#this is in the same series where she clearly just learned about the trope of the Noble Savage

[repotting]

What tf was up w that Madeline L'Engle novel that was like "to be a good Christian you shouldn't be homophobic! If people are gay it's Not Your Business. ☺️ (Btw yes they DO groom and attempt to rape teenage kids BUT like that's just what happens when someone's Very Sad so you should be the bigger person and forgive them!! 🥰 Right after it happened, child!)"

[thekingofwinterblog]

One Piece/Ranma - Amazons

So one huge Ranma Reference/inspiration that is stupidly obvious that i never really thought about despite having read both one piece and Ranma for close on 20 years now, is how blatant Oda was about taking inspiration from Rumiko's "chinese amazons" for the Kuja.

Though the actual japanese wording for the group isnt directly amazons(instead basically using their homeland of Joketsuzoku as the denominator of their ethnicity as opposed to the english official translation) in every other way they are stupidly similar, down to the meta beats.

Both are heavily Chinese inspired societies of warrior women, with similar architecture who's only settlement is a mountain town, who famously value strength above anything else.

Even our first main look into their cultures both feature competitive matches between amazons.

Both luffy and Ranma had a seemingly inconsequential match on these very same introductionary arena's that both ended up being some of the most important fights of their entire lives(This setting up everything Ranma ever learned from cologne, and for luffy this was the beginning of him winning hancocks heart and everything that came from that) where both wowed the onlooking amazons with their massive power, but also lead to both of them winning the heart of one of the amazons there in the long run(though for somewhat different reasons).

Also, Oda famusly made Hancock as "perfect" a romantic partner for luffy as he possibly could have in order to have some fun with parodying the tropes regarding love stories, with even her name Hancock being a reference to one of the big early names of rubber during the victorian age... but one aspect that was dropped for the final product was that Hancock was originally supposed to have purple hair... An aspect she would have shared with Shampoo, though her's is a bit different in shade.

the most important dynamic within both amazon cultures as related to the actual plot is between a younger, more contemporary amazons(Hancock and Shampoo), and their wiser older mentor who used to be incredibly beautiful but who's looks withered away with age.

For bonus points, both are famous for carrying around a staff in their old age.

The twist of course is that Cologne and Shampoo's relationship is defined by their shared blood and with the older woman loving shampoo dearly and generally doing everything in her power to help her achieve her dreams, while Gloriosa and Hancock do not share blood and have a much more tumoltous relationship though they still care about each other.

Furthering their meta connection, Both people also are essential for the story through introducing more mystical techniques into the story, With Ranma being taught several of Cologne's techniques, most famously his trademark hiryu shoten ha, while in One Piece, though they didnt introduce it, it was here where through the kuja we finally got a real introduction to the 3 colors of haki that would dominate the second half of the series.

Honestly im baffled i never really realized how much ranma influenced One Piece before, and how Oda managed to still make it his own while clearly taking inspiration from one of the big series of his childhood that wasn't dragon ball.

Also given how Oda was one of the first(and by far the biggest author) to just blatantly steal Ryoga's "Strong Guy with terrible direction sense" schtick with Zoro, i honestly dont get how i never really realized how much Ranma influenced One Piece before.

[violetganache42]

Highlights from a swashbuckling, futuristic watch party on this fine 6th anniversary of "The Shadow War!":

"No Sail"

The sail deactivating every ten seconds after despositing a nickel

"Warning: Never. Drink. Sea water! Tempting as it is, it'll just make you thirstier."

Mine!

Goofy pulling up a fake shark fin while Donald gets a real shark

Return of the Perfect Cast!

"Duck to the Future"

Godfrey and I DREADING this episode

Not Doofus Drake! ><

WriteBackAtYa: "Who doesn’t want lemonade made by 87 Doofus Drake’s feet?"

(No! Bad Will!)

Magica appearance?!

This episode predicting Scrooge being Doctor Who

$500 BUS FAIR?! DAMN INFLATION!

HDL's "adult" designs (It's not fucking hard to make them look like actual adult ducks!)

Old Man Gyro

Me: "Where's Time Baby when you need him?" Godfrey: "Again, same brain"

Take a shot every time WriteBackAtYa says "It gets worse"

Us HATING Future Webby's design (Her outfit is fine, but everything else? Bless me bagpipes, it's bad!)

Pay no attention to the witch behind the curtain!

