#some people be making it seem like just cause im rooting for those 2 to kiss on the mouth
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poolofunidentifiedfluid · 18 days ago
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even if i dont think buddie will ever go canon (i switch up literally 40 times a day) i will still have fun being delusional and reading into things that probably weren’t meant to be read into and reading peoples theories and making my own theories because that is fun to me lol like this is not all so serious. its not going to ruin my life that 2 hot fictional firemen dont bang on the show. so just do what makes you happy and if it is causing you more stress than its worth them simply put it away.
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imustbenuts · 5 months ago
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theres a few ??? thing going on in trigun stampede that's explicitly japanese/sino-ish in culture but im entirely not sure what to make of it. 3 things.
Knives' birthname being settled as Kni/Nai,
JuLai's emblem symbolism,
and the Buddha Thread??? thing in ep 11 10
Knives' birthname is Kni and hm! ...無い?
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this is specifically a stampede thing. nightow didnt give him this Kni name in his work, so i can only chalk this up to the stampede staff's deliberate decision. if you render it into japanese, it'd be Nai, and the immediate word i can think of is... 無い. meaning, Nothing, or Without.
it fits rather well considering stampede has officially placed an emphasis on his obsessive love towards his brother on his bio on their official site:
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my TL:
Vash's twin brother. Possesses a cold and merciless personality. Filled with a hatred for humans, he masterminds an organization with a plan to massacre the entire human species. With abilities beyond human understanding, he has the power to destroy entire planets. He greatly loves his only younger twin brother, Vash to an obsessive degree.
interestingly, the word used for the obsessive love here specifically is 執着 shuuchaku, which has roots/association with the word Abhinivesha. from what i understand it is a mental state, a fear of death, and a desperation to cling onto life so much one becomes ignorant and causes their own suffering. and ignorance is another big core of what makes Knives' character tick.
so i feel like this has some pointers towards Knives, or even child Kni being nothing without his younger brother. (or it could just be a simpler play on the word naive lmao)
meanwhile for Vash there's not really anything japanese that jumps out at me, but some have pointed out his name sounds like the french word Vashe, used for female cattle. extremely passive and born for consumption and theres a lot to dissect in that direction but im not going there! his name is Knife and his brother is a cattle there's catholicism may your brain go brr.
theres more to the nothingness concept in buddhism that doesnt put it squarely in a negative category but lets talk about buddhism later. next:
JuLai's emblem
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stared at this for a few seconds and yelled fuck me. this represents the twins, AND its the broken yin yang symbol:
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:). hey look at that female thing popping up again--
Knives is evidently the light Yang, and Vash is the dark Yin. ngl this daoist thing is somewhat sexist but lets brush that over 2 thousand year old aspect aside for this post. for stampede's case we can clearly see what theming is going on especially for those in the know of the original work.
Knives is hella assertive to the point of echoing fascist eugenics nonsense, and Vash has that nurturing instinct that seems to pop in whenever there's a human child or people who needs help.
interestingly the planet No Man's Land has too much fugging sun and is too hostile for human life. to survive people have to live in the shade and turn to plants for counters to the harsh, hot celestial sun. so here if Knives is being the sun, hes also being hostile to human life, and meanwhile the feminine looking plants and Vash's personality plus actions are the only thing giving these people at chance at life. (also vash has the power of Dark Matter or something)
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obviously, just like JuLai's broken symbol, the balance is completely and utterly out of whack. in daoism a broken balance is thought to cause a lot of suffering. in the finale, Vash doesnt have a single speck of white on him, and Knives doesn't have a single speck of black. this means there isn't a balance and they cant come to an agreement at all.
im gonna also point out here that vash's idea of co-existence even if accepted wouldnt be a permanent solution due to the dependents having limited lifespan. so through this lens, stampede seems to be saying that neither twin's ideas are really effective long term solution, tho Knives is completely unacceptable due to obvious genocidal reasons.
Buddha Thread
studio orange whaaat are you guys cooking over there... ok so. in ep 11, Knives drops Vash into the uhhh The Hell Pool, and Vash tries to get out of it with his wire and hangs for a bit. then we get a scene like this:
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Knives proceeds to cut Vash's thread and he drops into The Hell Pool. and then the metaphorical SA scene happens.
i call it Buddha Thread but this can also be known as The Spider's Thread. there exists a story of The Spider's Thread that's very Japanese-Buddhist and well known over there.
the gist of this story is that Buddha lowers a single spider thread to a sinner in the deepest hell as a lifeline to get out, bc this heavy sinner had done a singular good deed of saving a spider he was about to crush with his foot. however, the thread is broken as a result of the sinner's selfishness yelling for the other sinners below him to let go, claiming this thread was his and his alone. the sinner having climbed halfway upwards the thread after great effort plunges back into the pits of hell. buddha having watched all of this reacts with sadness, and the days in paradise carry on as per usual.
and. digest that for a second. and then refer back to Knives and The Fall and this scene that plays later, when Vash's mind wipe begins proper:
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fuck. me. knives is framed as a self proclaimed god in the loudest ways on multiple levels.
while these 3 aspect i just broke down explaining do not exist at least overtly in the original trigun, i thought it would be interesting to chew on in light of the overwhelming catholicism existing in the story.
there's some themes im also picking up from the original trigun that might be rooted in either buddhsim or japanese culture such as: the undeniable truth that yearning and hunger is part of the human living experience and to deny it is to deny living. but im not sure what to make of it bc A) not explicitly framed or explored as a buddhsim/japanese idea thing and B) catholicsm obv is the overwhelming theme of the entire work
idk what the heck studio orange is cooking exactly but. hm.
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theheirofthesharingan · 9 months ago
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So people rightfully address that there's subtext that Orochimaru is a pedo, but I feel like there's similar subtext (although with different intentions) for Danzo? Orochimaru's predation is clearly lustful but Danzo's seems power/control oriented, especially since we know that's a big part of his character (the need to demonstrate power because he feels inadequate). These are all mixed together for me tbf, but there are things like everyone in the village knowing he "takes a child from every great family" to the point where Shino's dad offers an orphan instead of Shino to protect Shino, in general his "recruits" are orphans or otherwise vulnerable children with some sort of isolating power, and they're made to have personal hero worship and unfailing loyalty/fidelity to him OR are deeply manipulated to stay fearful enough of him to obey him. He literally has a "don't talk or I'll hurt you seal" on his people. In Itachi's novel you're also meant to experience the same disgust/fear when Danzo appears that I felt Orochimaru gave in Part 1, and they're the only 2 people in the property depicted that way.
I feel like this is different from yakuza, mafia, or even other military organizations because those are typically formed out of brotherhood and their own honour code. The format of the ROOT is more similar to independent militia in warzones, and these organizations are well-documented to use sexual abuse of boys as a control tactic. In film ( a lot of asian films actually ime) whenever institutional or ritual abuse is a plot point, there's always a character that is severely injured by the SA they experience and then go on to commit suicide over it. Shisui fits this role in Naruto.
I definitely agree with you on the similarities between Danzo and Orochimaru. They worked together and shared extreme ideals to the level of unhealthily obsessing in the things they believed in. They both took advantage of the vulnerable children to carry out their agenda, and to them both ends justified the means.
Danzo and Orochimaru are two similar, twisted kinds of evil but with different flavour to their malevolence. Orochimaru, later in the story, has some sort of epiphany, by which he realizes he doesn't want to incline himself towards evil anymore; Danzo, on the other hand, ends himself thinking he was right all along. Of the two, Danzo is more dangerous for the reasons you mentioned, and also because with the help of more knowledge you could defeat Orochimaru. Danzo just seems invincible.
He's cold, manipulative, adamant, persuasive, and makes himself sound the most reasonable of all. He seems to have problems for all solutions and solutions to all problems. The extremities someone would want to avoid, Danzo doesn't care about it at all. He's resourceful, all the things achieved by the ugliest means possible. His Root/Foundation is symbolic of the literal foundation of Konoha (and Shinobi world in general) that had evil embedded in them from its advent. Danzo not only flourishes on this darkness, he also causes it.
Honestly, I'd never thought of Shisui being one of his victims. It was always Itachi, because the two interacted more. Even if Anbu reports to the Hokage, Danzo clearly had put his leash on Itachi enough to manipulate him, and keep him in check enough to bend Itachi to his will. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this way even though novels don't exactly hint towards the SA and manga definitely can't.
However, considering this is Danzo we're talking about, no theory is outlandish because he is the personification of irredeemable evil in the series. Thanks for the ask because it was fun looking into it.
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bioethicists · 2 years ago
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hi i hope you dont mind this question. i assume because you are anti psych/mad liberation (me too) you probably also get the pro psych reaction of "thats dangerous" and "its not all like that" and the accusation that acknowledging the fact that psychiatric and therapy "care" is so bad will make people quit that care and they will inevitably get worse and it'll be your fault? im an anti psych blogger and this really messes me up because my whole thing is that i DONT want mentally ill ppl to suffer, and thats the whole reason i AM anti psych. and i am afraid ppl will somehow be harmed by me telling the truth or making (evil!) generalizations about psych professionals, etc.
to me it seems incredibly reactionary, usually comes with a moral panic flavor, and is chock full of victim blaming cliches. it seems to me that it hinges on the fear and threat of 1. a Crazy person rejecting treatment and 2. a Crazy person rejecting authority, so again, it seems to be based mostly in stigma. and yet it does seem true and possible that ppl will be influenced in ways that turn out poorly and i dont want that to happen either. and yet again, framing it like "dont tell ppl what health care to pursue" is a misnomer since psych care is simply about social control... and that facade of health care just protects them from criticism in a bad faith way cause it makes you look anti vax adjacent and telling ppl not to see doctors. im not really interested in telling ppl what to do when it comes to accessing psych care, but my general analysis is that: is refusing psych care possibly dangerous? yes. is getting psych care also possibly dangerous? yes.
anyway the main question is if/how you deal with this. both intellectually and emotionally. cause i think its possibly the hardest part of sharing anti psych views in public. it makes me feel guilty and afraid. and i think making splicing disclaimers sucks and is stupid. so idk. thanks for reading.
first of all, i absolutely do experience this + it used to piss me off more than it does now but now it mostly makes me sad. i think you summed it up so well when you said that both refusing + seeking psych care can be dangerous.
part of it is that, the deeper i root into my belief in bodily autonomy, the more i stop punishing myself if someone takes a good faith, well-phrased assertion i've made + spins that into something harmful which i never said or intended. i am very deliberate to only spread information that pushes for expanding + critiquing methods of healing, stressing that my goal is to free people from suffering, not compound it.
i know that some people who are struggling with paranoia or self-destructive impulses read mad liberation talking points (often finding their ways to the more conspiracy fueled or recklessly phrased ones) + respond in ways that end up harming them, like cold-turkey going off antipsychotics or firing their entire treatment teams to take sketchy supplements. it does make me very sad that this happens, because like you said, i want these people to be happy + not suffer.
however, i rarely see comparable conversation about how people take the logics of the psych system and use THOSE to harm themselves. many people with similar traits to those who do what you are describing are just as likely to use the logics of psychiatry to punish themselves or distance themselves from others. they use 'coping mechanisms' punitively by becoming obsessed with 'clean' eating/dieting, organization/academics, being the Perfect Patient. they tell others + themselves that they are neurologically incapable of love or healthy relationships or pleasure. they isolate themselves because they believe they are fundamentally toxic or abusive. they dismiss their emotions as "just symptoms" + actively chastise themselves or try to train themselves out of experiencing any anger towards others or even any negative emotions at all. they admit themselves to psych wards frequently not out of a reasonable concern that they will hurt themselves or others but because they believe they belong in a psych ward any time they are experiencing symptoms. the list goes on.
all of that being said, i do experience genuine concern that people might read what i write + because of self-hatred or intense paranoia, read some sort of mandate or advice that isn't there + end up in more pain. because this exact thing also happens with psychiatry, which the naysayers you describe above are not concerned with, i don't think they're actually worried about hurting people. they are worried about Crazy people Not Getting Help. it comes from a place of paternalism + fear.
another, more positive aspect of it is that i do genuinely believe that many people are not being helped by their treatment teams but think they Have To be in therapy or in a hospital or on meds despite them not helping because that's What You Do. so they have been sitting around waiting for five years of therapy or their seventh ssri to start doing something meaningful. some of them just needed to hear: you don't have to do this; it might not be the right thing for you. i actually think these people are really well-served by hearing about anti-psych/mad lib stuff + them quitting therapy/meds/treatment ends up allowing them to look for other pathways for dealing with emotional suffering.
ultimately, i think mad liberation that focuses on true autonomy + total liberation of all peoples provides a clearer path forward for people to return from these places of intense paranoia or self destruction. i think we are all so used to being deprived of autonomy that, when we first get it back, we often stumble with it or try to provoke someone into taking it away from us. that is just going to continue to happen if we respond to it by making autonomy conditional. a LOT of us feel like we're not allowed to heal if it's not a moral mandate, so hearing that it isn't feels like nobody cares. we have to find new ways of showing that we care which don't involve exerting power over others.
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phasmophobia-territory · 2 years ago
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It depends on the text, but Nephilim were typically described as people of great being which some versions in Hebrew the words were translated literally, which is where the interpretation of them being giants comes from. But more universally became considered just known as just people with great abilities, which was rooted in angelic ancestry.
Theres little in detail, but they are most typically considered humans whom were rhe result of fallen angels having children with humans. Which in mc's case is being descendant of Lilith after she fell, and her lover.
Its likely only angels and demons have the ability to sense mc might have something else within them only now that their angelic abilities were awoken in season 1. Beacuse otherwise theres no indication anyone thinks they aren't human in any other way and still clearly have normal human weaknesses.
So technically they aren't fully human in the strictest of senses. But they are still human in all ways physical. Just a magic that exists within themm
Small tangent but I once had a pastor tell me that the lines "and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them" aren't speaking physically and is just describing the angelic abilities posessed by those born to fallen angels. That they probably weren't any different then us, they just had abilities which we perceived as so great they metaphorically seemed giant to us.
Anyways thats my ted talk on mc being a nephilim, but they just don't use that term amonst each other in obey me because you're still human and thats the biggest aspect of your being.
Did i mention its 2am and im writing out an ask philosophizing scripture for a demon dating sim mobile game instead of sleeping?
gonna call this post MC's Angelic Heritage
(UH SPOILERS FOR ANYONE ELSE READING. and this isn't edited or anything, i'm just regurgitating my thoughts- sorry in advance for the stupidly long essay, rise-my-angel)
Oooh, yes that makes sense. can't be too literal with that stuff yk. I thought they're were literal giants... whoops >_<
Yes! MC really does have some great abilities in the game! they aren't supposed to have anywhere near the power Solomon has, but they're getting so good that they're probably going to surpass him! the greatest sorcerer in all of history! (i remember Lucifer commenting that when MC gets stronger than Solomon, they have to beat Solomon up for him so that he can stop pestering him to make a pact lol)
They also have some multirealm-destroying capabilities if i remember, such as literally causing the devildom, human world and celestial realm to break apart simply because of the fact they're a human that has angelic ancestry and has formed pacts with 7 of the most powerful demons in the devildom. that's some crazy power.
True, because to other humans, solomon included, they're a normal human. tbh, they ARE a human. but there's something MORE to them that only the non-humans can sense because of the magic within them. they're 100% human otherwise, but there's just one part of their DNA that's giving them their great magic power. and that's probably the only tangible aspect of angelic traits that they inherit. also, when MC uses their magic, the screen goes all white. meanwhile, with the demons, it's either green (satan), blue (leviathan), teal (barabtos) and everything else. Sooo, MC's magic is angelic confirmed??
But that's really funny. because I remember Simeon approaching MC in season 2, basically saying that they'd "make a good angel". i never ever thought much of that other than it being an "oh my, MC here is such a morally upright person that a literal angel is telling them that they'd make a good angel." But now i'm wondering if human beings who have some angelic DNA are more likely to become angels lol. there's not any evidence in game that that's the case, but that's just a funny thought.
There's also Belphie's comment in season 1, chapter 17. If you choose the option to say that you forgive him for manipulating and attacking you he says something along the lines of "really...? wow, you really do have the blood of angels running through you." This isn't evidence, just wanted to point it out. However, if you choose the "my MC is 100% kind and forgiving" route in the game, it might suggest that your kindness is partly inherited from the angelic parts of you. (not to say that you're only kind because of your angelic heritage, because you have to nurture kindness too, it's not all an "i'm kind because it's my nature" issue. you can choose for your MC to be less kind and forgiving, after all. with me, I'm a mixed bag lol. i didn't choose the option to forgive Belphie immediately in chapter 17 on my initial playthrough)
That's true with human beings. someone can be just like us, but because they did something extraordinary, we think they're larger than life and even revere them sometimes (*cough* people with celebrities and influencers). so image someone has great angelic powers? back then and even now, you'd have people thinking that you're a demigod even though you're completely human!
true, MC is human, but an extraordinary human!
bruh, I'm here at 1pm and i haven't eaten yet theorizing about some fictional character's powers in a dating sim! obey me theorizing instead of sleeping/eating gang! i absolutely didn't need to write a monster essay in response but i let my intrusive thoughts win :')
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vethbrenatto · 2 years ago
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People immediately jumped to the “oh this is fcgs evil murder bot side!” but theres so much to unpack in those 2 minutes that proves that this is probably not the case at all starting with the stress points. The more stressed fcg is the closer they get to that breaking point. Them being practically abandoned by dancer pushed them past it. (This is abit of a long ask sorry)
There’s a few things we know about this state: fcg didn’t wake up and started attacking for no reason chet did hit him and in the state that he was in they saw him as a threat. Also something that alot of people seemed to overlook is the fact that fcg only retaliated against those who hurt him first, he could’ve yelled at the entire party but they didn’t. Ashton did grab fcg but didn’t cause them any harm and fcg didn’t retaliate at Ashton at all.
