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internetegoist · 4 months ago

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Of Shidou Ryusei ; And how his character connects towards sexual trauma

(Content warning: Major mentions of SA/CSA and abuse, minor mentions for NSFW behaviour. Most of them aren't in graphic detail, but please please be wary of it 🙏 There's also spoilers for CSM and A Clockwork Orange)

Shidou's character is one of those that sticks with you throughout the entire series. It feels like we know everything about him, yet there's something so mysterious about his behaviour that makes you wonder, what's with this guy? We know how he acts, his violence and vulgarity injected in his brain and blood, but yet we don't know why he acts the way he is. It is very heavily implied that he went through a sort of restriction, born in a bird cage which he freed himself from through going to Blue Lock, but what is that restriction? What was the bird cage which trapped him? What was it that was holding him back from searching for freedom and exploring the world?

Since then, there's been a large speculation of theories on what his backstory could be. But one of them I want to talk about is about how his backstory is connected to SA, and how he could have experienced it at a young age. At first, I was extremelyyy hesitant to follow it due to how it made me a bit uncomfortable to discuss about, and how I saw a majority of people supporting the theory use it for shock value rather than a chance to devolve into darker topics. Of course, not the case for everyone who supports the theory, just from my own personal experience in the fandom.

But now, I can see the extremely, deeply discomforting vision on how this could be true in a way. From both his favourite manga and movie involving SA as an integral part in the story, to the concerning side of him being slightly revealed in the Egoist Bible. (Eg. crying at the end of the day, when he's feeling nothing or when he's empty, as well as his dislike of gifts)

Due to my heavy interests, I wanted to explore this theory into a more deeper matter. I decided to analyze more of his behaviour, as well as doing some of my own research. I must say, Shidou's behavioral manner can be one that is similar to those of SA survivors, especially male survivors.

Okay okay, enough yapping around. Let me get straight to the point.

Shidou and his instinct's responses

Generally after experiencing sexual abuse, one's entire personality will change. Every behaviour change is different for every sexual abuse survivor. Sometimes they'll isolate themselves more often, sometimes they turn into a much aggressive and violent person. Because the world has failed them, the world is putting them in a place where they are no longer safe and are more vulnerable. Because when your entire sense of self and personal power is taken away by your abuser, you are left with nothing but fear and new survival instincts. Why I bring this up is because Shidou's entire personality is built on instincts. His instant response to even the slightest hint of dislike or threat is to immediately beat them up, no matter who they are. A noteworthy thing to mention is that one of the main responses from males following sexual trauma is anger, because it is more socially acceptable for men to react that way. Attacking someone is the best way of defense, and Shidou follows this way of defense entirely. This also follows up with the stigma with the male ethic of self-reliance, in which help-seeking behaviours can be seen as cowardly or unmasculine.

It's most likely the reason why he also dislikes Kunigami's philosophy of heroes; Considering the fact his entire character is based on wanting to be free from restriction, he must have lived in an environment and/or went through a sort of restriction which influenced his ideals of "I can fend myself, I won't need anyone". The world he has grown up in was nothing but survival against the abuse he went through, so for what purpose should he believe in the principle of a savior, if he himself could have never been saved? It doesn't help either when in real time, there have been many cases where survivors of sexual abuse are either never believed when they speak out about it, or never speak out at all in fear of not being believed.

And besides the fact he uses violence as a defense method, one thing I noticed about Shidou is that during the time he was locked up by Ego for inducing violence onto Rin. We see him, perhaps for the first time, being calm and offering a promise that he'll make sure to stop fighting and hitting others, as long as he is let out of that prison he's trapped in. You see, a common reaction victims will use during the process of the SA is to freeze. To stay silent and still. It's like how animals freeze to avoid fights or further harm to themselves, or play dead in order to prevent getting eaten by predators. Although the outer self may seem to be in a calm state, the inside are on high alert, because they are afraid on what will be their abuser's next moves. The option to fight or run away may seem easy to those who haven't experienced SA, but to the victim it may seem harder than you think. Because freezing is a body's instinct response to abuse, and it'll stay frozen until the abuse is over, it's almost like a human's way of playing dead, so that the assault induced will end sooner. Among the instincts of 'fight, flight, freeze', Shidou seems to use fight the most out of the three. However, when necessary times come necessary measures, Shidou, perhaps for the first time, switches to 'freeze' instead of 'fight'. Not only because he basically, cannot physically fight anyone at that moment, but also because he is afraid. Afraid of being restricted yet again, afraid of not having the chance to live his life, which is to play football. The worst position to be in when you're being hurt or abused is limitation. You can't move, you can't fight, you can't run away from your abuse from happening. Nothing but hope that the abuse happening to you will end soon, that your abuser will stop hurting you. That's exactly what is so terrifying about the freeze responses.

Shidou and his sexual behaviour

If any fan knows anything about Shidou, it's that he's not afraid to speak out what's on his mind, especially lewd and inappropriate words. More or less, this can be connecting to something called hypersexuality. Accordingly, hypersexuality is defined as an intense focus on sexual fantasies, urges and behaviours that can't be controlled. Hypersexuality can not only cause distress, but also problems in school and workplace.

Survivors of sexual abuse cope in one of the two ways: Either by avoiding sexual or intimidate interactions entirely, or seeking said interactions on a large and unhealthy scale. According to this article, a majority of men who suffer from hypersexuality or sex addiction have been either physically or sexually abused in their childhood.

We see Shidou quite literally compare scoring a goal in football, to sexual intercourse. (And also the part where he says he's gonna blow his load, with Sae also dismissing it, but it's just partners supporting each other!)

By now, we know that two things that Shidou is unable to separate from each other is life and football. Both the act of life and the act of playing football is interconnected. Because football is something that allows him to leave a mark, allows him to be known by the world. Because football is a biological phenomenon to him, rather than just a sport.

And yes sure, this is supposed to be a connection to his philosophy of leaving a mark on others, so that you can be remembered. But also remember what he says in his monologue: "Those who create something, those who want to become something, and of course, those who make children." The way humans create life is through intimacy, through intercourse. The two people engaging leave a mark on each other through creating that life, that child.

And while speaking about his monologue of leaving a mark, Shidou also mentions that wounding others are a way of leaving behind a proof of existence. Inducing abuse whether it'd be physical, emotional or sexual, can also be one of the ways to make someone remember you.

The abuser leaves the mark on the victim, the mentioned mark left on them can be seen as PTSD or trauma symptoms.

Abuse is not something you can just simply turn away, forget or overlook. Whether the effects of trauma are short-term or long-term, they are there, they are a proof of existence that it happened. Shidou's inability to separate the physical act of football and the biological act of life's desires, especially sexual desires, can be seen as hypersexuality. Hypersexuality can also be seen as a mark left onto the victim. And it's extremely lengthy to recover and remove those marks left on you.

Of Freedom and Shidou Ryusei

I think Shidou Ryusei and his obsession with freedom is something so interesting about his character, yet so many people tend to ignore it as a significant part of him. Because imagine if one day out of the blue, your entire bodily autonomy gets taken away from you, you're trapped in a cycle of repetitive abuse onto you. When it's finally over and you have control over everything again, the world suddenly feels so utterly different. So what do you do? Of course, cling onto that freedom that is now yours.

Bite any other hand that may seem like it's trying to take it away, because if there is one thing you do not ever want to repeat, it is someone isolating you once more against the world. So hold on tightly to the freedom you now have, and make sure it stays with you for eternity.

All of Shidou's favourite things, his favourite film, manga and song, are also connected to this in a way.

It would take too long for me to get into detail about both Chainsaw Man and A Clockwork Orange, but I want to say that both media and their protagonists have approaches to freedom of life and choice.

In Chainsaw Man, Denji is a child that has been depraved of even the basic of human needs; Just like Shidou, he wants to claim everything in his current life and not return to when he had nothing when he was a child. In A Clockwork Orange, Alexander who in the beginning of the movie has been committing heinous crimes with no one to stop him, is captured and put through inhumane experiments in order to rehabilitate him. His entire freedom is taken away from him and for the next hour, we see him go through immense suffering and torture by those who he had wronged to the point he attempts to commit suicide through jumping off a window. In the end, it doesn't seem like his mindset has changed at all. It makes us question whether or not letting someone be free to do anything they want is the better option even if it hurts others, rather than attempt to isolate them in order to transform them into a better human being.

I would like to talk a little about his favourite artist. For a bit of context, hide is popular for being an icon of rebellion against Japan's conformist society, and one of his songs PINK SPIDER, is listed as Shidou's favourite song according to the official Blue Lock Egoist Bible. I've seen a lot of interpretations of what the song truly means, but the main story is that it's about a spider trapped within and kills anything near it. Because it wishes to free itself away, it steals a butterfly's wings. It attempts to fly, and fails, and tries again. Whether or not the spider did actually succeeded in flying away is unknown to us. But, that's not all!

Around the chapter where Shidou scores a goal, the commenter calls it a 'rocket diving header'. This can lead to one of hide's other songs in the same album as PINK SPIDER, rocket dive; a song with the similar approach of freedom but with different tones. Compared to PINK SPIDER, rocket dive has a more cheerful approach. In the end of the song, the star mentioned in rocket dive successfully flies away and appears as a new shooting star in the sky.

Which brings me to point out something: Shidou Ryusei's birthday is on Tanabata, a type of Japanese celebration called the Star Festival which is celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month.

His name, Ryusei, is also a homophone for shooting star in Japanese.

Shidou, born as a star on the day where two lover stars meet, yet when he was born, he was not allowed to fly and join the others in the sky.

But he overcame everything, achieved that dream of having the freedom to do whatever he wants. And even though he went through all that pain, all that abuse, and most likely had to learn how to escape by himself through football before Blue Lock, he made it come true, like a spell.

And eventually, he learnt how to fly, and let the world knew who he was.

