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aminiatureworld · 3 years ago

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A Sea of Fragments V

Word Count: 2,635

Warnings: Swearing

Author’s Note: I don’t know how I went so long without updating! Honestly I really enjoyed writing this chapter. Things are starting to get dramatic, and I’m upping the ante a little bit. As a treat.

Scaramouche exited the dining tent as quickly as possible, storming off towards his tent with urgency. He hated eating around other people; the noise, the insipid conversation, the amount of imbeciles trying desperately to get in his good graces. It was agony, and the sooner he got away from it the better. Besides, he had something vastly more important to do this evening.

Entering his tent Scaramouche took some odd sense of pride from the fact he had beaten you to it. Sitting down in his chair he sighed, propping his head up with his hand and allowing his thoughts to drift for a moment. He had to admit that he was incredibly curious as to what he was going to witness today. He had already gotten a glimpse of your ability during your first meeting, but between the tense atmosphere and the barbed conversation he hadn’t been able to really focus on what exactly you were doing. Your terrible physical state at the time certainly hadn’t helped, as you had looked as if you were going to faint any moment. Scaramouche was glad there would be no fear of that this time.

What must it be like to look into the future? Scaramouche had to admit that he envied your ability slightly. Though you had seemed less than enthusiastic about it, Scaramouche couldn’t believe that you truly begrudged the ability to see into the future. If you did then you were surely a greater fool than he was already aware of. Even with your revelation that it was hardly an exact science as to which future would happen, even the slight ability to see what might come to pass would be an incredible asset to the Tsaritsa and her goal.

Besides, Scaramouche couldn’t truly bring himself to believe that your bedraggled state had been solely due to seeing into the future. How much energy could be expended by sitting into a chair and closing one’s eyes? In a world of war and battle and death the idea that something so still could be so taxing was absolutely ridiculous. No, there was no reason for him to worry, or for him not to begrudge you something that was so obvious a blessing from the Seven.

“Scaramouche?”

Your voiced pierced through the air, pulling the Harbinger slowly out of his thoughts. He hadn’t realized how engrossed he had been in his own musings, and the sudden pull back to reality cause irritation to once more surface within him. He quickly managed to push it down however, the reflexive annoyance replaced with an anticipation that couldn’t be completely hidden. Gesturing for you to sit in the chair across from him Scaramouche sat up straighter.

“Is there anything that must be done before we begin?” The Harbinger wasn’t used to such pleasantries, but this time he figured it was probably worth asking. Seeing you shake your head he nodded curtly. “Good. Then shall we begin?”

“If you insist,” you mumbled, voice lacking it usual sharpness. The nervous feeling that you emitted the first time he saw you in the forest appeared to have returned from out of thin air, and you shifted in your seat awkwardly.

“Is something wrong?”

“No! No, just, I just need to relax.”

“Take all the time you need.”

You shot him a look with very little behind it. Breathing in deeply you closed your eyes, letting your head tilt backwards slightly. Sitting back in his chair, just realizing that he’d been leaning forward this whole time, Scaramouche watched as your breath began to slow and you appeared to drift into some sort of trance.

Closing your eyes you willed your mind to emptiness. From the moment you had entered the Harbinger’s tent once more you’d been seized with anxiety. You never wanted to be in this position again, divining for others, taxing yourself over and over for goals and wishes not your own. Not to mention the identity of your current employer; Scaramouche’s Harbinger status aside relaxing in front of this man seemed nigh on impossible. Letting your eyes flit this way and that you didn’t even bother to try and look him in the face. Not when what you were about to do loomed over you.

Looking into the future was bad enough, doing it in front of Scaramouche was even worse. You tended to lose control of yourself while looking into the future. Falling out of furniture, mumbling things randomly, all those things were possible. And though the people in your village had gotten used to your half-trances you were sure that Scaramouche wouldn’t quite appreciate you accidentally faceplanting into the table or sliding onto the ground the way the people you had grown up in proximity to would.

Letting yourself sigh once more you allowed your conscious to fade, shoving aside all those problems to deal with it later. The present would always exist, but for now you had to cast your eyes upon the possible futures. The world darkened around you, turning into a sea of stars which fell down, down, down. Letting yourself tumble around you finally saw fragments begin to form in front of your eyes. Stretching out your hands you reached for the one that seemed to shine the clearest, reached for the best outcome that you could find. Always start with the clearest ones first, for the muddier the fragment, the worse the suffering, the more energy must be expended. It was information that had been extracted after years of trial and error, and now you let it guide you as you sought out what you needed to know.

You were standing in a deadly quiet room. Paper doors surrounded you, the moonlight filtering through them casting long shadows, making it look like you were trapped in an odd sort of prison. If so, it was a very cozy prison. All the hallmarks of domesticity were there; pillows thrown this way and that, books shoved into various nooks and crannies on a small shelf, a table which housed various small clay figures. There was a hallway to the right of you, and from it you could hear the faint sound of snoring. Taking a few steps forward you studied the small shelves hammered into the wall, trying to look for something that seemed to house a great deal of elemental energy. Letting your elemental sight guide you, you slowly turned around.

At the other end of the room was a small table. Upon it was a small red cushion, and upon the cushion was a mirror. The circular glass was surrounded by an emerald frame, dotted with small gems and cracked in certain spots. Though it might have appeared like an ordinary enough family heirloom you could tell that it was infused with power, a power so great it seemed to be leeching the rest of the energy around it, a black hole, warping the fragment around it. Taking a step back, afraid of it even in this imagined future, you felt the energy become even stronger, even more corrosive. Blinking slowly your eyes finally removed themselves from the scene.

Looking around at the other fragments around you, you tried for the next clear fragment. In it you found yourself wandering the streets of the village, right near the inn where you had been hiding out until recently. Although nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary initially you were soon pulled towards the rooftops. You could see a Fatui recruit, though which one you were hardly sure. Clad in black their face was a sharp contrast to the night around them, pale and twisted into a frown.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit. What am I going to tell Lord Scaramouche? Where is it? Where is the damn thing?!” Sighing the Fatui member climbed back down from the roof, something not very difficult as the building was a rather squat one. Running into the night you saw him look back once. The village was as silent as ever.

You pulled yourself back into the liminal space around you. Looking around at the various fragments scattered about you felt yourself frowning. How many there were! It would take ages to find such specific information as where the mirror was located. Letting yourself drift you closed your eyes. You would just have to pick one at random. Reaching out your hand you felt the cool shard of a fragment against your fingertips. Opening your eyes you let out a strangled sort of noise, faced with one of the darkest shards floating around you.

What you were transported too was absolute chaos, chaos and a crushing weight pressing upon you. You weren’t supposed to be seeing this, you really were supposed to be seeing this. Stumbling around you tried to focus on one thing. The noise, that was the best thing at the moment. Ignoring the flames that licked at the houses and ground around you, the fleeing people and the choking smoke, you tried to pick up on any piece of information.

“Did you manage to get it before it went up into flames?”

“Fuck, no I didn’t! Did you see that house? No one would fucking survive something like that!”

“I’m not sure if we’re going to even survive.”

“Fuck, no this isn’t how I wanted it to end. I didn’t even get a promotion.”

“You three! Stop dawdling and get out of here! We’ve already caused enough trouble.”

“The village is a goner anyways.”

“Glad it’s not, fuck, glad it’s not mine.”

The voices faded into the cacophony, quickly replaced with more unpleasant sounds.

“Mama!”

“Did you see my husband?”

“No, I have to get back in there!”

“Your books are a fucking goner.”

“Come on sweetie, you have to move. I know, it really hurts, doesn’t it? Come on sweetie, we’ll get something to make it better, but you have to move.”

Voices piled on top of one another, roaring and mixing together. Opening your eyes you stared as people rushed all around you, some covered in soot, others nursing horrific burns. The noise was louder still, the weight crushing the air out of your lungs. Clapping your hands over your ears you felt your mind start to go blank with panic. You needed to get out of here. You needed to remember how to get out of here.

A muffled sound seemed to reach above you. Looking up into the burning sky you reached towards it, almost as if you might tear through the papery-thin night back to safety. Taking a deep breath you tried to open your eyes, to go back into the space that you usually occupied. But the weight was so large, the distortion so strong, you found yourself trapped, as if in a nightmare. The sound called out again and you continued to reach towards it.

Please. Please.

“…”

Scaramouche watched as you seemed to collapse in on yourself, tumbling out of your chair and onto the floor, barely missing the table in front of you. Your breathing was ragged, irregular, and you seemed to be trying to say something. Panic gripped the Harbinger, blood rushing to his ears. Pushing himself out of him own chair he knelt down next to you.

“Hey, hey!”

Shaking your shoulders he went to pinch your arm. You skin seemed to be cold to the point of heat, and you made no move of recognition as his nails dug into your arm. Shaking his head Scaramouche tried calling out one more time.

“Wake up. Can you hear me? Wake up!” Shaking your shoulders once more he tried to suppress the panic that seemed to be driving him, though his thoughts were in such disarray he couldn’t be entirely sure whether or not it was working. A myriad of things leapt through his mind; his plan was going to fail, the effort took in tracking you down appeared to be worthless, were you really going to die? Surely you wouldn’t. He needed you for his plans. Besides, the idea of you dying seemed somewhat terrifying, lying in stark contrast to all the other people that Scaramouche had used and thrown away. The idea of your death seemed much more visceral, much more real.

“Hey. Look at me. I told you that you never even look at me. Open your eyes and look at me. Weren’t you supposed to be blessed by the gods? You can’t even look at me.”

Scoffing Scaramouche glanced towards the tent. He was going to have to call a healer at this rate.

The sudden feeling of someone grabbing his wrist caused the Harbinger to hiss. Looking back towards you he found his eyes met with yours. You seemed to be half wild with, something. Scaramouche couldn’t tell what lay behind the look in your eyes, but it surely seemed something close to panic. Breathing heavily you let out a whisper.

“It’s going to tear you apart.”

“What are you talking about?” Scaramouche felt anger rush through him as the situation seemed to crash into him. “Is that normal? What in Teyvat happened.”

“The mirror, the thing, it’s not normal. It… it warps everything around it. I, I can’t go back again. I can’t look again, I can’t find it again. It’s too heavy; it’ll tear everything apart.”

“You’re not making any sense! Tell me, is this mirror what we’re looking for? Where is it?”

But you said nothing, instead letting your grip tighten on Scaramouche’s wrist as you stared at him. The intensity of your gaze seemed to throw cold water on the Harbinger for a moment, and he quieted down. Everything had gone unexpectedly, what was he supposed to do now? A part of him simply wanted to haul you up and push you out of his tent, towards the healers or towards your own tent he didn’t care. Another part of him however wanted to ask you if you were alright, wanted to know what had frightened you so much, wanted to know why now suddenly you were staring into his eyes, almost as if you were trying to divine his thoughts. The more you looked into the future the odder you became, and the more Scaramouche found himself unable to understand you.

“Do, do you need a healer.”

“No. Just, let me breathe, just let me breathe for a moment.”

You closed your eyes, placing one of your arms on top of your forehead. The grip on Scaramouche’s wrist lessened and you let your arm slump to the group, fingers curled slightly against your palm.

Scaramouche wasn’t sure what caused him to do such a thing, whether it was fear of you having another episode or something else. Yet before he was entirely aware of what he was doing he placed palm on top of yours, allowing it to rest there for a moment. Your hand felt warm against his, still slightly clammy from what had just passed. He couldn’t necessarily call it comfortable, but he nevertheless didn’t draw away.

Staring down at you the Harbinger wondered once more what you had seen. More than that he thought about your expression when you woke up. Expression panicked, eyes wide, gaze full of fear and urgency and something else. It seemed to be the first time you had stared him right in the face without hesitancy. Were your expressions always so intense when you looked someone directly into their eyes? It was uncomfortable, but it always also something else, intriguing, or something like that.

He wondered if you would look at him directly again. He wondered if your words were truly worth heeding. And once more he once more wondered why he, a Harbinger, would kneel in the dirt and trampled grass to make sure you woke up.

#genshin impact fanfiction #scaramouche x reader #Scaramouche #genshin Scaramouche #genshin impact #series #my writing

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chandisiacs · 4 years ago

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[7:05pm] jisung’s never really been in love with anybody before. he’s never really thought about love and relationships the same way his friends, family, classmates, and even pets do. he’s more of the fuck-them-and-leave type; there were no strings attached, only first meetings and many unspoken words after that. you can say that he isn’t a relationship type of guy, and he intends to leave it that.

only one small problem: you exist.

see, jisung’s known you from quite some time--no, scratch that. he’s known you all his life. you could say that you’ve known each other since the birth of dawn, but even a fool knows that things like that would be impossible. let’s say jisung’s known you since elementary school, where he vaguely remembers being picked on by some bullies for being too outgoing and “weird”, and you stepped in for him with your bandaged kneecaps and humungous pastel ribbons. you could say that you were jisung’s savior, his hero. after that, the two of you were like batman and robin, only you were his batman.

dating forward to third year at uni, jisung’s feelings for you started to waver a bit, and for the most unappealing reason. you were caught in between a dilemma over which reigned supreme best: vinegar or milk. any man or woman would roll their eyes or leave the room if they sought you doing that, but jisung didn’t roll his eyes, and neither did he leave the room. it was only when you were evaluating your preferred liquids when his heart went “ba-dum” and his mouth whispered, “fuck. i think i’m in love with you.”

so, it’s perfectly reasonable for robin to put himself in a state of panic when batman pops the question of, “hey, do you know how to masturbate?”

excuse me? what kind of question is that?!

the long hand ticks at five past seven in the evening when you ask that, curled into the couch, phone in hand. it’s just so out of the blue, and though jisung should be used to that already, the context was more than just weird. it was absurd. “what now?” is all that jisung says, voice cracking midway.

“i said,” you reply, propping your knees down to the ground and sitting up to meet his wide eyes, “do you know how to masturbate?”

“uh,” jisung says poorly, “i guess? i’ve jerked off a couple of times before. why?”

ah, sex talk. jisung’s all about that sex talk. whether it’d be about toying with girl’s clits or blowing men’s dicks, he digs the sex talk. only, if he talks about it with his crush of a bajillion years, he doesn’t think that he’ll even muster up the courage to say “boobs”. sadly enough, you hum thoughtfully to yourself before deciding, “teach me!”

i knew this was coming. “what, how stroke a penis or how to touch yourself?” coming in nice and smooth, sungie. you’re doing great!