This is more on the theory side of things but the whole saying there insecurity things at them was probably a way to get the party to run away from him, saying things that they don’t like to hear would drive them away from them so that they wouldn’t get hurt anymore.
the funny yet sad thing is the party probably could’ve talked him down, they weren’t saying or doing anything to those who didn’t hurt him so if they just let fcg be grappled and stay there maybe they would’ve been able to talk to them. Also the violence made it much worse, since fcg seemed way more stressed out the more they got hurt.granted there was a lot more going on so not gonna blame anyone but hopefully one of them /probably Ashton/ will want a much different approach the next time this happens or just say it in preparation
hi same person who wrote the massive fcg anon sorry if that was abit long i just have alot of thoughts about this character and wanted to hear your own thoughts! /also im not the biggest fan of the "oh fcg turned evil" thing /
i'm assuming these asks go together! and no worries, i don't mind hearing people's takes as long as it's not like "you should have this opinion about this"
personally, i kind of disagree with this. i think FCG in the state they were in couldn't have been talked down- mechanically, it seems like they had been triggered in some sense and the only thing that would've stopped them was probably a successful save, being knocked out (like they were), or possibly a calm emotions (this was also tried, but only after FCG was knocked out).
i think you're right it's obviously deeper than "murderbot" because FCG's personality that we've gotten to know doesn't seem to be malicious, but the stress points and the backstory of FCG being triggered by other's negative emotions and absorbing their pain (a metaphor for unhealthy coping mechanisms) to me doesn't make it... not murderbot? it's just a reflavoring and recontextualizing.
also i think i agree that I don't think FCG means the things he said, he said them to be the most hurtful he could. it seems like from the narrative we're being give, those negative emotions he's swallowing from others fester in him, so that's obviously what comes out when he "turns"
to me at this point i think the most interesting thing that could happen (other than this all being a fakeout- that FCG wasn't the one-eyed monster, which i think is 10x better a twist than him being one, but i also don't think that's going to happen) is going to be learning FCG's Aeorian roots. what about their time with Dancer led to this "malfunction"? did she just program him to be a helper bot and being of his advanced intelligence he, just like a real person, couldn't live for just other people's emotional wellbeing. he has to learn to live for himself and consider his own feelings and now that i'm typing that out, it does feel like that is probably the most predictable outcome of all this and it kind of bores me dfgfjdklgkl so um. i hope something else happens? idk
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krabmeat · 3 years ago
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friendly reminder that not all headcanons are valid. like headcanoning hispanics and latinos as f-ckin ABUSIVE WHAT THE F-CK!?!?
okay, to my white people reading this lemme put this information in your goshdamn head real quick cause you all JUST DONT SEEM TO UNDERSTAND JUST HOW RACIST THAT IS??? like no joke in some fandoms where the cast of characters is like 1 or 2 hispanics or latinos out of the rest of the white characters, im seeing white fanfic writers headcanoning the white characters as wholesome, good partners and sh-t which is all fine and dandy.
but THEN the POCS are written as abusive, toxic, and violent when theyre just like- just some guy??? white people gotta get it through their heads just how jarring that sh-t is dude.
in my and many other hispanic or latino families, its common for physical disciplining to be in a household. at times, there is also a mentality of the parents/oldest/whatever position you are in that somehow makes you more superior get to do what they want without consequence because they are more significant in whatever the relation may be. this kinda thing is already common in our households and its a disgusting thing to see a lotta the time- but at the same time a large, LARGE majority of us are not abusive or toxic.
yknow what those assumptions are instead? white peoples flowing RACISM!!!
and the fact the white fic writers are pinning that kind of sensitive and deeply traumatic sh-t on basically every hispanic or latino character they sniff out is just waaaaayyy out of their right.
like, what right do YOU, as a 1000x more privileged white person in comparison to hispanics and latinos, have to pin what is essentially a deeply rooted unwanted stereotype on us? cause personally, i dont see it.
yall really dont got better things to do than lay off the racism? you guys already got the privilege, leave us tf alone and educate yourself. you white racist fic writers may be able to get away with a hell of a lotta things but if you think for a SECOND that us latinos and hispanics are just gonna sit here and take your damn racism, then ponte los pilas cause you guys have got another thing coming.
white fic writers, be prepared to catch these hands if you try to defend this blatant racism.
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Idk how much you know about those with BPD and their partners but I wonder if you could do an analysis on how Paul might have been affected by it if John did in fact have bpd. I’ve been on forums and BPD partners always write about how they’re trauma bonded and how intoxicated they are by their BPD partners, how hard it is to let go and stuff
John, Paul & trauma bonding - an analysis:
“Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight…”
Oooh this is a really great ask!! But also, a really difficult one, because ive had to think about and research it quite a bit. Before diving into the question I just want to make 3 things clear:
1. Not all people with bpd are abusive - but it can be a result of the disorder, and John was abusive. It isn’t uncommon for those who have been abused (a likely cause of the disorders development) to sometimes go on to become the abusers: its a cycle. John, in my opinion, experienced some emotional/verbal abuse from Mimi - and this combined with Johns abandonment traumas, I think are the key causes for him *possibly* developing the disorder, and also the roots of his patterns of abuse within relationships.
2. We don’t know for certain if John had bpd - but I think you can make a fairly strong argument for the case that he did. But we’ll never know. But just to make my life easier, im going to discuss Johns psychology here as if he were actually diagnosed with bpd, because I don’t want to have to constantly be typing out “but obviously we dont know for certain that he had bpd this is just speculation ok—”
3. I am not a mental health professional, im just a 17 year old girl whose giving her opinion on all this. I do feel as though I know enough about bpd to at least have an opinion on this though - my brother has been diagnosed with bpd so I know what a relationship with someone with the disorder can look like. I have also independently researched the disorder quite extensively by means of various books, works and even just internet forums and discussions, because its something that really interests me. So whilst I feel like I can give an opinion on this, I think its still crucial that I clarify that I am not an actual mental health professional, just someone with an interest in psychology, and so there might be misconceptions throughout this - feel free to correct me on those, I won’t be offended.
Okay so now that thats all out of the way, onto the substance of the ask!
In my opinion, John’s bpd very much did invade his relationship with Paul, and the insecurity, angst, anger and overall instability that arose as a result of never being properly treated for the disorder, is the actual root cause for the the Lennon/McCartney breakup - and so when dissecting the relationship, and subsequent breakups and rebounds etc. I find it to be important and enlightening to analyse it through a borderline lens.
I think that there is some very real truth to the argument that John and Paul were trauma bonded, and ill talk about examples of this throughout their relationship later, but the first thing im going to suggest is that the way in which John treated Paul was arguably emotionally abusive. @thecoleopterawithana made a really interesting post relating to this, which I would recommend giving a read, but essentially, John would “test” Paul, to try and uncover if his love was genuinely unconditional, or if Paul was prepared to inevitably abandon and discard him: ultimately, Pauls love was unconditional.
And Pauls unconditional love, as well as his constant defences of John’s unsavoury behaviour might be evidence of trauma bonding.
Paul seemed to stay at a relative (physical, though also emotional) distance from John (and the others, but namely, John) during the mid-60s, by living in London whilst the rest moved into the suburbs. This is perhaps because Paul understood on some level that he couldn’t get too close with John, because that only tended to result in harm on both behalf’s. Space was mandatory for the relationship to work.
Paul seemed bound to John, however; it didn’t appear to matter how much John hurt him (and in my opinion, he hurt him a lot. I think his relationship with John genuinely took a toll on his confidence and self-security over the years) he seemed always prepared to be there for John, and to make amends. Part of this I think is because Paul is just a somewhat paternal person, by nature. It seems as though he seeks to “save” people, to some degree, but he also doesn’t like to get too wrapped up within their issues. So he’s always there for John, prepared to comfort and defend him - but he’s never fully there. He’ll never tell John everything he’s feeling, there has to be almost this barrier; almost like a parent/child relationship in my opinion: Paul has to maintain that idolatry status.
Im further inclined to believe that there was almost a parental relationship* between the two by this quote (x) : “I always find myself wanting to excuse John’s behaviour, just because I loved him. It’s like a child, sure he’s a naughty child, but don’t you call my child naughty. Even if it’s me he’s shitting on, don’t you call him naughty. That’s how I felt about this and I still do. I don’t have any grudge whatsoever against John. I think he was a sod to hurt me. I think he knew exactly what he was doing and because we had been so intimate he knew what would hurt me and he used it to great effect.”
(*I should clarify however that just because I compare them to a parent and child, doesn't mean I think their relationship reflected that exclusively. In my opinion, it was one so convoluted that it cant really be subjected to just one exclusive term such as "romantic" or "platonic" or "brotherly" etc. - there are aspects of all these attributes between John and Paul, but I wouldn't use any one word to define them)
Paul was certainly hurt by John, but what especially stands out to me is that Paul could acknowledge that the pain John so often caused him over the years, was purposeful, and yet he still chose to forgive him every time. He even sought to make amendments, despite Johns prevailing rejections and disparagements.
But after all these attempts in reestablishing a relationship, I think John still had an issue of assuming he was unloved - which was especially difficult to quell with those he cared for the most. As Paul said in ‘Dear Boy’ “I guess you never knew…that love was there. And maybe when you look to hard…you never do become aware. I guess you never did become aware”. John searched so thoroughly for love, so much so that he could never accept how apparent it was. These lyrics (if they are about John, which I think they almost certainly are) seem to suggest that Paul eventually grew tired of trying to make John see that he loved and cared for him. He’d tried and tried again to satisfy that insecurity within John, but he just never could.
“It was honesty, but it could hurt. And it wasn't really all that honest. He knew he could hurt. He could be wicked. But I'm always sensible. That's me. I would never say the things he said.” - again, this quote tells us that Paul recognised the pain and the abuse of which John inflicted upon him, and also recognised that it was not accidental.
These weren't slip-of-the-tongue remarks that John would make; when John would say he didn't like a song Paul wrote for example, it was an intimate insult. For sure, they were a band, and so criticising a song your bandmate has written certainly isn't abusive - and, if words are minced delicately, im sure most would hesitate to even call pure constructive criticism between bandmates "cruel". Simply, thats what you do if you're in a band, you have to communicate your likes and dislikes. But the difference is that there always seems to be a subtle but real cruelty to John with his "criticisms" - and im certain that "I don't like your song" is far from the worst thing John would have ever said to Paul. Especially in later years, when John would criticise his former partners work, there was always this hint of aggression and underlying motive to hurt, rather then just a pure "I want to help him improve his work" sentiment.
I think Paul could be prone to hurting John too, but I don't believe this was intentional for the most part. Im sure he must have said some nasty and fowl things during arguments, but I don't think Paul is the type to just make useless, un-motivated, cruel remarks, just out of his own insecurity. And I feel as though Paul could recognise that this insecurity was the chief cause compelling John to hurt others - thus why Paul is so prone to defending and forgiving him. He pitied him (as expressed in this Howard Stern interview).
And it also appears that he could never have accepted being entirely estranged from John; I cant imagine Paul ever cutting John out completely, I think he would always have been there for him, irregardless of the painful toll it could take on him. And I feel that he still sought Johns approval, even after acknowledging that it was not the be all and end all of judgements. Even if every critic on the planet praised his work, I think Paul would still be inclined to gain Johns approval, because it really meant something to him (x).
Therefore, it isn't surprising that Paul might question how real the love between him and John actually was. If John could switch from extremes of friendliness to antagonism, its no surprise that Paul struggles to comprehend that John did love him - and in whichever way you choose to interpret this love, it was still just that at its very core: love. But that this love was so often diverted in place of cruel comments coming from just scared and lonely man, naturally has made Paul ponder the question over the years.
A weaker piece of evidence, though one I still feel is worth mentioning, is that Pauls lyrics suggest to me a relationship that involved a lot of inconsistent expressions of love. Lyrics like: “Maybe im amazed at the way you love me all the time” and “Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight” feel especially evocative of this, particularly the lyric from ‘Maybe Im Amazed’. It seems almost passive aggressive to me, suggesting that Paul found Lindas consistent warmth and love incredulous, because he’d spent so many years experiencing Johns mood swings and black and white thought patterns. But as I admitted earlier, they aren’t particularly strong pieces of evidence, just something to think about really.
We have to question however, where John might have picked up these “trauma bonding” behavioural patterns from. Id argue, it relates strongly to John having scarcely felt like he was loved and appreciated in the truest sense growing up. Those that were warmer and more open with their love (Uncle George, Julia etc.), tragically left him, whether by choice or not. And those that stuck around (Aunt Mimi) seemed to have found real difficultly in expressing this same warmth.
I get the sense that John gathered this nature of criticising others, in place of expressing love, chiefly from his Aunt Mimi. Mimi was allegedly highly critical of John throughout his lifetime - according to Cynthia (x) she, “brought John up very strictly, with lots of rules and expectations. She was hard to please, easily disappointed, and she would make it known…Mimi obviously worshiped him, [but] John was clearly a disappointment to her.”
The words, “easily disappointed, and she would make it known” especially stand out to me, because they suggest that Mimi’s constant disappointments and degrading of John was not really driven by her want for him to do well in school, work etc. but more so that she just felt this narcissistic compulsion to disparage others. I don’t deny that Johns behaviour throughout his adolescence must have been hugely frustrating to her (skipping school, drinking, failing classes etc.), and with him growing up in the 1950s, im not expecting her to have reacted to these rebellions in the same manner that a parent might today (with a little more empathy due to advances in our understanding of psychology) - but I still have to wonder, what made John rebel in such a way? What was the drive? It seems as though he was well-equipped with all the resources he could have needed to do well in school, and yet there was no motivation, no pull for him to do so. To say that he was “just a teenager” or “just lazy” seems a little too simple for me; id argue that it was more so driven by his inability to satisfy Mimi as a child. I think Mimi’s constant meanderings and subtle criticisms drove out any inclination in John to do well in school, and instilled instead this tendency to rebel.
In my opinion, Mimi dissolved him of any self-confidence - and although she did provide John with a security that Julia seemingly could not, I think she was still constructing an insecure attachment pattern in John, through her passive aggression and criticism. It seems John could scarcely make her proud, because she just was not willing express a lot of warmth with him; and I think ultimately, these traits were reflected within John and his relationships with others, in later life. His ego remained so hurt and fractured by comments made consistently throughout his upbringing, that he subsequently felt this compulsion to hurt and disregard those around him in a similar vain.
As Cynthia once said, its almost as though John was both this hurt, lonely little boy, whilst simultaneously also being this tired and broken, middle-aged man. There were so many troubles wrapped up within him, that he felt the only way to satisfy this was to hurt others; but of course, that did not work.
I don’t deny that there was plenty of affection between the two - especially after the Beatles got famous. John no longer needed Mimi in his life, but he kept in touch with her to a degree that suggests he really did appreciate her. In a lot of ways, the relationship between John and Mimi reminds me of me and my own mothers relationship. She’s never been a particularly warm person, certainly prone to criticism, and growing up she was not empathetic or understanding of aspects concerning mental health and personality. But there is still a lot of love between us (as I think there was between John and Mimi), and in some ways its good to have a pretty “old-school” person, who isn’t excessively caught up in psycho-analysis or introspection; its kind of grounding, y’know. And so, perhaps im just projecting, but thats partly why I feel like John came to really appreciate Mimi in later years. But despite Johns appreciation and respect for his Aunt, I think its still fair to acknowledge her short-comings as a parent, and discuss how these attributes might have shaped John in later life. I don't place the entire burden of blame for Johns mental health issues upon her, because there were multiple traumas he experienced throughout his lifetime. But I am still especially compelled to dissect his relationship with Mimi, and her treatment of him, even more so then I am with his relationship with Julia or Alf!
So overall, I do think that John and Paul were trauma bonded. John could be cruel to Paul, and though Paul might have pushed back on this abuse, showing some intolerance towards John, he was still always prepared to return to him, and appeared always to be seeking his approval. Even if John will never know the many ways Paul tried to show him he loves him, and tried to keep him from abandoning him, Paul will still always be led back to that ‘Long And Winding Road’.
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crash-cinematic-universe · 4 years ago
Text
tiger lilies, self destructing, and richard siken
pairing: peter maximoff/reader
summary: to peter maximoff, love is an anomaly that scares him more than anything else. however, you might be able to help him overcome his fear.
warnings: language! but that’s about it. kind of cheesy at some points but yknow what im not lactose intolerant
notes: this is the monsterous fic thats been kicking my ass this past week (6.2k words babey!!!) i was originally going to add ~~steamy~~ section to this one but i decided against it to make it readable for those who don’t wanna see that kind of stuff. if you want me to separately publish that then just lmk!!  (if any of yall wanna talk about richard siken to me then please do, his work is so good)
taglist: @stranger-names ,  @gooseyhouse , @parkersdarling​ 
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1. 
To Peter Maximoff, physical affection has always been a touchy subject-- no pun intended. His speed is a blessing, but also a bitter curse. He moves at the speed of sound, bouncing off the walls and tearing up the roads; he moves impossibly fast, and no one ever tries to catch up with him. People get tired of Peter rather quickly, not bothering to get attached to him when they know they can’t keep up. 
That’s why it’s so jarringly startling when you decide to stick around. When faced with the grand decision of throwing in the towel and leaving Peter behind or sticking around and trying your best, you chose the latter. It was surprising, to say the least. Peter waited patiently for the distance between the two of you to start growing; he waited for the void you once filled to open up again. However, the void never emptied, and the distance never grew. 
To anyone else, this would be a wonderful experience. Knowing that you wouldn’t be left behind or forgotten about would be comforting to anyone else in Peter’s position. However, this did the exact opposite for Peter. He wasn’t comforted or relaxed, on the contrary, he was always on edge. The future was cruel, and the mystery of it all felt like torture. 
To quote the great Richard Silken, “Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.” Peter lived and breathed by this ideology, that everyone he loves would have to leave eventually, whether it be by their own volition or not. It was obvious that you didn’t plan on abandoning ship anytime soon, so Peter decided he’d take matters into his own hands. If you weren’t going to be the first one to walk away, then he’d be the one to run away from you. He soon came to learn that loneliness was at its most bitter when you’ve come to taste the sweetness of love. 
Love was a strange, complicated beast that Peter Maximoff had never dealt with before. If he were to be completely honest, love scared him. It scared him more than dying scared him. To Peter, death was an escape. Death was the end of a tiring journey, it was safe and simple and easy. Love was the opposite, it was the mouth of a dragon and the edge of a blade. It was the beginning to something so fragile and powerful, something that could end in flames. 
Peter realized he loved you on a summer afternoon. The sun was shining and you were in the shade. He sat down next to you, and within minutes Kurt and Ororo appeared at your side. They seemed so put together, so sure and strong. Peter felt out of place-- he felt as if he were standing outside of a cabin looking in through the window at your wonderful friendships. He watched with his nose pressed against the glass as you walked across the room and opened the cabin door to let him in. 
Peter realized he was in love with you in the middle of the night. A thunderstorm raged outside the mansion walls and raindrops kept time as Peter walked down the hallway. You were sitting on the floor of the common room next to a dying fire, a book clenched tightly in your hands. For a moment, he just stood against a wall and watched you. As creepy as he felt, a part of him believed he’d ruin your night by making himself known. He was okay with being a fly on the wall if it meant he’d get to see you. Peter wondered if there was a world where he had the pleasure of knowing you, without you having the burden of knowing him. 
