#there is just so much to talk about! i know i probably over-analyzed some stuff here

[the-eclectic-wonderer]

Hi everyone. Do you remember the Golden Girls script book I bought a few months ago?

At the time I only shared a few comments about the introduction, but it (obviously) contains the scripts to some episodes, and I'd like to use one of these now as a prop to talk about one of my favourite episodes in the entire series: S5E19 72 Hours. Specifically, what I'd like to do is analyze the way Blanche and Dorothy (and, to a lesser extent, Sophia) support and comfort Rose through her ordeal in this episode: what works, what doesn't, and why. Join me if you'd like -- under the cut!

Alright, let's get down to it. If you're reading this, chances are you already know the gist of the episode: Rose takes an HIV test because of a blood transfusion that she got after a gallbladder removal operation, and has to endure a nerve-wracking three-day (i.e. 72-hour) wait to get the results.

This is a groundbreaking episode under many points of view (especially for the time it was made), but many people have already talked about its treatment of the subject matter, and I have nothing of substance to add on it. What I'm going to do instead is go through every scene with a fine-toothed comb and analyze everything Dorothy and Blanche do to (try and) keep Rose up as the wait takes a toll on her mental health.

A little note: I'm going to supplement the analysis by pointing out important quotes or adding the transcript of certain lines from the book, but I still suggest either watching the episode before you read this or watching along with the text -- it will just make more sense.

Act 1, Scene 1

So! Scene 1 begins with the introduction of the B-plot, Dorothy's trouble with organizing a successful fundraiser for a 'Save the Wetlands' initiative. She's 'in over her head', and so when Rose enters the kitchen with the mail in tow she asks for her help, confident that she'll have it. Rose, however, refuses:

I'm sorry, Dorothy. [...] I have charity work burnout, Dorothy. In the last three months I have helped with so many raffles and bake sales and car washes, I have to draw the line.

This is important because it gives us information about Rose's mental state prior to the actual issue of the episode. This is one of the rare times when we see Rose refuse to help anyone, and especially one of her friends. A big theme for her character is that she's always up and about, even when she should take a rest (see S7E23/24 for proof), so this tells us that she's really exhausted going into this episode. She specifically talks about having burnout, so she's not just physically exhausted, but mentally exhausted as well; she's reached the end of her rope. It's true that she talks about having charity work burnout, but considering how prevalent charity work is in Rose's life, it's safe to assume she's probably not doing too well in general.

With this out of the way, Rose opens the letter that kicks plot line A into motion, and we get our first clear example of how well Blanche and Dorothy know Rose and how effective they are at helping her. Blanche notices very quickly that something is not right, basically as soon as Rose opens her letter; she asks:

What is it, Rose? Is something wrong?

i.e. she's paying enough close attention to Rose to notice that she's a) engrossed in said letter, and b) confused/worried about it. Dorothy is focused on her on mail, but also snaps to attention as soon as Blanche points out that there's a problem.

Rose explains the situation, and -- as is her custom -- Dorothy offers to help. It's interesting to me that here, despite Rose's naive comment, Dorothy doesn't respond with sarcasm:

(Apologies for the handwriting; the transcription of my comments is in the alt text.)

She's patient (or, well, just barely irritated) and immediately clarifies. This is actually a pattern in the entire episode: no matter how many times Rose gives one of her naive comments, not even when she tells one of her St Olaf stories, Blanche and Dorothy never react with sarcasm. They clearly understand that this is weighing on Rose, and although taking digs at each other is a big part of how they all show their affection, joking about what she says feels somewhat out of place in this instance. (I have a special appreciation for how easily Rose hands Dorothy the letter. This is a medical matter regarding a surgery: it's private information! But Rose trusts Dorothy so much that she shares with her without hesitation and she trusts her to explain what's going on in a way she'll understand).

Dorothy reads the letter and identifies the problem: the hospital might have given Rose HIV-infected blood. I really love how Bea Arthur delivered her line here: she stumbles a little as she realizes the meaning of the letter, which makes sense, because Dorothy is scared. The situation is somewhat better nowadays, but for the general public at the time, an AIDS diagnosis was synonymous with grave illness and death (as Rose will remind us in a moment). No wonder Dorothy is worried -- but she catches herself immediately, because she knows that Rose is going to panic (which she does), and she needs to be calm and collected for her. The gravity of the situation is not lost on any of them: Blanche also turns to Rose as soon as she hears the words, to gauge her reaction.

Rose works through what the letter means, is understandably shocked and scared, and then we get this exchange:

Dorothy and Blanche immediately team up to reassure Rose, and the way they do it shows how well they know her. Dorothy is comforting and rational; she downplays the danger for Rose, putting it in perspective -- they're just taking a precaution. Blanche also reassures Rose ('Everything'll be fine') and she turns the danger from something Rose approaches as her problem alone ('What do I do?') to a group effort ('We just call up the hospital...'), signaling that she and Dorothy are with Rose every step of the way. She then pivots the subject away from the test and towards a joint activity: planning Dorothy's fundraiser. The final joke re-introduces a note of levity on which the scene ends.

I love this exchange. Dorothy and Blanche do and say all the right things: they comfort Rose, taking something that feels like a blade over her head and turning it into something much smaller -- a precaution, an appointment. Rose needs to know that they're with her to support her, so they assure her that they'll take all the necessary steps together. Rose often takes her mind off things by being active and helpful to others, and she enjoys spending quality time with the two of them, so they turn to a shared activity that allows her to use her energy for actual good: planning the fundraiser. The final joke is just the cherry on top. It's clear that Dorothy and Blanche know Rose very well and deeply care about her, and thanks to this they effectively defuse the situation; however, this conversation already contains the seeds of the problem they're overlooking, the problem that will continue to plague Rose until she finally explodes, much later in the episode.

Act 1, Scene 2

We notice this problem even more clearly in scene 2. The first half of the scene is centered around the B-plot, so I'm going to jump straight over it and directly to Rose's entrance. She comes into the scene ready to go out for her blood test, and asks if anyone wants to accompany her. This is the exchange that follows:

Ok, there's a lot to unpack here; let's take it one step at a time. Rose is clearly terrified by this test, and depressed at the thought that she'll have to stay away from her friends (and Miles, although this is the only mention of him in the entire episode...) if the results come back positive. She's so anxious -- hell, she's ready to get to the lab three hours early! The other girls obviously notice this and use some of their previous strategies to help -- Blanche is almost outraged at the idea of Rose facing this thing on her own (seriously, listen to her tone when she asks 'What does that mean?'), Dorothy reaffirms that they're going to be by her side no matter what, and once again tries to put the enormity of the situation back in proportion ('You're just going for a test'). Even Sophia gives a hand in this instance, trying to comfort Rose by bringing up a similar experience she lived through (although that turns out to be a setup for a joke).

I've also noted down that there's lots of physical comfort in this scene (hugging, arm/hand holding). Although this is a constant in the entire show, it feels poignant to point out because, at the time of airing, there was a general prejudice against even touching people with AIDS. In fact, Lady Diana (Princess of Wales) made history in 1987 by shaking the hand of an AIDS patient without gloves. 72 Hours aired in 1990, so a few years later, but I'm pretty sure the general public's idea of AIDS (and, in universe, Rose's perception of it) hadn't changed that much since 1987. By purposefully comforting her with physical contact, Blanche and Dorothy communicate that they're with her in a way that's familiar (since physical affection is so common, in their household), but also a clear message that they're going to stay by her side no matter what the results show.

This is all good stuff, of course -- but I did say that we start seeing the problem clearly in this scene, and I wasn't lying. For one thing, this is when the cracks start to appear; when Dorothy downplays the gravity of the problem, Rose answers with:

It's not just a test, Dorothy.

This is something that will come up later, and will bring about Rose's eventual breakdown. Dorothy and Blanche have done their best in these two scenes to moderate the gravity of the situation, which is, in and of itself, both understandable and effective (in the short term). They're trying to be reassuring, and their intentions are admirable -- but the truth is that Rose's situation is terrifying. AIDS is more manageable nowadays, but it's still a hell of an illness; it requires life-long treatment and there is still neither a cure for it nor a vaccine against it. HIV is a formidable enemy, and back in 1990 it was a relatively unknown formidable enemy, which brought with itself not only disease and death, but also public condemnation: Rose is right to be so scared! And since she is, while a bit of putting things in perspective is useful (it did help her in scene 1), the fact that Dorothy and Blanche keep trying to downplay the danger unsurprisingly gets on her nerves.

However, and this is the crux of the matter, I don't think this is the actual problem here. Sure, minimizing the issue is a bit of a misstep on Dorothy's part (and on Blanche's later on), but that's not really why Rose ends up breaking down later. There's a more fundamental disconnect that comes from the fact that Dorothy and Blanche have a different perception of what AIDS is and what it means from Rose. To be more specific:

Blanche and Dorothy know that that being HIV-positive is dangerous, they know that if Rose's test is positive they'll have lots of adjustments to make and they'll likely go through hard times. They are worried, of course, very aware of the implications, but ultimately they view AIDS as a disease and only a disease.

Rose is obviously worried about the practical aspects of the disease (she's the one who reminds us, later in the episode, that it might kill her), but ultimately to her a positive result would be a moral failure. In her mind, AIDS is something that happens to bad people, and if she is positive to HIV, that will change her worth as a person.

I know this is not an easy idea to consider. It might even feel out of character for Rose: she's welcoming, warm, accepting, and she grows out of the more judgey sides of her personality fairly quickly in the show. But the fact is that she does struggle with this kind of thing at times, even in later seasons; see for example how she acts with Clayton in S4E22 Scared Straight: she's not judgemental of him, but she can't even say the word homosexual out loud! She can be influenced by society in this kind of way, even though she generally ends up examining her prejudices and settling on acceptance and understanding.

This is one of those cases. Look at what she says:

I might as well get used to being by myself. [...] If that test turns out to be positive, you're not going to want to be around me. You or Miles or anybody.

She's buying into the mainstream idea of AIDS patients in society at her time: if the test turns out to be positive, she's going to be shunned by everyone, and in particular by the people she loves the most. Blanche and Dorothy tell her, repeatedly, that they'll be by her side no matter what, but she can't believe them, because she has a very specific idea of what being HIV-positive means and acceptance from her friends doesn't fit into it. She's not just scared of the disease; she's convinced that her friends will see a positive result as the moral condemnation she believes it to be. This is the underlying issue that drives her reactions, and this is why Blanche and Dorothy can't really connect with her on a deep level until much later in the episode, when the problem comes to light.

Act 1, Scene 3

With all this in mind, let's move on to Scene 3. Rose goes to take her test with Dorothy, Blanche, and (although she only appears later) Sophia in tow. Their entrance is already interesting from the lens we're using; Rose is clearly wary and intimidated (she later calls the place/process creepy), but Dorothy and Blanche are keeping guard, too. Specifically, Dorothy enters the place looking around, trying to get a feel for it, while Blanche turns her attention on Rose, gauging her reactions. I felt like I was watching two knights escort a princess through a dangerous road!

Rose tells the counter lady about her appointment (notice how she lowers her voice when she says 'AIDS'), and she gives Dorothy's name to maintain her anonymity. Dorothy has a visibly annoyed reaction, but she doesn't complain; instead, she and Blanche sit down on either side of Rose to wait with her. Rose is rattled, but the girls are by her side, and Blanche acts especially comforting, while still remarking on the hardships of HIV-positive people (which certainly doesn't help Rose's nerves):

After this exchange, Rose pivots straight to a St Olaf story. This makes a lot of sense for her (we know she interprets the world around her through a St Olaf lens), and it's especially significant if we adopt the headcanon that Rose is autistic: it seems to me that she's trying to self-soothe by turning to her special interest (although I'm not autistic myself, so I invite any autistic readers to give their take on this). As I mentioned before, neither Dorothy nor Blanche respond sarcastically to this; Dorothy even tries to meet her where she is with her answer:

It's a scary story, Rose.

Unfortunately, this is not enough to calm Rose. Her anxiety starts to get the better of her again (and no wonder; that wait must be nerve-wracking!), and so Blanche decides to intervene. She gently takes Rose aside and reveals that she has also been tested in the past, although she's kept it to herself all this time. This is an incredible show of courage, love, and trust on Blanche's part (we know she tends to keep this kind of sensitive information to herself, and this is information that could potentially impact her social status too, so it's especially notable that she chooses to reveal it!), and it's a good way to calm Rose down. It's what Sophia was trying to do at the end of Scene 2; Blanche explains that she can relate to what Rose is feeling, because she's been through it before, and she knows it's hard:

[...] I want you to know -- I got tested, too. So I know what you're going through. [...] I just wanted you to know I understand this is not an easy time.

This is, it turns out, effective enough. Rose is immensely relieved by this revelation: she's still anxious, of course, but it's clear that she feels reassured, knowing that Blanche also went through her same experience and came out on top.

At this point, Rose gets called into the test room. Blanche is right beside her and offers to go in with her (I love it when she calls the girls darling -- how sweet!), and there's a little thing here that's not easy to notice, but that really pulls on my heartstrings: Rose touches Dorothy's shoulder as she walks by (and Dorothy turns her head to watch her go inside). It's very quick, but so meaningful!

The rest of the scene focuses on Dorothy and Sophia giving the audience an important lesson in how crucial education is when it comes to AIDS and sexual activity in general -- in their own, humorous way, of course. I just want to point out a little thing here, and that is that Dorothy is looking through pamphlets as she waits. She might have seemed a bit disconnected from the scene before, but she was actually looking for information through the material she had available: she was trying to gain a better understanding of the situation, which is a very Dorothy thing to do, and a more subtle but still very sweet show of support towards Rose.

Act 1, Scene 4

In the final scene of Act 1, we check in on Rose and Blanche right after the test. Blanche is very, very sweet in this entire little scene; she 'wish[es] [she] knew what to say to make [Rose] feel better', and she tries to suggest that things aren't as dire as Rose's mind makes them seem in the moment.

The doctor comes back in and we get the piece of information that titles the episode: Rose won't get her to know her status immediately, because there's a three-day delay between the test and the results. I feel like the fact that Rose didn't know this prior to the test is a major blunder on the hospital's part, and a bit of a misstep on Blanche's: she's been through this before, so she knew the results would take time, and it would have been wiser to check if Rose knew as well. Still, I think we can forgive her for it; it's possible that the process was different where she was tested, and otherwise she likely assumed that Rose had been told all the details, and perhaps didn't want to throw salt in the wound by pointing out the wait time (since Rose was already so anxious about her appointment). The hospital is more at fault here: this is important information, that can seriously impact the mental health of a patient! The doctor very clearly expected Rose to know, so we can assume this is information the patients are supposed to be told before the test; it's impossible to know where the miscommunication occurred, but it was quite the disservice towards poor Rose. If we want to extend a little grace, we can suppose that they're overworked and overwhelmed, and it somehow escaped their notice -- the height of the AIDS epidemic was really hard on clinics and hospitals.

In any case, Rose is seriously upset by the news (and no wonder!). She looks back at Blanche a couple of times as she tries to understand what's going on, and she addresses her directly at the end of the scene:

[...] There's plenty I can do. Like sit around the house for the next seventy-two hours, scared to death he's going to tell me I have something that's gonna kill me. How am I going to do that, Blanche? How am I going to get through the next three days?

Blanche, to her credit, tries her best to reassure her ('Honey, I guess there's not really much you can do', as in: 'I know it's terrible, but working yourself into a panic isn't going to help you'), however the news are just too much for Rose to handle. She runs out of the room, and Blanche hurries after her, thanking the doctor as she goes (which is very sweet: she tags in for Rose when she's not in the right conditions to exercise her usual kindness). Note that Blanche also takes care of Rose's coat and purse, in a small act of service that is very sweet and domestic.

Act 2, Scene 1

With the main conflict of the episode finally on the table, we move on to Act 2, and meet the Girls back in their kitchen on the following morning. For the third time in this episode, Rose enters the scene a few lines after the other girls; she's surprisingly active and energetic, almost her usual upbeat self (although the attentive eye will notice that there's something going on under her apparently cheerful behaviour). Blanche asks her where she was, so early in the morning, and she answers:

Well, I couldn't sleep, so I went for a spin last night -- to Alabama. Blanche, do you know at a truck stop in Tuscaloosa they have an egg dish named after you?

Now, the idea that Rose took a round-trip to Tuscaloosa, Alabama in one night is, well... physically unlikely. Google Maps estimates a trip from Miami to Tuscaloosa and back to take about 24 hours, which is definitely longer than a single night, and longer than the time elapsed since Rose's test; she later claims she still has '52 hours to kill', implying that only 20 hours have gone by since the end of Act 1. This declaration is most likely just hyperbole on the writers' part (not to mention a way to set up one of my favourite jokes in the series -- that 'over easy' has me in stitches every time); however, the meaning they want to convey is clear. Rose is so anxious that not only she can't sleep, but she has to use all that excess nervous energy somehow, and so she takes a ridiculously long trip in a ridiculously short time, implying that she drove like a madwoman the entire way (she even had the time to take a break at a truck stop in Tuscaloosa...). This manic behaviour is a common response to a period of stressful wait; the body doesn't know where to direct all the excess anxious energy, and so we start doing ridiculous stuff, just to keep ourselves occupied and to avoid thinking about what's troubling us.

Obviously, Rose's fake cheer doesn't fool the other girls:

I find it interesting that Rose is exhibiting some behaviours that are usually the prerogative of her roommates: denial (she's fine! she's never felt better! she's not even going to get her results!) and deflection (she took a spin! she saw an egg dish named after Blanche! look at all the stuff for the celebrity auction!). From someone as in-touch with her emotions as Rose is, this behaviour feels uncanny; the viewers can immediately tell that this situation is taking a big toll on her mental health. Sophia and Dorothy try to get her to open up, but they have little success; Rose is too anchored to the cheery front she's using as a shield. Instead, she redirects her anger and fear on the celebrity auction: she gets irrationally furious about a missing item, despite Dorothy's invites to keep her cool and Sophia's attempt at a bit of humour. The situation is defused (or, more appropriately, the tension is brought back to manageable levels) when Blanche invites Rose out for lunch and a movie.

We've already seen bits and pieces of this in Act 1, but this scene is where it becomes evident that the girls' usual methods for supporting and comforting Rose aren't working anymore. On the surface, they do a lot of good things: they don't believe her bravado and ask how she really feels, Dorothy tries to ground her by rationalizing the situation, Sophia attempts a bit of shock-value humour (come on, you don't really believe slapping Dorothy was a mistake -- or gratuitous violence?), Blanche offers to share some quality time. They're all under a lot of stress, and so it's natural that they make some small mistakes (for one, the term 'hysterical' likely doesn't help in defusing the situation), but overall, by the metric they've set in the episode thus far, they do a pretty good job.

And yet, it doesn't work. Rose doesn't calm down one instant all throughout the scene; she's hyper at the beginning and furious at the end. Even when she accepts Blanche's invite, she does so angrily. I'm guessing the lack of sleep doesn't help in keeping her cool, but still, there's a complete lack of connection between Rose and the other girls, and that is because they still haven't tackled the root of the problem. And they won't for a little while more -- things are going to get worse, before they get better.

Act 2, Scene 2

This scene involves only Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia, so I won't spend too much time on it. I only want to point out how Dorothy and Blanche put their money where their mouths are: they strongly oppose Sophia's irrational behaviour, calling it for what it is -- ignorant paranoia. I really like this quote from Blanche:

Well, Sophia, I'm afraid you're just going to have to get over that.

I love the words, and I love the matter-of-fact tone she uses. Obviously they're going to stay with Rose no matter what happens. Obviously they're not going to treat her any differently even if her test is positive. Deep down, Sophia thinks so too; she just needs a little more time to get over her prejudices -- but I love how defensive Dorothy and Blanche are of Rose, and how clear their position is on the matter.

Act 2, Scene 3

Okay, this is the big one, folks! This scene has been quoted everywhere ever since it aired, and for good reason. Blanche gives Rose, and the general public through her, a big lesson in what AIDS is and how wrong the prejudices against HIV-positive people are.

In the lens we're using, this is the moment when things finally start working properly again between the girls. This is the scene where Rose's internal hang-ups about AIDS come to light, allowing Blanche to challenge them, and thus re-opening the effective communication channels between the girls.

Since it's so pivotal, I'm going to share the entire transcript. Let's take it from the top:

Blanche enters the kitchen and finds a dejected Rose at the table. Note that Rose says she is kicking herself for... not being able to see into the future, essentially? All she did was have an operation: it wasn't her responsibility nor her prerogative to ensure the safety of the transfusion she was given. She has nothing to kick herself for -- but she still does, because, once again, being HIV-positive is synonymous with being a moral failure to her, and so if the test is positive it goes without saying that is must be her fault, for not staying safe enough.

I'm sure you'll agree with me that the way she faults herself is nonsensical and unfair, and deep down she feels so too, because as soon as Blanche tries to soothe her ('Take it easy', which she's heard quite a lot in the previous few days), she explodes. And she is right to, at first: as she articulates very well, she's scared out of her wits, she is threatened by something that might kill her, and in their attempts to support her through it Blanche and Dorothy have been downplaying the problem. They don't mean to -- they're not trying to shut Rose up or invalidate her feelings; it's clear that they get the gravity of the situation, they're just trying to help her keep a cool head through it -- but after almost three days of being told to 'take it easy' whenever she expresses any anger or fear, it's no wonder Rose is at the end of her rope.

Blanche recognizes so too, and she apologizes for it, but at this point Rose cannot hold herself back anymore. She keeps venting and finally reveals what exactly has been plaguing her ever since the beginning:

Why me, Blanche? [...] Damn it, why is this happening to me? I mean, this isn't supposed to happen to people like me. You must have gone to bed with hundreds of men and all I had was one innocent operation.

There it is. Asking 'why me?' while facing hardships is pretty common, but this is not a 'why me, of all the people on the world'; this is a 'why me, when this isn't supposed to happen to people like me'. In Rose's mind, AIDS is something that happens to people who live a completely different life from hers; people like Blanche, who go to bed with hundreds of partners, or worse. It's the monster in the closet of those who live... dangerously, let's say. Why does she have to deal with it, when she's a good person who just had an innocent operation?

I'm sure, if she thought about it with a clearer mind, she'd figure out that her position makes no sense, but let's remember: she was already exhausted at the beginning of the episode, she got a horrible and unexpected piece of news, she's been anxious and terrified for days. She's not in her right mind, and she needs someone to point it out. Fortunately, Blanche is exactly the right person to do so.

The scene moves to the living room, and Rose keeps hammering the point. Of course she's not saying that Blanche should be in her position instead: Blanche is her dear friend, she doesn't want her to suffer -- what she's saying between the lines is that it would make more sense to her if their positions were reversed, because of their respective lifestyles. She is a good person, a goody-two-shoes! She's so clearly exasperated by the disconnect: remember, this isn't supposed to happen to people like her.

And in response, Blanche delivers one of the most important lines in the whole show:

AIDS is not a bad person's disease, Rose. It is not God punishing people for their sins.

What a line. Rue McClanahan really understood the assignment with this delivery (as if she ever doesn't...). She knows this statement holds a metric ton of gravitas and she delivers it accordingly; with the way she's glaring at Rose, I wouldn't be surprised if she burned a few holes through the cameras. I think it lands especially well because of how sweet and gentle Blanche has been in this episode, up to this point: she's been very affectionate and comforting and understanding towards Rose, so when she snaps, it feels particularly poignant.

And Rose gets it. Someone, someone she loves and trusts, has finally confronted her on her deep-seated ideas about AIDS, and it's so clear in the way Betty White's posture and expression change (she also understood her assignment -- God, what a marvelous cast this show has!) that Blanche's words have moved something within Rose. The nervous energy is knocked right out of her: there's a palpable release of tension in the way her shoulders slump and her hands relax. With just one line, Blanche has managed to demolish the base notion she's held all throughout this episode: that AIDS is something that happens to bad people, and that as a consequence she is a bad person if she's HIV-positive. Now that she's free from this assumption, she's also in a better position to accept the other Girls' love and support, as we will see soon.

I'm not surprised that Rose's mind changes so quickly. As opposed to most people's bigoted positions, hers is a remarkably coherent one. Bigots tend to have a set of rules for themselves, and maybe their loved ones, and another set of rules for others: I've read so many stories of conservative women who rally against the right to abortion but had an abortion themselves, because 'it's different' in their case. People who hold bigoted ideas (and this includes all of us, at some point or another in our lives) often lack the ability to understand that they're not the exception, they're the rule, when it comes to this kind of thing: every person who has an abortion is a special case, every person who immigrates is a special case, etc etc. There are no special cases because everyone is a special case. Rose doesn't share this hypocrisy: her discomfort comes from the fact that she holds herself to the same rules as everyone else, and these rules say that AIDS = bad person (and she thinks of herself as a good person, hence the disconnect -- and the frustration: it doesn't fit with her worldview!). When Blanche points out that the rule is false, she's essentially flipping a switch in Rose's mind, turning the rule from right to wrong, and that changes Rose's perception of it: AIDS is not a moral failure anymore, but a disease, as dangerous as it is.

This doesn't solve everything, of course. Rose is still facing a nerve-wracking wait with days of exhaustion and tension on her shoulders, so naturally she's still anxious. But this was, as she says, 'what [she] want[s]', and also what she needs, I'd argue. She can now truly appreciate her roommates' support, and face the rest of the wait with a clearer mind, as we will see soon.

(As a side note -- Blanche's glorious eye roll when she says 'real bitch'? It's everything to me. God, I love her.)