Future Doofus being an absolute dick (Webby deserves someone better, and that someone is Lena!)

puffywuffy8904 and Alex: *pointing out how Drake is dead* WriteBackAtYa: "The orange traffic cone above his grave should be stolen by now"

Johnny Quest ass shot

Future Louie riding shotgun

Even in the original series, Dewey crashes a plane

Suddenly, THE HINDENBURG DISASTER

Scrooge disrupting the timeline with Webby saying she's not into Doofus (Thank you for setting the course for a good future, Scrooge. This episode was… UGH… Never again! ><)

"Sky Pirates…in the Sky!"

Dewey wanting to tell his family how he got his hat

"Hey feet off the merchandise!"

Us singing the Sky Pirate song!

Scrooge's golden reaction after the song finished and the treasure was stolen

puffywuffy8904: "even though it was SHIT"

Any: "Busted" Me:

Webby casually gaslighting Louie into believing the Sapphire of Souls is real

Louie being the Gollum of the family

Don Karnage being a bad actor

puffywuffy8904: "you know who ELSE is a botanist" Me: "MY MOM"

Cater-chiller

Godfrey and Kaito stealing my thunder

Discord dunking on Dewey by freezing the stream during his Sky Pirate reprise

Even LAUNCHPAD was mad at Dewey for what he did! LAUNCHPAD OF ALL PEOPLE! That's how you know you and your ego trip fucked up!

Magica having a better disguise than Don Karnage

Sky pirates: "A Duel!" Godfrey: "(cue duel of the fates)"

The way Scrooge boards the Sunchaser with his hat full of treasure. XD

Webby revealing to Louie she tricked him: GASLIGHT GATEKEEP GIRLBOSS

Marshmello x DuckTales - Fly (Music Video)

Scrooge and the kids embodying the element of sassy

Puffy panicking about the family being out in space

"MARSHMELLO IS A DUCKTALES FAN"

This song being in a Fortnite event apparently

Treasure Planet

Everyone realizing Missy hadn't joined yet (The lack of "smash" was noticable.)

Me sharing Treasure Planet Lorcana cards

The offended "Ewww"

melcat33: "family clearly having a huge crisis" "MY JUICE" Tokuvivor: "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the kitchen drinking… juice."

puffywuffy8904: "HEY COOL A DEAD GUY"

Alex pointing out how the dying guys always have to give a vague warning

Jim: "Treasure Planet." Me: "Roll credits."

Delbert immediately being on board to tag along with Jim

The meta in "character-building months"

The TRANSITION from the Hawkins' residence to the Spaceport!

Captain Amelia appearance!

CYBORG…

John Silver 🤝 Hugh Neutron Calling Jim and Jimmy "Jimbo"

MORPH APPEARANCE

Learning the original Treasure Planet novel popularized a lot of pirate tropes

Everyone praising how it is a fun yet underrated movie

puffywuffy8904: "wait are they gonna kiss eww" Me: "Outside. Now!"

Subtitles dying as John Silver was berating the crew

"I'm Still Here" screaming 2000s-core

Subtitles near the end of the montage:

Star Wars doing the "Your father is the true villain" shtick first

TransedMyGender: "You know what's worse than a supernova?" Alex: "see your father leave"

Scroop killing Arrow!

puffywuffy8904: "there ain't gonna be a treasure planet 2 for us to worry about" melcat33: "don't you dare jinx us"

"oh shit, guess i have a kid now"

Morph messing with Jim

Missy FINALLY joining the watch party!

Morph custody fight

Everyone saying who they consider the best duck waifu (Morph can be a duck if he wants to. lol)

Suddenly, ROBOT

Learning that Jim was voiced by Joseph Gordin Levitt (NGL, he sounded a lot like Ben Schwartz at various instances)

The violins playing

"We're not a couple" Delbert and Amelia LITERALLY having a shipping moment immediately after

puffywuffy8904: "this guy stinks" Me and WriteBackAtYa's first thoughts:

THE MEME

"Woof."

Delayed subtitles

🎵Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!🎵

The WONDERFUL meshing of 2D animation and CGI

Us @ Scroop's death:

Me: "BITE OF 87" WriteBackAtYa: "87 like ducktales?"

BATHROOM BREAK SPEEDRUN

puffywuffy8904: "hey you know what ELSE has robots and supernovas" Alex: "not Jimbo's dad"

Suddenly, HUEBERRYSHORTCAKE APPEARANCE!