Still, you saw him. And you knew him. And you waved him over with a smile. He felt the urge to run, to leave you here alone with yourself, but he stayed put. Then, one step at a time, he moved forward. He got closer and closer before he found himself standing at your feet. 
“You’re welcome to stay,” you told him. He believed it. Peter sat down next to you, letting his shoulder brush against yours.
“What’re you reading?” He asked. Peter already knew what you were reading, he read the cover of the book the moment he sat down, but he still wanted to hear it from you.
“Crush by Richard Siken,”
“Oh. What’s it about?” Peter already knew what it was about. He’d read it at least fifty times.
“It’s kind of hard to explain. I’d much rather just read it to you and let you decide for yourself,” Peter’s stupid little heart lurched, and he almost cried at the thought. He held it together, though. 
“That would be nice,” He said softly. 
“Sorry about all the writing in the margins, I can’t help myself sometimes.” Peter scanned the sides of the pages, marveling at your notes. Some of them were reactions, littered with exclamation points and question marks and bold letters. Some of them were underlined phrases and little doodles-- most notably a little drawing of a chameleon on a tiger lily. He loved them.
“It’s okay. Literature is meant to be marked up-- what’s the point of reading if you don’t get to share the love?”
“That’s a good point,” You grinned. Then, the reading began, and you allowed Peter to rest his head on your shoulder as you read to him. Even though he’d heard the poems a billion times by now, they sounded brand new coming from you. He listened closely. You were arriving at his favorite part, “You are Jeff” section 24. 
“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you...” You read on, not noticing the way Peter’s eyes had shifted from the book you were holding to your face. Peter’s mind wanders, and he curses himself for missing the lines you were reading “... You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.” 
Peter felt like he was going to cry. You kept reading and he kept looking. It was getting late, and Peter was getting tired. Your voice had softened and slowed, and the fire that was burning in the fireplace had all but died. Peter was the one that fell asleep first, and you followed closely after. Both of you had lingering smiles on your faces. 
2. 
Intimacy is an odd thing, isn’t it? Thinking critically, intimacy is just vulnerability with more layers. It’s the closeness between people, it’s allowing yourself to connect with someone you care about. It’s stripping yourself down to muscle and bone and hoping the other person doesn’t let you bleed out. It’s a level of trust that is more than closing your eyes and falling backwards; it’s closing your eyes and letting them push you over the edge into the unknown, and trusting them enough to know you’ll be okay when you hit the ground.
It didn’t take long for Peter to realize that he had trouble with being intimate with other people. Too many times had trusted someone to push him over the edge, only to realize he’d be shattered when he hits the ground. After that, he decided intimacy was overrated. It’s not like anyone was going to have that kind of relationship with him, anyway. 
Of course, then you came along and uprooted his entire worldview, like you had with everything else. He found himself thinking about you at every waking moment, which inevitably led to him… thinking about you at every waking moment, if you catch my drift. Sure, intimacy involves more than just physical intimacy, but Peter knows he can’t ignore the feeling that rises in his stomach whenever he’s around you. For the first year or so of your relationship, Peter became very familiar with the feeling of an ice-cold shower. 
What Peter didn’t take into consideration was you. For some reason, Peter struggled to understand the fact that you were just as attracted to him as he was attracted to you. It was no secret that Peter was insecure, but he never really realized how much his insecurity affected his relationships. If he couldn’t love himself, how could anyone else? Peter is the only one who gets to see his persona in its truest form, and every time he has to avert his eyes. It’s safe to say his physical appearance has been the cause of very many painful-- and occasionally tear-filled-- sleepless nights. 
He told you this. He told you everything. He told you about Erik, he told you about his childhood, he told you about everything he loved and hated and feared and yearned for. That ordeal alone was scary enough, knowing that at any moment you could decide you didn’t want to deal with him anymore, but as always, you stuck around. You told him everything. You told him about your family and your struggles. You told him about everything you loved and hated and feared and yearned for, and not once did Peter even think that he wanted to walk away. This is the kind of intimacy that, over the years, Peter had struggled with less and less.
Still, it was the sexual aspect of intimacy that freaked him out. It was a beast he’d never dealt with, a feat he’d never faced. That being said, as every day went by Peter became more and more… frustrated. He didn’t know how to approach the subject, so he'd just let the subject approach him and wing it. 
And as he sat on his bed watching as you twirled around to Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, Peter realized he didn’t have much to worry about. 
“Dance with me, dollface,” you laughed, reaching out for him. You looked like someone straight out of a movie, the lim blue light coming from Peter’s arcade machines illuminating a halo above your head. You put Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez to shame. Peter took your hand, grinning like an idiot as you twirled him around. 
There he was, dancing in his mother’s basement with his favorite person in the entire world. He wasn’t a great dancer, and neither were you, but that didn’t matter. Peter was dreading this visit-- he hated the idea of being back in the basement that made him feel like a failure. But you assured him that you’d be there with him, and that getting to see his family would make it all worth it. His family isn’t what made it worth it, though. 
“Brain Damage” by Pink Floyd came next, slower and a bit more somber, but still danceable. Your arms shifted to around his neck, pulling him closer than he already was. Somehow, you ended up with your back against the wall as the song came to a close. He kissed your forehead, then your cheek, then your lips.
“I love you,” Peter spoke softly. This was a small victory-- he’d been so scared of the mere idea of loving someone. You were the only one who got to hear his love confessions. They were for you, and for you only.
“I love you too,” Peter would never, ever get tired of hearing that. Knowing that you love him is enough to keep him going for a hundred years. And he knows the odds, he knows that love is rocky and painful as much as it is beautiful. He knows that love can feel sweet in the beginning and go sour overtime. He knows that first, second, third relationships don’t always work out. But he thinks this is going to work out. And Peter doesn’t think this will ever go sour. Maybe that’s his blissful ignorance talking, maybe he’s jinxing it, but at this moment, he doesn’t care. Right now he is at his happiest, at his most content. 
“You wanna watch a movie?” You asked softly, pecking Peter on the cheek. He could feel the warmth radiating off of you, and Peter grinned. In an instant the tv across the room began playing the opening credits to the first movie that popped into his head. 
“The Breakfast Club?” You questioned. Peter shrugged.
“What can I say, I’m a sucker for a good coming-of-age kind of movie,”
You sat against the headboard of Peter’s bed, allowing Peter to settle beside you. Your head rested on his shoulder, and he was quick to grab your hand. Peter loved the closeness. Over the past year, he’d come to realize he was a very affectionate person. Previously, Peter hadn’t known soft, physical love; the only time anyone would ever touch him would be as punishment or defense, not love. Love. Peter had gotten more comfortable with the idea of love, because when he thinks of love he thinks of you.
3. 
Every good story has a villain. A villain that you love to hate, or hate to love. A villain you can sympathize with, a villain you can’t excuse, a villain that the mere mention of makes you sick to your stomach. An unexpected villain. An obvious villain. A villain that’s just trying his goddamn best. Sometimes the villain is defeated, sometimes the villain changes their evil ways. Sometimes the villain dies and the crowd cheers. 
Peter Maximoff never thought he’d be the villain of his own story. He tried his hardest to be a good person, but there was always that side of him that made him afraid. He was like an explosive; whenever someone got too close, he’d detonate and destroy everything around him. It was a self-defense tactic, albeit counterproductive. 
It killed you to see him that way. He told you about the relationships he’d lost to himself. He told you about the abandonment and the loneliness. It broke your heart. He tried to distract himself, drowning himself in work so he’d never have the opportunity to ruin what he had with you. Peter Maximoff was a walnut tree; every time he planted his roots and began to grow, he’d kill anything that grew too close. However, the constant working started to wear Peter down.
It started with the late nights. He’d collapse next to you at four AM, knocking out the minute his head hit the pillow. Still, he’d be awake before you were, already scrambling around trying to complete various tasks. He was like a machine that was running from it’s problems. The late nights turned to all-nighters, and the few hours Peter managed to salvage set aside for sleep had shrunk to a few minutes at a time. He didn’t eat anything with even a hint of nutritional value. At this rate, he was going to work himself to death. 
The worst part? Peter knew what he was doing. He wasn’t stupid. He just needed to shut up the little voice in his head that urged him to act out. The entirety of his childhood, Peter destroyed what he created. The need to be isolated, the feeling that he deserves to be alone spread throughout his body like a cancer. He locked himself away in the basement, trying desperately to stay out of everyone’s way so they wouldn’t shut him out. People tried to coerce him out of his cave, to pull him out of the bottomless pit he threw himself into. Peter saw them as the sirens trying to lure him into the ocean of loneliness, and he wasn’t going to fall for it. In his eyes, anyone who tried to help him were the villains of his amazing, heroic tale. Fortunately for him, one by one, they started to give up on helping him. They thought he was a lost cause; a fucking loser who was destined to wallow in his own self-pity until he died. At first, this was a triumph. He defeated them, he outwitted the sphinx and slayed the dragon. But a part of him hated himself for becoming the worst-case scenario that every parent feared their child would grow up to be. 
He pulled himself out of his pit and back onto his feet, all by himself. It was hell on Earth, but he did it. That cancerous feeling of uselessness retracted back into itself, now residing in the place next to Peter’s heart. However, that horrifying fear of becoming a burden began to grow again, this time when Peter was in his mid-20s. He began to overcompensate, and that led him to where he was; always on the brink of collapse, running on nothing but coffee and twenty minutes of sleep. In return, Peter got to have friends. In his mind, that was fair. In your mind? Not even close.
You managed to catch him in his bedroom as he was in the midst of simultaneously scribbling in a notebook and reading an open novel. Peter Maximoff would always be the most beautiful person in the world in your eyes, but at that moment, he looked like hell. Your plan seemed foolproof, but then again, you weren’t sure what you were walking into. Lately, Peter didn’t seem like himself. Probably because of the lack of sleep. 
“Peter?” He looked up at you, eyes half-lidded. “I got you something.”
“You did?” A sleepy smile was all he could muster, but that was google enough for you.  
“I did. It’s to mark exactly three years since I first met you,” you sat down on his bed, placing the small wrapped book right next to you. Peter glanced at the calendar on the wall-- oh god, you were right. It’s been three years to the day and he forgot. He deserves the title of “World’s Worst Boyfriend”. Scott will probably be upset that he’s losing his title.
 “What’re you up to?”
“Finishing up some old work I’ve been putting off,” he punctuated his sentence with a yawn. “Some of my old work and some of Hank’s, too.” “Why are you doing Hank’s work?”
“He seemed stressed about something, thought I might help clear his head,” The sentiment is sweet, you’ll give him that.
“Alright, well, can we talk for a minute?” Alarm bells went off in Peter’s brain. There has never, in the history of the universe, been a good conversation that started with ‘can we talk for a minute?’ or any of it’s cruel variants. 
“Actually, I’m kind of busy right now, can this wait?” It was obvious that the answer to that was no, but still, he felt the need to ask. 
“Not really, no. It’s important.” Peter saw the next few seconds playing out in his head. The inevitable had come to fruition; you realized that you could do better, and now you were cutting him loose. He couldn’t blame you, not really, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to rip him to shreds. He realized that whatever you brought for him was most likely a parting gift. How sweet.
“Oh. Alright.” 
“Well, I’m going to give it to you straight,” you sighed. “I’m worried about you, Peter.”
Oh. He’s heard this speech before, he knows the spiel. He can vaguely recall a guidance counselor telling him the exact same thing before Peter decided to call him a slew of expletives. The tar pit in his chest began to grow.
“I’m fine.” This was a lie. The first lie in a long chain of lies that Peter was about to tell to you, his favorite person in the world. He loved you, but in that moment his vision clouded over. You weren’t the person he loved and cherished anymore, no, you were just another faceless blur that provided a temporary escape. 
“Really? I feel like you’re pushing everyone away, you’re pushing me away.” Peter was becoming more and more irritated by the second.
“I told you, I’m fine. I’m not pushing you away. 
“Don’t lie to me,” your voice is firm and unwavering. “You don’t sleep, you almost never eat-- I don’t think I’ve seen you stand still for more than three minutes once in the past month--”
“That’s just how I am,” Peter huffs. He wanted this conversation to be over. “That’s not your problem.”
“Your wellbeing is my problem, Peter, that’s the whole point of being friends with someone. Even more so now, because you’re my partner and I care about you--” 
“Then stop,” Peter rolled his eyes. He's more irritable than normal-- most likely because he hasn’t slept in days. He could almost feel the venomous arms of isolation creeping around him. It’s a sick pattern, he knows; every time someone gets close to him, he feels the need to self-destruct before they lose interest. Even now, even after all this time, Peter’s still powerless against the poison in his veins. 
“What?” You’re losing your reserve and your stature. He can tell. You’re slouching and picking at the cuticles on your thumb. It’s almost as if he’s been shoved into the back seat, and is now being forced to watch as a stranger takes the wheel and crashes the car. So much frustration, so much hurt, and it’s all coming out right now, onto you. Peter already regrets this entire interaction, but still, he manages to spit acid. 
“Stop caring. Just leave, I know you want to. I know every night, you lie awake and think about all the different ways you can leave me in the dust. Not that it would matter to me.” This is another lie. Your eyes flash with hurt, but you stay put. You know he’s just being an asshole because he’s exhausted and too stubborn to admit that you’re right. He’s egging you on intentionally, trying to get you to snap and walk away. 
 “Peter, god, I love you but sometimes you can be so...”
“So what? C’mon, be honest with me,” He huffed. 
“Frustrating,” You surrendered. The poise you once held was gone. “I know it isn’t your fault-- I know you’ve trusted so many people so deeply and been betrayed or sold out and I know you’ve loved so many times and been thrown to the curb without a second thought. But I don’t know what I can do to convince you that I’m here for you, and that I love you. I’ve tried everything, and it feels like I’m talking to a brick wall. I want to make this work, but I need you to work with me.” It’s evident in your voice that you’re desperate. You’re just hoping you’ll get through to him, somehow. “I need you to want it as bad as I do-- hell, I need you to want it at all.” Here it comes--
“You ever think, maybe, I just don’t want you to be that person for me? I’ve spent my life being independent, my entire existence so far has been built around the fact that I’m going to end up alone. People come and people go-- people like you and Charles-- and they tell me they care. They tell me that they love me and that they're here for me. And then they get tired of me and they leave. I wish that you would just leave me the fuck alone and let me live in solitude,” There it was. The lie to end all lies. The words tasted awful coming out of his mouth, and the whole ordeal left his mouth tasting very… sour. Peter had to look away, he couldn’t look at the expression on your face.
“Fine. If that’s what you want.” Your eyes never met his, but you paused before you exited the room. “I know you’re probably just… I don’t know, going through something, but you’re being an asshole. Don’t talk to me until you’ve sorted your shit out. Enjoy your solitude.” You left the room impossibly fast, your fists clenched so tightly Peter feared that your nails would break the skin on your palms. He struggled to keep it together-- why the fuck did he do that? 
Peter collapsed onto his bed, and it’s only then that he realized you left behind the gift you got him. A part of him thought he should return it to you, but the other part of him urged for it to be opened. He tore the wrapping paper off before he realized what he was doing. The hardcover book the wrapping paper concealed was handbound, the cover littered with your beautifully familiar handwriting. In big, bold letters The Best of Poetry in the Humble Opinion of Y/n L/n was scrawled at the top. 
Peter vividly remembers a late night you spent talking to him. You told him about your favorite poems, outlining each and every little detail you loved about them. Some of them he’d read already, some of them he hadn’t, but all of them sounded like artwork coming from you. He opened the front cover, and you’d written something else on the inside. 
“In the words of the wonderful Peter Maximoff, ‘What’s the point of reading if you don’t get to share the love?’. This is me, sharing the love.” 
Carefully, Peter opened to a random page in the book. He saw the notes in the margins and the doodles and the exclamation points and before he knew it Peter was on the verge of tears. He was barely containing himself, and then he read a specific annotation you made. 
He had opened to the first page of “The Worm King’s Lullaby”, one of your all-time favorites. A specific line was underlined, one that Peter was all too familiar with: “Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.” Beside it, you wrote:
“As much of a genius Mr. Siken is, I have to disagree with this. If you love someone enough, you’ll never leave them and they’ll never leave you. Even if they die, even if things don’t work out, you’ll always have a little part of them to carry with you. Carry this part of me with you, Peter. Not that I plan on leaving anytime soon.” 
That was it. The floodgates broke. Everything that Peter had held back came pouring out-- the past 10 minutes finally caught up with him, and they hit him like a bus. He sat in the corner of his bedroom, his knees pulled up to his chest so tightly he thought his legs would snap. Peter wanted to rip all his hair out or punch a hole in the wall or hold his head underwater until he was nothing but an obituary and a headstone. His chest burned and the pit of despair inside his chest had overtaken his system, and he hated himself with a burning passion. Why did he do that? Why did he do that? Why the fuck did he do that?
Peter Maximoff had his breakdown in solitude, revealing in the fact that he was, undeniably, the villain of his own life.
4.
As it turns out, ‘getting his shit together’ is much harder than Peter originally anticipated. He's trying, he really is, but it's hard. Especially without you there. Peter knows that he fucked up, and he knows that he needs to work for your forgiveness. And don’t worry, he’s going to work for it. 
It had only been a week, but the entire mansion could tell that something was off. Life just wasn’t the same without the randomized gusts of wind that would knock people off their feet; no one had been seriously injured or had something stolen from them. The whirlwind that was mansion life, while still chaotic, lost it’s fun. 
Charles tried to keep things running smoothly, but he was an old man and didn’t exactly understand you and Peter. People would knock on your door every now and then, but you didn’t answer. You were much too busy analyzing exactly how much of a bitch you were being-- realistically, the answer is 0%, but you didn’t see it that way. No, from your perspective, you saw Peter having a mental breakdown and you ditched him. Pretty shitty move.
What you didn’t realize was that Peter was doing the exact same thing, however, the blame falls mostly on his shoulders, and boy does he know it. He’s been scripting his grand apology, trying desperately to find the right words to express exactly how sorry he is. Peter was never very good with words-- it’s always too hard to know if you’re going to say the wrong thing and mess everything up. Although, it’s hard to see how the scenario could get any worse.