Act 2, Scene 4

Here we have another scene without Rose. Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia take a moment to discuss the situation and renew their conviction. Dorothy has been so worried for Rose in the entire episode and she still is now ('These three days are killing Rose'), and Blanche reaffirms their support out loud:

Sophia is the star of this little segment: we watch her grow out of her prejudices, overcome her fear, and finally commit to her support of Rose. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but Blanche chose her words wisely here; appeals to familial values always work well with Sophia, and she's often the one who underlines the importance of being there for one's family to others:

She's family. If you can't count on family, who the hell can you count on? [S1E4: The Transplant] Hey, it's Blanche's grandson. We do for family. [S1E6: On Golden Girls] Don't turn your back on your mother, Rebecca. Don't let your little girl grow up without a grandmother. I'm 85, and I still cherish all the memories that I had with mine. [S6E20: Even Grandmas Get The Blues]

Perhaps Blanche's reminder that they are Rose's family is what finally knocks Sophia onto the right track; in any case, she's as on board as Dorothy and Blanche are now. They're prepared to support Rose as the wait comes to an end, and they're prepared to take care of her no matter what comes after.

Act 2, Scene 5

This is one of my favourite scenes in the whole show, and the reason why I decided to embark on this analysis, so you will forgive me if I get a bit emotional.

The scene begins with Rose laying on a lawn chair in the lanai. Dorothy enters from the house, and they begin talking about Dorothy's issues with the fundraiser. Note how different Rose is from how we've seen her until this point: she's still scared and anxious (she's 'trying to put in a good word' with God), but she lacks the anger and frustration she felt in the previous days. This is what I was talking about earlier: she's not completely okay, of course, but opening up about her deep thoughts and being confronted by Blanche about them did her wonders. She's facing the future with a much calmer attitude and a clearer mind now.

This, in turn, allows Dorothy's support to come through. We see once again how good Dorothy is at reading Rose's emotions and figuring out what might help her: she initially refuses to talk about the fundraiser with her (which makes sense; Rose has a lot on her plate already), but she accepts at Rose's insistence -- which shows that she listens to her wants, and she knows that putting her energy to good use is one of the methods Rose uses to work through anxiety.

They chat a bit about wetlands, and then we get to the part that makes me sob like a baby. Rose shares a little St Olaf anecdote, and Dorothy doesn't joke about it. Not just that: she listens, she smiles, she pats Rose's arm, and she takes her seriously, to the point where she uses her story as a jumping point to talk about their common problems with groups. And this is yet another perfect move: Dorothy gets Rose to laugh. To actually, really laugh. I love how you can see the wheels turning in her head when she says 'You know, it sounds like we both have a little trouble with groups': we can tell that she's found an angle, a way to ease some tension off Rose's shoulders. Her tone sounds similar to the tone she has when she finds her footing in her stand-up comedy segment in S5E9 Comedy Of Errors: she's found the starting point for a hilarious story.

Rose's chuckle is the confirmation that she's right, and so she goes full out. Notice how she laughs, full belly laughs; how happy she looks; how she keeps holding Rose's hand tight as they joke. She's helping Rose release some tension, and she's conveying (both with her body language and with their shared laughter) that she's here for her; that she's by her side, and she'll keep staying by her side.

This works so beautifully that Rose doesn't only laugh along, but she feels comfortable and safe enough to be completely vulnerable:

Oh, that felt good. It's been a bad week.

Rose is the one in the cast who has the healthiest relationship with vulnerability, I feel, but this is still an important admission. Betty's delivery is amazing: the way the phrase almost tumbles off her tongue, how simple and yet full of meaning it is... I love it. And note that Rose is able to accept Dorothy's attempts to make her laugh on one side, and ask for her support in this way on another, only because of her previous exchange with Blanche! Now that her prejudices on AIDS have been shattered, she can communicate with her girls (laugh with them, ask for their support) as she always does, and Dorothy's comfort is much more effective as a result.

On her part, Dorothy has the perfect response:

It'll get better.

Just that: it'll get better. This is an acknowledgement of the truth in what Rose is saying (there's a 'yes, and' implied at the beginning), and a statement of hope. You're right, the past few days have been hard, but it won't last forever. Rose is often the one who keeps the girls up, who gives them hope and never stops fighting; watching this brief inversion of roles warms my heart. And Rose believes Dorothy: she makes a face as if to say 'I don't know', but if this had happened earlier in the episode, she would have outright denied it, or even stormed out of the room. She's come a long way.

Act 2, Scene 6

This brings us to the final scene in the episode. I find it interesting that this is the first (and only) time when Rose appears on the screen at the same time as Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia: in the rest of the episode either she comes into an already established scene, or someone comes into the scene to find her. This might be a case of 'the curtains were just blue', but I like to think that this symbolizes her growth in this episode: she has overcome her internal hang-ups, and so she's fully on the same page as her roommates now, ready to accept their support no matter what the test results show.

There's a couple of small interesting elements before the good news, here. Dorothy and Blanche show their support in the form of attention -- they're basically pending from Rose's lips; as is her fashion, Sophia uses humour to cover a genuine beautiful statement:

Your future's going to be filled with nothing but joy and laughter.

The doctor then comes in and tells them the good news: Rose's test is negative! Dorothy's happiness is especially heartwarming to me -- as is her patience in helping Rose understand what's going on. Rose can finally relax; her relief is so palpable that even the doctor doesn't insist in offering counseling when she tells him she feels great:

Well, evidently, you had all the emotional support you needed.

And she did. She really did, and she's aware of it, to the point where she asked Dorothy, Blanche, and Sophia to accompany her inside to hear the results. And they all share her relief, of course: we get smiles, happy faces, hugs and arm touches, all the usual works. Rose is so overjoyed that she can't even imagine going back home to rest; she'd much rather stay with her girls and go have a nice time at the fundraiser they somehow managed to organize (although it seems like Sophia forgot to stuff the invitations...). It's a true happy ending, and Rose managed to reach it thanks to the support and affection of her girls, as she herself says:

Oh, he's right. You guys were terrific! Thank you for being there for me, and thank you for making me feel you'd always be there for me, no matter what happened.

Whew! That was a long one, ha. If you've reached this point, a heartfelt thank you to you for staying with me until the end. Go have a cookie, my treat. :)

I really adore this episode, and spending some time with it was a real joy. I hope this was as fun for you to read as it was fun for me to write. Thank you once again, and I hope you have a lovely day!

[guppyfish77]

So about the Battle Subway Trains

Hi, I love trains! And the Trains in Unova have a surprising amount of detail? And nobody talks about it? And if I don't talk about it I will explode!?!!!

So despite Unova being inspired by New York you'd think the Battle Subway Trains would be based on The New York Subway Trains? However they look like they are more based on Japanese Railway Trains!

I'd like to preface before going into this that despite talking a lot about the Japanese Railway, I am not Japanese, while I did my best to research as best I can, some stuff may fly over my head, I also used an online translator for some information so it might not be 100% accurate.

Alrighty lets get into this! This is mainly for fun and its going to be under the Read More because it is verrrrrrrrry long, I hope that you enjoy!

If you aren't aware, each train in the Battle Subway has lore! All the lore comes from this Worker NPC on the bridge in Anville Town. Depending on the day, a different train will show up on the turntable, and he'll give you a little dialogue for that train! This dialogue is what I'll be mainly analyzing :]

Single and Anville Town Trains:

"This is a Single Train! It's the oldest train in the Battle Subway. It's for a loop line to go around the Unova region! Do you know Tubeline Bridge? The train that runs on it is this Single Train."

"As you know, this is a local train to Anville Town! Isn't it just so cute? This one is a little slow and heavy. When it runs, the whole train sways. The train car is the same model as a Single Train. Because it is an old train car, I hear the maintenance is hard, but it's the one I always ride, because I loved it as a kid!"

So! The Single and Anville Town Trains are the same model of train, you can actually see this in their designs where they both share the same face but they differ in the livery. (Livery is a term referring to the train's decor/color, the color is often associated with a particular company or in this case a particular train line.) I'm going to use this fact to assume that if one train has one feature, then it's likely that the other train also has that same feature. Such as how the description of the Anville Town Train says it sways as it runs, if that is the case then the Single Train also probably sways. (which sounds kind of awful to battle on, unless you have good train legs I suppose X_X)

It is stated that the Single Train is the oldest in the Battle Subway. I believe though, that it means the oldest train that is currently running in the Battle Subway. As there is another train that seems much older and no longer running, but I'll get to that train much much later.

Older trains are indeed harder to maintain, and expensive too. This is because the older the equipment, the harder it is to get its parts as they become more obsolete. Though I will say this, trains can last a long time! The average service life of a train is about 30-50 years, it really varies from train to train. These trains would most likely be on the older side.

There is a slight possibility that it has been continued to be maintained past it service life. Given how fond the Worker NPC talks about the train, it might have high sentimental value. Therefore if it is past its service life, it has not been scrapped or recycled yet because of it. I doubt this is the case though, usually it is never worth the maintenance cost (especially for regular operation.)

Like the description says, you can see the Single Train running on the Tubeline Bridge, here's a video of it! Apologies for the way I am recording this, I don't exactly have a capture card, but I wanted to show you guys regardless

You can see how fast the train is going as it passes below you! At least the just Singles Train anyways, seems to me like it's going about 20-30mph? I tried doing math to find the exact speed but that's difficult for several reasons (no idea how large a "tile" in Pokemon really is and objects in the overworld are not very accurate in size so I can't exactly do any comparisons. The perspective of the camera also makes it tricky.) Given how the Anville Train is described as "slow and heavy", I would hazard a guess to say that the other trains of the Battle Subway may run faster than this.

You can also see that each train is made up of 7 cars as it passes below you if you slow down the footage. Which is not surprising, you have to win 7 battles in a row to complete a "set" where you are then dropped off at a rest stop. I believe the Battle Subway trains to be electrical multiple units (EMUs) so it would probably make them 7-car sets.

It also looks like the Singles Line is very busy with the trains only being seconds apart! Now I know this is more a visual thing so the environment would be interesting to look at, but I'd like to think it indicates that the Battle Subway/Singles Line is very popular! (and very well organized!)

As for Real life train inspirations I think perhaps the Tobu 10030 series?

The Tobu 10030 is a version of the Tobu 10000 series with some minor changes, such as the design of the face and using a bolsterless bogie. (Bogie is a part of the train that refers to a frame that holds sets of wheels as well as the suspension, breaks, etc. in which the body of the train car rests upon.)(A bolster is a part that connects the side frames of the bogie and the underside of the car's central pivot point.)(A bolsterless bogie is a bogie type that doesn't have a bolster). The front of the train is covered in fiber reinforced plastic and the outer panels are "bead molded" (which... I have no clue what that means...) This series has been going under renovations since 2010.

Double Train:

"This car is a Double Train! This is a mass-produced car from a decade ago! Compared to a Single Train, the number of parts was reduced so it could be built for a lower cost. The number of parts influences the budget and construction time. The streamlined and beautiful design of the Double Train is still valued today."

So the Double Train is at least 10 years old! (That's what decade means!) Honestly though, I think the Double Train might be older than 10, in Japanese the description just says that it is a "mass-produced train from a long time ago" and doesn't mention a number... Another reason is that in the Multi Train description, it mentions that it is a test model for future trains that will replace the Double Trains. Which means perhaps that the Double Trains may be reaching near the end of its service life, which again average 30-50 years. It could be a possibility that this train may have a shorter service life than usual, who knows. This all speculation really.

As for lowering the amount of parts, from what I found it makes the train lighter. It would also probably lower the cost as well like the description says (trains are really really expensive to build! EMUs can cost $2mil-$10mil per car!)

It also mentions that it is a mass-produced car! It's a train made with mass production for commercial purposes! I believe it's usually for train lines that are really busy, where they would need a lot of trains? It typically means that there are a lot of them. (All this makes me wonder about train production in the Pokemon World...)

As for Real life inspirations, I think that the Double Train is inspired by the Tokyu 1000 series train.

The Tokyu 1000's design and equipment is similar to another train, the Tokyu 9000 series, with improvements such as improved handling and making it easier to do inspection and repair work. As well as reducing the amount of spare parts from the Tokyu 9000.

Multi Train:

"This car is a Multi Train! Few cars of this model were produced. This is a test car to develop future mass-produced cars that will replace the old Double Trains. The technology born during the creation of this train car made the Super Single Train and Super Double Train possible!"

The multi train is a test/prototype train! A little surprised that an entire line is running off a few prototypes. Like the description says, not many are produced as the purpose of a prototype is to test features and improve upon them if needed before they are put into mass production. Given that it says the technology from this train was the reason the Super Single and Super Double Train was made possible. I'm thinking it was most likely testing some eco friendly features? As it is the Super Single and Super Double Train's main feature.

Perhaps them using a model with so few trains means that the Multi line isn't that busy/popular? (Surprising then the train platform is not swarming with more train photographers haha!)

As for real life inspirations, while the livery may not be the same I think it could be the Keisei 3000 (2nd Generation.)

The Keisei 3000's body is made of lightweight stainless steel and the passenger doors have a paper honeycomb structure. When they were designing this train, they wanted it to be both environmentally (energy saving) and customer friendly (being accessible to elderly and those with disabilities.)

Super Single and Super Double Trains:

"This Super Single Train is a new mass-produced car! It's an environmentally friendly train, because they revised all the parts to drastically reduce power consumption! Newer trains have to be built in a way that's both functional and environmentally friendly. Compared to the past, they've improved significantly."

"This Super Double Train is a new mass-produced car! Such a streamlined and refined design! Beauty and utility working together! That kind of beautility is unique to mass-produced train cars! It uses the same train car as a Super Single Train. The only difference is the appearance. It is a superb train car that will go down in the history of the Battle Subway!"

The Super Single and Super Double Trains are the same model. Honestly the description of these trains doesn't give me a lot of information besides the fact that these trains are eco friendly. So I'll talk about what trains do to make themselves (even more) eco friendly!

They are stated to be eco friendly by reducing power consumption. I think it could be referring to a "VVVF inverter control" (it stands for variable voltage variable frequency. In English its mainly called the VFD or variable frequency drive.) A VVVF is a type of system for an AC motor that can reduce energy consumption! (There are two types of electrical current, DC or Direct Current and AC or Alternate Current. An AC motor is a motor that is driven by AC electricity.) It is important on energy saving trains! I won't get too much into how it works, but essentially it controls the AC motor's rotational speed by controlling the frequency. By controlling these, it can control the speed and acceleration of a train. You'll find that a VVVF is often paired with a three phase motor (I will not go into that...) Let's just say that these systems are very efficient at using power and help save energy.

Really, reducing power consumption usually means being more efficient at using power. Like using LEDs, using better insulation to retain cooling or heating, and generally using parts that use less electricity. It could be that the train is lighter in weight too (lighter vehicles use less power.)

Both of these Super Trains are mass produced! Which tells me that there are a lot of Super Single and Super Double trains! Its lines are probably busy.

As for real life inspirations, it is very much inspired by the E233-2000 series train

The E233-2000 is a little bit of an oddball in the E233 family exterior design wise. Its design was inspired by the Tokyu 5000 series. Its basic running equipment is the same as the E233 trains before it though.

I think it is a bit of a stretch, but I'll mention it anyways. The E233 (which the E233-2000 is a subsection of) is a train that has won the Laurel Award in 2007. The Laurel Award is an award given to trains by the Japan Railway Friends Association for trains with an excellence in technology and design (specifically geared towards commuter trains.) It could be what all the "beautility" comments could be referencing to? They do look verrry different though, and the E233-2000 came after the award was given...

Super Multi Train:

"This train car is a Super Multi Train! This is the latest train car! Improved acceleration and deceleration! Automated train-car controls! It's full of cutting-edge technologies. Also, a regeneration brake system, a car-body tilting system, a whatchamacallit system, a thingamabob system... I don't remember all the details, but it's just a big festival of all the latest technology!"

Ohhoho! The Super Multi Train description is a goldmine of details! This train is the whole reason I wanted to make this post! Let's run through its features!

Improved acceleration and deceleration means that it can run between stops faster, allowing for quicker operation time.

Automated train-car controls or ATC is a safety system on trains that prevents trains from going over a certain speed! If the train goes over the maximum speed permitted then the ATC will pull the brakes automatically to reduce the speed and release the brakes when it is below maximum speed. It also displays the maximum speed to the driver. It is an incredibly important safety system!! From what I understand, the term ATC is very common in Japan, in other countries the ATC would simply be a part of cab signaling (it is a safety system mainly for the driver and train crew, it tells them track status and condition information) and train protection technologies. ATC is installed on all Shinkansen trains, it is also installed in some subways and heavily used railways.

Here's an example of what it looks like! The green triangle there is the (current) maximum speed. There are a lot of different types of ATC systems and this ones a D-ATC (stands for Digital Automatic Train Control) from within an E233! There are a whole lot of different types of ATC, and they can come in many looks! I would show more examples, however, I have hit the image limit on this post... :[

A regenerative brake system is a special type of breaking that allows a train to generate electricity via breaking! The electricity can either be used immediately, stored, or returned back into the line. You might've heard this feature on electric or hybrid cars. It is a common eco friendly feature!

A car-body tilting system is a feature in trains that allows the body of the train car to tilt into a curve! It allows the train to go faster on a track (not needing to slow down on a curve) but the feature is mainly for passenger comfort! When you ride, you don't feel the centrifugal force at all when going around a curve! And it makes the ride so smooth! Here's a short video demonstrating what it looks like:

There are essentially two major ways to do a car body tilting system. There is active tilting (forced body tilting) or passive tilting (pendulum system). A forced body tilting system uses computers to tilt the train using track data or sensors, telling the train when and how much to tilt. If the calculation is not done correctly, it can leave passengers with motion sickness (An infamous example is the Advanced Passenger Train in the UK). The tilting itself I believe is done via hydraulics. Forced Body Tilting is more popular in European and American trains.

As for passive tilting, the train in the video uses it! (A controlled pendulum train!) It means it uses natural forces to tilt the train car. I'll dive deeper into this type of tilting in the Wi-Fi train section because it actually mentions it's a pendulum train! As to which tilting type the Super Multi train has... it could honestly be either.

(Ah! I forgot to mention this, but tilting trains are especially useful in mountainous regions, where there are a lot of curves.)

In the Japanese version of the Super Multi description, it also mentions that it has a "earthquake warning system" and a "tornado monitoring system".

An earthquake warning system is not something fully installed into the train, rather it's mainly a set of sensors installed along the track, coast, and major inland areas. For passenger rail, if any signs of an earthquake are detected, it will alert any trains in the affected area and drivers are required to apply their emergency brakes. For shinkansen trains it will cut off power to the affected area which will automatically activate the emergency brakes.

Well, I found something close to a tornado warning system. There is a "gust warning system" where sensors measure wind speed and to predict where strong gusts of wind would go. Again, it's not a system that is installed within the train. From what I could tell, they would restrict travel speed during strong winds. If wind speeds are too high, then they would shut down the lines. (I suppose would be very useful, especially when there's some legendaries that cause powerful storms roaming around.)

In the Japanese version of the text, it also states that the Super Multi Train is also a test train. Which again means there's also not a lot of this train. It also states that some of it's features are unnecessary due to it being a test train lol

In the description all these features are stated as "cutting edge" and "a festival of all the latest technology" when these features are not all that new? And Regenerative breaking seems to be pretty common? (Every irl train I have shown thus far all have it.) Eh, I don't think it's that big of a deal. They are just fictional trains after all.

I originally thought the train looked like an Eizan Railway Deo 800 series, but thanks to the leaks, it looks like that the JR East 205-500 was used as a base to design the Super Multi Train? With probably heavy modification to the final design. (While I don't condone the method that these leaks were obtained, curiosity did get the better of me. This is the only train that I ID-ed this way.)

This Train was exclusive to the Sagami Line, though it ended operation in 2022 and every one of these trains have been scrapped. The blue color I believe is an homage to the Sagami River that runs along the line. The Train used a semi automatic door system for its passenger doors. Which means that rather than the conductor opening and closing the doors, the passengers would press a button to open the door when the train has stopped.

Wi-Fi Train:

"This train car is a Wi-Fi Train! It is the fastest long-distance high-speed train in the Battle Subway! This is called a pendulum car. Its body tilts while going around curves, so it can run without slowing down! Faster! Farther! Our engineers' spirits are infused in it!"

A pendulum car is a very specific term!!! Like I mentioned in the Super Mutli Train section it is a type of car body tilting. There are multiple types of Pendulum systems, There is Natural Pendulum, Controlled Pendulum, Air Spring (also called Simple Pendulum), and Hybrid.

Natural Pendulum is just using the centrifugal force of when it goes around a curve to tilt the train. This type was known to cause motion sickness in riders because when it straightened out, the car would "lag" or wobble. Sometimes the force was not enough to tilt the train and this would also cause passenger discomfort. These issues were fixed later with a controlled pendulum, where there would be a degree of control to the tilting. Using mechanisms similar to forced body tilting, it would prevent wobble and ease the tilt. The air spring method, as suggests in the name, uses air springs to help with tilting. It is similar to the controlled pendulum, though it tilts less than it (controlled pendulum can tilt 6 degrees and air springs can only tilt 2 degrees). Air springs are cheaper to build though and still are able to make the train go faster. Hybrid is the combination of controlled pendulum and air springs, allowing for an 8 degree tilt.

I hope the Wi-Fi train is not a natural pendulum? You're telling me you have to battle on that and you might get motion sickness?? Though it sounds like it might be more high tech so it is most likely the other types... Hopefully...

It also states that this train is the "fastest long-distance high-speed train in the Battle Subway!" Looking at Japan's tilting trains (that are not shinkansen), they go about 120kmh-130kmh (about 75 mph-81 mph.) So it could be a possibility that the Wi-Fi goes something along those speeds.

I've looked through Japan's tilting trains, and the closest one might be the JR Hokkaido Kiha 201 series? It's not at all close though... I can't really find a good match tbh. I think the 113 series seems to be a bit more closer visually.

The one on the left is a Kansai livery and the right is a JR Shikoku livery. They are both the same train, JR Shikoku bought the 113 series from JR East to replace some aging trains and then modified it. Which is why they look a bit different. The modifications include strengthening the front of the train and adding shock absorbing material inside.

So Those are all the trains that run in the Battle Subway! However there are 2 trains that don't, instead they only show up in Anville Town on certain days. I'll be calling them "Old Train Car" and "Futuristic Train Car"

"Old Train Car"

"This train car is the kind that ran a long time ago. Compared to contemporary train cars, it has more parts, so I heard it was difficult to build. The old train cars built with lots of small parts have their own unique beauty and attract a lot of fans. Those cars no longer run in the Battle Subway, but I hear they're still used in a faraway region. Ah... I'd love to be on that train!"

So this sort of car used to run on the Battle Subway. It's said to be still running in another region, though with how old the train looks I can only think that maybe it would be running by railway preservationists.

The design of this train reminds me a lot of old Japanese electric trains and trams. Especially trams with that double roof. I don't think it's really based on any particular vehicle? Here's a couple that I found;

The only one I feel like is worth mentioning is the Jomo Electric Railway Deha 101 (this specific car is the Deha 101, others of its kind are called Deha 100 type) and the Nagasaki Electric Railway 160 type. Both of these vehicles I believe are still running to some capacity.

The Jomo Deha 101 has been running for over 90 years. While car 101 still resides at Jomo Railway, other Deha 100s have been transferred to other private companies where they have been scrapped. I believe the only existing Deha 100s today are Car 101 and Car 104 (which has been painted bright yellow.)

The Nagasaki Electric Railway 160 type used to belong to the Kyushu Electric Tramway where it was called the Type 1 Electric Tram. When it was transferred to the Nagasaki Electric Railway it was renamed into the 160 type. Today, there is a single car in operation. I believe it is the oldest wooden car in Japan that is still in service.

I suppose I will also mention the Keifuku Electric Railway Mobo 21 Type Train, it does look the most similar. Though, it's purposefully designed to look like an old style tram.

"Futuristic Train Car"

"This train car is a new train to run in the future! Wooo! Cool! Super cool! The latest motor breathes fire! Uh-oh, if it really breathed fire, that would be bad! But it is full of the latest technologies! It's undergoing a lot of testing. It's called a gauge-convertible train. It's a sweet car that can adjust its wheels to run on any rail!"

So first off, I'd like to say that this train visually kind of looks like a "Sonic" 883 series (nothing to do with the blue hedgehog, it was just a coincidence lol)

However the description!!!! A "gauge convertible train" that is undergoing a lot of testing... That description matches exactly with the GCT! (literally standing for Gauge Change/Convertible Train, though in Japanese it's called FGT or Free Gauge Train!)

The GTC is the project name for this experimental shinkansen. The one in the picture is the GTC-01, the second generation of its kind (as this is the version they would be testing before and during the development of the game, there is now a 3rd generation.) So, the term gauge refers to the distance between the two rails. Different trains run on different gauges, they can come in either narrow gauge, standard gauge, or wide gauge. Japan's rail network is mostly narrow gauge (specifically Cape Gauge.) The main exception are the shinkansen trains, which run on standard gauge. This shinkansen like the description says would be able to run on any gauge. It used to be under a lot of testing by the Free Gauge Train Technology Research Association. Today though, the GTC-01 second generation sits on display in the Shikoku Railway Heritage Museum.

There are a lot of challenges that the GTC faces. It takes a bit of time for the wheels to adjust to the gauge and you need to go slower when it's doing so. It has increased maintenance costs. The heavier specialized bogie creates more wear on the rails as well as making the train harder to detect. (Ok! Basic explanation for Railway Signaling! Tracks are split up into sections called "blocks", and a small electrical current is run between the two tracks that makes up the block. When a train runs through, the wheel and axle of the train disrupts the current, which then the system detects that block as being occupied by a train. If it is occupied, the signal lights at the end of the block will be turned red, preventing other trains from entering the same block, thus preventing collisions. The problem arises in the GTC in that the wheel and the axle are separate, thus something about this is making it hard to detect on the rail.)