“how to touch myself, of course! did you not hear what i asked earlier?” you snort, rising up from your couch and approaching your best friend. “you said you were a sex god. surely, you must know how to make someone cum in thirty seconds!”

“yeah, okay, why are you asking me this?” jisung feels hopeless. he’s instantly regretting the days where he bragged about being everyone’s first timer. you falter for that one second, thinking of the best way to make this situation less awkward than it already is. “i just wanted to know how it feels like. what’s wrong with a little spice in my single sex life, you know? come on, jisung! just this once!”

say no. say no! “alright, fine. let’s give it a shot.” WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! “BUT!” jisung raises his finger up at you, pausing your momentary victory dance. “this is going to remain strictly platonic. i don’t want any fucking around after this whole thing, and i want to keep your mouth shut about this when we talk to our friends. got it?”

you nod your head eagerly, eyes shimmering with curiosity and excitement that it makes jisung want to coo and kiss you all over. however, he composes himself instead and makes sure that the door’s locked before leading you toward his bed, laying out a towel just right in the middle. “it’s so that you don’t get jizz all over my bedsheets.” jisung says, suddenly shy. “they’re new.”

by the time you’ve laid yourself down, you look at jisung expectantly, as if waiting for his next step. he scoffs at this, finding your anticipation adorable. “you’re so cute,” he comments before nudging his head at your closed legs. “spread your legs.”

“yes sir.” you purr jokingly before stifling a few giggles and spreading your legs open. yeah, that didn’t make me hard--snap out of it, jisung! he takes a deep breath at your exposed view, and gods be damned that you look heavenly all splayed out like that. he actually doesn’t believe that he’s doing this, but he isn’t denying the fact that he’s kind of enjoying it.

placing his hands on your thighs, he spreads your legs a little wider so that he can make his way on top of you. your breath shudders in awe at his thumbs on your inner thighs, and your eyes find your best friend when he finally looks down at you. you couldn’t help but wonder to yourself: since when did jisung look absolutely hot on top of me?

your breath suddenly hitches when you feel jisung’s hands slide up to the waistband of your shorts, hooking his fingers on the garter of your underwear and smoothing it down slowly, letting your hips move a bit to the sound of the garter slipping down with a gentle tug. “are you sure you want to do this?” jisung asks softly, his eyes never leaving you. “i don’t want to be the reason why you’re uncomfortable.”

you nod your head once more whilst looking down at your undergarments being pulled away in one swift, leaving your bottom half exposed to you and your best friend. you can feel the cool air slap your folds lightly, and you gasp a bit, instinctively pulling your legs together block the air from coming in. however, jisung catches your knees before it closes, and slowly spreads them wide again. “hey, it’s okay. just keep your legs open for me, baby.”

your eyes widen at that moment jisung uttered out that pet name, and you let out a breathy chuckle at his words. “baby?”

fuck! jisung inwardly curses, maybe even face-palming while he’s at it. damn your sexual experiences. “ah, sorry.” your best friend laughs nervously. “force of habit. just ignore that.” he didn’t even note the slightly disappointed look on your face, and proceeded to take your hand, folding your forefinger and pinky down. “now, people normally use these two fingers to touch themselves, but since you’re a beginner, you can start with one.” then, he folds your ring finger, and guides your hand down south, right just above your entrance. your breaths get shallower by the second he guides your finger to your clit, and with a gentle push, he pulls pressure on your finger, letting it hit the spot, just where you like it.

you emit a gasp at the direct hit, taken aback by how you were able to locate your pleasure spot with the help of your best friend. you don’t realize how jisung’s gotten closer to you, your faces inches apart, yet you feel your head throw back when jisung holds the back of your palm and moves it around, giving your clit more friction from your finger. he thinks you look beautiful like that; chest heaving, eyes getting foggy, lips parted and whimpers sounding across the room. it drives jisung crazy, how he can still be in love with you despite teaching you how to finger yourself? then again, when hasn’t he fallen in love with any random scenario that you cause?

“i love you.” jisung says suddenly, throwing you off guard. your finger stops moving, and you can feel your building arousal coming into a halt. for what seems to be a good ten seconds, you and jisung stare at each other in that exact same position. if an ant crawled by and saw that, even it will question the situation. that wasn’t the case for the both of you. “what?” you breathe out.

“i love you.” and this time, jisung doesn’t stop. “i’m in love with you, [first name]. you don’t even know. i’ve been in love with you ever since the day you saved me from those bullies, and it only grew stronger among the years. i’m sorry i confessed at the wrong and weirdest time, but i do love you, [first name]. you’re like the robin to my batman.”

“but batman doesn’t teach robin how to masturbate.” you cock up a small smirk at jisung teasingly, though you seem giddier now. “i mean, they could.” jisung retorts back, shrugging his shoulders. the two of you burst into giggles at that very instant, and when jisung recovers from his own fit of giggles, he smiles down at you, fond as ever. “so, what do you say, partner?”

he doesn’t need to ask twice when you pull him in for a kiss, one that’s firm and passionate. you even didn’t need to continue your own exploration down south, for when things got heated enough between you two, it was jisung who finished it for you.

#stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut #han jisung #han jisung smut #pav.writes #THIS WAS LONG #but its ok jisungs hot anyway

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findingjoynweirdstuff · 4 years ago

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Okay since I’m not satisfied reblogging the recap as is since the older ones weren’t as good, I’ll just paste it here but with some edits to include more direct quotes and stuff

This is one of my favorite days for Quackity’s character

---

RECAP: December 6, 2020

- HBomb hosts Niki and Wilbur’s L’Cast

- Fundy continues work on the chess board

- Ranboo is leaving a book with messages to communicate with Tommy

- Fundy and Ranboo visit Tommy and help him through the Nether to find blaze rods. Fundy fills Tommy in on the fact that Dream is officially recognizing L’manburg as a country.

- Tommy falls in lava and loses all his stuff

- Then he burns to death

- Then he falls in lava and loses all his stuff again

- He FINALLY gets an ender chest

- Lazar asks him for help since he’d fallen in lava and needed help getting out. As Tommy does so, Lazar questions why Tommy hasn’t turned against L’manburg. Tommy says it’s because Tubbo is there, but Lazar points out that Tubbo was the one who exiled him.

- Ghostbur comes on and says he has a gift.

- Tommy attempts to rescue Lazar from the depths of the lava pit. Techno starts arguing with him.

- Tommy falls in lava and loses all his stuff again. He gives up on helping Lazar, who is understandably annoyed at him.

- Philza joins the call wondering wtf is happening and why Tommy keeps dying, but Tommy just ends stream

- Psyche! Ghostbur asks Tommy to return to Logstedshire so he dies in lava to fast-travel back. Ghostbur gives Tommy a lodestone compass named “Your Tubbo” that points back to L’manburg at all times. Tommy puts the compass in his ender chest right next to the discs, saying he’ll keep it close to his heart.

- Thunder’s frustrated that Tommy got exiled exiled because the Prank War he was setting up between Dream and Tommy can no longer happen and Thunder’s great villain arc has been cancelled - he is no longer a villain now.

- Now, he wants to do the clay prank to George instead to try and get Dream and George to turn on each other as revenge for Dream burning his house.

- Puffy builds Tommy a second Christmas Tree.

- Quackity declares war on the Dream SMP from Mexican L’manburg. He gets George, Sapnap and Karl on to help. He’s rigged TNT under Eret’s castle bridge and wants to invoke the same ideas as the Mexican Revolution. He wants to put M.L. on the map by staging an assassination and using George’s dethronement as an excuse to start a political movement.

- Sapnap wants to take on Technoblade but Quackity tells him that they have to take things step by step and that it’s an extremely bad idea to do it now.

- Eret asks Hbomb to be one of his knights. HBomb agrees.

- George wants his kingship back

The explosion goes to plan with H and Puffy as witnesses.

— —

CANON DEATH: KARL

Cause: Death by explosion and falling

— —

- George distracts Eret while Quackity, Sapnap and Karl steal his throne. Punz joins Eret’s side as one of his other knights.

- The M.L. side reconvenes in L’manburg and drink invisibility potions. Dream is in Mexican L’manburg. He is tearing the dirt to shreds. Meanwhile, Eret gives a speech to his Knights as they head to Party Island. Dream, alone, is invisible in Boomerville.

- Sapnap gets Dream to log (he says it’s lag). The Dream SMP faction blows up M.L. with TNT. The Mexican L’manburgians kill Puffy.

- They want to head to the Holy Land. Dream says he wants to talk. They collect at the Church.

- They argue. Dream threatens to kill Quackity permanently and make sure Mexican L’manburg can never rise again.

- Sapnap tells George that he thinks Dream has completely turned against them, and that they’re better off disowning him.

— [Including some more direct quotes here] ---

Quackity: “Listen...this should be between Eret and me, I don’t know why you are getting involved...we will give back the throne, but what we want-”

Dream: “- Mexican L’manburg is not...existing. Ever again...if you wanna destroy and grief the kingdom, then that is called being a terrorist! Listen, Karl, I don’t give a crap if you died, that’s your fault. You died griefing and being a terrorist...”

...

Quackity: “Is that what we’re going off of now? That the entire server can be run by one goddamn person? We’re not even allowed to voice our opinions now? What’s going on? As far as I remember, you’ve been taking all the shots, and anything, nobody has free speech anymore!”

...

Dream: “I think you forget that I designated this as the holy land.”

...

Dream: “I have no problem with Tubbo, who’s leading his country gracefully. You are a terrorist.”

...

Quackity: “What is it that you want from us? We were doing peaceful protest, that’s all we were doing.”

Dream: “Quackity...you’re not doing ‘peaceful protest’ when all I hear is ‘hey, the Dream SMP castle has been sieged.’ ...Look, I...You’re trying to paint me as this tyrant when I’m just trying to maintain peace...if you think Eret’s being too political, come and talk to me! Don’t go and raid my castle and my throne.”

Karl: “YOUR castle? YOUR throne?”

Dream: “Yes!”

Karl: “Dream’s an absolute TYRANT!”

...

Dream: “The only reason it’s a no-kill policy in the first place is because I wanted it to be that way, and it’s enforced by me.”

Karl: “That sounds like a tyrant!”

Dream: “It’s not a tyrant! I’m a humanitarian if anything! It’s not for my agenda...listen, my agenda always, since the beginning, has always been for the SMP to thrive. That has been my agenda, so if you’re saying for my agenda, it makes me a tyrant - no, it doesn’t, it makes me wanting the server to thrive and everyone to be peaceful.”

...

Dream: “In my mind, Mexican L’manburg does not exist as anything whatsoever and you know what? I’ll talk to Tubbo about it and make sure he sees it doesn’t either.”

Karl: “Dream said the same thing about L’manburg back in the day--”

Dream: “No I didn’t!”

...

Dream: “You don’t get a country recognized by being a terrorist, Quackity.”

...

Dream: “I did NOTHING! At all! Until you decided to attack my nation...you know what someone has to do to be recognized? A country that is established has to have a fair, and just, and logical ruler, and you are NONE of those things. Tubbo is all of those things, and that’s why L’manburg is recognized.

When Tommy was head of state, and Tommy was vice president, you’re right, L’manburg had no right to be recognized...it was the fact that Tommy, a dumbass, was exiled and is no longer in charge of their land anymore...Tubbo would never...never in a million years do what you just did.”

“You know who would? Jschlatt. You know who would? Wilbur. You know who would? Tommy.”

...

Dream: “The king is a figurehead! He knows that!”

Quackity: “So that’s what you are? That’s what you are, Eret? A puppet?”

Dream: “YES!” -- No he’s not a puppet --”

---

M.L. argues that putting a human life above a few blocks of gold is more important.

He says that Quackity is causing the most problems, the number one “enemy” of the SMP right now.

—

- Quackity decides to dissolve Mexican L’manburg for a clean slate and call it something else. He wants the server to have a precedent of establishing new countries without having to go to Dream for recognition every time.

- Eret agrees to recognize Quackity’s new country if they apologize and return the throne.

- Sapnap declares that he no longer wants to fight Techno but Dream instead. He says he wants to slay Dream in front of everyone.

- Overall, Dream and Eret declare it a “failed coup” and say that the destruction is just a consequence of “what happens when you don’t plan anything” but Quackity is satisfied that his new country has been “put on the map.”

- Quackity declares the country to be named “El Rapids” in honor of Cedar Rapids.

- Punz no longer wants to be an official Knight.

- Quackity misses Ghostbur and wants to speak with him. He tells Ghostbur about the war. Ghostbur asks if it was a revolution - Quackity says yes! Ghostbur also informs Quackity that he burnt the sacred texts - How to Sex 2 - in lava.

- Karl streams with the intention of rebuilding and preparing for Pokimane’s visit

- Karl steals Eret’s Museum Llamas and gets caught in the act. Fortunately this doesn’t spark up the war again. They take a llama to Party Island.

- They get into trouble at Boomerville and Lazar joins.

- Dream comes online and asks Sam about the prison’s progress. Bad gets annoyed at Sam for destroying the beachfront property value, and he didn’t authorize the seizure of the land. Dream is there helping to shovel but Bad wants him to stop. Bad is angry about the prison being built and starts shouting at Sam.

- Bad tries to negotiate with Dream. Dream refers to the prison as containing a “prisoner.” Singular. And that the prisoner would have nothing, and Bad would be in charge of helping to guard it. There are going to be multiple “layers.”

- The prison will be in the middle of the ocean bit, and Bad would have a terraformed beachfront property. All of the land would be considered property of the Badlands - including the prison.

- People are going to have to go through portals to escape the prison.

- Bad starts to come around to the prison idea. Dream tells Sam he thinks they need more hands to help, potentially Ant and Eret.

- A strange, giant red “egg” has appeared in the corner of Bad’s statue room. He feels a strange aura coming from it, and he’s unable to bring himself to break it.

- Dream says Eret can’t help with the prison but he can help make the beach nicer. Bad says he might want to put Tommy in the prison but Dream says no, Tommy’s already exiled. So the prison isn’t for Tommy.

- Once the prisoner is in there, Dream says they would only be able to be let out “by the server.” It’s got certain secrets that only Dream and Sam know about. Sam says that he could potentially escape from it, but it will be so impenetrable that even if you know the secrets it would still be difficult to escape from.

- Bad shows Dream the Egg. Dream gets creeped out by it.

- Another Red Corruption has appeared near Hutt’s Pizza, and another at the Mansion. Everyone swears that it wasn’t there before, and there wasn’t enough time for someone to place all of it manually in the time that they were down there.