#cw child abuse #cw csa #shidou ryusei #blue lock #bllk #ryusei shidou #shidou ryuusei #character analysis #bllk analysis #character study #character examination #i deeply apologize for the repetitive words and any mistakes i made it's so late i can't be bothered to fix it until tomorrow #this is my first time writing such a long analysis and posting it publicly. please be nice to me.#i worked on this shit for TWO WEEKS and will probably not like it later but you know what it's better to never post anything at all

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picturejasper20 · 8 months ago

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Analysis of Danny and Vlad's relationship in A Glitch in Time

I have noticed that for some reason i never wrote a proper analysis of Vlad and Danny's interactions in A Glitch in Time in spite of talking about their dynamic a lot in my blog. I think in part because the graphic novel doesn't have much of that, at least not until the third act when they are fighting against Dan Phantom. However, i still want to try to talk about the interactions Danny and Vlad had through the story and how it changes by the end of it.

This is probably going to be a somewhat long post, so let's start.

The first interaction that Danny and Vlad have in A Glitch in Time is when Vlad arrives through the ghost portal in the Fentons's lab. This... doesn't end well as it leads to Danny to transform into Phantom and attack Vlad the moment he asks for his help and tells him he can explain (and also being in a weak beaten state). Not unexpected since Danny believes that Vlad went missing or probably died after the events of Phantom Planet-and with the time glitches happening to him he probably very quickly jumped to the conclusion that Vlad was behind them and was here to fight him. It isn't rare for Danny to sometimes attack Vlad for him just showing up too. So this reaction isn't that unexpected either.

However, after he gets some repressed anger out of his system and they trap Vlad, Danny gives him the opportunity to explain himself, as he wants to know why he happened to suddenly show up in his house.

One thing that's interesting about Vlad's line here is that he shows certain self awareness of how much Danny hates him because of his past selfish actions -something he mainly seemed to lack before Phantom Planet. He knows that he is ¨the last person Danny wants to see right now¨. In past it was pretty unlikely for Vlad to reconsider his actions, as he usually thought he was justified in doing them.

Danny also leaves clear his deep hatred for Vlad and for how he has messed with his life and others in the time they have been enemies. He is willing to listen to Vlad but he doesn't hide how angry he is at Vlad.

Vlad later adds that he didn't know who else to ask for help because it is heavily implied he didn't have any ally left after Phantom Planet events and Danny was the only person that he could think of that would help him. I interpret him as him assuming that Danny would help him since Dan told him that he is half Phantom and Danny would listen to him because of that.

After telling his story about how Dan got accidentally free when he was fighting against Clockwork, Danny, in shock that Clockwork is gone and Dan is free again, doesn't initially believe him and thinks it is a trap. Tucker proves that Vlad is saying is true by checking the ghost portal scanners.

Danny yells at Vlad for putting the reality itself in danger again thanks to his actions. Surprisingly Vlad acknowledges he was responsible for that happening, similar to how earlier he admitted that he knew Danny hates him, but still refuses to admit it was his fault, trying to say that it ¨wasn't only him¨, which in part isn't incorrect since Dan is the one causing the time glitches. Danny is left frustrated with Vlad's lack of taking responsibility for his actions and him having to be involved in fixing the mess he causes (again).

After Vlad tells the team Phantom about how he has been looking for the source of ghost power energy for decades and suggests they could search for it, Danny and Vlad have a moment that resembles their typical dynamic in the series.

Danny quickly picks up that Vlad in part is trying to trick him and the others into looking for the source of ghost power so he could probably keep it for himself after they defeat Dan. Vlad tries passing it off as this is for Danny to fix his ghost powers, correcting himself to not fully reveal his true intentions. Danny quickly points out that when Vlad had the Infi-map, he could have easily found the power source-but the map very likely it didn't want to take him there or it just doesn't exist. Vlad praises Danny for realizing this, indicating that while he wasn't taken to the source, Danny could be taken there if the map wishes him to.

Feeling like they don't have much of a choice, the team decides to team up with Vlad to look for the source of ghost power. For precaution, Danny puts the Specter Deflecter on Vlad so he can't use his ghost powers while they are working with him, just in case he plans on doing anything suspicious. This is a detail that is worth of mentioning since it comes back later on.

In what would be a twisted funny moment, when the characters are inside Vlad's lab, the novel reminds us that there was a time Vlad tried cloning Danny and not only that, he kept doing that even after the events of ¨Kindred Spirits¨.

Vlad tells Danny to ¨ignore the clones¨ and Danny tells him that ¨they are going to have a serious talk about boundaries¨ after they are done with dealing the whole situation. What it is interesting about most of their interactions in the story is that Vlad never taunts Danny with making him become his pupil or son. He doesn't make comments about Jack nor trying to get Maddie for himself.

This could be seen in two ways: A) He doesn't say any of this since they are working together in stopping Dan or B) At this point he had realized how wrong his obsession with the Fenton family, specially Danny, was. This could explain why he didn't seem to have an interest in Danny becoming his son in the novel.

When they are fighting against the Fright Knight, Vlad tries using his ghost powers, only to get zapped by the Specter Deflecter. Because of this Danny orders Tucker to take it off since ¨they need all hand on deck¨ to fight, specially considering that Danny can't use his powers properly. I bring this up since it was Danny the one who put the Specter Deflecter on Vlad in first place and it is himself here who is ordering Tucker to deactivate it. I assume he does it because he knows that Fright Knight is quite powerful and they need Vlad's ghost powers to beat him.

Moments later the sarcophagus where Pariah is trapped begans to wobble and falls to the ground. In a rare moment Danny and Vlad manage to work together to catch the sarcophagus before it can hit the floor with full force and then drop it over Fright Knight when they find the secret room they were looking for.

Getting angry that the secret room they found doesn't give them any power ups, Danny blames Vlad for making them waste their time, accusing him of lying about the the power source's existence. This evolves into a short fight between the two and Tucker trying to stop them before there is another time glitch.

This is the closest Danny and Vlad get to fighting each other in the novel, with the rest of the time clashing or Danny taking jabs at Vlad. However, it is never enough for the two of them to attack each other. Even Vlad looks very surprised at Danny's outburst at first. The fight itself isn't anything serious but there is a chance it could gotten worse if they hadn't been interrupted by the time glitch.

When they are dealing with the Hero Twins, Vlad suggests to Danny to take advantage of the ghosts being distracted and attack them. Danny points out that the Hero Twins just want to play a game, to which Vlad calls Danny ¨naive child¨ for thinking that they want that since they are ¨ghosts¨. Danny answers that with bringing up that Vlad is also half ghost and he is obsessed with the Packers.

I have talked about this before that Danny has a more friendly relationship towards ghosts that Vlad does. At least enough to understand that not of them are evil and they can be friendly, like Wolf or Dora. In contrast Vlad shows to have a more limited view of them. Considering it is naive of Danny to think the Hero Twins want to play. He sees them more as ¨mindless¨, since his first choice was suggesting attacking them instead of paying attention to their intentions.

I'm going to discuss this later on, but Vlad has a huge issue when it comes to understanding emotions and empathy. This is something Danny is better at in comparison.

Another thing about the novel is that there are hints that Vlad is somewhat jealous of Danny having friends and people who care about him. He is sometimes seen irritated or confused when seeing the Team Phantom celebrating together. It isn't out of place to believe that he is probably reminded of the time he was part of a friend trio with Jack and Maddie and how part of him misses that based on his dialogue later in the story.

The point their relationship begans to change is around the time they learn about the ghosts being powered by emotions. After they read the message that is in runes from the secret garden, Vlad has a quite of a mental breakdown, believing he spent years searching for the ¨ulimate power¨ only to find nothing. He dismisses the runes legend as simple ¨story time¨, not seeing the value in them.

I have discussed this before in my Vlad AGIT character analysis that Vlad isn't just good at anything that comes with understanding or processing emotions. He is mostly logical driven and is overall very disconnected of his own emotional side. That is one main aspect that separates him from Danny, who thinks better about the consequences of his actions and his relationships with others.

Once Danny is able to find a new emotional drive and get his ghost powers back, Vlad appears to have a change of mind in the way he sees Danny. It could be said that he has a new found respect for him, since he was able to quickly understand what the message of runes was about while he wrote it off as a ridiculous fairy tale.

Vlad has always seen himself as a superior to Danny and someone the teen should learn from, specially when it comes to ghost powers. In the series he is usually condescending towards Danny, believing himself to be better than him in almost every way and dismissing him as a reckless teenager. Earlier in the novel he called Danny ¨naive child¨ for thinking that the Hero Twins wanted to play, only to be proven wrong minutes after his statement.

By observing that Danny manages to get the ¨ultimate power¨ before him makes Vlad reconsider all these things and probably start to see Danny more of an equal and/or having more respect for him overall. This moment also inspires to rethink of his goals and priorities that he has been trying to avoid until this point of the story.

During the battle against Dan, Vlad shows to care about Danny's safety multiple times, often interfering or attacking to defend Danny from Dan's attacks. He tries checking on him, even helping him to stand and asking him if he is alright.

It is likely that this caring side he has for Danny comes from him seeing Danny as the son he wished he could have had, a side that probably he always had in him and now he is showing it because he is trying to change for the better.

During his speech about recognizing the mistakes he has made and wishing to make amends, he recognizes that his obsession with control terribly hurt and pushed Danny away, along with other people. At the start of the story he acknowledged that he was aware that Danny hated him but here he admits why that happened and he has only himself to blame for that.

Once he helps Danny by blasting Dan off, the two decide to attack him together at the same time on on count of three. A small detail is that Vlad is seen smiling briefly when working together with Danny. When the two hit Dan, their mix of powers ends up somewhat breaking dimensions and going through different parts of the Ghost Zone, until they are able to separate Clockwork from Dan and the four ghosts fall to the ground exhausted.

When Dan is starting to destabilize because of being part of a timeline that doesn't exist anymore and says that he doesn't want to going inside the thermos afraid of being alone again, Vlad answers with ¨you don't have to be¨. He transforms into Plasmius and gently pushes Danny behind him. Danny asks him what he is about to do, to which Vlad answers ¨The right thing, for once¨, still showing that he wants to start making things right with the people he hurt.

While talking to Dan, Vlad not only apologizes to Dan for how he was hurt by Vlad from his timeline, he also apologizes to Danny for his past villainous actions and how they affected him. He also asks Danny if he can give him a second chance to make amends for what he has done, something that surprises Danny a lot.

An important distinction to notice is that Vlad isn't asking Danny to forgive him. He is asking to be given a second chance. He understands that he pushed Danny away a long time ago and he doesn't expect that to be fixed any time soon.