This movie being TaleSpin in Space

Family is the greatest treasure of all!

WriteBackAtYa: "His mom is cool" Me: "She did her very best." WriteBackAtYa: "Like no one ever was"

SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON

Delbert and Amelia already having quatriplets quadruplets

DuckLooneyHistoria bringing up the 1988 Russian Treasure Island movie

[zenkindoflove]

Elain and the bond

I've been thinking about Elain's feelings around the bond and reflecting on various theories and what people hope to see.

I think that it's clear that Elain, as of yet, feels like the bond is something that has been done to her. Given the circumstances which the bond snapped for her and Lucien, and her own naivete about mating bonds since it doesn't exist for humans, it makes a lot of sense. She was in love with Graysen and being his wife was the future she wanted. At the same time that she was made fae and that dream was dashed forever, she feels this magical pull to a stranger in her chest.

I can see how Elain would feel that pull and draw and think that this strange magic is manipulating her feelings and fight against it.

What I would love to see in their story is a little different than what I've seen some others express. A lot of people like the idea of Elain and Lucien falling in love despite the bond, sometimes even going as far to say they'd like to see her reject it and then they fall in love anyways.

For me, that would be a really dissatisfying story to tell with Elain's own relationship to the mating bond. I would much rather read about Elain discovering that the mating bond isn't something that has been done TO her but rather the mating bond IS her.

What we know about mating bonds is that they seem to be determined by a force that goes beyond basic magic. The characters often talk about how bonds come from the Cauldron, but that is their own religious interpretation of how the Cauldron works. Instead, we see across all of SJM series that mating bonds are consistent, even in worlds where the Cauldron doesn't exist. SJM uses the trope of the mating bond as a physical manifestation of how everyone experiences a draw they have to someone who they ultimately fall in love with. With Rhys and Cassian, we both know that they suspected the mating bond existed before Feyre and Nesta were fae. Before it had the ability to snap. And Feyre and Nesta also show clear signs of being drawn to Rhys and Cassian as well as humans.

Elain and Lucien never met when she was human, and something about either the situation they were in or the strength of their bond, made it snap for them soon after Elain was turned fae. Lucien was clearly showing mate behavior before Elain went into the Cauldron, indicative that he felt a similar pull to her even before it was possible for the bond to snap.

What I would love for Elain to figure out in her journey is that she was always going to be drawn to Lucien. Just like in worlds without mating bonds, where we feel an indescribable instant attraction to someone, Elain was always going to feel that way about Lucien. The mating bond isn't manipulating her feelings or her desires but rather those same attractions she would have always felt are amplified by the magic of the bond. I suspect this is one of the reasons she pushes him away and explores lower risk options and rebounds as she heals from her broken heart. She feels drawn to him but for many reasons she's not ready/afraid to explore what that attraction and pull could become. When they do start to learn more about each other, I would love for Elain to have this moment of acceptance about the bond. Rather than resenting it or loving Lucien despite it, embracing that the tether to Lucien has been apart of her since before she even knew him, and that the bond is just a way for them to access each others souls because they were always meant to be together. The Mother saw that and gave them this tether so they could find each other.

[princessofmerchants]

Cassian dreaming of Gwydion and foreshadowing Ataraxia and his own HEA 😭🙌🏻

[Cassian observing Ataraxia on Rhys's desk]

"The great sword's hilt was a simple cross guard, the pommel a rounded bit of metal.

Gwydion, the last of the magic swords, had been dark as night and as beautiful.

How many games had Cassian played as a child with Rhys and Azriel, where a long stick had been a stand-in for Gwydion? How many adventures had they imagined, sharing that mythical sword between them, as they slew wyrms and rescued damsels?

Never mind that Rhys's particular damsel had slain a wyrm herself and rescued him instead."

—ACOSF, ch. 42

My absolute favorite HOFAS spoiler after the break as I lose my mind over this moment in ACOSF after having read HOFAS 🥹

I am screaming at how this moment is in ACOSF, Nessian's book — then cut to HOFAS where Cassian's badass mate Nesta slays a damned wyrm with the same magical sword he's looking at here (which she herself Made by the way 💁🏼‍♀️), the same one that makes him think of Gwydion, which in fact is in his very same mate's possession by the end of HOFAS 😭🙌🏻‼️

All the times I read this before HOFAS, there was always something kind of bittersweet and sad about the way Cass's train of thought here ends on Rhys and Feyre and how badass his High Lady is, and how grateful Cass clearly is for the way she saves his brother by loving him...

