

“Ya know Harrington I’m glad you showed up” he smirks trying for cool, collected, aloof. Steve still closely resembles a tomato and had been avoiding making eye contact up until now looks shocked, visibly flinching, probably preparing himself for an onslaught of insults, maybe even a beating, he’s biting his lip with an adorable little crease between his brows and then shifts his gaze back onto his lap, incapable of holding their stares for very long. “Freckles here was just talking about a little get together he’s having at his place tonight” Billy slaps Tommy on the back as he moves closer to Steve, taking up the seat next to him and nudging Steve in his side with his elbow. “Weren’t you Tommy?”

Tommy looks as if his brain is still malfunctioning, on a 10 second delay or some shit, Billy swears he can actually see the cogs turning in his mind as he clues into what Billy is doing and his trademark boyish grin splits his face.

“Oh yeah. You know nothing major, just a few beers, maybe some weed. You should come!” Tommy slides in on the other side of Steve, who once again looks around at the two, complete surprise etching his pretty features, he still hasn’t said two words and Billy’s not convinced he’s not lost all ability to talk at this point, that the shame hasn’t rendered his vocal cords permanently useless.

“Tell ya what.” Billy states leaning in closer, not missing how Steve tenses ever so slightly at this intrusion. “I’ve invited Heather, how about you invite your lady friend, the one who’s always hanging around you, and we make a night of it” Billy’s all charm now, laying it on as thick as he possibly can, maybe it's for Steve’s benefit, maybe it's for his own to save face or something, he doesn’t care, all he cares about is Steve’s response, if Steve ever does respond.

Steve swallows hard, throat bobbing jaggedly as he tries to regain composure and the ability to speak.

“Err yeah.. Sounds… sounds good.” Steve’s voice is harsh, but at least his blush is receding slightly, he appears to be choking down on his embarrassment.

“Great!” Billy claps his hands together as he jumps up. “We’ll see you at nine Pretty Boy” and with that Billy is dragging Tommy back out of the locker room, and back out into the heat of the Indianna summer.

###

Fucking great. Not only was Steve a monumental pervert, he was caught being a monumental pervert. It's like life's one big joke and he’s the punchline.

He’s mortified and all he wants to do is drown himself in the pool. But if he did that there would be no ‘party’ at Tommy’s, no chance to right his wrongs of the last time he attempted to test the waters with Billy and Tommy, and sure he feels right at this moment like he could die of embarrassment, the other boys appeared to take it in their stride and brush off Steve’s indiscretions like they were nothing. He’s not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Steve’s in a daze, in shock as he attempts to clean himself up best he can, but even standing under the spray of the shower for 15 minutes won’t wash away the dried spunk in his trunks, the very tangible evidence of his shame and apparently newly discovered hobby of voyeurism. He loosely wraps a towel around his waist to hide the obvious cum stains and steels himself in the mirror before making his way out into the pool area.

The brightness of the day is almost blinding and Steve has to give himself a moment for his vision to adjust from the darkness of the locker room before he can focus on where he and Robin had set up base. No surprises, she isn’t where he left her, he scans the general area, quickly averting his gaze from where Billy sits atop his makeshift throne and Tommy just beside him, he’s still recovering from the severe dent in his pride, he glances over the pool and still can’t see her. Then as he’s about to give up his search to go sit back on the lounger and wait for Robin to appear from wherever she disappeared to, he spots her a few feet away, blue slushie in hand talking animatedly to Heather Holloway of all people.

He knows he should probably hang back, give Robin at least a fighting chance at talking to the literal girl of her dreams, but Steve’s two seconds away from an emotional breakdown of his own making and while he’s come on in leaps and bounds in the last couple of years, he isn’t entirely selfish and right now he really needs to get out of here, he needs Robin to talk him through his impending anxiety attack, and maybe to stick his head between his knees and to breath in and out of a brown paper bag.

He strides over as smoothly as he can holding on tightly to the towel around his waist as if it's some kind of life line, and in a sense it is, if anyone were to see the state of his shorts he’ll probably die. Robin spots him and she ushers him over.

“Oh there you are! Where the hell have you been!?” she both asks and exclaims as if she’s accusing him of something, chastising him like a mother.

“I’ll tell you later,” he mutters.

