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homuraakemis · 2 months ago

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Why Vi matters

I understand some of the criticism towards season 2's writing of Vi's character. I don't agree at all with people who say Vi's character was ruined: I think she was very in-character, her development made sense, and I liked her ending, how she ended up finally choosing her own happiness after so many years of sacrificing herself for others and how she ended in a happier place where she is loved and can finally heal. But I do think Vi was sidelined in season 2, mostly in the final act and in the final fight (Vi has a smaller role in the final fight than everyone else, which, as a Vi stan, I find disappointing).

However, as someone who deeply loves Vi's character, I don't like being negative about her (because it's honestly draining and I want to be happy about my favorite character). So I like to tell myself all of the ways in which Vi was still important, both to Piltover and Zaun, and to the narrative. Not only that, but it really annoys me when I see people criticize season 2 by saying that "Vi didn't matter at all, you could remove her from the story and nothing would change". That's not true. Vi did matter, and a lot. So here's why I think Vi was important to the story, both in season 1 and season 2:

1) Vi is deeply empathetic and cares about the wellbeing of Zaun and Piltover both, and fought and contributed to the two cities:

Vi opened Caitlyn's eyes towards the Undercity and the corruption of the enforcers, so that Caitlyn could use her money and power for good (as Caitlyn herself says to the Council, "she risked everything to show me what life was really like down there");

Vi saved Caitlyn's and Jayce's lives during the memorial attack. Both Caitlyn and Jayce played crucial roles in the final battle, so without Vi, they would have lost the fight against Ambessa and Viktor;

She convinced Caitlyn to find an alternative solution to a full scale invasion of Zaun ("You need to find a way to call off the invasion"), in order to minimize casualties;

She helped stop Shimmer and the chem-barons;

Vi will probably spend her life trying to reform the enforcers with Caitlyn and protect the two cities.

2) Vi's contribution in the final fight was not meaningless:

It might not feel glorious, but defending that cannon that was shooting the crates at Ambessa's army and ships was important, it enabled their army to continue holding off Ambessa's forces and ships for as long as they could;

Someone already pointed out in another post (here's the link to the post) that the reason Ekko was free from Viktor's mind control and was able to defeat him with his Z-drive in the end is because Jinx used her shimmer speed to dodge the mind control tendril that was meant for her, and ended up being caught by the one that was meant for Ekko. This is why Ekko ended up free from Viktor's control. But the only reason Jinx was free to be able to dodge that tendril is because Vi protected her from Warwick multiple times during that fight. When Jinx was on the balloon being chased by Warwick, Vi saves her by punching Warwick:

And when they are in zero gravity and Warwick grabs Jinx, Vi once again saves her:

Without Vi, Jinx wouldn't be free to dodge that tendril, Ekko would have been caught, they would have lost that fight and Viktor would have enslaved them all.

Finally, Jinx was only free to help in that fight and dodge that tendril in the first place because Vi believed in her, believed that she changed for the good, and freed her. Without Vi, they would have lost the fight.

3) Vi's importance in the narrative:

When you think about it, Vi drives a huge part of the narrative (as a Vi stan, I am biased, I know, but I would even argue that she is THE main character of the show, in terms of her impact on the narrative and on other characters). She is central to both Caitlyn and Jinx's characters. For Jinx, Vi is the long lost sister that Jinx wants back, but also resents and feels afraid of being rejected. Many of Jinx's decisions that completely change the story between the two cities happen because of her conflicted feelings towards Vi. She bombs the bridge because she thinks Vi is abandoning her again. She bombs the council out of anger after feeling that Vi had "rejected" her. For Caitlyn, Vi is the one who opens her eyes about the Undercity and about the corruption of the enforcers.

Vi is central to the whole conflict between Jinx and Caitlyn. She is the cause of the hatred between them, but she is also the reason they let go of their hatred/rivalry towards each other, as they work together to save Vi. Vi's love and her good heart helps save both Jinx and Caitlyn from their dark paths:

For the entirety of season 1, Vi's love and determination to get back to her sister and save her is what puts in motion several events (Jinx's bombings, Vi and Caitlyn's plea to the council, and later her raid of the shimmer factory). In season 2, Vi's love makes it so that as soon as she sees some humanity in Jinx, sees Jinx showing empathy towards Isha, she is quick to believe that her sister has changed. If Vi was anyone else, she would not have forgiven Jinx so easily for all Jinx did. But Vi is incredibly forgiving and constantly believes the best in Jinx even when everyone else believes Jinx is a lost cause. And Jinx finally realizes this after she sees Vi's sacrifice for her in the commune, realizing that Vi always loved her and is never going to give up on her. And while at the moment, Jinx doesn't really feel worthy of Vi's dedication, ultimately, it's the fact that Vi never gave up on her, that Vi believed that Jinx could "use her explosive potential for good", that helps save everyone when Jinx does come to help in the final fight.

Vi was the initial catalyst in season 1 for Caitlyn to leave her naive views behind and see more of the plight of the Undercity and the corruption of the enforcers. And in season 2, while Caitlyn was never on board with Ambessa's violence and already distrusted Ambessa, Vi was the final push that she needed to finally act against Ambessa. Vi's love and lack of hatred/resentment is central here: during their reunion, if Vi was a different person, she could have clung to hatred and resentment towards Caitlyn because of what happened between them when they last saw each other. But Vi is not that kind of person. She is deeply empathetic and forgiving. She can understand why Caitlyn acted the way she did, and she forgives her. She doesn't hold resentment or hatred. So when they reunite, Vi instantly shows that she doesn't hate Caitlyn by calling her cupcake, opens her heart to Caitlyn about her father, and supports and trusts Caitlyn when executing their plan against Ambessa (yes, she has Jinx there to make sure Caitlyn follows through, but agreeing to be tied up and handed to Ambessa still involved a lot of trust on Vi's part. She might not have fully trusted Caitlyn, but she gave her the benefit of the doubt). Considering that Caitlyn has been manipulated for months and is feeling completely isolated, Vi's trust and forgiveness are huge things for Caitlyn. She realizes that she is not alone, that not all is lost and that she can still make up for her mistakes, that she has someone that will support her if she goes against Ambessa. Vi gives Caitlyn the support and forgiveness that she needed to finally be able to get out of the mess she was in.

So that's why I think Vi's role in the story is vital and central. Her love, her good heart, her lack of hatred and resentment, and her determination to protect her loved ones and her community are all important to set plenty of things in motion in this story, and are vital to saving Caitlyn, Jinx and the world.

(By the way, I'm not really interested in arguing about whether all that I pointed out was well explored by the writing of the show or not. I made this post to feel positive about my fave, so please don't reblog to argue about the writing of the show. I will probably agree with you if you say criticize certain things about the writing, but I don't really want to argue about it in this post, I just want to focus on the positive)

#arcane #arcane meta #vi arcane #caitlyn kiramman #caitvi #jinx #vi #my meta #my post.

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taniahylian · 3 months ago

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Tristes tropiques: The worst chapter in Reverse 1999

Alright, so I’ve wanted to talk about ch8 of the main story since I’ve finished it because it’s, imo, the worst drop in writing quality we’ve seen in the game so far. It has a lot of inconsistencies, things that aren’t explained or happen off-screen, and the emotional segments are rushed/not impactful enough, and about characters we’ve barely seen (excluding Anjo Nala, who is the best part of the chapter imo). Now, as you can see, this will be quite a negative take, so if you liked this chapter, please don’t let me ruin your fun lol. Also, it’ll have spoilers, so be warned.

Part 1: The representation.

Alright, had to get this out of the way first because it’s what everyone is talking about. The representation.

Is the representation bad? Yes. Really, really bad if we compare it with literally all other stories in the game. To put things in perspective, imagine if in the Notes of Shuori event nothing changed but they clamed this was Japan instead of China, yet characters still spoke in Chinese, had Chinese names, and many of the references were Chinese. That would have been outrageous, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s basically what happened here but with Brazil and other Latin American countries.