I always assumed SJM was partly leaning into the fairytale trope of dragon slaying by looking back to that very first book in the series where she brought the Middengard Wyrm onto the page and used it to further characterize her main heroine at the time, Feyre.

Little did we know SJM, with this moment in ACOSF, was also pointing to the future and, for Cassian in particular, creating an echo simultaneously forward and back in time to when his own mate would go on to not only slay the same kind of wyrm, but would do it wielding the immense power of the very same new magical sword, Ataraxia, on the table before him — and only because he loves her and trains her to wield it 😭🙌🏻

Cass is filled with such longing in this moment. I'm floored in the most amazing SJM-induced way that this longing ABSOLUTELY gets fulfilled.

And again, in past readings of ACOSF that fulfillment was legible in part by how at the end of ACOSF Nes finally claims Cass as her mate then literally saves him when she erupts and Un-Makes Briallyn, in whose thrall he is trapped. That was always amazing enough, a beautiful HEA in its own right.........

BUT TO THIS CASS OF ACOSF CH. 42 I SAY: YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF THE RICHES OF DREAMS FULFILLED YOUR HAPPILY EVERY AFTER WITH NESTA HAS IN STORE 😭 JUST YOU WAIT MY DUDE

(Can you even imagine how Cassian must have felt, what his reaction was when Nesta came home after her adventures with Bryce in the tunnels under Prythian, and he learned what Nesta did to that wyrm with Ataraxia? He must have melted into a mated puddle of goo to the tune of "That's my fucking mate, y'all!" 🥹)

[veliseraptor]

January Reading Recap

Thousand Autumns: vol. 3 by Meng Xi Shi. This book is - I don't want to say growing on me because it was never not one I was enjoying, but it certainly got interesting in a new way in this volume. The shift in the relationship between Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao feels like an important one, even if it doesn't last, and the glimpses at a background for Yan Wushi not elaborated upon certainly have me intrigued.

I have the whole epub of the fan translation for this one and might end up just reading it through to the end without waiting for the official translation volumes to come out (though I'll probably read those too, because I like reading more than one translation where I can).

Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracies Became a Health Threat by Derek Beres, Matthrew Remski, and Julian Walker. Sometimes you read a book on a really interesting subject and it just kind of makes you want to read a better book on that subject. Based on a podcast of the same name, this book was...fine? But it remained relatively shallow, and heavy on the examples rather than the analysis. It was more of a survey of instances where health and wellness/conspiracy thinking intersect than it felt like it was taking a deep look at where and why those intersections happen. It was interesting, and I learned some things, certainly, but it didn't quite dig as deep as I wanted to go.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado. What a fascinating piece of work. I don't have a whole lot of coherent things to say, except that I don't read a lot of memoir and I'm glad I read this one. I think I liked it better than I liked Machado's short story collection - certainly it was doing very interesting things with form and style in a narrative built loosely on the skeleton of a memoir. It's funny, because I could see myself finding the conceit here irritating or pretentious, but for whatever reason I think the vulnerability of the project undercut that aspect for me.

Dead Country by Max Gladstone. Mostly this book reminded me that I really want to reread the Craft Sequence, so I started doing that. Calling this an intro to that world feels weird - it doesn't really feel like an entry-point to me, despite the fact that it's being marketed that way - but perhaps that's me with the benefit of having read the other books but slightly too long ago to clearly remember them. (Hence the reread.)

Based on my vague recollections I remember liking his other books better than this one, but that's me comparing some books I really liked to one that I enjoyed but wasn't blown away by. But I'm still coming back to read the next one in this series, so I can't speak too harshly of it.

Faraway Wanderers by Priest. I really enjoyed this one! I love the way that Priest writes banter/interplay between two characters, and she definitely has a thing for people who are equally fucked up being fucked up together that I appreciate. Another thing to appreciate about this one is how (relatively speaking) tight it is - there's not a whole lot of wandering, despite the title, and the plot keeps moving in a pretty linear direction from start to finish. I love my longass cnovels with multiple arcs, but it was a little refreshing to read one this contained. It's not in my upper echelons of danmei I've read so far, because it doesn't hit my favorite tropes quite as hard, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh. Probably wins my favorite book I read last month challenge. The ending got a little deus ex machina for my taste, strictly speaking, but not so much that it ruined my experience - and I genuinely enjoyed the refreshing experience of reading a book that was digging into some messy shit in a way that I found satisfying. I felt like some of the character development could've used more breathing room/space, but maybe I'm just picky about that, and the propulsive pace did keep me reading this one so fast I think I finished it in two days.