- Bad stabs Dream for trying to “hurt it.” He likes it for some reason.

- Bad asks Dream about who the prison’s for. Dream says “if you can’t kill somebody, you need to lock them up.” He mentions that it’s one of the more powerful people on the server, someone who either provides a threat now or in the future. He has someone in mind.

— —

Dream explains to Bad and Sam that the reason he switched sides in the Manberg-Pogtopia War was because Schlatt gave him something.

And that thing is “a card up his sleeve” until he needs it.

A book of great value.

It puts Dream in danger if people know of it, but also gives Dream power.

The “most valuable thing on the server.”

Something pertaining to the prison.

Something where they wouldn’t believe Dream if he told them what he was given.

— —

- The corruption grows AGAIN despite Dream, Sam and Bad all being in the middle of the ocean

- Another corruption appears on Tommy’s Power Tower

- The water level in New L’manburg has risen again, covering George and Quackity’s mushroom house

- The prison is going to be as tall as a MOUNTAIN

- Dream proposes the idea of Bad giving him the disc to piss off Tommy. Bad says that Skeppy has it so he’ll have to ask some other time. He might trade some information about Schlatt’s book in return for the disc.

- Bad says he likes the name a dono came up with for the corruption – “Blood Vines”

- Dream and Sam removed the Blood Vines on the Mansion to Bad’s dismay. Sam burns the Vines and Bad goes on a murderous rampage against him.

- Technoblade got a “Bee our guest” achievement

- Dream burns down the Eiffel Tower again.

- The prison will be reinforced with 15 layers of obsidian, and the guards will have Ender Pearl Stasis Chambers that are alarm-activated.

- The Blood Vines have sprouted up from Schlatt’s Grave.

The prison’s unofficial name as of right now is “Pandora’s Vault,” but it is subject to change.

---

(You can tell this was written a while ago lmao)

#long posts

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dear-yandere · 4 years ago

Text

— oyasumi dazai.

ada! osamu dazai x reader.

cw: yandere, romanticization of suicide and death, nihilism, depersonalization, implied death, themes of regret and grief.

wc: 1985.

disclaimer: the following content does not depict a healthy relationship, please read the warnings carefully. by click the read more button, you are giving your consent to read this content.

“isn’t it lovely, all alone?”

he dreams of death.

the stench of iron and the sight of bones is nothing new, but he dreams of death like one would dream of the future. he supposes he is nobody, because no one ever dreams of their own passing (not willingly). people are pushed to that point, betrayed and hurt and put through enough suffering that life no longer seems worth living. whether life is or isn’t worth the effort lays with them, dazai reckons, but the urge to reason death from life has never crossed his mind. to him, to live is to suffer — that is, suffering is inevitable. within the same vein, it must mean that to live is to make the best of that suffering, but what is life if you’d never asked to be born?

the question is foreign and familiar all the same — bittersweet on his tongue, a plague on his mind. his life has always been filled with nothing. the smile of loving parents was a sight he’s unfamiliar with. in comparison to the misfortunes of many others, his parents were saints; and, in comparison to the fortunes of others, they were demons. and yet, that laid the problem. they have a role in this world, a calling, a purpose. but dazai… he is nothing. nothing but a black stain on this white earth. from the day he took his first breath, death has been both friend and foe, a tease and a reprieve for a boy who’d never wished to breathe life.

but, where death comes easy to others, it is nothing short of a luxury for him. it does not welcome him with open arms, nor does it even look his way. suicide after suicide attempt and yet he is still alive. and he has to wonder, is life a gift — as everyone claims it is — or a curse? and why? why was he gifted, why was he cursed? the distinction makes no difference to him, but why must it be him? was he brought into this world for a purpose? for some sort of greater good, or evil? or do the gods simply enjoy the frailty of human life and the suffering it comes with?

of all the people in this wretched world, why is he alive?

ii.

from his first breath, he begun to blacken. his heart is not his own, has never been his own (it beats for someone who is, and never will be, him.) his body holds nothing but muscle and blood and sinew, a vessel he’s been forced into without second thought. he’s never thought of it as anything more. not a temple nor a burden, just… some thing. something that is not his. something that isn’t meant to be his, as if he’s an outsider looking in through the hollows of his eyes.

humanity was always something unbeknownst to him, something he could never quite get a grasp of. the thoughts of others could never quite fit into the process of his mind, its recesses far too unaccustomed to how others should or shouldn’t feel. their expressions are unreadable at all times, a fault that has led to bullying and alienation. he never shed a tear; loneliness is to be expected when you have nowhere to fit in. he is pure black. he may as well be invisible to the human eye, no different than an ant that passersby would carelessly step on without thought. he is no different from anyone else, because he is worse.

had he sold his happiness to the devil in a past life? is life his punishment, or is this how dull it’s meant to be?

cynical — a word used to describe him all too often, but it’s never been dear to dazai’s heart. words, in fact, have never been able to describe him, not in a way he ever found fitting. what does it mean to be cynical? what does it mean to be human? what does it mean to be alive, to have a beating heart, to have feelings? twenty-one years on this earth and he’s never once found an answer.

life, it seems, is something not meant for the likes of him.

and yet, suicide never got him anywhere. whether it be the fault of dumb luck or his own ineptitude, dazai could never die. it’s laughable, how even though his heart beats without his own will, he cannot make it stop. as if some cruel god reveled in how much torture it is for him to live a life he did not ask for. every noose left him choking for air but never took his life. every gun shot blanked or missed his brain entirely. every stab and cut never hit his arteries, never allowed him the luxury of bleeding out. like water in a vase, waiting until the surface tension is broken by a slight drop and starts to overflow — dazai spent his days in hopes of when his own heart would overflow and spill.

life was given to him, and life will not be taken by his own hands.

iii.

he dreams of death so often, his only nightmare is awaking the next day.

he will only ever just be… him. forever living, forever beating and breathing — the thought of experiencing life like others do is something out of a children’s book, to him. to strive for goals, to be torn apart by failures, to get up after being knocked down again and again. he understands it in theory, the process of living, but to put any further meaning on his or anyone else’s existence seems beyond the furthest reaches of his mind.

nothing makes sense.

“i never understood the fuss over weddings, going so far as to plan one’s entire life around it.” he says one day, eyes locked on the black coffee in his hands. darkness always did make him feel at home. “funerals are much more exciting. i’ve planned mine already.” a smile twitches onto his face, one of genuine happiness and excitement. death is like a dear friend, one he feuds with often, and yet one he adores all the same.

but those aren’t words most would say. weddings are a day of joy, but to him, they can only bring grief, one unlike the kind funerals bring to others. the happiest day of his life will be the day he dies, and yet…

he finds himself wanting to marry you.

you, as beautiful as ever, crack a knowing smile and play his words off, shooing them from the air like a pesky insect. the coffee in your hands is almost pure white by this point; drowned in creams and syrups and sugars. he wonders if it’s a reflection of your heart or your soul. “but osamu, i’ve already planned our wedding. you wouldn’t die before we got married, would you?”

he smiles. it’s a reflection of your soul.

he wouldn’t dream of it.

iv.

there’s a reason for everything, or so he’s heard. a mantra mostly uttered by religious heretics, and yet the sentiment was enough to get him thinking; is there a reason he cannot die? is there a reason he’s doomed to live, until whatever entity that tortures him grows bored of his plights? is there a reason he’s alive?

you’re nothing new, nothing he hasn’t seen time and time again. but, he knew: you are his reason. he is a person that someone like you should never get close to. the sentiment is ingrained in his very being, to stay away from you. he knows already: that he will only taint you, corrupt you, drag you down to rock bottom with him. and, if there is a place lower than here, it would surely be hell.

you deserve better than that. you deserve better than him.

“if i were to ever unforgivably hurt you, promise me this.” his heart tugs uselessly, his mind already made up. “if i ever hurt you very, very deeply, please kill me at once.”

he places your hands at his neck and presses. your fingers don’t curl around the flesh like he wants them to, and he knows then that he will never deserve you. you are too good for him, too good to him; your heart is too white and his blackness will only taint it. but darkness cannot be without light. just as the pitch black can overtake the white, the white can overtake the pitch black. life is not solely black and white, he’s come to learn. to be born and to live is to tread through life in a series of greys. there is no good nor evil, only humanity. but, if he were to describe himself, he would surely be black.

“you’ll promise me this, right?”

you hesitate to answer. he caresses you gently, like his mother used to do for him. a means to quell and comfort others, he’s learned, and yet his heart still feels nothing but blackness. he’s never understood why you feel so hurt when he speaks of death so casually — his death is his and his alone, after all. no one would be affected, not for long. memories fade and hearts heal; he is but a stain on life, and no one would miss him.

“right, belladonna?” he prompts. “please say yes. to die by your hands would be my greatest joy. even more so if you were to join me in death, but i could never ask that of you…” he laughs at his desperation, knowing you’d never agree to a premature death like he. you have so much to live for, and he…

he was born to die.

“i promise, osamu.”

you haunt him like a ghost.

he still dreams of death, because a world without you is one he no longer wants to live in. but you would want that for him. you know of his infatuation with the throes of death and yet you want the very thing he detests; for him to live. funny thing, life is. like an idiot ghost, he’d lived wandering through life without any direction. without purpose, dreams and ambitions never held any real meaning to him, not like they seemed to do for other people. the only thing that came close was… you.

he wants to hide like the coward he is. run away, start over again. forget this ever happened, forget he ever met you.

forget he ever tasted love.

it occurs to him that this must be that feeling of ‘regret’ he so often hears. and he’s reminded of odasaku, the only living being that had come close to eliciting some semblance of genuine emotion from dazai. the closest thing he could call to a true friend, dead. and, the closest thing he could call to a lover, gone. life isn’t meant for cowards like him.

but he lives. death has cursed him with the act of living; perhaps that’s a fate worse than death. he has spent all his life resisting the desire to end it, and he regrets never once succeeding. because now he has to live; to live with his own regrets and failures, all the things he said and didn’t say, all the things he did and shouldn’t have done.

he didn’t get to say ‘i love you’.

your tombstone is pristine and he wonders if death is just the same; clean. free of sin, free of burden. what a beautiful thought, one he’s begun to believe doesn’t truly exist. beauty is wasted on him and even death does not hear his pleas. because to seek beauty is human. to be played and toyed with is human.

and to break and destroy, is also human.

death is preferable to losing you. it laughed in his face when it came to claim you, took you away from him forever. to someplace far, far away — to someplace he can never belong.

he misses you. he wonders if you miss him too.

#yandere dazai x reader #yandere dazai osamu #yandere osamu dazai #yandere osamu dazai xreader #yandere bsd #yandere bungou stray dogs #yandere bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #tw death #tw suicidal ideation #tw suicide mention #tw suicide attempts #tw depersonalization

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wlw-lovestruck-fiction · 3 years ago

Note

Me watching my original rant spark a huge conversation amongst everyone: 👁👄👁

I just wanna say, because i did see some people saying stuff about the wlm, and here’s how I personally see it

1. “Lorelei got shitted on” yes yes, I agree 100%. I will never laugh or make fun of Lorelei fans for that, she deserved better. I’m not a fan of her route, so I haven’t read almost any of it, but she did deserved better from what i heard happened in her route. But I feel like the fact that it happened to Lorelei, the wlm would understand how it feels when it happens to the newer guy LIs time and time again. When I complained about Sascha, I wasn’t trying to make it seem like this never happened to the female LIs, and if the anon who talked about Lorelei thought that, i’m sorry.

2. “The wlm can be toxic at times and hate on the female LIs and attack others for their opinions”. I apologize for those people’s behavior. I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with those fans. I know a lot of wlm readers who are so nice, and it hurts to know that some of y’all don’t meet some of the nicer side. I promise not all wlm readers are like that. And for that anon who said they deleted lovestruck because of how toxic some of the wlm can be, i am truly sorry. I personally don’t like Runa’s route because of her attitude (i don’t like Chance either actually, so i’m not a hypocrite, promise lol), but I will never attack anyone for liking her.

3. “the wlm attack female and nonbinary LIs because they’re not male” It truly isn’t all of us. i promise. I, personally, may be bratty or do attack female Lis at times when i don’t like them, but it’s truly because i just don’t like the Li. I do the same so some males (in fact, I hate more men LIs, than i do female). No LI or their fans deserves to be attacked for being themselves, and if you’ve gotten attacked for it i’m sorry.

4. “some wlm go on and be homophobic about double wlw or wlnb LIs” We, the fans with a brain, don’t claim them. I don’t. I don’t care if lovestruck releases a women and enby at the same time. For RP, I just don’t read RP so i don’t care, and for EAA, i love everything from EAA, so I don’t care. I would’ve preferred Omar over Lavinia a little cause I just LOVE his character, but I still love Lavinia. And I’m sorry some of yall have to see it.

I hate how the wlm can be toxic, but it’s not just the one side, both sides are toxic, and here’s how my friend said it

��they don’t see what’s going on with the LIs they don’t read because it doesn’t affect them or their LIs”

So I think that’s one reason the fandom is so toxic, no one really tries to see how the other side is taking things. And it really isn’t one side, it’s both who do it.

In conclusion, that’s how I, personally, see and view y’all’s arguments. They’re valid, 100%. I just w anted to say something back. I’m not trying to start an argument, But yea.

This wasn’t asked for but yall got this huge response anyways lol. Baii.

Not me replying to the other post because I didn't see this one at first 🤣🤣

Man I'm dumb lol

“they don’t see what’s going on with the LIs they don’t read because it doesn’t affect them or their LIs” YES! That's the main problem. I agree 100% with that. Lack of empathy will always end up in toxic behaviour :/

Thank you for stating your opinions, anon. I do agree not all wlm fans are toxic, as well as not all wlw are toxic. I've truly found some wonderful people from both sides. Seriously, thank you for existing everyone. It sometimes feels like us bisexuals are caught in the crossfire so it's always nice to find non-toxic people lol

Everyone deserves to rant, and everyone is allowed to have their opinions. That will always be top rule here. - Mod Jessa

#anonymous #answered

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ravs6709 · 3 years ago

Text

Of Distant Dreams (That Can't Come True)- Lee Jihye/Na Bori

Read on ao3 here

Spoilers for the epilogue! Takes place throughout the group regression. We barely get to see any of Na Bori in canon, but I still have a lot of feels for Jihye's relationship with her. So many feels in fact, that I actually wrote something that isn't mainly fluff

It's a little messy, but it's not my usual style, so I'm still pretty proud of it

Warnings: Angst, unhappy ending (just to be clear, NBR doesn't die again, but the two of them separate), NBR's death is mentioned a lot (so choking warning), nightmares, mention of skipping meals, ask for other warnings

•~•~•~•~•~•

"Jihye-yah!" The door to Taepung Girls' broadcasting studio slammed open.