After Dan uses Vlad's body as temporal host, Danny shows to be worried about seeing Vlad hurt/exhausted. A different contrast to how reacted at seeing him the same way at the start of the story. It is a moment that demonstrates that even though Danny still doesn't like Vlad, he still worries about him.

Danny also takes the time to ask Clockwork to wait for a second before he takes Vlad and Dan elsewhere. He leaves clear that even though he still hates Vlad and can't still forgive him for what he has done, he is thankful for helping them during the battle against Dan and offering himself to help Dan as well. Vlad simply returns a soft smile to Danny before he gets taken by Clockwork and Danny is left staring at the spot the portal disappeared.

This sentiment is followed again when Sam, Tucker and Jazz come in to check on Danny. He highlights that ¨they couldn't have done it without Vlad¨. He appears to be both confused and suprised for what Vlad did, since he wasn't expecting him to help them like that. He realizes that Vlad is more ¨complicated¨ than he thought, seeing now that he is more than just the villain he used to fight against and he had more going on in him than he assumed all this time.

In the end, Vlad and Danny start as enemies who are working together for an urgent common goal. Although it rarely escalates to a real fight, the two still clash with each other for good part of the story. Vlad doesn't show to be interested in making Danny his pupil, indicating that he was in his way to changing or regretting his past actions.

While working together, the two gain a better understading of each other, specially from Vlad in how he sees Danny. He begins to have a new found respect for the teen, not just seeing him as a ¨naive child¨ for his hero worldview. After the battle against Dan, the two end up in way better terms, as somewhat allies, with Vlad apologizing for his antagonism and manipulation and Danny, while rather unsure how to feel about Vlad, he gives him a second chance to start things over.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #vlad plasmius #danny phantom a glitch in time

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treepainting · 2 years ago

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Oooooh

Oh oh oh

I just read some dpxdc AU’s back to back and while reading a Damian/danny thing right after a twin au thing which then reminded me of a Dead on Main forced arranged marriage au I’d read right before and I’m gonna Mix Them Together

So- Danny and Damian are twins. They were really close and then something happens to separate them

(Danny dies and lives out his best ghost life, Clockwork gets his hands in things and sends Danny to another place/universe so that time runs smoothly, Danny manages to escape on his own/talia helps him, hell- maybe he just trips into the Lazarus Pits and he gets reborn [it would be kinda trippy for everyone if he ends up being reborn at the same time he was actually born, time shenanigans ya know?] so then we get Actual Little Brother Danny and Older Brother Damian rather than twin older/younger brother dynamics [mostly])

SO BACK TO MY IDEA

Whatever happened to separate them happens and then some cult or something offers someone as a bride to some ancient deity they found in like, a necronomicon or something, where they can offer someone’s hand in marriage to earn favor with the deity/as a way to control them, they could either use one of their own, kidnap someone, or even some random kid(extra angst if it’s one one their own kids)

So- the bats get involved to keep the group from doing whatever nefarious plans they thought up and Jason managed to get whoever it is out of the ritual circle but wasn’t fast enough to get themselves out, so he ends up disappearing in a concussive flash of Lazarus green light

Queue Danny meeting his magically bound fiancé

Danny and Jason end up getting along Really Well, they 100% hit it off once Jason is sure Danny isn’t trying to pull something. They work to find a way to un bind themselves from the fiancé thing and Danny fixes/finds a way to fix Jason’s pit madness, all the while having ghostly problems/issues that just so happen to make their bond grow deeper until they decide to hell with it! Let’s just get married!

And all the while the batfam are going nuts over trying to get Jason back

I’m gonna say that time between one dimension to another, and especially in the Infinite Realms is kinda wonky (so if Danny’s ’home’ dimension is different from the Bats’ Jason could meet the family without his own family knowing about it)

I just wanna make sure that Danny and Jason’s romance doesn’t get rushed ok? Ok

So- the bats manage to summon him back, and Jason’s the most relaxed anyones seen him since he died, they talk a bit, Jason’s kinda annoyed

Then eldrich Danny shows up

He either materializes out of nothing or Danny manages to find the ritual circle that was used and tears it open with a giant claw to find Jason

Once he’s there and sees that Jason is fine, but before shifting back into his more human form he goes ‘Dami?’ In an eldritch voice and the tone of voice, the inflection reminds him of something no, of someone

‘Danyal?’

And the eldritch beings form Shifts into something more recognizable even as a long black tail it has in place of legs wraps around Jason’s middle

That’s pretty much all I have! Oops, I didn’t really think that it would end up as a cliffhanger, my bad! But also, just imagine the whole adopted brother is in a relationship with my younger twin shenanigans that would happen, Dami would be so protective and jealous of all of the attention (from Danny) that isn’t getting directed at him

#danny phantom #dp x dc #dc x dp #dcxdp #dpxdc #dc x dp crossover #dp x dc crossover #crossover #dead on main #twin au

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summerlinenss · 8 months ago

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I don't have a twitter account and refuse to get one so I can't jump in on there, but I just gotta say *something* about the whole thing of Chris "throwing Taika under the bus." Did anyone saying that read the article?? Chris doesn't even mention Taika! He just says he feels like he didn't do a good job there. How is that in any way disparaging Taika??

I get people hate Love and Thunder so much that even mentioning its existence is enough for some people, but questioning if Chris and Taika are still friends because Chris wasn't happy with his performance is a little much. This is not saying "hey go attack Taika for making me make this movie," this is saying "I didn't do the best I could and I think the film suffered for it."

Anyone who thinks that is Chris inviting people to attack Taika is just reading pure bad faith. Anyone who thinks they had a fight is reading pure bad faith and making huge assumptions about two people they don't know. I doubt Chris even pays attention to the online hate and was in no way thinking to sic the rabid Marvel bros on Taika again. He was talking about a role he had and thought he didn't do the best at and he is perfectly in his rights to discuss that. It was barely a short paragraph in a long article and anybody who takes it as a cue to go after Taika just wants an excuse, not that they need one.

okay so i’m not entirely sure if this is all supposed to be directed at me but to clarify, i never said chris was attacking or throwing taika under the bus. i was actually the one to bring up the fact that afaik they’ve been friends since pre-ragnarok. i have zero issue with chris as a person or an actor. your last sentence basically sums up the entire point i was making, anon.

i know that chris is just being critical of himself. he’s talked about his issues with his performance before, it’s not news. i’m a bit upset to hear it because i honestly love the movie, but he has every right to feel that way. and he has the right to talk about it.

all i was saying is that it’s exhausting and annoying that any time anyone involved with tlat does some sort of press tour, we know they (as in the media) are going to start pushing the whole “so-and-so says they hated working on this movie and it was a miserable soul-sucking experience” narrative for clicks. and like clockwork, the dudebros come crawling back out to swear their undying hatred for taika and how he “ruined thor” and is a talentless hack who should never be allowed to direct anything again because he made one movie they didn’t like.

they have the right to talk about it. and i know they sometimes don’t necessarily have a choice if interviewers keep bringing it up. but i also stand by my point that everyone (that includes the cast, the media, and the marvel fanboys) needs to stop dwelling on something they pretty much only have negative feelings about. like taika clearly has. we get it. there are regrets. it wasn’t well-received. it’s been two years. let’s get over it and move on to new things.

#asks #anon #taika waititi #chris hemsworth #tlat

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anhed-nia · 2 months ago

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BLOGTOBER 10/27/2024: SCARAB

I always say that an interestingly bad movie is far better than a conventionally good movie, and SCARAB is here to prove that I'm right! I'm sure there's a major backstory on this vision of total insanity, and if you know what it is, please tell me. The producer of such films as GHOST, STRANGE DAYS, NEAR DARK, and MOTEL HELL directed what imdb describes as a movie in which "A former Nazi seeking to gain new power attempts to resurrect an ancient Egyptian god." This description could not possibly prepare you for what it is actually like to watch SCARAB.

The best way for me to review this movie would actually be to just describe every single thing that happens in it, in order. I genuinely wish I had time to do that. But basically, Rip Torn is a mad scientist who gets possessed by the scarab god Khepera, and goes about the business of assassinating world leaders in order to thrust the Earth into a new Dark Age to avoid nuclear war. I think. Robert Ginty plays Murphy, a journalist who is so horny that the next big journalism summit features a whole speech about how journalists shouldn't create public sex scandals. Murphy becomes aware of Khepera's evil plan, and stalks the living shit out of Elena (Cristina Pascual) who is a powerful psychic nurse who turns out to be Khepera's daughter. She basically handles the whole situation without any really necessary contributions from Murphy.

I had such a negative reaction reaction to Robert Ginty that I felt sort of bad about it. I love when he gets chased around by the laughing assassin who causes things to explode by pointing at them, but the movie's attempt to make him like a super sexual Indiana Jones is very offensive. Putting him on a motorcycle, putting him in bed with a sexy lingerie lady, putting cool-guy headphones on him, all this stuff only underlines how deeply and fundamentally uncool he is. I was so repulsed by him that I started to feel guilty, like maybe I'm just being terribly shallow; I mean some of it is definitely physical, the man is waspy and bland and has the bone structure of a Punch & Judy puppet. But here are some excerpts from his imdb page that made me feel a little better about my response to him.

Born in New York, rugged, virile, hard-looking action star Robert Ginty initially sought a career in music, becoming involved in several rock bands from age 16 on. [Long list of rock stars he hung out with that one time] He directed a rap/hip-hop musical version of Anthony Burgess' "A Clockwork Orange" to fine reviews. Once flew as passenger on a "VIP Flight" in F/A-18 Hornet with the Blue Angels.

OK you corny motherfucker, give it a rest already. In any case the real point of this movie is Rip Torn overseeing crazed black magic orgies and doing some of the strangest dance moves you have ever seen in your whole life. SCARAB is the kind of movie that you watch all of with your jaw in your lap, just passively letting it wash over you, because you really never know what you're going to see next. This is a major virtue in my book. There's also an odd competence to it, which I guess is accounted for by director Steven-Charles Jaffe's producorial chops; it's nicely shot, and the variety of interesting Spanish locations means that there is always something to look at, even when the fire-breathing cultists aren't writhing around on screen...but that very competence throws the extreme zaniness of the movie into even starker relief. SCARAB is an extraordinarily confusing movie, and in the era of used up, wrung out IPs and assembly line slop from streaming services, it's just the kind of movie we need.