This is really petty but I also appreciated the author's willingness to have the protagonist/narrator be not the picture of good progressive politics. It allowed room for the, you know, development, and in the current genre climate I don't take it for granted.

Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century by Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman. I don't quite know what I feel about this one. The basic argument Guriev and Treisman are making is that dictators have changed strategies in the 21st century from what they call "dictatorships of fear" to "dictatorships of spin." I think the main critique I came out of it with has to do with the authors drawing too stark a line between their dictatorship "types" and not necessarily acknowledging that a leader can move between them, or use elements of more than one "type" in different places. Like any binary, it obscures fuzziness of categories and potential overlap in favor of trying to make clear distinctions. This is particularly visible in the way that their writing about Putin feels dated just from the initial 2022 publication date.

There were a couple other things that struck me as weird (I suspect the authors might be a bit to the right of me, and there's at least a whiff of classism about their characterization of "the informed" as a class of people); on the whole it felt worth reading but also like a book I want to talk to someone else about to help process my thoughts.

Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I love Tchaikovsky's work, and this conclusion to the Final Architecture series is no exception to that. And that's all, she wrote.

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi. I wanted to like this book more than I did - not that I didn't like it, but there's so much interesting stuff going on that it felt like didn't quite add up to a greater whole. A solid three star read, though, in the sense of "I'm glad I read it, and if someone else mentioned they were reading it I would probably provide my favorable impression, but I'm not going to go out of my way to recommend it to others."

There's definitely sequel bait at the end, though, and I probably will read the sequel if/when it appears. I'm intrigued enough, and the setting/worldbuilding is different enough - to get me that far.

--

I'm currently rereading Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone (Dead Country made me do it) but have We Are Satellites by Sarah Pinsker proximately on my list for a book club; I'm on a bit of a fiction kick looking at The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler, He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan, The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang, and Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer as possible next-ups as well. I'll get back to my long, long nonfiction to-read list eventually. (in the meantime I've got my long, long, long fiction to-read list.)

[strawberryjamsara]

was wondering what your thoughts are on the women of persona 3? I've seen you talk about yukari a lot but what do you think of mitsuru, fuuka, aigis and chidori?

I sort of had a big review of Persona 3 a while back where I talked about my feelings on reload and loving it after seeing a let’s play of the original and hating it. But to reiterate:

Mitsuru: She has a lot of shortcomings in the narrative, but I still think she’s pretty solidly written. I can at least see why she cares about her dad, in opposition to Haru’s cartoonishly evil father, though I wish the story spent a little more time having her grapple with the implications of inheriting the big evil coorporation that started this mess. Like, I know I’m biased because I hate capitalism, but I think she should have denounced the Kirijo name and did her own thing, and also punched that cop in the face too. I enjoy her arc about learning to open up and enjoy being a teen though. I will say, her social link is rubbish. Clearly written with shipping first and exploring her character waaaaaay last. So yeah, good character, could have been better.

Fuuka: I think too much of Fuukas arc was fromtloaded. When she shows up she’s seemingly weak willed, shown through how she can only sit back and scan enemies, but powerful in how she can get her bully to respect her through her kindness, and her scanning ability wins you the fight. But for most of the game, her dialogue is mostly just her finding the full moon enemies which is a shame. I think her final awakening might be the best in the game however, though it’s in stiff competition with Junpei. I think her bond with Natsuki is legit great. I got emotional when Natsuki was like ‘the biggest bitch in the school is leaving and you’re sad’ like noooooo Fuuka cares so much about you and that’s her strength! I will say, again, her social link is really bad. It’s not shippy bad like Mitsuru, but could they not think of a better story for this main character than learning how to cook?