“Oh this is Heather by the way!” she says excitedly gesturing towards the female lifeguard, who’s smiling something genuine, even though he can’t see her eyes through her sunglasses, he knows Heather well enough to know she’s a nice girl who’s entirely incapable of being a dick.

“Oh actually, me and Steve already know each other” she says sweetly.

“Hey.” Steve turns to Heather before entirely dismissing her, he knows he’s being rude, being a bad friend, but he’s also desperate and he’s hoping he can convey the urgency enough in his voice without coming across as too much like an asshole. “Robin. We have to go.”

“What!? Why? We just got here Steve” Robin sputters, she sounds exasperated and to be fair she’s justified, he realises, Steve’s being completely unreasonable out of context.

“I’ll explain later. We have to go.” he states, grabbing Robin by the elbow, jerking her away from Heather and dragging her towards the sun loungers where their things have been left.

“Okay, okay” Robin snatches her arm back, looking over her shoulder “See you around Heather” she calls out.

“Sure! Look forward to it” Heather calls back, giving a little wave.

Robin looks disappointed yet hopeful as they reach the loungers, Steve gathers up his stuff and awkwardly waits while Robin shoves her towel in her bag, he decides to throw her a bone.

“Don’t worry, you’ll see her tonight.” she shoots up to stare at him, one eyebrow raised a picture of scepticism.

“Wait. What?” she asks.

“You’ll see her tonight, we’re going to a party” he explains shuffling from foot to foot, getting increasingly antsy.

“A party?” she asks, they’ve finally started moving towards the entrance, Steve takes one quick look around the pool as they go through the turn-style in single file.

“That's what i said.” he deadpans.

“Who’s party?”

“Tommy’s”

Realisation dawns on Robin’s face as she rounds towards the passenger side of Steve’s car.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Steve agrees, unlocking the car and shoving their things in the back seat. “Now c’mon we’ve got a party to get ready for”

###

Steve’s pretty sure he’s gonna throw up, why he originally thought that going to Tommy’s was a good idea was beyond him, especially considering the events that lead to the invitation. He was excited, sure, but his gut is trying its best to qualify for the Olympics with all the gymnastics it's currently doing. It is far worse than the gentle and oddly pleasant sensation of butterflies, resembling closer to angry wasps just buzzing away down in his gut.

He and Robin are walking to Tommy’s from his, because honestly it's not that far, and he fully intends to take advantage of the alcohol that will most likely be on offer, although he swears to himself he won’t let himself get into a state like last time, much to Robin’s scepticism and to be fair even he was pretty sceptical himself.

He thinks the best thing to do right now though is to distract himself from his own existential crisis, and perhaps for the first time today be the good friend he knows he is and discuss Robin’s own crush on Heather.

“So i’m pretty sure i never apologised” he leads with, because honestly he does feel kinda shitty about interrupting the two girls.

“For what?” she asks.

“For interrupting your little flirt fest with Heather” he says wagging his eyebrows suggestively and softly nudging Robin in the side.

“Flirt Fest!? When?” she’s practically choking out eyes wide like a bug

“Earlier at the pool.” Steve explains “don’t act all coy with me, i saw what was going on”

“There was no flirting, we were just.. I don’t know.. Talking” Robin shrugs, she looks bashful, it's cute.

“Looked a helluva lot more friendly than ‘just talking’” he emphasises his point by making air quotations with his hands, it's lame but it does the trick.

“ and what would you know? Huh?” She stops walking mid sentence to stare up at him “ you” she pokes him in the chest to emphasise her point “were there all of 1 minute, before you dragged me away, because you jizzed your pants!” she’s smirking clearly amused at Steve’s anguish.

“ROBIN!” he squeaks, eyes bugging out of his head in a poor reflection of Robin’s earlier reaction.

“Steeve” she sing-songs all high pitched and nasally, mocking him. She turns back towards the direction they were walking in and leaves Steve behind to catch up.

Steve finally with the program strides back up alongside Robin in less than 3 steps, he’s pouting but not willing to drop the Heather thing, especially not now Robin’s been acting all defensive about it.

“Whatever. I still think she likes you.” he says

“Duh. I’m delightful” Robin says obviously sarcastic and flourished with an exaggerated eye roll.