With this train being a "gauge change train" it really made me wonder what gauge the Battle Subway trains runs at? I thought maybe standard gauge or maybe even wide gauge because you can only make the train so wide depending on the gauge. And you'd probably want it wider so that there is more room, especially if you are fitting a battle arena in it! However in Japanese the description mentions that "The rails are a little wider on the tracks that run at higher speeds." Which is... exactly how Japanese rail works? So the Battle Subway lines are probably narrow gauge?

Another thing that's interesting about the "Futuristic Train" is the date that it actually shows up. In Anville Town the way that each train shows up is dependent on the last digit of the day of the month, like so:

0- (10th, 20th, and 30th) "Old Train Car"

1- (1st, 11th, 21st, and 31st) Single Train Car

2- (2nd, 12th, and 22nd) Double Train Car

3- (3rd, 13th, and 23rd) Multi Train Car

yada yada you get the point (4- Super Double Train, 5- Super Single Train, 6- Super Multi Train, 7- Anville Town Train, 8- Nothing, 9- Wi-Fi Train)

The only exception is the "Futuristic Train" who will show up ONLY on February 1st, June 12th, October 1st, October 14th, and December 30th, pretty random huh? haha of course not! These dates are dates significant to the History of Japanese Railway/Transportation!

February 1st: The opening of Japan's first electric street car in 1895!

June 12th: The temporary operation of Japan's first passenger railway in 1872!

October 1st: The release of Japan's first Shinkansen, the series 0 in 1964!

October 14th: The official opening of Japan's first passenger railway in 1872, with the first two stations between Shimbashi and Yokohama! This day is also Railway Day in Japan, celebrating this event, Tokyo holds a Railway Festival and train companies like to do events on this day as well! 

December 30th: The opening of Japan's first subway line in 1927, The Ginza Line!

Rails, Station Platform, and More Train:

So the Station, there are a few details I can pick up on here!

The type of track that the trains run on (at least in the station) are ballastless tracks! It means the rail is tied directly onto a slab of concrete rather than having ballast hold it up (ballast is that rocky gravel that you often see beneath the tracks.) This type of track is quite expensive to build and makes the place a lot nosier, but it has a lot of advantages! For one, because there is no ballast to maintain, it has lower maintenance cost (ballast must be packed every now and again using a ballast tamping machine. Which lifts the track and jostles the ballast beneath it. Ballast also needs to be replaced after a while because the rocks have to be irregularly shaped for it to work, and natural weathering can make them smooth out.) It is also easier to clean and has a longer lifespan. Because the rail is tied to slabs of concrete the rails are less prone to deformation, which is good! Though it is also that same inflexibility means that it is difficult to change anything about it and takes longer to repair.

Their buffer! (that little black thing at the end of the line, I think it is a buffer?) It doesn't look like that effective of a buffer... The purpose of a buffer is to stop a train if brakes fail. Though this thing seems to be more for the driver telling them where the end is, hence all the, what I presume are, lights. Let's hope they have some sort of other safety system in place (like some sort of Automatic Train Stop system.)

There doesn't seem to be a third rail. I have a feeling that might be because most Japanese railway trains are powered via overhead wire (literally every irl train I have shown is powered this way.) Maybe the Battle Subway trains might be powered via overhead wire? I might be over analyzing here, they might not have thought of modeling such a small detail haha

The train itself has some sort of device on top (that box thing.) I believe it to be some sort of air conditioning unit. Given how each train car has one large unit on top of it, I believe that it uses a centralized cooling system, which means there is one large air conditioning unit. (There are 2 other types, they are distributed cooling which consists of 6-8 small units and centralized distributed which consists of a couple of medium sized units.) Central cooling systems are easier to install and maintain because there is only one unit to worry about.

Signboards:

The Buildings in between routes have a electronic news bulletin board, and depending on which city is connected to it, the news bulletin will give a little flavor text about the city. There's some flavor text about the Battle Subway when it's about Nimbasa City, and it different depending on whether you are playing the first one or the second one, here they are:

BW

"Run and battle! Trains never stop!” Battle Subway in Nimbasa City"

"They say someone who loved battles also happened to be a railway maniac, and thats why we now have the battle subway"

So, this might be a coincidence, but there is an old name that Japanese Train Fans used to call themselves. The name was "Railway Mania" (鉄道マニア direct translation). It was used up until the 1950s. Today it's seen as a derogatory term but it was used very commonly back in its heyday (even more popular than "railfan" apparently.) I think it is kind of interesting that the term "Railway Maniac" was chosen for this flavor text and I wonder if it has anything to do with this old name. However, I say it might just be a coincidence because the term "Maniac" is not unheard of word in Pokemon (Item Maniac, Poke Maniac, Hex Maniac, etc.) But regardless, there's that little fun fact for you!

B2W2

“Get on a train and fight!” Battle Subway in Nimbasa City"

"The energy generated by heated Pokémon battles is the fuel that keeps the Battle Subway running"

I'm going to get a little headcanon-y here. We can interpret this figuratively, as in if there are no battles then its not really a Battle Subway is it? But I think it would be fun to interpret it literally! What if Pokemon Moves could get absorbed somehow to power the Train? And if the Train doesn't need it it could go into the line to power something else in the Subway! I think that would be cool :]

Extra Stuff:

●I think the Battle Subway Map could also be inspired by JR East's rail map, the main reason is the single lines (dark green) which goes in a loop around the Unova Region...

Reminds me of the Yamanote Line (light green) which also goes in a loop connecting a variety of major stations together in Tokyo and is a very very important line!

●While I do believe Gear Station is inspired by New York's Grand Central Station, I do think there's a lot of design elements taken from Tokyo Station as well

●The gray bodies of the Anville, Single, Doubles, and Multi cars are probably meant to represent an exposed steel/aluminum body rather than the ones painted white like the Super Trains.

●In the Anime, the trains are said to have an ATO system, this is also a real system, it stands for Automatic Train Operation. It's a system that allows a computer to control when the train stops and goes with no driver involved! I don't think that the trains in the games run on an ATO system though, as there are Depot Agents who talk about train driving (Depot Agent Cameron who says "I’m good at driving, but I’m not good at dealing with Pokemon." at the start of battle, and a way more obscure Depot Agent whom you can talk to on the platform after 14 wins on a Super Train who says "I’d rather have an exciting battle than slowly drive the train.")

●In the Anime, there's a stamp rally, which is a real thing! There are station stamps in Japan which tourists can collect. Though, occasionally Pokemon will collaborate with JR East to create a Pokemon Stamp Rally! The most recent is this Pokemon Horizons Stamp Rally promoting the show! Here's a map of what stamps you can collect at each station and the prizes you can get!

●In the Nacrane city library there is a book that mentions that Nacrane used to have steam locomotives running through it!

"This book is about the things you can ride in the Unova region, such as Castelia City’s cruise ship and Mistralton City’s planes. Before there were planes, locomotives carried people all over Unova. The railway in Nacrene City is a legacy of those lines." (B2W2)

What kinds of Steam Locomotives? I suppose we will never know, as we never see one in game.

●There's an Roughneck NPC you can talk to at Tubeline Bridge in B2W2 where he says

"Watch it! People use “railway fan” as a catchall term, but there are many types of railway fans! There are riding fans, detraining fans, station fans, train-car fans, schedule-table fans, picture-taking fans, recording fans, and more! Don’t go thinking they’re all the same!" (B2W2)

So in Japanese, Railway is Tesudo (鉄道, testu 鉄- Iron and do 道-Road) and a Railway Fan is Tesudofan, however fans will abbreviate to just Testu and stick what aspect of trains they enjoy with it, so like 乗り鉄 (Nori 乗り-Ride, 鉄-tetsu) as a Train Riding Fan, or 撮り鉄 (Tori 撮り-Taking a Picture, 鉄-tetsu) as a Railway Photography fan. There are a lot of these and the NPC does go over some! There's also Railway Modeling Fans (Fans who collect model trains and/or construct model railways), Collecting Fans (Fans who collect railway related items such as tickets or stamps), Operation Fans (Fans who like researching railway operation and equipment), Regulation Fans (Fans who like researching railway handbooks and laws and regulations that go into a railway), Simulation Fans (Fans who like playing train driving/railway management games), Artists/Writers, Urban Explorers, and Railway Preservationist (I gave up on the last ones lol). There are lots of ways to enjoy trains!

There's also the super specific terms of "Mama Tetsu" where a mother becomes a railway fan because of their children's interest or "Oyako Tetsu" where a child becomes interested in trains because of their parents.

●The badge on Ingo and Emmet's hats probably represents the logo for the railway company that they work for, while researching about Japanese Railway Companies, I noticed that they have a lot of circular logos, here's a handful:

From what I could gather, these types of black and white circular logos are called a mon, kind of like a crest? If you wish to scroll about the logos, here is the link for the Wikimedia commons list.

The company's logo is also what's usually depicted on irl conductor's hats anyways, in the exact same place too.

(I was looking for a screenshot to showcase the hat to put here, but instead I found this promotional video! It's actually pretty good at going over the basics of what a driver and conductor actually do! Please feel free to check it out)

●The name "Depot Agent" is a little bit of a strange name, in Japanese the name is simply "Railway Worker", a depot is often referred to a train yard, however depot can also refer to a station, given where we see this trainer class working (at Gear Station), it is most likely that the depot in this case is referring to station, so they are station workers!

Final:

After all this I have come to the conclusion that somebody at Gamefreak really liked trains! And I really think all the little details are so awesome! and it really cements the Battle Subway as my favorite battle facility!

Anyways I hope you learned a thing or two and I hope you gained a new appreciation for trains and the Battle Subway! Thanks for Reading! ✌

(If I got anything wrong, please feel free to correct me, there was a lot of information I had to sift through and I am NOT an engineer * _ * and if you have something to add please do! I would love to learn more! ^ ^

[togament]

suo. sakura. umemiya. togame. pt. 1

"...and the biggest fattest one too. How'd it take him so long to figure it out? What did it take for him to finally realize?"

𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒: FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF, general cute stuff really. There isn't much to warn about :o!!! gn!reader, Togame is tall and awkward and cute and and--, Ume's precious as always!

𝐒𝐔𝐎.

✦ when he’s doting on you way more, putting your wants over everything else.

He's attending to your every need even before you realize you even need it in the first place. Need tissues? He's already pulling them out of his bag. Got a migraine? He's already handing you a water bottle and an ibuprofen. He does it so naturally too like it's second nature to him.

✦ when he uncharacteristically gets heated when someone tries to harm you.

Listen. He's usually so, SO calm even in the most intense situations, always ready to analyze before acting--a real brain over heart typa guy. But when he finds you being cornered at an alleyway? He's sprinting towards you to beat whoever's planning on hurting you without even thinking twice. Someone's bothering you in town? He's shadowing you, protecting and keeping watch.

✦ he catches himself being flustered, blushing and folding at the sight of you.

Suo rarely shows any intense emotions. If anything, it's always just a slight smile and a little teasing remark here and there. But around you though? He's smiling widely, cheeks blushing. It's hard to hide sometimes. Goodness. He needs to keep himself in check, he often thinks. He doesn't want you to find out yet. Not yet.

────────────────────────────────────────────

𝐔𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐘𝐀.

✦ when he looks for you FIRST whenever he achieves something, whenever he's having a bad day--for literally EVERYTHING.

his immediate thought is you. Every time. When he sees the hybrid tomato plant you both grew from seed blooming, he's immediately sending you photos. When he's having one of those nights, tossing and turning in his sleep, thoughts keeping him awake, the only thing that's tethering him down to earth is you.

✦ when he sees you get along with the family that he built for himself.

Ume is never subtle when it comes to this. My god. He's blushing, tripping over his words, movements ever so stiff--it's very unusual to see Ume in this state. He's just so happy to see you interacting with everybody, loving each member as much as he does. He can't just swoop you off your feet and kiss you right? Not right now. Not when he's been silently pining for you for years.

✦ when he realizes his thoughts about his future always has you in it.

He often talks about his future with others, what his plans are after he graduates, where he wants to go, what restaurants to go to. Everyone notices how his thoughts always seem to gravitate towards you, always easing you into his plans with a pensive little, "Hm. Y'think they'd like to go here too? I heard them talking about the spot a couple times!", "Maaaan I wanna go here with them soon. Should I just book the tickets? Surprise them? Yeah I think I should!" Everyone's just waiting for a confession at this point, really.

────────────────────────────────────────────

𝐒𝐀𝐊𝐔𝐑𝐀.

✦ when random things remind him of you.

he could be on their daily patrols, passing by some shops and his mind would drift off to you and how you would look in the shirt he passed by, how your face would probably light up at the taste of the anpan they're selling down the street. Goodness you never leave his mind. Day dreams about it sometimes. Suo and Nirei has caught him multiple times doing so. Always ends with an extremely flustered Sakura.

✦ when he thinks he hears your laughter or your voice, his head snaps towards the direction of the sound.

just like the above! But it's your voice. Nirei thinks Sakura's just on guard by how often he looks around quickly but Suo points out Sakura's reddening cheeks and they immediately know he's thinking about you again. Wants to fish his phone out of his pocket with trembling (and blushing) fingers to ask you where you are. Y'know... Just in case you run into trouble.

✦ when he gave you the other half of his food (he hasn't taken a single bite yet)

Sakura sometimes eats for at least 5 people so to have him offer half of his food to you when you're out eating is saying something. His hands are blushing and trembling as he's trying his best to steady them, slicing a portion of his food to place it on your plate. Of course, you give him the other half of your food too. Of course he's a blushing mess.

────────────────────────────────────────────

𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄.

✦ finds every excuse possible to be close to you. (Subtly.)

Ever noticed how Togame always seems to bump into you at spots you and your friends frequent? How he so happened to pass by the Furin school after your classes are dismissed? Gosh you're his first real crush so he doesn't know what to do with all these feelings. He wants to see you and see you often. He awkwardly and adorably tries his damndest not to seem too obvious when he's trying to see you more to strike up a conversation but his blushing (and tall frame) doesn't help his case.

✦ when he always talks about you to the old men at the public baths he frequents.

Togame's a quiet guy. He rarely ever yaps, always getting cut off mid-sentence since he talks so.. SO slow. But when it's about you, his normal 0.75x speaking speed goes up to a full 1.0x or even, dare I say, 1.25x. He's smiling ear to ear, voice with an uncharacteristic shine to it while he's playing shogi with one of the old men. They already adore you before they even meet you. They often give Togame advice too--bring you your favorite flowers, they suggest. Take you out for a festival date, they suggest. "Soon," Togame responds, scratching the back of his neck, "M'nervous though. I can pull it off ri--" "Of course you can, kame-kun." he looks at the old men with the softest, most lovestruck eyes they've ever seen. Soon. He'll make his very first move.

✦ has caught himself staring at you from afar, smiling to himself like a damn lovesick puppy.

...on multiple ocassions, might I add. You could be yapping away with the Bofurin members, talking animatedly about the most mundane things, arms flinging to and fro to get your point across, snort laughing and head thrown back. Togame's just sat just outside the group, ever the introvert. Face propped on his hand, heart practically melting. He doesn't realize he's doing this before Choji points it out. Loudly. He's immediately looking in the other direction, blush creeping up his neck as he struggles to keep the smaller Shishitoren member in check. While he's preoccupied, it's your turn to stare back at him, hiding a blush behind your hand. Suo notices this and points it out. Now the both of you are flustered messes.

a/n: tried my hand at a new layout!! eeeee inspired by my favorite perfume house but we're not opening that can of worms right now, lest I yap. ANYWHOSIES thank you, dear reader, for getting this far. I am smooching your forehead tenderly with consent.

[moongothic]

When people talk about there being "evidence" for the theory that Crocodile could be Luffy's other bio-dad, they tend to point out these kind surface-level details, easter eggs and Crocodile's odd behaviour during the Marineford-arc. And while all of that is very important as it lays down the groundwork for explaining the theory to people, unironically I think there's even more to the theory. When you really think about the implications the theory has on Crocodile's character and how that would tie into the long running narrative elements and themes in One Piece as a whole, I think it kind of changes everything

So, in this post I want to analyze and speculate about the theory, going a bit "beyond" the basics we already know. Heavy emphasis on the speculation-part, because I'm not here to provide conclusive evidence to prove that Crocodad is Real, rather, I'm here to speculate about how it could be real in practise, and try to explain how so many things would suddenly add up if the theory was true. I'm here to prove that Crocodad would make sense on a narrative level.

Quickly starting with a brief-ish summary of the Basic Thesis of the Crocodad Theory, just so we're all on the same page:

Naturally, if you already know the basics, feel free to skip this bit

Crocodile has secret beef with Ivankov. Although there is no proof that the beef has anything to do with Crocodile being trans, when you go out of your way to introduce a new character whose power is Magic HRT, it's a natural conclusion for people to assume that if these two know each other, then Crocodile could be a trans man. And naturally, if we're assuming he's Luffy's other dad, then he has to be trans

Dragon, as the leader of the Revolutionary Army, is in canon considdered to be the world's Most Wanted Criminal. He is extremely famous as pretty much everyone (except Luffy) knows who he is

Crocodile knowing the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army doesn't inherently mean he was involved with the Revolutionaries, nor that he has ever met Dragon, but being familiar with Ivankov means it is entirely plausible the two could've met in the past

(Sidenote but I do have a loose theory how Crocodile could've been involved with the Revolutionaries; not relevant here but if you wanted to read it, here you go)

Despite this, when Dragon is revealed to be Luffy's father during the Summit War, although Oda includes the reactions of all the other Shichibukai, he very specifically leaves out Crocodile's reaction to the revelation. This is suspicious as hell, because surely, between his ties with Ivankov and Dragon being world famous, he would've had some thoughts about Luffy being Dragon's son (wrote about this in more depth)

For Crocodad to be real, we are assuming that Crocodile did not know Luffy was Dragon's/his son until Sengoku's announcement during Marineford, this being the reason Oda didn't show that reaction; it would've been too revealing

(We are assuming that Dragon never told Crocodile his name; this is entirely plausible considdering his full name had been a secret to the whole world (as explained post-Enies Lobby), and Dragon had kept the existence of his son a secret even from Ivankov and Kuma. We also need to assume that Crocodile did not name his son, otherwise surely he would have realized Luffy was his son when they met in Alabasta)

This is why Crocodile ends up saving Luffy's life twice in Marineford (as well as Ace's) when until the revelation he had no reason to even care about the idiot

Crocodile choosing to save Luffy's life probably means one of two things; either he really hates the World Government more than the child who foiled his plans to take over Alabasta, or he cares about his son despite knowing Luffy hates his guts

Again, this is just the basic concept, if you want to read more and see all the more easter egg-type hints, I'd reccomend this post, this post and this post (the third one repeats most of the stuff the first two do in but less detail, but also adds a few more notes extra notes). But now that we're generally speaking on the same level, we can delve deeper.

Please, go get yourself a drink and maybe a snack, this is gonna get long and deranged

Going to start with a fairly small thing.

Through out the series Oda has been repeatedly hinting at Crocodile having A Past, some History, A Backstory that lead to him becoming the way he is. But Oda hasn't actually told us what that backstory is. On the surface, this wouldn't be that strange, after all, there's lots of characters whose backstories we haven't seen, for example Mihawk. We know essentially nothing about that man and how he became the way he is. But what's different about Crocodile as opposed to Mihawk and many others, is that Oda hasn't hinted at there being an interesting backstory there that's worth telling. Like I'm sure Mihawk could have an interesting story, but Oda hasn't alluded to that at all. So the fact that he has repeatedly told us that Crocodile does have a backstory, but at most gave us two whole breadcrumbs in an SBS, is a little suspicious. (For clarity, the hints we've gotten so far to Crocodile's backstory were his repeated comments about not trusting people and how he had given up his dreams in Alabasta, while Summit War gave us the Secret Beef with Ivankov and his grudge against Whitebeard. In an SBS in Vol 78, Oda did confirm that Crocodile had his ass kicked by Whitebeard after he became a Warlord in his early 20s, and that he went "quiet for a while" until he started his heroics around his 30s, setting his eyes on Alabasta. Indeed, we have some breadcrumbs of lore, but this hardly paints a full picture. We know nothing abot what he was doing in his late 20s, which would've been the time Luffy was born btw)

What I'm getting at, is that Crocodile clearly has a backstory, but the fact that Oda hasn't spilled the beans yet would indicate to me that it's likely Oda has been saving up that backstory. Which would make sense, Crocodile hasn't been in a role in the story yet where spending time to tell his story would've been appropriate. So really, we're just waiting for the right time for those beans to be finally spilled. But what makes things even more interesting is that One Piece has a very specific track record of not giving its villians extended and dedicated backstories/flashbacks. Villians can cameo in other characters' flashbacks (Moria, Arlong), they can have their own little segments inside the the heroic characters' flashbacks (Orochi, Doflamingo), they might even get their own SHORT dedicated flashbacks (Lucci whose flashback was 6 whole panels long). But villians do not get their OWN, dedicated and EXTENDED flashbacks. Flashbacks are for the heroic characters. There has been a single exception to this rule and that was Big Mom. That's it. And while I'm positive this rule is going to be broken at least one more time before the series ends, really. What do you think is more likely to happen? That Crocodile becomes such an important villian again, this late in the game, that he deserves his own flashback so we can finally find out what his deal is? (When Blackbeard and Imu are also there mind you) Or that Crocodile's role in the story might not be that of a villian anymore, and that Oda had been saving up his backstory all this time because it could reframe his entire character and how we view him?

Oda loves taking inspiration from various mythologies and pop culture alike to bring life into his work.

This is nothing new or surprising, we all know this. For example, Oda did base the original seven Shichibukai on the Seven Heroes from Romancing SaGa 2, each Warlord more or less matching a description of one of the game's villians. Crocodile just happens to match Wagnas, the queer coded leader of the group, who had the noble swordsman Noel (Mihawk) by his side when the group was created to save the world from a great evil. Meanwhile Alabasta as a whole took a lot of inspiration of Egyptian mythology, Crocodile in that arc matching the role of the crocodile-god Sobek. Sobek is a protector god ("Guardian of Alabasta"), associated with military power (literally what Crocodile wanted to obtain) and fertility, carrying the epithet of "he who loves robbery" (man stole a lot of things, from money and lives to rain and nearly a whole dang country). Sobek's name is speculated to come from the words "to impregnate" or "to unite", both being potentially very interesting coincidences (depending on if Crocodad Real and what Cross Guild's purpose in the story is going to be) (if you want more details you can go read the Wikipedia article on Sobek). (Also I'm sure there's something interesting to be said about Sobek's fusion with the sun deity Ra, Sobek-Ra, and how Luffy is our lil Sun God)

The reason I'm pointing this out is that based on Oda's hinting and/or references to mythologies, people have in the past been able to predict certain plot twists and reveals way ahead of time. For example, most recently people were able to predict that Saint Saturn had been the one to give Ginny (and by extension, Bonney) the Sapphire Scale-disease based on a certain legent about ushi-oni, which is what Saturn just happens to be. (Here's one of the many Reddit posts that predicted that reveal) And there is one particular story from Japanese mythology I want to bring up, as it may be relevant to our Crocodad Discussion here. The story of Toyotama Hime. Here's a quick TL:DR;

Princess Toyotama had travelled from the depths of the ocean onto land so she could give birth to her child. When the time to deliver the baby came, Toyotama asked for her husband, Hoori, to not look at her while she gave birth, as she would change into her true form. And while Hoori promised he wouldn't look, he couldn't keep the promise. He peeked in on her wife as she was giving birth, only to discover that she had transformed into a gigantic wani. Horrified by what he had seen, Hoori fled, leaving his wife and child behind. Hurt by what had happened, Toyotama abandoned her son and returned to the ocean. (You can read different summaries of the legend on the Wani-article as well as Toyotama's article on Wikipedia)

Now historically speaking, "wani" in mythology can have referred to serpent dragons, sharks or sea monsters. But in modern Japanese, the word translates to "crocodile". It's what Luffy and a few other characters call Crocodile on numerous occassions. Hell, Crocodile's favorite pets are his gigantic bananawani. Historically speaking it might be more accurate to say that Toyotama had transformed into a sea serpent, but for our intents and purposes, Hoori abandoned Toyotama after she became a crocodile.

I can not tell you what exactly the relationship between Dragon and Crocodile was like, how it began and how it ended. There's no way for us to know when Crocodile transitioned (beyond "after giving birth to Luffy"), nor do we know how Dragon found out about it and how he reacted to it. There's a million options for how things could've gone down, and nothing to truly go off of to even make a guess. All we do really know, is that 1) Dragon does not seem to wear rings at all. 2) Crocodile wears rings, but leaves one out specifically on his ring finger, where one would normally wear their engagement/wedding ring (mind you; for the first half of Alabasta Oda drew Crocodile without a ring on his middle finger, but from the latter half onwards, through Impel Down and Marineford, it's always the ring finger). 3) This suspicious ass comment

"I don't know they have kids or not" YEAH RIGHT

If we wanted to use the story of Toyotama Princess as a jumping off-point though. It's entirely plausible that soon after giving birth Crocodile transitioned thanks to Ivankov's ability, and because Dragon wasn't into it, the two broke up/got divorced. The unfortunate reality is that many couples end up breaking up if/when a partner comes out as trans and chooses to transition. Just like Hoori abandoned his wife because she turned into a crocodile, Dragon could've divorced Crocodile because he transitioned into a man. And Dragon would not be a bad person for it (as long as he was respectful about it). If Dragon is straight and just couldn't see himself being with a man, that's just how it is. At the same time, this would be a gut wrenching, painful thing to go through, and this kind of heartbreak could have devastating concequences for Crocodile's character. Concequences that could play deeply into One Piece's long running narrative elements, which is why a lot of my speculation from here on does end up relying on the Toyotama Myth possibly being inspiration for Crocodile's secret backstory. I acknowledge there's no quarantee that's the case, but I am here to make an argument for why it could be.

QUICK SIDENOTES

As mentioned before, although Ivankov holds the key to a weakness Crocodile has (in their own words), we don't know what that weakness is.