Aigis: I said before that in my first watch of P3 I hated the game, and I REALLY didn’t like Aigis. Having this robot who buries her face in your bare chest and watches you sleep made me feel like I was witnessing somebodies fetish put into this jrpg. On a playthrough of reload however, I grew way more attached to her. The whole ‘robot learns to feel’ trope is very standard, but it’s one I love all the same, and there were a lot of moments I appreciated like Aigis getting excited over ladybugs, or imitating Junpei. I also think that SEES felt way more like actual friends when playing reload, which made me far more convinced that Aigis would come to see them as a found family rather than in the original where the mc would only interact with the other characters if they were romancable, and also cheating is mandatory. I also watched the movies after beating reload and this isn’t really relevant but: I sorta see Yukari as the main love interest in the game version and Aigis as the main love interest in the movies. But yes, it took me till reload but I really like Aigis. Oh yeah and her social link is 10/10. Just hanging around with her and letting her enjoy life. It’s always cuter, and more romantic when they do this with the social links instead of GET YOUR WAIFU GO FETCH.

Chidori: Chidori is so good. It makes me wish that the Persona series would have more ‘canon’ romances instead of making every woman that moves a romance option for the player because the romance between Chidori and Junpei is so fucking good. I think she’s a real embodiment of the themes the game has, of loving life and living to the fullest because it will end someday, instead of moping around waiting for it to happen. I think her existence also shows off how horrid Stregas mindset is, because they’re readily willing to dispose of her because of their belief that nothing in life matters. I love that she has a full character arc learning to appreciate life through the people around her, as her art begins to reflect this new state with her drawing of Junpei, and I LOVE if you engage with her and Junpeis love story and help encourage Junpei that it’s worth trying for this relationship you get to save her in the end! It’s a nice little ‘Okay, did you understand the themes we’re trying to put forward here? If so, you get a reward!��� moment. My one nitpick is, I wish that in the route you save her, she showed up during the ending. Maybe in the segment where you’re walking around, you see Junpei talking to her and when you question it he’s like ‘What are you talking about, Chidori’s been in this class for a while.’ I think it’d be cute. But yeah, 10/10

[bl-recs-and-reviews]

This is BL challenge for you (if you choose to accept them).

1.a) Please write your top 3 or top 5 favorite tropes in BL.

b) From each trope, write at least 3 BL that you love.

(Feel free if you want to write the reasons or not of why you love them).

2. a) What is the first BL that make you want to know more about and eventually love BL?

b) What is that one BL that have a special place in your heart (for whatever reason)?

The BL can be in in the form of manga, manhwa, manhua, books, tv series or movies.

Thanks so much if you want to answer this long ask.

This looks like fun :) I accept!

Sorry for the late reply this took a while to answer properly ❤ It' so hard to choose

1. Top 5 Favorite Tropes in BL and corresponding shows (in no particular order)

Arragended relationship: - Seven Days (manga) - Now this is one of my favorite manga of all time. So simple yet so good. How you end up falling in love with someone as a result of an experiment - Ookami e no Yomeiri (series/manhwa) - This one is beautiful to look at. Not for the people that cringe at furry stuff. It's an arranged marriage, and how by observing/looking at the other person you like what you discover. - Kieta Hatsukoi (series/manga) - This one is probably known by all. Cute, simple, funny and light hearted. Honestly the more time goes by, the more I think of it fondly ❤

Enemies to lovers: - We Best Love (series) - It's not everyday that a show manages to do an enemies to lovers twice with the same couple. I particularly love S2. And how the love is clearly still there but the hurt is still hurting. - Bad Buddy (series) - Not perfect but with perfect moments. Some amazing scenes that will forever be my favorite. The rooftop scene particularly makes me put it here ;) - Semantic Error (series/manhwa) - The best kbl out there. Proper enemies to lovers, with an adorable height difference. Amazing. 10/10

Miscomunication (done right) - My Personal Weatherman (series) - I am currently losing my mind over this show because of how many of my favorite tropes are happening in it. They miscommunications on this show feel very true and understandable. And despite them they sometimes do manage to communicate well :) - Escape Journey (manga) - Ogeretsu Tanaka is one of my favorite mangaka. And in Escape Journey she manages to make a very realistic depiction of a relationships between flawed people who's happiness is stopped by their lack of communication - Cupid's Last Wish (series) - This is one of those underrated gems that not a lot of people have watched. But let me tell you I loved it, so much. Especially when you have complex relationships, made complex because of unresolved feelings and lack of understanding of the complexities of other people. I love it when characters fuck up and then have to learn to fixs thing properly

Opposites attract - Doukyuusei (manga/movie) - I feel like I talk about this one all the time, but I love it so much. It's such a good story. The pace, the build up, the characters, the love, the everything. I just love it very much. Sunshine x Glasses guy basically xD - King's Maker (manhwa) - What's with me and blond action mains and calculating dark haired with glasses smart guys? In any case, one of the only manhwa's I've read. And I love it. It's got politics, angst and pinning. What else do you need? Kabe Koji (series) - Guess who's also a sunshine boy in love with a dark broody guy? This is the epitome of opposites attract, and japan knows how to do them. Another little hidden gem that maybe not a lot of people know