Na Bori ran through the entrance, panting. "Jihye-yah, what's going on?" Then she froze, her gaze falling on Han Sooyoung. "Who is this person?"

Lee Jihye noticed that Han Sooyoung looked back and forth between the two girls. Then she stared at Na Bori, and Lee Jihye wondered if she knew who Na Bori was. She could, considering that she'd read the beginning of Ways of Survival. Han Sooyoung may not have known much, but based on the way her eyes widened, she must have known enough. She told Lee Jihye that she'd move on ahead to the other areas, along with some instructions.

"Bori-yah, what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be in the classroom?" Lee Jihye tried to keep her voice neutral, but the overwhelming relief she felt caused her to sound breathy instead. She knew that Na Bori would survive this time, she'd made sure of it, but actually seeing her friend alive … she wanted to cry. She did it. Na Bori didn't die this time.

"I should be asking you that question," Na Bori said, too overwhelmed by what was going on to notice the look on Lee Jihye's face. "Everything that's been going on… the dokkaebi, all the insect eggs, coins and some kind of scenario. You know how that apocalyptist Selena Kim said there was going to be an apocalypse, is this it? And then you came up to me and you…" she took the box out of her pocket. "You gave me this. Jihye, what's going on?"

Lee Jihye didn't know what to say. How was she supposed to tell her that the Lee Jihye she knew no longer existed? That she was from a different worldline, and that she'd killed Na Bori in order to survive? That she has come to this worldline so she could save someone? Sometimes it was a struggle to even look at her, when all she could see was the person that she'd choked to death.

"Bori-yah, it'll be alright," she said, before wincing.

⸢"Jihye-yah, it'll be alright,"⸥ Na Bori had told her.

She took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. Then she did it again. "I'll explain everything to you later." How was Master able to do this? How was he able to regress and then look into the eyes of the people he'd cared for, and pretend that everything was okay? How was he able to do this for every regression that he'd lived? "I'll make sure you'll be okay."

Na Bori was not a person who was easily scared, she was probably one of the most fearless people that Lee Jihye knew. But at that moment, she looked terrified. She wanted to hold her tight and whisper assurances, but she couldn't do that.

"Jihye… please tell me what's going on. You've been acting weird for the past month, and now all this is happening. I'll help you with whatever you're doing. Please crybaby, just tell me."

Lee Jihye wiped her eyes, not realizing that she'd been crying. "That scenario that everyone received earlier," she began. "It's the beginning of something awful. But me and many of the others, we're going to help everyone and clear the scenarios. It'll be okay."

"Was that unnie who left one of the people you know?"

She nodded.

"Will you be staying here?"

She froze. "I'll be here for a little bit, but I'll be gone in a few hours."

She wanted to stay with Na Bori, hold her in her arms while Na Bori would lovingly call her 'crybaby', but she couldn't. She had the scenarios to clear, and this wasn't her Na Bori. The Na Bori from your regression is dead, she reminded herself. It was a painful thought, but enough to get her to concentrate on what was important.

The two of them stayed in the broadcasting room as Lee Jihye awaited the second scenario. She gave out more instructions, advising them to not act rashly, and that everything would be okay. Na Bori sat there silently, and she could feel her gaze on her but she wasn't able to look back.

After she was finished, she picked up her bag and sword.

"Are you leaving now?" Na Bori asked.

She nodded. "I have to go meet up with the others."

"Okay." And that was it. Except Na Bori walked closer and closer , and Lee Jihye closed her eyes, unable to look at her. A pair of lips pressed against her cheek. "Come back soon, okay?"

The next few seconds were a blur. She had no idea if she'd spoken or merely nodded, before exiting the room. What she did know was that Na Bori had whispered 'I love you, Jihye-yah' and then Lee Jihye was running. Her footsteps were loud, her eyes burning, breaths heavy, and heart pounding. Even then, those four words continuously echoed in her mind, unable to be drowned out.

Once she was no longer able to keep on running, she fell to her knees and cried.

•~•~•~•~•~•

Lee Jihye pulled out a piece of paper to write on. As she wrote, she rested her other hand against her mouth to hide her smile. She reached over to her side and passed the note to Na Bori, careful to make sure that the teacher wouldn't see. Pretending to pay attention to the lesson, she looked at Na Bori, who was reading the note.

Na Bori smiled softly, her eyes sparkling in the evening light. Lee Jihye couldn't help but stare, because she was so beautiful. It'd only been recently since she'd realized that her feelings for her friend were romantic, and ever since, she'd been finding herself staring a lot more often. It probably wasn't a good idea to be staring so much. But every time she saw Na Bori smile at her, the way that their fingers would brush against each other more often, she couldn't help but wonder if her feelings might actually be reciprocated.

A finger tapped her arm, and Lee Jihye blinked, not realizing that Na Bori had already written back.

'Hey, let's go to the movies tomorrow for lunch,' the note read.

Lee Jihye wrote a reply, then passed the note back. The smile on Na Bori's face was even wider now, and-

There was a flash of light. When it faded, there was a ball of fluff the size of her head with cute black eyes and a mischievous smile. A dokkaebi.

No. Lee Jihye rose to her feet, her chair slamming into the desk behind her. She knew what this was. No. No no no. Not this again.

She ignored the dokkaebi as it spoke, and stood next to Na Bori. "I'll protect you this time," she whispered. "I won't let you die."

She grabbed her arm and the two of them were running around the classroom, ignoring the protests from her teacher. The dokkaebi seemed confused, but it continued on with its speech. She just needed to find something, anything that would allow for the two of them to survive. Hadn't there been an ant problem in the classroom recently? She just needed to find two of them, so they could kill them and clear the first scenario. She already knew how this scenario was going to end, she'd gone through it dozens of times in her head. This time, things would be different.

Except… there were no insects in the classroom, not a single one.

"Jihye!"

She whirled around and saw Na Bori in front of her, gripping a chair that one of her classmates was now using as a weapon. Right. Most of her classmates would try to escape the classroom, only to find a barrier that prevented them from leaving. They'd pound on the doors and hope for a miracle. Some would return to their seats because the teacher instructed it, the teacher would try and assure everyone that everything would be fine, except it wouldn't be. However, some would panic after reading the clear conditions, and they'd try and kill someone so they could live. In the end though, all of them would die, even Na Bori.

This time, we'll survive together, Bori-yah .

Lee Jihye helped Na Bori, and with their combined strength, they shoved the student back, and set the chair down.

"Stay back!" She warned.

The student's eyes were filled with fear, but slowly, she began to back away. Lee Jihye scanned the classroom again, but there was nothing. The countdown was almost up. What was she supposed to do? She could murder one of her classmates, they'd die anyway. She'd ruthlessly killed other people in the later scenarios without hesitation. But still, the thought made her nauseous, maybe it was because these people were ones that she knew . She'd been friends with some of them.

Warm hands gripped her own, and guided them to wrap around a neck.

"Kill me, Jihye-yah," Na Bori said calmly, as the head of one of her classmates' exploded.

"No," she replied. "No! I won't! I won't do it!" She tried to move her hands, but Na Bori pressed down harder, drawing out a cough.

"Jihye-yah, it'll be alright," she rasped. "You must live."

No. No no nonono no! She was stronger now, she could get through this, she would take her hands off of Na Bori's neck and they'd find a way to live, even as more and more of the bodies around her fell, blood gushing.

"You should be allowed to live too!" She screamed, her eyes burned with tears. "You shouldn't have to be the one to make this sacrifice!"

"Please crybaby, live." Somehow, Na Bori pressed down even harder.

Why couldn't she… Why couldn't she find the strength to overpower her? Why couldn't she save her friend just one time? (Distantly, she knew that if she didn't make the kill, she'd die too).

Then, with the last of her breath, she rasped out those haunting words. "I love you, Jihye-yah."

Her body went limp in her hands.

Lee Jihye jolted awake. She wasn't in Taepung Girls' High School, but was underground in a subway station. It was just another nightmare. That same damned memory replayed over and over again.

But why did it always feel so real? Her hands were in front of her, fingers and wrist bent as if she'd actually been choking someone. And she could see the face of Na Bori, her eyes red as she choked. Her hands trembled, but were unable to move.

She knew that this wasn't real, but it still took at least five minutes until the image of Na Bori disappeared, and the phantom weight on her hands was released.

[The constellation 'Maritime War God' would like to assure you that your friend is safe.]

"Thanks, General-nim," she murmured.

It might not have meant that much, but it eased the urge to run back to Na Bori and make sure that she was alright. But she was safe, she was alive.

Lee Jihye stood up and began to walk around through the tunnels. She wanted to run, but it was late at night and she didn't want to wake up other people who were sleeping. She aimlessly wandered, before she saw a man with a black coat sitting against a wall, tending to his sword.

"You should be sleeping, Lee Jihye," Yoo Joonghyuk said, not looking up at her.

"I know, Master," she replied, before sitting down next to him. She stared at the wall in front of her. "How do you do this every regression?"

In this regression, she hadn't opened up to him that much, but he knew her in the previous ones, so he knew what she was referring to.

"I kept my distance from the people I cared about," he said. "If I didn't become too close to them, then their deaths wouldn't bother me as much."

Lee Jihye knew that. When he'd first met her, he rescued her, gave her a sword, then told her to join him. He helped her survive, but they didn't spend that much time talking, unless it was about the upcoming scenario. He wasn't completely closed off, he often helped her train her skills. But he'd locked his heart away and pretended that he didn't know her.

But she knew that she couldn't do that. She couldn't just pretend that nothing had happened, and it was even harder to do when she was with Na Bori.

"It's difficult, and it doesn't become easier," he continued. "I was only able to look forward. My only goal was clearing the scenarios, that was all I focused on. I'm sorry that I can't tell you something more useful than that."

His hand rested on her back, gently rubbing circles. The parental gesture felt a little odd, coming from him. While she'd heard from Kim Dokja that he'd had a child in the past (meaning, he knew how to be a parent), Master rarely ever acted this gently except to his sister, Yoo Mia. He might not have much advice for her, but he understood her pain, he tried to help, and it did help, even if only a little bit.

She shifted to lay down. She knew she wouldn't fall back asleep easily, but it was better than getting no rest. Master said nothing, he just wordlessly took off his jacket and draped it over her. Sleep didn't come easy, but she didn't have any more nightmares for the remainder of the night.

•~•~•~•~•~•

With all the knowledge that their group had, the scenarios were cleared rapidly. The dokkaebi weren't prepared, so they had more downtime while they waited for the next scenario to be prepared. Often, Lee Jihye went to check on Na Bori, who had joined together with the rest of her classmates. They'd talked a few times, but since they were always in a group, they weren't able to talk about certain subjects. (She could see that Na Bori really wanted to ask her for answers. But she wasn't ready to give them to her just yet, not when looking at her was still so painful).

Of course, Lee Jihye couldn't hold off on having that conversation forever. She'd been going on one of her runs when a second pair of footsteps joined her. She turned to see who it was, surprised to see that it was Na Bori.

"It's been a while since we were able to run like this, Jihye-yah," she said, voice calm, but Lee Jihye could sense something dangerous in her tone.

"It has," she agreed, not knowing what else to say.

"You know, you could have told me that you were one of those regressors, right? I would've kept it a secret if you needed me to."

She sounded too calm about it, as if she didn't fully grasp what it meant to regress.

Lee Jihye took a deep breath. She had to tell her now. "I'm not the Lee Jihye that you know. She won't ever be coming back."

As she expected, Na Bori froze mid-step, stumbling. Lee Jihye instinctively moved to catch her, but once she noticed their proximity, she backed away.

"Isn't regression like time travel?" Na Bori asked, not saying anything about Lee Jihye suddenly moving away. "It's obvious that you've gone through the scenarios before, and then something bad must have happened, so you and all those people you were with time traveled back to fix everything."

"That's not how it works."

"Then tell me how it works, Lee Jihye! How am I supposed to understand if you don't explain?"

"This world is just one of thousands- maybe millions or billions. Regression is like time travel, but it's not. I'm not from this worldline, my consciousness has just been transported here. The Lee Jihye you know won't be coming back."

Na Bori looked up at her, serious. "And how long have you been here?"

"A month before the scenarios."

"Were your childhood memories different from mine? In your worldline, were we not best friends? Were we not on the track team together? Did I not ever call you a crybaby?"

"All those things did happen. Bu-"

"Then you're still the same person that I know and love. You've changed, but I'm willing to get to know those parts of you. You're always going to be you." Na Bori was shorter than Lee Jihye, but at that moment, she stood so much taller.

It was like when Lee Jihye was teased for crying when she was younger, and Na Bori told the others off. She was physically weaker, but she had always been stronger. Lee Jihye couldn't handle it.

"When I'm done saving this world, I'm leaving!" She blurted. "I'll be going back to my worldline and you'll never be able to see me again!"

She was crying again , she'd been doing a lot of that recently. Na Bori looked almost broken from her words, her lips trembling, skin pale, and eyes wide. She took a step closer, and Lee Jihye was too shocked to step back. Na Bori cupped her face and wiped away her tears.

"Tell me, crybaby, did something happen to me in your worldline? You're not good at hiding your emotions, did you think I wouldn't notice that ever since you've come here, you flinch every time you look into my eyes or I call you crybaby? Is that why you refuse to skip class with me? Is that why even now, you're still trying to run away?"

Yes! She wanted to scream. "In my worldline, you died in the first scenario," she whispered. "I killed you. I had to live without you for years, and I don't know what to do with myself now that you're right here in front of me."

"I don't blame you for what you've done," Na Bori said, even though she looked almost horrified. "You saved my life this time."

Of course you don't blame me, you told me to kill you. I saved you here, but I couldn't save you in my world.

"When the scenarios are over, before you leave, I want the two of us to have a full day to ourselves, okay?" Na Bori said. "A good day for you to remember. I'm sure she'd want that for you, a day for you to relax and just live ."

⸢"You must live, "⸥ Na Bori had told her on that day.

Lee Jihye slowly nodded. "She would want that."

Na Bori's hand moved from her face to her hand, and squeezed it gently. For once, Lee Jihye allowed for that little bit of physical contact again, and squeezed back.