“I’m being serious”

“Oh I know, you’re just wrong”

“I know i’m right” he teases

“you don’t know shit Harrington. And anyway i’d prefer not to take dating advice from a guy who literally got caught jacking off, by the guys he likes.” she snaps at him, but smiles triumphantly when Steve gapes back a little dumbfounded.

“Okay…” Steve huffs “now you’re just being rude.”

###

Tommy’s buzzing with so much pent up excitement he’s practically vibrating as he whips around his basement trying to make it as presentable as possible for their impending guests, he doesn’t want to make it look like he’s making too much of an effort, still wants to keep an air of cool collectedness about him, wants to remain nonchalant, but he can’t help the excited little squeele he lets out when the doorbell rings.

“Christ will you calm down” Billy chastises him from where he’s sat, legs spread wide across the couch, nursing a beer and giving of his usual ‘ i don’t give a fuck vibe’

“Sorry” Tommy says over his shoulder sheepishly as he makes his way up the stairs, out of the basement and towards the front door. Thank god his parents aren’t home, away with his little brother visiting some family in Chicago, or this little get-together might not have been possible. Not that they would care if he had friends round, or that they were drinking , it's just easier when you have free rein and don’t have to be mindful of the other people living in your house.

He gets to the front door and all that excited energy turns slightly nervous as he tries to tamp down the butterflies in his stomach and not make a fool of himself when he answers the door. He can’t help but be a little disappointed when it’s Heather and not Steve, but he guesses with her already here it might make things a little less awkward and a little more easy when Steve and Robin do eventually turn up, if he turns up.

“Hey” Heather smiles warmly, all sugary sweetness and girl next door, she’s holding out a bottle of something , and Tommy’s instantly reminded of Steve and his past insistence that ‘it’s rude to turn up somewhere, without something for the host’, he figures it must be some rich people bullshit, considering Heather and Steve were both practically raised in a country club.

“Hey Heather! Thanks for coming” He accepts the bottle and holy shit on closer inspection it's the good stuff, some expensive brand of whisky that Tommy would only bother giving the time of day if it was either gifted or stolen, because there ain't no point in spending stupid amounts on money on booze when the cheap stuff gets you just as drunk, for a fraction of the price.

He leads Heather down to the basement, where Billy has shifted slightly on the couch to make room for other guests, Billy’s also taken the honours of selecting a tape from Tommy’s collection and playing it full volume, no doubt grumbling to himself about the poor taste in music. He smirks up at Heather and gives a little salute before knocking back the rest of his beer.

There’s a slightly awkward atmosphere at first, heather just standing there probably waiting to be asked to sit, like the good polite girl she is, Billy’s not saying anything, which is a little unusually, but he is distracted by rolling a joint and well Tommy doesn’t often play host, and when he does he’s at least already half cut, and has been chatting shit all night anyway, so the awkwardness never happens. Now though, they’re all relatively sober and Tommy doesn't know Heather that well to just start shooting the shit at her, he’s kinda relying on Billy to be a little more social here.

Eventually Heather sits next To Billy who’s finished rolling the joint and is sparking it as he scoots further up the couch to make room, Heather offers him a small smile.

“I thought you said Steve and Robin were coming?” She asks

“They are.” Billy replies around a mouthful of smoke, passing the joint onto Heather.

“Oh cool, coz otherwise this is a little bit of a sausage fest” she quips, inhaling and relaxing back into the couch.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of sausage Heather” Billy laughs and she laughs too

“No I know, just would be nice to have some female company” she leans across the coffee table and passes the joint to Tommy who’s still stood up like an idiot shifting from foot to foot, still a ball of pent up energy.

Tommy chills out a little as the evening goes on a bit, still anxious that Steve might not turn up, but he’s well distracted by Billy and Heather bitching about work and telling stories of snot nose little kids who quite frankly deserve to drown alongside their entitled mothers. All three of them are giggling away, comfortable in each other's company when the doorbell rings.

Each one of them looks wide eyed up at the basement door, frozen to the spot. Tommy soon comes to his senses and bolts up, jogging up the stairs and towards the front door, he straightens out his t-shirt and unnecessarily fluffs up his hair a bit and then opens the door, signature cheeky grin firmly in place as he greets Steve and Robin.