He made the executive decision to start with “I’m sorry”-- a solid start to any apology. Sure, he could stop there, but Peter realized that he’d probably need more to win back his partner. So, he managed to scribble down a few more lines on a tiny notecard he was supposed to use for studying. Oh, what a wondrous redemption arc this would be; Peter gets into a fight with his wonderful partner and ruins their relationship and then struggles to come up with a coherent apology. 
“I’m sorry about what I said, that was shitty. I shouldn’t have said that.” Peter’s eyebrows furrowed in frustration. God, he was going to die alone, wasn’t he? Maybe this is the cruel punishment the world is dealing to him, the universe is deciding that Peter’s redemption arc would be better if it, well, didn’t exist. Even so, he isn’t planning on giving up or giving in just yet. 
He scrapped what he had so far and started at the beginning once again. His 9th grade english teacher would tell him to write about what he knows, and though he doesn’t know much, he’s an expert when it comes to himself. Peter knows how he feels about you, he knows how sorry he is, and he knows that he really, really, really wants you to know that he didn’t mean a word he said about not wanting you. Peter knows about love, at least a little bit, and he realizes he’ll need more than just words.  
His mind drifts to that night, years ago, in front of the fireplace. He vividly remembers a tiger lily and a chameleon scribbled in the margins of your book. Realistically, Peter couldn’t get his hands on a chameleon, but a tiger lily was a different story. In high school, Peter took a botany course because he thought it’d be easy. It wasn’t, it was boring as all hell, but it seems like his slacking paid off. He knew tiger lilies were indigenous to Asia, but they’d become quite common along New England-area roadways. 
Peter grabbed his jacket and took off, tearing through the roads like his life depended on it. In less than 10 minutes, Peter found himself in the middle of New Hampshire drenched in rain. In hindsight, he probably should’ve checked the weather before leaving. Nevertheless, he takes off into the small wooded area that laid passed the road’s end. Dozens of mushrooms dotted the muddy ground and mossy rocks clouded his peripheral vision. The rain begins to lighten as he spots a bright orange tiger lily peeking through the remains of a tree stump. He sprints over to it.
The tiger lily is bloomed and beautiful and Peter can’t tear his eyes away from the wide array of speckles and splotches and color. It’s pristine, but some of the petals are torn or wilting. The roots stretch into the stump below it, and Peter leans closer. The stump is old and worn, fungi and bugs eat away at the base next to a large hole where a family of worms reside. The stump is ugly, sure, but it’s useful. It helps keep the bugs fed and keeps the worms warm. There’s a metaphor here somewhere, but Peter is too distracted to find it. 
He gently picks the flower and spins on his heel, taking off once again. The rain makes it harder to run, but it’ll take a lot more than water to stop Peter. By the time Peter gets back to Xavier’s the flower is a little crushed, but it’s still somewhat pristine. 
He has the flower, he has the apology, and now all he needs is courage. Thankfully, that courage comes quickly as he instinctively knocks on your bedroom door. He probably should’ve stopped to collect himself, but he was riding a wave of adrenaline that wouldn’t come back. 
“Go away, Jean,” You called from inside. You sounded tired, and it made Peter sad. 
“It’s-- uh-- it’s not Jean,” Peter can hear your hesitant footsteps approaching the door, and suddenly the courage he managed to build up drained. His hands are shaking by the time you open the door. You look up at him, and Peter looks back at you, and suddenly everything is much harder to do. He looks down at his feet. 
“Hi.” Your voice is hoarse, but clear. 
“Hi.” Peter’s voice is uneven and quiet. You stand there in silence for a minute before Peter pipes up again.
“So, uh, you’re probably still mad at me and I get that, but I just want you to hear me out. I-If that’s okay,” You nod slowly, and Peter takes a deep breath. He thinks about the written apology that sat in his coat pocket, and he makes the last-minute decision to forget about it. He’ll speak from the heart, or, whatever people in rom-coms do. 
“I’m sorry. It was really shitty of me to get angry at you because you were worried about me-- although, I guess shitty is an understatement. Everything that I said about, yknow, not wanting you or Charles or anyone else around anymore wasn’t true. I need you guys, and I love you guys and it was unfair of me to push you away. Solitude really sucks. I guess I’m just not very good at navigating relationships,” He exhales, and his chest shudders. “I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore, I just thought I should make it clear how I feel.” It’s only then that he remembers about the tiger lily in his hand. “Oh, and this is for you.”
“A tiger lily?” you smiled softly. “These are my favorite-- how did you know?”
“I’m just observant, I guess. You usually draw them when you’re bored, I figured you’d like to see one in person,” You gently took the tiger lily in your hand. The silence that hung in the air was deafening, and Peter realized that was probably a bad sign. His chest drops just a bit, and he takes a small step backwards.
“I guess I should probably leave you alone--” Peter can’t get very far, because you immediately jump forward and wrap your arms around him. Eyes wide and heart pounding, you can feel Peter’s arms lock around your waist. 
“Thank you,” You whispered. “Please don’t go.” Peter was smiling so hard his cheeks ached, and a horrible weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The close-contact was refreshing; he didn’t realize how much he missed it until that moment. He was pretty sure he would never, ever let you go. Not again.
5.
To Peter Maximoff, physical affection has always been a touchy subject-- that is, until you came along. You proved to him that he deserved physical affection, that his mutation and his personality and weirdo quirks didn’t make him lesser or unlovable. Peter Maximoff deserved love, and you were the one who never failed to love him. 
You sat on a wooden chair in front of the fireplace, reading to the group of children sitting at your feet. The emotional lines of “Snow and Dirty Rain” fell from your lips, and with every turning syllable the small group would listen just a little bit closer. Peter did, too, desperately trying to hear every single word you said. Class was almost over, and once the students were dismissed you’d probably stop reading.
“I made this place for you. A place for you to love me. If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is,” Your eyes tore away from the page to look at the kids at your feet. They fell upon Peter, and a smile erupted on your face. 
Peter vaguely recalls the twisted idea of love that he held as a teenager. He thought love was a dragon to be defeated, a battle that could be won or lost. It’s clear now that love is the opposite-- it isn’t a fight or a battle or a thing to be conquered. It’s more like a flower; it needs to be cherished and cared for in order to grow. Sometimes the flower wilts and dies, and that’s natural, but sometimes the flower lasts for a lifetime. 
Love wasn’t a dragon or a knight, it didn’t have a hero or a villain; it was much more like a tiger lily and a tree stump.
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taketheringtolohac · 4 years ago
Note
i 100% believe miles comes out on tumblr like after rise of the ashes or something and everyone rejoices (this headcanon is sheer fucking gold btw)
Oh dear you’ve activated my trap card for this hc get ready for this because i definitely agree that Miles coming out is CELEBRATED on tumblr however it’s a LONG journey before he gets there. Before I get into it though there is a cw for briefly talking about suicide so please be mindful of that! It’s mostly in the context of the note post RFTA and people speculating what happened to Miles in his disappearance from tumblr, but I do talk about it so.
Ok here we go
So Miles is well known as That Guy on Steel Samurai tumblr who is absolutely insufferable to interact with but he writes good meta and writes even BETTER fics, but it’s the kind where something is obviously going on in this guys life and is he ok? Because it seems like he’s working through some shit and that combined with his ask answering sprees of outright denying he’s gay and just talking Like That on the internet people get a kick out of him and he’s JUST tolerable enough that people don’t really DO anything about it. He probably gets a call out post maybe like one time but it’s just by some rando who’s pretty new to the fandom and doesn’t get the sort of unspoken agreement steel samurai collective fandom has made to just put up with him despite him being absolutely dreadful.
But then all of a sudden Miles just... disappears one day out of nowhere. At first it’s just a day, then a day turns into a week, and a week turns into a month and people are like what the fuck? What happened to the iq of 127 guy? And people start writing WILD theories about what happened to him to chase him off the website because it’s like, 2016. But people start to get WORRIED when his longest running fic Updates it’s FINAL(!?) chapter and he just... kills off the Evil Magistrate. That’s when people are like oh my god did he? Did he fucking kick the bucket? Oh my god what the hell and he is just absolute radio silence on tumblr because surprise! He leaves the note in his office and then he also decides to leave tumblr at the same time because he really genuinely thinks that this is it for him.
HOWEVER. Miles also has a best friend in the Steel Samurai fandom. Someone who he met on tumblr years ago and who he enjoyed debating and conversing with who he thinks has very well thought out opinions on the show even if he doesn’t agree with all of them (he does agree with most of their points, which is why he was so open to their friendship in the first place). And they’re the ONLY person who he keeps in contact with while he’s in Europe finding himself after his breakdown.
That person is Maya Fey.
He and Maya became friends years ago and neither of them know who each other are or how old they are or really anything about each other except their screen names and more personal details that they choose to share over kik, which Miles only got because he was curious to know more about her and it was the only platform she offered. She was very hesitant about choosing to become his friend, but Maya’s fixer complex told her wow this is a broken man, maybe IM the one who’s gonna make him a better person and make him less awful. And for the first few years this had minimal success. She got him to say a few more slang terms, but really he didn’t change all that much. But she was consistently kind to him! And once you got to know him he really isn’t that bad, especially in those rare moments of emotional vulnerability he allowed himself (he was too afraid of being “found out” even though he had moved out years ago) and he could actually be a pretty fun guy.
It isn’t until Miles’s year in Europe when things really start to change. He had a very vocal crisis to her over kik that kinda freaked both of them out, and as I mentioned he stopped using tumblr entirely and Maya gets WORRIED about him and he just. Starts telling her stuff because he’s emotional. It’s the most he’s EVER told her and it’s still nothing TOO revealing because he knows how public his image is and he doesn’t want ANYONE, not even who he considers to be his closest friend, to find out who he is online because he doesn’t want to be seen as unprofessional or just general shame about his hobbies. And over the course of that year they just... slowly she keeps beating it into his head that he’s a good person! Or at the very least a FINE one who is trying to be good and that’s all that matters. And like he starts to just... internalize it. And starts listening to her advice about maybe going to therapy. And then HE starts listening to HER problems more and it becomes... a more mutual friendship. And it’s nice because he’s never had anyone like that! But he keeps talking about this guy who saved him and stuff and that’s when Maya is like woah pump the breaks dude we need to talk about how you’re definitely gay and he gets SUPER defensive about it but like over time he just. He starts to come to terms with it, and she helps him a lot but he does a lot of that work himself too.
And so when he comes back in 2-4 he’s starting to feel... better of course but also different? And more confident in himself. He still has a long way to go but he’s learning! And that’s what matters to him! But with learning and trying to be better he realizes something. He has to log back onto tumblr and actually like, apologize for being horrible. And he does just that. But when he logs back on he’s SHOCKED that he has HUNDREDS of asks a lot of them are the usual but a lot of them are also ones of like, GENUINE concern asking if he was ok and if he was still alive and he’s taken aback that people even SENT HIM kind asks when he was so awful to them.
Miles makes a really long apology/announcement post where he’s INCREDIBLY sincere and in it he OPENLY acknowledges that he was dealing with a lot of unresolved trauma and says something about how he came to terms with being gay in his absence and he thinks that that’ll be the end of it but within literal MINUTES of him posting that he’s getting asks telling him how HAPPY THEY ARE that he’s not only ok and doing better but that he came out and people WELCOMING him to the community and then there’s like posts that are like “And people then make posts like wow am I the only one who got emotional about the guy with a iq of 127s thank you post? anyone else? Just me? Ok (12.6k notes)” and “If the 127 iq guy can get better and learn to work towards being positive then you can too (54.9k notes)” within a matter of DAYS and seeing those and just
It’s weirdly SO validating for him that he was being cheered on by literally THOUSANDS of people who are celebrating his growth as a person! That are celebrating his COMING OUT when he was SO scared of that part of himself for SO long. And the fact that people were ROOTING FOR HIM even when he was the actual worst just. It makes him feel so good about himself and it makes him feel loved! So much so that he writes ANOTHER post thanking everyone for being so kind to him and telling them that things DO get better and there ARE people that appreciate them and it just... gets passed around because it’s a really inspiring and reassuring message and people just GENUINELY start to appreciate him. And it’s just a celebration of HIS character growth by THOUSANDS of people he doesn’t even know because man was he famous outside of his perceived sphere of influence due to the amount of meme material he ended up writing.
He still used tumblr and stuff after all this but he’s really calmed down a lot, he even rewrites the ending of his long running fic that caused people to panic about him. And he still answers asks and writes meta and fics and stuff, and he’s still MILES of course so he can be a bit of an ass when you disagree with him but he’s. Nicer. And happier. And that’s what matters.
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heyitsyn · 4 years ago
Text
,,,,OK Kurat
Soulmate!Bokuto
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a/n: when bokuto refuses to fix his roots and let the gray dye grow out and it slightly irritates you
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colorblind soulmate where you lose your colors and only gain them back when your other half starts to have feelings for you
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requests are open!!
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so, leggo?
ever since you turned 16, you’ve literally gone colorblind
like you were perfectly happy seeing the colors of the world
from daichi’s red sweater
to hinata’s orange hair
you were ROBBED of the colors of the world
when you woke up that morning, you knew you would get your soulmate sign soon and you were sure it would happen while you were in class as it would start the exact time you were born 16 years ago
so there you were, happily eating with nishi and tanaka at the roof
‘hey, y/n-chan, look at this manga i found!’
you look up at noya and you almost choked on your rice ball when you couldn’t see his blonde streak anymore
it was like the moment you blinked, it was gone
he must’ve noticed your surprised look because noya touched the front floof since you were staring right at it
tanaka had his mouth opened and patted your back when you coughed
‘ah, it happened now?’
then you just start bawling
‘i cANt sEE yOuR hAiR anYmoRE!! aNd hiNATa’s hAiR! aND tHE oRANgE uniFOrMS!’
they understand it was a touchy subject for you since you were expecting something cute like noya’s thought sharing sign or tanaka’s taste sharing sign
but NO!!!
‘it’s okay y/n-chan. you’ll meet them soon and you’ll get your colors back’
from then on, all you’ve done is research all you can about soulmate signs and how they worked
yours happens to be a rarer one and you groaned bc of course it would happen to YOU
it states that usually, the moment you lock eyes with your soulmate, you’d get your lost sense back
but you wouldnt know when it would exactly happen and be like your uncle who is nearly 40 and still cant smell anything
whats worse, there were even cases where you wouldnt get them back in one sight but gain them when they start to have romantic feelings for you
you really do hope you’d get the easier 
being a part-time manager, you often helped the vbc if you were free from your other clubs so you sometimes help kiyoko with the kids
entering the gym, you frowned when you saw hinata and the gray tone of his hair
everything was gray but colors that are light like yellow or bright orange, were lighter gray while darker ones were dark gray or black
seems like tanaka and noya told the team what happened because daichi went up to you and ruffled your hair before saying it’ll be okay
‘give it time! you will find them!’
yacchi, a manager-in-training, enthusiastically told you about her ideas for the poster and gave you her rough draft, explaining the little details
but you were out of it as you just roamed your eyes over the gray-colored paper
thus causing her to freak out
‘OH MY GOD! I”M SO SORRY Y/N-SAN! I FORGOT ABOUT IT!! I’M SO SORRY!’
(yacchi is just a little precious bun, please protec her :’))
but you ruffled her hair and put on a smile
‘don’t sweat it, yacchi’
after that whole thing about announcement of the tokyo training camp and the hinata/kageyama idiot squad
you guys were in the bus, getting ready for Tokyo
it’s also been weeks since you lost it so you were still new but you were starting to get used to it
ofc you still had mistakes like their different colored practice jerseys and who was in what team or wearing different colored socks
but you were slowly adapting
it was a few hours of a drive so everyone was static to get out of the cramp bus and use the bathroom and stretch their legs
you took your time and put the others trash into a plastic bag bc youre just a great manager like that
getting out of the bus, you heard a horrendous and terrifying laugh and saw the nekoma captain hunching over in laughter
‘my god. at least his face makes up for it’
you got a text from hinata and kageyama saying that they were going to take their exams now and you sent them a little encouraging blurb
the guy from nekoma with the mohawk gawked at the 3 managers and you remembered him having that blonde hair dye
when you and the rest entered their gym, all you saw were balls flying everywhere and lots of people
your eyes scanned for at least someone to make eye contact with you because this gym has a lot of people in it and there could be a possibility they were in here
like 0.000003% probably but still a chance
from the managers to the players, not one reactivated the colors
‘hm,,, i think my soulmate is in here’
noya’s little comment made you glare at him in envy and he grinned with a peace sign
you noticed that boy kenma with his haircut and there was someone sitting near him that made you turn to the others
‘okay, either i just have terrible memory but is that a new guy?’
suga wondered the same thing and you flinched at the kid’s harsh stare at you all
there was a light gray tone to his hair and eyes so you were curious what color they were
‘his legs look a little long. i think he’s taller than most of these guys’
asahi said which made you give him a look
‘listen, as long as we got tsukki-kun, we’re okay’
the first match was against some powerhouse called fukurodani and they had a few interesting players
by interesting, you meant looks wise
that one guy looked freaking pretty with his sharp eyes while the other guy, who you assumed to be the captain, had round eyes and spiked hair
you were pretty sure that he had different colored hair due to the mix of black and light tones
AND THE WAY IT WAS STYLED THO
its like he got electrocuted and his hair just stayed the same
you were too busy looking at the 2 teams that you completely missed karasuno’s defeat and just saw them doing flying receives
the others gathered to the side and the next game was against fukurodani and nekoma
from hearing the names being said, that pretty guy was akashi or aggghasshi and the owl looking dude was bokuto-san or bokutosang or something bokuto bc youre not exactly sure
and then he be flying
‘he REALLY flying!’ 
you exclaim and tbh what can you expect from being one of the top 5 aces in the country
then the ball straight flew towards your own player and you and yamagucci screamed for his name
everyone flinched when the ball hit his hand and you ran over to check
‘ouch’
you hear that loud voice of his on top of kei’s hiss and you growled
‘HEY HEY HEY’
he didnt even apologize and if it wasnt for tanaka and daichi holding you back, you were about to scream into the guys ear for damaging your player’s hand since he needed it to block properly
‘LET ME GO! WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS INJUR-’
suga smiled and raised a hand apologetically your shouts caught the attention of others
the more games karasuno played, the more they lost
you went to fill up their water bottles and was mumbling to yourself, blaming that freak haired guy for tsukki’s pained blocks
‘didnt even apologize. how dare he hurt my boy’
bokuto was going for a drink when he heard your mumbles by the water fountain
he noticed you as the karasuno manager and poked you in the shoulder
‘ah! youre the manager!’
cue you looking to glare at him since you could recognize that voice anywhere
‘and you are?’
taken aback with your tone, he grinned
‘bokuto. bokuto koutarou’
‘ah’
then you went back to filling up the bottles
he fiddled with his towel before poking you again
‘um,,, i want to apologize for earlier. sorry about that spike’
you stopped and you nodded
‘i appreciate the apology, bokuto-san. but you should say it to him’
bo guessed that you were kinda their mother hen and you looked after the players of your team
‘are you,,, a third year?’
closing the lid of the last bottle, you placed it on the basket
‘second’
his eyes widened before shouting
‘im your senpai!’
you jumped at the sudden volume of his voice and awkwardly smiled
‘ah. okay, bokuto-san’
his eyes widened before patting your shoulder gently
‘drop the -san! i prefer being called senpai!’
does this guy have a senpai kink or something
but there was probably nothing wrong with calling him senpai right?