•~•~•~•~•~•

While the scenarios were a lot easier compared to the first time, it didn't mean that they weren't difficult. Lives were still lost, and there were several close calls for the members of Kim Dokja's Company. As the difficulty began to ramp up more and more, Lee Jihye began to have nightmares that were slightly different from the ones that she'd normally get.

Each one started off differently. Sometimes she was sitting with Na Bori, before one of the dokkaebi created a sub-scenario that was difficult to clear. Sometimes she was fighting with her family, and an outer god would be summoned. Other times, she'd go to Taepung Girls' High School, and would receive the bad news from one of the people in Na Bori's group.

Each one of those nightmares had one thing in common: Na Bori's death. Lee Jihye had managed to save her from dying in the first scenario, but what if she died a different way? What if Lee Jihye wasn't there to protect her? What if she was, but still wasn't strong enough to save her?

Her hands would tremble not unlike they had when she was the one to kill her friend. On one of those nights, when the imagery was particularly graphic, she got up and sought out Na Bori. Her sponsor told her that Na Bori was safe, and realistically, she knew that, but she needed to see that she was okay. Just to see her once, even if it was just her sleeping figure.

As she entered the building where their group was staying, Lee Jihye enabled Ghost Walk so she wouldn't wake anyone up. It didn't take long to find Na Bori. She stood there and watched the rise and fall of her chest, each breath grounding her to reality. She was alive, she was safe.

After a few minutes, Lee Jihye realized what exactly she'd been doing. She turned to leave, then noticed Na Bori shifting, before sitting up.

"Jihye, is that you?" She whispered.

Lee Jihye paused, embarrassed at getting caught. "Y-yeah."

"Is everything alright?"

"I'm fine," she lied. "I'll leave now."

"Wait. You've come all the way here, let's go outside for a little bit."

Lee Jihye opened her mouth to say no, that it was fine, but Na Bori was already getting up. She took her hand and led her outside so they could sit down.

"Crybaby," Na Bori murmured. "Did you have a nightmare?"

Lee Jihye nodded slowly. To anyone else, she might not have said anything. But Na Bori had already seen her when she was weak, so she knew she could tell her. "I dreamed that you died again."

"Well, I'm right here. So there's no reason to cry."

Lee Jihye looked down. Na Bori was here, but when it was time to go back to her own worldline, she'd no longer be there.

"Do you want to hold my hand or something? Something to ground you?"

What she wanted was to hold her tight, hide away from all the scenarios. But was it right? It was Na Bori, but not her Na Bori. Her intention was to save Na Bori, that was all she had to do. She couldn't let herself get too close. It was too dangerous, she'd lose sight of everything that she'd been living for over four years.

"I can't. I…" she trailed off, not knowing what to say. In so many worldlines, the two of them were never able to get together because of the first scenario. In this one, they finally managed to both survive, except even now, they'd never be able to have a happy ending together.

"You loved her, didn't you?" she asked. "The same way I love you."

Lee Jihye loved her so much, it hurt. "...I still do." Even years after her death, Lee Jihye continued to love her just as fiercely as she did in the past.

"I know that you said that you'll leave eventually, but shouldn't we make the time we have left memorable? If you need me, I'll help, I want to help you." Her hand moved, and rested next to Lee Jihye's- close but not enough to touch.

It was a deliberate movement, one that gave Lee Jihye the choice of whether she would accept the contact or not? It'd help, it'd relieve some of her stress, knowing that Na Bori was here. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to stay just this once…

Before she could back down, Lee Jihye rested her hand on top of Na Bori's. She layed down and closed her eyes, hoping to commit the feel of the warm hand to memory.

•~•~•~•~•~•~•

Lee Jihye thought that the end of this regression would end more happily. They'd managed to save the world once more, but they were unable to save Kim Dokja- the one who they'd all wanted to save.

His soul had scattered across thousands- countless worldlines, and Lee Jihye had no idea what to do. The days that went by were a blur, she hardly ate or slept. All she could think about was Kim Dokja's frail body, just laying there.

"Jihye-yah."

Since they failed, what was going to happen now?

"Jihye-yah."

Was that all? Was it over?

"Lee Jihye!" Na Bori's panicked voice brought her out of her thoughts.

"Oh, Bori-yah, were you saying something?"

"Jihye please, you need to take care of yourself. You've skipping meals, haven't you?"

"I'm not hungry," Lee Jihye said.

"I know I don't understand everything about the guy you wanted to save, only that he meant a lot to you. But would he want you to be like this?"

"It's not like I ever wanted him to sacrifice his f*cking life over and over again! I didn't ask for anyone to sacrifice their life for me!"

Her throat was hoarse from the lack of use, and the screaming didn't help at all. But what was she supposed to do? Not one, but two people decided that they'd sacrifice their lives. Kim Dokja, and Na Bori from her regression. But all Lee Jihye wanted was to live the rest of her life with the people she loved. Why were they the ones who had to make all the sacrifices?

Na Bori didn't say anything, and while she hadn't done anything, she looked a little guilty.

"I know it wasn't you who did what she did. You're her, but you're still different from her. It's just…" Lee Jihye trailed off.

"Stupid," Na Bori muttered. "I'm here to comfort you and you're comforting me. And I think that… nevermind. You're leaving tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah…" In just one day, she'd be leaving and she'd be going back to her own worldline. She'd be going back to a world where she wouldn't be able to see Kim Dokja, but she also wouldn't be able to see Na Bori again.

But maybe it was for the better. This Na Bori had her own life to live, just like Lee Jihye had hers. She'd love to stay with this Na Bori, but how much of it was to stay with her best friend, compared to the idea of having a Na Bori? She was Na Bori, with all the same memories that the one that she knew had, but they weren't the same, no matter how much she wanted to think otherwise. Not for the first time, she reminded herself that the Na Bori she knew was dead.

"Jihye-yah."

Lee Jihye blinked, and saw that Na Bori had food with her. She recognized that it was her favourite- and it'd been a long time since she'd last been able to have it. Maybe she was a little hungry, though she wasn't sure if she'd be able to eat so much.

She opened her mouth to say something about that, but was surprised when a spoon was put into her mouth.

"Remember when I got sick, and you insisted on feeding me soup even though I refused, and then eventually you just fed me while I was in the middle of arguing?" Na Bori asked with a smile.

"I remember that." Lee Jihye smiled back at her. It was strange, speaking about memories that happened with a different version of the person. It made her feel a little guilty, it felt wrong to be doing this. "The way you gaped at me was hilarious."

Her smile must have seemed a little fake (it wasn't, but it was), because Na Bori didn't say anything after that. The two of them sat in silence, Lee Jihye not in the mood to say much, and Na Bori having recognized it. She just wordlessly continued to feed her, until she could no longer eat anymore.

"Is there anywhere you want to go?" Na Bori asked.

She tried to think of a place, but couldn't think of any. But knowing that this was the last day she could spend with Na Bori, she suggested, "Let's just take a walk."

She nodded, and they went outside and walked around the streets of Seoul. Lee Jihye was still used to the sight of destruction, but in this regression, the damage wasn't so bad. With the huge failure looming, it was vaguely reassuring to see that at least this time, they were able to save thousands and millions of lives.

They passed by a PC Bang, and Na Bori suggested that they go inside. Out of the two of them, it was Lee Jihye who played more video games, though Na Bori could get quite competitive. Lee Jihye won more games, but that was because she had more experience. It felt almost like the days before the scenarios, and she wasn't sure how to feel about that. After that, they walked around some more before going to watch a movie. Lee Jihye already cried easily when it came to movies, but with everything that went on, it was impossible to hold them back.

Na Bori turned to her, a teasing smile on her face, similar to the moment when Lee Jihye had realized her feelings. Lee Jihye had been crying, Na Bori lovingly teased her, and then she had the realization that oh, she truly wished that she could live the rest of her life like this, with her.

But now, it was a dream that was so far out of reach. In one day, she was going to leave the world behind. Even after the movie was over, she couldn't stop crying. Na Bori turned to her, her hand instinctively moving towards her face, before she realized what was going on and instead taking out a tissue.

"The movie wasn't that sad, crybaby. The one we watched right before the scenarios was way more emotional."

It wasn't just the movie that left her so emotional, it was everything else. But there was another thing that bothered her.

"I'm not… I'm not the Lee Jihye you know," she said. "I'm not her."

"What are you talking about? Jihye-yah is Jihye-yah."

"But I'm not her. You keep treating me as if we're the same person. Stop treating me like her. I'm not a replacement."

It was projection, and her being unable to deal with her own feelings that were causing her to lash out, she knew that. Lee Jihye had to constantly remind herself that the two Na Boris she knew weren't the same, even if it was easy to fall back into their old dynamic. She had to remind herself not to get too attached, because she was going to leave. She had to remind herself that they weren't the same, because doing so would betray the memories of the Na Bori that she knew. And Lee Jihye was frustrated.

There was so much that she wanted to say, but she couldn't figure out what to say. She wanted to scream and shout, letting everything that had been building up for all this time loose. "You're not going to have her back, ever. The two of us… the two of us aren't destined to be with the one we love." Na Bori looked upset at that, and opened her mouth, but Lee Jihye didn't think she was able to take what would be said next.

"Sorry Bori," Lee Jihye said. "It was fun being with you, but I'm not feeling well."

They were still supposed to go eat dinner together, but she lost her appetite. She started to leave, only to feel her arm tugged as she spun around.

"Listen Jihye," Na Bori said, looking up at her. "I understand that looking at me reminds you of her. And maybe you are right, you're not the Lee Jihye who has been with me for sixteen years. You're someone who learned to fight with a sword, and you're brilliant with it. But does that really mean that you're a completely different person? The Lee Jihye I knew always loved swords, whenever we played fighting games, she always gravitated to playing any woman who owned a sword. So is it that surprising that you now own a sword too?

"You've experienced so many things that have changed you, but in the end, you're still Lee Jihye . You're strong and sweet, you hate showing weaknesses but you're a huge crybaby. I haven't known you for sixteen years, but I've known you long enough to know that you're Lee Jihye. And if even that much had changed, I'm wi- I would be willing to get to know you. I know it's worse for you, because you had to kill her, and now see her face and hear her voice from me. But things have gone differently this round compared to the other rounds, right? I'm different. With time, you'd eventually have been able to treat me differently, and accept that I am her, but still get to know the differences.

"Jihye-yah. If we… if we were given the opportunity, if we weren't going to leave each other, would you have given us a chance?"

Lee Jihye blinked. She knew that Na Bori would have something to say, but she didn't expect this much. "I think… I think that I would have liked to."

She'd been coming to terms that saving Na Bori this time wouldn't erase what had happened in the past. But she didn't have to erase it, that memory was something that would never be erased. Instead, she could have created new ones. It was so unfortunate that all those possibilities wouldn't be able to happen in this world.

Lee Jihye looked up at the evening sky, and hoped that in at least one of the other worldlines, there was a Lee Jihye and Na Bori who could have their happy ending.

•~•~•~•~•~•

And then finally, the day had come for her and the others to leave. The Ark was set up for them to board, and many of the people who had joined the Group Regression had already climbed on board. She'd already told Na Bori goodbye, because she didn't think she'd be able to say goodbye at the last moment. But still, she couldn't help but look back and seek her out, to take in the sight of figure one last time.

With a deep breath, she turned and started going towards the Ark again. When she took a step, she heard a cry for her name.

"Jihye, wait!"

Lee Jihye stopped and turned around, and Na Bori nearly crashed into her.

"I'm sorry, this is selfish, but do you really have to go back? Can't you stay?"

She did want to stay, it would have been nice to stay with Na Bori and live out the rest of her life in this worldline. But she had a family that she'd chosen, and she'd already decided that she was going to stay with them. She remembered that a little while ago, Jung Heewon had told her that she was allowed to stay, if she wished, but Lee Jihye knew that there was no point.

"I asked you what you'd do if we were given an opportunity, but this could be it," Na Bori continued, her voice almost frantic. Her bright eyes gleamed with tears. "Or, I could come with you. I don't want to force you to leave your family behind. I could get to know them, and we could all live our lives toge-"

"Bori-yah," Lee Jihye interrupted, placing her hands on her friend's cheeks. "You have your own life to live here. Bori-yah, it'll be alright, okay?"

"Then let me… let me kiss you, I want to be able to know how it feels, even if just once."

It took a second to process the words, and Na Bori looked at her, waiting to see her reaction. With her hands on Na Bori, all she had to do was lean forward for their lips to meet. Lee Jihye had imagined this moment a lot, she'd wished that before Na Bori had died, that she'd mustered the courage to confess. Sometimes in her nightmares, she imagined the feeling of lips on hers, before the body in front of her would end unable to breathe and then fall over.

The kiss was slow and tight and desperate, their arms wrapped around each other and squeezed, both unwilling to let go, so they could let this moment last just a little longer. It was only until Na Bori had gasped for a breath that Lee Jihye backed away, half out of fear that the kiss was just another one of her nightmares. But Na Bori was still standing there, breathing in and out, her lips pink, and Lee Jihye could feel her own lips tingling.

"I love you, Bori-yah," she whispered.

"I love you too, Jihye-yah," came the reply.

"Please live on for me, okay?" She asked, taking Na Bori's hand in between hers.

"Okay. I'll do it for you."

Lee Jihye stared at her for the last time, she stared until she could see the image of her when she closed her eyes. She imagined the feel of her, the sound of her voice, her scent and even her taste, she committed it all to memory.

"Goodbye." Their hands separated, and Lee Jihye once again started walking towards the Ark.

She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and she already knew that this moment would be added to her nightmares, of having Na Bori and still managing to lose her again.

•~•~•~•~•~•

Orv taglist- @subrosasteath

If you wanna be added/removed from the taglist, just let me know

#lee jihye #na bori #lee jihye x na bori #orv #omniscient reader's viewpoint #orv fanfic #ravi writes a thing #orv spoilers #borijihye

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perse-persecution · 3 years ago

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more dream smp skin symbolism

I can go on and on about this, and so I will! I’ve already talked about how Tommy, Sam, Dream, and Quackity have skins that highlight who they are, especially in the prison. But it’s not just them that have this, it’s almost everyone in the SMP!

Some characters have stayed fully human throughout the SMP, never gaining wings or scars or anything that was permanent, like Tommy or Tubbo, or even Niki, really. There are others too! (Tubbo really was just hurt emotionally, he stayed human even though he made bad choices, and never really went too far[I’m counting Ghostbur as a human even though he was see-through because it’s Ghostbur. His skin is a ghost.]) And some characters have inhuman traits like wings (this is only Phil but y’know) or horns, or they just don’t have any human attributes on them except for their faces.