Crocodile joined the Shichibukai in the first half of his 20s (SBS vol 78), and he would've been 27 years old when Luffy was born. This means it's nearly impossible for Crocodile to be stealth trans, as he would've been a public figure for years; which means, Crocodile could be openly trans

A single earring on the right ear can be read as a "gay earring". The man does like his jewelry, so there's no proof he's signaling that he's gay, but if Crocodile's happy to let the world know he's into men, then surely there'd be no issue with him being openly trans either

His transition would've happened 17 years ago pre-timeskip, so in-universe it'd be old ass news and not worth bringing up to the readers if it doesn't add anything to the current plot or his character (which it wouldn't have during Alabasta nor Summit War)

If Crocodile's secret weakness wasn't him being stealth trans, and Ivankov can't detransition him against his will (can't hit Crocodile without Armanent Haki), then what is that secret weakness Ivankov knows about?

As Dragon told Kuma: "A child is a parent's weakness". If Ivakov was anywhere near Crocodile when his child was born (so that Crocodile was able to transition as soon as the kid was out) Ivankov could/should know about the child existing, and would thus be able to blackmail Crocodile by holding the information of his secret child hostage

However, Ivankov did not know about Dragon having a child

Meaning if Crocodile and Dragon were in a relationship, it must have happened in secret, otherwise Ivankov should've realized Crocodile gave birth to Dragon's child

So One Piece has a lot of narrative elements that come up time and time again through out the story,

And some of these have become more and more relevant in the story especially post-timeskip. This is not a comprehensive list of all of them, just the ones that could heavily tie into Crocodile if he were Luffy's other dad, as they could reframe his character. So, let's look at these narrative elements, how they've appeared in the story so far, and speculate how they could reflect in Crocodile.

🐊 People existing in the wrong bodies / bodies that have been altered (and what it means for you to be "you"/how does your body reflect who is on the inside) 🐊 Queerness

Wrote about this more in-depth in this post, but to keep things short; Thriller Bark, Punk Hazard, Dressrosa and Wano all heavily featured characters who have had their bodies either temporarily or permanently altered, sometimes with the person's consent and sometimes without it. Not to mention all the various characters through out the series who have gone through similar things, like Franky, Kuma as well as Brook, among countless others. As well as every Devil Fruit user who can transform their body (including every single Zoan user). People, the way they inhibit their bodies and the freedom to be who you are is very important to One Piece. That is already a very queer-coded narrative, but then we also have explicitly queer characters. Queer characters, who have been deeply important to the story, and whose presence has become more and more prevalent with time. Not to mention how queerness in general has been "escalating" over the course of the story. There's this video from Berry for A Thought on YouTube which explains this more in-depth, but to summarize the most important observation from the video; we have slowly gone from Kuina wishing she had been born a man, to non-binary drag queens (first one being able to temporarily change their own bio-sex by turning into someone else, to the second one being able to change anyone's bio-sex permanently), to two pre-transition transgender characters. All we really need for this escalation to reach its "peak" is if we had a (named, non-background) transgender character who has already transitioned. Unsurprisingly, Crocodile could fill that role really nicely.

🐊 Loneliness

Loneliness is generally speaking a very important theme in One Piece, as it's on the opposite side of coin with friendship on it. So many of our main characters have suffered for years from loneliness, by being ostracized and rejected by their communities, abandoned by their families, sometimes suffering for decades for the sake of their loved ones because they had promises to keep. Luffy himself considders loneliness to be most painful, scary thing imaginable.

Loneliness is something queer people struggle with. A lot. Being rejected by your loved ones for who you are is a painful, common experience for many. It alone can keep many queer people in the closet for years and decades, because the fear of being left alone and abandoned is too much to bear. Some people are accepting of queers but only as long as they stay "over there", pulling a full 180 when a family member comes out. Some people only ""accept"" trans people as long as they don't transition. And while some people may appear to be accepting of you when you come out or are early into your transition, many (trans men especially) lose friends and support the more they start to pass. Crocodile does not trust people. He set up base in Alabasta sometime around the age of 30, meaning he spent around 14 years by himself (until he recruited Robin), unable to trust anyone. That's a long time to be alone. Of course, there may have been a practical side to why Crocodile chose to spend over a decade in utter emotional solitude. If he was scheming to take over a country, then having anybody close who could leak his plans out and foil them would be dangerous. Hell, it's exactly what happened thanks to Robin. But having your significant other destroy your ability to trust people and then isolating yourself to avoid further heartbreak and "betrayal" could be another, potential reasoning as to why Crocodile chose solitude.

🐊 Two failed weddings and one relationship that never was

In Thriller Bark we witnessed Nami almost get married off to Absalom. On Whole Cake Island, we almost saw Sanji get married into Big Mom's family. During Egghead arc, we saw how Kuma never got to have the relationship with Ginny he had yearned for deep inside. I already mentioned Crocodile's missing ring. How his relationship with Dragon might not have worked out because of his transition. How Crocodile's queerness could've lead into solitude, out of distrust. We already have three relationships that never worked out. So how about a fourth one.

🐊 What makes a family (/chosen families) 🐊 Family reunions (with blood-relatives) 🐊 What it's like when your blood-relatives are really horrible people

For the first half of the series, One Piece did very much focus on the concept of chosen families, as most of the Strawhats grew up with non-blood relatives that they all considdered just as much family as their actual blood relatives (if not more-so); Luffy with Ace and Sabo, Sanji and Zeff, Nami, Nojiko and Béllemere, Chopper and Hiruluk, Franky and Tom's Workers. Chosen families are deeply important to this story. At the same time, a lot of post-timeskip OP has actually revolved around (blood) family reunions. Punk Hazard was about sending the kidnapped children back to their families (as well as Momonosuke to ""his father"" Kin'emon), Dressrosa was about reuniting all the broken families Doflamingo (and his family) had torn apart. Whole Cake Island was about Sanji reuniting with his blood family while being forced into a whole new one, and Wano allowed Momonosuke to reunite with his sister (and Kin'emon with his wife). On Egghead we've gotten to see the gutwrenching reunion between Bonney and Kuma, and we are all dying to see Luffy meet Dragon eventually. Not to mention all the other reunions many of us are waiting to see, like Shanks and Buggy, Moria and Perona. Luffy and Garp (currently held hostage by Blackbeard), Mihawk and Zoro. And many others. But indeed, not all the family reunions have been good. Sometimes, the blood relatives have been horrible people. Like Big Mom (to some of her children and husbands), Judge and Kaidou. Sometimes, your blood relatives suck ass.

Needless to say, Sir "I tried to bomb one million people to take over a country" Crocodile is not exactly the greatest guy around. But what might be arguably more important is that... Why is Crocodile a plot-relevant character again, on an emotional level? As I mentioned, characters like Buggy and Mihawk relate to certain characters, so potentially getting to see them reunite with other characters would have emotional weight behind it. Mihawk and Buggy are both relevant characters both to the plot but also on an emotional level, their return to the spotlight makes sense. But then we have Crocodile, a fellow member of Cross Guild. Sure, he's definitely there to help move the plot along, no doubt about that. But emotionally speaking, why the hell is he here again? Is there a character he could "reunite with" that would have that same kind of emotional weight behind it? You could argue Vivi perhaps, but between Vivi hating the man's guts and and Crocodile probably not giving a damn about her, I'm not sure that reunion would have that much emotional weight? Robin on the other hand could be very interesting, considdering she did live under Crocodile's protection for four years until she betrayed him, an action that seemed to have stung Crocodile. That reunion could be deeply interesting.

But you know what this post is about. If Crocodile is Luffy's other dad, then those two coming across each other would suddenly have enormous weight on it even if Luffy himself didn't know about it. Because if Luffy were to find out, Luffy would then have to decide if he'd acknowledge Crocodile as his other dad or disown him. Mind you, Crocodile already knows that Luffy hates his guts for what he did in Alabasta, not to even mention the fact that he tried to kill him three whole times. Luffy has every reason in the world to hate Crocodile. The man surely understands that. But then there's the fact that Crocodile isn't Luffy's mom, but his transgender father. If Dragon rejected Crocodile for being trans, why would his son be any different? Which raises the question, would Crocodile be afraid of that? Of meeting Luffy again? Of Luffy somehow finding out and then getting rejected by him too? How does Crocodile feel about any of this? Now of course, we the readers already know that Luffy canonically loves and respects queer people. Luffy would never look down on Crocodile for him being his dad (the warcrimes are different). But Crocodile doesn't know that. And this is what I mean by there being emotional weight on these two reuniting, as anything that could go down between these two could have massive concequences for Crocodile's character. And please, keep in mind, although Oda hasn't dwelled too deep into the subject in One Piece, there are people who aren't accepting of queers in this world.

This prince, and his entire kingdom, could not accept his mother for who she was. An entire country crumbled because their queen came out as trans. So just like there are accepting families (including Kaidou strangely enough), there are unaccepting, queerphobic ones too. So the fear of rejection would not be unfounded. (Also, if Crocodile and Dragon are divorced then those two coming across each other, especially after The Shit Crocodile pulled in Alabasta, would have a lot emotional weight on it too.)

🐊 The things you are willing to do and sacrifice to protect your loved ones

Shanks gave up his arm for Luffy. Zeff ate his leg so Sanji could have actual food. Béllemere died for her daughters while Nami sacrificed her freedom in an attempt to save her village. Tom gave up his life to protect Franky and Iceburg. Robin attempted to sacrifice her life so the Strawhats could continue their journey in peace. Sanji gave up his freedom for Baratie and the Strawhats. And so many countless more lives, given up for the sake of others.

So people often give Dragon shit for being a "deadbeat dad". I've discussed this in the past, so to keep it short; the World Government went out of its way to hunt an unborn child, hurting countless pregnant women, mothers and newborns while chasing for Gold Roger's son. A child who had "evil blood" and had to be exterminated from the world. Similarly, the World Government went out of its way to put a massive bounty on an eight year old child for the crime of being able to read ancient texts. Dragon would have known and understood that if he ever had a child, as the leader of the Revolutionary Army, his child would become yet another target for the World Government to hunt, just like Ace and Robin did. This should also apply to Crocodile; if the WG found out about him having been involved with the Revolutionaries they would no doubt strip him of his Shichibukai status and make him a wanted man again. Crocodile's child would thus be in just as much danger, even if the Government didn't realize it was ALSO Dragon's son. If Dragon wanted his son to be free and choose his own path in life, Dragon had to keep his distance from Luffy. The same would apply to Crocodile. Luffy probably ended up in Garp's care, not because his parents didn't want to raise him, but because they wanted Luffy to be free.

But as long as the World Government exists, if they ever found out about Dragon having a son, that child would end up in danger, he could become a target. And the only way to ensure that child's safety would be by eliminating the ultimate threat. The Government.

Now that is the ultimate goal of the Revolutionary Army anyways, something Dragon and co have been working towards for over two decades now. But most of their efforts have gone into freeing small countries by overthrowing corrupt governments and gaining support, little by little. Which is understandable, the WG is impossibly powerful, you can't just walk into Marijoa all willy-nilly, take out the Tenryuubito and free the world, the Government's forces would take you down within seconds. Dragon understands this, which is no doubt why the Revolutionary Army hasn't made a move against Marijoa directly until the latest Reverie. It'd be too risky, and if the Revs were taken down, who would be left to oppose the WG? Their slow approach makes sense. But at the same time, while the Revs did attack Marijoa, destroying the Tenryuubito's food banks and freeing a single slave... as long as the Tenryuubito are allowed to literally stay on top of the world, this attack has done nothing. They're just going to demand more tributes, they're going to enslave more people. It's going to make things worse for those who aren't in power. It's harsh and unreasonable, and I don't agree with them, but I do understand where some fans are coming from when they considder Dragon a "fraud". If you wanted to help free the world from this corrupt rule, then you have to actually strip those in power from their status, otherwise nothing will ever change. You have to actually fight the enemy.

I can not tell you for certain why Crocodile wanted to create "a military nation powerful enough to oppose the World Government", I do not know for sure why he wanted to obtain an Ancient Weapon. But nuking Marijoa out of orbit sure would be a fast way to end the rule of the Tenryuubito, ensure nobody would get hurt by the World Government's corruption and slavery ever again, and make sure your son would never become targetted by them. A line of thought I'm sure Dragon would not have agreed with. But a line of thought Crocodile could believe in.

Remember how we still don't quite know what Cross Guild is up to? How the Shichibukai are based on Romancing SaGa 2's Seven Heroes, a group formed by Wagnas (Crocodile) with the swordsman Noel (Mihawk) by his side to save the world from a great evil? And how Cross Guild has been focusing on hunting down Marines by putting bounties on their heads? Make of that what you will.

🐊 Learning not just to love and trust others but to be loved as well

Robin tried to sacrifice herself not just because she loved the Strawhats, but because she thought she herself was unlovable and did not trust the crew, believing they too would betray her eventually. Sanji tried to sacrifice himself because he thought he was unworthy of being loved. Ace went through most of his life, thinking it would've been better if he had never been born at all. We know Crocodile does not trust people. The logical assumption here is that it's because he was betrayed in the past and had his trust broken. Did he ever have a crew, in his younger pirating days? If so, what happened to them? Did they betray him, leave him? After Whitebeard kicked his ass? Who knows. If Crocodile was in a relationship with Dragon though, it does mean that one point he loved and trusted someone, deeply. So much so they had a child. But if their relationship ended because Crocodile is trans, that would have broken his heart, wouldn't it? Made it hard for him to trust anyone ever again. And what would make you believe you were unlovable more than being rejected by your significant other for being queer. But as I mentioned before; Luffy loves and respects trans people. His affection towards queer characters through out the series is absolutely unmatched (the way he exclusively uses the "-chan" honorific for Bon Kurei, Ivankov and Inazuma, calls Yamato a man, and is far more interested in Okiku's spooky mask than her being trans). What would be a better way for Crocodile to be reminded that he can be loved and that he can trust others than being accepted by his estranged son?

🐊 Inherited Will

In Alabasta we learn Crocodile once had a dream that he gave up upon after learning how strong the most powerful pirates of the Grand Line, the ones standing between him and his dreams, truly were. In Marineford we learn Crocodile lost to Whitebeard in his youth. During Miss Goldenweek's Cover story, we learn Crocodile dreamt of becoming Pirate King.

A dream that he shares with Luffy. An inherited will Luffy carries on.

You know the RPG trope where the final boss is either god or your dad? Yeah. This line really hits different when you shout it at your father.

Now, all of this is fine and dandy, but what does this actually do? How would Crocodile being Luffy's other bio-father add to his character, impact Luffy and the story as a whole?

Now there's no way for me to fully predict how the plot is going to develop through out the Final Saga and what might go down. There's a million moving pieces and a billion potential directions things could go. We could be here forever debating those things. But as I did explain in detail already, if Crocodad Real, it could heavily impact Crocodile's character depending on what does/doesn't happen.

For one, we could have an idea of why Crocodile is a plot relevant character again; if his ultimate goal had always been to destroy the World Government to protect his son at whatever cost, then we might know why he wanted to create Cross Guild to begin with; either create a military force strong enough to fight the WG on their own, or, if nothing else, dwindle down the Government's forces and be a general nuisance that leaves the WG vulnerable (perhaps enough so that the Revolutionaries can do the hard work) and/or unable to spend their resources on hunting down Luffy and the Strawhats. Crocodile could be acting as bait, a distraction to protect his son. There's a few options there. This would also give us an idea of where that Cross Guild plotline could be heading; some people believe CG is there to join the race for One Piece and get defeated by the Strawhats, and that'll be the end of it. But now we would have another option, of Cross Guild joining the expected final war against the World Government together with the Strawhats and the Revolutionary Army. So that's one way Crocodad could impact the story and the general direction its heading.

But then there's the character-side of things, how would Crocodad impact our characters? Now obviously, the three characters that would be most impacted by the theory would be Crocodile, Luffy and Dragon. There's some other characters too, Ivankov (since they didn't know), Robin, potentially some Cross Guild members (could they learn to respect Crocodile more sincerely if they learned that the man did in fact have a heart and something/someone he cared about and wanted to protect?) and maybe even Garp, but realistically, it's the core of the family itself.

Now Dragon already would know about everything so there'd be no Shocking Revelation for him. And based on what we saw him say about Sabo maybe being responsible for Cobra's death at the Reverie, we can make an educated guess that Dragon is Not Happy With What Crocodile Did In Alabasta.

So the two aren't on good terms, probably. Dragon might just be absolutely furious at Crocodile for what he did. Understandable tbh. I guess we're just going to be left wondering if the two could somehow ever reconcile, and whether or not they still love each other deep down, despite all the pain and hurt (and warcrimes) they've gone through.

Then there's Luffy. And I guess everything boils down to two major questions; will Luffy ever find out the truth, and if he does, will that impact how he feels about Crocodile? 'Cause it's entirely plausible the series could end with Crocodad being real and Luffy never finding out. And in that scenario, well, Crocodad could impact those other aspects of the story, just not Luffy. And in some ways that could be fine too. It could still be meaningful for Crocodile (and Dragon) that way. But what if Luffy did find out? Now, mind you, it's already a bit of a mystery how Luffy feels Crocodile as of now in the story; back in Impel Down he still understandably hated the man's guts with a fiery passion, but after Marineford Luffy does kind of owe Crocodile his life after he saved him. And Luffy is generally speaking pretty respectful when it comes to stuff like that. But also Luffy was unconcious when Crocodile yeeted him and Jinbei out of Akainu's reach, so does Luffy even know Crocodile saved him? (Though surely he would remember Croc sparing Ace and getting guarded from Mihawk) Not to mention, when the Cross Guild reveal happened, the only comments we got about it where Luffy calling Buggy an idiot and Zoro being confused about Mihawk being there. They didn't even acknowledge Crocodile. It was almost like Oda seemed to avoid the subject?

We also need to considder how much would Luffy find out? Just the basics, that his other parent is a trans man and just happens to be Crocodile? Or like, everything? From whatever his plans were with taking over Alabasta to however Crocodile might feel about his sweet baby boy? Because if all Crocodile had wanted to do was protect his son, despite knowing he might never see him again, and if Crocodile did still unconditionally love Luffy despite everything that happened, despite knowing (/assuming) that Luffy already hates him... Well first off, Robin nearly assassinated Iceburg and was willing to let the World Government potentially get their hands on an Ancient Weapon just to protect Luffy and co (on top of all the deaths she helped cause while working for Crocodile, all because she wanted to read the Poneglyph herself). If Luffy was willing to forgive Robin for all that, would he not forgive his dad for doing the same? And Luffy isn't one to dismiss kindness, when people express that they genuinely care about him and his well being Luffy does respect that (even if doesn't fully reciprocate the feelings, like with Hancock). And Luffy has deep emotional intelligence too. If Crocodile was convinced he'd be rejected by Luffy for who he was, especially if that had happened to him in the past to begin with, over something Luffy wouldn't bat an eyelash at (like being trans), like. Luffy wouldn't be shitty about that.

We know Crocodile is a broken, traumatized man. We don't know how much shit he has gone through though, beyond getting his ass beat by Whitebeard and The Divorce. Knowing how Oda likes to layer trauma in character backstories*, there definitely could be more to Crocodile than just those two things, but for the sake of this post, let's just focus on The Divorce. *(Like how Robin was alienated by her community long before the Ohara Genocide, and then spent decades of her life fleeing from the Government, hurt and abandoned by people time and time again. Or how Kuma was born into slavery, lost the love of his life and finally gave up everything he had just to save the life of his daughter. Early OP flashbacks may have been a bit simpler, but as time as gone they have definitely gotten more complex and layered, so I would not be surprised if Crocodile's Full Backstory had like 3+ layers to his trauma)

One important part of One Piece has been teaching/reminding certain characters important lessons, to change their view of the world and make them better people as a result.

Here's some of the messages of One Piece, its beating heart and soul

And of course, sometimes some characters can't have their minds changed, at least not that easily. But their ideals and worldview can always be challenged and proven wrong. This is what happens to many of the villians in the story. Like Moria's ideas of how he shouldn't have to do any of the hard lifting himself and how instead of having friends he can just have replacable zombies instead. Moria's worldview was wrong, and is exactly what led to his downfall in Thriller Bark. Or Spandam and the CP9's ideas of justice, how anything they do can be justified as it is for the "good of the world", including killing innocent civilians. They can do that, because they are "heroes of the world", they are "justice". Needless to say, none of the CP9's actions during Enies Lobby could be considdered "heroic", and, well. If "justice always prevails", then their defeat did prove theirs was a false one. Or how Enel isn't a god, how Doflamingo doesn't have a god given right to rule (neither does Wapol for that matter), how Akainu's ideas of "absolute justice" are monstrous at best, how the way Judge and Big Mom treat their families is not how a family should be like at all.

During Alabasta, Crocodile's plans were foiled because of he didn't trust his underlings with his secret identity and refused to communicate properly with them himself. That one conversation between Crocodile and "Mr. 3" (Sanji) is more or less what allowed the Strawhats to reach Alabasta just in time to stop him. But although distrust is what lead to Crocodile's downfall, he still carries that core belief even now; he still doesn't trust others. Which raises the question, what other beliefs might Crocodile still carry deep inside?

That he can't trust anyone because people will betray and leave him sooner or later? That nobody would ever stay by his side, that nobody will ever love him?

Are those not the exact same core messages of One Piece, the false beliefs that we've seen proven wrong, time and time again?

It really wouldn't be right to end the series without Luffy proving Crocodile wrong once and for all, and make him change his worldview, now would it? But hey, the good news is that there might be no better way to prove Crocodile wrong than to have his son unconditionally forgive him and accept him as his father.

All of this to say; yes, I think if Crocodad was real, it would heavily impact Crocodile's character and whatever character arc he might have. Like I'm not arguing for Crocodad in the name of meme'ing. His whole story could suddenly tie into so many of series' core themes and messages, and tie into our main character in a meaningful way. It could impact heavily where the story as a whole is heading.

The other, more likely option is that Crocodad isn't real and that I have lost my marbles thinking I was onto something with this post. In the end, time will be the judge of that. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed my utter derangement.

Minor EDIT (Oct 20th, 2024) but. Because I am still obsessed with Crocodad, I keep on thinking about it and both coming to new conclusions and noticing new things, and I wanted to link a few shorter posts I wrote recently because I think they add to Crocodad, if in minor ways

Crocodile's motif is being a protector

Ivankov's fame as a miracle worker matching the Crocodad Timeline

Whitebeard would not have invited a woman on his crew (side tangent; the actual post is about something else)

[uhohdad]

EXPERIMENTAL - Konig Fic Part 2

Summary: Konig helps Researcher!Reader with a new technology they’ve been developing.

Part one: X

AO3 Link: X

Warnings: Flirting, Sexual Content, NSFW, Reader x Konig, talk of standard war stuff, Reader is a bit of a pervert. Non-con Voyeurism. Reader has anxious thoughts/low-self esteem-ish? No use of y/n, abduction, bondage, blood and injury.

Word Count: 7.2k

Reader gender/sex is incomprehensible cause I do it for the girls, the gays, and the theys

NSFW under the cut

It probably didn’t mean anything, right?

How common is your name, really? He probably was just thinking about his girlfriend or wife at home who just happens to share the same name as you, the same wife he didn’t happen to mention during your introductions - even if it would have been a really good icebreaker.

Yeah, that’s it.

It couldn’t have been about you.

Could it?

Your thoughts are spiraling now, not giving yourself the room to dissect one detail before your brain throws another at you. You still haven’t moved, wide eyes watching warm light reflect on his skin as he basks in post-orgasm bliss.

He’s still for a while, and you’re wondering if the finish had tired him out enough to lull him into a nap.

After a few minutes of watching the rise and fall of his chest, you decide the show was over and closed out of the software. There was some part of you, some part you’d hoped wouldn’t ever come to light, that decided to keep his feed connected.

You’ve crossed so many lines already. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?

You feel like you’ve ruined whatever chance you’ve had with him, violating his privacy like this. This was a man that wasn’t even comfortable showing his face, how did you think he was going to feel knowing a stranger has not only seen him fully naked but watched him jerk his cock to completion?

He doesn’t have to know. No one has to know. It’ll be our little secret and we’ll just pretend it never happened.

Yeah, you acted real casual today when you hadn’t done a horrible, awful, perverted thing. I’m sure you’ll act real casual the next time you have to look him in the eyes.

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

You rest your head on your keyboard not-so-gently, accidentally booting up an ancient mail software that was sure to kick your laptop’s fans into overdrive. An audible groan leaves your mouth.

Who knew non-consensual voyeurism would leave such a horrific feeling of guilt in the pit of your stomach?

That and the arousal that sits right underneath. Your underwear now had a wet stain from watching the show, unconsciously rubbing your thighs together as you had.

There was no way you were going to be able to focus on work now. You had been planning on staying late, but there’s no way you can analyze today’s data. Review his feed. Replay your conversations. Hear his breathing…

No, you just can’t do it right now. It’s too much.

You do a quick round of the lab, performing a sloppy iteration of your closing procedures, pack up your things, and head out for the day.

Before you do, you decide you might as well round out the horrific deed by doing one last terrible thing.

You pair your personal cell phone to the software and send yourself the erotic recording of Konig.

You’ll start fresh tomorrow, you decide.

————————————————————-

You most certainly did not start fresh tomorrow.

The next few days are a vicious cycle.

Go to work. Review Konig’s simulation footage. Fantasize. Feel guilty. Review raw data. Think about Konig touching himself. Feel aroused. Feel guilty. Rewrite codes. Go home. Watch erotic recording. Feel aroused. Get off.

Feel guilty.

Feel guilty.

Feel guilty.

You can’t help it. You’re out of control, an addict desperate to get their fix, ashamed of their actions but lacking the willpower to quit.

How are you supposed to stop thinking about him when all day at work you’re watching him fight his way through the shoot house, strong hands gripping his gun, and hearing to that laugh?