What they tried to do, basically, was dump all of Latin America (you, know a region that’s bigger and more diverse than Europe) into one singular “culture” and put this in fictional Sao Paulo. Why do I say that? Because many of the words they use for different things are in Spanish, and many characters speak in Spanish, have Spanish-sounding names, and reference things from other countries in Latin America. Also, one of the npcs, whose name I don’t care to remember, is literally a walking Mexican stereotype. To me what this says is that they didn’t do any research at all about Brazil (for those of you who don’t know, they speak Portuguese and are also far enough away from Mexico that these two cultures aren’t really comparable); enough that they couldn’t get even the language right, or even the geography or the Sao Paulo landscape, judging by what I’ve seen being said by Brazilian players.

Remember when they accurately portrayed the Secession building in Vienna? Or Jantar Mantar in Mor Pank? Or how they usually have characters speak small phrases in their native language, which is appropriate to the region and their character? Well, Bluepoch doesn’t, apparently.

Then there’s the whole “life here is hell, this is hopeless and everything here sucks” aspect of their portrayal of Sao Paulo (and their infamous tweet). This feels especially disrespectful when the story so far has always had quite a good amount of nuance. Vienna for example, having the contrast of being the “city of freedom”, yet having such a strict oppression of arcanists. Or San Francisco, having such a huge poverty and gang problem, yet still portraying the people living in these conditions as actual humans with hopes and dreams that they sometimes were able to accomplish.

And finally, to wrap up this representation thing… it feels disrespectful that the only Brazilian character we get is Mr. Duncan. Mainly because it seems he’s not really Mr. Duncan, but actually Mr. Karson. You know, an English man. I think they should’ve made Lopera Brazilian because so far having her be from Colombia adds nothing to the story, and if she was from Sao Paulo it’d make a lot more sense for her to be Vertin’s guide/translator in the city.

Okay, so that’s what we get from the representation in this chapter, which is pretty bad (haven’t read Anjo’s character story, which I’ve heard is better in this aspect, but that’s not actually part of ch8, so I excluded it). However, honestly I wouldn’t mind that much if the story had at least been good. So… let’s talk about that next, shall we?

Part 2: The story.

The good.

Okay, first let’s get the good things out of the way, because I don’t want to sit here and pretend that everything about this chapter was bad; that would be unfair and disingenuous.

I liked Lopera and Molly. They were interesting characters and have a lot of potential for the future of the story, which I really hope they deliver in future chapters.

I liked White Rum; she’s a funny character, and the concept of an Awakened pirate ship that has the skeletal hand of her former captain (Anne Bonnie, my favorite pirate of all time) is quite an interesting and unique idea, and I wish we got more characters like this. Also, I need to see her interact with Regulus lol.

I absolutely adored Anjo Nala. She’s the highlight of the story for me; an interesting, complex, and adorable character with a lot of potential for stories to tell, both about her past and her future. I really became attached to her over the course of this story, and I think they did a good job making you care for her… in this specific chapter. Don’t look back at versions 2.0 and 2.1 if you don’t want to get your fun ruined, because consistency is something they didn’t care about at all while writing this patch. And that brings us to…

The bad.

Buckle up my friends because what’s bad about this chapter is really, really, REALLY bad. Consistency is something they don’t believe in anymore, retcons are on the market, and setting up characters/settings/relationships is a thing of the past.

Does it sound like I’m being too harsh? Maybe, but it’s deserved, so idc.

Let’s start from the least bad, shall we? Anjo Nala’s hunger. In 2.0 and 2.1, as well as the first of Anjo’s monologues (the things you unlock after getting traces of a specific character), it’s implied that she can’t eat human food. Not that she doesn’t find it satisfactory, or that she doesn’t like it. It’s heavily implied she literally can’t eat it.

But then she steals some bread and Vertin gives her chocolate, and she eats both, so… what’s up with that? Also, they never really explain what her hunger is for. Was it really just normal human food? Or something else? In her trailer (which btw I wouldn’t consider it part of the main story because it’s a freaking trailer, but whatever) she “feeds on someone’s love” by using her tail. Okay, but then that person turns into a “walking corpse”. Does she have to do that every time she’s hungry? What happens if she doesn’t? Is human food substitute enough? The game never answers these questions, which is a mistake because this whole thing is a central part of Anjo’s character, as well as her turning from her bloodthirsty self to the Anjo we meet in this chapter.

And this brings us to my second issue… the inconsistency of Anjo’s character with the two events we had before this patch. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying anything she ever did was her fault since she was simply a slave following orders, and one thing that is consistent about her character is that she doesn’t like when people do give her orders. However, what really annoys me is how in 2.0 she was very bloodthirsty. Sure, she didn’t know J and his gang, and she had done these types of jobs before, but imo it would’ve been more consistent with the other patches if she was indifferent about killing them, rather than excited. 2.1 was slightly more consistent with ch8 when it comes to Anjo’s character, but it’s kind of implied it was all an act, and her “real” personality was that of 2.0.

Now, I’ve seen some ppl explain this as “well, in a wilderness interaction she says she acts however her master prefers her to”. Okay, but why put such important information in a freaking wilderness interaction and not in the main story??? You can’t even see those unless you have the character, and seeing as Anjo is limited, not everyone will have her. This is a fact.

Another problem I have with Anjo (this is the last, I promise) is that we’re not introduced to her again in ch8, which surely is a decision. Why? Because 2.0 and 2.1 aren’t part of the main story; they’re side events, which are time-limited and, at the moment, not available in-game. This is a problem because anyone who didn’t play those events for one reason or another will be very confused by Anjo Nala and how Vertin reacts to her. It would’ve been better if we were introduced to her from the pov of Lopera, for example, when she raided the Manus base and captured her. And then we could have Vertin run into her on the ship and explain to Sotheby (with a little more detail than what we got) that she actually met her before.

I’m just saying, this isn’t the first time we got a character in a main chapter that had been previously introduced only in an event (Marta/Bessmert), but in that case, if you missed the event, you could still fully enjoy the main chapter, because you wouldn’t even know that you were missing information. That’s not the case here.

And speaking of Urd… okay, let’s talk about how little sense it makes for the Foundation to want to find her in this chapter. In ch5 Vertin and her team found a suspicious radio that talked about a travel note about Aperion written by someone named “Urd”. In this case it makes sense for them to want to investigate, since the base Ms. Radio was in had things that belonged to the Manus, and they found some Manus followers there as well. Even after ch5 and everything that happened, it still makes sense for Vertin to want to keep looking for Urd because now she has the suspicion, based on what 6 said, that Urd is her mother.

However, although it makes sense for Vertin to want to find Urd, it doesn’t make sense for the freaking Foundation to want to find some random UTTU editor. Because that’s really all Urd is, isn’t she? She’s not the head of UTTU (that’d be Pandora), and the fact that she can traverse the storm, which is the only reason we’re given in ch8, is shared among all UTTU editors, as we learn from Barbara.

But even if we assume the Foundation wants to know how UTTU keeps its editors safe… first of all, why? We already have the equilibrium umbrellas, don’t we? We spent a whole chapter seeing their creation, and even saw ppl die for this cause. Why would they need yet another method for surviving the storm? If they instead suspected UTTU to be involved with the Manus somehow, and that’s how they’re traversing the storm, then at least give us that!

Furthermore, the Foundation already knew where she was! They were the ones who gave her the white marble chair with a button! If they just wanted to speak with her, surely a simply call would’ve sufficed? Why send Vertin?

And that’s another thing! Constantine knows Vertin’s mom, and I'm sure she’s not the only one in the Foundation who does, yet the Foundation tried to cover it up and tell Vertin that she doesn’t have a mother. Clearly they have some motivation for keeping it hidden, right? Then… why send Vertin specifically to search for Urd? Why not send some other random investigator, preferentially one with experience finding ppl? Why Vertin???