“So glad you could join us”

Steve’s got that deer caught in headlights look about him, as if he didn’t expect the door to actually open, his mouth is slightly agape and he swallows thickly, Robin elbows him in the ribs and he extends his hand out, in it another bottle of expensive booze.

“Uh hey.” He says and Tommy accepts the bottle.

“Damn Harrington” he whistles, “knew i could count on you for the good stuff” he holds the bottle close to his chest with one arm, gesturing for them to come in with the other. Steve smiles weekly hands in pockets as he and Robin follow Tommy inside.

“Heh well you know, it's rude to turn up to someone's house without something to offer the host”

“I thought this was meant to be a party Hagan, where is everybody?” Robin cuts in as the make it to the basement door, music heard faintly behind the door and the distinct smell of weed wafting in the air.

“Right this way Buckley” he opens the door and holds it open for the two new guests before following them down the stairs.

###

The evening’s going by quite nicely in Tommy’s opinion, Steve and Robin have settled into the group rather well and the atmosphere in the room is rather pleasant, Robin’s settled herself next to Heather on the couch, while Steve is sat on the arm of the couch next to Robin. Tommy’s on the other side of the room in an armchair that’s seen better days and is in a more sorry state than the couch if that could even be possible. Billy’s next to Heather and they’re all grossly involved in a game of ‘Never Have I Ever’.

Tommy thinks maybe it's a little middle school to be playing it, like days gone by where the height of entertainment was playing spin the bottle or seven minutes in heaven, but he’s enjoying himself so he can’t complain.

“Okay okay I’ve got one” Robin pipes up giggling behind a solo cup. “Never have i ever been punched in the face” all three boys take a drink, indicating that they have in fact all been punched in the face, nervous glances are shared between Billy and Steve atmosphere going just a little tense at the memory of their fight the previous year, but then Steve giggles and the tension is broken.

“Pft that was blatantly a set up Robs.” he grins at her and she rolls her eyes.

“Don’t see you coming up with anything better” she quips back.

“Sure i can!” he argues between laughs “ ohh i got a good one! Never have i ever played a musical instrument” at that Robin and Billy both drink, which triggers a few questioning looks towards Billy.

“You play an instrument?” Robin asks excited

“Used to” Billy shrugs

“What instrument?” Heather pipes in

“Guitar wasn't very good at it though so gave up” he shrugs again , downing the rest of his drink and throwing the cup onto the table. Robin looks as if she’s about to say something when the doorbell rang, they all glance around the room at each other doing a mental headcount, wondering if they were expecting anyone else.

It takes monumental effort but Tommy gets up and jogs up the stair for what feels like the hundredth time this evening, he’s ready to tell whoever is at the door to fuck off when he opens it. He’s struck speechless however when it's Carol who greets him with a nervous smile and glassy eyes.

“Hey Baby, can we talk?” she can obviously hear the voices from the basement “You having a party?” she asks one eyebrow raised and arms crossed, Tommy’s in shock, he wasn’t expecting this, and he’s a little too high for this.

“What do you want Carol?” it comes out a little harsher then he intended, but if it gets him the desired effect of Carol to fuck off so he can return to the basement then so be it. Her expression softens and she uncrosses her arms.

“Please, I just wanna talk Tommy” she pouts a little “I feel real bad about the way we ended things and i just wanna make sure you’re okay” Tommy’s thoughts are still a little sluggish, and if he’s being honest he’s still a little hurt by Carol just dropping him at the beginning of summer, but Tommy still has a soft spot for Carol and she does look pretty miserable, so against his better judgement he decides to humour her and invite her inside.

He takes her to his kitchen and offers her a seat at the breakfast bar. Thye sit there like that in awkward silence for a moment, avoiding eye contact neither one of them daring to speak, it remains like that until ultimately they both work up the courage to speak at the same time

“Would you lik-” Tommy says as carol blurts out

“I’m so sorry”

They both giggle nervously at that

“Sorry you go ahead” Carol speaks first giving room for Tommy to finish his sentence

“Would you like a drink?” he offers, already jumping from the stool and walking towards the fridge “We’ve got beer, wine, some pretty fancy whisky that Heather brought round” He lists off grabbing a beer for himself in the process.