#blogtober #2024 #horror #fantasy #adventure #scarab #steven-charles jaffe #rip torn #robert ginty #cristina pascual #supernatural #cult

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twixtandshout · 1 year ago

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I spent way too long getting distracted by the sparkles that follow my cursor on your blog XD XD XD ANYWAY, you had talked about DnD character sheets for the LU boys and I'm here to ask about them! :D I don't know much about DnD but you were excited and I'm interested so feel free to tell me all about it!

Yes!!! Hi! :D There's a lot on them but I'm proud of them all. I guess I'll just pull out a couple things I think are neat from each of them? (And I'll try to keep things understandable for you, dw!!)

Sky: I don't remember what I already went through in comments, but I know he's your favorite so I'll try to pull out something new and interesting for you. Hm... I've got him with 14 levels of Paladin (swords and a bit of holy magic, sworn to a higher power), 3 levels in Warlock (magic granted as part of a pact with an outside entity), and 3 in Barbarian (hit stuff better when you're angry). Pretty sure I already talked about the storm stuff he gets from the Barbarian side of things – he gets some storm/lightning stuff and it's great – but I've made him a Pact of the Talisman warlock with Sun: his sailcloth is a symbol of his bond with her, and apart from acting as a parachute, it also lets him add a little extra to the roll a few times each day through her power when he fails a check. He's got a bunch of stuff that makes him really good at dueling, plus a couple extra feats that make it easier for him and Sun to talk 💞

Four: Four has. so many classes. I gave him 10 levels in Artificer, for making magic tools; then each Color plus Shadow got 2 levels in another class: Wizard for Vio (learn magic through study), Druid for Red (learn magic through becoming in tune with nature), Barbarian for Blue, Paladin for Green, and Sorcerer for Shadow (obtain magic through genetic accident/tragic backstory/general lottery). Generally Druids' main ability as a class is Wildshape, which is to say animal shapeshifting, but that wasn't the vibe for Red, so he's a Wildfire Druid, which gives him a living fire friend instead. Also, one of the magic things you're allowed to say your character knows how to make when you're making an Artificer is a living robot – I've quietly had him learn that, with the expectation that that's how he got Shadow back. :3 Other than that, he's just got a bunch of elemental spells basically!

Time: Time's got a couple levels in Bard (magic through music) and Ranger, but he's primarily a Sorcerer, with a slightly modified Clockwork Soul subclass – technically the flavor there's meant to be more "the underlying order of the universe" than "messing with time," but I just traded out a couple spells on the list and it works fine for him. :3c His background and his Bard and Ranger subclasses all involve the fey, though. He gets some fun stuff with glamours and charm effects, and, just for flavor, when he casts time stands still and you can hear/see gears ticking around him.

Legend: Lej's got a ridiculous number of classes too, and he doesn't have Four's excuse. (There's not even enough room on the sheet to abbreviate them all like I did Four's, so I just filled in the "class" blank "Yes.") So he's got a bit of everything! Pulling out a few interesting bits: he gets a whole bunch of sneaky stuff as a Rogue, as well as sizable bonuses to spotting lies and hidden objects. As a College of Creation Bard, he gets little visual symbol effects that float around him when he plays, and he can create a medium-sized object out of nothing, like that cane that lets him make boxes for some reason. As opposed to the more heroic Paladins of the Chain, Lej's Paladin subclass is the Oath of Vengeance, which among other things lets him channel divine power through utter a "vow of enmity" against an enemy, making his attacks more likely to hit until it's dead. I also gave him a few feats to really round out the knowledgeable veteran thing – he's really good at dungeon delving.

Hyrule: I gave Hyrule the Circle of Dreams Druid subclass, which is fey-themed and gives him a lot of healing abilities in addition to a little bit of teleporting. (He's got levels in Rogue and Sorcerer too, but apart from "he dodges real good, gets bonus damage for surprise attacks, and can modify spell effects," I don't have much to say on those for him.) Reflecting that he carries the Triforce, I borrowed the Radiant Consumption character feature from the Aasimar – as a bonus action, he can start burning, glowing brightly for 10' and doing radiant damage to everyone (including himself) every turn for a full minute. (A combat round in DnD lasts approx 6 in-game seconds!)

Wind: Wind! 2 levels in Rogue, 18 in Sorcerer. As a Halfling, he can reroll any 1 once. He can fly after casting spells (or grant flight to others), is immune to thunder and lightning damage, and he gets a feature to control storms! He can stop rain in a sphere, control the direction of wind, and hit things with lightning. He's also got Truesight and can make ghosts visible for an hour once per week, and I gave him the Quickfingered and Silvertongued feats, so he's great at pickpocketing and sweettalking people.

Twilight: Twi's largely a Ranger, with Exactly enough levels in Druid to give him Wildshape, because Wolfie. He's a Circle of the Shepherd Druid, which seemed fitting; he gets feyspeak as a language, can talk to animals, and can summon a hawk spirit to fight for him. As for the Ranger stuff, he's a Horizon Walker Ranger – the subclass description says they "guard the world against threats that originate from other planes or that seek to ravage the mortal world with otherworldly magic." He doesn't have a lot of spells – I don't think he'd use most of the ones I gave him, honestly, but the class says he gets some so I made the most of it – but he's really good at navigating, especially in forests, and he gets bonuses to track enemies. He's Also very good at vanishing in plain sight, seeing in darkness, and teleporting up to 10' before each attack.

Warriors: Seven levels of Fighter! Seven levels of Paladin! Six levels of Cleric! This boy is So Good at whacking things with swords, and he also channels magic/holy power as a representative of the god of War. As a Battlemaster Fighter, he's got a lot of tactical maneuvers he can use to set people up around the field or grant bonuses, and although his Paladin oath is baaasically the same mechanically as Sky's, he's an Oath of Glory Paladin where Sky's Oath of Heroism. He has a Peerless Athlete feature, he can Channel Divinity to vaporize low-level undead, and he's very mobile – he isn't slowed by difficult terrain, and he literally cannot be physically restrained.

Wild: He'd have a different level distribution if I kept what he had pre-nap, but I decided he keeps five levels in Fighter and then the rest is Ranger from post-nap. He's a Fey Wanderer Ranger (like Time!) so he gets some glamour abilities, and if something makes him save against charm/fear effects, he can redirect it and make that thing make the save against Him instead. He's great at navigating and disappearing in the wilderness, and he gets a couple teleporty things. He's also got a bunch of skills in cooking and making/finding healing food, and he regains more than the usual hp when he recovers, too.

#oh man this post is Very Long #but!!! dnd sheets yay :D #oh jeez what did i decide to tag these #lu dnd sheets #probably something like that #anyway!!! thank :D i hope these are Fun!#answerin' stuff

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noteworthyao3 · 1 year ago

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Hello! So I really like your story, Neutral. However, I do have a question.

Who will be the first to find out Messer grew up in the ghost zone as ClockWork ward?

In order to avoid spoiling it for everyone, you can be cryptic by doing an initial of their first name or a riddle.

Instead of answering this myself (because let's be honest a hint or a riddle may give you a brief moment of gratification but ultimately will suck the joy out of the experience when the time comes), I let local die-hard Neutral fan @innerenigma answer this with some of her musings/theories. Here are her words verbatim:

"Who will be the first to find out Messer grew up in the Ghost Zone as ClockWork’s ward? (I see errors, I fix, moving on to an enigmatic response) To begin delving into this question, we need to break it up to two sections. Finding out Messer comes from/used to reside in the Ghost Zone and then being Clockwork’s ward are two completely entirely different topics. I personally feel like Messer would never let out (AKA she’d rather go to her grave) that she has any involvement or connection with Clockwork. Reason being? Cause she’s aware of what an ultimate OP motherfucker he is and she doesn’t want that knowledge of their connection to be used for any ulterior motives or to be used against her in any way (y’all gotta remember despite her concerns and reservations at times, I still feel like Clockwork has Messer’s absolute trust). The only way anyone would ever find out about that involvement is if said person has very good inner-connections within the Ghost Zone (or if they have general access to the Ghost Zone, without repercussions due to powers or tech, I’ll get to that in a bit). The only person/fruitcake that comes to mind that would find out about Messer’s involvement with Clockwork and therefore her origins from the Ghost Zone would probably be Vlad. AND the only reason I say probably is cause I really doubt Skulker would give that information to just anyone, he’s not stupid (I believe he wouldn’t ever mention it to Vlad, but who knows he’d probably say something carelessly without meaning to around him and then it would pique Vlad’s interest, who knows???) (Also if anyone’s confused by this, Imma have to refer y’all back to Ch. 2, and now that I think about it technically speaking there is already one ghost/person? that already knows of Messer’s origins and that would be Skulker kiddos!~).

On with my next point, the one I mentioned I’d get back to later, is that Danny and the Gang would find out. Probably not until The Ultimate Enemy though, cause Clockwork being introduced to that whole cast of characters early on would possibly be wrong to him and he wouldn’t let that happen (y’all gotta remember, he didn’t show up even when Messer was having her hand crushed and even when she was blown off a moving train. He’s saving his appearance for when the time is right). In regards to Messer’s involvement with the Ghost Zone, Imma just have to say that the only way anyone would find out about that is if Messer confessed to it (more than likely to one of the adults she trusts like Mrs. Haru or Mr. Lancer) but even then it’d probably take a lot of convincing cause to Messer she probably sees her origins from the Ghost Zone and with Clockwork to be the same thing (so if she comes out with one, the other would have to as well). Hmm or maybe I should give Messer more credit here and just say that she has the fool proof idea of feigning ignorance, it’s not like anyone would actually know she’s from the Ghost Zone without hearing it directly from Clockwork unless she slips up her knowledge here and there. As to how others would possibly find out the slight hint of her connection someone would have to see that the Ghost Zone has zero effects on her person unlike most other people (it’d have to be people with the knowledge of Ghosts to figure this one out). Then again, Messer would probably just write the above off by saying some few well calculated words here and there. But to ultimately end this discussion before I pass out, my answer is just Skulker.