If Vertin had gone out of her own will, like in ch5, I’d have no problem with this, but no; the Foundation sent her this time. And I just can’t bring myself to understand why.

Maybe if Urd isn’t Vertin’s mom, that would explain this, but for now this makes no sense at all.

Next I want to talk about Lopera and Molly’s relationship. I said before that I truly liked their characters and their relationship, which is true, but… I wish it had been better stablished. Why? Because we had only had one, one single scene, of them together and the suddenly there was a grand betrayal and we’re supposed to feel bad for Lopera? Lmao.

If I felt slightly bad for Lopera it was because of the voice acting, the music and the art. I can assure you, not one single ounce of those feelings came from the actual story being told. It’s even worse when it comes to Igor because he barely exchanged words with Lopera, and all we know from their relationship comes from Lopera telling us “he’s better than my biological father”. And let’s not talk about Ptoleme. He literally only appeared to be a jerk for like five minutes and neither Molly nor Lopera seem to care much about him. How are we supposed to care about that entire family? They really don’t feel like a family at all (except for Lopera and Molly, but even then, it’s the bare minimum this chapter could do with this concept).

It would’ve been so much better if we had this whole chapter to stablish Lopera’s relationship with her adoptive family, with Zeno, the veterans and the Sao Paulo community, and then in the next chapter we could have the big betrayal be more impactful. But here? We barely spent any time with these characters!

And then we have the actual betrayal scene, which is… nonsensical. At best.

What happened in it? Molly arrived at the Colonel’s manor with her squad of Zeno soldiers and attacked the few Apostles Brotherhood ppl that remained, then says she’s glad that Lopera was able to rescue Dr. Dores and that they should all go back to the base. None of this is suspicious, imo, because Vertin had already told Lopera that she was going to call Zeno for reinforcements, specifically to assist with the rescue of Dr. Dores. It’s true that Molly hesitates a little when Lopera asks “what about the timekeeper?”, and that she dismisses Lopera’s concerns about evacuating Sao Paulo, but imo this shouldn’t be enough for Lopera to be so suspicious of her freaking sister. Also, why ask “who’s waiting for you in Tierra del Fuego”? Why would Lopera every think this was anything other than a mission from Zeno???

Sure, they didn’t tell her about it, but also she’s been gone from the base for a couple of days and she knows there’s been traitors and rebels. A lot could’ve changed in that time. Even if she didn’t want to leave because she got attached to Sao Paulo, I think it’s weird that she immediately was so confrontational about it, especially with her sister, who famously just follows their father’s orders without questions.

This could’ve worked if Lopera was already suspicious of her family beforehand, or maybe even of Zeno’s higher ups, or if Molly and her squad had just waltzed in without attacking the Manus or being attacked by them. But that’s not what happened. Also, if she really was suspicious, why not go back to the base and question Igor about this whole thing like Molly suggested? I don’t see why she immediately would think base=bad when her whole family and the army she’s part of is currently at the base.

Like, I get she already had trauma because of her biological father being a jerk, but that situation doesn’t seem to have anything to do with this one imo. All in all, what I’m saying is that the bad writing of this scene lessens the emotional impact.

And it’s not the only emotional scene that’s affected by the blatant bad writing in this chapter. No, that “honor” goes to the scene the trailer for this patch opens with; Anjo being ordered to kill Vertin by Ptoleme.

Okay, so as a refresher, Igor requests that his son, Ptoleme, is sent to the base because “he can only trust in his children because they always obey him”. Okay, so then what does Ptoleme do when ordered to bring back Kimberly, preferentially without a fuss? Of course, cause the biggest scene imaginable, which leads to Kimberly being freed.

Now, I wouldn’t be so harsh on him if his actions were reasonable but due to circumstances led to an unfavorable outcome for him, but that’s not what happened. Okay, he ordered Anjo to kill Vertin. Whatever, he’s a sadistic asshole, but this at least kinda makes sense. What makes no sense whatsoever is that he not only gave Vertin a gun because “he won’t shoot an unarmed civilian” (why does he care? Also ultimately he orders Anjo to kill her, so he wouldn’t have shot an unarmed civilian anyways), but also that he kept trying to make Vertin shoot Anjo.

Why? Just why? There was no reason for him to want Vertin to kill Anjo. None at all. And if what he wanted was to convince Anjo to kill Vertin… he can’t play both the “I’ll free you if you kill her” and the “Vertin, kill her, she’s a monster” cards at the same time. It makes him look like a pathetic moron with no sense of reality whatsoever, and in retrospective makes Igor look like a bigger idiot who doesn’t know his children at all. I think the reason they did this is because they wanted to replicate the infamous orange scene from ch2, but without all the logic, lore and emotional impact behind it, just hoping players would feel emotions by association.

And finally, we come to my biggest complain about this chapter: the retcon about how the storm works. Because yes, it is a retcon. Why do I say that? Mainly based on ch6.

In ch6 we learn that Heinrich, in 1912, left Vienna to study at Berlin. There, he met the Manus and joined them, surviving that storm, and subsequent ones, until time returned to 1913 and he went back to Vienna, reuniting with his old friends and telling them about the storm.

Now, how is this relevant? Well, from Heinrich’s story we learned two things; 1) you can indeed see again someone who was once reversed by the storm, but only if time ever goes back to that era, and 2) The fact that his friends recognized him and he recognized his friends, and his friends’ existence was consistent even though the storm had once reversed them. You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?

At the end of ch8, Vertin says “the storm doesn’t kill ppl, at least not physically”. Okay Vertin, did you have a lobotomy between chapters? The storm has never killed ppl; it’s just the end of an era, remember? It reverses time! It’s in the freaking name! The scariest part about the storm isn’t the storm itself, but the storm syndrome, which is when most casualties seem to happen. Sure, the storm sucked for Vertin because she kept traversing eras and losing the friends she made in them, but those friends remained anchored in their own time (perhaps with the exception of ppl who had already crossed the storm at least once, like The Ring and Isabella, but I digress).

My point is, that I really don’t like where this retcon is headed, but I do hope they somehow fix it in the future, either by making it clear that not everyone who gets reversed is reincarnated and there’s very strict conditions that should be met (like having knowledge about the storm, for example), or this hypothesis is wrong and the storm isn’t actually making ppl reincarnate.

One reason I especially don’t like this new reincarnation thing is that… Mr. Duncan isn’t Mr. Karson. Let’s not lie to ourselves. He looks nothing like Mr. Karson (and I wish the game would stop gaslighting me), doesn’t act like Mr. Karson, doesn’t speak like Mr. Karson, and doesn’t even have the same nationality as him! The only things that are similar about them is that they’re both old war veterans who once had a dog and now have a soft spot for young ladies. And if this is the approach they’ll use to bring back characters in the future… thanks, but I’d rather they stayed reversed.

Think about it! Will they next say that Anjo is Schneider? They look similar enough (more similar than Duncan and Karson, that’s for sure!), both were antagonists that joined the manus for reasons beyond their control, both had a fight with Vertin in which they almost got killed, and both have a snake bracelet on their left arm. Surely that’s enough to say they’re one and the same, according to this logic!

My point is that using such simple similarities, they can literally invent any new character they want and then say “this is actually this other character, who was once reversed by the storm”, regardless of if they’re actually similar at all, and I don’t think that people who wanted them to bring back Schneider or Marian, or Mr. Karson, or 888, or literally anyone, wanted them to be brought back like this.

But that’s enough of me ranting lol. What do you think? Did you like this chapter? What are your main complains about it?

To be clear I’m not saying we should stop playing the game or anything like that; from what I’ve heard the next event is actually good, and I have faith Bluepoch will listen to the players and make sure ch9 is better than whatever ch8 was, but it’s precisely this why it is important for us, as players, to speak out when we don’t like something so that Bluepoch knows they can’t get away with such blatant drops in quality.