And some just have glasses that hide their faces, or roses that change color. Or a mask!

Niki- You might call me out, saying that ‘Niki wanted to murder Tommy with Jack and has no inhuman traits, so your idea is flawed!’ but Niki got over it. Niki is baking again, Jack burned his house down. Niki may not be Tommy, but she’s never gained horns or covered her face.

Jack- Jack has his headset and that comes with glasses, and that hides his eyes. That’s what makes him inhuman to me, and we never see his eyes. He’s always hidden from everyone, even slightly, and he’s not human. His response to Tommy’s death is great and very human, celebrating and then realizing it really wasn’t what he wanted-but then again, he still clawed his way back from hell through pure spite and anger. That is not human.

Eret- Eret has glasses as well, hiding their face, and that plays well into the ‘never meant to be’ bit, but might not work in the long run, but it still does! Eret is still lost in the past, really, trying to make up for it. He’s built a museum and wrote books upon books and apologized so many times, but the glasses are her way of keeping the betrayal with them, always reminding them of the fact. They aren’t human, they’re still trying to make up for battles long gone through keeping the past from being long-gone, and such they are the past.

Hannah- Hannah definitely isn’t human, the roses on her arms changing colors and being attached to her being the main reasons why, though there is still some symbolism even with that. With the Egg, Hannah tried to fix the egg with roses, taking stacks and stacks with her. She tried to give them to it, and was trapped in a hole. The symbolism here is that Hannah uses nature to fix her problems, and fixes the nature that’s wrong (fixing the server!!) and adds to it in ways that pleases her (all the red roses). She tries to fix everything with them, and when they all turn against her she goes with them into the Egg’s control.

Badboyhalo- The devil skin is a bit literal, considering the events of the Egg, but it still works before that too! Bad’s always been the ‘devil’ to Tommy and maybe Quackity I guess, shouting at them when they curse and never playing into some bits. But when the Egg takes control, the red accents on his skin turn white, and that shows that he feels like he’s doing the right thing, that it’s all to help Skeppy, but the devil skin shows that’s it’s not, and he’s the real devil here.

Skeppy- Speaking of Skeppy, he’s always been just a diamond with a derpy face, and that sums up everything that Skeppy did before the Egg perfectly. He’s bright and pretty sharp, in some ways, but but still hilarious and comedic to a fault. Diamond with a derpy face. But then the egg came along, and one, changed his skin from blue to red, and two, got rid of the highlights that made the diamond itself pop. There’s much, much more red on him that any of the server members, Ant, Ponk, and Punz just getting red eyes, and Bad having none at all, the red on him turning white. It makes sense for Skeppy, the one with the most red, to be the most under the Egg’s control, and for Bad, who has no red, to be angry at Skeppy, later, for spending so much time with it. But the highlight removal made Skeppy look just like the Egg. Made him pretty much just fade into it, become one with it. The derpy face is still there, though, symbolizing Bad’s hope for the blue Skeppy to come back, though the rest of Skeppy seems to symbolize the opposite.

Technoblade- Techno has always been an anarchist in royals garb, and throughout everything on the server it shows that he has one goal (anarchy) and he will do everything to get it, even be used as a tool and ‘just as the blade’ (the Red Banquet) (also being in royals garb). He’s inhuman because though he has had character development, from mocking Quackity at his execution setup even though it was, like, his execution setup, to complimenting Sam on the prison, even though he knew it was a trap. Even though he claims to be closed off, he’s become such great friends with Ranboo and cares too much about Carl and his wolves than he says he does. He calls Dream a sentimentalist, but even though he knew he would be getting out of the prison, he still gave hope to Dream by means of the toilet. That shows another part of his inhuman-ness. He’s a pig. Pigs are friendly, sensitive, and intelligent, according to Google, and this fits Techno well. He tries to give hope to Dream, was friends with Tommy, is friends with Phil, Ranboo, and Niki, and that goes into the next bit. Sensitive. Technoblade is very sensitive to being used just as the blade, and it goes vice versa as well. He was genuinely touched when the Syndicate through him a birthday party and Ranboo gave him the new axe to replace his last one. He’s also very intelligent, using a Totem to get out of death and collecting mass amounts of withers ‘just for decoration...for now’.

Ranboo- Ranboo is pretty easy, like c’mon. Enderwalk and Ranboo, the white side and the black side. Easy. BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE. The white side is more commonly as the friendly side (even though enderwalk is just Ranboo with different motivations) and yet the white side has a red eye, a color that literally gets people riled up. It shows that even when Ranboo is not in Enderwalk, he’s not happy-go-lucky. There’s something dangerous with him, and Wilbur picked up on this! He didn’t want to talk to Ranboo, comparing him to ‘the weird neighbor kid’ who ‘had something in his basement’ and was ‘going to put a spatula right through my skull!’. There’s something off about Ranboo even when he’s not Enderwalking, and that’s shown by his red eye and what people like to refer to as tear scars on that side of his face (even though the enderman side would be the one burned by it) But speaking of Enderwalk, the black side has a green eye, Tubbo’s color, and the color that is used as friendship a lot. It shows that, for Ranboo, Enderwalk isn’t some evil being, he isn’t plotting to kill people, he might be meeting with Dream, but so was Techno! And he’s not inherently evil. And Wilbur adores Dream! And Ranboo stated that he wasn’t inherently evil. Enderwalk is just Ranboo with different motivations. He was Enderwalking through the whole Disc War finale, holding his fourth book, but made no move to help Dream-but he made no move to help Tommy and Tubbo. (Enderchest was also in Dream’s possession vault, so Ranboo obviously wasn’t fully trustworthy to Dream) He stared up at Dream as he rose to go to prison, but that was it. And Enderwalk Ranboo was also at the Banquet! He was holding an axe at some point (maybe when the lava came down, I can’t remember) but he never interfered. He was just up on the balcony. Ranboo wouldn’t interfere either, he’d be to scared too, he’s a people pleaser. Techno, Quackity, and Purpled aren’t. Enderwalk isn’t Ranboo in what he does, as Ranboo doesn’t really remember it, but they are the same in their reasonings and how and when they would do something.

Phil- Phil had wings in the first moments when he joined the server, and then protected Wilbur with them and so they were damaged. Phil had a very warped idea of what had gone on before he came through Wilburs lies, and I feel his inhuman-ness spans from that, and the fact the he kept that warped idea and went too far with it. He thought that Wilbur didn’t want L’manburg to exist, because he thought that Wilbur won the election, and so even after he was dead, and after the whole Butcher Army, Phil’s instinct (as well as Techno’s) was to just blow it up, get rid of it, because that was what his son wanted and it would send a message to the people. He said himself, to Jack, that he started blowing up countries when he was forced to kill his own son, but he could have stepped away there, because Wilbur really wasn’t the constant in the situation. Wilbur hadn’t chosen to blow up the country because he didn’t like it anymore, he was going to blow it up because Schlatt ruined it for him, and that Phil didn’t understand. That’s why he’s inhuman, since he chose to kill Wilbur, he wasn’t forced. Phil’s gone against peer pressure and orders before when he saw that they were wrong, and that was also by a relative, Fundy. He loopholed his way out of house arrest, he could have jumped away from Wilbur, or just put him in stone so he wouldn’t die. He’s inhuman because he made choices that were because of events that didn’t exist, because he was living in an alternate world, really.

Wilbur- Wilbur doesn’t have inhuman features. A clear face, no scars, and a beanie. His jacket and morals have rotted in the dark, but he’s still pretty human, though his opinions on Dream and L’manburg change every second. The white streak in his hair is supposed to represent stress, I think, and well, it’s Wilbur. He made a fancy revolutionary outfit and never washed it once, because he was too devoted to L’manburg to let go of it, or anything connected to it, for a single second. Then came Pogtopia, where he ditched everything in favor of clothes that blended in with the cave walls. He insulted the revolutionary outfit, and kept the trench coat until he died. Then, Revivebur had the bandage across his arm because he ran to the train too fast, showing how desperate Wilbur was to get out from death. He’s changed so much, and his changes are real, unlike Dream’s, as Dream has kept the same skin, but Wilbur hasn’t. He’s changed physically, and has gotten more and more torn outfits every time.

Ponk- He has a face mask that hides everything but his eyes, and I feel that shows his way of making sure you never know if he’s joking about something or not. He joked about how much time Sam spent with him, even though Sam hated the egg, and still tried to keep a keycard even after Sam was going to chop of his arm (and did so) for them. He has a chaotic nature to everyone, trying to prank Foolish right now and wearing red contacts only so the Eggpire would leave him alone. He made a Road Trip joke as his toast at the Banquet, and it was totally in character! His mouth being hidden makes it so that he can be joking and you’ll never see it coming.

Schlatt- The-the guy has horns. He’s a goat. Loud, (the EMPEROR of the GREAT NATION) cross eyed, (Schlatt is drunk for his introduction and his death, he is totally cross eyed). I’ve also seen people put him down as a ram, and that reckless ‘they want me to get them president, I’ll be my OWN president!’ and then tearing down the walls, executing Wilbur and Tommy, things that were so surprising and came out of nowhere they just about-they jus-they just rammed into us head on! He’s inhuman because he wants to be powerful (the BIg Man Gym) and wants to use the people around him to show his power, and is so reliant on them that he has no power at all.

Fundy- He’s a fox, and ha been compared as a ‘backbiter’ and ‘foxheart’ many times, and while those are viable ways to go, other parts on his skin, earlier, show some other things. In L’manburg, Fundy was the only person who had a different outfit from the others (at that time) and didn’t get any position in L’manburg at the end of the war, just being called Wilbur’s ‘little champion’. He had a crayon suit, and wasn’t respected by Wilbur at all, and when Schlatt came along and finally seemed to recognize him as someone who was valuable, Fundy shed the revolutionary garb quick, burning and building and leaving Niki quick as well. He might not be constantly switching his skin, like Wilbur, but after L’maburg he never was on aside for long enough to get a uniform other than L’manburg, his regular skin, and the aprons for the Butcher Army. He’s a fox that switches boat, and that makes him inhuman because everyone else is firmly on a side, against sides as a whole, or the thing everyone hates and is on his own side (Which is Dream).

Karl- Karl is very human, as he has a funky sweater and a normal human skin. But that skin changes when he gets back from time travelling, and when he is in the Tales. He’s like a chameleon, his skin fitting the environment in the Tales and the Inbetween, but the important bit is that when he gets back to the present he’s a very bright, multicolored blob. In the Inbetween he has an all white skin, in the Other Side it’s all black, and in the Masquerade specifically he kept to blues and purples, I think, as those were the colors his mask was. Him being a chameleon in the Tales also fits well with how he just fits right into the story, like an added fisherman, or a cameraman, or just another guest-the only ones he doesn’t fit in with are the ones that are closely tied with the real present. The Haunted mansion had Connor and Glatt in it, and Karl really just interrupted their fun. In The City That Went Mad, Karl was the narrator, and The City That Went Mad has been mentioned SO many times, Quackity being a descended from Helga and Ponk being descended from Jack the potato farmer. In the present, Karl stayed with Schlatt through the Pogtopia era after being the judge of the debate, and I have no idea why other than because he didn’t know what to do.

Purpled- Purpled is pretty much implied to be an alien, but for all skin measures he looks perfectly human, ignoring that everything he wears, and his eye color, is purple. I like Purpled, and the fact that he switched sides the same way Punz did, and used almost the same words Punz did, but he’s still so much different and more human? In a way? Than Punz, in how he reacts to being called a hero by Foolish, or joining Pogtopia the second he was going to be killed, since Manburg didn’t line up to his ideals anyways. Purpled isn’t the hero, he’s really just a background character for most of the lore, coming up a couple of times, but he’s not really too important, and he and Quackity know this, Quackity used it against him to try and get him to join Las Nevadas! He tries his best to be a hero and always falls short, not being able to save Foolish, having to join Las Nevadas, and that’s what makes him inhuman, because he’s trying. He tries his best to be the good guy, unlike Tommy, really, right now. Tommy knew breaking into the prison to kill Dream wasn’t the right thing to do, he said it himself! Tommy said he didn’t want to be a hero in response to Techno, but he’s still the protagonist. Purpled is trying, and we’re starting now to see that in full, and see how inhuman he really is because it’s not paying off.

Punz- Punz is like Purpled, until he’s not. He was hired to Manburg to fight for Schlatt and he did! He did fight for Schlatt, and had no qualms with it. He betrayed Dream to help Tommy and Tubbo, and then joined the Egg. He’s not the most human character, despite looking it, and he’s quite inhuman in the fact that he’s never been the hero. He was bribed by Tommy to help give him pearls and blaze rods in the first disc skirmish, and now was bribed to save them from Dream one last time! Punz wouldn’t do that if Tommy hadn’t given him money, he would have stayed neutral, and I feel that shows his inhuman-ness.

I’ll be doing Puffy, Connor, Calahan (maybe), Alyssa (maybe), Antfrost, and others as well as some more analyses soon!

#dsmp #c!karl #c!punz #c!purpled #c!philza #c!ponk #c!schlatt #c!hannah #c!ranboo #c!wilbur #c!techno #c!skeppy #c!badboyhalo #c!jack manifold #c!niki #c!fundy #c!eret #rambles

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9worldstales · 3 years ago

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MCU Loki: Why so far it had been disappointing how the series has dealt with what the TVA had been doing

Right from when the series started I carried on the belief that what the TVA was doing was horrible, a mix between a Nazi regime and a fanatical cult down to the elements of police brutality, to the extermination and persecution of people they felt different and lesser, detrimental for their own self being all out of blind faith to something they were indoctrinated into.

I was expecting a serious analysis of this from the show since Waldron seemed to be so enthusiast of the TVA as it was his creature

“The TVA is just an entirely new world [with] a new cast of characters, and that’s what felt most exciting about the show: building a new corner of the MCU.’ What if this was the best show ever?’ I think that was literally my pitch. My pitch for the show was kind of a big, crazy, fun-time adventure.”

[‘Loki’ Writer Michael Waldron On Building ‘A New Corner Of The MCU’]

References to the TVA being bad needed to wait till Ep. 3 “Lamentis 1” and where just two lines:

Sylvie: So, naturally you went to work for the boring, oppressive time police. [Ep 3]

Sylvie: It must have started when I spent my entire life running from the omniscient fascists you work for. [Ep 3]

More than focusing on how horrid the TVA is, both sentences criticize Loki for cooperating with the TVA even if he was forced into it as he couldn’t escape, cooperating with them was his only way to survive, the implication being he should have taken the hero route and die instead than accept to join forces with the TVA.