‘okay, bokuto-senpai’
you were lowkey kinda iffy since you dont really call anyone senpai, everyone was -san to you
bo laughed loudly and ruffled your hair
‘WAH!!!!!! MY LITTLE KOUHAI!!!’
‘bokuto-san!’
your head looked up and you saw the pretty guy walking towards you
he bowed in front of you in both greeting and apology
‘sorry about him. he gets a little excited sometimes. im akaashi keiji by the way’
you waved it off and smiled gently
‘nice to meet you, akaashi-san. and dont worry, i have two people like him in my team’
hinata and noya
‘come on. the next game is about to start’
he tugged bokuto’s arm and bo waved at you before walking away
‘see ya!’
but stopped
‘ah! i didnt get your name!’
‘y/n. l/n y/n’
‘see ya later y/n!’
when you came back, the boys were still doing flying and you glanced at your watch, knowing that your boys should be coming soon
you and yacchi were visibly listening to the other players talking about your team and kiyoko gave you both a look to settle down
‘hold it in, girls’
the sea of different tones of gray were currently making you dizzy with so many things happening at ones and you completely missed the door opening, revealing tanaka’s sister
noya’s excited shout made you turn and you waved excitedly
you’ve met her once when you went over to help tutor her poor brother and noya who practically lives at their house
everyone stopped what they were doing and saw the two boys huffing by the door
you heard kuroo’s comment but you were too excited to see them come back in one piece
‘ah, so those are the legendary first years’
hm, if only you knew why they were late
bo saw you with wide eyes and excitedly bouncing at the sidelines as karasuno started to play
‘what are you looking at bokuto-san?’
akaashi asked
bo thought you were interesting the moment he heard you angrily mumble about him and he thought your pouting face was cute
‘i wonder what her soulmate mark is’
akaashi knew about his soulmate sign since he received a very frantic phone call that sunday afternoon of bokuto not being able to see the color of his apple anymore
‘she probably doesnt have it yet’
akaashi’s answer made his brows furrow
‘she’s a second year so shes probably 16 already’
‘why would it matter to you anyways?’
yea, why did it matter?
‘just general curiosity. shes quite fiesty. i like her. i want to be friends’
akaashi sighs and pats his back
‘i support you, bokuto-san’
shoot this might as well be a bokuaka
he saw you run to the two first years and took their bags for them, ruffling their hair each
even though you’re only like a some months older than hinata, you still treat him like a babie
‘coach left some buns from earlier so you can eat that before you play. oh! i also got you your milk, kags!’
bo literally could feel your happiness radiating and he saw your eyes
too bad he couldn’t see the color of them
although the boys team was finally complete, they still lost quite a lot of sets
and they were trying so hard and you were just cheering on the sidelines w yacchi and kiyoko
you kept running back and forth from the drinking fountain since the boys kept drinking so much water
and bo just finds you there again
for the second time today
:0
‘oh? back again, y/n-chan?’
you could recognized that gruffy voice anywhere
you turned and gave him a tight smile
‘ah. hello bokuto-san’
he pouted and nudged you with a finger to your shoulder
‘senpai! call me senpai!’
you were pretty sure he was 18 yet he still threw a tantrum
what kinda-
‘okay okay. sorry, bokuto-senpai’
then like a switch his pouts became grins and you got dizzy with the sudden mood switch
‘youre such a diligent manager, y/n-chan. you should transfer to our school and be one of ours instead!’
then you remember meeting the 2 managers they had
‘ah, you already have 2 so i think you’re covered’
bo whined at that
‘but karasuno also has 2 without you!’
tbh you shouldve been uncomfortable in this situation bc here you have a grown man whining
but you found his pout endearing and his eyes were loony-looking
‘not to hurt your feelings, bokuto-senpai, but we just met and i don’t know you all that well’
‘then you know the solution to that, don’t you?’
you just stared at him
‘lets get to know each other! lets be friends! lets be close!’
you couldnt say anything else since you were kinda in a pickle here so you just nodded
‘um, okay’
‘bokuto-san!’
that voice made you perk up and you raised a hand
‘akaashi-san!’
bo saw your smile and he pouted, jealous that you didnt give that smile when you saw him
‘ah, l/n-san.’
you looked at bo and his eyes grew even bigger and you resisted the urge to pinch his cheeks with how they puffed out with his pout
woah wait huh
why did you just think of that
akaashi had to bring back bo to the gym for their match but bo refused to walk
‘no! not until y/n-chan wants to be my friend!’
what are you
5?
but you nodded, placing a hand around his bicep
you froze, trying to contain the shock of how S T R O N G they felt
ohmygad
‘l-lets get to know each other later, bokuto-sa-senpai’
you hurriedly corrected yourself and breathed a sigh of relief when he didnt notice
a big smile got to his face and he pointed at you
‘ill win this for you y/n-chan!’
you sweatdropped bc wow this manz is winning a game for you
no-for your friendship
he excitedly ran back down the hallway and disappeared with a faint ‘hey hey hey!’
you and akaashi shared a look and he apologized
‘im sorry if he made you uncomfortable’
‘nah nah, its okay’
‘and thanks for uplifting him. he was in a mood when he left bc we lost a set but now he’s energized thanks to you’
a,,, mood?
‘is he,,, i dont know,,,, bipolar?’
akaashi stood for a second before shrugging
‘i guess you could say that. the team tries to uplift him bc if hes in a mood he messes up’
a sound of recognition left your lips before you nodded
‘ah okay’
‘well, i guess im seeing you later then, l/n-san?’
‘oh, please. call me y/n. we’re the same age!’
but he gave you a mysterious smile
‘i dont think bokuto-san would like that’
so the remaining of the time there, bo was practically stuck to you as he followed you everywhere
babie calls it ‘friendship bonding’
when yall were leaving, he was pouting so hard and you gave in to your urges
;)
you pinched his cheeks
‘until next time, bo-senpai’
blew a fuse right then and there
bO-sENPai
yall remained in contact and you even went up to visit him and just hang out
you were lowkey catching feelings
like when he sent you that mirror picture of him and kuroo being sassy in a department store and your heart started beating really really fast
then your palms started sweating as you remembered the feeling of his warm hands on yours when he led you through the busy sidewalk of tokyo
‘siri, am i having a stroke?’
but you were like ‘nuh-uh, must remain pure for my soulmate’
however
if you have those feelings already and it’s towards your soulmate, that gave bo his sight of colors
just sitting there w his team eating yakisoba bun then he looked at akaashi and saw his friend’s blue eyes again
can you tell im a bokuaka simp
in another life flashbacks
n e ways
he was so happy and ecstatic and was about to call you but akaashi was like, ‘wait, i think she might be your soulmate’
the entire team was just like, ‘what’
and bo just sitting there, ‘omg what if’
akaashi, 
grandmaster plan creator
tells bokuto to hold off from telling you until the next time yall see each other which is in the training camp
for story’s sake, training camp finally rolls around
you cannot stop squirming in your seat bc ya finally get to see bo again after so long
kuroo greets yall at the front and hes familiar w you since you hung out w the tokyo squad
‘you have a surprise little chibi’
you were just like, ‘,,,,ok kurat’
meanwhi;e,,
bo was so antsy and he was just like, ‘yey! i get to see her again!’
ngl, bo thought you were really pretty and cute and he thinks he has a crush on you but not like head-over-heels like you were
literally cannot stand still and the team was tired of having to keep him from running so akaashi just let him go
‘but dont run her over, bokuto-san’
he sonic bolts over
nYOOM
he finally sees that tangerine hinata and was searching for your hair color and when he sees you laughing at kuroo’s face, his eyes widened
his heart beat started beating really really fast and everything in his brain and all the words he wanted to say died down
he never really saw your face with colors but he just stares in awe at your beautiful skin color, breathtaking eyes, silky hair, and those plump lips
sweat started to gather at his palms and his feet started moving on its own until he just scoops you in his arms, lifting you off the ground in the process
w you, there was a silence
‘your eyes,,,,, theyre beautiful’
bo just grins at the crack of your voice and tears just wells up in your eyes w a smile
‘bo!’ 
you shouted and you wrapped your legs around his waist while he burrows his head in your neck
‘you’re so beautiful. oh my god, you’re so beautiful’
omg what i would do for bo to say that to me
obvs, the others knew what was happening
dai and suga were already planning on the talk
kuroo just recording the whole thing
‘im falling in love with you. i want to fall in love with you over and over again until i die. i want to feel like this forever. can i?’
just forgets about everyone and being in your own bubble and your own world as bokuto just professes his love for you
‘stupid question, koutaro!’
you giggled and he finally allowed you to stand on your own two feet
‘let me love you for eternity’
cue waterworks from noya and tanaka and konoha
‘but baby, we need to touch up your roots, though.’
‘we got forever, soulmate’
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sorry if this was trash
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energyanon · 3 years ago
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Heres Henry. It’s gonna be 2 parts cause this one was pretty intense for me. I have a feeling other people checked on him today too and didn’t close it properly 👀 guys if you’re gonna do it, close it properly pls. Also yes anon you were right about the intensity, but I knew that already. I felt it when I saw the post. Here is part one.
Placed HC.
Henry:
Eyes heavy, heart racing. Constriction in the chest (if you remember from my second reading with him and NV there was constriction there too, but I don’t have NV placed here)
Deep sighs from him and he couldn’t stand up he had to sit on the floor.
This feels like depression.
Not just an emotion of sadness, actual depression, like.. once again he’s on the edge of getting emotional and crying but just can’t seem to get them out (I find it very easy to cry and with seb I cried my heart out. If I had a choice I’d make him cry cause it’s not healthy to keep it in, but there is such a strong block to actually cry for him)
It feels rooted in masculinity, I won’t lie. There is something that keeps sending me back to “you can’t cry there’s nothing to cry about.” He feels so alone though.
He wants to fold into himself but he won’t do that either. There’s a bit of a sense of “you’re being dramatic, this isn’t worth feeling sad over”
Another deeeeeeep sigh.
And that made the tears come to the eyes, but I’m still not crying just yet. And it’s stopped again.
For real, everytime there is one iota of a feeling he shoves it down.
The way he feels is like.. you know when you feel like you’ve just wasted your life.. and you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing and the future just doesn’t seem worth it. It’s not suicidal by any means I’m not getting those thoughts but it’s more like..
what’s the point? Drifting. He kind of feels like he’s floating in space and it’s not a peaceful feeling, but it’s not panicked as you would be, it’s like a complete feeling of hopelessness there is nothing I can do.. I’m out of energy.
Once again that brought water to the eyes but they won’t fall.
If he had a choice he would just lie on the ground face down.
But once again, I’m allowing him to do that but he won’t move me there. It’s like he wants to but he doesn’t want to show that “weakness” except there’s no one here observing him it’s just me. Whatever this is, it’s so deeply rooted that he can’t even be himself around himself. Another deep sigh.
He doesn’t want to do anything he has no desire to move from his place on the ground, there’s barely any thoughts besides just completely lost and he really wants to just lay face down but he won’t let himself. He doesn’t even have the energy to let me get another placement…being in this I honestly just feel.. nothing. it’s not an absence of feeling per say but it’s.. I just don’t care. I don’t care about anything. He’s trying to, he’s really trying but he’s lost the feeling.
There’s chocolate in this room and he wants to eat it (comfort)
I literally had to drag myself to go get another placement cause he was not moving.
I put down career, and it wanted to be on top of him. I tried to not do that as I’m gonna have to read career on top of Henry and that’s difficult but it genuinely wouldn’t let me place it anywhere else, it’s on TOP of him.
Career
Career doesn’t seem to care that it’s on him, it’s fine being on Henry. It said “I wanna crush Henry” standing on him make its feet warm and it likes that. Hen also seems hard to it though, like standing on rocks. It’s really uncomfortable to be standing here now. Like it feels like I’m pressing my feet hard into rocks my feet really hurt.
Henry
Henry feels breathless with Career on him and I can literally feel the weight of it on me. it’s contorting my neck down and my back feels like it’s carrying this heavy thing my back is hurting now. I genuinely feel like I’m carrying something so heavy on my back and neck. It feels like it’s slowly crushing me. He’s a bit stressed about it but he can’t move. He defo wants to be out of this situation though. My body genuinely feels like I’m slowly folding into myself and I’m getting crushed under my own weight. He also feels a bit dizzy and cannot concentrate on anything else besides being crushed. I need to get myself out of this cause it really hurts.
I’m not going to do a constellation for him (no permission and also he needs to do him. I cant fix the guy) but I am barely moving career just so it is no longer crushing him and that’s the only Change I’m making cause nothing can move from here if career doesn’t move. I asked him where he wanted career, he said just in front of him, I asked if he wanted it facing him, he said no just in front. (This isn’t something I usually do I won’t talk to them, but I still needed some sort of approval in order to move career and essentially “shift” the energy.)
I (as in me) need to take so many breaks from him cause it’s so intense to be in his energy right now.
Henry:
He’s looking at career, career has its back turned, his body is still suffering a bit from being crushed, but he just feels sad and hopeless looking at career. It’s bigger than him but not massively so. But he also feels like career doesn’t like him, that career wouldn’t want to be touched by him, that he’s better to just kind of… go..
he feels shut out by career.
And that ALMOST gets me to watery eyes again but for the love of god he will not feel it.
Once again, even though he’s not being crushed anymore he feels so heavy and my feet hurt again. He’s forcing me to SHOVE them into the ground, And I can’t help feeling heavy in Henry’s energy, I feel like I weigh a tonne.
Solid cinder blocks on my feet is what it feels like. I cant move. But I also have no desire to move im just staring at career like “this is what I deserve”
I wanted to see if he would ask anything around him for help but no, he just wanted to give a little smile and pretend that it’s all good. Did not want help from anything or anyone, did not want to move and wanted to ignore it all. My FEET HURT SO MUCH.
I need to take another break. I don’t know why my entire weight seems to shift as I’m in his energy but my ANKLES cannot take the weight. it’s actually fucked my left inner ankle I don’t know what it’s called, the navicular? Everytime I try to stretch it it makes a cracking sound 🥲 energy work is fucked you guys.
On the plus side I don’t feel anymore back or neck pain. So we’re going back in.
Career:
Career doesn’t like Henry behind him. It’s Not feeling like it wants to be on top of him anymore, but it’s back is hot. Henry is encroaching on its personal space and it feels like it can feel him breathing on its back? It’s not happy about that it’s a bit disgusted.
Doesn’t feel like it should move though it feels like Henry should move away from it. It’s not CAREERS problem that Henry wants to breathe his hot breath on its back.
It’s so uncomfortable like it keeps twitching it’s back about it. It doesn’t like that feeling at all.
I moved career and yeah it doesn’t want to face him, back turned to him, it thinks he’s gross. And now it’s getting a bit of anxiety?
I cant stop getting the heebie jeebies about Henry though like I keep trying to get his germs off my back as if rolling my shoulders enough will do that it’s so gross it’s having a little spasm about it. I’m getting out of here.
Henry:
Henry feels much lighter now that career has moved, and a fraction happier. A little bit more free. Still wants to sit on the ground though.
Omg as I tried to get down onto the ground I let out such an old man groan and my body cracked in so many places. I’m not an old woman guys I’m so young 🥲 I shouldn’t be cracking.
He doesn’t feel as hopeless now as he did before, a lot lighter than before, but he still doesn’t know what to do. He’s also not as tired.
Career is there in the corner but he makes fleeting eye contact as he doesn’t really wanna look at it at all.
It’s kinda sad he’s just sitting here. Alone. Not really doing anything. Not really sure what to do. Also my backs hurting again and I keep saying “I’m getting old”
(I (EA) am not old and My back is JUST FINE)
I’m going to have to end it here and do a part 2 another time, cause this one is taking it out of me, and right now he doesn’t want to move and I also don’t feel like I should put anything down. The focus I stepped into today is defo on career than anything else.
Also I know I said I wouldn’t put NV in, but the fascinating part is.. Henry doesn’t want NV in. Like I think about it and he actually shuts down MY thought.
Weird 👀
So part two will be: the Insta post, fans and.. I’m gonna do body and status aswell.
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daadddysprincessss · 4 years ago
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Bonfire nights
Parings: Jim mason x y/n
Summary: takes place in the past - the first memories you had of jim. Most likely a 2 or 3 part series
Warnings: none
Word count: 1.3k
taglist: @ghostiesbedroom @lovelylangdonx @queencocoakimmie@langdonsinferno  @peachesandfern @gold-dragon-slayer  @charlottelouise135 @hplotrfan @rosegoldrichie @taryn-just-happened @rocketgirl2410@little-grunge-flowerz @ccodyfern @1-800-bitchcraft @langdonsoceaneyes @sojourne @starwlkers @bellejeunefillesansmerci (hope its okay if i tagged you)
You sat on your favourite rock - close enough to hear the waves crash at the other rocks beneath you - but far enough for the water not to reach you, it was where you first met - Jim.
At the other end of the beach you could hear laughing in the distance, it reminded you of the late nights with Jim and his friends - you would watch them from afar, they always seemed to be laughing and having fun by the bonfire - you were a watcher. 
-2 months ago-
You watched and listened to Jim and his friends for what seemed like forever - you wanted to be like them - outgoing, goofy, sporadic- you were neither of those things, they just seemed like a really cool crowd of people. But one night it was all about to change - Jim saw you sitting alone as he slowly walked down the mini trail that lead into the bay-
“Hey - you alright” Jim called out from behind you
You turned your head slightly to see who it was - “yeah im fine” - Jim had messy brown curls, bright ocean eyes you could see from a mile away - and he was always in that jean jacket, it suited him so well. This was your first memory of Jim - of course you saw him at school but you never actually talked to him.