Skulker knows, he’s the first person mic drop

I also personally headcanon that Wes saw Messer walk through one of the natural portals into Amity Park (in Ch. 5) cause I’m evil, and YET AGAIN nobody believes him. If y’all wanna hear spoiler free stuff, come join us at the Notepad Discord. Me and Kristie would love to go off on our tangents, discussions and theories. 👀"

-@innerenigma

#mail box #neutral #enigma and kristie have many mannnny thoughts #collectively between them i think they've written over 100 pages worth in theories and discussions #and that is not an exaggeration

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barfok · 1 year ago

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Hi could u pls talk more about karnalta and her time in the worm cult and then in the clockwork city? Did she ever miss the worm cult? Does she have any strong opinions about the tribunal in general?

hi i love you

im gonna preface this by saying that one of karnaltas defining character traits is her victim complex. she has a deep seated belief that she has been horribly wronged by life. this determines how she interacts with various factions

karnaltas time in the worm cult was simultaneously quite good and quite bad for her. the aforementioned victim complex is her justification for doing bad things, such as helping to bring about the plane meld, and it was something that the worm cult enabled if not outright encouraged. however, karnalta was also very successful in the worm cult; she was naturally talented and very quickly rose to prominence as one of the surveyors responsible for choosing where to place dark anchors. despite being a bal-ite cult i think the worm cult was actually fairly loose and subordinates were often given a great deal of freedom to achieve their missions, which suited karnalta very well. the worm cult helped her develop a sense of competency and respect she might not have gotten anywhere else.

unfortunately it was also a dangerous soul-destroying ego annihilating hell and eventually no amount of career satisfaction could save her from psychologically collapsing under the profound dissociation it took her to function in that environment. when the worm cult suffered a collapse after the planemeld ended she was thrown into a dramatic tailspin

back to her victim complex. I think karnalta was told or otherwise got the impression at a young age that she should've been called to the clockwork city. while she was never religious, she recognised that her magehood made her an outcast and she idolised the idea of escaping to a mage's paradise. When that didn't happen and her life began to fall part she grew very bitter and blamed sotha sil for abandoning her to the worm cult-- like, if only sotha sil hadn't been so aloof, she never would have been forced to become a necromancer. combined with almalexias involvement with her exile, karnalta hated the tribunal for a long time. she only went to the clockwork city bc a fellow ex-worm cultist had become a clockwork apostle and intervened to pull her out of her downward spiral.

it took her a loooooooong long time to come around to sotha sil. months and months spent collapsed in on herself in a little isolated room treating everyone with hatred and suspicion. but the clockwork apostles were patient with her and kept feeding her and she eventually remembered how to function again. but she only warmed to sotha sil when he started tentatively giving her responsibilities-- he took advantage of her expertise on interplanary magic and dark anchors to design some upgrades to the city's own pocket plane. the chance to feel important, to contribute as an expert in her own right, thawed karnalta immediately and she became a fairly enthusiastic contributor to the city's mechanisms. she was never religious and didn't treat sotha sil like a God any more than she did mannimarco, but he gave her a purpose again.

nonetheless, there are things karnalta misses about the worm cult. the thing about the tribunal is that they demand you be better. you can't simply declare yourself evil and wallow in your own depravity, you're forgiven and trusted to improve and that is so hard. so karnalta sometimes misses the option to just give up, stop eating and get drunk in a coldharbour quagmire and drive away those awful people who have decided to love her. she was repressing so, so much in the worm cult that she had to finally confront in the clockwork city and that was agony to her. and she can't even have that victim complex while she's safe and looked after

but even she can admit that the clockwork city is a much better place for her, and eventually she even lets sotha sil fix her hands

#Sorry that this is so ling. There's a lot going on with her

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 2 years ago

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Mod pls don't tell me Mikihiko actually is raping Himiko. That's ridiculous. Let it be that he's planting chips into her head or something.

//TW-rape

//No, I’ll say right out of the gate that’s not what’s going on. Mikihiko did come onto Himiko before, and more than likely his skeevy nature is playing a role here, but no, he is not raping her.

//However, I am going to be totally honest with you. That was actually the ORIGINAL plan. In the original script of the story, the Future Foundation we’re going to break into Zetsubou’s base and find Himiko like that, with Mikihiko gloating about what he did. However, I changed it for two main reasons.

//The primary reason why the script has been DRASTICALLY altered now is because I quickly came to realise that the readers would not be happy with a plot line like that (just as you clearly are), and I was already getting backlash from some people over what happened to Kaede during “The Fugitive” where Munakata kidnapped her and tortured her. So I realised if I went down that particular path, I may as well kiss my writing career goodbye.

//That said, I never intended to use that plot point purely for shock value. Both the previous version and the current idea I have now play a big role in Himiko’s character development going forward;as well as a means of exploring just how despicable Mikihiko truly can be; and as someone who has a close friend who has actually BEEN through that trauma, I’m not so much of a twat that I would use something so serious so lightly.

//In my eyes, ideas that trigger people can be used in a story, but it has to be something beyond a mere plot device. In stories like Clockwork and Sally/Play with Me for instance, the concept of sexual assault is used purely as a building device with no emotional arc. It doesn’t contribute anything to the story and it’s brushed off like it’s just a normal thing for bad people to do. It isn’t. It’s a serious and awful thing, and I hate it when people do that in stories.

//So don’t start on me. I’ve taken feedback into account, and as always, will do my best to comply with your wishes.

//The OTHER reason why I chose to change the original idea is because in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t make sense. Part of his backstory involves Mikihiko murdering a man who abused, manipulated and raped his mother, to the point that she collapsed and died. Even though Mikihiko also has a tenacity to manipulate weak-willed people, women especially, I don’t think he would be SO far gone as to inflict the same trauma he felt upon others.

//Even though, of all Zetsubou’s members, he’s canonically the most likely to do so.

//Bottom line is that while Mikihiko could be using Himiko as his own personal plaything, I do not intend to have him rape her.

-Mod

#mod #tw rap3

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evilminji · 2 years ago

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Oooh but you know they're PARANOID right? "FAVORS"? Kid... Oh, Kid, they work with magic users. Constantine. They know what Powerful Magical Beings + Favors, means. You're trapped, aren't you?

Some sort of Time Being/God/Demon has your soul or a contract on you. We're you sold? Made a dumb mistake? Wrong place, wrong time? Doesn't matter. They'll find you. Get you out. It's gonna be okay, strange sassy new Wayne.

And of course, you don't BRING UP the "we know of your Horrible Fate, your cheerful mask of sass is sadly not hiding it as well as you think" thing... that both rude AND cruel. He'll cry, probably. Let him have his defenses. Yes, yes, they believe you. Just a "favor" for "gramps". Uh huh.

Meanwhile they are kicking down JLA Darks door like "there is the possible spirit and/or a living child trapped in the hands of a Time Demon! Might not be a demon though! All we have is 'Time' as a power." Like? Hi. Morning to you too. Yes it IS a Tuesday. That's sucks. Let's work on it.

For ADDED fun? Danny could be trying to summarize the many debts of John Constantine into a single document. It's... going. Problem is new debts keep SHOWING UP. What he REALLY needs is to TALK to the guy. Make him give a full account...

Wait. Don't these guys... KNOW him? Can you tell him Danny's looking for him? But Danny is sassy and vague and non-threatening about it. And? Oh no... Oh those pretty "Trust Me~" blues could DEFINITELY be from Constantine. Black haired mother and bam! Sassy stolen child. Especially since his luck is apparently "genetic".

And John is like.... "Pffff Nah, how old? There's no WAY! I didn't... well, I mean, with a Time entity involved, TECHNICALLY, that wouldn't matter, but still I would... And I mean what even are the ODDS that.... I don't even LIKE................. What accent would you say the munchkin has? Ah. B-Black hair.... huh?" *cold sweat* excuse him for a moment. He needs to go.... scream. Just a bit. Just quick ol visit to the void to empty his lungs. Be right back.

Cause oh F*CK they have his KID! He's not ready or fit to be a dad! Still going AFTER them, obviously, holy SH*T. But STILL! Bats he demands visitation rights. Let's storm hell and demand answers. Que the others on John's team on Dark being like "BUDDY, skipping some steps! Research? Have you HEARD OF IT? Might not even be a demon!"

Just? Everyone's having a bad tiiiiime EXCEPT Time. Father of the Endless. Also named Clockwork. NOT named Kronos but OOPS Diana never heard that saying about assumptions, only the phrases "Time" and "God" and "we think he likes to hurt kids." And RAN with it.

Danny just wants to know what's so dang funny. Why are you laughing, grandpa. WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING?! What did you DO? What is on fire and how will it be his fault somehow!? Tell him you cryptic F*CK(Lovingly)!

@stealingyourbones @whoreraccoon @cyrwrites

Dp x dc crossover

Danny’s got dozens of favors to cw to pay back so when the bats get stuck in time shenanigans cw gets Danny to pull them out and fix it for him to pay back the debts

Danny’s annoyed and wondering how one family who don’t even have superpowers can get into so much time shit (it’s the flash family’s fault)

Batfam are confused abt who this time traveling/fixing kid is and why he owes so many favors to a mysterious powerful figure

Cw is laughing bc he knows no matter how this pans out it’ll be deeply entertaining in a non apocalyptic way

#dp x dc prompt #dp x dc #danny phantom #batman #yes this does mean when Bruce gets stuck in the time stream Danny gets him back before Tim loses his spleen #let the boy have working organs he doesn’t get a working family #this is 100% petty shits and giggles on clockworks part bc of the shit Danny’s pulled before #how the turns have tabled

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lookwhatilost · 1 year ago

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here's my longer review of oppenheimer:

something i think that i've realized about myself as i've gotten older is that what i care the most about in the world is a superior example of a thing that gets done a lot. figuring out how to make a better cocktail or write a better rock song... theoretically, anybody can make a negroni, or pick up a guitar and sing, but you hear "wouldn't it be nice" and you think to yourself, jesus, this is actually really hard to do well. this format has an infinite horizon. there's no limit to what you can do with it, you just need to have someone who sees the possibility within the format.

i feel like nolan is getting to that point as a filmmaker. it's not that i have no qualms with this movie as a piece of technical filmmaking in particular. the sound engineering isn't great at some points, and nolan still has a problem of not caring very much about dialogue. he cares about the *feel* of dialogue and how it rolls off in an editing sense. he wants it to feel propulsive. there are many lines in this movie where it's very Theme is Stated. oppenheimer posing the question in the first few minutes of whether light is made of waves or particles is one of them. but i also don't care that the dialogue is kind of on the nose, because the filmmaking craft broadly here is just. great.