Mind you, it could have been an interesting angle to look at. How people can embrace terrible things in order to survive. After all we saw Loki cooperating with Thanos under the promise if he were to fail recovering the Tesseract death would be a preferable option than failure.

THE OTHER: You will have your war, Asgardian. If you fail, if the Tesseract is kept from us, there will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he can't find you. You think you know pain? He will make you long for something as sweet as pain.

The series could have drawn parallels from both situations, either making a point one should never bent or that sometimes you can’t do anything else but bent because not everyone is born as a hero, or because you’re just waiting for a time in which you can oppose as sometimes getting heroically killed for your ideals can be also very unproductive.

But no, it’s not this series.

Loki will maintain he accepted to work with the TVA not because his other option was being killed (something that’s remarked more than once), but because he wanted to get to the Time-Keepers to steal their powers or something like that. If he’s lying to himself to cope with the situation that’s not a problem the series pose to itself as the series seem to embrace this explanation even if it made clear Loki would be reset if he didn’t cooperate.

Episode 3 also introduces the idea that people at the TVA works under a false belief. They think they were created by the Time-Keepers but in truth they are brainwashed Variants they kidnapped from their timelines.

Okay, it was another possible interesting route. Loki was a Frost Giant raised on the idea he was an Asgardian, there could be a parallel here… though one that, for the TVA, was less interesting.

The TVA members are enthusiastic believers. Most of them show no empathy toward the Variants, no pity. They belittle and humiliate them, handle them as beings with no rights, punish them for not obeying rules they didn’t know existed in the first place. Feelings rage from enjoying doing it to just doing it the way a boot steps over a ant to use a familiar metaphor.

The fact that in episode 4 B-15, after discovering the truth, will go: ‘I looked happy (in my previous life)!’ doesn’t really make me feel very sorry for her on an intellectual plan.

Yes, what the TVA did to B-15 was wrong, but what about what she did to others without a single remorse? Enjoying her work?

But, whatever, not everyone on the TVA seemed to belittle Variants, in ep 1 & 2 Mobius showed some form of pity for them, not enough it’ll stop him but enough we can think he didn’t enjoy what was being done to the Variants so knowing how he’ll react could be interesting, couldn’t it?

We reach Ep. 4 “Nexus Event”.

While we see the TVA did to a child version of Sylvie what they did to Loki and this time there isn’t any ounce of doubt that it wasn’t fun, this isn’t really used to throw shades at the TVA but to underline how Sylvie’s life was miserable.

Sylvie: I remember Asgard. Not much, but I remember. My home, my people, my life. The universe wants to break free, so it manifests chaos. Like me being born the Goddess of Mischief. And as soon as that created a big enough detour from the Sacred Timeline, the TVA showed up, erased my reality, and took me prisoner. I was just a child. I escaped. Stole a TemPad and I ran for a long, long time, which really sucked. Everywhere and every-when I went, it caused a nexus event. Sent up a smoke flare. Because I'm not supposed to exist. Until, eventually, I figured out where to hide. And so that's where I grew up, the ends of a thousand worlds. ( /Scoffs/ ) Now... that's where I'll die.

Thanks to the TVA, so it’s possible to make the connection that if Sylvie was in pain due to the TVA the TVA is a bad guy, but it’s again left vague.

In an episode that feel the need to have Loki define himself as a ‘horrible person’ and a ‘narcissist’, that calls him ‘an asshole and a bad friend’ using ‘a cockroach's survival mechanism’ when he actually says the truth and how he is a ‘conniving, craven, pathetic worm’ who should know he ‘deserve to be alone and always will be’ let’s not talk about how terrible the TVA is.

After all, according to the previous episode they’re just ‘boring, oppressive, omniscient fascists’. Nothing big.

And it’s nothing big, really.

C-20, B-15 and even Mobius, once discovering the truth are solely concerned about how the TVA lied to them, not of how they had been the TVA accomplices into wiping countless lives from existence.

Hunter B-15: I looked happy. What now?

Hunter C-20: "Calm down"? I'm a Variant. So are you. So is every single person in this place. I'm ending this.

Mobius: You know where I'd go if I could go anywhere? Wherever it is I'm really from. Yeah, wherever I had a life before the TVA came along. Maybe I had a jet ski. That's what I'd like to do. Just riding around on my jet ski.

They don’t care about what they had done with the TVA, they are okay with burning the place merely because the TVA has wronged them. But okay, maybe they need time to elaborate, to realize the implication of what they’ve done.

For C-20, who was reset, there’s no more time but…

Hunter B-15: Why am I locked in here?

Renslayer: You freed the Variant. You were disloyal to the TVA.

Hunter B-15: Disloyal?

Renslayer: Did you think you'd escape punishment for that?

Hunter B-15: Disloyal to who? You were in the Time-Keepers' chambers. They weren't real.

Renslayer: And why does that change anything?

Hunter B-15: That changes everything! The people need to know the truth.

Actually what the people need prior to that is to stop. Stop pruning other existences who’re exactly the same as their own. The biggest problem, the biggest CRIME isn’t that the TVA has done TO THEM, as, in doing so, it has at least spared their lives, it’s that they had killed countless galaxies and continue doing so.

So we move to Mobius.

I… I really don’t get what the series wants to do with Mobius. Although he wasn’t perfect, he seemed a decent guy in episode 1 & 2, one that wouldn’t enjoy hurting or scaring Variants without a reason. Yes he believed they needed to be eliminated… but didn’t enjoy doing it.

Yes, the way he ‘interrogated’ Loki in episode 1 was bad… but he believed he was doing only his work, that interrogation might have a point, some of the things he said weren’t meant to be just verbally abusive for the sake of it but were part of his ‘credo’ in which people had to follow the path of the sacred timeline and a side of him might have felt sympathy or pity for him. Although he knew it was risky he wanted to have faith in Loki.

Episode 4 tossed all that away with the worst interrogation scene possible. It contained gratuitous beating, psychological abuse/manipulation, derogatory comments, pointless questions while Mobius defined himself as Loki’s friend in the same episode. That scene has no purpose if not to beat and belittle Loki. What’s worse, when Mobius discovers the truth and goes to Loki, instead than asking him how he feels after such a beating he asks him what he’s doing… and I won’t dig into the rest of the conversation because it’s horrid.

Mobius’ ideas of apology for what he has done to his supposed friend is:

Mobius: You were right, about the TVA. You were right from the beginning. And if you wanna save her, you need to trust me. Can we do that?

Loki: Yes.

Mobius: Okay. You could be whoever, whatever you wanna be, even someone good. I mean, just in case anyone ever told you different.

It was Mobius who told him differently. Okay, he has acknowledged Loki was right and he was wrong but not that he had unfairly had him beaten for God knows how long for no reason. But okay, maybe Mobius too needed time to internalize all that, so let’s look at episode 5.

Let’s face it, no, what Mobius did to Loki won’t come up again with Loki, Sylvie will merely tell Loki (and to us) Mobius ‘isn't so bad’ and that he cares about Loki. Loki will counter Mobius isn’t so good either but that’s why he gets along with him.

I… I’m not sure what the series is trying to do at this point with Mobius, all we get about what he did with the Variants in Episode 5 is this.

Mobius: All that time, I really believed we were the good guys.

Sylvie: Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls, classic hero stuff.

Mobius: Well, I guess when you think the ends justify the means, there's not much you won't do. By the way, you did some annihilating too.

Sylvie: I did what I had to do.

Mobius: Yeah, so did I.

Sylvie: You hunted me like a dog.

Mobius: I'm sorry about that.

Mobius admits they weren’t the good guys, which would be great if it wasn’t for the fact the moment Sylvie points out how he was dumb at not realizing it sooner because we finally are told that the TVA is responsible for ‘Annihilating entire realities, orphaning little girls’, Mobius defends his actions!

The ends justify the means, you did some annihilating too, I did what I had to do.

Hey, news flash, no, those aren’t excuses. This is not a game about who annihilated more make penitence and anyway, if this was the case, the TVA wins. You killed countless people and now you’re complaining you aren’t a hero? That others are bad too? That you were forced to do it when you were a willing believer that refused to question things even though Loki immediately pointed out how it all was dumb?

Mobius: Odin, God of the Heavens. Asgard, mystical realm, beyond the stars. Frost Giants. Listen to yourself...

Loki: It's not the same. It's completely different. No. It's not the same.

Mobius: It's exactly the same thing. Because if you think too hard about where any of us came from, who we truly are, it sounds kinda ridiculous. Existence is chaos. Nothing makes any sense, so we try to make some sense of it. And I'm just lucky that the chaos I emerged into gave me all this... My own glorious purpose. Cause the TVA is my life. And it's real because I believe it's real.

It took Sylvie remarking he hunted her like a animal to finally get him to apologize on something… and she’s the only one he apologizes to.

We don’t hear him apologizing to the other Loki Variants and this is his new glorious purpose:

Kid Loki: Mobius, assuming you do get back to the TVA, what exactly are you getting yourself into?

Mobius: I don't know. I'd like to let people know the truth.

Again it seems the biggest deal is the TVA lied to them and took them away from their lives, not that they pruned countless others without a care.

There’s no self reflection, there’s no horror for what they had done to the other Variants who were just like them.

When Kid Loki and Classic Loki say they’ll remain there because that’s their home he doesn’t counter ‘no, this isn’t and I’m sorry we let you believe this.’ It’s Loki who worries for them, pointing out the dangers of the place. Mobius, who’s either directly responsible or connected to the one responsible for them ending there and losing their whole world, says nothing.

So his sympathy toward the Variants, his pity… was it all fake?

Doesn’t he care anymore? This is the road the story decided to go with him?

Since Mobius has gained popularity into the fandom thanks to the first 2 episodes, to Owen Wilson and to those who shipped him with Loki, let’s strip him of what really made him great, the fact he didn’t enjoy mistreating the Variants and turns him into someone who doesn’t care?

What next, is he going to become the new villain?

Damn it, this series started with a full episode questioning what Loki did in New York, pointing out how Loki’s belief ‘he would make it easy for humans’ because ‘freedom is a lie’ is an idiocy, how he was just a murderer and asking him if he enjoyed hurting people and making him say that no, he didn’t that he was bad, that he was a narcissist and yadda, yadda, yadda, then it turns out Mobius annihilated entire realities, orphaning little girls, all because freedom is a lie and we’ve all to do what the Time-Keepers decided and let’s have the guy you call friend beaten up at random for no good reason and… and that’s what we get?

That he rebels to the Time-Keepers because they had dared to lie TO HIM about not having created him?

Is the series trying to make a point about how people at the TVA can accuse Loki of not being good but they’re actually worse because they did much worse and didn’t care at all about their victims?

Is it a critic to society, that find easy to criticize someone but can’t admit they do worse? Won’t even see they’re doing worse and would resent instead for any little slight done to them?

It would be an interesting theme… the problem is it doesn’t seem to be the goal of the series as it tends to overlook the TVA, its fascist behaviour and the annihilation of civilizations at the hands of willing, albeit indoctrinated members, to focus more on how the TVA wronged solely Sylvie (her complain about her being orphaned is more about HER being orphaned than about HER PARENTS having been killed) and the TVA members.

It’s fair to see the TVA members as victims… they are… but what about the other Variants who got erased? What about how the TVA members had been complicit in said elimination, enjoying it, gratuitously mistreating and belittling Variants before eliminating them?

Is it just up to us viewers realize it because the story isn’t going to do the work for us?

I don’t know. I hope the last episode will do something to fix this.

There’s still an episode after all and maybe I’m worrying over nothing, maybe someone, Mobius preferably because I want to go back considering him a decent guy, not perfect because nobody is perfect but decent, and I don’t like what episode 4 has done with him, will regret what was done to way too many people by the ones who were working at the TVA.

I’ll be fine if they still need to internalize what they had done... but I’d like for them to be done internalizing before the series ends because otherwise it’s just skipping over the whole topic.

So... I’ll try to keep hopeful. Maybe they won’t disappoint me.

#mcu loki #mobius m mobius #hunter b 15 #hunter c 20 #loki #loki laufeyson #sylvie #time variance authority #9 worlds study

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themonkeycabal · 4 years ago

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Wandavision Ep 6 Spoilers

No really, spoilers.

Previously on Wandavision — Wanda told SWORD to shove their drones right straight up their asses, Vision woke up to the reality that his utopian sitcom life was in fact a dystopian hellscape, their children were extremely creepy, and Agnes was being bizarre as hell and super sus. In the real world, Acting Director Dick was a dick, and Darcy and Jimmy welcomed Monica into their sciencey weird-crime-fighting team. Monica also mentioned an aerospace engineer she knows, which some suggest may be the first mention of Reed Richards in the MCU. I have conflicted feelings about the Fantastic Four. Mostly I never liked them. But, I'm open to revising my opinion.

Oh, and also X-Men 'Verse Pietro showed up suddenly and that was fun.

Anyway. the roommate and I tried to sort out a timeline — so Monica unBlips and goes back to work at SWORD three weeks later. AD Dick tells us Wanda stole Vision's body nine days previously. That means, just three weeks ago Wanda was in the middle of a battle, lost her boyfriend, was Snapped, was then unsnapped to fall right into the middle of another battle. Lost THREE additional teammates. And then sometime in the following week found out a shady government agency had Vision's body and she probably went "OH HELL NO". Because that's what I would say. So she goes to SWORD, dents a few doors, takes Vision's body and swans off to New Jersey. Look, she's been through a hell of a lot in the last couple weeks, is what I'm saying. I don't blame her a tiny bit. But, also, I don't think she's entirely behind this.

10-year old boy plus video camera = the 90s. Obnoxious opening credits. But, you know, I kind of liked them (as a one off). WAYYY better than last week's.

It's Halloween, and *sigh* Billy is breaking the fourth wall and narrating to the camera. There's childish twin bickering as you expect, Tommy's the wild and crazy twin, and Billy's the buttoned up twin. And Pietro is passed out on the couch at 4 in the afternoon. Living his best life. He teasingly scares the boys, chases them around, and there's awkward child acting.

Wanda comes down the stairs in the classic Scarlet Witch costume, and says she's a Sokovian Fortune Teller. Sokovia was more wild than I realized.