Now, if you somehow made it to the end, thanks for reading!

#reverse 1999 #r1999 #analysis #ch8 #tristes tropiques #2.2 #rant #had to get it off my chest lol

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 1 year ago

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you know i've been thinking about the consequences of malleus's actions in book 7 and i realized how much he's fucked everyone over including his grandma. bc like other than the fact that he ob'd (which literally has NEGATIVE connotations one of which being is idk ""UNSTABLE"" which isnt necessarily a good look for a crown prince is all im saying) he's literally causing terrorism (??? can you call it that idk how else to call it) which is going to setback his grandma's efforts (and lilia's and baul's, and every supporter of his and his family) in keeping peace in their kingdom and the favor of the humans towards the fae. Like. i feel so bad for grandmother draconia rn i can only imagine the stress and pressure she's under.

Then theres also aside from PHYSCIALLY compromising everyone's healths in sage island (BECAUSE THE MAJORITY ARE HUMANS OR AT LEAST THEY DONT LIVE AS LONG AS THE FAE). He's also fucked everyone mentally twice over!!!! By booting them straight into a world where none of their problems exist. Now that wouldnt sound bad if it weren't for the fact that dreams have to end, and life isnt kind. It rarely ever is, and i can only imagine how distraught i would be if i were to say, hypothetically lost someone a year before and the wound is so fresh and raw and, in my dreams, they never died and everything is okay, then i wake up and realize that it was just that. A dream, they are still gone and i wish i never woke up which would be a LITERAL DEATH SENTENCE. This isnt just an event that takes place in NRC either BUT THE WHOLE ISLAND and that domain is GROWING, GROWING. I can't imagine just how many would be so emotionally ruined after this. Like.....

If Malleus does not suffer the consequences of his actions istg i will be so pissed, at least REMOVE HIM FROM THE PREMISE OR SOMETHING GODDDDDDD this cannot be remedied with a slap on the hand!!!!!

(Note: Sorry for the long rant. I felt the need to get this out of my chest bc i dont mind malleus's archetype actually nor do i actually hate him, bc i enjoy him interacting w other characters a lot (my fave ever vigenette is him giving deuce the equivalent of minecraft diamon for fixing a retrobit gaming toy) BUT GOD DOES HE MAKE MY BLOOD BOIL)

Yeah, I do feel like the scale of Malleus's actions cannot be understated. I know it's kind of a fandom joke that the OB boys are left off with a slap on the wrist + maybe some social ramifications at school, but this is the ONE time in the main story where things are getting super big and the effects could be cripplingly long-lasting.

I don't know if TWST will seriously address the consequences after book 7, but I sure hope they do!! There is a lot of interesting ground to cover (many points which this anon has already brought up) in a follow-up main story arc or the next book.

For example:

Malleus obviously has to regain the trust of his peers and staff. He didn’t really have it before but now has to work twice as hard to make connections since he just took a drastic action that confirmed the rumors some were already spreading about how he’s a monster.

He’s the sole heir to the throne and has just betrayed the trust of the people of Briar Valley. How are they feeling about him now? Do they still trust him to lead them?

How does this impact their relations with other countries (since Malleus himself stresses how he represents Briar Valley)? This is a problem visible on a global scale, and surely this would damage their rep with other nations, particularly the predominantly human ones. It’s setting back what is hundreds of years of trying to fix the broken trust between their races.

Malleus’s UM potentially puts his victims in physical harm; in book 7, Ortho suggests that since everyone is sleeping, their bodies are not getting the food or water they need. As a result, they may physically waste away and then perish. (We have seen that there are sleep blessings that keep people sleeping for hundreds of years without detriment to the blessed though, such as the one cast on Silver—so we cannot be entirely sure if Ortho’s theory is correct or not.)

There is the possibility that Malleus’s dreams may traumatize or retraumatize his victims, particularly those with deep rooted troubles. An example of this is Idia, who had suffered the loss of his brother when he was like… 8 years old??? But then in his dream, Idia is living a happy false reality that Ortho never died. When he finally comes to this realization, he has to relive the trauma of the discovery all over again and breaks down sobbing. We also see in the most recent book 7 update that Vil had to face the evilest aspects of himself and a dark reality; Rook became very emotional upon waking himself. Admittedly, Idia and co. coped with it well enough—this is proof of their character development and the strength of the new friendships they’ve formed. However, all the people on Sage’s Island/Twisted Wonderland may not react so positively or be so accepting of their cruel realities.

Again, just the overall moral dilemma of one person robbing all of Sage’s Island (and soon all of Twisted Wonderland) of their autonomy.

Potential extra work for STYX and whichever countries Malleus’s magic manages to spread to (repairing any physical damage caused by the thorns + mental damage done to those that fell asleep). That’s money, time, and resources that aren’t going toward other everyday endeavors.

How will Malleus himself mentally and emotionally cope with what he has done? Is he going to show remorse and shame? How does he plan on rectifying his actions, if at all?

Will this change how his dorm members + family view him? For example, will Sebek become disillusioned with his liege/realize Malleus is not as perfect as he seems? Will Maleficia blame herself for not being there for Malleus? Will Lilia feel guilty for not teaching Malleus right from wrong? Etc, etc, etc.

I’d honestly love to read all of these! 🤔 It would add a lot to the lore and history of Twisted Wonderland, as well as serve as motivators for Malleus to change, “be better”, and actually earn the respect he’s so used to being handed by default. This would be huge for him, especially seeing as he has not really faced significant backlash or consequences for any other missteps he was responsible for or involved in. (I know I bring this one up a lot, but Endless Halloween Night is one such major example.)

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myths-tournaments · 1 year ago

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Awful Characters Semi-finals (1/2)

Propaganda under the cut!

IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS

Her number one hobby is ruining every person's that she knows life. Her second hobby is being soooo slutty about it despite looking like a literal wet rat. Her third hobby is having an extremely unhealthy relationship with her twin. Her other hobbies include cannibalism, wearing a maid outfit, being extremely convinced she is the main character, the badboy sexy love interest and the villain. 'Why', you may ask. Well, the answer is, for shits and giggles #justgirlythings i, aswell as literally everybody else in the fandom have gone through the pipeline from hating her to desperately wanting to fuck her. expect for i still fucking hope she dies and doesn't come back for good. (that would literally solve all of everybody's problems) as god intended (EXPECT FOR. one of her hobbies literally is gaslighting god) She is fucking horrible i will love her until i die and even after that

parks and recs jean ralphio voice she's the woooorst!! The moment she learns she has to kill someone to become a Lyctor (aka a more special necromancer), she doesn't hesitate to kill and cannibalize the guy who has been her cavalier since childhood… cavalier who she also totally bullied as kids, she was allowed to choose one guest for her and her twin sister's birthday party each year, and she would always pick whoever she thought her cavalier didn't want to see there! While other characters are shown to regret the process of becoming a Lyctor (which involves someone close to them dying)/were forced into it because of circumstances, Ianthe has absolutely no regrets, she believes she did what she had to do

The author once said of Ianthe: "I don't think she's been nice to anyone, if she has I'll go back and change it." She killed and ate the soul of someone she has known all her life so that she could become a necromantic saint and tormented him plenty before that. General negging, ganging up against him, always inviting people he didn't like to their birthday parties. She doesn't regret killing him. I think she is repulsed by the idea that his digested soul is affecting hers. She helped her crush lobotomise herself so she would be in Ianthe's debt, and later lied and said she didn't see the corpse of a woman her crush killed under her bed (why did she do that? I do not know). She has a bone arm because her original arm was cut off, she hated the replacement so her crush cut THAT off and grew her a new one out of just bones. She had it gilded and only after that did she decide to help her crush deal with the person who had been repeatedly trying to kill her. She wants so badly to be the main character but people keep interrupting her villain monologues.