Hurt/comfort - Mou Ichido Nandodemo (manga) - This is one of my favorite use of the anmesia trope. It's a short manga, where amnesia comes to fuck us around but then it gets overcome in a really cool way. One of my favorite mangas :) - Mainichi Seiten series (manga) - This was one of the first long series of various volumes that I read. It starts very lightheartedly and then goes to sorta dark places. I really liked it because of how bittersweet it was - Oni to Tengoku (manga) - This one is a comedy. With an age gap and questionable behavior older men manage to have a very sweet love story while healing from past trauma. Isn't it neat? Also I love when sex is used as a healing tool, it resonates with me

2. a) The first BL that made me interested in BL

My gosh this one is hard. I don't really remember cause it's been forever. And I was always into "unusual romances". I really liked the strong "bromance" between Zoisite and Kunsite in Sailor Moon, back when I was a kid. I think the first BL coulpe I consciously liked was Touya and Yukito from CardCaptor Sakura. So I always had a penchant for liking those secondary couples. I guess there was no proper first BL that made me interested in BL. I just ended up finding the genre because I had a prior interest.

However, probably my first proper BL was Junjou Romantica. It was the first long length BL anime that I saw. I was blown away. Up until then it had only been crumbs and soap opera side couples. Oh, how things have changed since then :)

b) A BL with a special place in my heart

So many. And it always changes. But I guess one that will always have a space in my heart is the combo Tokyo Babylon and X/1999. CLAMP's golden age of mangas are some of my favorite of all times. And X was so good (but forever in hiatus). The characters, the conflicts, the angst, the everything. Subaru and Seishirou's love story. The fate of the world depending on Kamui's love. Where else are you gonna find a story where the choice that might save the world is the selfish one? Where realizing that you're in love with your childhood friend is what might stop the fighting? And also this moment:

source

If you know, you know. I wonder what I would think if I read it now, but still forever in my heart.

This was a lot of fun! Thank you so much for the ask ❤

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

hey v and emily! thank you for doing this podcast! i really enjoy getting to listen and learn with you. i just finished episode 23 where you mentioned libba bray et al being problematic and my curiosity is piqued. i read all of libba bray's books as they were coming out, so for some of them it's been quite a while. were you referring to book content or irl event(s) or both? i would love to know more if you have the time

V here -- I LOVE Libba's The Diviners series, but it also has a lot of things that could have been handled better if she had put in the research. For example, it's yet another example of the Bury Your Gays trope/the Evil Lesbian trope, and she put significantly less research and work into writing 1920s LES Russian-Jewish culture than she did any other non-WASP culture in the series. Given that it's a series ostensibly ABOUT eugenics in America as a necessary evil of the "American Dream," the fact that she kind of lumped Sam's VERY NOT-WHITE IN THE 1920s experience into being One Of The White Characters drives me nuts. (Also she gets her Yiddish wrong.)

I also don't personally love the AGATB series, because it's just not my flavor of genre fiction, but this blog does a pretty good breakdown of why it doesn't hold up to 2023 standards of responsible representation/inclusion, especially wrt the "heroic" main character being a British colonist in India.

Bray spends two whole paragraphs describing the Indian marketplace. It’s not just for scene setting; she’s using her setting for novelty. The problem is that people are never novel to themselves, nor is their own culture novel to them. So using another culture for novelty means twisting the depiction for the purposes of entertaining outsiders. The result is exoticism.

Are these unforgivable evils? No. And honestly, compared to how A LOT of YA books older than, like, 2017, hold up to 2023 standards, I also personally fully acknowledge that my complaints about The Diviners are more like quibbles than anything with actual weight. It's not like she's Laura Ingalls W*lder. I also do think that there is almost no way to write historical fiction that is both accurate and critical of the structures that upheld the kyriarchy of the past in a way that is still suited to a STORY that is interesting and readable.

But I also think that, particularly with regard to AGATB, Libba was writing outside of her lane -- like... I'm not sure that any white westerner should necessarily be the person trying to tackle a fantasy series in British-occupied India, because our education on that time and place is steeped in Orientalism and even the most woke among us aren't authentic voices of those who suffered massively under that occupation. So IDK. AGATB came out long before We Need Diverse Voices, and you can tell.