How can you go home and ignore the recording of him finishing while moaning your name?

You must have replayed it a thousand times. He moaned it like he was begging you, pleading with you. Such a powerful man choking on your name. Even after a full week had passed, it still had the power to excite you in ways you haven’t felt in ages.

Your next meeting with Konig was scheduled for today and if you had to judge solely by the feeling in your gut, you would’ve guessed you had eaten rocks for breakfast. Your brain tells you to flee and fast but your body is promised to these four walls. Your leg bounces as you pick at the fingers that beg for something to do besides type code.

You wanted to call it off. Tell Konig you weren’t feeling well and you’d try again next week. Or maybe hit the bricks entirely. Just walk out of the building and never look back. Forget about everything.

You’re reconsidering your career choices as a steady knock on the lab’s swinging door rips you from your thoughts.

Your wince before you look up, quickly plastering what you hope is a convincing smile on your face.

He catches your eyes through the glass and you notice them crinkle, unable to place an emotion to it. You’d been dreading this moment all week. Even going so far as to avoid looking at his live feed after the incident, just in case you weren’t able to feign the natural responses of hearing his recounts for the ‘first’ time. That in addition to the intrapersonal understanding that you couldn’t handle carrying anymore guilt-rocks in your stomach.

Looking him in the eyes was as hard as you imagined it to be. He pushes open the door and steps in, standing hesitantly near the entrance like he did last week. You notice he has a notepad in one hand, and it looks so comically small compared to his size. Like a giant holding a sticky note. In the other he holds your earpiece in an open palm, as if hesitant to wrap his fingers around it.

It doesn’t help that the first word that left his mouth as he entered the lab was your name. Flashbacks to his sweaty body, shuddering in pleasure as he came all over his rippling muscles grab your attention.

He had followed it up with something, but you had been too distracted to catch it. You close your eyes, touching your hand to your forehead.

You were not doing a very good job hiding your fluster.

“I’m so sorry- what’d you say?” You give a small laugh, partly to ease the tension in your chest and partly at the situation itself. It’s not funny, you know that. It’s terrible. So terribly ridiculous that you can’t help but laugh at yourself for getting yourself into this mess. Your hand follows through the rest of your hair in an effort to soothe yourself before falling back down at your side.

“Good to see you.” He repeats, tilting his head, taking just a few careful steps closer to you. His eyes dart to the side briefly before returning to you, “Is everything okay?”

You give another weak laugh, “Yeah, sorry. Just still in the zone.” You gesture vaguely at scattered papers and devices on the table. You don’t give him a chance to pry further, “How was it?”

He takes a moment to eye you carefully, and you are sure he’s about to call your bluff before he responds, “Remarkable.”

You swallow, breaking eye contact with him again. It’s always been hard for you to accept a compliment. You're hoping he doesn’t notice the warmth creeping up your cheeks, but you know you have absolutely no right to such a request after what you’ve done.

He clears his throat before he continues, “I promised you I would have feedback. It wasn’t easy.” He holds his notepad up briefly as he steps up to the table to carefully set it down along with your earpiece. You can see from across the table he’s got a few scribbled sentences spaced out on the notepad. You take note of his sloppy handwriting from across the table, before realizing he didn’t write in English.

He looks down at his notes and you’re thankful you have something to stare at that’s not Konig’s eyes or intimidating frame. You’re trying hard not to think about the body filling out his gear. You’ve grown so accustomed to seeing him naked that it’s almost strange to see him with his uniform on.

You can tell he takes a deep breath before continuing and you wonder briefly if he’s nervous about sharing his feedback, worried he will hurt your feelings. “You mentioned before that it scans objects?” The end of his sentence lifts, almost like he’s asking you a question, “I think it would be good to make sure that the user is always made aware of landmines. I’m positive it will save lives.”

“Yes, absolutely. That’s a great idea.” You nod as you jot his ideas down on your laptop, a reminder to update your code.

You’re happy to be talking shop. Even happier to be talking about defensive designs instead of offensive ones.

The way he rubs his bicep with his opposing hand triggers a realization. You finally look at his eyes, his still staring down at his notes, and watch him for a moment.

The idea didn’t come from thin air.

You wonder what he saw, what traumatic memories are being replayed behind the downcast eyes to inspire such an idea.

You feel an ache in your chest for him, the desire to alienate his discomfort but unequipped to do so. Instead you look at him, your eyes swollen with sympathy and the corner of your mouth pinched in a frown.

He takes a moment before looking back up at you. He notices your warped expression but misinterprets it, “Am I overstepping?”

Your voice is low and you press a hand to your heart, “No, Konig, not at all. This is very helpful.” You’re not sure what else to say to him. What do you say to a man haunted by the violence he’s witnessed?

The only thing you can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again.

You’re not working for the government anymore, you decided. You’re going to work for Konig. To tailor your device with the purpose to save and protect him.

So you stick to the topic at hand. “Any other ideas?” You ask, voice still soft with empathy as you glance down at the notes written in German.

“Uh,” He clears his throat again and touches the back of his neck over his hood, the fabric pulling a bit on the front, “Sometimes when we’re in the heat of things, I can’t always get to my remote.” He gestured to the band on his wrist. “Do you think it would be possible to have voice command?”

Your brain’s mulling over the possibility. You’re surprised you haven’t thought of it yet. You could eliminate the remote entirely, you’re sure your supervisor will be elated with the big savings on material costs. The earpiece already has a microphone for the comm, it wouldn’t be hard for you to configure it to an additional feature.

“Absolutely, voice control. That’s clever.” Your brain is already running with alternatives to the wrist remote as you type his ideas, “Do you go on a lot of missions that require stealth?” It’s easier to make eye contact with him when you’re discussing work. He nods, and you continue, “In addition to voice command, I could also add hand controls, able to identify and respond to the signal you give it - totally silent.” You tap your fingers on the table twice, “The only draw I can think of is having to memorize control signals.”

He thinks it over for a moment and shifts in his spot, “That’s even better.”

“I think it’ll be best to have both.” Your keyboard clicks under your fingers as you enter the ideas coming to you faster than you can get them down.

This is great. I’m not even thinking about-

Stop it.

“These are great, Konig, really. Anything else?”

Your encouragement makes him look away. You follow his stare as it darts to the side and then down to his notes. He places one hand on the table next to the notepad as he leans his weight onto it.

You briefly picture yourself between him and the table, his arm pinning you in as he towers over you, hunched to watch you like you’re his prey, chests so close they’re almost touching.

You quickly push the thought to the side, moving your attention back to your laptop. The only way to survive this meeting is to repress.

Repress your memories of what he looks like with his cock in his hand, arching his hips into the thrusts. Repress the sound of his moans and your name echoing clearly in your brain. Repress the guilt from the breach of privacy to the highest degree.

Please, just until we get through this.

You close your eyes and take a breath to collect yourself while he’s not looking.

He’s got other things written on the notepad, you’re sure. Unless the two ideas he’d already pitched managed to take up the whole page. “No.”

Your brows furrow, the question leaving your mouth without thought, “You’re sure?”

He pauses. You can tell he’s sitting on a thought, but you don’t know what.

“It’s okay. Like I said, it’s just a prototype. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

He straightens his posture before he speaks, “No. That was all I could think of.” He swallows, “If you feel I didn’t make good on my promise, I can fix it.”

“No, no!” You say with urgency, a hand shaking in his direction, “Those ideas you gave me were perfect. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t holding back on me.” A weak laugh escapes you. “I can’t stress how helpful this has been. I’m glad we’re doing this.”

Konig looks at you, those intimidating eyes staring at you from across the table. You wish you could see his face, hoping it would give some insight on what was going through his head. Even if you could you don’t think you’d be able to maintain eye contact.

He knows.

No, he doesn’t, shut up.

“I’ll keep thinking.” He says definitively, like he’s trying to right a wrong.

“You’ve only had it for a week,” you reassure, “Besides, you’ve given me plenty to work with.” You force a smile at him, not even caring how it’s coming off because you’re just hoping not to choke on the tension suffocating the room. You wonder if he feels it too, or if it’s all in your head.

He nods, and you look to your laptop in a futile attempt to thwart the dread suddenly pooling in your stomach. You’re reminded of what you’ve done when he crosses his arms, and your eyes are drawn to the same bicep on the arm that he used to pleasure himself. You’re picturing how it looks under his uniform, comparing it to your filthy reference. Your heart quickens and you can’t help but take in his build, even from across the long lab table. You feel extra small sitting on your stool while he stands, arms still crossed, staring.

The air between you two is definitely weird. Him getting off to probably-not-you and you watching but him not knowing that you know will certainly fill the room with a tension unlike any other.

These drawn-out silences are smothering you, not knowing what goes on being his hood.

He looks disappointed in you.

He knows.

“How can I help you in the meantime?”

You can’t help but breathe a small sigh of relief. You were planning on taking him back out to shoot house, running a few more simulations, and having him give feedback on a few more overlays.

You scrap that plan, looking forward to expanding on his ideas while your synapses are still firing.

“Well, here’s my thoughts so far. Landmine identification, the coding for that will be easy. The device already has the scanning capability for obscured objects. All I have to do is enable the specific object for full-time recognition. The hard part will be testing. I’ll have to meet with weapons development to develop prop landmines for simulation.”

You glance at the notes on your laptop, “Voice control - easy. Mic’s already installed and all I would have to do is add speech-to-text recognition, repurpose the wrist control coding, and then…testing.” Your hand finds the side of your face as you think it over, “Well, I may need to sample voice lines from you and a couple of your friends…” You loosely gesture with the same hand as you continue, “But there may be workarounds to that. Put a pin in that.” You’re on a roll now, “Now the hand controls - that might be more complicated. I’m thinking I’ll have to start fresh with the hardware.” You look up, “Then again… it already has the scanning capacity. I could probably just teach the current model with software alone. But the coding will take some time to figure out.”

Your eyes find him again. He’s staring and as per usual you can’t decipher it.

“Y’know,” you continue with a smile, “You could help me come up with hand signals?”

He nods.

He doesn’t give you much to work with, does he?

“I’ll need references of your hands. To teach the AI, is that okay?”

He looks down in a way that makes you feel so, so ashamed. If he is hesitant about recordings of just his gloved hands, how would he feel if he found out about what you did? About the video living on your phone?

After a moment he looks back up at you, “I’ll do it.” His voice is stern as usual, always treating everything with importance, with determination.

You give him another shaky smile, “Might be awhile. Wanna sit?”

He pulls up a stool to his end of the table and you instruct him to put his earpiece on as you return to your software on the laptop, trying not to trigger the memory of the last time you watched his feed. You pretend to resync your devices, glad he can’t see your screen. A wave of shame washes over you.

You’re both collaborating for some time, you offering a prompt and him stiffly coming up with a corresponding hand command. You supervise his feed, having him tilt his hands so the AI has references from multiple angles.

The rest of the meeting is professional and you manage to steady your obsessive thoughts as best you can. It’s hard to observe his hands and not think about the video, about what you watched those same hands do.

About how those hands would feel mapping all of the curves of your body.

How they would feel gripping onto your hips as you rode him.

How they would feel sneaking up your thighs, teasing you.

Somehow, you make it.

Once you decide you’ve covered enough references, Konig heads out, and you hope to continue staving off your thoughts by wasting no time on incorporating his ideas into your design. You’re hoping to have a least one rough draft done before next week’s meeting, so you plan on hunkering down and forfeit your Friday night to work overtime.

—————————————————————-

It’s late in the evening, you can tell by how your eyes are burning, strained from staring at your bright screen. You don’t bother to check the actual time. It would just bum you out. Spending your Friday night working. Not that you would have been doing anything partially exciting if you hadn’t. You probably would have just spent your evening analyzing footage anyway, just of a more perverted genre.

When you finally call it quits, the base is barren. Everyone’s gone home or retired to their quarters by now. It’s quiet after the base door shuts behind you, automatic locks clicking into place.

You’re feeling better after today’s meeting with Konig. Somewhere in the previous week you’d convinced yourself that he knew, that at any moment he was going to report you, and at any moment security would bust in the lab to escort you out.

Seeing him again, even though you couldn’t always figure out what he was thinking, reassured you that he hadn’t somehow telepathically figured out your terrible deed. You don’t think he would have bothered to keep helping you, or even be able to look at you without disgust if he did know.

The meeting also re-sparked your feelings of arousal and excitement. The knot in your lower abdomen made its presence known again. So much more desirable than the spiraling guilt. You’ve come to lean into the highs, enjoying it while you can, knowing soon you’ll be feeling nauseous at the thought of yourself.

You don’t know how much longer you can take the rollercoaster. This week has been exhausting. You can’t believe you’ve allowed this man to root himself into your life, seeping into every facet.

Career, personal, sexual, and - well, you’re still in denial about the romantic feelings - but it’s incredibly impressive how this man was capable of fucking your entire life up for the small price of a couple of hours and a few exchanged words.

When you finally get to the privacy of your home, you let out an audible groan. Loud enough to carry but quiet enough to not disturb the neighbors. You just needed to let something out, it was getting frustrating.

You didn’t want to think anymore, you didn’t want to think!

“Long day at work?”

You freeze, and the sound of heavy footsteps fill your ears. Two armed soldiers with fully equipped gear stride from the depth of your home, meeting you at the entrance.

The sight of them alone is enough to intimidate you. You instinctively back against the locked door, your trunk obscuring a hand moving towards the doorknob.

“Tsk, tsk. I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”The taller of the two soldiers wears a black balaclava with a skull stitched in, his unimpressed stare drilling into you. You hear a click, and your wide eyes lock on to the gun in his hands, pointing right at your core.

You slowly release the doorknob, raising your shaking hands so they could see your palms.

“That’s good babe,” The other soldier speaks, but you’re too busy staring down the barrel of the gun to worry about it.

“I have to admit I’m a little upset with you,” Skull-face, as you appropriately nicknamed him, speaks as his eyes bore into you, “You kept us waiting a long time.”

He’s got some sort of thick accent laced into his grave voice, they both do, actually, but you’re too busy trying not to piss your pants to be able to place the region of origin.

A lump forms in your throat and you don’t think you‘ve taken a breath since you heard the unfamiliar voice in your home.

It’s violating. Them being here. Where you go after a long day of work to relax. Where you eat, sleep, shower, and just be.

How dare they defile and taint your safe place, where you hide away and pretend the exhausting world around you doesn’t exist?

You’re stuck, unsure of your next move and paralyzed with fear.

“We think you have something we want.”

You’re not sure what they mean, but you nod in compliance anyway. Not much you can say no to against two heavily armed men. You finally break your gaze away from the gun and take turns making frightful eye contact with them. You speak after a failed attempt of swallowing your fear, voice soft and broken, “Take it.”

They exchange a knowing glance with each other, the man with his face exposed bears an irritatingly smug grin.

Skull-face approaches you threateningly, sending fear down your spine and making your skin crawl as you push yourself further into the door. He leaves no room for pleas as he flips his gun around, the stock coming down on your forehead with enough force to knock you out cold.

————————————————————-

Your splitting headache was the first thing you registered when you came to. You can’t seem to concentrate, the fog in your brain so extreme your thoughts are incoherent. You let out a meek whimper as you attempt to open your eyes, the lights in the room stunning you and intensifying the throbbing pain in your skull. You wince, closing your eyes again to block it out.

A few moments pass - and the next thing you notice is the dryness in your mouth, unable to manage a swallow from the dehydration.

Water.

The only intelligible thought you’ve had after registering your discomfort, the instinctual desire stronger than the dizzy haze clouding your brain.

You lift your head, trying to move but your weakened muscles fail you.

Your muscles are weak, yes, but what’s really keeping you in place are the restraints.

You wince again, eyes scrunched to block out the brutal light as you tug to confirm you’re secured. Your wrists were bound behind you, your shoulders overextending around the back of the chair you were planted on. Your ankles bound to either leg of the chair. There’s another restraint wrapping under your arms and around the back of the chair, keeping your upper half upright. There’s a rashy burn underneath the coarse ropes that dug into your skin as your unconscious body leaned into it.

You let out another whimper from the back of your coarse throat. While you weren’t alert, every instinct within you notified you of the danger you were in.

Gotta move.

You try to squint one eye, but it still doesn’t save you from the flash intensity of your headache. Your eyes are stinging on top of it and you realize you’re partially blinded, vision blurred and doubled, stained red with your own blood.

You grit your teach, determined to figure out where you are. You try to concentrate your vision but to no avail.

Even so, you can tell you’re not at home, and you’re not on base.

Once you make your discovery, one that expended what little willpower you had, your eyes clench back shut, desperate to alleviate the migraine.

A secondary location, you thought to yourself through the pain, I’m fucked.

You can’t hear anything, the ringing in your ears deafening you.

You let out one more defeated whine before resting your chin on your chest, pinching your eyes closed.

You have no idea how long you drift in and out of consciousness for. During the brief moments you come to, you’re so disoriented you can’t make sense of your thoughts, and that coupled with the debilitating pain in your head is unnerving enough to make you cry tears of pure confusion.

It’s your neck snapping back to follow the hair yanking on your scalp that jolts you awake, and try to open your eyes to find the threat but they’re still not working as they should. Underneath the debilitating ringing, you can hear the sound of muffled male voices, unable to make out what they’re saying.

You gave up.

You were wounded & trapped, and in nature that meant a death sentence. You were in no shape to properly defend yourself. Couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t move, couldn’t think.

You were as done as the toast made from your own designs.

After wincing, your eyes screwed shut, you go limp and give in to the man physically controlling you like a sadistic puppeteer.

The muffled voices are louder, you still can’t make out their words but you can tell they’re having some sort of argument. They’re yelling at each other, and your scalp becomes collateral as the one tightens his grip on your hair to match his escalated volume

He’s right in your ear now and it’s not helping with the headache.

Just hurry it up, You manage through the haze, just hurry it up and put me out of my misery.

He throws your head forward to the position it was in before, slumped over as much as the ropes would allow with your chin pointed to the ground. The force rattles your skull in a way that makes you see a searing white behind your eyelids. What little water you had left in you was escaping through your swollen eyes lids and down tear-stained cheeks.

Just kill me, please.

——————————————————-

When you come to again, you’re no longer sitting. You’re flat on your back. Your neck secured so your head is in line with your spine. Your headache takes the front stage but the pain has noticeably subsided. You try to open your eyes again, but the lights above you are still excruciating.

You let out a low moan and shut your eyes again.

Your ears still ring, but a good portion of your hearing has returned to you. You hear your name, followed by, “are you awake?”

You grunt in response, unable to form sentences.

“Can you open your eyes for me?”

You wince, trying to shake your head but unable. Instead, you grunt again before parting your lips. You tried to say, “Lights,” but your voice is so hoarse it comes out broken and cracked.

“What is it?”

You try and clear your throat, putting all your power into your strained voice, “Lights.”

They understand, and while you still can’t hear the flick of the switch, you can tell from behind your eyelids they’ve been shut off.

You try to mutter a “Thank you,” but give up a quarter of the way through.

You slowly open your eyes, still burning but blood wiped away from them. Your vision is still blurry, but no longer doubled.

“Do you remember what happened?”

You try to shake your head, but can’t. So you force a weak, “No.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“No.”

“Do you know what today’s date is?”

You just grunt, closing your eyes again. You didn’t know the answer but you were too fed up with the questions to respond.

“Can you see?”

You grunt again.

“Okay, how ‘bout this? Can you wiggle your fingers for me?”

You try to lift your arm in the direction of the voice but your action is cut short, your arm jerked still by a restraint on your wrist. You open and close your fingers slowly at the maximum range the restraint will allow.

“How ‘bout your toes?”

Your toes move slightly, your calves aching at even such a mild movement.

“Good, thank you. How’s the hearing?”

Kill me or leave me alone, you think.

You eventually freeze the owner of voice out, finally leaving you alone to rest.

The next few days are a miserable, confusing blur. Somewhere along the way you’re informed you’re in medical, being treated for your extreme concussion. No skull fracture, thankfully, but they suspect the bruising is severe if it was enough to knock you unconscious.

The concussion had scrambled you good, and you were not nearly as sharp as you usually are.

It took you a whole five days, not that you could keep track of the passing time, before you realized that you were not at medical on your base.

You were in medical, restrained to a hospital bed-

in enemy care.

————————————————————

There was nothing you could do. Restrained to your bed, sedated with painkillers when they thought you were becoming too active.

“To help you rest.” They told you, but you couldn't trust a word that came out of their mouths.

Medics are supposed to be neutral, bound to an ethical code to heal the injured, enemy or not. That didn’t stop some medics from harboring grudges after years of patching up their own soldier’s brutal wounds of war.

The next time the medicine wears off for a long amount of time, with no medics in sight, you conveniently get visitors, the soldiers that had visited you in your home.

The events had been beaten out of you, but the traumatic event had seeped somewhere deeper into your psyche, and you knew deep down you were in trouble at the mere sight of them.

Skull-face especially, you don’t know how or why, but your intuition tells you he’s responsible for this. “Ready to answer some questions? Or do you need me to put you back to sleep?”

You can tell by the sharp edge in his voice he doesn’t mean the painkillers.

“Maybe I’d be able to answer your questions if you hadn’t given me brain damage.” Your patience is running thin, and an ember ignites a flame inside you, “Who knows what information you knocked out of me.” You stare directly into his eyes, brows furrowed, the tone of your voice inviting trouble in.

He already took everything away from you. At this point you don’t care if he puts you under. You’re begging him too. Every time you wake up you just want to go back to sleep. You don’t want to deal with it, any of it.

Skull-face makes a move to advance but the maskless soldier stops him by putting an arm out, laying it firmly across his to hold him back.

You don’t flinch, eyes now staring down the soldier with a stubbled jaw and a mohawk that ended in a widow's peak. It’s a haircut you find highly unusual for a soldier.

Your face doesn’t crack, but you squint at the pair, “What do you even want to know? I don’t even work on the field, I have no information.”

Skull-face looks down at you, “Oh, we know.” That stupid accent and that stupid mask. If you weren’t restrained you think you would have launched at him, risking it all to get a few good scratches in with your fingernails. He reaches into his pocket and your eyes widen and your brows retract at what he pulls out.

Not a weapon, no.

It’s your design, the AI-powered earpiece, and your wrist remote.

Skull-face notices the realization that sets across your face, “Awh, looks like your memory is working fine after all.”

The flame inside you laps at your skin, your features flushing with anger. A lot at Skull-face, for being such a cocky prick, but mostly at yourself.

You did this yourself. You figured your day of reckoning would come eventually. That karma would bite you in the ass, and those who are affected by your designs will stand by and laugh at your demise.

You should have just stuck with redesigning kitchen appliances.

“Why don’t you show us what you’ve been cooking up, huh? We know you’ve been busy.”

The pair share another knowing glance, Mohawk snickering at your expense.

“How did you get that?” You ask through gritted teeth, knowing there’s no way they could have gotten into the highly secured base.

“What is it?” Skull-face asks.

“It’s an intercom.” You grit, the ache in your head pulsing. You miss the painkillers.

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not.”

Mohawk steps in, “It’s okay, we all get embarrassed about our porn.”

You furrow your brows at him.

What the hell was he talking about?

Skull-face elbows him in the side, but it doesn’t keep his partner from smiling, “What is it?” He asks again.

“It’s an intercom.”

He’s getting sick of this game and he goes to step to you again but Mohawk cuts him short. “Ghost!” He says firmly.

Ghost, that was Skull-faces name. Or call sign, at least. You hated him, but you’d wished the other soldier would just let him at you. You didn’t care anymore.

Mohawk looks at you, “Look, there’s only so much I can do,” gesturing to Ghost, “Can’t we all just get along for a little bit, yeah?”

“How about you get along with deez nuts.” You laugh at your dumb joke, a laugh influenced by the daze of concussion and painkillers. You’re in hysteria, the laugh spills out and doesn’t let up. A release of built-up stress and frustration and anger that seeped out uncontrollably. Cackling at yourself for ending up in this situation. Only you would be capable of such hijinks. The laugh leaves you out of breath and with eyes full of tears. You don’t even care how it exacerbates the headache, or how you’re coming off as insane. It feels too good to let out the pent-up emotions, one way or another.

Your elation is cut short with a squeak as a gloved hand cuts harshly into your trachea. Ghost squeezes, roughly lifting you by the neck before shoving you back down on the hospital bed, his grip tighter than before. His voice is low and filled with caution, “I am getting sick of you.”

If you could breathe enough to talk, you’d tell him the feeling’s mutual. Instead you gag and sputter, which he takes as a sign that you are still getting air, and forces more of his weight onto your neck.

Your hands fail to defend yourself, the restraints holding you from fighting back. You’re getting close to blacking out, your laugh having already knock most of the wind out of you, but Mohawk pulls Ghost off of you, his hands firm on Ghost’s shoulders, “Stop! Stop.”

You involuntarily gasp, desperate for air, trying not to choke on your own spit. For a moment all you can hear is the blood rushing in your ears, flowing desperately to replace what Ghost restricted.

“Come on, last try.” He warns, and you can tell in your voice he means it.

You eye him carefully, still heaving for air. When you collect yourself, you speak, “I’ll show you.” You say, voice weak and breathy. You try to hold out your hand, but get stopped by the restraints.

Mohawk glances at Ghost, but Ghost keeps his stern eyes trained on you. He stays still for a moment, studying you with his arms crossed.

You roll your eyes, your chest still huffing as you reclaim your air, “Don’t trust me? Fine. I’ll walk you through it. Put the fucking bracelet on.”

He stares for another moment before taking the device from Mohawk. Must of handed it off so he could strangle you better.

He puts it on his wrist.

“Now tap the top.”

He follows your instructions, the wrist remote’s projection displaying above his wrist.

“Go ahead and open your settings.” You guide him through it, activating a few select overlays. “You got it. Now put the earpiece on.”