“Wanna come join our fire” jim asked softly as he walked towards you
You turned to face him then immediately looked over at the huge bonfire - “its not really my scene over there” you laughed - you could hear ms popular heathers laugh above them all.
Jim laughed - “its not mine either but its a lot less lonely”
You pulled your jacket tighter to your body - “maybe” you spoke softly - you did have a small crush on Jim, he was kind and sweet (from what you could see).
Jim crouched down beside you - “the offer is always standing love” he smiled as he looked out into the ocean with you.
“Thanks” you smiled - “im y/n” you spoke softly
“Jim - Jim mason” he smiled - god there's that smile. Jim knelt there for a few more minutes then got up walked towards his mini party -
“Bye Jim” you said quietly to yourself
Its been a few days since you’ve seen Jim in the bay of palos - but you would see and hear his mum pacing back and forth yelling at the bay boys (jims friends) for being so damn loud at night, but you had hoped to see him again..
-2 weeks pass by-
You decided to change it up and go out to the bay earlier - you wanted to soak in the sun… for once - today was different, it was quiet and calm, the tide was low, there was not a segal near to hear, but the best part was there was no bay boys, just Jim and his twin sister Medina surfing. Jim and Medina were basically attached at the hip - but they have such different personalities, Jim was a ‘follower’ and Medina had a strong personality, I guess their relationship was unique. 
Both of them made surfing look so easy, you could never ! on the best of days you were lucky not to trip over your own 2 feet.
“HEY” Jim yelled from what seemed like the middle of the bay - his hand was waving at you
You had your legs stretched out with a book in your hand - homework of course - for a second you didnt realize Jim was waving at you, “what? Me??!” you yelled back at him
Medina waved her hand to come join them - “I'M STUDYING” you yelled back while holding your book up.
An hour or so went by without any disturbance from the mason twins, it was nice - peaceful. You could help but think of what Jim looked like while out on the ocean, and the texture of his hair - he probably smelt of salt water - his beautiful chocolate curls probably look amazing after being in the water all afternoon.
“Hey sunshine - how've you been” Jims voice boomed from above you while he blocked your sun-
“I've been well - how about yourself mason” you looked up at him - “it been awhile” you laughed.
“Yeah yeah - it's good to be back, but hey - you still owe me” Jim smiled 
“Excuse me - owe you what ?” you questioned him, then yourself
“You said maybe to coming to a bonfire and i didnt see you at the last 2 we had, so your coming tonight” jim smiled as he unzipped the top half of his wetsuit 
“Tonight? I - im uh busy” you tried to make an excuse - he was a gift sent from god, the way the water droplets fell down his shoulders onto his chest - it made it hard to concentrate 
Jim laughed - “i'll come pick you up, lets say 8pm?” 
Its like he didn't even give you a choice - “uh - sure, yeah that works”
“Its the blue house yeah?” jim asked as he pointed to the blue-ish white house with no fence
“Yep - thats me” you laughed
“Its a date” Jim smiled as he picked up his board and walked away
“A - date” you whispered to yourself
Within seconds of realizing you were going on a mini date with Jim freaking Mason you stood up and grabbed your belongings and literally ran up the hiking trail - you needed to get ready, to shower, pick out an outfit, hair, makeup - but there just felt like there was not enough time. 
When you got into your bedroom you dropped everything on the floor and headed to your dresser -- you picked out a pair of black ripped jeans, and paired it with a pale yellow graphic tee, for shoes you would probably just wear your vans - who cares if they were dirty, they were old anyways. As for your hair you sprayed some dry shampoo at the root and a texture spray throughout - the messy style just fit you perfect.
‘Y/n! - theres a young man at the door for you” you mother called out
“Already?” you spoke quietly to yourself - you quickly grabbed your cell, and a pony… just incase.
It felt like you ran down the stairs but you knew you werent it was just moving so fast - “hi Jim” you smiled when you met him at the bottom 
“You look - wow” Jim smiled at you
There it was - that smile, it melted your heart - maybe cause it was the way his eyes smiled with his mouth - or maybe cause he just seem genuinely happy.
“Shall we ?” jim held his hand out for you
Your fingers interlocked his and he quickly pulled you out the front door - “arent we taking this path” you questioned jim as he walked past the short cut down -
“No” he shook his head as he kept walking with you
Something didnt feel right, you have never seen jim take the long before - “jim where are we going”
“Down to the bay - where just gonna take a different path, i dont wanna share you with anyone yet”
“Share me?” you raised a brow
“Yeah - your the dark mysterious girl, and i like that.”
“Jim your freaking me out” your feet stopped in place
“Im sorry - i didnt mean to freak you out - i just wanna get to know you better before my friends rip me away’ his voice cracked
“Oh-” your voice was low - “so your just gonna ditch me with a bunch of random popular girls?”
“Oh god no - medina, my sister will be there. And besides your staying by my side.” Jim smiled
You nodded your head and proceeded walk behind jim - the both of you walked in silence for a moment, you reached the top of the bay -
“y/n” 
“Yeah jim” you looked up at him
“I really like you - i kinda always have.” jims eyes locked to yours
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itsclydebitches · 3 years ago
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Hello again! Im the tinfoil hat anon with the long ass asks and I finally had the time to read your response. Thank you, it makes my day reading your answers. I honestly just enjoyed them over a cup of coffee like a good book.
Now, the gun pointing scene I mentioned was in fact the one from the droid fight facility like the other anon suggested. But I really liked that you covered the boat scene too, I haven’t thought of it much myself and now I definitely have!
I also would like to mention I love your “candy bar” choice analogy and I 100% agree Hunter’s “invitation” to join back wasn’t welcoming in the slightest. It is very likely just an obligation as you said. Sort of “you gave us a chance, we owe you a chance too”.
And the problem with it is now I am struggling to figure out how the batch members might change their attitude toward Crosshair going forward, especially Hunter. As of right now Crosshair’s best relationship is not with his brothers but with Omega(as surprising as this is). And I think he does realize now she cared about him the most out of all of them during the short time they interacted(both 1st and last episodes). Even between themselves(not counting Omega) I find most of the bad batch members to be cold and distant to each other. They feel less like a family than Rebels for example. And they aren’t even a “found family”(a trope everyone loves) but an actual one! And I get that they’re soldiers and supposed to be tough, I don’t expect them to share all “the feels”. I just can’t put my finger on it but something feels off. I agree with your previous post, the show doesn’t do a very good job showing or even telling they love each other.
Will Hunter and co only start caring about their brother again only after he leaves the empire?(assuming he does at some point). What about Disney’s prevailing theme and message that “family always love and care for each other no matter what”? I guess it’s “family always love and care for each other but only if you’re good guys making right choices”. There is no room for mistakes or wrong decisions. In the last episode everyone form the batch seemed to have given up on Crosshair(besides Omega). For now their attitude seems to be just “you’re not our enemy” and that’s that.
I realize Crosshair is a “bad guy” and consciously made his choice(and we know it’s the wrong one) but to me it felt like he thought he didn’t even had a choice or rather became so lost and confused he actually thought he chose the empire as “the lesser evil”(as in the less shitty choice out of all the other bad ones). We as audience have the benefit to know exactly how atrocious the empire really is but maybe Crosshair still doesn’t realize that.
So what exactly must Crosshair do to get back “in their good graces” as you say? Start saving “the good guys”? Save the bad batch multiple times? There is a popular opinion on how Crosshair can redeem himself. That he eventually heroically sacrifices himself to save them. I personally REALLY hope it’s NOT what’s going to happen but I heard so many people speculating his story is set up to be redemption=death. I know you mentioned you don’t want “Vader style redemption” either. Personally I think it would be a waste of a character who has a lot of potential. And I just think that the batch kind of don’t really deserve his sacrifice(maybe save for Omega) after how they never tried to save him themselves and how they treated him overall. Maybe he will risk his life to save Omega at some point and that will “prove” to Hunter he cares? Although he has already shown he cares by saving her(even if in Crosshair’s own words it’s just so they’re “even”). And the thing is, he doesn’t need to prove that he loves them, he already did that in episode 15 and made it clear he does care. He actually went to extreme by shooting his squad to prove his loyalty. What were the moments the batch demonstrated they care about him? Hunter saying “you never were our enemy” and taking his unconscious body to safety? To me Hunter “not leaving him behind” during bombardment felt more like guilt about the last time it happened and an obligation to Crosshair for helping them with droids, rather than them showing care. And I kinda of think if that was any random civilian(or anyone other than an enemy or a threat) they would carry them out too just because that’s what good guys do and not because it’s their brother. You also mentioned that minutes later Hunter snaps at him with “if you want to stay here and die, that’s your choice” which I agree can be interpreted in different ways. And I think it’s one more point to it being an obligation that in Hunter’s eyes is fulfilled now. He corrected his mistake of leaving a brother behind and saved him this time, now his guilt won’t burden him any longer.
Anyway, I can’t wait for season 2 and I appreciate you and all the anons sharing the tinfoil hat, interacting and speculating together. Those discussions have been a lot of fun!
TLDR: How do your think the relationship between the brothers will mend or evolve in the next season? Do you think S2 will improve in portraying the batch more as a family rather than a group of mercs doing missions together? What are your thoughts on the popular idea of Crosshair’s redemption by ultimate sacrifice? As in, how likely do you think this scenario is?
Anon, that is just wonderfully hilarious to me. Ah yes, the sunrise, a good cup o' joe, and the overly long character analysis of a snarky, fictional sniper. Exactly what everyone needs in the morning! 😆
You know, TBB is far from the first show I've watched where there's an obvious, emotional conclusion the creator wants the audience to come to—the squad all love each other Very Much—yet that conclusion isn't always well supported by the text. It creates this horribly awkward situation where you're going, "Yes, I'm fully aware of what the show wanted to do, but this reading, arguably, did not end up in the story itself. So what are we talking about here? The intention, or the execution?" It's like Schrödinger's Bad Batch where the group is simultaneously Very Loving and Very Distant depending on how much meta-aspects are influencing your reading: those authorial intentions, understanding of how found family tropes should work, fluff focused fics/fan art that color our understanding of the characters, etc. And, of course, whether someone saw TCW before they watched TBB. I personally wouldn't go quite so far as to say they're "cold" towards one another—with Crosshair as an exception now—but there wasn't the level of bonding among the squad that I expected of a show called The Bad Batch. Especially compared to their arc in TCW. The other night I re-watched the season seven premiere and was struck not just by how much more the squad interacted with each other back then, but how those interactions added depth to their characters too. For example, Crosshair is the mean one, right? He's the one picking fights with the Regs? Well yeah... but it's also Wrecker. While they're trying to decide what to do with Cody injured, Jesse calls out Crosshair on his attitude—"You can't talk to Captain Rex like that!"—and Wrecker's immediate response is, "Says who?" and he hefts Jesse into the air. And then he just holds him there, clearly using his superior strength to do as he pleases, until Hunter (sounding pretty angry) tells him to put Jesse down. If Wrecker had put him into a more classically understood bullying position, like pinning him to the ground, it would probably read as less funny—less "Haha strong clone lifts Jesse up in the air!" and more "Oh shit, strong clone can do whatever the hell he wants to the Regs and few are able to stop him." It's such a quick moment, but it tells us a ton about Wrecker. That he's going to stick up for his brothers, no matter the context (Crosshair deserves to be called out). That he will gleefully assist Crosshair in bothering the Regs (something that is reinforced when he later throws the trays in the mess hall, after Hunter has already deescalated the situation). That he's likely been hurt by awful treatment from the Regs too. That he'll only listen to Hunter when it comes to backing off. Little of this work—that interplay among the squad that shows us new sides to them other than basic things like "Wrecker is the nice, happy brother"—exists in TBB.
Or, at least, little exists after Omega becomes an official member of the squad.
Because, as said previously, she becomes the focus. I don't mean that as a total criticism. As established, I love Omega. But if we're talking about why the squad can feel so distant from each other, I think she's the root cause, simply because the story became all about her relationships with the Batch, rather than the Batch's relationships with each other. Having dived headfirst into reading and writing fic, it occurred to me just how many of the bonding moments we love, the sort of stuff we'll see repeated in fics because we understand that this is where the story's emotional center is, are given to Omega in canon:
Someone is hurt and in need of comfort. Omega's emotional state is the focus + moments like her being worried over Hunter getting shot.
Someone needs to learn a new skill. Echo teaches Omega how to use her bow.
Someone reveals a skill they never knew they had before. Omega is a strategic genius and plays her last game with Hunter.
Someone is in serious danger and in need of rescue. Omega rescues the group from the slavers + is the most vocal about rescuing Hunter. (Which, again, is a pretty sharp contrast to the whole Crosshair situation.) Omega, in turn, needs rescuing from things like the decommission conveyor belt.
Similarly, someone is kidnapped and in need of rescue. Omega is kidnapped twice by bounty hunters and the Batch goes after her.
Someone saves another's life. Omega saves Crosshair from drowning.
Someone does something super sweet for another. Wrecker gives Omega her room. Omega gives Wrecker Lula.
A cute tradition is established between characters. Wrecker has his popcorn-esque candy sharing with Omega.
Someone hurts someone else and has to ask forgiveness. Wrecker is upset about nearly shooting Omega and they have that sweet moment together.
Note that most of these examples could have occurred between other Batch members, but didn't. Someone could have created a space for Echo on the ship too. Wrecker also could have apologized to Tech for choking him, etc. It's not that those moments shouldn't happen with Omega, just that there should be more of a balance across the whole season, especially for a show supposedly focused on the original squad. Additionally, it's not that cute bonding moments between the rest of the Batch don't exist. I love Hunter selling Echo off as a droid. I love Wrecker and Tech bickering while fixing the ship. I love the tug-of-war to save Wrecker from the sea monster. Yes, we do have moments... it's just that comparatively it feels pretty skewed in Omega's direction.
So, as a VERY long-winded way of answering your question, I think we need to fix the above in order to tackle Crosshair's redemption in season two. Now that we've had a full season focused on Omega, we need to strike a better balance among the rest of the squad moving forward. We need to re-established the "obvious" conclusion that the rest of the Batch loves Crosshair and that's done (in part) by establishing their love for one another too. To my mind, both goals go hand-in-hand, especially since you can develop their relationship with Crosshair and their relationships with each other simultaneously. Imagine if instead of just having Wrecker somewhat comically admit that he misses Crosshair (like he's dead and they can't go get him??), he and Tech had a serious conversation about why they can't get him back yet, despite very much wanting to. Imagine if Echo, the one who was rescued against all odds, got to scream at Hunter to go get Crosshair like Omega screamed at them to go back for Hunter. Imagine if we'd gotten more than a tiny arc in TCW to establish the Batch's dynamic with each other, providing a foundation for how they would each react to Crosshair's absence. Instead, what little we've got in TBB about Crosshair's relationship with his brothers is filtered through Omega: Omega's embarrassment that she knocked over Crosshair's case, Omega treating Crosshair's comm link like a toy, Omega's quest to save Hunter that just happened to involve Crosshair along the way.
Obviously, at this point we can't fix how the first season did things, but I think we can start patching over these issues in season two. It would be jarring—we'd still be 100% correct to ask where this "Brothers love you, support you, and will endlessly fight for you" theme was for Crosshair's entire time under the Empire's thumb... but I'd take an about-face into something better than not getting any improvement at all. It is frustrating though, especially for a show that I otherwise really, really enjoyed. For me, the issue isn't so much that the show made a mistake (since no show is perfect), but that the mistake is attached to such a foundational part of the franchise. Not just in terms of "SW is about hope and forgiveness" but the specific relationship most clones have with each other: a willingness to go above and beyond for their brothers. The focus on Omega aside, it's hard to believe in the family dynamic when one member of the family was so quickly and easily dismissed. I couldn't get invested in Hunter's rescue as much as I should have because rather than going, "Yes!! Save your brother!!!" my brain just kept going, "Lol where was this energy for Crosshair?" It messes with your reading of the whole story, so in order to fix that mistake going forward, we need to start seeing the bonds that only sometimes exist in season one. Show the guys expressing love for one another more consistently (in whatever way that might be—as you say, soldiers don't have to be all touchy-feely. Give us more moments like Wrecker supporting his brothers' bad habits) and then extend that to Crosshair. Which brother is going to demand that they fight for him? Which brother is going to acknowledge that they never tried to save him? Which brother is going to question this iffy statement about the chip? In order to buy into the family theme, Omega can't be the only one doing that emotional work.
Ideally, I wouldn't want Crosshair to go out of his way to prove that he's a good guy now. I mean, I obviously want him to stop helping the Empire and such, duh lol, but I'm personally not looking for a bunch of Extra Good Things directed at the Batch as a requirement for forgiveness. Simply because that would reinforce the idea that they're 100% Crosshair's victims, Crosshair is 100% the bad guy, and he's the only one who needs to do any work to fix this situation. Crosshair needs to stop doing bad things (working for Empire). But the Batch needs to start doing good things too (reaching out to him). Especially since Crosshair made a good play already, only to be met with glares and distrust. He saved Omega! And AZI! And none of them cared. So am I (is Crosshair) supposed to believe that saving one of their lives again will result in a different reaction? That doesn't make much sense. And no, his own life wasn't at risk when he did that, but does every antagonist need to die/nearly die to prove they're worth fighting for? As you say, he's already shown that he loves them, far more than they've shown the reverse. Every time Crosshair hurt them (attacking) it was while he was under the chip's influence. In contrast, the group has no "I was being controlled" excuse for when they hurt him (abandonment). Season two needs to acknowledge the Batch's responsibility in all this—and acknowledge that they're all victims of the Empire—in order to figure out an appropriate arc for Crosshair's redemption.
Right now, the issue is not Crosshair loving his brothers, the issue is how Crosshair chooses to express that love: trying to keep them safe and giving them a purpose in life by joining the organization that's clearly going to dominate the galaxy. The only way to fix that, now that his offer has been rejected, is for him to realize that a life on the run from the Empire, together, is a better option for everyone. And the only way for that to happen is for the Batch to seriously offer him a place with them again. They need to make the first move here. They need to fight for him. And yeah, I totally get that a lot of people don't like that because it's not "fair." He's the bad guy. He's with the fascist allegory. He's killed people and has therefore lost any right to compassion and effort from the good guys... but if that's the case, then we just have to accept that (within the story-world, not from a writing perspective) Crosshair is unlikely to ever come back from this. When people reach that kind of low, they rarely pull themselves out on their own. They need other people to help them do that. Help them a lot. But with the exception of Omega's reminder—which Crosshair can't believe due to how everyone else has treated him—they leave him alone and seem to expect him to fix himself first, then he gets their support. It needs to be the other way around. Support is what would allow him to become a good guy again, not "Well, you'll get our love when you're good again, not before." That's unlikely to occur and, as discussed, it doesn't take into account things like this bad guy life being forced on Crosshair at the start. If the story really wanted this to be a matter of ideological differences... then make it about ideological differences. Let Crosshair leave of his own free will, right at the start. Don't enslave him for half the season, have him realize he was abandoned, imply all that brainwashing, give him no realistic way out, and then punish him for not doing the right thing. This isn't a situation where someone went bad for the hell of it—the story isn't asking us to feel compassion for, say, the Admiral—it's a situation where Crosshair was controlled and now can't see a way out. That context allows for the Batch, the good guys, to fight for him without the audience thinking the show is just excusing that behavior. They should have been fighting from the start, but since they didn't, I hope we at least start seeing that in season two.