i came into this movie cautiously optimistic, because i like nolan a lot but know this is a big swing. and i left thinking that this was his "saving private ryan". christopher nolan has spent years making movies that are essentially entertainment. yes, there are big ideas involved like time, memory, the nature of identity, and even nuclear fears. dark knight rises ends with a nuclear bomb. tenet had nuclear plot elements (lol). but these aren't big idea question movies about how this is a problem in the world, they're thrillers. but here he's making a biopic – the most formulaic, generic, clockwork genre. they're two hours long, they have a rise, they have a fall, they have a midpoint where it's like "ahh! i'm on top of the world!!" and three quarters of the way in it's like "ahh! i'm addicted to drugs now!!"

they all work the same way. and then nolan comes along with this one and says, "let's use my christopher nolan techniques to tell the story of the man who created the atomic bomb. yes, it will be a biopic and it will follow the three-act structure. the end of the second act will be the trinity test, which is both a triumph and a huge turning point, and possibly the lowest point in all of humanity." you just watch what he does here and it's like you're seeing what a medium can do for the first time.

he's not quite doing anything i haven't seen him do before. if you described to me beforehand, i wouldn't say "what the hell are you talking about?" the biggest innovation here is that the analog fire effects are unusual. but it's also, like, okay, you filmed some fire stuff close up. but the fire effects aren't the point – it all fits together in a way that i've never seen before.

it's a movie about a security clearance cabinet hearing in a small room and he filmed it in imax. and somehow he's made the smallest, most bureaucratic, most boring thing you can imagine, and made it utterly monumental and engaging. this movie grabs you from minute one and pulls you through so you can't look away. and it's three hours long. and a third of it is in black and white.

and again. it's not like i don't have any quibbles at all. but this is filmmaking on a level that we almost never see. this is nolan's bid for greatness. this is him saying "i'm not just a great entertainer. i'm a real filmmaker who can take on big issues and make people care." in the past 20 years, you can't name 10 other people in hollywood who have successfully done that. i'm not even sure you can name five. nolan just did. and i loved it. i just loved it.

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here2bbtstrash · 3 years ago

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look down on me like that - 2 (explicit)

genre: slow burn enemies to lovers hatefucking coworkers au, smut (w some eventual angst)

pairing: yoongi x reader

summary: your asshole coworker min yoongi has made it his personal mission to ruin your life.

word count: 6.1k

contains: this is the last chapter before it gets smutty, just needed to rly get the enemies build-up going ;))) believe it or not reader is somehow even dumber than last time, jungkook continues to be too good for this world, yoongi continues to be a dick, water is wet, etc. aaand mentions of alcohol (a running theme in this one!)

A/N: i really have nothing witty to say just hope you enjoy 💜 this is also on AO3!

chapter one | masterlist | chapter three

To say that the rest of your first week is overwhelming is an understatement. You operate in a constant state of confusion. You keep a page in your notes to track all of the unfamiliar terminology your coworkers use; you frantically Google as many phrases as possible whenever you have a moment alone.

Unfortunately, the moments alone are few and far between. From the second you unlock the door each morning, you’re always busy, and nearly always in meetings, which inevitably result in more things getting tacked onto your to-do list: compiling presentation materials, booking artists for studio time, setting up task boards for the production teams, creating project timelines for upcoming releases, ordering additional recording equipment, submitting a maintenance request for the broken door in studio B. Your desk phone’s voicemail and your inbox are already filling up, and you haven’t had a free second to so much as check them, let alone respond to anything.

You arrive to work earlier and earlier each morning, where Jungkook is always waiting to greet you, hair still damp from his post-workout shower. More often than not, a smile or offer of help from your baby-faced coworker is the only thing that gets you through the day.

Inversely, there’s Suga. He hasn’t said anything to you since the team meeting, and he doesn’t attend the next one. That doesn’t stop his presence from feeling like a dark cloud looming over your head. You don’t dare put headphones in again while you work, but you still find yourself regularly glancing over your shoulder, just to be sure he isn’t standing there smirking at you.

But he never is. In fact, Jungkook was right— you pretty much never see Suga, other than when he gets to work and leaves each day.

You find yourself working later and later into the evenings as well, trying to tread water, but to his credit, Suga seems to be respecting your boundary. He leaves at 5:55 each day like clockwork, always with his dark sunglasses on, never saying anything. You’ve stopped saying goodnight to him, figuring it’s a waste of air.

In fact, you feel your most productive once he’s gone for the day. There’s an entire physical response you have to the mere absence of him from the building. Your shoulders relax, your brain unfogs. It’s like you can breathe deeper, knowing your secret of incompetency is safe to live on another day.

Of course, you don’t actually know that he knows. He can’t know for sure, you reason, unless he’s some kind of stalker. He just has his suspicions, albeit ones he was confident enough in to voice aloud to you.

But the rest of the company seems to have faith in you, so you can’t be doing that horribly. That thought keeps you afloat, if just barely.

On this particular day, you’re asked to reset one of the studios after talent has finished a scheduled recording session. The company is producing an up and coming female rapper’s mixtape, and you thank every lucky star you have that Suga is not involved with this project. The engineer you are working with doesn’t say much, but he’s at least pleasant. You follow his lead to start breaking down and organizing a clusterfuck of audio equipment set up in the recording booth. While you continue, he slips back into the control room.

“Damn, the storage on this thing sucks ass,” you hear the engineer’s voice over the talkback intercom. “One day eats up like half the drive. Hey admin?” You glance up, continuing to wrap a cable around your arm, to see him hunched over the studio desktop.

“Do you mind porting the files from today off here so we don’t run out of space when she comes back tomorrow?” He slides open a couple drawers until he finds what he’s looking for, holding up a thumb drive so you can see it through the glass. “If you can throw them on here, that’d be great.”

“Sure.” The microphones are all unplugged and you’re not sure if he can hear you, so you shoot him a thumbs up with your non-occupied arm.

“Thanks! We’ve got another client coming in so I gotta bounce. Just bring it by my office whenever you get a chance.”

It takes ages, but you get the booth and the control room put back together, then take a seat at the desktop. There are a ton of files saved haphazardly all over the place from the session, and you gather them into a folder, then plug the USB in and move the data over.

A small green progress bar loads for a while, then eventually disappears, and you pull the drive out. Easy peasy. You mass-select the files and delete them, clicking through all the annoying “are you sure?” messages until they finally disappear. All done.

For good measure, you plug the USB back into the desktop to review. You might even get crazy and organize the takes for him, who knows.

You open the drive in your file explorer, and it’s empty.

That’s weird. Maybe it just needs to load, you consider. You give it a second.

Panic rises in your chest as the blank folder stares back at you. There’s no progress bar, no loading icon, no spinning rainbow wheel. You swallow hard. The thumb drive is empty.

“No, no, no, no,” you murmur to yourself, clicking around on the screen as if to somehow summon the files from beyond the grave, your stomach in knots. “Please come back,” you whisper through a lump in your throat.

Tears sting at the corners of your eyes and you start to hyperventilate. This can’t be happening. You find the Recycle Bin on the desktop and open it, but that’s empty too.

“What is the fucking point of you then?!” You hiss angrily at the Recycle Bin. The tears in your eyes threaten to spill over, and you push the desk chair back. You have to get out of here before someone finds you in this state.

You grab your purse off the desk and pull the USB out of the computer, chucking it in next to your laptop. You sling the straps over your shoulder and will your face to look some amount of normal as you push the studio door open.

You rush towards the bathroom. Please don’t let anyone see me please please please—

You’re so focused on the target ahead that you don’t realize you’re about to smack into someone leaving the men’s room until it’s too late. You collide into his chest at full-speed. Your clumsiness is the final straw and you let out a choked gasp of a sob, unable to catch your breath to even apologize.

Your palms rest flat against this person’s chest, and his hands instinctively grab your arms to keep you upright. You’re terrified to make eye contact and confirm who it is. If this is Suga, you will literally die of embarrassment right here in the hallway.

“Whoa, hey, are you okay?” Jungkook’s voice has already become familiar to you, and you’ve never been more glad to hear it. “What’s going on?”

Tears roll down your face as you look up at him. “I think I fucked up.”

Keeping his hands firmly on your shoulders, Jungkook steers you down the hall into an open meeting room. You sit with your back to the door so passersby can’t see your now free-flowing tears. Your shoulders shake as you hide your face in your hands. The embarrassment of being so emotional in front of a coworker that you barely know only makes you cry that much harder.

Jungkook finds a box of tissues in one of the media cabinets and slides it across the table towards you. He’s patient with you, and waits it out silently until you’re able to gasp for air and calm yourself down a little. “Tell me what happened.”

You reach for a tissue and dab at your eyes, certain you look like a disaster. “I… accidentally deleted all the files from the recording session.” You say with a sniffle. His jaw drops.

You go over the incident, the studio, the files, the drive. “So, I pulled the USB out, and then—”

“Did you eject it?”

You pause, wondering if that’s supposed to mean something to you. “Eject it?”

“The USB.”

“Um, I pulled it out of the computer?”

“But you didn’t click the eject button first.”

“I… No, I guess I didn’t.”

He leans back in his chair, his face serious. “That explains it. You can usually get away with not ejecting a USB and be fine if you’re moving a couple small files, but hours worth of audio recordings… They were probably still writing to the drive. Pull it out before that completes and the data can get corrupted. Or in this case…” He makes a small gesture with his hands. “Poof.”

“Poof.” You drop your head into your folded arms on the table. “I’m so fucked.”

Jungkook snaps his fingers. “The Recycle Bin!”

You shake your head where it is. “Tried it. Empty.”

His hand drops to the table with a thud. “Dammit. That can happen with big files. No second chances.”

You sit back up, pressing your fingers to your temples. “What do I do? That’s hours of work, a talent’s time wasted, a damaged relationship, thousands in booking fees we’ll probably need to pay back—”

“Blame me.” He interjects. You laugh because that’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.

“You weren’t even there.”