Genuinely funny flashback to Wanda and Pietro trick-or-treating in Sokovia as kids, 'the year we got typhus'. lol. Was it the fish that gave them typhus? Or was that just a special treat? Wanda doubts this version of events, and Pietro suggests she suppressed the memory due to the trauma. This gives Billy the chance to tell the camera that mom's been weird since uncle Pietro turned up to crash on their couch.

Next it's Vision's turn to appear in the classic Vision costume. Yikes. Wanda thanks him for humoring her, and he says there were no other clothes in his closet and they have a very weird second where he's not playing along and she's not sure what to do, and then he breaks into sitcom character says something about "just kidding, i know how much you love mexican wrestling" like it's a luchador costume, and then there's some super weird flirting. TMI you two.

Meanwhile, Pietro is a large child and the kids love him, of course. So there's that.

Back to Wanda and Vision, she's ready to take the kids out trick-or-treating, but Vision says he can't go, he's on the neighborhood watch and must patrol the streets ever-vigilant for wild gangs of child hooligans who might TP trees. He's gone off-script and it takes Wanda a second to figure out how to play this. She says it's the boys' first Halloween so he has to be there. Pietro breaks up the almost argument and says he can be a father figure-type and he'll help with the boys. Vision's still pretty off-script but Wanda doesn't fight it but looks uncertain, and he goes off to protect the night — or early afternoon.

Pietro is a child hooligan and wants to go do hooligany things with the kids. Wanda says he doesn't have a costume and he grabs Billy and they speed off only to return dressed in classic Quicksilver duds. Well, cheap-looking, thrown together Quicksilver duds. I laughed. The hair. lol. Good one.

Outside in the real world. The Hex field is still kind of glowing red and making bad force field noises. It only started doing that when Wanda got pissed in the last ep. Oh, goody, it's Acting Director Dick. I've learned his name is Hayward. I don't care.

Blah blah Stompy Mc-I'm-In-Charge blah. Monica is not pleased about the whole trying to kill Wanda with a missile while she was talking to her plan. AD Dick just says "now we know who we're dealing with". Um … what? You tried to kill her and her response was to tell you to go away. Yeah, boy, she's a monster.

Darcy is there to helpfully remind AD Dick that Wanda made him look like the fool he is. ILU girl. "Hey, there he is; the guy who almost got murdered by his own murder squad." Jimmy just makes a 'i'm so disappointed in you and your choices' face at him in the background.

I despise characters like Hayward. They are so tedious. Narratively they are there to incite conflict, but given the situation conflict naturally exists, surely there are other ways to bring up/drive that tension without the trope of the government heavy ready to solve the problem with the most extreme amount of force available to him. OH no! Our plucky heroes will have to find a way to save the day and fight the Man! Can they do it? Boring. It's too bad General Talbot went insane and then died; he could probably give tips on How Not To Be That Guy.

Anyway

Hayward wants to know if Darcy works for him and she's like "dunno my dude", Monica claims her, AD Dick says "which one of you is the sassy best friend" and Jimmy's like, that is quite enough Acting Director Not Very Nice Man. "There's no time to diminish your colleagues when you're about to start a war you can't win." AD Dick just wants to take out Wanda so the whole nightmare ends. Monica's like um, we literally do not know what's going on. Like, for real we have no clue. So that might not, in fact, end the nightmare, Director Murder Britches.

They argue a lot and Director Dick goes off the rails. Dude's like more unhinged than seems warranted. Unless he's just so embarrassed that he pissed himself when Wanda returned his murder drone to him, he's decided SHE MUST BE DESTROYED FOR THE GOOD OF … NEW JERSEY AND MY SOILED UNDERWEAR OR SOMETHING.

"Captain Rambeau, you are an impediment to this mission!" Oh no! He's gonna tell her all about how hard it was to survive in a post-blip world, all those lucky blipped don't know what it was like! You just can't understand! Monica tells him not to use that as an excuse to be a coward. I'm so bored with this scene. Let me guess, the trio will have to go behind his back to save the day.

"Maybe it's a good thing you weren't here with your mother died. Because, clearly you don't have the stomach for this job." … non-sequitur much? Or is he saying she would have inherited the Director-ship (which should probably not be how that sort of agency works, let's be real). Is this scene five hours long, or does it just feel that way?

The Dick banishes the trio from his base.

"Hayward is way over-stepping his provisional authority". Jimmy Woo, you're so great. Monica says he's up to something. Yeah a tactical nuke and murder. Clearly he doesn't want to actually solve the problem, he just wants the problem to go away with a big show of macho explosions and whatnot. I suspect he might be in over his head, like he was not meant to be Acting Director, let alone Director. Also, he's a boring cliche stereotype and I loathe it.

JIMMY! I legit did not see that coming. He just pure hauls off and clocks one of the soldiers escorting them off the base, to a transport truck or something. Monica seems just as surprised for a second but then she's like "hell yeah!" and jumps in. Darcy sort of stands back and watches. lol. "Why didn't anyone tell me the plan?"

Oh look, it's my shipping container! They put the soldiers in there. Guys, it was for Hayward. Come on.

The trio disguise themselves with ponchos, which is a big step up from the usual MCU disguise of "baseball hat". That was a good bit in Ant-man and the Wasp "it's not a disguise, it just looks like us at a baseball game" (I watched that like last week. I missed Luis). Anyway …

Back in the sitcom world. The kids are ready for their early afternoon trick-or-treating. They're still talking to the camera. It's so awkward. I'm not a fan. I get it's meant to reproduce the very 90s Nick-era sitcoms and so, you know, it's spot on. Still, though.

Pietro is encouraging and supportive. "Unleash hell, demon spawn!"

Dang there are a lot of kids in that neighborhood. Wasn't Vision wondering last episode why there weren't any kids? Is the program correcting itself?

Wanda tries to test Pietro, asking him about some kid at an orphanage when they were kids. Pietro calls her on it, and says he knows he looks different. Wanda wants to know why that is. He says, "You tell me. I mean, if I found shangra-la, I wouldn't want to be reminded of the past, either." Hmm.

The kids speed off with uncle Pietro. Wanda wanders over to talk to neighbor Herb, who has a g-man earbud in and is clearly part of the neighborhood watch. In the background Pietro is stealing all the candy and smashing pumpkins and spraying the place with silly string. The hijinks are so wacky. Wanda tells Herb maybe Vision can help out with the chaos, and Herb says Vision isn't on duty. Oh no, he lied to her!

Herb goes weird "is there something I can do for you, Wanda? Do you want something changed?" Hmmm.

Elsewhere Vision is wandering the wild streets of Westview. He finds people caught in some type of weird decorating loop, the woman seems trapped but aware.

Commercial time! What the fuck was that. "Yo-magic! The snack for survivors." No, really, what the fuck.

Night has fallen, the twins and the twins walk the streets. Wanda's making the boys give back all the candy they stole. She says Pietro is a bad influence. He says "I'm just trying to do my part, kay? Come to town unexpectedly, create tension with the brother-in-law, stir up trouble with the rugrats, and ultimately give you grief. I mean, that's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"What happened to your accent?"

"What happened to yours? Details are fuzzy, man. I got shot like a chump in the street for no reason." AHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA! no really AHAHAHAHAAH! Thank you, Pietro! Holy shit, perfect. That's some delicious shade. I expect to see this gif'd fifteen different ways when I load tumblr today.

"Next thing I know, I heard you calling me. I knew you needed me."

The kids interrupt. And now all of a sudden Tommy can zoom. Character development!

Everyone is so careful to give Wanda what she wants. Why? She's not cruel. Who wants to keep her pacified? And whoever it is cannot possibly be pleased with AD Dick messing things up. Assuming it's an outside or outside-ish force/entity, of course. I mean, I don't think she's doing this entirely, she might be the battery powering it, but despite her thing last episode to get SWORD to leave her alone, she does seem a little confused about the where, why, and how things are going.

"Don't go past Ellis Avenue." Just a kid thing or a boundary of the sitcom control world?

In the real world, our heroes are sneaking through a tent city and into the server room. The scene with Pietro and Wanda discussing his accent is playing in the background. Darcy seems put-out that Pietro was recast. lol. "He brought the wrong face."

Darcy hacks into Hayward's devices. "Hayward figured out a way to look through the boundary." "And he didn't share it with the group." I don't like Hayward.

Something is blipping on the map on the computer. Jimmy asks if it's Wanda, but Darcy says "it's tracking the decay signature of vibranium". So Vision. Monica wants to know why Hayward is tracking Vision. Well, I'd super like to know what SWORD was doing with Vision in the first place, because they weren't just storing him, they were doing something. So …

Jimmy notices that there are other dots, the ones closest to Vision, who are other residents. Jimmy says the ones near the edge of town are barely moving.

Back to Vision. He's found a cul-de-sac to patrol. Everybody's frozen in place, the street lights flicker. Eerie. They're all dressed for Halloween. Does this mean the field is shrinking, or the effects spreading and so it's closing in, slowing and then freezing people who were earlier moving about just fine? Vision is unaffected by this whatever it is. He turns himself into himself and flies off, up above the town. part of the town is dark, and part alive with voices and laughter.

He spots a car at the edge of town. It's Agnes. She seems frozen-ish, but when he asks what she's doing there, she says "Town Square Scare. Where is it?" all robotic like. Vision helpfully tries to give directions. lol. "Took a wrong turn, got lost" she says.

Vision touches her head and she wakes up. "You! You're one of the Avengers. You're Vision. Are you here to help us?" "I am Vision. I do want to help. But, what's an Avenger?"

Hmm. Well, I guess he did say last week that he couldn't remember anything before Westview.

"Am I dead?" she asks. "No, why would you think that?" "Because you are."

What was news coverage after the Snap like, do you suppose? I mean, ridiculous, of course. But, like, I think they had bigger problems then wondering about snapped/dead Avengers, didn't they? Well, maybe not. "WHERE ARE AVENGERS TO HELP US?" or "HOW DARE THE AVENGERS NOT HELP US!" "TOTALLY THIS IS ON THE AVENGERS!" "WE'D ALL BE DEAD WITHOUT THE AVENGERS!" "NUHUH! BOO AVENGERS!" "EXCEPT VISION WHO DIED HEROICALLY, WE ALL LIKE THAT AVENGER!" "TONY STARK AND PEPPER POTTS SHARE THE DECORATING TIPS THAT TRANSFORMED THEIR RUSTIC RESTORATION PROJECT INTO A CHARMING FAMILY HOME".

Agnes starts screaming "Dead" at Vision. She's not coping well. Vision says he's going to try and reach outside town and try to figure this all out. "How? No one leaves. Wanda won't even let us think about it." I SUSPECT YOU, AGNES! Why would Wanda keep everybody trapped and miserable? I could see if she did it on accident, but this implies she's purposefully hurting people. I don't buy it. Agnes, again, seems to be in the right place at the right time to make Vision doubt Wanda. You're a very suspicious character, Agnes.

She starts to laugh. "All is lost." Vision touches her had and she resets to sitcom Agnes. Somehow she can move again, she turns the car around on Ellis Ave and heads back into town. So, that answers that.

Vision walks across the Eillis Ave to the field beyond.

Meanwhile, Darcy continues to hack. Monica gets a text and says "that's it! My way back into the Hex will be here in an hour." Jimmy's all ready to boost a ride to take her to meet her aerospace buddy. But, Darcy says, nope. Can't do it. Monica's been through the Hex twice, and it's rewritten her cells. "It's changing you." Monica is undaunted. "I know what Wanda's feeling and I won't stop until I help her." Alrighty then.

Jimmy's finally going to get to hotwire a car! But wait, Darcy's not going with them. AD Dick has something hidden behind one last firewall. Darcy thinks it's big and can help them. She's going to find it.

I don't think Jimmy had to hotwire that humvee. It just started right up. Motorpool, pfft - they always leave the keys.

Back in Westview. Halloween continues at Town Square. Pietro asks Wanda where she was hiding all those kids. Whu? Says Wanda. "I assume they were all just sleeping peacefully in their beds. No need to traumatize beyond the occasional holiday cameo, amiright?" What is Pietro. "Hey don't get me wrong, you've handled the ethical considerations of this scenario as best you could. Families and couples stay together. Most personalities aren't far from what's underneath. People got better jobs. Better haircuts for sure."

"You don't think it's wrong?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm impressed. It's a pretty big leap from giving people nightmares and shooting red wigglywoos out your hands." No, really, what is Pietro? "How'd you even do all this?" Hmmm.

"I don't know how I did it. I only remember feeling completely alone. Empty. Just endless nothingness." She looks back at Pietro and for a second he's dead Pietro. Poor Wanda.

Darcy continues to hack Hayward's systems. Cataract classified weapons something something. They're still tracking Vision. Who continues his walk across the field and comes to the hex. He tries to push through it. Looks painful. SWORD rolls out to go overreact at him. He makes it through the barrier, kind of. It's a struggle.

Hayward standing there looking like a jackass "he really does want out, doesn't he?" Like he’s just amused by this turn of events, or watching a lab rat try to get out of the lab.

Darcy's standing behind watching all of this. Bits of Vision sort of fly off and back into the Hex. Darcy says "oh no!" and runs towards him, screaming for them to help him. Way to give away your sneaky hiding, girlfriend.

In Westview. Billy looks up, he can hear what's going on outside. "I hear daddy in my head. He's in trouble."

Vision calls for help, while SWORD prioritizes arresting Darcy. Phil Coulson would never have behaved like this. Boo to SWORD. Vision is dissolving. It's kind of gross and sad.

Wanda asks where Vision is, and Pietro interrupts "Don't sweat it, sis. It's not like your dead husband can die twice." Wanda wallops him with some red wigglywoos.

Billy sees soldiers and thinks Vision is dying. Wanda stops everything and makes a big red boom. The Hex appears to be expanding. Whoops, now you've done it AD Dick. He runs away like the brave brave guy he is. They leave Darcy handcuffed to a jeep. "Are you serious right now?"

The Hex overtakes Vision and then Darcy. Trapped soldiers become clowns, and we're in the circus. Well, SWORD seems like a circus, so Wanda's not wrong. I'm pretty sure Jimmy and Monica made it, but sadly the bravest Director who ever braved also escaped. He deserved to be a circus clown. Better luck next week, Wanda.

Credits.

Well, I just don't know anymore.

Hayward doesn't care about Wanda, except where I think because of this someone will figure out what he was doing to Vision's body. And Vision is ultimately the thing he cares about in all this. I hope Wanda drops a house on him.

Hmmm.

Quit suggesting I watch Age of Ultron next, Disney. It’s not happening.

#wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision liveblog

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