Ultimately though... I don't really expect all of the above. The more balanced dynamics and having the Batch fight for Crosshair rather than Crosshair going it alone... I wouldn't want to bet any money on us getting it, just because these are things that should have been established in season one and would have been more easy to pull off in season one. (If the Batch wouldn't fight for Crosshair while he was literally under the Empire's control, why would they fight now when he's supposedly acting of his own free will? It's backwards in terms of the emotional effort involved.) But again, it could happen! I'd be very pleased if it did happen, despite the jarring change. I don't want to make it sound like I think they're going to write off Crosshair entirely. Far from it, I think there are too many details like his sad looks for that, to say nothing of Omega's compassion. But the execution of getting him on Team Good Guys again might be preeeetty bumpy. I expect it to revolve around Crosshair's sins and Crosshair's redemption, even if what I would like is balancing that with Crosshair's loss of agency, the Batch's mistakes, and their own redemption towards him.
Honestly though, I just hope that whatever happens happens soon. It's a personal preference, absolutely, but after a season of Crosshair as the antagonist, I'm ready for him to be back with the group, making the Empire (and bounty hunters) the primary enemy. Whether his return happens through a mutual acknowledgement of mistakes, or through Crosshair being depicted as the only one in the wrong who has to do something big to be forgiven... just get him back with the squad lol. Because if the writing isn't going to delve into that nuance, then the longer he remains unforgiven, the longer some of us have to watch a series while going, "Wait, wait, wait, I really don't agree with how you're painting this picture."
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hanyohime · 4 years ago
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 A Broken blade 🗡️ , Rainbow Children 🌈  🦋  and the Root of all Evil🌳
Yashahime Ep. 2 and Ep. 3 (preview) observations and altering theories:
So some of my previous theories were a bit off, like Towa’s sword being found because of some reaction to Setsuna’s Eye/Golden Pearl. However, it is still unclear if the sword itself has some special ability or if Towas Silver Pearl is projecting energy into it. We saw how in Ep. 2 her sword breaks on the Three Eyed Mistress, but in the Ep. 3 preview you can see her with the blue blade of light that was advertised in the promo posters. I do not think that this light is coming form the power of the pearl per se, as the glow from her eye is White/Silver but the energy emitting from the broken blade is Blue. I believe this light/energy is coming from Towa herself, from an unrealized power.
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I have a theory that sword in its broken state is how she will rid or help  individuals possessed by the demonic roots. Perhaps she will even be cable to do this without having to kill the host directly, much like the Tensseiga and the demons of the underworld. I also have this idea that her sword will be able to cast things into the rainbow corridor because they have to get rid of the Three Eyed Mistress somehow in the next episode, but I don’t have much to go on that yet... I think the sword will eventually be repaired, I believe Moroha will direct Towa to someone in the past to repair the blade. It will most likley be the mystery character who is yet to have a name, as they are seen in the promo poster with a similarly wrapped weapon, just like Towas sword. I think it would be pretty cool if it remained broken and the blade is just this mysterious blue energy that projects out from the hilt.
Side note: Despite my initial theory being wrong, Towa does find the sword in modern times but it seems to be some sort of relic, perhaps from the Higurashi shrine? She says it belonged to Ashikaga Yoshiteru which, according to some google sleuthing, is one of the most prominent Shogun of the Muromachi period of Japan. In Ep. 1, we were introduced to the Deputy Shogun, Ogigayatsu Hiiraga Danjo. How I interpreted this information is that the Ogigayatsu this is just another clan within the Ashikaga or allied with them. It also says that the Ogigayatu clan is defeated by the Hojo clan, and  the Ashikaga clan was driven out of Kyoto by Oda Nobunaga. This means the girls will be in a time where there is a lot of clan conflicts, and sociopolitical problems in general. It was mentioned that the surrounding provinces (villages?) have been fighting, in the Ep. 1 flashback. 
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In the preview for the next episode we see that Towa will be possessed by a demonic root parasite that attaches to her face, most likely to get a hold of the Silver Pearl. I believe this thing was attached to the Three Eyed Mistress and is perhaps what caused her to rampage the local villages. There are a couple points in Ep. 2 where she begins to glow purple, much like the demon/creatures the girls are facing off with in the opening song. This makes me believe Root Head, who appears to be anchored to the sacred tree, must sprout root like creatures to do his bidding around the surrounding villages. This is quite worrisome as it seems that no one will be safe from these parasites. I have a feeling this will cause a lot of problems for the girls in their search for answers as they, and the company they keep, will be easy targets as they roam the land with 3 pearls. I bet stronger more fearsome demons could also be possessed in efforts to stop the girls from fixing the past, maybe even ones we are familiar with. Root Head could also be causing a lot of the clan conflicts in the surrounding villages, so that he can generate more fuel (AKA human heads) and gain more power. Yotsume, who I assume is working with Root Head, was already able to infiltrate one clan. Who knows if there aren't other allies of Root Head with other clan leaders, trying to spur on the blood shed. Just something to think about.
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I believe The Three Eyes Misstress is most likely being used as a pawn to search for pearls, and it could be because of her strong ability to sense them? What I found very interesting was her saying that the pearl had demon powers, which makes me wonder about the theory of Kagome creating them. I believe she, as a priestess, would not have the ability to specifically create demonic pearls. So right now I am leaning more on the idea that they were already in existence beforehand. It also makes me wonder if the OG crew are sealed in them or they were thrown into the rainbow corrido like Towa was? But this doesn't explain where Sessomaru and Rin are if the twins have those pearls... but I’m not opposed to the idea that our beloved missing characters are in different time lines or realms in pearls form or not.
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So it is now apparent that the pearls were created BEFORE the night of the fire as Towa, and presumably Sestuna, had the pearls in their eyes when they were very young. If Im going on the theory that Sesshomaru is the Silver Pearl and Rin is the Golden Pearl, something must have happened to them before the girls have the pearls, more in the past than we expected.
Another thing is that Towa mentions that they lived in the forest for a long time? I have noticed a lot of people interpret this as they lived alone in the forest, but in the english subtitles she simply states that they lived in the forest. I don’t necessarily think they were orphaned, someone had to have raised them and clothed them, but who?! Something else I noted was that Setsuna does not have her Monomoko with her when she is little, so it definitely is given to her after the fire. Does Sesshomaru save her? I have read some people suggesting that Sesshomaru may not even know he has daughters, but I don’t think this is likely because how would Setsuna receive her Mokomoko if she hadn't met him? The fandom have also been noting on how it was strange that these two girls ran around the forrest and there doesn't appear to be any demons around that may be threatening to them. I have a thought, perhaps this is an area that has been eradicated of demons from not only Inuyasha and crew, but Sesshomaru, so that his children can roam and live freely. I have a feeling that Sesshomaru will have more of a status role in the series, perhaps he reclaimed his fathers domain? I only think this because the girls are referred to as princesses, and why in a series that has put down half demons so much would they be addressed as such if it were not for their lineage? Something else that keeps nagging me is that perhaps the days of demons are coming to an end slowly? Or perhaps the scene below is an altered memory?
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Another theory thats a bust is Moroha and Setsuna knowing each other, which is something I can not wrap my head around. How would these two girls who have such similar careers, never cross paths, and meet for the first time now after 10 years!? Although, I believe that Moroha meeting Setsuna for the first time and calling her “Setsu-chan” is what actually triggers the Golden Pearl in Setsuna’s eye to start glowing. Something about calling her by this nick name may be triggering a memory, perhaps there is a lost memory of Moroha calling her “Setsu-chan” when they were young and the annoyance she feels towards it is giving her some kind of nostalgia for a past she can’t remember. 
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Kohaku appears to know Moroha in a way, as she has made some kind of a reputation for herself as Beniyasha. He addresses her as “dono” in Japanese which I was told meant that he is showing her respect as an equal, most likely professionally. In english it was translated as “Lady”, which confused me but the Japanese version makes more sense. But how does Kohaku know her? Does he know who she really is, or have they had run ins with each other in the past? I would assume as leader/chief of the Demon Slayers he would keep track of reported bounty hunters slaying demons out side of his devision. But it appears he doesn't know much about her abilities as he was surprised she had sealing arrows. 
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Hisui also does not appear to know anything about her as he says “a demon and a bounty hunter?, as if he could only sense that she has demonic energy. So it’s safe to assume that Hisui and Kirara do not know/remember her, this could even be the first time they have met in person, and he only knows descriptions of her, but he does refer to her by name. I am a little concerned at Hisui’s haste to attack Moroha, despite her explanation that she was simply there waiting for her bounty, it definitely shows that he feels little respect for bounty hunters. At first I thought he was judging Moroha for being part demon... This made me wonder about his childhood, does he have some memories of something traumatic, perhaps a demon making his parents and maybe even his sisters disappear? However I doubt this now because of his familiarity with Setsuna and of course Kirara.
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The one theory I'm most disappointed about is Hisui potentially not having a rainbow pearl. Because the Three eyed Mistress was able to sense Moroha’s and the one in Setsuna’s eye so easily, but made no indication that there was another present as she chases Hisui, Kirara and Setsuna towards Kaedes Village. So I now I have reason to believe that the largest bead on his prayer beads on his left arm is not a rainbow pearl. However! I am not completely dismissing the idea. I like to think that the prayer beads are actually concealing its power for the time being, at least until Hisui has his own moment where memories trigger a reaction from the pearl. Fingers crossed.
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Whether it’s a pearl or not, I am still going with the theory that Hisui is spiritually inclined like his father. I think Hisui will play an important role in finding some of the pearls, specifically the coral and blue pearl. I hope as they set out for answers that Hisui and Kirara will be joining the girls. Hisui and Setsuna seem to have a solid working relationship (the ship has sailed folks!), and I am excited to learn more about what kind of personal relationship they have as they were most likely raised together in the demon slayer village. I have a theory that it is Hisui or Kirara who finds Setsuna during the fire which is how she eventually ends up in the demon slayer village and under Kohakus care. When it comes to any potential romantic feelings forming between Setsuna and Hisui I can see Setsuna being a little more indifferent about it and Hisui struggling hopelessly to gain her trust as more than just a fellow demon slayer. It would be really funny if he is the exact opposite of his father when it comes to love and has NO game what so ever.
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Moroha seems familiar with the Rainbow pearls and the time tunnel, calling it the “Rainbow Corridor.” But how does she know about it!? After passing through the CorrIdor she also expresses that she feels weak, what would cause this? Is it Root Head draining their energy? Setsuna also seems to be having a hard time getting out of the Three Eyed Mistress’s hold, perhaps she too feels the effects of the time travel. This is completely different from the time passage Kagome went through, it must be specifically linked to the pearls (the name kind of gives that away). How much does Moroha know about this corridor? Another theory could be that she has seen this happen before to others, perhaps she recalls the events that caused the disappearance of our main characters but her memories are also altered. Before Moroha and Setsuna are pulled in, the tree (Root Head) actually speaks to them stating that it had not felt the the presence of the pearls for 10 years, so Root Head also knows or their existence, again firming the theory that they were in existence before the incidence that causes everyone to disappear and for memories to be altered. Perhaps Yotsume observed the creation or gathered information for Root Head on the Rainbow Pearls and set out a plan to collect them, and maybe in the past starting a fire was a part of this plan. Another thing is Root head says he is returning to THIS world, what could he mean by this? What world could it be returning from... curious.
With all of this, I am now convinced that almost everyone has had their memories tampered with, in one way shape or form, and some more than others.
Once again, that all I got for now! I’ll probably edit this post a few times tbh
This post goes out to @hanmajoerin @kumikodiary @inukag @viva-el-belt-libre @d-o-v-e-y​ @companion-for-who​ @biancam70​ thanks for going theory crazy with me!! <3
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littlegiantposts · 4 years ago
Text
pilot (~revised~)
Kageyama x f!reader
may contain spoilers!
description: In which Y/n is a new addition to Karasuno’s Girl’s Volleyball Club
warning: I’m sure there are some curse words in there.
A/N: yeah so there is another version of this on my blog, but that was really like a test run/rough draft, so here is the revised one that I like better and I added more scenes. ALSO, just ask if you wanna be added to like a taglist. I already stated this in the previous pilot post i will state it again to make sure. 
This started off as just as a nice story to play in my head, but I really wanted to see if I could write it down. First things first, I am raised in California. Thus, I am quite incompetent in knowledge about Japan schooling. All my knowledge is really from me googling stuff and ofc, watching haikyuu. With that said, if I made a mistake on the take of Japan schooling, I do not mean to cause any offense. This is solely for entertainment purposes. With that said, I do not own the characters of haikyuu. However, there are some characters I made up with my own imagination. In addition, this is an “x reader” sort of story but I will be defining some of her characteristics so I am sorry if it hinders you from imagining its you. Finally, I am not that good at writing stories lol but im trying. I hope you enjoy.
I hate introductions. Y/n thought to herself as she sat back down in her seat after standing in front of the class, stating her name and her previous school. Her gaze shifted towards the window. The sun was out and shining and she had the perfect view of the gymnasium. Oh how she just wanted to get up from her uncomfy chair and leave the boring lecture and head towards the gym. 
It was the first day of school for Y/n at Karasuno High. It’s not like she started in the middle of the semester, no, she was just about a month late into the school year. With her work ethic, she didn’t feel any pressure in order to catch up with everyone else. She knew she would get it done.
It’s not really her fault she came a bit late into the school year either. Her dad’s job required a small move, not that she was complaining. She didn’t really feel tied down at her old high school because: she wasn’t there for that long and she didn’t really make any friends, despite joining a sport. 
It’s not that she didn’t want to make friends. It seems that her track record, or the lack thereof, from junior high with meeting new people has left an imprint on her.
Y/n looks down at the worksheet that was passed out in the beginning of class. The assignment was already completed due to Y/n’s eagerness to finish any homework that would take away time from her main passion.
Some people would say she was obsessed. Some would say dedicated. She simply sees volleyball as an opportunity. The class bell rings, signaling for lunch. Before she realizes it, she is walking towards the gym, in which she would meet the girl’s volleyball captain. As she is switching shoes, she can hear screaming from inside. 
“-What did I tell you about touching my onigiri! You are going to pay for that!” “I really didn’t mean it this time, I promise! I didn’t know it was yours!” The voices were muffled, yet she was still able to hear the sincerity in both of the voices. Y/n was about to open the gymnasium’s door when the door swung open by a tall pink-haired girl. She was being chased by another tall girl with long blonde hair, but she was a bit shorter than the pink one. Before Y/n could process stepping aside because it seemed the pink-haired girl had no inclination in stopping, she was tumbled to the ground by the girl who she can only guess took an onigiri without permission. As well, the blonde clumsily tripped and fell on top of the two.
“You idiots! Will you stop it! We already told you, we got a guest coming today and we want to make a good first impression!” A stern voice called out inside the gym.
“Um, Moa-san, I think our wishes are already soiled.” Another voice chimed in from the gym.
“Wha- You dumbasses! Hey, are you okay?” A girl with dirty blonde hair came out from the entrance and offered a hand towards Y/n as the two perpetrators started to get up with apologies towards Y/n. 
“Yeah, I am good.” Despite just being tackled to the ground, Y/n remains as neutral as ever. 
“Aren’t you going to ask if we are okay?” The energetic, pink haired spoke.
“As if I care when you collide into our guest! You really need to be more cautious, Etsuko!” She barked. “I am Aihara Moa. Pleasure to meet you. You’re the first year that turned that application past the deadline, right?” she states more calmly than her previous statement. 
“Pleasure is all mine. And, yes. Sorry for the inconvenience.” Y/n states with quite the unfazed face. 
Does this kid crack a smile once in a while? Moa asked in her mind. She seems quite different than the other first years we have. Her thoughts continue.
“I am Oba Yuma and this is Morita Etsuko.” Yuma, who had the pretty, long blonde hair, spoke with a warm smile.
“Why did you introduce me?! I wanted to have a cool introduction!” Etsuko huffed with a small pout. 
“Well, it’s not like you can recover your so-called ‘cool introduction’ from that full-body collision.” Yuma smoothly replied. Etsuko’s eyes widened and cheeks heated up as she couldn’t come up with a sly comeback to her logic. 
“You guys are just lucky that Rinko isn’t here to scold you.” Moa warned the 2 first years. With the mention of the scary third year that wasn’t even the captain, yet she reigned supreme in the disciplinary department, they shivered at the thought of the punishment. 
As Y/n stepped further into the big, bright court, she spotted that she could only assume was the captain as she looked so appalled at what happened. 
“Hello, you must be Michimiya Yui.” Y/n knew she had to say something to pull the worried captain from her thoughts. 
“Hi! Yes, that’s me! I am so sorry for those two. I would say they aren’t always like that, but I don’t want to lie to a potential teammate.” Yui spoke with an uneasy smile.
Yuma and Etsuko’s interests peaked when they heard “a potential teammate” come out of their captains' mouths. They were the only first years on the team, so the thought of another person in the same boat as them made them excited and wanted to join the conversation. The two first years gave each other a look and started to walk towards Yui, and hopefully their new friend. However, before they could even be in ear-shot, the pair got pulled away by Sasaki Chizuru, another third year.
“Oh, no. Don’t think you will be bombarding her with questions right off the bat.” She bluntly states.
“Oh, c’mon Sasaki, aren’t you curious about her? Like how did she get into volleyball? Or even, is she a beginner? Or maybe she is an absolute monster who dominates the court!” Etsuko proclaimed as her mind went too fast for her mouth to follow.
“As of right now, it’s not our business. All we can do, and are allowed to do”, emphasizing the word ‘allowed’, “is to watch from the sidelines and quietly eat our lunches.” Chizuru instructed the first years and pointed at the far corner of the gym. 