Jungkook leans forward, and you can see the gears in his head turning. “Say that I asked you for the tracks because I wanted to start brainstorming some teasers for our socials.”

“But you know how to eject a USB,” you counter, then add bitterly, “because you’re not a fucking moron.”

He pauses. “I… misunderstood. I thought you’d made two. I thought the engineer had his own version, so I deleted everything when I was done.”

The weight of his words sinks in. “Jungkook, no. I can’t ask you to lie for me.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”

You huff a shaky exhale. “This isn’t your responsibility.”

“Hmm. How long have you worked here?”

You pause to count. “Twelve days.”

“Uh-huh.” He says, lazily circling his index finger on the table. “Do you know how long I’ve worked here?” You shake your head. “Four years.”

“Wow.”

“And they love me.” You smile at that. Of course they do. “I’m the golden boy here. I’ve never fucked up, not even once. I mean it, let me take the heat on this one.”

The offer is so tempting, but you can’t. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“Because—” he starts, then falters. “You’re a good coworker. I see how many hours you’re putting in and how much stuff they’re throwing at you. I told them when they posted the job that this position needed to be two roles, but they didn’t want to listen to me. And I think we could use more people like you around here. You’re nice, and disciplined, and honest.”

The last word stings. You’re a fucking monster, is what you are. Maybe you might as well embrace it.

“Thank you,” you say, as sincerely as you’ve ever meant it. “I seriously can’t tell you how much this means to me.” Your eyes threaten to tear up again and you tilt your head back, willing yourself not to cry. “God, I’m such a wreck. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to work like this.”

“What’s the rest of your day look like?” He asks.

You retrieve your laptop from your purse and open it up. Jungkook walks his feet against the floor to wheel his office chair over to your side of the table. It’s just goofy enough to make you laugh.

You pull up your calendar and he looks at it with you. The universe has actually blessed you with a rare chunk of free time. You’ve got a solid 90 minutes until your next meeting.

“Well, I’m hungry.” Jungkook says decisively. “Do you want to get some food?”

You balk at his question. “What, fucking up an entire recording session wasn’t enough, you want me to skip out on work too?”

“You’re not skipping out on work!” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and taps at the screen for a moment. “Look.”

A few seconds later, an hour-long event appears on your calendar. The sender is one Jeon Jungkook, and you’re the only listed attendee. He reaches over to your laptop’s trackpad and accepts the invitation.

“It’s a meeting. A walking meeting. Come on.”

You’d underestimated how nice getting outside would be. It’s a good reminder that the world still exists beyond of the glass walls of your office. Jungkook slows his pace so you don’t have to hurry to keep up with him in your heels.

He must be able to sense your desire for a distraction from the events of the past hour, because he doesn’t say anything else about it. Instead he regales you with stories of his most recent social media projects— apparently he’s amassed a small army of fans who love it when he does Instagram Q&As on the company page.

“You know they came up with a nickname for me? It’s Baby Star Candy.” His cheeks redden as he says the name. “I have no idea what it means.”

You don’t either, but it’s oddly perfect for him.

The two of you approach a fairly unremarkable looking building, and he pushes the door open and motions for you to enter first. You step into a bustling food hall and are immediately hit with an overwhelming array of sounds and smells. There are dozens of stalls, but Jungkook heads confidently in the direction of one, and you follow him, trying to take it all in.

Jungkook stops you at a bakery, the displays piled high with various kinds of breads, donuts and pastries. The aroma is heavenly.

“Grab a seat,” he calls over his shoulder as he jumps into the line, and you find a table for two in the corner. He returns a few minutes later with two buns on a tray. The gesture is overwhelmingly kind. Part of you wants to argue that you don’t deserve this, but you don’t think you could get the words out without the truth about all your lies spilling out with them.

Instead you thank him, pick up a bun, and take a bite. It’s soft and warm, and the slightly sweet taste of the red bean filling is incredible. Jungkook closes his eyes in happiness when he takes his first bite. You both chew in silence.

When you’ve finished, you rest your chin on your hands. “So, Jeon Jungkook, what is the agenda for this urgent meeting?”

He smiles, wiping at the corners of his mouth. “Let’s see. What would make you feel better?”

“The free food definitely helped. I still feel like a dumbass, though.”

Jungkook shrugs. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It could’ve been worse.” He pauses. “You could have lost the company thousands of dollars in stolen equipment, for example.”

Your eyes widen as you realize what he’s referencing, and you bite back a laugh. “Honestly, that’s a really good point. Do you know what happened with that?”

He shakes his head. “Not much more than what you heard at the meeting. Suga was working really late on some project. This was back when we all had our own keys, so the rule was just to lock up whenever you left. And I guess he forgot?”

You can’t imagine working so hard you’d forget something that simple.

“I was the first one to get in the next morning,” Jungkook continues, “so I was the first one to see it. The place was trashed. They took basically anything that wasn’t too heavy to lift. I can’t imagine how much Suga must have paid to replace everything.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I tried asking him about it right after it all went down, just trying to be supportive, but he got super touchy. Like, touchy even for Suga. So I haven’t brought it up again.” He shrugs.

The thought lingers in the back of your brain the rest of the walk back to the office, and even throughout your remaining meetings. You don’t have many nice things to say about the guy, but Suga is clearly methodical, dedicated, and very observant. You know it’s not your business, but you can’t help but wonder what the hell happened.

~*~

The next few days pass in an anxious blur. You keep expecting the other shoe to drop, sure that someone will see through Jungkook’s lie and your boss will show up at your desk with your termination notice, but nothing comes of it. Life goes on. You’ve gotten away with murder, and it feels awful.

You’re in such a fog of guilt, and still so overwhelmed by your workload, that you forget about your first meeting Friday morning. The notification pops up alerting you to an overdue calendar event, and you grab your laptop and sprint for the conference room, nearly twisting an ankle in your heels.

When you push the door open, already apologizing profusely, you realize Suga is sitting alone at the table.

Your stomach drops. Every cell in your body wants to turn around and walk right back out the door. Instead you gingerly pull out a chair across from him and sit, refraining from making eye contact.

“Um, good morning, Min Suga.”

The silent question of what this meeting is crosses your mind, but you know you should know that, and you’re not about to give him any ammo. You open your laptop and pull up the invite.

Oh. Oh. The memory comes back to you now. Your boss had asked you to provide support for a huge client pitch first thing Friday morning. He’d specifically stressed just how big of a deal it would be, both financially and reputationally, to clinch this. He’d left out the part about Suga being the pitching producer, but it makes sense. Everyone in the business is dying to work with him.

Everyone except you, you think to yourself.

When you glance up at him, Suga is staring at you. Your mouth goes dry, and you clear your throat. “I really am so sorry I’m late.”

You expect the usual response of absolutely nothing, but he actually speaks. “You’re lucky they are too.” You exhale a small sigh of relief and he continues. “You better not embarrass me today.”

You blink twice, trying to process his thinly veiled threat, and something in your gut twists. You speak without thinking. “I’m not scared of you, Yoongi.”

There’s a glint in his eyes at your words, like maybe you should be. He leans back in his chair and you could swear he’s almost smiling.

“You know people talk around here?” You stare blankly at him. You have no idea what he means. “I just find it very interesting that Jeon Jungkook, who has never made a mistake in his life before this week, somehow managed to delete an entire recording session’s worth of files. Seems pretty out of character, wouldn’t you agree?”

Heat rushes to your face and for a second you can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but sit there and stare stupidly at him. Your heart is racing, the urge to cry already bubbling up in your chest.

The conference room door opens. Suga immediately gets to his feet with a wide smile and a formal greeting for the artist and their label reps. You rise and do the same, your face still burning with embarrassment. You pray that you can keep it together for the duration of this meeting.

Suga launches into a pitch about the track in question, and you’re thankful for the few minutes to steady your breathing as you copy down a brief transcript in your notes.

As much as you may personally dislike him, it’s still kind of amazing to see him in his element. He’s clearly done his research on this artist, and he’s able to encapsulate their entire brand in a few perfectly chosen words. You see the team glance at each other with impressed looks on their faces. Suga explains that, like all his tracks, he’s written this specifically for them, and wouldn’t give it to anyone else.

“Admin,” he turns to you and your throat constricts. “Can you please play the track I sent you?” He’s still smiling, but his eyes are cold.

“Y-yes,” you choke out, and you navigate through your inbox as fast as possible. When you search his name, dozens of messages come up, all with various demos attached, and your eyes widen. You knew you were behind on emails, but you didn’t realize he’d been sending you so many. You find the thread with the artist’s name, but there’s a lengthy list of emails to choose from under it. You press play on the first track you see.

Though you’ve never heard a proper demo before, you would’ve guessed one would be rough. But this one is really rough. The beat is way too loud, the vocals sloppy, the rhythm disjointed. The smile on Suga’s face falters and you feel sick.

In one swift move, he reaches across the table and grabs your laptop with both hands. You jump back reflexively and helplessly watch as he pulls it towards him, turning off the track as quickly as possible.

“Whoops!” Suga’s smile returns, clearly more forced than before, as his fingers scroll your computer’s trackpad. “Sorry about that, team. Let’s try this again.” He clicks something and a far more polished version of the same song starts up.

The artist’s team listens in silence, some of them nodding along. They compliment Suga when it finishes, and there’s additional banter and exchanging of pleasantries before they agree to meet internally and send an official response over within the next week.

You don’t say a word, hoping instead that the ground might open up and swallow you. When Suga stands to see the team off as the meeting wraps, you robotically follow suit. There’s a tightness, a humming in your chest that you can’t put a name to.

It’s only once the room is emptied of everyone except you and Suga that you recognize the feeling. Underneath the shame, and the guilt, and the fear. It’s anger.

He snaps your laptop shut and silently slides it back across the table.

“Don’t touch my stuff without my permission.” You feel stupid as soon as you say it, like a little kid.

Suga huffs. “Play the right track and we won’t have that problem.”

“Why did you send me fifty versions of the same thing?! I played the first one I saw!”

He presses both palms flat on the conference table. For a split second, you think he might flip it over. His voice is deadly serious, hair falling in his eyes as he leans across the table toward you. “Because it is your job to organize them.” He tilts his head, gaze still fixed on you. “Tell me, did you look up what the position actually entailed before applying? Or did you just figure you’d wing it?”