she has her own content warning tag

She's such a bitch to everyone all the time, she causes nothing but problems, she tries to do a villain speech but fumbles it because her tummy hurt, she is the awfulgirl of all time

AZULA

Azula explicitly considers herself a monster. She says needlessly cruel things to her brother and friends. She kills the show's twelve-year-old protagonist and masterminds the idea of burning down the entire Earth Kingdom to force them to submit to Fire Nation rule. I have absolutely seen people get called abuse apologists for thinking she's a cool character. But she's also a (canonically) mentally ill fourteen-year-old who was raised by her father to see her ability to be weaponized as her only value. Her mother, arguably the only adult in her life who could have had a positive impact, had a strained relationship with her because she was more difficult than her brother, and then disappeared when she was nine. Her uncle, who was her brother's main healthy role model, took absolutely no interest in her. She watched her father belittle her brother for years and eventually throw him away when he failed to meet his expectations, so that was a threat she was always facing. She really had no chance. And she also has moments that suggest she wants some sort of meaningful connection with another person. She lets her brother take credit for killing the Avatar so he can come back from exile, even though it means she'll be bumped back in the order of succession and offers him advice that seems genuine. Her spiral into a mental breakdown starts when her friends betray her. She's just a much more interesting and multifaceted than a lot of the fandom gives her credit for.

#awful characters tournament #tournament poll #awful characters round 5 #awful characters semifinals #the locked tomb #tlt #ianthe tridentarius #avatar the last airbender #atla #azula

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selfship-confession-void · 4 months ago

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"Isn't Enemies to Lovers proship" Nope! Here's Why (+ Explaining Strawmen)

Proship/comship/neutral/darkfic DO NOT interact!! This post is not and never will be for you, stay away from me.

So I got this question as an anon but the ask just disappeared 😭 anyways I feel like this is a good topic to tackle because this shoddy argument is thrown around a lot

Short answer: No, but it can be depending on the execution

Long answer: Enemies to lovers as a trope isn't inherently toxic, but if it's handled wrong then yes the relationship would be abusive and ergo would be proship. But just because it CAN be handled poorly doesn't mean it's AUTOMATICALLY toxic and bad on principal

More under the cut:

I've had people I've hated who I later warmed up to. Happens all the time, that's life, you're not gonna like everyone. But that doesn't mean we abused one another or made one another's life a living hell. If you're thinking about ETL (Enemies To Lovers) in the context of the Enemy being this ruthless tyrant who tears down the MC at every opportunity, ruins their life, and overall makes the MC severely harmed from their actions: yes, that is abuse. THAT relationship would be proship.

But that's what I call BookTok ETL, cause BookTok is where it's most normalized (and let's be fr, they normalize proship stuff ALL THE TIME). BookTok ETL is specifically different from general ETL cause most interpretations of the trope are written by people who know there's a line between flirty angry banter and actual harmful interactions. Any sane person who loves the trope will tell you there's definitely a limit and that it becomes gross and uncomfortable when that line is crossed.

And, what I find important to emphasize: every trope CAN be toxic if done wrong. Childhood Friends to Lovers can be unhealthy if the childhood friend in question is a thoughtless shitbag and torments the MC. Coffee Shop AUs can be toxic if it's someone harassing an essential service worker the whole time. I've experienced media that's made me love tropes I usually don't care for just as much as I've seen media do a trope I love so badly that the relationship is a cesspit mess that I wouldn't ever dream of supporting.

My point here is judging a general and inherently harmless trope just based off of the idea that it could sometimes maybe be portrayed as toxic, doesn't mean the trope is on principal bad/toxic/gross. "But what about hero x villain?"— same rules apply. If Villain is terrorizing Hero or the ones they love so badly that it gives Hero trauma or deeply negatively impacts them in a scarring way, that is abuse and no one should argue that it isn't. But the trope can also be lighthearted and sweet, depending on the way it's handled.

Now onto my second portion:

What is a strawman?

A strawman is directly defined as "an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument". The very question of attributing harmless tropes to abuse romanticizing proshippers is a strawman. An argument that's meant to seem like a "HAHA GOTCHA" to people who don't sit and think for more than two seconds on how you're literally grasping at straws. This ties into a common trend of proshippers trying to worm their way into everything.

Let me be blunt: proshippers did NOT and never have invented shipping, selfshipping, fandoms, or anything of the like. They like saying that as an imaginary "gotcha" card to the rest of us, just claiming with zero proof or evidence to have invented online spaces because that's easier to argue over than the fact that they're supporting actually disgusting things. 9/10 they just wanna piss people off and then flood them with harassment when the person points out the obvious holes in their argument (pretty ironic coming from the "we don't support harassment!" crowd by the way)

So, to reiterate and be as clear as possible; no, enemies to lovers and hero x villain aren't proship. They can BECOME proship if specific portrayals are done in a very toxic way that make the relationship abusive, but any trope can be represented horribly, so no it does not automatically mean the trope as a concept is proship. Claiming it is is a strawman argument largely used by proshippers because they're deflecting from what they're actually doing wrong and trying to grasp at straws to "epically own the stupid antis" or something like that

Ty for reading

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cawyden-gaming · 25 days ago

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Hi! Heinrix's LI romance ending seems to imply that his relationship with the RT remains a secret, and I was wondering if you knew why? Is a relationship between a Lord Inquisitor and a Rogue Trader prohibited or something? Or am I misreading it and it's not really a secret, they just don't shout it from the rooftops?

Hi! Thank you so much for your question ❤️

It does sound a bit like they want to keep it hidden:

I can imagine why - for two reasons: protection and authority.

Imagine everyone knows about them - someone who wants to hurt the Lord Inquisitor Heinrix might start to target the Rogue Trader instead - if not directly then maybe indirectly by going after her/their heirs or by spreading rumours, or trying to ruin her reputation etc.

Someone might also try to accuse Heinrix of protecting the Rogue Trader out of personal reasons and basically not following his duty. Depending on who is bringing forth these accusations, he might get in the defensive.

It would be a potential weakness to exploit by his enemies. And vice versa.

Of course - you could also see it the other way around - someone thinking about messing with one of them might be discouraged if they see who else might get involved.

In game, Heinrix can already tell you several times that he is concerned about your reputation if you get involved with him. If the Rogue Trader literally goes to bed with the Inquisition it might have a negative impact on how the Rogue Trader is seen (depending on the faction at least) and on deals with certain (more shady) business partners perhaps. The nobles might also think that RT is only a puppet for the Inquisition - of course, they should be interested in supporting the Inquisition but I think usually they are more interested in their own gains and power and Inquisition is bad news for them.

So it could simply lead to unnecessary issues if their relationship get's known and weaken their positions.

But - there is also an ending where RT can join the Inquisition. Reputation would then be less of an issue but they might still keep their love secret from people (at least outside the Inquisition) for security reasons. Or not - we don't have a romance specific slide for this case.

There is room for headcanon, even if you like to stick close to the game's ending slides.

#rogue trader #rogue trader rpg #rogue trader crpg #warhammer 40k #rogue trader heinrix van calox #von valancius #heinrix x von valancius #warhammer 40k rogue trader #question answered

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kiefbowl · 3 months ago

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i'm curious about your thoughts on medical transition, which you've said you aren't against. for me, the medical modifications i've made to my body are more about the material qualities of my body than a specific 'gender goal' - my breasts caused back and neck pain, i didn't want to be able to get pregnant, when i was on testosterone it was equally about the potential effect on my chronic health conditions as it was the aesthetics. but i also feel like i have a pretty different relationship to the concepts of gender and having a body than some trans people seem to, in both public and private. i don't think people should be rushing down a checklist of medical procedures without personal reflection and i think the social pressure to do a 'full' transition for the 'right' reasons is getting worse and will have (and has already had) ill effects. but i don't really think that's something policy can address effectively.

anyway. interested in your thoughts!