“Heather’s here?” Carol asks “and i’ll just have a beer please” she’s picking at her nails nervously as she tracks Tommy’s movements.

“Uh yeah actually, and some others” he grabs another beer out of the fridge and hands it to Carol, taking a swig of his own.

“So.. you are having a party then?” she asks, acquisition clear in her tone .

“Uh yeah kinda, what did you expect Carol? For me to just be moping around here by myself? Just waiting for you to turn up?” Tommy’s trying really hard not get pissed off, not to get angry, he was having a good time up until now and he really doesn’t want to have his night ruined because of Carol.

“No.” She says rather petulantly.

“Then what?” despite his best effort he’s getting a little heated

“I don’t know Tommy” She throws her arms in the air clearly just as frustrated as he is “ look i’m sorry i shouldn’t have come here” she’s getting off the stool now, making her way to leave “I just wanted to smooth things out with you, apologise for hurting you, maybe see if we could still be friends.”

Tommy grabs her by the elbow and spins her to face him.

“Don’t go” he pleads, for a second she stares him down, narrows her eyes as if she’s trying to figure him out, but then she relaxes and rests her forehead on his chest, a little stuck for what to do, Tommy hugs her closer and pets her back, strokes her hair.

“I just miss you so much Tommy, i miss hanging out with you” she cries into his chest, Tommy’s a little at a loss, emotionally he’s all over the place all he wants to do is comfort Carol, he knows he’ll always love her in some kind of way, but gone are the days where he could ever think about taking her back, even if Billy wasn’t in the equation.

“I know, i miss hanging out with you too” he speaks softly into her hair, rubbing comforting circles on her back trying to calm her down.

“I just don’t wanna lose you, y’know? Like we’ve known each other since we were 4, that doesn’t just go away” she continues her muffled sobs nuzzling into his t-shirt, he inwardly cringes imagining all manor of snot and tears ruining it. He grabs her by the shoulders and holds her at arm distance, bends his knees slightly so he can be at eye level.

“Hey, hey” he says gently “you’re not gonna lose me alright?” he sighs guiding her back to a stool giving him a moment to figure out what he’s gonna say next. “ look i’d love for us still to be friends” with that she looks up swiping her tears away.

“Really?” she squeaks

“Of course I do, like you said that kinda thing doesn’t just go away, but…” he trails off look nervously down at his hands, wishing he had something, anything at all that he could keep his hand busy with to try and channel the nervous energy building.

“But what Tommy?” she asks, he lets out a long exaggerated sigh, preparing himself for the next part.

“But, me and you, we can’t ever get back together” there he said it, it's out in the open now and he can’t possibly make his intentions any more clear. “You really hurt me babe, and don’t get me wrong, I understand why you needed to do it, really I do! But i can’t go through that again, and anyway i’m kinda seeing someone” he explains, there's no point sugar coating it, he needs to make it clear he’s no longer available for Carol to pick back up and then drop again on a whim.

“You are? Who?” She sounds kinda like she’s accusing him, which is rich coming from her, he can feel anger begin to bubble to the surface and if he’s not careful he might snap again, he needs to keep a level head, at least try to remain as calm as possible.

“It doesn’t matter who, the point is, me and you, it can’t ever happen again” he gestures between the two of them. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t try just being friends” he offers a weak attempt at a smile.

“God, it sounds like you’re the one doing the breaking up” she cries out before letting out a quiet giggle. “Okay then, friends” she extends her hand for Tommy to shake, he looks down at it and back up at her quizzically.

“Get away with that, come here” he steps closer and drags her into a tight hug “I’ll always care about you Carol, you know that right?”

“I know” she says

“Right c’mon, since you’re here, you might as well join the party” He says, releasing her from the hug and guiding her down to the basement with his arm slung around her shoulder.

###

Tommy’s been gone for some time now and Billy’s not worried per say but he is curious. He makes his excuses about going to find Tommy and maybe some more beer, leaving Heather, Steve and Robin to their conversation. As he gets closer to the basement door he hears voices, one is obviously Tommy’s and the other is distinctly female, he can’t quite make out who’s exactly with the door closed so he gently opens the door so he doesn’t bring too much attention to himself. The conversation he hears is getting a little heated and he wonders if he’s gonna have to step in at any point, make sure something doesn’t get broken, at least that's what he tells himself as he creeps round the corner and listens in on Tommy and what he can now clearly hear is Carol.