Ghost hesitates, looking over to his companion before he slowly reaches up underneath his balaclava, attaching the earpiece.

“Yep, and while you’re in there, go ahead and hit the button on the base.”

You watch as your design activates, displaying the transparent overlay over his eyes. He’s taken aback, unnerved by the unidentified design being so close to his vulnerable eyes.

“Ta-da!” You say sarcastically, showing off the full range of the restraints as you offer weak jazz hands. “So I’ve given you some information. Maybe you can give me a little information, yeah?”

He doesn’t say anything as he removes his hand from his mask.

“Where am I?” You ask.

“You know where you are.”

“How’d you find me?”

“We tracked your cell phone.”

You squint, “Why were you tracking my phone?” It doesn’t make any sense, there’s no way they would have been able to pin your cell phone information back to base. You don’t use it for work and there’s no way you had connected to the private Wi-Fi. It’s apples and oranges, you think.

Mohawk steps in front of Ghost and holds out his phone in your direction. It takes a moment for the image to come into view, your vision still impaired. When your eyes adjust, the screen shows you something that makes your blood turn cold.

It’s the video of Konig jerking off.

“Okay! Okay.” You wave your hands, “Just put that away, I get it.”

When you connected your phone to your software to transfer the recording of Konig, it briefly connected to your laptop.

Base internet has state-of-the-art firewalls and encryptions to prevent surveillance, hack-in, key logs.

Cell phones do not.

So they’ve been tracking you all week, and who knows what kind of information they were able to pull from your software? From your laptop, containing dozens of government secrets?

No, you think, they wouldn’t be going through the trouble of keeping me alive if they had the information on my laptop.

“What’s the matter? Embarrassed that gettin’ your rocks off caused a security breach in confidential information regarding warfare development?” Mohawk mocks.

Well, yes you were, now that he mentions it. You’re actually very worried your perverted little stunt will somehow end up forever immortalized in history books.

In the moment, though, your main concern was making sure that Konig wouldn’t find out, as you had started transmitting the device’s feed to him as soon as Ghost turned the earpiece on.

Part Three

[strniohoeee]

Could you write a Matt x fem y/n where she gets overwhelmed with life (or something like that) and she tries to hide it from Matt. She fails miserably and in telling him what’s wrong she has a panic attack, so he has to guide her through it. Like kind of angsty in the beginning but very fluffy in the end? If that’s okay with you?

Trapped

Pairing: Matt Sturniolo X Female Reader

Synopsis: Y/N is struggling to balance her stressful life without realizing it. Unable to figure out what’s wrong some questions from Matt make her spiral and panic takes place🗣️

Warnings⚠️: None it’s just short 😭

Song for the imagine: Silver Soul- Beach House

Trap

(Past tense) Trapped

Verb

Prevent (someone) from escaping from a place

Lately my mind has been clouded by this overwhelming feeling of stress. I’m not usually a stressed person, but when I do find myself getting overwhelmed I handle it well.

But right now in this moment I wasn’t sure what was wrong and why I couldn’t control these feelings. I suppose it’s true that stress is a silent killer.

I couldn’t really pinpoint why my mind was racing and I felt this impending doom waiting for me. Like I was on the brink of snapping?

To make matters worse I’ve been distancing myself from Matt and his brothers because I didn’t want to seem like a buzz kill. Constantly plagued by the “what’s wrong” was making me annoyed. Because I simply couldn’t say what was wrong because I didn’t even know.

Matt had come over to my apartment to spend the night with me. I felt horrible because he was so excited and I just wanted peace and quiet, and to go to sleep.

I was being such a bitch, and I tried not to be but it was becoming very hard. My mind was constantly racing and for what? I had no idea….

“Baby are you okay?” Matt asked me, snapping me out of my trance

“Huh what?” I said looking at him

“Well I’ve been talking to you and you haven’t said a thing” he said furrowing his brows at me

“I’m- I’m sorry” I said shaking my head

“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem off” he replied rubbing my arm

“Yes Matt I’m fine” I said sternly kind of brushing his arm off of me

“Oh uhh I’m sorry” he said snatching his hand back

“Listen I’m sorry I’m just not feeling the best today” I said rubbing my forehead

“Would you like to talk about it?” He asked repositioning himself on the couch

“What is there to talk about when I don’t even know what’s going on in my brain” I said frustrated

“I’m not trying to make you upset so we don’t have to talk about” he said looking at me

“I’m sorry, okay, it’s not you I promise. I’m just stressed” I said back to him

“Well baby what are you stressed about?” He asked reading my face for an answer

“Matt I don’t know okay” I said feeling my heart beat quicken

“It’s okay” he said rubbing my knee which caused my anxiety to spike even more

His over analyzing of the situation made my brain go haywire. Anxious thoughts infiltrating my mind.

“I’m just stressed about a lot…..my content, and then my part time job and then also juggling school, and then my mom called me the other day to say that my dog is probably dying, and I have tons of bills and so much stuff to do and such little time” I said my chest rising and falling

“It’s okay to feel that way. You’re young and you’re doing a lot and living on your own isn’t easy” he said tucking my hair behind my ear

“And the warranty is up for my car so I have to call and purchase it again, and my manager has been trying to get a meeting in with me, and I have to fly back home in two weeks”

“and….and…..why does my chest feel like it’s tightening?” I suddenly blurted out the last part

“Y/N, you have to calm down okay. You’re freaking yourself out just breathe” Matt said sitting up

“I can’t breathe and my hearing is going out, my vision seems blurry? Am I going to pass out?? Why can’t I breathe Matt?” I said breathing quickly and erratically

“Listen to me, okay listen to my voice. You’re having a panic attack. You need to focus on your breathing and calm down” he said grabbing my hands and sitting in front of me

“I can’t” I said staring blankly as tears ran down my face

“Yes you can baby” he said

“Why am I crying?” I asked trying to breathe

“You’re having a breakdown, you’re going to be okay just do as I say” he replied back

“Remember when I took you to the cape and we went to that river?” He asked me

“Yes” I said shakily

“Okay now breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth” he said wiping my tears

“Well remember how beautiful it looked, and how vibrant the tree were….we sat down on a rock and you put your feet in the water” he said to me

“Yes I remember” I replied blinking my tears away

“And you tried to count the rocks in the water but you couldn’t” he said

“Yeah there were too many I kept messing up” I said laughing a bit

“And then you just focused on the water running through your feet, and you said that-“ I cut him off

“I said that it felt like silk running along my skin” I replied smiling at him

“Exactly, and you said the wind blowing through your hair made you feel like a main character in a movie” he replied laughing

“Yes I remember” I said laughing

“And do you remember who was there with you?” He asked and to this I furrowed my eyebrows

“Of course Matt, it was you” I said looking at him

“Exactly, I will be with you no matter what. I will always be by your side” he said kissing my knuckles

I had calmed down and my mind had cleared. Finally coming to my senses at what just happened. My body and mind feeling exhausted

“Thank you Matt” I said smiling at him

“Always my love. I’ll always be here for you. You should never let yourself get this way. If you ever feel any amount of stress just tell me I can help you” he said rubbing my cheek with his thumb

“I’m sorry I just don’t want to seem like a burden” I replied looking down

“You’re never a burden. Because when I’m stressed you’re always there to help me and I want you to do the same” he told me

“Okay Matt I will. I promise” I said leaning into his chest after he sat back on the couch

“Listen, you're doing well enough to quit your part time job, and if you ever need any money for anything just let me know okay. I want to help you! I’ll fly with you back home, and I'll go to the dealership to get the warranty package for your car again. Let’s look at your calendar together and schedule the meeting with your manager. And I can help be your study buddy for your courses” he replied rubbing my shoulders

“Thank you Matt I really appreciate it” I said melting into his touch

“This is what I’m here for! To be there for you always” he replied kissing my shoulder

“I love you” I said

“I love you too” he replied back

I looked over my shoulder and he placed a kiss on my lips. A kiss that let me know how loved I was….

The End

Hiiiii I hope you enjoyed this one! I have two stories similar to this on my page, so I tried my best to make it different😭😭 I love yall and I hope you enjoyed this one🥹🖤🖤

-J💅🏽

[luffyvace]

HIHIHIHI TYSM FOR DOING MY REQUEST ^U^ I hope u Don't mind me dropping another one u :'))

Can I have kusuo reaction to Reader-chan being mostly know for her gore/angst/horror series but looks like nothing for a person to write this stuff (she looks absolutely innocent) yet having a (technically an old man) friend who is also anonymous writer for one of kusuo favorite series yet the said look absolutely opposite of it (the reader-chan and her friend are like Junji Ito and hayao miyazaki)

I'm sorry if u couldn't understand the request:')) my English isn't really the best-

HII DARLING! No problem at all! Of course I don’t mind! Request at any time as long as they say open <3

ohhh so she’s a horror writer :> OHHH I was confused at first but as soon as I searched them up and saw the memes I understood 😂💓

This is such a cute and funny topic! Enjoy your hcs anon 💖 ⚠️ Gore mentions⚠️

Kusuo isn’t easily scared.

there are very few things that actually do scare him, considering he can sense everything coming from a mile away

But shows and books are an exception (given he doesn’t stare at the pages to see through the book-)

he’s not normally into horror but your manga is actually very interesting to him!

seeing a bunch of mutilated corpses packed together is quite a gripping sight for him!

and honestly he is obbsessed likes normalcy but your case is a type of unique he doesn’t mind :)

it’s funny since you have this friendly and kind personality and your work is the exact opposite of that 🤗

it’s giving the cute core girlies!! (and guys!! <3) 💓💗💖🌸🌷💞🎀

he still gets the perk of reading the chapter before publish and giving small ideas for stuff

You once put his favorite character from another series in one of the manga panels and he when he noticed it he had a little smile on his face! 💗

he wasn’t excpecting you to do that at all and it was a pleasant surprise ;3

your introduced him to your friend and he also likes his work now!

Y’all are literal polar opposites- and ngl? He enjoys the balance!

like when he wants some exhilarating and goosebump-giving action he’ll pick up one of your mangas’

and when he’s feeling mellow while eating some coffee jelly on his bed his new (second) favorite author to read from is your friend!

His number one author is of course you ♥︎

would recommend his friends (specifically Kaido) one of your mangas to freak them out

they definitely won’t be expecting it seeing as though your such a cheerful person! 🌸🎀🌷

I feel like Torisuka would genuinely enjoy your manga as well!

he doesn’t get scared easily by creepy stuff for obvious reasons 😋

so you’ve got yourself another supporter !!

I have a feeling my girl boss Airua would get creeped out but 1) she wants to support you so she would probably buy and either never read or 2) read it anyway because it’s so interesting

like you captivated people with your work!

just as much as your friend does with more gentler topics

but in a different sense

You make your audience quite literally cover their eyes in fear yet still peak through they’re fingers with anticipation !

like that’s how good it is!

a “I can’t look away” type of thriller!

also you know that really talkative guy with the bob?

yeah he over analyzes your manga once he finds out about it

(which let me tell you- Kusuo tried his hardest to keep him away from it—but much to his luck- he got a hold of it anyway)

thankfully he likes it!

he’s scared- but once again- he just can’t look away :)

he comes to you and gives your extremely detailed compliments and (positive) feedback after each chapter is released and says he can’t wait for more

he also tells his expectations and predictions for the next one and hopes you’ll live up to them

so when your exceed them he’s more than thrilled (GET IT?? Ok..)

he’s practically able to predict every book or manga he reads because he analyzes everything

so when your able to surprise him he’s impressed!

after Kusuo he’s the first one to buy a copy

(cuz yk Kusuo gets those special you-get-the-first-copy-before-it’s-published-because-your-my-boyfriend-privileges)

LOL

the bob guy is low key jealous of him for getting it before it’s even PUBLISHED

tries to bargain you to get that too but it’s strictly reserved for Kuu ♡

okay I looked up bob guy’s name

it’s Akechi Touma (oops)

LOL “bob guy”

enjoy!! Pretty short but I think they’re a delight~

[liasadventuretime]

˗ˏˋyou jealous ? :) ´ˎ˗ - neteyam x reader pt. 3

⁀➷  part three : CONGRATULATIONS, FUCKER.

notes : so um… hi ! since y’all really enjoyed pt. 2 i decided i might as well write a pt. 3… i have to say that it was kind of hard writing this part because i genuinely didn’t think people would’ve liked it that much and had no idea of what to say anymore ☠️ but anygays … i had a BIG ASS fight with my parents so they took my phone, and they’re probably going to take my mac away too so idk when i’ll upload pt. 4 ( if y’all want one ), so i tried to write a bit more this time, i hope it’s sufficient.

tags : @xoxobabe @marcswife21 @arminsgfloll @rubysworld96 @klarolinefanatic @giftfromthemoon @k4tsukiis @rainehatepage @neteyamsbbgfr @miapanticc @iixyia-deactivated20230123 @famousbagelhandspurse @astablacksword @ghoulfac3 @buttercake2234 @potseluymenya @mashiromochi @avatarslut0 @chanyeolsbeloved @regulus-black-223048 @isabelcor3 @grierpilots @neteyamsmate4life @beyoenisbalfart @severenswife @lady-in-gold @bealone-prm @hafutoru @jyoungmom @soxfix @thatgoodvibescloud @aalyara @abbersreads @neteyamsw @strawberryys-stuff @ilovestargirl @rubysworld96 @meivap @neteyamsullyswife @erenjaegerwifee @cherry-blossom34 @slutforavatar @hey-girl-hey @athenachu @laaalox @ghostjoohoney @tsamiaxo @arminsgfloll

warnings : a bit of angst, insecurity, overthinking neteyam lmao, detailed masturbation, this man is lusting waaaaaayyy too much over you lmao, a lil makeout session with someone 🤭, and i think that’s it lol.

everything was okay now. no really, everything’s okay.

after your talk with neteyam, he left you with more questions than answers once again.

your brain felt like a beehive, never stopping, so you tried to distract yourself with anything.

you trained, you read, you helped around, but not even spending time with ao’nung could help. you don’t think he noticed the way you pretended it was neteyam holding you, kissing you, spoiling you. but you gotta be careful.

you just had one single thought in your mind.

flashback

“you know we could argue right now, and no one would hear or see us ?”

“we could do anything right now, and nobody would see us. anything.”

your thoughts were interrupted by someone speaking.

you opened the tent only to see someone’s chest right in front of you, you tilted your head up and you saw him. neteyam.

your heart dropped to your stomach for a second, making you almost gasp. what was he doing here ? his hair was still in the same hairstyle you saw him in at the beach. he looked almost unreal.

face framed by a few braids, jaw locked making him look so nervous for some reason, his high cheekbones sharp as always, and even though you never told him, you wanted to feel his cheekbones so much, all the time. pointy nose with a little bump which you recognised immediately, it was jake’s. that bump was only on his nose, because all the other sons and daughters didn’t have it. he really is his father’s son. eyes still soulless, empty that almost looked dead. they were pointy, but not too much. he has that “sharp” look from neytiri, her stare could send you to heaven and above. his shoulders broad, not too muscly which is something you liked. his arms veiny and biceps always flexed, not even having to force it. his abs well sculpted, he was still wet, droplets of water running down his face and chest, he was probably swimming with lo’ak. or someone else.

you shook your head a bit, to get that thought off your head. it doesn’t matter, it really doesn’t. his v-line almost looks like it got highlighted and sharpened, which was the only thing you hated about the way your people dress.

his everything was for everyone to see. everyone.

you sometimes tend to forget he’s not offlimits, and to say you had nightmares, about someone else getting neteyam before you, was too little.

his voice snapping you out of your trance again, hoping he didn’t catch you quite literally analyzing his whole body, but the proud smile on his face immediately cleared all your doubts.

“your cigarettes.” he said getting in your face making fun of you. he handed you your pack of cigarettes. he didn’t give you the lighter but it didn’t matter, that’s the last thing you cared about right now.

that’s quite weird though. this isn’t the first time you forgot your cigarettes, he usually just keeps them since you smoke them together anyways. you better not think about it too much before you get delusional.

“oh, thank you.” you lightly smiled at him, looking at him in the eyes while taking the packet off your hands. but before you could get them, he pulled your hand to him and placed the pack on the top of your palm, his hand still holding yours. stop, stop, stop.

if you could only know what he was thinking about, he thought to himself.

if you could only know what he did later that night thinking about you.

flashback

“i fucking knew it.” he said, walking to his tent, his fists tight, his jaw locked.

he fucking knew you just couldn’t take that further step. he was only a game to you.

you enjoyed teasing him, playing with his mind acting like he was your dirty little toy, cared about only when you’re horny, or ao’nung couldn’t satisfy you enough.

how could he at the end of the day ? ao’nung wasn’t him and will never be.

he knows he’s better, but fuck do your choices fuck his mind up.

he though he could at least get one night with you, one single night. he could be near you, stay with you, inside you. he could see you. but you didn’t want to. hell, you didn’t even want to look at him.

the constant thoughts of you, torturing his mind. he hoped he could at least live one night of pure love, caring and affection, thinking you wanted too, so he could then go on with his life, mate with a person he didn’t love or care about only to satisfy his father, since the only thing he has always wanted was you.

he wanted you to look at him, but you were too busy staring and smiling at ao’nung.

he felt tears glossing his eyes, you could never be with him, because you simply didn’t want to.

as soon as he got into his tent, he immediately threw your shit away, that you forgot on the beach, with your other stuff. yes, he had a chest with a bunch of stuff you always forgot when you were around him. even looking at it, could make his heart wrench, feeling actual pain.

your blanket, you were nine years old and you had forgotten it when you slept that night with his parents, you had a nightmare. he didn’t sleep that night, so that if you had a nightmare again he could be the one to comfort you. not his parents, him.

your emerald braid accessory, you were eleven, he said he liked it, that it suited your face, so you took it off your braid and placed it in his hand, saying “take it, it’ll look better on you anyway”. it would’ve never looked better on anyone, that wasn’t you. so he just decided to keep it.

your spoon, the one that you used to eat your meals with, and that one time you happened to really like the meal his mom cooked for you. you took a spoonful of it, and positioned it in front of neteyam’s mouth. he was confused for a second, not getting if you actually wanted him to eat out of your spoon. you said “open your mouth, it’s really good, i promise”. not like you had to prove anything, he would’ve eaten a spoonful of poison if your hand was the one holding it. he hesitantly opened his mouth and you fed him. you smiled, and went back to eating your meal, with the same spoon you had just fed him with. it was something probably superficial for you, but it really did mean the world to him.

nostalgia was the sharpest blades of all.

if he only knew you thought the same exact thing.

his mask slipped for a second, letting a tear cut though his face, leaving behind a cold scar. he aggressively wiped it away. he hated you, so so so much. he couldn’t bear the sight of you.

he hated you.

he hated your beautiful hair, your sharp sparkly eyes, your soft cheekbones, your so damn kissable nose, your pouty lips that always fucking curl and smile at everyone’s jokes but his, the soft hill of your breast, the curve that separated your ribcage from the lowest part of your waist.

he couldn’t avoid getting hard every single fucking time. thinking about the way of your body moves when you play beach volley with your group, the way you felt on top of him, or well right on top of his dick, every single time you fought. he couldn’t avoid thinking about the way you were on top of him, fitting oh so well on his dick, while he was holding your wrists with one hand, but since you were way too angry, you didn’t even notice that his other free hand was placed on your waist with a brutal grip. to say he almost whimpered seeing stars, because of how well his big hand fitted on your strong curvy waist, was way too little.

there weren’t words to explain how much he wanted you. he could’ve collected every single thing he wrote about you, and still wouldn’t be enough to explain how hard his heart throbbed every time you were with him. well, maybe something else throbbed too.

neteyam couldn’t take it anymore. if he had to rub out every single thought he had about you, he would’ve became infertile a long time ago.

he placed his head on the pillow, trying to get to sleep in a fetal position. he turned and turned, trying to think of something else, but not the even aliyah, who he tried so hard to act like she was better than you, could lock his thought of you out of his mind.

he sighed in frustration, aggressively getting up when he noticed that.

his incredible massive boner, his dick’s timing was just great.

he got up, turned on the shower, making sure there was still some hot water, and took his clothes off.

“oh c’mon, now.” he silently said after taking off his underwear, noticing pre-cum on them. his dick spurted up, hitting him in the stomach. he rolled his eyes, and got in the shower.

the hot water hugged him, feeling like all of his problems were going down the drain.

he watched his dick gently throb, brought his hand to the base and slid it all the way up, circling his the tip, trying to let out of all the built up sexual tensione he had.

he tried to think about anything that wasn’t you. but how could he ?

how could he not think about the way your sex humped on his clothes, feeling your folds hug his shaft so perfectly. how could he not think of the way that you thought he didn’t notice you throb on him ? how could he not think of the way his hand from your waist slid down to your ass, before his dad separated the both of you ? how could he not think of the way that ao’nung’s hand was in your inner thigh, but you were looking at him ?

his pace got faster, making him heavy pant with his eyes closed, your figure tattooed on his eyelids. he came, seeing some of his seed on his hand and what was left of it going down the drain with the water and his problems.

he sighed, staying there, back held by the wall behind him, leaving him thinking. but he was way too tired of thinking. his temples were throbbing with pain, from how hard his headache was. he just finished washing himself, put some clothes on, and just went to sleep.

you woke up the next morning, head basically feeling like someone stomped on it.

you barely could even sleep last night, too many problems flowing in your thoughts.

you sighed, almost whimpering, brutishly throwing your head back on the pillow. why did everything have to be soooo complicated. you definitely had to talk to him, because all of this had to stop. you were tired, sexually frustrated and sleep deprived. this combo could easily make you kill anyone who even tries to disturb your peace.

you hated the way he was trying to hard to act like “he’s protecting his peace”, motherfucker your disturbing everyone else’s. you got up sloppily, waiting for lo’ak to come by your tent like he did every single morning.

but well, weird. time has passed and you didn’t even see lo’ak’s shadow, where could he be ?

you got out of your tent, walking to his parents’ one since the poor lil boo boo had nightmares basically every single night. you almost wanted to feel bad for him, but how the fuck could you ?

at the beginning you thought that after hearing all the crazy stories about the war his dad, the former Toruk Makto, fought, he just was scared and was having nightmares about that.

but after hearing that he had a nightmare about you fucking tsireya, you were done caring about this man. out of all things in the world, THAT ? since you said you could definitely fall in love with a girl, he went on flight or fight mode. saying this guy could literally sweat jealousy, was too little.

“father ? are you here ?” you said while keeping the tone of your voice low and calm, so you didn’t scare anyone off. but the scene in front of you could be the least thing you expected.

neytiri and jake seated in a circle with everyone, and when you say everyone, you meant EVERYONE. in front of jake there was neteyam, who looked like he almost killed someone by the way he had his head down, legs crossed and… was that a slap mark ??

on neteyam’s left, kiri and spider were seated. which is weird, why were they so quiet ? on neteyam’s right there were lo’ak and tuk. even tuk ? you felt a wave of goosebumps traveling their way up your back. this is way much more serious than you thought.

jake looked at you with the harshest expression you have ever seen on his face. “oh great, (y/n) sit down and join us.” you didn’t sit down, still trying to process what he was saying while walking in the tent, getting behind neteyam.

“FUCKING SIT. NOW.” he screamed at you, as you felt a wave of shock wash over you. you immediately sat down, accidentally bumping neteyam’s shoulder. that’s the first time jake has ever yelled at you. never, in his whole life has he ever screamed at you. yes, he sometimes could be mad at you, but has never screamed that way. neytiri looked at you with heartbroken eyes, mouthing ‘i’m so sorry.’. why would she apologise, it’s not like it’s her fault. right ?

jake huffed, keeping the palms of his hands on his crossed legs, almost looking like he was trying to find the words to explain what was on his mind. this man is going to get a heart attack if you and the others don’t stop stressing him. you felt ashamed, of the way you childishly fighted with neteyam over stupid stuff, not even realising your father couldn’t handle it anymore.

the shame, always comes at the worst time.

“this is the last fucking time i’m saying this. why THE FUCK-” he stopped for a second, trying to calm down for a second. tuk was with us, he probably didn’t want to swear or yell in front of her. you saw him take a deep breath and finish his sentence.

“why, THE FUCK, did you treat her like that ? what has she done to you ? it’s not like your skxawng ass has a mate to be loyal to.” he said, finishing his sentence.

your heart dropped, you were almost capable of hearing the echo of its fall. wait.

she ?

who are we talking about ?

interrupting you from your thoughts, jake stood up scaring everyone, and furiously walked to then kneel in front of neteyam. he harshly grabbed his face, making you gasp out loud, almost like he grabbed your face.

what happened ? you were so confused. she ? who is she ? how did he treat her for jake to be this mad ?

neteyam looked at him, his head tilt up with absent eyes, lips pressed together and jaw locked.

“you have absolutely no idea of what you’ve done, do you ?” jake almost whispered, which was probably even scarier than him screaming.

“this sweet sweet girl, who is literally the clan leader’s daughter, came up to you, asking you whatever the fuck she asked you, and what did you do ?” oh. so it’s tsireya’s sister we’re talking about, aliyah.

“’ oh leave me alone, i don’t want anything to do with you’” he said mocking neteyam’s words. he chuckled, and continued.

“your skxawng ass better be grateful if the leader doesn’t tell us to pack our staff and go the fuck away, after the way she ran away crying.” he stood up from his position, stopping the grasp on neteyam’s face, making him leave his head to the side. he lifted up his gaze, only to be met with yours.

you were genuinely so worried, in part because you couldn’t understand what in the actual fuck was happening. what did aliyah want ? why did neteyam make her cry ?

“is it my fault that i don’t want to mate with a person i don’t like ?” he silently said, making everyone turn their heads to him, no one expected him to talk. this is so bad.

jake stopped for a second with his back towards him. he slowly turned around with furrowed eyebrows and a slightly parted mouth. “what the fuck did you just say ?” he said, the vein on his temple was quite literally about to pop.