Well, to clarify - I think well informed adults get to decide these things for themselves. I don't think it's necessarily a good or best choice, and I don't think most people are well informed about these things. I can concede, though, that I don't know the particulars of everyone's life, so how can I objectively say what has been beneficial to someone's life and what hasn't. For example, if you were to ask me in a vacuum and divorced from all contexts if a nose job is better than someone attempting suicide, unequivocally my answer is yes of course. But I don't think a nose job is the root of what's causing someone's suicidal thoughts. People want nose jobs not because they're perceiving their nose as correctly ugly. But also, can I imagine how horrible the ceiling of bullying is to push someone into that headspace? Yeah, of course. My hope is that someone who's not a cosmetic surgeon intervenes first.

Cosmetic surgeons though...it doesn't behoove them to provide alternate ways of thinking. They're also not psychologists. They have to sell surgery to make money. Every incentive is there to agree with you that you're right: you're unhappy because you are capital U Ugly! Or capital WM Wrongly Made! And surgery will give you that happiness. I don't trust them, I don't like them, I don't think they do good work.

I will be frank about my own body right now, I've mentioned this before, but people can get weird about it - I have extremely large breasts. I'm not going to post a pic to prove it, so you'll just have to trust me. I've had above sized breasts since twelve, they are extremely cumbersome, I do think they've impacted my body's health in negative ways. When I was 20, I pursued breast reduction but wasn't willing to jump through the hoops asked of me to get insured, so I dropped it. Looking back now, I don't regret it, but I do wonder how my life would have been different if I had gone through with it. When I get the itch, when I think what a little fat off and a tiny lift could impact my life, I research like crazy. Each time, the older I get, the more dubious I am that I could get the magical results I really want. I can't get any surgeon to give me confidence they could prioritize what I prioritize. They can talk a big game, try to sell me, but they can't give me the confidence I need to ensure they wouldn't go beyond the changes I would want and make sure I wouldn't lose sexual feeling in my breasts. I think I'm a highly skeptical with a big bullshit detector, and if you really push a plastic surgeon to explain how they would achieve or avoid something, I find they come up empty. Maybe other people have different experiences, but I find they just push statistics at me. Let me tell you something: losing sexual feeling in my breasts would feel like ruining my life more than the bullshit I put up with having big boobs. I'm not willing to risk "only happens to 5%" or whatever. And that isn't even how pushy they are to make me feel like I need a huge lift and reshape, push how sexy I could be if I would just trust them to make "the perfect breast". It's humiliating to me.

This is all to say that I am not unsympathetic to why women look to cosmetic surgeons for diverse reasons, and if a woman has gone that route and it's impacted her life for the better, that's awesome and I have no interest in changing her mind.

But to your point about gender transition (which I'll use that term for the sake of being understood, but I don't think those words are accurate), I do see anecdotally trans influencers (or just GNC influencers) that appear to be pushed into more and more surgery. Not only is the pressure there to make content, but I think it's downstream of what's going to be an issue for most people seeking out cosmetic surgeries: these surgeries aren't fixing the root of the issue and can never feel complete. You can't change your sex, these surgeries are superficial - so they don't give the desired results long term. That breaks my heart honestly, because surgeries of this kind are not reversible. And the people who win out are surgeons who are happy to charge you again and again.

When it comes to policy - I don't think the solution is to address only gender transition. The entire industry should be under scrutiny. However, this will always run up against the issue of defining the difference between a "necessary" surgery and a "cosmetic" surgery, and I'd rather be in the camp that says "well informed adults get to decide these things for themselves" than push for legal repercussions for quote unquote purely cosmetic surgery. Downwind of that is some nasty stuff, like denying abortion or denying disabled people certain care, among other things we could imagine.

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sluttywonwoo · 1 year ago

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instead of you [part thirty-three] || l.mh

pairing: [best friend’s brother] lee minho x college!reader ft. han jisung

summary: you didn’t expect to spend your summer pretending to be your best friend’s girlfriend- then again, you didn’t expect to fall for your best friend’s brother, either.

warnings: swearing, angst, discussions of plane disasters, mentions of sex (mdni ; 18+)

word count: 3k

a/n: revamped my tom holland series from my main blog ( @wazzupmrstark ) to try and motivate myself to finish it!!

additional a/n: disclaimer that this chapter and the following chapters take place on oahu and kauai, hawai'i. i wrote this a year ago (originally posted on sept. 22, 2022) and included mentions of the negative impact and sentiment tourism in hawai'i procures, but it was before the fires in maui. i included hawai'i in their vacation in the first place because i'm part hawaiian and wanted to bring attention to our people's attitude toward tourists while also writing about the parts of the islands that i grew up loving. and i thought i should clarify that before posting, as i feel the context is important to precede what would be an otherwise distasteful choice if i had written this now. please keep hawai'i in your thoughts, mahalo plenty <3

series masterlist | early access to the next chapter on ko-fi

Predictably, you cried yourself to sleep. You debated over whether or not to tell Minho. He’d probably find out when he woke up in the morning but would he be mad if he didn’t hear it from you? If Jisung was right, he didn’t care about you at all, so why would you grant him the courtesy of a head’s up? You didn’t want to believe Jisung, rather, you wanted to believe that he had only said those things in the heat of the moment but at the end of the day, he knew Minho far better than you did. Whether or not he was telling the truth to try and save you or lying to hurt you was up to you to decipher.

You wound up texting Minho, ‘Jisung knows,’ without any other context and calling it a night.

The next morning, you woke up to a message from Jisung telling you not to bother getting ready for the day and that he’d be going on without you. It was mostly a relief not to have to put on an act after everything that happened the night before but it also stung.

You weren’t very optimistic about repairing your relationship with Jisung, but any lingering hope vanished when he wouldn’t even look at you in passing in the hallway.

You spent the entire day in bed, trying to distract yourself with anything you could think of to pass the time. You scrolled through social media until your timelines stopped refreshing with new content. There wasn’t anything interesting enough on TV to pull you out of spiraling so you didn’t even bother trying to find something to hold your attention.

At one point you remembered the book you were reading but as soon as you opened it you were greeted by all of Jisung’s little annotations he had left for you. He still had your book and you wondered if he would ever finish it now that you’d ruined everything.

You thought about texting him, just to check in or try and talk about things but you didn’t want to bother him. A couple of times, you almost texted him just out of instinct. You would go to send him a tweet that you thought he’d find funny and then remember.

Minho came by your room that night after dinner when everyone was back from the day’s activities. He knocked twice, letting himself in before you’d even finished telling him he could enter.

“Care to explain what happened?” he asked, hands on his hips.

You shrugged noncommittally. “Jisung found out.”

“How? Did you tell him?”

“And ruin my own relationship with my best friend? Yeah, definitely.”

Minho rolled his eyes. “I didn’t come here to argue. I just want to know what happened.”

“Then don’t accuse me of shit.”

“I didn’t mean- I’m sorry. That’s not what I was trying to do.”

You sighed and signaled for him to sit down if he wanted to. He did, perching himself on the edge of the bed cautiously.

“He knows because he noticed me sneaking out and finally decided to follow me.”

The color drained from Minho’s face. “So he heard-”

You nodded. “I don’t know how much, but enough.”

“Fuck.”

“Fuck is right.”

“He wouldn’t say a word to me today,” Minho said.

“He wouldn’t even look at me.”

“I guess we knew this would happen eventually.”

“Yeah.”

“We fucked up.”

“Yeah.”

“You were right.”

“What do you mean?” you asked, furrowing your eyebrows.

“We really do deserve each other.”

Oh. What Jisung had said earlier rang through your ears again.

“I guess I was.”

Just then, the door to the bedroom opened and Jisung walked in, scoffing as he passed his brother.

“I should have known,” he muttered to himself.

“Ji, look-” Minho tried, only to be immediately cut off by his younger brother.