Your stomach turns, mostly because you know he’s right. You scramble for a way to escape the blame.

“Y-you didn’t give me any prep for this meeting! Instead you wasted my time talking about some stupid mistake that I—” your voice breaks. “That Jungkook made,” you correct yourself carefully. Fuck.

At this, he laughs, sharp and bitter. “What a shame. If only we’d had more time. If only someone had purposefully set aside fifteen minutes before the client was scheduled to arrive, to ensure he’d have enough time to show the admin how to do her fucking job. Oh wait, that’s right, I did.”

His words sting like a slap to the face. It’s yet another reminder of your mistakes, your inability to get anything right. You were late and unprepared. There’s no way to twist this to make it his fault.

You grit your teeth, willing yourself not to give this horrible man the satisfaction of seeing you cry. Your voice is barely more than a whisper. “Do you need anything else, Yoongi? Or am I dismissed?”

He rolls his eyes. “Do what you want. I’m not your boss.”

Your vision blurs with tears as you grab your laptop and exit the conference room.

~*~

You drag Jimin out both Friday and Saturday night in an attempt to drink until you obliterate the memories of your latest fuck-ups. But both nights end the same, with Jimin holding your hair back while you puke your guts up in a club bathroom.

“Alright,” he says Saturday night when you’ve finally finished, using his dancer’s poise to nimbly flush the toilet with his foot. You collapse against the wall of the stall and sink to the floor in a much less graceful state. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

You wipe your nose with the back of your hand. “I think I have to quit my job.”

Jimin’s brow furrows. “What?! Why?” He slides down the wall opposite you, your legs tangling together on the bathroom floor.

You shake your head and the room spins. “I keep fucking up.”

He blinks at you, clearly waiting for more. “And…? Have you gotten in trouble about it?”

“Not really,” you groan, “but that’s because my coworker stepped in and saved my ass.”

Jimin shrugs. “That’s what good coworkers do. You’re new. Fuck-ups are to be expected. You’ll figure it out.”

“But I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Everyone feels that way when they first start a new job. It’s called impostor syndrome.”

“But Jimin!” You whine, exasperated. “I am literally an impostor!”

“Who gives a shit? As long as you’re actually trying, and learning from the mistakes you make, you’ll figure it out. You’re only a couple weeks in. It sounds like everyone’s cutting you some slack anyway.”

You hiccup a laugh. “Not everyone. I can think of one specific coworker who already hates my guts. I’m pretty sure he knows I’m a fraud, too.”

Jimin rolls his eyes. “He’s probably just a sexist jerk who thinks women are incompetent. I’m sure he’s made mistakes, too.”

You nod. “He has, I know he has. He made a really big one right before they hired me. Way worse than anything I’ve done.”

“There you go.” Jimin stands up and offers both hands to help you do the same. “Screw that asshole. I mean— don’t like, put rat poison in his coffee or anything. But just remember he’s human, same as you. Don’t let him kill your vibe.”

Your hands still clasped together, you lean into his chest for a moment, rubbing your nose against his shirt. “Thanks, Jimin.”

He slides the lock of the club bathroom stall open. “Come on, drunk girl. Let’s get you home.”

~*~

Jimin’s words are on repeat in your head all Monday, like he’s your own personal motivational speaker. You will yourself not to give up on this job.

After your last meeting of the day wraps, you decide to finally sit down and tackle your nightmare inbox. You feel like you’ve barely scratched the surface when Suga rounds the corner. 5:55 already. You wish it was professionally acceptable to crawl under your desk and hide, but you drop your gaze and hope he’ll just breeze right past like he always does.

No such luck. He approaches your desk, seemingly waiting for you to look up. Your pulse quickens as you make eye contact.

“I need to work late tonight,” he says simply. His typical blank expression looks tinged with some emotion you can’t quite name. Stress? “Can I have the key? I’ll lock up when I’m done.”

“I’m the only one authorized to have the key,” your tone comes out sharp, because you know he knows this. “I can’t give it to anyone else. I’ll get in trouble.”

“Seriously, I have a really big deadline tonight, and I’m behind.” Suga persists. He almost looks like he’s in pain.

He’s human, same as you, Jimin’s voice in your head reminds you. As much as it kills you to even think it, you sort of feel like you understand where he’s coming from. You’re drowning, too. You could easily spend another two hours in your email and not hit the bottom. And you probably will, whether he’s here or not. So would it really be that bad if he was?

Plus, you did kind of fuck up his meeting. You clench your fists under your desk, out of his line of sight. Curse your stupid conscience.

“I can’t give you the key,” you say with a sigh. “But I can do a couple more hours. But then we both have to go home.”

You see a muscle in his jaw work. “Fine.” He’s gone again before you can say anything else.

You return to your inbox. You dig through message after message, responding quickly where you can and adding everything else to an ever-growing to do list of follow-ups and deliverables. You work until your vision blurs and you never want to read another email again.

Exhausted, you slump back in your chair, stifling a yawn, and look at the clock. It’s nearly 8:30, and your stomach grumbles as if in protest. You’ve never stayed at the office this late. You try to resume work, but when it takes you over five minutes to read a two-line email, you realize your brain has shut off for the evening. You stare listlessly at the screen for a few minutes, then finally throw the towel in.

Time to go disturb the genius, you guess. Grabbing the office keys, you walk down the hallway to his lab, ringing the doorbell and then knocking in case he’s got headphones on. “It’s time to go!” You call through the door.

There’s no response, so you bang on the door harder, then try the handle. It doesn’t budge, and you glare at the number pad. How is it fair that he gets an extra lock on his door? Isn’t that a fire hazard?

“Suga!” You smack your palm flat on the door a few more times. “Come on, I’m hungry and I want to leave!”

A few more seconds, and you’re about to give up and look for a fire alarm to pull, when the door opens a crack. You can’t even see him, but you hear his voice. “Just give me ten more minutes. That’s all I need.” He sounds as tired as you feel.

You roll your eyes and stalk back down the hallway, chucking the office keys on your desk. Picking up your phone, you automatically go to call Jimin, but then remember he’s at dance practice for another hour. You chew on the inside of your cheek, scrolling over to your music library. At least that will help distract you a bit, you reason.

You put on your playlist of current favorites and turn the volume up as loud as it will go, figuring Suga probably can’t hear it but also not really caring if he can. You survey your desk— you’re definitely not doing any more work tonight, but it has become a bit of a disaster. You can take ten minutes to tidy.

You gather up all the stray papers and organize them into piles: schedules, invoices, random notes you jotted down so you wouldn’t forget. You slot them into the paper organizer you keep in the corner of your desk. Once that’s done, you start putting the big items back into their respective drawers— a stapler, a hole punch, a zillion paperclips. You drop the pens, pencils, and highlighters that you’ve also inevitably left everywhere back into your pen cup organizer.

The next song comes up on shuffle, and you laugh when you realize what it is. Cat & Dog by TXT, your guiltiest of all guilty pleasure songs. There’s still no sign of Suga, and you also don’t give a fuck what he thinks about your taste in music, so you let it play.

You sing along under your breath as you go. The song has just gotten to Yeonjun’s verse, the inarguable best part, when someone clears their throat behind you.

Shit. The sound still takes you by surprise even though you know it’ll be Suga before you whip around. How did this happen for a second time? You scramble for your phone to turn it off before they all start barking, and the movement is so frantic that you knock your pen cup off the desk at the same time.

“Fuck,” you groan. Suga makes no offer to help. Because why the fuck would he, you think bitterly to yourself. You scoot your chair back and crawl under your desk to retrieve your office supplies.

When you emerge with your pens reassembled, you do your best to smooth out your clothes and not look as flustered as you feel. Suga is standing across from you, palms resting flat on the surface of your desk.

“I need more time,” he says bluntly, and you could scream. You open your mouth to argue, but he continues before you can get a word in. “Do you like tteokbokki?”

You blink hard, mystified at his question. “What?”

“You said you were hungry. There’s a really good tteokbokki cart around the corner that stays open late. If you go and get us some, I swear, I only need like thirty more minutes. Then we can both go home.” He retrieves his wallet from his pocket and pulls out a couple bills, extending them to you. You narrow your eyes suspiciously. “Please.”

The sound of him pleading, no matter how brief, is something you never thought you’d hear in a million years. Maybe you hit your head while you were under your desk and this is all just a fever dream. But your stomach twists at the mention of food. You really are starving.

You snatch the money out of his hand and grab your purse. “Fine. But I’m keeping the change.”

It’s a brisk walk to the cart and back, but the chilly night air feels good, and the smell of the takeout bag is enough to make your mouth water on the elevator ride back up. As you step out, you shift the bag in your arms to reach into your purse. Out of habit, you dig for the keys for a few seconds before you realize you didn’t actually lock up when you left.

You wince. Probably not great, but at least Suga’s still inside.

You lean against the glass door to push it open with your shoulder, but it doesn’t budge. Weird. Maybe you locked it without even thinking about it. You set the bag of food down so you can properly dig through your purse for the keys, but you can’t find them.

Crouching down, you turn your purse inside out, dumping the contents on the carpeted floor. You sort through the pile of cosmetics products and tampons and loose receipts, starting to panic. No office keys.

It’s only once you stand up and turn to fully face the door that you see the paper sign taped to the inside. Your mouth drops open as you read the untidy scrawl.

I have your keys. Keep the food. See you tomorrow.

No. This isn’t fucking possible. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to hold in a scream, running back through the evening in your mind.

You took your keys with you when you knocked on his office door. Then you threw them back on your desk. Then Suga snuck up behind you, and you knocked the pen cup over, and when you stood back up Suga was—

Suga was standing with his hands on your desk, you realize. Right where you’d thrown down your keys. He could’ve easily pocketed them without you noticing; you were too busy picking up all your stupid pens.

He fucking tricked you.

You push hard on the door, but of course it doesn’t give. You bang on the glass for a few seconds, if only to get your anger out, but you know it’s pointless. Licking your wounds, you shove everything back into your purse and sling it over your shoulder, then hoist the takeout bag in your arms.

Alright, Min Yoongi, you think to yourself. This means war.

chapter one | masterlist | chapter three

#yoongi smut #yoongi angst #yoongi x reader #bts x reader #bts fanfic #here2bbtstrash #look down on me like that

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