“I SAID, i don’t want to mate with her ! i don’t want her ! she was throwing herself all over me, like the fucking slag she is, and when i told her no, BECAUSE I HAVE EVERY FUCKING RIGHT TO SAY NO, she started crying.” he stopped for a second, catching his breath while looking at his dad. he couldn’t recognise him, why was he suddenly so pressed and stressed about neteyam finding a mate ? did it have to do with you ?

jake crossed his arms, and with an ironic smirk on his face he said “then who the fuck do you like, huh ? is every other girl so repellent to you ? have you suddenly became picky or what ?”

neteyam was about to let a tear cut through his face but he didn’t even though his eyes still remained glossed with tears. “i like someone else, but they don’t want to have anything to do with me. that’s it. it’s not the end of the world.” neteyam finished, with a slightly cracked but most importantly low voice.

jake stared at him for a couple of seconds. his face was now suddenly calm, while neytiri’s was absolutely devastated.

there was no denying it, neteyam’s a mommas boy. thank god, neytiri never tried to emotionally incest him, indeed she was happy when he talked to her about this someone he liked. that was the first time neytiri saw her sweet son be so wrapped around someone’s finger. she said that he should at least try, not jump to conclusions. but if he did jump to conclusions earlier, he wouldn’t have to feel his heart wrench and blood boil every single time he thought about what happened that night with you at the beach. he should’ve jumped to conclusion, and probably taken a fucking hint. you didn’t want him. that’s it, it’s as simple as it gets. move on, neteyam.

move on.

jake looked at you for a second, like the answer to all his problems was somewhere inside of you. in that exact moment he thought.

“is it better to speak or to die ?”

should he speak ? should he let you know that all of this, was because neteyam couldn’t move past you ? he couldn’t even count on his hands how many other omatikaya women have came up and asked to be neteyam’s mate. and he refused to even look at them. one after the other.

or should he die ? let his son stare at you with dreamy eyes, trying everyday to kill whatever he felt for you ? see him mate with another person he probably didn’t love, or even want to be near to ? should he kill his son ? a body is nothing without its soul. you were half of him, even though you were probably complete on your own. that’s the thing.

you could live without neteyam, neteyam couldn’t live without you.

neteyam stood up, catching everyone’s attention, leaving the tent and distracting jake from his thoughts.

“reunion finished, get out” he said opening the tent’s entrance for everyone.

neteyam had been waiting for you. on the beach, with a new lighter, because he wanted to keep yours. only waiting for you to come here, smile at him, sit next to him and smoke together.

but after an hour, he was worried. had something happened to you ? where did you go after the family reunion ?

he just decided to get up, and look for you. to finally try and not jump to conclusions again.

to finally say those damn three words.

“i see you.”

yes, that was the day, or maybe he could at least try and hint his intentions. letting you know he wanted more than a hookup, and that he finally was fucking ready to treat you like he should have been all this time.

ok no, maybe it’s a little too early for that.

he had no idea that that same day, ao’nung came by your tent.

“hey, how are you ?” ao’nung asked, face poking from the side of your tents entrance. you were surprised he came by your tent. he wasn’t used to do this, but it’s not like you don’t appreciate it.

“hey” you said back. he got in the tent, looking around for a bit. this was probably the first time he came here after you decided to basically move here.

“so, what have you been up you?” you tried to keep a conversation going, you couldn’t bare the silence it was way too awkward.

“i’ve been missing you.” he said, in a serious tone. silence dropped for a second, but it was immediately interrupted by your laughs. thank god.

“and what have you been up to ?” he smiled looking at you while leaning his back on the wall. maybe you could fall in love with him. or maybe you’re just delusional.

“nothing special, if i have be to be honest, but… “ you left your sentence incomplete, walking to him with his gaze glued on you. same smirk on his face.

“… i’ve been missing you too.” you finished your sentence, placing a kiss on his lips.

you were such a little dirty liar. you didn’t miss him one bit.

you place another kiss on his lips, and another one. and another one.

until he placed a hand behind your neck, smashing your lips together, deepening your kiss. his tongue lightly parted your lips, as if he was asking for your consent. you hugged his tongue with yours, tasting him. but ao’nung’s lips couldn’t even come near netayam’s lips. soft, on your skin, jaw and neck. his hand tracing circles on your waist as usual, your arms thrown to circle his neck.

you silently moaned against his lips, catching his attention, making him heavy breathe. your lips still attached to his, you lightly jumped, his big hands covering your ass, making you hug his waist with your legs.

you were so deep already, into all of this story. are situationships supposed to act like this ? was it normal ? are you falling in love ? or are you falling in love with the person you’re pretending is holding you right now ?

are you in love with ao’nung or the guy that could make you fall to your knees with only a kiss ? or make you whimper with a single touch ? or make you doubt everything you know with a simple phrase ? that someone had such a special effect on you, you don’t think there’s any language in this world that is capable of explaining what he did to you. how he makes you feel.

you were so so so tired. of fighting. of pretending. of replacing.

shouldn’t things be easier ?

your thoughts interrupted by ao’nung’s lips kiss and biting on your neck, but neteyam did it so much better. you lifted your face, giving him more space to work on. ao’nung suddenly stopped, face still in the crook of your neck . and you suddenly had this bad bad feeling in your gut.

something bad about to happen to you. you don’t what it is, but you feel it coming.

you waited for ao’nung to say something, hands still on your back to hold you, like you weighted as much as a feather. he could give you anything you wanted, but how could ask him to give you another person ? that unfortunately wasn’t him.

“i know who you pretend i am.” your heart dropped the moment ao’nung spoke those words, with his voice low and cracked. he knew and still came by your tent. the guilt was chocking you.

he knows, and i know he knows. what could you even say ? that it wasn’t true ? that he was worried for nothing ? you couldn’t, because not only you would be lying to him, but you would also be lying to yourself.

as if your night couldn’t get better, someone entered the tent.

but as soon as you felt your heart stinging, you knew damn well you were in so much trouble.

so so so so much trouble. you were absolutely fucked.

you didn’t even have to look at him, to realise that the person who just entered your tent was neteyam. you immediately fell back to your feet, distancing yourself from ao’nung.

who did you even have to be loyal to ?

but maybe, it just was the fact that you couldn’t betray your heart.

you suddenly felt naked, in front of him. his gaze confused, eyes glossed once again with tears.

you just wanted to disappear, you just wanted to die.

he scoffed, crossing his arms and looking at you with a smirk on his face. this was so bad.

ao’nung kept trying to keep track on what was happening, why were you so suddenly acting like this. but he might have realised something, that the two of you have been trying to hide so hard. his eyes flashed, mouth slightly opened. heart completely shattered. he immediately ran out of the tent, purposely bumping his shoulder against neteyams. not even daring to look back. you felt a tear leave your eye. what have you done ?

the silence was suddenly interrupted by neteyams voice, making you tilt your head up.

“congratulations, fucker.”

he stopped for a second. trying to get the words.

“if you only knew how many words i have wasted on you, and how many other words i was willing to waste. even tonight, but you didn’t even come by.”

that’s all he said, before leaving once again, following ao’nung’s traces.

leaving you alone.

alone, again.

final notes : damn um, so how did y’all like it ? i hope u enjoyed it ! if y’all want a part four remember to like the post and if you want to be tagged and you’re not already on the tag list, message me privately or comment it ! for some reason i can’t tag everyone, so i’ll just directly send it ! sorry for the wait, AND PLS LET ME KNOW WHERE YALL ARE FROM BECAUSE IM EUROPEAN AND I POST AT COMPLETELY RANDOM TIMES 😭

sneak peak : so the time has come ! someone noticed a song reference i put in my story ! if y’all didn’t already notice it, in all my posts i put some song references which, if you can tell me from which song or band it is, you get a sneak peak of the next part before everyone else ! the first winner was… @grierpilots !, the reference was from a neighbourhood song, one of my favs which is crybaby ! the reference was : “i always get this anxious feeling, but it goes away when i’m with you breathing.” which neteyam said to you in pt. 2 of the fic ! the quote isn’t exact but it’s always recognisable :)

[canary-curse-57]

At long last, I would like to present you all with a 2000+ word ramble about

WHY I THINK JIMMY SOLIDARITYGAMING COULD WIN THE LIFE SERIES

This WILL be long, this WILL be rambling, and I WON’T always get info correct, but I’m very passionate about the fact that Jimmy really is a good player, but happens to be an even better content creator (I’ll explain what I mean by this later!)

To start, I will analyze every death of his (although I will be excluding many from Limited Life for time reasons) because I believe that most of them can be categorized as some mix of Bad Luck, Accident, and/or Silly Decision. Then, in a different section, I’ll focus mainly on the Silly Decision deaths/explain why I don’t think he will win even if he could! I’ll also add in a TLDR section at the very end to try and summarize the big points I made. Anyways, let’s get into it!

3RD LIFE:

First death - Dare To Flare - Silly Decision

Ah, Jimmy’s first death. This is one of the Silliest Decisions of all, but it also demonstrates a characteristic of Jimmy’s playstyle that we see very frequently throughout the rest of the series: when presented with a high-risk high-reward situation, he almost always attempts the situation, even if the chance of success is negligible. There was never really that much of a chance to win Dare To Flare without cheating, and others had already died trying, but he still gave it a shot!

Second death - TNT Minecart - Accident/Silly Decision (I can't find yellow so I guess orange will do,,)

Our first multi-category death! To me, this one ultimately feels more like an accident than anything else, due to Jimmy not knowing how exactly TNT minecarts worked at the time, but I also have to qualify it as partly a silly decision because Scott did tell him not to touch it. 

Final death - Arrow - Bad Luck

This is honestly one of the more unlucky deaths for Jimmy across the whole entire life series! Ultimately, being unable to get down the ladder properly is what did him in, and I honestly believe that Jimmy might’ve been able to avoid dying first had he just not gotten unlucky with the timing of the shot/getting down the ladder. Oh, how different things could’ve possibly been,,,,

LAST LIFE:

Before I analyze the deaths for this series, I want to talk about why, to me, this is Jimmy’s best season ever in terms of results!! He was one of 5 people to start the season off with 2 lives, but unlike three of the others, he never gained another life (shoutout Ren, the other one who never gained another life!! I think this was his best season so far too!!!). Sure, he tried stealing one from Martyn, but he didn’t get to keep that one! Every other person (again, except for Ren!) that started yellow died more than 2 times over the course of the series, but not Jimmy!!! He also didn’t have his 1st death until the 6th session!! 13 other players had already died at least once before he did!! He also went to risky places where other people died (the Nether/a bastion where Mumbo died!!) and survived!! So while he had two rough deaths in back to back sessions and still went out first, this still remains his best season in my eyes, and it also is a great representation of the fact that he’s still a good Minecraft player!! He can survive really well when he minimizes Silly Decisions/doesn’t have to deal with bad luck, but minimizing Silly Decisions won’t be a frequent thing for him (more on that later) which is why I think that he could win but probably won’t. 

First death - Explosion - Accident/Bad Luck

While digging the dirt that set off the trap could add a Silly Decision category to this, I won’t be adding it because really, who would expect a random piece of dirt blocking an entrance to be trapped? (Not me, that’s for sure - I probably would’ve done the same thing) Honestly though, I feel like if this was a different type of death, Jimmy might not have gone out first. The explosion absolutely obliterating all of his stuff makes life much more difficult, and definitely impacted his season ending when it did. 

Final death - Fall/Grian - Silly Decision/Accident

The main reason that I categorize this one as a Silly Decision is because technically, Jimmy started it. Out of everyone on the server, Grian feels like the most likely to retaliate against a red, even if all they did was punch him, so it definitely wasn’t a good idea to instigate here. I also qualify it as an Accident because he says it (specifically falling off the edge of the building) was (*insert clip from Evil Anvil song here*). 

DOUBLE LIFE:

Before I start this section, I have something devastating to admit; I’ve never actually watched Double Life (I know, I know!! I’ve been meaning to for so long but just haven’t gotten around to it,,,,) I did go in and watch his deaths, so I at least know how they went down, but everything I know about the rest of this season is from the fandom.

First death - Soulmate - UNCATEGORIZABLE

Now, I know you could technically qualify this as a Bad Luck death, but I really really don’t think it fits at all!! Essentially every person in Double Life died because their soulmate died at some point, so saying that Jimmy just happened to have the Bad Luck to be paired with Tango doesn’t feel right. This death was totally and completely out of his hands, so it becomes the only one to truly not fit into any category. 

Second death - Falling/Hit By Arrow - Silly Decision/Bad Luck

Genuinely how did that arrow manage to hit Jimmy?? Bad Luck for him for sure, but ultimately standing as far over the edge as he was when people are firing up at you is a biiit of a Silly Decision. There’s also even more Bad Luck factored in when it comes to the timing of the whole thing - him and Tango just happened to be enchanting with Scar and Grian when the whole server decided to go after them! Jimmy wasn’t really even the main target here!

Final death - Enderman - Accident/Bad Luck

Ah yes, the Enderman death. I know I’ve said this multiple times already (and I’m sure I’ll say it many more), but this has gotta be one of Jimmy’s most unlucky deaths ever. With the combination of being low on food (so he can’t heal), the shield being about to break, and the tree he hides under not properly blocking the enderman, this was a recipe for disaster from the moment he accidentally looked into its eyes. Definitely a death that’s almost impossible to avoid.

LIMITED LIFE:

While I won’t be going through each and every death Jimmy had during this season (since Oh Boy there were a lot more than 3), I’ll focus on 3 that I want to point to that feel very very important to me!

Digging straight down with Joel - Silly Decision (Doing It For The Bit)

What’s this? A subcategory? Well yes, yes it is! This is a subcategory that we really only see in Limited Life, since people could die much more in that series due to the mechanic. So while this was still a Silly Decision, it was one made for fun and for The Bit! I’ll go into more depth as to why later, but this death is the ultimate example of why Jimmy probably won’t ever actually win a Life Series; he is in it 1000% for the fun!

Falling into trap because Grian pushed a button - Accident/Bad Luck

This is one of those deaths that is just so unlucky for Jimmy! Of course Grian didn’t mean to kill him, making it an Accident, but it really just feels like such Bad Luck overall! He honestly had a lot of these deaths the closer he got to the end of Limited Life; another one that comes to mind is the pufferfish death that happened while he was leaving the Nosy Neighbors’ base. These types of deaths are unfortunately completely unavoidable because they are almost completely unpredictable.

Final death - Falling - Accident/Bad Luck

This death is clearly an Accident, but it’s also an example of Bad Luck because of the placement of the minecart/the fact that he was shifting but seemingly un-shifted at the last second. Really though, this death feels like the world just making sure he died, since he should’ve been out with Etho’s boogie kill. 

SECRET LIFE:

First death - Drowned/Trident - Bad Luck

I’ll be honest, I had to go back and watch this death- but it really was another case of Jimmy just having the worst luck with this game! His health was already SO low (and sure, I could technically qualify this one as a Silly Decision in terms of him deciding to go outside when it was dark out while being so low on hearts, but it doesn’t feel quite right for some reason), & to have a trident drowned just decide to spawn in that area is awful luck! 

Second death - Ender Dragon - Bad Luck/Silly Decision

Ah, the Ender Dragon death. Yet another example of a high-risk potentially-high-reward situation that Jimmy went into despite a low chance of success,,, personally I think that if he avoided the End, his second death would’ve come much later & his chances of making it even longer would’ve increased drastically. 

Final death - Warden - Silly Decision/Bad Luck

While this death definitely has Bad Luck as a secondary factor, Silly Decision is the main one here by a MILE. Deciding to help fight/stay in the area of a Warden and a Wither while being a red life with just over one row of hearts remaining?? One of the Silliest Decisions of all! Anyways, this death also has a Bad Luck component to it because of the Warden deciding to focus on him instead of Mumbo even though they were both really close to it & also with some of the long distance shots from the Warden actually hitting.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, I know that was a lot of rambling, but there’s a really big thing about these deaths that made me want to categorize them; very few of them have anything to do with pvp fighting! Most of them are environmental deaths (deaths to mobs/fall damage) or deaths indirectly caused by another player (traps that Jimmy himself had to trigger) instead of ones directly caused by a player!

Of course, every player in the life series has had environmental/indirectly caused deaths, but the winners/the people who place really high? They have more deaths directly caused by a player than anything else!

Take someone like Impulse, who consistently has a very high placement in the life series, but hasn’t won one (yet!!). A vast amount of his deaths are kills directly caused by other players! Same for most of the winners!! (Scar is the outlier here, although he only died due to direct kills by other players in the season he won, sooooo)

So, here’s what I’m getting at: if Jimmy can cut down on his environmental deaths, and avoid triggering traps/aggravating other players, I think he could survive much longer than he has so far! He would go from someone who dies without others needing to have much of an input, to someone that people would have to intentionally try to kill because he’s one of the final greens/yellows! We already know from Last Life that he can go a TON of episodes without dying, so if we combine that ability with more than two starting lives, then I think we have a recipe for a potential winner on our hands!!

However. Despite my belief that Jimmy is a much better player than anyone gives him credit for, I also don’t think that he will win a life series. And this is gonna get a little over-analyze-y, but I think that he won’t win because of who he is as a person and as a content creator.

He’s always willing to take risks for friends, do something for the bit (as seen by his lava death with Joel in Limited Life), and generally put himself in risky situations. He knows what makes a good video, but he also just genuinely is having fun with his friends! I think Jimmy could win a life series if he took it really really seriously, and put a ton of time and focus into staying alive and making it far, but I’m not sure that would be very fun for him. He seems like the kind of person who is just in it for a good time. And I’m not saying that he doesn’t want to win, or doesn’t take the series seriously at all - I think he definitely does, based on his reaction to his final death at the end of Double Life & Limited Life - but he’s not gonna go out of his way to win or do the ‘smart thing’ when he can just keep enjoying the series. 

(Eugh, that felt a little too personality-analyzing/parasocial and weird for me, but I do think it’s true.)

ANYWAYS, that’s about it! 

So TLDR: Lots of Jimmy’s deaths aren’t directly caused by players, and if he can avoid those types of deaths, he could survive long enough to have a real shot at winning! He also is much better at being able to survive a long time than we give him credit for, as we see in Last Life. However, while he still takes the life series seriously, he’s ultimately in it for the fun, making it less likely that he pulls off a win. 

Thanks so much for reading, and feel free to ask questions/share your own thoughts!!

[changbinsboobs]

What's something that annoys Changbin in each member

Changed the name/theme of the reading cuz it didn't go according to plan.

Ok so...🥲 first of all i asked a pretty general question about what tee he has to spill and of course he had to involve his love life😂 it was all over the place and i wanted to narrow it down a bit and asked what the anon requested, like tea about the members. Guess what - he's like "they're good guys i have nothing bad to say about them, very hard working and diligent" ... now thats a bit hard for me to believe cuz almost any time i read foe changbin he has to rant about something and i end up writing 10 paragraphs for his turn thats sometimes not even on topic. Now that i specifically ask him he has nothing to give me💀 im pretty sure if i ask about something specific there'll definitely be lots of stuff gushing out once again, but i feel like too general questions don't work so good on him like for example they work with chan. With chan is such a pleasure asking open ended, broad questions like that cuz he really does spill all the tea😂.

So yeah for Changbin if any of you have any specific ideas what i could ask about please comment that and i might do a pt. 2 some time but for now im just gonna go about each member or stuff i come up with and see what comes out.

For Chan it seems like it annoys him when he's too blind to his obvious surroundings, by his own ambitions and "greed" for success and creation. Maybe sometimes Chan really wants to do something with their music or concept that no one else agrees with, or at least changbin thinks so, or it seems to changbin the the obvious and logical, evidence-based even way is this, but Chans so blinded by his vision that he can't see the obvious and i think because of that there might've been some tension in the production process and this is definitely something that annoys changbin consistently.

For Lee Know its just lack of understanding and relating i feel like. Its just that on certain things they are WAY too different, so mich so that Changbins shocked how Lee Know can be like that and gets a bit icked out. I wouldn't say its the same type of annoyance like with Chans case but still something that baffles and annoys him a bit, how Focused and inwards focused lee know is. How self sufficient and unbothered he is.

For Hyunjin it was REALLY weird cuz i got the 8oW with the energy to it of "ugh there's so many i can't even count them" but then when i asked for clarification really weird stuff came out about how well they get along and how much he admires him for his art and stuff? Hääääääää (as we like to say in germany😂) Im getting the feeling that he loves being philosophical, analyzing stuff, ranting about stuff, but when its about people close to him he hesitates. I don't feel like pushing any further but i just find some cards and the energy with them in his whole reading really weird, getting that for the first time with him actually.

Moving on, for Han he's annoyed at his greediness. Not just talking about wanting but also clinging to his. I don't think Han like sharing and this really pisses changbin off😂 he likes feeling special and i think he often hopes there to be an exception for him and when there isn't he's like "how can he be so petty" or something like that😂 also i think that he gets a bit annoyed at his cockiness too, i think bin thinks that hans indeed really talented but the way he speaks about himself of boasts sometimes rubs changbin the wrong way - i think its more in regards to some friendly competition they have i think they've mentioned that a few times too. Like he feels probably a bit offended or disrespected about how Hans so sure he'll win or be better cuz he feels underestimated by that.

For Felix it annoys him how he falls into dark places so easily and how youngish he sometimes feels. Idk how to explain it but despite them having just 1 year difference Felix still feels like a teenager to him oftentimes. I think this is something that annoys him, just because. I think Changbins someone to get annoyed at small insignificant things and the way people live their lives if he doesn't agree with that. Like - he won't intervene or nag, but he'll wonder to himself on the inside and have a feeling of annoyance towards certain behaviors of people he doesn't agree with.

For Seungmin he doesn't like his sharp tongue & jokes sometimes or maybe if he's someone to give backhanded compliments or something of that sort. Like im seeing sharpness and meaniness hidden behind kindness but its not a mask with a purpose of masking - the smile is part of the insult type of way idk how to explain it. But changbin feels its unnecessary to be this "mean" and thinks if u want to insult someone insult him in a bad way, at least the he can respond properly. Or if you want to make a compliment make it warm you'r heart not sting. He doesn't like the confusion that comes with that mix of contradicting energies.

For I.N i think he gets annoyed with his frustration in love? Like the way i.n proceeds in romantic stuff and does his things and processes break up or rejection and stuff like that i think that annoys changbin and he thinks he lets himself be too vulnerable and weka and open with it all?

[bangchansgirlsblog]

My Biggest Regret

Part six.

**

"What’s going on you two?" She asked the two siblings standing infront of her. She was terrified at what she just hard. She was so disappointed in Hannah.

"Y/n I tried talking to him but his being so difficult about it," Hannah wiped the tears off her cheeks. She was crying.

"Look, both of you need to talk it out and we aren't going back in there until you do. You're not going to ruin this day for everyone else okay? I don't know what happened but please just sort it out. For me,"

Y/n's arms were crossed and she had a disappointed look on her face. The guilt ate up Hannah because she knew how much Y/n didn't like fights. She didn't like conflicts and she didn't like problems. She wanted everyone to be okay with one another. So Hannah accepted it and listened to Chan.

"Hannah, I know I missed a lot. I'm sorry okay? I'm sorry that I did but I couldn't come back and you knew that, no matter how much I tried to, management wouldn't allow it. Don't be mad at me. Please."

"I'm only letting this go because Y/n asked me to, so it's fine. I hope you enjoy your days in Australia."

Hannah shrugged and walked past Y/n giving her an apologetic look. She had forgiven Chan and that's what everyone wanted right?

"Hannah-" Chan called out for the younger but she was already back inside the house leaving Y/n and Chan standing outside speechless.

"Just give her time, she hasn't really soaked in everything," she tried comforting Chan.

"Yeah I guess," they both stood in silence. Waiting for one of them to speak up.

"I geuss I'll go back in-"

"No stay with me? Let's talk," Chan held her arm before she could go back inside the house. She agreed and sat down on the benches that were facing the sandy beach.

"So..How have you been?" He asked trying to start a conversation.

"Good, good and you?"

"I'm good,” he replied and looked over at her. Her skin was glowing under the moonlight and her eyes twinkled like the stars. He loved that.

“How are you? Like how has your medication and stuff been? Are you still ill?”

“Yes I am Chan,” she smiled and looked over at him. Both their eyes connect making her feel butterflies in her tummy, “I’ve been taking my medication, the tumor decreased and I’m probably going to need surgery,”

“Surgery?” He asked confused and worried.

“Yeah, sooner or later I was going to have it anyway so. It’s minimal though. So not a big deal,” she shrugged and continued to analyze his pretty face.

He made sure to note that down. He made sure to remind himself so that he could be there for her when she went in and out of surgery. He would have to do some convincing though.

“Oh okay, um..”

“Tell me all about stray Kids Channie! Tell me about South Korea! Do you like it over there? Is it nice? What do you guys do on a daily basis? Oh My God! Is it true that there is a library as big as the Dubai mall?” She gasped, her eyes went wide as she got more and more excited waiting for Chan to tell her all about his adventures and so he did.

He started talking about everything from the beginning till the end. He Ofcourse left out the parts of drugs and girls but he knew if he did tell her all about it she would end up heartbroken.

She listened. She paid close attention to everything. She made sure to ask questions and for a second it felt like they were back to their younger selves. Chan missed it. He missed this. He missed her. The conversation itself wanted to make Chan move back to Australia, back to his family. He felt so stupid for forgetting about her. He (for once) felt like a real human being and not a robot under watch.

“Chan?” She called after they had finished their conversation about South Korea and his new life.

“Yes Aya?” He replied.

“Did you forget about me?” Her eyes were now soft. A pang of guilt hit his chest so hard he had to take a deep breath. He didn’t want to lie anymore, he wanted to come clean so,

“No Ofcourse I didn’t, I waited for you,” Chan you liar, what were you thinking? The words rolled off his lips with a bitter taste. He couldn’t help but lie to her, she looked so innocent.