“Don’t. Please just fucking don’t.”

“But-”

“God, you never listen to a word I say, do you? Either of you?”

You wanted to protest that you did listen to him but you thought better of it. It wouldn’t help your case at all. Instead, you sat there silently like a child being scolded.

“I don’t want to hear you explain yourself,” Jisung continued. “I don’t care why you fucked my best friend. I think the act in itself doesn’t need an explanation.” Minho opened his mouth to respond but Jisung cut him off again. “I don’t want to hear an apology either. I already know you don’t mean it. In fact, I think we’re done here so if you wouldn’t mind getting the fuck out of my room...”

Minho looked like he wanted to argue but likely knew it wouldn’t do any good so he simply hung his head and let himself out, bidding you a quiet goodnight as he left. You didn’t respond. You didn’t even acknowledge him. How could you?

“Don’t forget to pack your things for the flight tomorrow. It’s a long one.”

You sat there, stunned. You hadn’t expected Jisung to speak to you at all, let alone say something amicable.

“O-ok thanks,” you responded shakily.

“I’m sleeping in here tonight,” he added.

“Oh-” you scrambled up, preparing to leave but Jisung stopped you.

“No, I meant with you. It’d look weird if I slept on the couch again.”

Of course. Keeping up appearances.

“Is it even worth it to do this anymore?” you asked. “I mean, it’s falling apart at the seams.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jisung argued. “It’s just a few more weeks.”

“Do you really want to keep pretending to be in love with someone you hate?”

He froze, still bent over his suitcase. Then he straightened up and turned to face you.

“I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t think I could ever hate you. I’ve been trying, trust me.”

You weren’t sure how to take that. You weren’t sure how you were supposed to take it. You tried not to let his words stoke the embers of hope you were still clinging on to but it was already proving difficult.

“Maybe with time,” you suggested.

He shrugged. “Ready for bed?”

You managed to get some sleep, despite everything. It took a while for your heart to calm down as you lay there beside your (ex?) best friend who was already snoring softly. He had fallen asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. You weren’t sure how he was able to drift off so easily in spite of your whole friendship falling apart but perhaps the stress was only one-sided.

You were the one being eaten alive by anxiety and guilt. All he had to do was mourn the loss of everything you destroyed.

The hours of sleep you did get passed quickly without dreams which was unusual for you. Before you knew it, Jisung’s alarm was going off and both of you were groaning as you dragged yourself out of bed.

You finished packing the rest of your things in relative silence. Neither of you had much to say aside from when you passed each other’s things back and forth from your suitcases.

The sun had yet to come up when the rest of the Hans gathered in the kitchen with their luggage. Since the flight was over twelve hours long Jisung’s parents had booked the earliest possible departure which just so happened to be before the sunrise.

The boys slept during the ride to the airport but you weren’t able to. You were squished between Jisung and Minho in the very back of the van, feeling like a pin in a grenade. They ignored each other, of course, both seemingly dead to the world.

Minho woke up before Jisung. He glanced over at you and offered an expression of sympathy. You just shrugged in response.

Sitting in the car like that caused your knees to brush up against each other every so often, each time you rounded a corner or went over a speed bump. Every time it happened you fought the urge to meet his eyes. The touch, be it fleeting, made your chest tighten over and over again until you were half-convinced you were going into cardiac arrest. Eventually, Minho gave up trying to give you space and just let his knee rest against yours. Funnily enough, it helped you relax.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s fine.”

He was so hard to read these days. Not that he was ever easy to read. You couldn’t tell whether or not he liked having his knee there. You weren’t sure why you were getting so caught up on it in the first place.

You longed to hold his hand. You longed to hold Jisung’s hand. But all you could do was sit there in between the two and wait until you finally arrived at the airport.

Thankfully, Minho was sat with his parents for the flight, which meant you were squeezed in between Jisung and Felix. You gave Jisung the window seat, knowing you wouldn’t get any sleep yourself. He looked like he wanted to argue when you offered it to him but ultimately surrendered when he saw the look in your eyes. You compromised for switching halfway through since the flight was so long but even that seemed to be pushing it for him.

It was funny how Jisung was still looking out for you after everything you had done. It was as if it was instinctual to him, to put you before himself. The realization almost made you tear up. Had you cared that much for him too? Or was it all one-sided? Either way, you were positive you didn’t deserve him.

Dom had chosen Hawai’i as his destination. A controversial choice, given the state of tourism at the moment, but it wasn’t like you had much say in the matter. Jisung had confided in you earlier in the trip that he had tried to talk his father out of it but that he couldn’t be swayed.

“We might as well try to make the most of it,” you argued. “It’s like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, right?”

He shrugged. “I guess.”

The flight from Bali to Hawai’i was over twelve hours long which meant that you had roughly six hours to figure out how to entertain yourself before it was time to trade places. You could try to sleep but that meant leaning on Jisung and you were almost positive the last thing he wanted was for you to touch him right now.

You didn’t feel like paying for the in-flight wi-fi so you had to get creative with how to keep yourself busy. You scrolled through your camera roll for a while but it just made you sad. The pictures from the trip were one thing, but then there were all of the ones of you and Jisung back at school. The further back you went, the happier you seemed. There was no way that was actually true, it was just putting more distance between what had happened in the present from the way things were in the past. That, and you had a tendency to romanticize the past.

“Did you know flight attendants are trained to take oxygen masks from passengers?”

Felix’s voice from beside you pulled you from your spiral of self-pity almost immediately. You turned to look at him and cocked your head in confusion.

“What?”

“Like, you know that whole spiel they give you about safety before the plane takes off? And they’re like ‘during the flight, oxygen masks might drop from overhead’?”

“No, I know all of that. Why would they take the masks from passengers? Do they not have their own?”

“They do, but they might need to move around the cabin when that happens in case of an emergency or something, and if that were to be the case, they’re trained to take masks from passengers to oxygenate themselves. They’ll give it back, but in order to do their jobs they might have to borrow one without asking.”

“What if the passenger passes out?”

“Then they’ll be able to help them! Because they’re fully oxygenated.”

You made a face. “I’m glad you’ve got the aisle seat, then.”

Felix shrugged, grinning. “It sounds fucked up, but it’s just logistical. Wanna know something actually fucked up? These seat belts are practically useless.”

“What?” you weren’t sure if you really wanted to know where he was going with this but your morbid curiosity got the better of you once again. “What do you mean?”

“Well, they help with turbulence and stuff but in the event of a crash, these aren’t going to do shit for us. They’re just here to keep us strapped to the seat so they can identify the corpses by looking at the flight log.”

You sat there in stunned silence as the information Felix had just told you sunk in.

“That is... so dark,” you said finally.

“Yeah, but isn’t it interesting?”

“I guess, but why did you have to tell me all of this while we’re in the air?”

“Because it’s relevant!”

You sighed and glanced back at Jisung who was asleep and slumped against the window. “Ready to switch?”

It was just a joke but Felix scoffed nonetheless.

“I’m offended,” he whispered.

“And I’m traumatized.”

“My bad.”

Somehow, Felix kept you occupied until it was time to switch with Jisung. You lost track of time talking to him about everything and nothing. Out of all of the Han brothers, Felix was the one you knew the least.

You learned a lot about him in the six and a half hours you sat next to each other. You learned that he, like Jisung, had a passion for photography. He liked anime but manga adaptations always disappointed. He wanted to be a dancer when he was little, just like his big brother.

When it was Felix’s turn to inquire about you, you were sort of at a loss for words. You had to tread carefully around how much to actually reveal about yourself. When to lie, when to stretch the truth. You were exhausted. It was exhausting. But Jisung had made it clear that this was still important to him despite you not seeing the point anymore. So you played along for his sake. It was the least you could do since you ruined everything else.

You talked mostly about school, what you were studying, what you wanted to do with your degree... all the small talk that usually took place when you first met a person, not after you’d been traveling with them for over a month. But Felix didn’t know a lot about you interests wise so he listened intently and asked a lot of questions.