He’s not spying, he assures himself as he continues to listen in out of sight, he’s just curious as to why Tommy’s ex-girlfriend of all people might have turned up at his house at 11pm on a friday night, nothing good he concludes. A pang of jealousy blooms in his chest as he hears snippets of their conversation, watches as Tommy consoles Carol with a hug, petting her hair and everything.

He’s about to lose his shit when he’s brought out of his thoughts by a hand suddenly appearing on his shoulder from behind, he jumps having not heard Steve leave the basement also and swings around ready to attack.

“Woah woah, hey man take it easy” Steve jumps back hands out in a ‘i surrender motion’. Billy huffs, heart rate slowly returning to normal.

“Jesus Harrington, you can’t just sneak up on people like that” he whispers

“Sorry, i was just wondering what you were doing” He whispers back “hey why are we whispering?” he asks and Billy has to try really hard to suppress an eye roll, he learns further out of the corner to try and get a better look at Tommy and Carol, Steve catching on leans in too.

“Carol’s here” Billy grunts, he doesn’t want to have to explain himself, and he knows Harrington isn’t that stupid, so he hopes quietly that maybe he might clue on without needing much of a push.

“Oh” is all Steve says. They share a look before Steve is walking away towards Tommy’s back door.

“Where are you going?”

“To get some fresh air, you coming?” Billy stays put for a second weighing up his option, follow Steve or stay and listen to Tommy making nice with his ex, if Billy were a stronger man he'd just return to the basement and forget all this happened, but he’s not and he does have a petty streak. So he follows Steve out into the yard and into the night air.

###

It’s a warmish night but with the slightest of breezes which causes goosebumps to rise on Steve’s skin, he’s secretly glad he has the benefit of a belly full of alcohol to keep him from shivering. He’s not sure exactly what he’s supposed to do now, but he’s glad Billy followed him.

Tommy’s parents aren’t exactly rich but they’re not poor either, they’re well off enough to have a nice back yard, complete with a smallish patio, with a stone wall about a foot wide around its perimeter, overlooking a spacious grassy area lined with flower beds right up to the very end. There's an old swing set under a large oak tree that’s home to the tree house Tommy’s dad built one summer back when they were kids.

Steve perches himself atop the patio wall, crosses his legs and the ankles and inhales deeply. Billy joins him eventually, sitting beside him, legs spread wide taking up as much space as humanly possible. Steve thinks maybe it's a dominance thing, demanding more space and forcing others to make do with the little he’s been gracious enough to gift them, or maybe it's just more comfortable for him considering he has thighs the size of tree trunks. Steve lulls his head to the side so he can look at Billy, he looks lost in thought, staring at the ground, little crease in between his eyebrows, lips set in a hard line.

“Any chance I can bum a smoke?” Steve asks, hoping it might break the ice a little, relieve some of this awkward tension. Billy says nothing just reaches in his jean pocket for his packet of Malbros and hands it to Steve. Steve takes one, handing the packet back and watches intently as Billy takes his own out and lights it, Billy holds the flame closer to Steve and he leans in to light his own, making eye contact with Billy and holding it the entire time.

“What?” Billy asks when Steve still hasn’t broken eye contact. Steve’s heart rate picks up, he’s consumed with a sudden burst of confidence, bravery to finally address the elephant in the room, to stop dancing this tentative dance around Billy and Tommy, to finally make his feelings clear and to hopefully confirm theirs in return, worst case scenario he gets a fist to the face, but if he plays his cards right, he might just stand a chance here. Sure he would have preferred Tommy to be here too, but he has to work with what he’s got and well for the first time he’s actually got one of them alone, and he’s not a complete mess, he hopes the stars might have aligned tonight and luck is on his side, so maybe he might just get a win out of this.

“Why’d you invite me here tonight?” he asks on an exhale of the cigarette Billy had gifted him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” Billy says voice gruff, there’s not much light outside, only the gentle glow of the moonlight and the light seeping out from Tommy’s back door, but even in the dim lighting Steve can see a faintest blush creep across Billy's cheeks.