Despite her own words, Chizuru couldn’t help but glance at Y/n and wonder the same things that the first year questioned. At face value, Y/n was quite the enigma. The 2 first years gave a pout, but headed towards their desired location.
“So, you came from Niiyama Girls' High? That’s a really good school for volleyball. What made you come to Karasuno?” Yui asked.
“It was the most ideal school in terms of my dad’s work location.” Y/n states plainly. She didn’t technically lie. It was an ideal school in terms to the proximity to her new apartment, but that was not the only reason. She saw videos of their interhigh-prelims last year and to be quite frank, Y/n was not entirely impressed with the state of their team. However, she knew that this meant there was room to grow for them. She knew very well that she could have gone to Shiratorizawa and joined their girls’ volleyball. Objectively, with her skill set, Shiratorizawa made sense. Nonetheless, Y/n didn’t know what compelled her to pick this one. She convinced herself it was because she is a sucker for rooting the underdog. 
Does this kid show any emotion? Yui thought in her mind. It’s like nothing affects her. 
“How long have you been playing volleyball?” Yui curiously asked.
“Since the 2nd grade.” Y/n quickly states. As much as she wasn’t showing it, she was just itching to show what she can do. The court was right there in front of her, after all.
“That’s impressive, alright, well if you’re comfortable with it, I’d love to see some serves and sets from you. After school, we can hold a three on three since we all aren’t really in the right clothes to play.” 
“Sounds good.” To say Y/n was excited would be an understatement. As she removed her cream sweater, she could feel a set of eyes burning a hole on her back. She turned around to put her sweater down and realized that she was wrong. It wasn’t one pair of eyes, it was all of them, curious to see how good she really is. She could feel her heart pounding at the thought of holding everyone’s attention. She knew if she let her mind continue, the nerves would get to her and hinder her performance. She took deep breaths and started to quietly humm a song that was previously playing on her phone from her morning ride to school. 
Yui passed a volleyball to her and ran to the other side of the net, and yelled, “Let’s see what ya got!”
Y/n carried herself behind the serve line, taking one deep breath to keep her hands from shaking. With that exhale, she opened her eyes and focused her sights on Yui. The captain wouldn’t admit it, but she could already feel herself sweating under the first year’s gaze.  
She looks so intimidating. I’m not even on the court, yet I’m scared. Yuma viewed Y/n’s determined look. For Y/n, it was as if everything crumbled away and the only thing remained was the court. She starts her run up.
A jump serve?! Yuma, Etsuko, and Chizuru incredulously thought simultaneously with eyes basically bugging out of their head. They watch in amazement as she jumps with severe height and reeled her arm back. After that, all that could be sensed was a loud snap and then the ball smacked the ground next to the wide-eyed captain. The impact from the ball gave a small breeze through Yui’s short hair. The deafening silence that followed her serve filled the room in an instant. Those watching from the sidelines had to pick up their jaws from the floor.
“She’s a first year?! Are you sure?!” Etsuko broke the silence with her curiosity getting the best of her. 
“Boke Etsuko! That was already clarified, don’t make her repeat herself!” Yuma scolded. While Yui read your capabilities on your application form, it was nothing like actually being on the receiving end in real time. 
“That’s quite a serve she got in her arsenal.” A voice startled the three high school students, sitting on the sidelines. Etsuko and Yuma were the most startled, but Chizuru was quite used to her fellow classmate popping in every now and then.
“Seriously, Sudou. We have to put a bell on you or something because I don’t think my heart can take any of your surprise entrances.” Sudou Rinko only slyly chuckles at Etsuko remark. She looks over at Y/n and Yui on the court.
“Did you guys see the precision on that serve?” Rinko posed to the other three sitting on the ground, munching on their lunch.
“Well, not really, but it landed, like, near Michimiya, right?” Etsuko tries to come up with the answer that Rinko was looking for. 
“It landed right next to her left foot. I think that pipsqueak is able to aim her serve.”
“What?! That’s insane.”
“Yeah, insane, but not impossible.”
“With her, maybe we can win more games!”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Etsuko, a team is only good if everyone is giving their all.” Yuma reminds. “After all, there’s not only one person on the court, there’s six.”
“I heard she came from Niiyama Girls' High.” Sudou stated as she reverted her gaze back to her fellow teammates. They stared at her after she gave more information on the stranger in their gym. 
“Why would she come to Karasuno then?” Yuma asked honestly. She knew that her team had strengths, but she also knew that other teams had strengths that overpowered them.
“How could you diss your own school like that?” Etsuko was almost angry at how her teammate was treating their school. She always was the one to take pride in everything she does. 
“No, that’s a valid question. It makes sense that a player with her caliber would be well-suited in a powerhouse school.” Rinko supported Yuma in her question. All four look ahead and see that Y/n is beginning to set for Yui.
“Her precision and accuracy are so on point, it almost makes me sick.” Yuma commented on how your form for setting only held the necessities. Y/n stepped with purpose, and it showed as she passed a nice set for Yui, allowing her to have optimal choices in where she can place her spike.
The bell rang, ending lunch. Etsuko couldn’t wait for practice. She wanted to play against Y/n on the three on three. As for Yuma, she always wanted to learn how to set, but with her grand height, most people would assume she would be great as a spiker. Everyone started to pack their belongings up, heading to their respected classes. Y/n started to head towards class 1-5. Etsuko and Yuma caught up with Y/n, standing on the sides of her.
“Do you guys need something?” Y/n poses the question bluntly, yet she was quite startled. Y/n never expected to have people purposefully come up to her.
“Yeah, where did you learn to serve like that? It’s crazy!” Etsuko praises.
“Don’t you remember what Sasaki said? Don’t crowd her with questions, dumbass!” Yuma scolded, which Etsuko already had an irritated look on her face.
“It’s only one question! It’s not like she’s going to fall apart by it, and I just wanna know because I want be strong as well!” Etsuko’s vain on her forehead looked like it was having a field day.
“Yeah, like that would ever happen.” Yuma remarks.
“What did you just say?! I’m going to make you eat your words!” 
“Ooo Frenchie has me shaking in my boots” Yuma taunts with the famous pink haired character from Grease. Etsuko started to jump at Yuma. Because Y/n was between them, she raised an arm.
“Please do not fight, you may cause a ruckus.” Y/n chimed in. The first years returned to their previous spots. Etsuko huffed a little and crossed her arms and slightly turned her head away.
“So, what class are you in? I am in class 1-4. I don’t think I have seen you in the hallways.” Yuma tries to maneuver the conversation to something other than volleyball. Y/n was honestly confused. It’s been awhile when someone her age, someone in her grade asked her a genuine question about herself. She almost felt it was some sort of joke.
“Um, I have class 1-5. And that’s because today’s my first day. Transferred a bit late.” Y/n had pauses in between her words, still not used to people going out of their way to talk to her.
“Woah! You must be pretty smart! That’s a college-prep class, right?” Yuma genuinely comments with a warm smile. Y/n nods, complements on stuff other than volleyball made Y/n short-circuit. The trio walks inside the main school building, the air condition changing the atmosphere. Y/n didn’t notice, but she received some stares from other students as the three walk through hallways. While Y/n remained oblivious, Yuma and Etsuko realized immediately and looked at each other with perplexed looks, not because of the stares that were directed towards you, but the fact that you seemed unfazed by it. 
“Woah, who is that? She’s really pretty.” a student spoke to their friend.
“She’s new I’m pretty sure.” another commented.
“I heard she has a famous dad. She’s like loaded.”
“I wonder if she’s taken”
“I heard she came from California.”
“Someone told me she’s snooty.”
“Her looks certainly make up for it”
“Why is she hanging out with those weird volleyball girls?”
Etsuko physically jolted at that last comment, anyone can physically see the irritation on her face. She turned her head towards the voice of the last comment, wanting to immediately put them in their place. On the other hand, Y/n was too much in her head at the moment.
Shoot, I haven’t asked them a question. Well, that’s what I should do, right? That’s what friends do? Wait, we aren’t even friends, I just met them. They probably think I’m weird. Oh great, now I haven’t said anything for the past 3 minutes. They probably think I don’t like them. Y/n felt that this was weird foreign territory. 
“So, what’s your favorite subject?” Y/n broke the silence, just wanting to say anything to make sure that her two future teammates knew that she was still invested in this conversation.
Are you serious, Y/n?! No one wants to talk about school, that’s so lame! They probably think you’re a smart ass. Uhg. You’re terrible at this. Y/n wanted to groan and bow her head in shame, but all she could do is hold her head high and follow through with her question.
“I like math, and you won’t get an actual subject out of Etsuko, she will probably say something stupid like lunch.” Yuma answered.
“Hey! Why do you keep answering for me?! I am fully capable of answering!” Etsuko barked at her snarky teammate.
“Yeah, your English grade can clearly vouch for you.” Yuma sarcastically stated. Etsuko looked like all the blood from her face left, looking quite pale due to her not so great English grade. Y/n didn’t realize it, but a small smile was on her face as she saw the two interact.
“Well, this is my stop, And, Etsuko, your stop was awhile ago.” Yuma stated as she didn’t really know if she should just send a wave your way or a handshake because Y/n seemed so formal. She settled with a pat on the back. Etsuko copied Yuma, but her pat was a bit more forceful and it really just turned into a smack. Y/n didn’t say anything, but noted that Etsuko has one hell of an arm on her. 
“I already knew that! I wanted to talk to our new friend!” Etsuko looked like she was going to cross her arms and stomp her foot like a small child throwing a tantrum. Y/n stopped her walking when she heard the word “friend” come out of Etsuko’s mouth. Y/n turned to look at Etsuko and Yuma with a surprised look. Etsuko and Yuma instinctively thought they misspoke and perhaps angered you.
“We’re friends?” Y/n held a pause between the two words. Her incredulous face kept switching eye contact between the 2 first years in front of her. “You don’t even know if I will be your teammate yet.” Y/n stated. Etsuko bursted out in laughter and it caused Y/n’s face to turn beet red, embarrassed. Yuma’s face looked like she wanted to backhand Etsuko, but before she could, Etsuko spoke “You don’t have to be our teammate for us to be friends! There isn’t criteria the last time I checked to be friends. Besides, you’re really cool!”
Yuma retracted her arm, despite Etsuko being a dumbass, she somehow always knew what to say in awkward situations. Y/n felt something that spread through her chest. It was a warm, fuzzy feeling. Etsuko and Yuma bid there goodbye’s to Y/n, leaving her to get to her class. The feeling in her chest was not new, it’s just a feeling that she has not felt in a long time.
Y/n sat down in her seat and pulled out her notebook. Everyone started to take their seats. Right before the teacher reached to close the door, a short girl with a small blue hair tie in her short blonde hair just managed to slip through the door. She was out of breath and sweaty, muttering an apology and quickly sat at her desk, which was coincidentally on Y/n’s left side. The teacher began lecturing, instructing to open a page in their textbook.
The end of the school day approached rather quickly. Because of her most recent interaction with Etsuko and Yuma, she couldn’t wait for the three on three. Specifically, who would she be playing against. While thinking of possible offense moves to coordinate, Y/n grabs her volleyball bag from her locker and makes her way to the girl’s gym. The door was already open and she peaked through to make sure there was no way she will be tackled again. She makes eye contact with a girl with short black hair, which she vaguely remembers as Sudou Rinko. 
“Hello! I’m sorry I am a bit early, I just wanted to get a head start in warming up because I do take awhile for those.” Y/n quickly explains with a hint of timidness.
“That’s alright! I already setted up the net so you’re welcome to warm up in here or outside, whichever you prefer.” Sudou stated, making sure she didn’t seem to overbearing as others perceive her to be. 
“Okay, thank you. I do prefer outside.” As much as Y/n’s face held a deadpan look, she was nervous in front of the third year. She didn’t know if she could just head out or bow. Unfortunately, she went with the latter. Sudou cheeks turned red. She didn’t really expect that, I mean in her eyes, she’s just a third year. But, your formality was appreciated.
“Heh, no need to be so formal. I’ve seen what you can do even without warming up, and we would be lucky to have you on our team.” Sudou reassured.
Now it was Y/n’s turn to turn slightly red. She’s new to accepting genuine compliments. So, all she did was a weird salute with a firm nod of her head, and headed out.
That kid has an interesting way of interacting with people. Sudou thought to herself. Hopefully, she’ll be able to open up more. Sudou busied herself by warming up as well.
In the meantime, Y/n found a spot near the side of the gym where there were no trees and the sun just perfectly drenched the scenery with natural light. It was as if the sun placed a golden film over everything and settled on a calm atmosphere. Here, Y/n began stretching. 
After awhile, Y/n was tossing a volleyball up in the air, getting comfortable with how the ball fit perfectly in her hands as she set it in the air. After a couple of sets, she got into the rhythm of bumping, setting, and spiking against a wall. While she was focused on the ball, out of her peripheral vision, she notices someone. After a spike, rather than bumping it, she catches it.
“If you are going to stare any longer, I expect a name out of you.” Y/n stated with a calm yet stern tone while still staring at the wall in front of her. 
“I-I’m sorry. You just seem so focused.” The stranger spoke.
Y/n closes her eyes, when she opens them, she turns to look at the stranger. He’s tall, way taller than her. He’s got a beard and his hair is pulled into a tight bun. If Y/n didn’t know any better, she would have assumed he was a teacher, but he was wearing a school uniform after all. With her eyes set on him, it was as if the guy visibly shook in fear and eyes widened.
“Well, you have to be, in an actual game of course.” Y/n responded.
“You play?” The mysterious guy asks. He does have a calming voice for someone who looks like the opposite.
“In order for me to answer, you should give me your name. I’ve been taught to not talk to strangers.” 
“Oh r-right. I’m Azumane Asahi.”
There was a beat of silence as Y/n kept staring at him, deciding how she should approach this conversation. In Asahi’s eyes, he thought she was judging him and he started to wonder why didn’t he just mind his own business. 
“Yes, I play.” Y/n answered his previous question. Asahi perked up at her answer like a little puppy. 
“You seem like you’re really dedicated.” Asahi offered his observation to her. Y/n chuckles. Asahi’s eyes widened once more at the sudden reaction out of the girl.
“I’m guessing you play as well.” Asahi was dumbfounded at your observation. He was scared at how you were able to pick that up quickly.
“H-how did you-”
“Someone who is able to easily recognize the dedication in one person, also finds that same dedication within themselves” 
Damn, this girl is wise. Asahi thought.
“However, volleyball was just a guess.” Y/n continued. “And I was lucky enough to be right.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
Y/n looked at him again. Y/n wasn’t one to let someone divulge into their personal life. Mainly because no one really came up to her for advice since she was quite the nonchalant person. However, if today is any indication, it seems her social interaction skills has been given a second shot. Y/n analyzed Asahi’s troubled face.
“Are you having an internal battle?”
How unfortunate that you phrased it that way, Y/n. Jeez. You can be so formal sometimes. Y/n scolded herself.
“Yeah, of some sorts.” Asahi responded with a puzzling look at the ground.
“About volleyball?” Y/n specified.
“Uh, yeah.” he reluctantly responded.
“What’s up?” Y/n knew that was more informal and she mentally high-fived herself for talking like a normal teenager.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah”
“Have you ever not wanted to do something because you failed at it?”
A beat of silence.
“No.” Y/n said confidently. However, she knew what he was trying to ask, so she added, “But, I’ve felt frustrated at it before.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“Well, tell me, can you be frustrated at something yet you want keep trying it?”
Asahi didn’t respond, just thinking of what she said.
“The answer is yes, by the way. Volleyball is a sport where you are constantly improving yourself, just like any other sport really.” Y/n started to blabber on. “Volleyball provides that uncomfortable tension of not being enough. For some people, it discourages them completely, leaving them to quit or be stagnant. But, there are rare cases where the person is strongly encouraged by it. Those are the people who really do succeed.”
Asahi was deep in thought as he processed your words. As Y/n looks at Asahi, he looks like he’s going to hurt himself if he thinks any harder. 
“Here, stand over there. Let me set for you.” Y/n commanded. Asahi Looks up, “h-how did you know I spike?” At this point, he thought you were some sort of psychic.
Y/n shrugs, “Only an ace would have that mindset and label a simple mistake as a “failure”. You feel like you’re whole team depends on you, right?” Asahi nods with shame. “Well, I think you need to understand that the other 5 people on your side have their own jobs as well. Sure, they know that you are capable of grabbing a point, but that’s because they are supporting you in the process.”
Asahi is quite overwhelmed at all the truth you are speaking, but it makes sense to him. Asahi obeys and walks where you pointed to.
“Now, run up like you are going to spike. You’re job is to knock,” Y/n grabs an apple from her lunch box, “this off of this trashcan.” Y/n places the apple on the the tin can and positions it in the way where a blocker would be in terms of where Asahi is standing. “Imagine this,” she draws a line in the dirt with her foot, “is the net. And, I don’t doubt that you are able to hit over the net.”
“O-oh I don’t know, you see, I haven’t really-”
“Just do it.” Y/n cuts him off with a sigh. Asahi gulps and catches the ball from Y/n. 
He takes a deep breathe in. And a deep breathe out. He tosses the ball to you. Of course, Y/n perfectly sets the ball for him.
She notices after those deep breathes, it seems Asahi is a completely different person. He looks more focused and confident. His eyes are concentrated on the ball. 
After the set, Y/n quickly looks over at the tin trashcan. And lo and behold, her apple is now on the dirt floor. Y/n smiles fondly. Asahi carries the most precious smile on his face. 
“Now, how did that feel?” Y/n questions him.
“Makes me want to do another.” Asahi was staring at his hand as if the key to life was written on his hand. He then looked over at Y/n with a glint of inspiration in his eyes.
“The boys volleyball team should still be practicing, right? I still have to start my own practice.” Y/n shares a soft smile, which she hasn’t done in awhile. Asahi reverts back to a nervous state. Y/n’s guessing there is some awkward tension between that relationship.
“Just go to them. It never hurts to just try, right?” Y/n tries her best to be encouraging, but not too pushy.
“I-I don’t know I left them so suddenly-”
“Just go! Or else.” Y/n knew she shouldn’t use fear as a tactic to push him, but to be quite frank, it’s useful in these rare occasions. Asahi fervently nods, he didn’t want to hear what came after ‘what else’ so he quickly grabs his bag and starts his jog to the boy’s gym.
“Oh wait! What’s your name?” Asahi was already a bit far, so she had to yell, “Y/n! Good luck!” She cups her mouth as if that will totally help her voice travel to him. “Well, thank you, Y/n!”
Y/n picks up her things and heads towards the gym, where she has her own journey to embark on.
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