When it was finally time to actually switch, you were half-relieved, half-bummed. Talking with Felix was fun but you hated lying to him.

Jisung lifted up the armrest between you and him to let you slide over while he stood awkwardly in the aisle.

“Do you want to use my hoodie as a blanket, baby?” he asked.

“Sure, thanks.”

He laid it over your shoulders after you got settled against the window, kissing you on the head and telling you goodnight.

You shut your eyes and tried to relax but sleep wouldn’t come. You knew it wouldn’t. You took deep breaths in an attempt to slow your heart rate, lowkey considering holding your breath until you passed out.

Next to you, Jisung was flipping through the in-flight movies. You could hear him tapping on the touchscreen, huffing in frustration when he couldn’t find anything he wanted to watch.

“You okay, bro?” Felix asked his twin.

You felt Jisung sort of shift, likely checking to see if you were asleep. He sighed.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Relationship troubles?” Felix guessed.

“Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been pissy for like, the past two days. I assumed it had something to do with your girlfriend.”

“She hasn’t been sleeping well,” he explained simply, lying through his teeth. Well, it wasn’t technically a lie because you weren’t sleeping well, but that had nothing to do with why Jisung was upset. “The exhaustion has been leading to a lot of fights.”

“Sorry, man.”

“It’s okay. It happens. Not that you would know.”

Felix scoffed. “Ouch, I try to have a heart-to-heart with you and you go there?”

“This is a heart-to-heart to you?”

“You know what I mean. A real conversation.”

“Okay, but I’m right. You wouldn’t know.”

“Not all of us can have healthy relationships like you, Jisung,” he sighed.

“I know. I think I’m mom and dad’s only chance at grandchildren at this point.”

“Not if our brother has anything to say about it,” Felix said lowly.

“What do you mean?” Jisung asked.

He sounded genuinely confused but you knew that internally he was panicking because you were too. You were still pretending to be asleep but you had stopped breathing, waiting to hear what he would say next. How much did Felix know? You and Minho weren’t great at sneaking around but you had at least tried to be a little careful.

“You mean you haven’t noticed the way Minho looks at her?”

“Not really? But you spend more time with him. You know him better than I do.”

“Well, you should pay more attention. He makes it kind of obvious,” Minho muttered.

“Makes what kind of obvious, though?”

“That he wants her.”

“What?”

“I can’t believe you haven’t caught on to him flirting with her.”

“Well obviously he’s doing it behind my back so-”

“Sorry you had to find out this way,” Felix said, likely grimacing, “but at least she isn’t reciprocating, from what I’ve seen.”

“Yeah, at least there’s that,” Jisung murmured.

You were able to exhale in relief, but only slightly. Felix didn’t know everything but he could tell Minho was interested which wasn’t a good sign. How long had he been picking up on that?

Your best friend sighed angrily. “The one thing I thought Minho couldn’t take from me-”

You bit the inside of your cheek, guilt consuming you all over again.

“Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?” Felix asked. “He hasn’t even made a move or anything, mate. I just think he thinks she’s cute.”

“With Minho, that’s enough.”

i'm sick so no tags :(( but i've got nothing else to do so here ya go, lmk what you think I always appreciate feedback!!

add yourself to the taglist here!

#instead of you stray kids #instead of you skz #iou stray kids #iou skz #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #lee know x reader #lee know x female reader #lee know x bi!reader #lee know series #stray kids series #stray kids fanfic #lee know fanfic #lee minho x reader #minho x reader

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painted-bees · 2 months ago

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There's a question that has been microwaving in my brain for a very long time now, and it won't just let me be. So now I have to try and akwardly ask you about it.

For context: I have adhd and am very forgetful like Margie is. My friends and family have a tendency to take it really personally when my forgetfulness affects them. They treat it like I did it intentionally just to upset them. They're not bad people or anything they just don't seem to realize that I really don't want to forget things and cause problems and that I actually do care it's just hard to remember. None of them have Raf's personality disorder.

So the question I have is: How does Raf avoid taking it personally when Margie forgets things? Especially big things like those concert tickets, which probably cost a lot of money to purchase and a long drive to the venue? Wouldn't his paranoia make him more prone than anyone to assume that her forgetfulness is a deliberate action against him? He handles it better than anyone I know and I want to know his secret!

Aw. Firstly, I am sorry that this is the case between you and your loved ones. I understand how it feels to be punished for something that already punishes you enough, and the lack of understanding or empathy towards the fact that the person who suffers from your forgetfulness--more than anyone else--is you. I hope that understanding arrives to them someday soon and that they learn to exercise patience. Being frustrated and disappointed in a situation is understandable, but accusing you of doing it on purpose and reacting under that assumption is hurtful and unhelpful. I am sorry on their behalf ;;♡

Now, to answer the question at hand! Unlike most people who don't suffer mood or personality disorders, Raf has grown acutely aware that his thoughts, assumptions, and emotional responses are disordered. He knows he has the "takes everything extremely personally, and in extremely bad faith" disorder. And he's aware that this has negatively impacted his life and ruined his relationships in the past. He finally caved to getting help for it years ago because he was tired of blaming everyone and everything but seeing no way to fix it--and thinking, hoping praying that there's gotta be a way to live better than this.

He still doubts his paranoid personality diagnosis. He's done his own research into it. It could just as well be obsessive compulsive personality disorder. It could just be his unique life situation, making him an ideal target for abuse and exploitation. It could be an assortment of things. But an important thing that he's learned--that addresses all of this--is that he can't control other people's behaviour. He can blame them for it all he wants--but the only behaviour he can control is his own. And so--he has been working really hard on that. He's changed his behaviour in a variety of ways just to see how it changes his day to day experiences--and the behaviours that have seen positive results are the behaviours he has maintained and developed further. It doesn't fix his trust issues, it doesn't dispell his suspicions... but it helps give him space and removes a lot of the surface friction in his day-to-day interactions.

One of the harder ones he has forced on himself is to counter every bad assumption in his mind with a good one. It's like pulling teeth a lot of the time. A lot of the time he doesn't want to give fuckers the benefit of the doubt--because he doesn't trust that they deserve it. But he forces himself to consider it anyway. No matter the perceived severity. Another behavioural habit he's worked hard to develop is to not act on a kneejerk reaction nor respond on an impulse. He's had to assume that his first reaction is the -wrong- reaction and to delay his anger until he has had time to appropriately process things and account for all the variables. He can be hit or miss with this... but he really tries.

And so, when it comes to Margie forgetting things, he is uniquely conditioned to discard the feeling of "you did this to me on purpose, because you wanted to take this from me, because its your way of gaining power over me" as quickly as possible--like touching a hot stove. Yeah he feels it, his brain even -begs- him to chew on it. But he's well practised at responding in contradiction to this feeling of being personally slighted. He holds onto these experiences, though, and looks for other, longer-term cues to assess whether or not someone is behaving deliberately against him. He tries to find and identify behavioural patterns in the people he interacts with. He's spent enough time around Margie to recognize and reason with himself that Margie's forgetfulness and disorganization has impacted her just as much--if not more--than it has impacted those around her. If it was really done to spite him, why would she also sabotage herself in this same manner, with things that don't matter to anyone else but her...and with such consistency?

Raf is in his head a lot of the time, and it's over things like this. Assessing other people's behaviour so that he may behave "fairly" in response. Gives him the reputation of being a very quiet, chill guy who keeps to himself and stays out of interpersonal drama haha

If he doesn't spend all his resources actively forcing himself to find neutral-to-positive reasons behind people's behaviour, he'll default to obsessively verifying for himself that they're all bad. There's not really a middle ground for him, here. It's either an active, constant effort towards one...or an easy, destructive, and isolating slide into the other.

#mood stablizers help too lmao #hi-note #rafael

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