“Oh i think you do” Steve’s feeling bold, brash so he leans in a little closer, this close he spots the light dusting of freckles across Billy’s adorable sun-kissed nose, his gaze darts down briefly down to his lips and back up again to hold eye contact with Billy, he swallows thickly and Billy mirrors his actions. “I think you invited me here because of an ulterior motive” he smirks.

“Oh yeah? And what's that?” Billy asks, quiet, he looks bewitched by Steve.

“Why don’t you tell me” Steve’s inching closer and closer, they’re barely a breath apart

“Seems like you already know” Billy’s eyelashes flutter as he breaks his stare and instead focuses on Steve’s lips.

“I do. But i want to hear you say it” the atmosphere is thick around them, anticipation building, they’re so close yet so far, all it will take for them to close the gap is from one of them to lean in further ever so slightly, but they both seem to be playing chicken with one another. Just as Steve is about to give in himself, lean closer, brush his lips against Billy’s, admit defeat yet claim the victory, the back door swings open.

Just like that the spells broke, they both separate and look in the direction of the house. Tommy’s stood there and he’s absolutely seething, breathing hard. Steve breathes a sigh of relief, happy in the fact that they hadn’t just been caught in an incriminating position by Heather or Carol. The relief is short lived however because Tommy’s storming towards them, fists clenched, jaw tight, anger rolling off him in waves.

“What the fuck.” is all he bites out. He swings for Billy and catches him square in the jaw, giving him no time to recover as he grabs Billy by the shift and hoists him close, getting in his face.

“What the hell Tommy!” Steve shouts, trying to get in between, trying to break them up. Billy’s not reacting, he’s not swinging back or trying to defend himself and Steve thinks that's odd, from personal experience he knows that's not Billy’s style. “Tommy, get off him”

Tommy snarls, letting Billy go and stalking to the wall, throwing himself down in a huff

“You two looked cosy out here” he spits, arms crossed against his chest as he kicks at the dirt, picture perfect tantrum in the works. “Sorry to interrupt”

“Oh yeah like you weren’t getting reacquainted with Carol in there!” Billy argues back.

“It’s not like that and you know it Billy”

“No, i don’t think i do”

“Yes you fucking do, stop being such an asshole Billy!”

“Oh I'm the asshole, you punched me in the face!”

“You were kissing Steve!” Tommy’s got in Billy’s face again, looks like he could throw another punch, Steve decides to step in.

“Guys will you shut the fuck up!” he shouts over them. “No one was kissing anyone!” Both Tommy and Billy look over at him both with one eyebrow raised, their disbelief written all over their faces. “okay well maybe i was about to kiss Billy” Tommy looks hurt, Billy looks a little smug.

Tommy shoves a bit at Billy still angry.

“See!”

“Tommy!” Steve whines “Stop!” Steve drags a hand down his face, trying to wrack his brain of how he’s gonna explain himself with words, he had kinda hoped actions would speak louder than words tonight, but so far everything just been one horrendous misunderstanding after one horrendous misunderstanding. “Look I like you. Both of you.” he bites his lip, preparing himself for a rejection. “And i think maybe you both like me too?” his voice is 4 octaves higher than it should be and Steve cringes at that. Smooth real smooth.

They both stare at him, dumbfounded, mouths agape, comically blinking as if they can’t quite believe what they’ve heard.

“Wha?” Tommy whispers

“You do?” Billy asks.

It's adorable how they’ve been essentially struck speechless, when usually neither one of them has the ability to shut up, Steve just rolls his eyes shuffles closer, grabs Tommy by the face with both hands and kisses him chastely on the lips, and then does then repeats the action with Billy.

“Yes you fucking idiots.”

Both boys break their own unique signature grins.

“Well thank god” Tommy says, turns to Billy and kisses him, before laughing like an idiot, a contagious laugh that had Steve and Billy join in too.

“C’mon you two, I think we’ve left the girls alone, long enough” Billy says, dragging both boys by the hand back into the house.

#Keg Boys #Keg Girls #Keg Gang #Steve Harrington #Billy Hargrove #Tommy H #Robin Buckley #Heather Holloway #Carol Perkins #Steve harrington x Billy Hargrove x Tommy H #Robin Buckley x Heather Holloway x Carol Perkins #Stranger Things #my fic #Fanfic

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