“Really Chan? I waited for you too! I haven’t fallen for anyone ever since you left,” her smile was big as she spoke. She was happy. But Chan on the other hand was questioning his existence. Did she really not fall in love with anyone when he was away? Surely it can’t be true it had been four years.

“Y/n, I’m sorry I got so busy and stopped checking in. I was scared you hated to me. I was scared that we weren’t close anymore so you didn’t need me. I hope you aren’t angry at me like Hannah,” his eyes glistened.

“Oh no, no, no,” she held his hands in hers hoping to give him some comfort, “I’m not angry, at first I was but I can never be angry at you Chan. I was the only that encouraged you to go remember? So don’t you ever think I hated you or I was angry at you,”

“But you were sick and-“

“Yes I was sick but I wasn’t dying,” Y/n you’re lying to him! “Plus look at how much you’ve grown! You’re a kpop idol! Not many people can say that they have successful idol bestfriends,” she joked causing a smile to crip up Chan���s face again.

“I love you,” he said casually.

“I love you too Channie,” she replied.

He leaned in slowly finding his face close to hers. She leaned in too, finding his face close to hers. Inches away. But Y/n was nervous. This would be her first kiss ever. She wanted to be perfect but she didn’t know how to make it perfect.

“Chan I-“

“Can I?” He softly asked. His hand laid on cheek. Her lips were so plump and pink. Chan craved it. Craved her. He was going to get close to her one way or another.

They both closed their eyes. Chan almost closing in the gap when,

“Guys dinners ready!” A voice called for both of them causing them to jump away from each-other.

They both looked over at the door to find Hyunjin standing there.

Proud of himself for ruining the moment. He was going to get Y/n because whatever Hyunjin wanted he would get even if it meant bringing Chan down.

**

Hey *insert a stack of money in my hands* , will you be my gf? 🤭🤭🤭

Don’t forget to reblog if you want to😋

-🩷

[yesimwriting]

How do you think Felix would react to bestfriend!reader coming out as bi/pan or nonbinary/genderfluid?

Do you think he would view women as much of a threat as men or…? And what do you think he would say if reader went: “OMG FELIX that girl is so hot” or something like that.

Sorry this was kinda long— 😭

i wanted to answer this fully bc it's a good question, and that got a little long so it's below the cut!!

also i analyze felix's sexuality a little just to give some background on my perspective,, but i try not to put my own speculations on felix's sexuality in fics (unless asked to) bc i want the person reading to be able to decide how they see felix

oh!! also! side note! i've mainly written bestfriend! reader with female pronouns,, and some plot stuff in the main fic i'm writing does rely on reader being female, but if anyone ever wants a specific blurb to have reader be gender neutral,, just specify in the ask and i'll make sure to write it that way :)

okay,, i think felix is extremely bi/pan leaning

and by that i mean i don't think he'd label his sexuality,, and not even in a 'too cool' way, he just wouldn't put that much thought into it,, like he probably sees himself eventually settling down/marrying a girl bc that's kind of the default (a tiny bit of comphet lol),, but i think he likes who he likes, he's attracted to who he's attracted to and doesn't pay much mind to their gender

i feel like this applies to most of felix's family/inner circle as well lol,, like attraction is attraction, why get caught up on the details if that makes sense

also no one can convince me felix didn't feel anything for ollie,, they are that romantic coded best friendship that ends dramatically and traumatically for all involved <3 but in bestfriend!felix verse reader will always be his #1, trust

but if we are reading felix as straight,, i still think he'd be super supportive (bi wife energy)

so considering that (and the fact that felix loves reader too much to ever make them feel bad about anything,, especially something like that) he'd be extremely supportive of reader's sexual orientation and/or gender identity,, and if anyone even implies something rude oh!! he's fighting!

depending on how bad it is, felix might just exclude that person socially, and bc of felix's influence, that means everyone starts to shun that person,, if someone was really homophobic towards reader,, felix would cuss them out fr,, might even instinctually get physical depending on how bad it is

as far as reader being like "felix! that girl is so hot" his initial reaction would be to agree/hype you up bc it's instinct to support reader,, but then it'd hit him and he'd be like oh. wait.. :(

true equality and acceptance of reader's sexuality/gender identity is wanting everyone of all genders to realize how wonderful reader is,, but from a distance <3 like yes i have the cutest, most perfect, lovely,, intelligent best friend, i'm glad you noticed,, unfortunately that's all you get to do

i do think that if it was just you two talking while out partying or hanging out and it didn't go further than some comments, felix would be supportive, but he'd be a little extra touchy to prove to himself that reader will let him

i think he'd be more bothered if reader called a guy hot, not bc he's more intimidated, but bc at least when reader finds a girl attractive it's much less of a direct comparison (bc female presenting and masculine presenting are generally hot in different ways) if that makes sense

if it goes any further than that,, felix is equally pouty no matter the person's gender

also we know felix's friends have a habit of hooking up with venetia,, so i could see this making felix more wary of venetia and reader getting along a little too well over the summer lol,, like he wouldn't assume the worst if they started liking each other a little, but he'd be wary

honestly, though,, at the end of the day, as long as it's clear that felix is reader's absolute favorite person of any gender, he'd be chill and even when he's jealous he's supportive

[saylor-twift]

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those people…”

genshin characters i feel would be swifties!!

if you think i’m wrong, i do not care. 🩷

warnings: none (idk how this tag stuff works)

#1: Navia (obviously)

• One of my favorite parts of Fontaine’s release is how everyone went nuts when she came out especially on tiktok bc she gives such Taylor vibes. Navia Swift fr.

• The type of girlie who stays up till midnight whenever a new album is released so she can listen the second it comes out

• She def gives fearless and 1989 vibes, i firmly believe they are her favorite

• Her favorite songs are Style and You Belong With Me. You cannot tell me she doesn’t freak tf out whenever they play on the radio.

• She would absolutely have a taylor baking playlist for while she makes her signature macarons

#2: Nilou

• Listen to me when I say all dancers are inherently swifties (i’m joking plz calm down)

• As a former competitive dancer:

taylor swift across the floor is >>>

• She absolutely loves dancing to taylor!!

• I feel like she’s be a speak now and 1989 girlie. also definitely appreciates midnights! (i might only feel this way because she was released roughly the same time as midnights was and i just associate two and two together?? anyways..)

• If they went, I just know her and Navia would have the most gorgeous fits for the eras tour

• the type of girl to stay in the studio after rehearsal is over, just practicing and dancing for fun. she loves to improv and make combos, especially to taylor. (imagine her dancing to epiphany??? like?? absolutely stunning)

#3: Xingqiu

• just stay with me now- i don’t feel like he listens to her a ton, but since he’s such a little bookworm i feel like he loves her songs and lyrics with deeper meaning to them

• 100% a folklore/evermore/tortured poets kinda guy

• he’s the type of person who hyper analyzes the lyrics and deciphers all of the hidden meanings.

• he is no singer, but he has definitely tried his hand at writing taylor-esque lyrics in his free time.

• HUUUUGE fan of the folklore teenage love triangle

• #1 john mayer hater

• also definitely stans any songs that make fun of her exes

#4: Barbara

• now i would just be crazy if i didn’t put her here

• taylor was definitely one of her big inspirations for starting to sing

• makes covers of her favorite songs and likes to perform them along with her own originals

• i feel like she’d really be a fan of taylor’s older albums, specifically fearless and red (her fav song is 100% all too well 10 minute version)

• imagine jean and barbara sister bonding time while they do each others hair and listen to their favorite songs together! ughhhh so cute

• i also feel like jean is a taylor appreciator, but doesn’t talk about it much because she feels as the acting grand master she doesn’t really have the time for things like that

#5: Ayaka

• Similar to Xingqiu, I don’t feel like she’s an avid listener, but we know that Ayaka also enjoys poetry so i feel like she would really enjoy taylor’s lyricism

• loves songs like the archer and this is me trying (probably doesn’t tell anyone because sweetie is embarrassed, but i think she really likes some of the songs that are a little more sultry or flirtatious like dress and false god)

• after a long day of wearing her mask and presenting herself as inazuma’s noble lady like everyone expects, she loves to just relax in her room and listen to her faves :)

• yk those tiktok’s that are like: you’re pretty, pretty like (insert song)? she gives me that vibe but wildest dreams

Bonus: Itto

hard to say if he’s actually a swiftie or not, but i just think it’s funny because he reminds me of those videos of post malone dancing on stage with guilty as sin? in the background and he would totally do that 💀 i have a whole collection saved they are so funny to me

[weebsinstash]

Babe! A new Helluva Boss episode just dropped! And Ozzie and Fizz are just so goddamn cute! 😍😭 and Ozzie is such a sweetheart! (I hope he’s genuinely such a softie and not playing an act, we need more softie demons).

Can we please talk about Yandere! Ozzie again? Pretty please with a shit ton of sprinkles on top? 🥺

Bestie thank youuuu I watched that shit immediately and I have so many thoughts

This episode actually shows a big reason why I haven't really published a lot for like, Ozzie or Valentino in terms of actual fics because, my take on Ozzie's personality based purely off his debut appearance would've been a lot more different and now we see that, bro he's, suave yeah, but also, a huge green flag lovable cinnamon roll dork??? Valentino, we only have seen so much of. To be honest the way he's been presented seems to sway from "scary as fuck during gangster business stuff" to "he's kind of a ratchet ho, actually" and I'm not, entirely super confident writing stuff for him because like, I'm more of, assuming? I can't, analyze his character like I can for other characters with more material out for them.

For real though, my current stance on this matter is: Asmodeus, you could go to him and ask for his knowledge and advice on like genuine issues or things you're curious or concerned about like, legit you could sit down and have STD talks with this man ("h-hey Ozzie is it normal to have xyz on my you know what" "oh honey yes that's just like a blood blister from friction you're fine" "oh my god ok good because I was worried it was cancer" "HONEY NO 😩") meanwhile fucking Valentino over here would be like "bitch why you got cellulite" and like make backhanded comments like, oh maybe he could reward you with a boob job instead of your next paycheck (as in like, cosmetic surgery 💀 you know I've thought about that? Yan Valentino who's crazy for ya but, not crazy enough to not make certain, tweaks to your actual body. Maybe he dyes your hair or has it styled a specific way and basically refuses to let you do whatever you want with it. Gets your boobs or ass done. Makes you get fillers/botox for any wrinkles/static lines. Controlling your wardrobe is a must. You're like his little.... pursedog)

(That being said though. I'd still let him hit 😩 reader who gets drunk and fucks around and finds out--)

Anyways though, over here in our corner we believe in unapologetic self indulgence and I still believe a Reader who has magical abilities or powers and whatnot and can travel the rings through whatever convoluted means is a fun time. So. We're gonna do that! I mean. Asmodeus honestly seems chill enough that even if you like, somehow crashed into his club, as long as you were polite and respectful, he'd be chill with letting your hang around, maybe even getting a kick out of teasing you (but never pushing anything too far unless you show interest, and if you show any discomfort or trauma he backs off to re-strategize). I imagine his club would actually be pretty fun? Drinks, live music, although, kind of makes me wonder, how openly horny is this place? Probably not like "coochie in your face" like working for Valentino, so, Reader could even be all "honestly this is such a much more safe welcoming environment to engage in like sexuality" and Ozzie hears this and its like, dude. You might as well have just struck him through the heart with cupids own arrow, but, also, he's curious, what other places have you been?

I'm kind of convinced that if a little imp cunt like Crimson thinks he has the balls to stand up against Ozzie, hostage or not, I kinda feel like. Valentino would probably openly treat Asmodeus like shit. He'd probably be a catty fucking bitch to him. He probably looks at Ozzie as like, a diet coke version of himself, a version who has so much power but doesn't go far enough, and probably scoffs at Asmodeus' romantic attachment (even though Val has some weird on-off thing with Vox himself). Valentino doesn't give two fucks about consent and would probably openly mock Ozzie'e values

Or. They could be big business partners because, maybe there's some sort of inter-Ring porn trafficking pipeline or something, smuggling the good shit up from Lust and trading it with stuff from Sinners, who have more visual variety besides other perks etc

But just picture, Asmodeus and Fizz are, minding their own biz, at the club, chilling, listening to music, eating food vaguely shaped like clocks, and Ozzie's cell rings, and they're both like "aw I bet Reader's calling to say they're having fun at that party or whatever" but they answer it and you're like, hiding in the bathroom or a closet or something, crying, whispering under your breath "d-do you still have a place for me to stay like you said before 🥺 Valentino is really, REALLY drunk tonight and he's really scaring me, he grabbed me and--"

They're both at your exact location in like less than 5 minutes and maybe have to play it off, Ozzie distracting Val while Fizz steals you away, or, juicier, like. Imagine Val snatching your phone from your hand, going through your messages, "who the fuck have you been talking to?" And he pulls like the classic abusive boyfriend move and when he sees you're in frequent contact with someone named "Ozzie" he calls him from your phone and as soon as a male voice picks up, they're both going at it "bitch who the fuck are you?" "Bitch who the fuck are YOU?" "Why you got my baby's number?" "Why do YOU have MY baby's PHONE???" "I'm about to HAVE my foot up your ass, you--" like, you know what I mean? Asmodeus is rolling up and these two are all but butting heads with each other as you have to awkwardly explain how you know both of them and of course, suddenly there's a not quite comfortable conversation about which one of them you... "belong to", neither of them wanting to leave you with the other (although I imagine in a physical fight Asmodeus would win but Valentino would have homefield advantage involving his security dudes)

Either way like.... oh my god watching them lounge in that nice big bed together. Fizz being on Ozzie's chest, like. Give me that 😩😩😩 "oh Reader, baby, so glad you took up our offer for a place to crash, but, since it was so short notice it'll have to be with us tonight" type shit and like you're fine with that but then bedtime comes and. There's Literally Only One Bed. And you're like ok you know what I'm not really in a position to be ungrateful, Valentino could have actually fucking hurt me or trafficked me or whatever, but, you're still small enough that Asmodeus could hypotheticallyyyy just, reach an arm over and scoop up you into his chest for a cuddle, or just have you in the crook of his arm like a cat or a teddy bear. Ozzie definitely sees an immediate perk on Fizz not being so much of a troll as to give you the airhorn treatment your first morning there, so, obviously, they have, multiple motivations to, keep urging you to stay 👀 after all, Val is going to be looking for you in the Pride Ring, and you don't have any other friends, so, you're kind of stuck with their whims aren't you? Unless you try to run off on your own, and I mean. Really. They can just hire someone to bring you back lmao. Or get you themselves. Could you imagine feeling way you uncomfortable around them and slipping away and suddenly you find a little white demon dog on wheels happily rolling up to you out of nowhere and it's. Fucking tracking you for Fizzarolli and Asmodeus, like. Damn, can't even trust the dogs in Hell. Demon dogs in Ohio be like

Anyways idk I just like the idea of like. Combining several ideas, you do the whole "accidentally did the whole Death Fall From The Sky and crash into Vals sunroof, he keeps you in servitude because you have to repay him, eventually you Fall into Lust and you start basically doing double jobs at both clubs and prefer Ozzie and he eventually has to rescue you". Also like Valentino "canonically" humiliates his partners on social media so I can imagine he's just publicly belittling and negging you all the time. One second you're happy at Ozzie's listening to music and eating unholy amounts of onion rings with your quirky well intentioned clown friend, the next week Asmodeus sees a Sinstagram post where Valentino is just like "cutie was whining she couldn't get any tips so I helped her out 😜🤭🍈🍈" and its just. A photo of you in your work uniform where he clearly just reached forward and tore open the front of your blouse and he is just. Full on deadass without any hint of irony making you basically work in your bra and he's just without any remorse posting photos of your running mascara and you're clearly crying but what can you do?

Val posting a photo of him literally shoving a tip INTO your bra, his FINGERS in there, and other like little clips and snippets of him demeaning you while you're like actually fucking blubbering "and make sure to get me extra ice!" "*sobbing noises*" "I didn't hear a REPLY! Do I need to take some of those nice tips I'm helping you make?" "N n noOo I'm sorry" "sorry WHAT?" "M sorry mister Valentino, I'm sorry, I'll get your drink right away mister Valentino" and Val is just slapping your ass HARD as you turn to leave like and just laughing like this is the most fun he's ever had

like I feel like Asmodeus realistically would only be able to do so much IN Pride itself (because would You show up in your boss' turf doing your own shit? Big risk) BUT, I mean. You go down to Lust and you're basically fair game. You show up to your next shift after The Boob Incident and Ozzie's like "giiiiiiiirl imma keep it real with you, I know you wanna try and be independent but I got some concerns--" and he's barely even halfway through it before you're just, TEAR EXPLOSION, "i hate working for him, I HATE IT, I wanna work HERE full time, but I don't have a place to staAaaAaay" and just. Some UGLY crying because you're at wits end

Zero hesitation here's Asmodeus "Sweetie what kind of apartment do you want??? You want a penthouse? I can get you a penthouse?? You want some shopping money?? Tell Big O whatever you need." and the next thing you know Valentino is scrolling through Sinastagram and has to do a double take as your account starts posting all kinds of photos of you looking cute and having fun and, poolside in a bathing suit and you're becoming more comfortable with your body and your sexuality and, he's thirsty absolutely, goes to try and tease you or make fun of you and you're just like "you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid" and just ignore him as Val is forced to watch you pal around with Asmodeus (either as just friends or total fuck buddies like, deadass catch me out here "hey so, there's this position I've always wanted to try--")

[slayerkitty]

Let's Talk About Trust, Baby

I've seen a lot of posts where people are really confused about Mew and where his head might be at with regard to his relationship with Top. Why he hasn't given Top the boyfriend title back, why they haven't had sex yet, etc. That led me down a rabbit hole of thinking about the relationships between the characters and the one thing all relationships need to function - TRUST. If you don't trust your significant other or your friends/family, etc, what kind of relationship can you even have? I tried to break this down in groups/pairs and some of it might not be as thought out, so there may be more on this as the show goes on but here we go.

The Fab Four

So there's a lot of context we're missing about the relationships between our core four dysfunctional besties (Note: So far, Cheum doesn't seem that dysfunctional, you're doing amazing sweetie!) such as how they met, how long have they been friends (what the hell Ray and Mew got up to that one night... *ahem* I digress). Now, we don't have any real answers to these questions (yet) so I'm taking some educated guesses based on my own college experiences and what I've generally picked up from other university BLs typical story telling.

I feel like the four of them met during orientation (except maybe Ray and Mew, I'm waffling on thoughts that they've known each other since high school). Most university BLs set it up that the mains meet during orientation, bond during whatever torture the seniors are putting the freshman through and kind of build their friend groups based on that.

I also feel like they may have gravitated toward each other or remained a group because they're all queer. BLs can go either way on whether or not homophobia exists in their narrative and I think that Only Friends is going the more realistic route (and it's Jojo) so I think that I can definitely see them bonding over being queer. They find an LGBTQ bar and it becomes their thing to do together. Most friendship groups form because people just sort of fall in together due to circumstance and they seem no different.

But do they trust each other? Signs point to yes. (I was shocked too, lol)

Mew and Cheum: We haven't had much focus on her, but he seems to value her opinion and listen to her advice. (We also know that April likes him from the time they've spent together and he likes April, so I would say he and Cheum probably have pretty good trust built up.)

Mew and Boston: He believed without a single doubt when Boston said that Top had never had a lover longer than 3 months and that Top would probably, as Ray put it "nail and bail" once Mew and Top have sex. Cheum also believed Boston. Do I think Boston was lying here? No. But neither do they and that's important. Does Boston trust Mew? I think he does. His issues with Mew are not about trust.

Mew and Ray: These two vibe a little different than the rest of the group. They seem closer; they seem like they've talked about "the deep stuff" (vs maybe superficial topics with their other friends). Their first one on one scene has them talking about Ray's alcoholism seriously (even though Mew doesn't push about it as much as I would have liked) and you can tell there's an intimacy there that the other group members don't share. Whether that stems from whatever it is that happened that night in the video (I am salivating about this, it's delicious, I need more info) or because they've been friends for longer, I don't know.

Let's move on to the pairs:

Cheum and April: Do they trust each other? I assume so? Cheum goes out drinking with the boys at least once a week and April seems okay with that (we haven't heard otherwise), so I'll say yes? (Jojo, I NEED MORE OF THEM. I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TO EVEN ANALYZE. GIVE US MORE.)

Sand and Ray: I'm gonna call this one as Sand does not trust Ray, but Ray trusts Sand. Sand knows that Ray is a walking red flag and he's trying to resist but Ray is making it really hard. *ahem* Ray bailing mid-make out is not helping Sand's trust issue. If you look at how Sand has cared for Ray since episode one, however, Ray most likely trusts Sand. I mean, Ray talked about his mom to Sand. I think that's a biiiig deal.

Mew and Top: Thanks to Boston, neither of them trusts the other. And this, right here, is why Mew has not moved the relationship forward. HE DOESN'T TRUST TOP. He's still worried that Top will "nail and bail". Remember Mew's checklist from episode two? He only checks off "gets along with my friends" (HAH!) and "respects me" but not "doesn't lie to me". We can infer this means it hasn't been marked off since he doesn't mention it to anyone in this episode. Given that a lot of us clocked Mew potentially spotting Boston's trunks on the floor in the shower, along with him questioning if Top was telling the truth about the fire, it's clear this is the one thing holding him back.

If Mew agrees to be Top's boyfriend, then the expectation of sex becomes a lot higher (it shouldn't but that's a different discussion to be had). It's also implied in the narrative (and from Jojo) that Mew is a very structured person and he doesn't like to lose control (re-watch the counter scene from episode one. You know you want to. I'll wait). The moment that Mew realizes that he is way too into what they're doing, he panics because he doesn't have control over the situation.

Up until episode three, Top did trust Mew. He trusted him enough to get vulnerable and then Boston blew it up by fabricating a narrative backed with evidence of...something between Ray and Mew (I'm seriously dying for this scene, I need it).

Another thing I am having thoughts about is that in this episode, Top referred to himself as Mew's boyfriend and so did Cheum and Mew didn't deny it like he did in episode two. When Top's *ahem* "buddy" approached them at the silent disco, it was very clear that Mew expected Top to introduce Mew as his boyfriend and was visibly (if momentarily) upset that he didn't.

Boston and Nick: Yes and no, but also no and no, respectively. So Boston trusts Nick with some things but not everything which leads to him lying, gaslighting and manipulating (he's a triple threat). In turn, Nick lies right back, because what else can he do? (a lot of things actually, oh Nick, you are starting to spiral hard.) This leads Nick to rigging the CCTV video to show on his phone and to wiretap Boston's car, which just shows you his trust in Boston is non-existent.

In conclusion: Trust is another theme the show seems to be exploring: earning it, keeping it, and what you do after trust is broken. I think it can tie back into the ongoing ephemerality discussion as well: trust isn't permanent. You have to earn it, maintain it, and once broken, it's gone (and seldom can be repaired).

Also, everyone needs therapy.

Tagging the Ephemerality Squad: @waitmyturtles, @chickenstrangers, @lurkingshan, @twig-tea, @ranchthoughts, @clara-maybe-ontheroad

Hope I didn't forget anyone!

[awesomeferret10]

I would like to talk about Ianthony as of post April 1st 2024. (With obvious parallels to both The Event and Dan and Phil)

1. I see a lot of people like obsessively combing over every glance and reading into every word which isn’t anything new but I feel has really kicked up a notch lately. My general response to this is the ianthony “relationship” label shouldn’t matter. They obviously love each other platonically or anything else and I think it’s important sometimes to take a step back from your theorizing and hyperventilating to just enjoy them as people and their friendship and how much they care

2. Keep in mind this isn’t like Dan and Phil. They aren’t young people who haven’t been given the opportunity to discover/express themselves. They both still confidently state they’re straight up to a couple of months ago. When they’ve actively been asked for over 10 years what their sexuality is constantly I feel as though maybe they would have done some internal exploration of their sexualities by now. Obviously sexualities aren’t static and labels don’t matter. Gender and sex is nothing compared to the connection of people and often sexuality labels can be completely overridden or thrown into question by one person. On top of the fact that Anthony has essentially stated this himself of “you never know 🤷‍♂️” but like. They still both are confident in the label of straight. So chill out a little.

3. The crew shipping them isn’t some like inside joke within the smoffice. It’s an inside joke within the community THAT WE ARE ALL INSIDE OF. It’s a joke built by years of Ian and Anthony playing into fans questions for views and the fact that many of their employees were previously Smosh fans. So although it’s funny that all the editors and cast and crew are playing into it more than Ian and Anthony themselves in the videos remember it’s not proof of anything. They’re just being silly goofy.

4. I get it. Because before The Event I was very dismissive of every shourtney shipper. I enjoyed their genuine connection as best friends and people who clearly loved each other. But every time I saw something pointing out “oh Courtney said this” “oh look how Shayne looked at them here” I had the “this isn’t 2010 guys when will you give it up they’re just besties” reaction. I never thought people were insane for noticing that possible connection but I also just thought people were driving themselves mad reading into stuff. Obviously a lot of the things people pointed out are still probably nothing because again people were analyzing literally every microsecond.

5. Like no seriously I get it. On inspection Ian and Anthony make fuck me eyes at each other. Like constantly. They look at each other like there’s no one else in the world sometimes. The behind the scenes for my dead friend where they just spend 2 minutes with Ian trying to stick something in Anthony’s pocket while both of them are giggling is literally middle school flirting. Anthony tearing up at the story of best friends turned lovers. Little bit dramatic king. Like we all know why Shayne and Courtney love that story. But Anthony dude. After going through April 1st 2024 I totally understand not wanting to discard any of the shit these two idiots say. And it’s also really funny since they’ve proven they don’t care. Just want everyone to remember to be careful to just enjoy them soley as a duo without the conspiracy of a relationship on occasion.