With The Diviners, I mostly get frustrated because she clearly put A LOT of attention and care into writing Memphis' Black experience and Ling's Chinese-American experience, but she didn't afford the same research or care to Sam's Jewish experience because she didn't even do enough research to know that his experience WAS racialized (and he would have suffered xenophobia to boot, being a Russian immigrant).

tl;dr, she's not #cancelled -- hell, I write drabbles for The Diviners whenever I get the opportunity! -- but there are some glaring instances of ignorance and privilege in her writing that are a bummer.

[soul-dwelling]

Would FF have been improved by the White Clad members having better motives? Atleast some of them? But I guess with the endgoal being death it wouldnt really work without them being "crazy". Maybe leaving it ambigious if merging with Adalla would just be a global suicide and not some transformation or transcendece would have improved it? Dunno, maybe this was the only way to archieve the theme (if it wasnt changed in the middle)

I think any motivations would have helped make these characters more memorable and engaging--not even sympathetic, just someone whose story I want to read. 

What was Haumea’s motivation? It is defined so late in the story that I still, when re-reading, feel almost zero empathy for her. I wish there was a choice made to better show that she can hear too many thoughts, the thoughts being so much about dying just depressed her, so she wanted to stop hurting--and instead we have another potentially disablist “mad” character. This isn’t Stein where you see Stein still lives his life regardless his condition--this is just “insane character, so villain” trope. 

It’s why your remark, that the goal being death wouldn’t work without them being considered insane? Yeah, that’s because that seems to be the actual plot of this series, that these characters are just losing their minds, thus that death is preferable. 

But the story doesn’t do enough to make that seem like the option, for two reasons. 

First, you can see that Haumea is the only one obviously feeling his death drive--and, not justifying her desire for death, but at least you understand, with that much pain, why ending her suffering is preferable, however insane it comes across. 

But second, on the flip side to this, the way Haumea was defeated was by Shinra doing toxic positivity talk--because things weren’t so bad for him, so they shouldn’t be so bad for Haumea, so stop being “crazy”! 

…That’s not how this works. 

Haumea is in pain. The way to address her mental illness is not to say, “Things are great for me, I don’t get why they aren’t for you, just listen to me and your parental figure Charon and stop destroying things!’ At best, Shinra just finally says, “Look, I’ll re-make the world where you don’t have your ability, Haumea, and that will stop your suffering and somehow ‘cure’ your decades of trauma!” That is not how responding to trauma works. (Please forgive me for conflating insanity and trauma--these two are not the same.) Living after trauma is a lifetime of adjusting each day to that trauma--and this shonen just takes the most cliche approach to act like Haumea just gets better from  it. 

What was Charon’s motivation? Again, I wish it was telegraphed more clearly that he saw himself as Haumea’s parent, because until we see him tending to a baby Haumea, he just came across as the guy who has to hang out with a younger coworker. (I am avoiding discussing that last scene of the two, given how people read that romantically--which, blech, no.) 

What was Lisa’s motivation? We know Lisa got here because she didn’t want to become an Infernal like her parents--so…she gets bit by one of Giovanni’s bugs on purpose to unlock her powers, when said bug could have infernalize her anyway, and…I guess she was fine with the blame to turn the world into a new Sun, killing everyone? 

At least Sho was raised in a cult, so that is easy enough to bypass. What was Arrow’s origin story? Was it the same? 

Honestly, given what my friend and I write, you can have enough original characters and the explanation just be, “This is a cult, they are desperate to belong,” and have that be enough motivation to work. The problem is, once you have those cultists learn this plan is going to kill them, there is no way you don’t have some characters bail on this plan, whether because that is realistic (“I don’t want to die, I just wanted to belong”) or because that makes your story more interesting (it introduces conflict within the ranks of the Clads, it potentially weakens them to help it make sense how the good guys can manage some minor victory against a conspiracy that includes the entire government and the entire state religion). 

I think that ties into your point, that maybe leaving it ambiguous what the Clads had planned would have been better--because then you are just kicking that can down the road until the big reveal. But to make that work, you need to show that the Clads were a place that you get why these people were here. My friend does a great job writing Clad original characters where you get why they are here and feel that sense of belonging--you don’t have to agree with their actions, but you get how this is a found family, however toxic it is. It’s like the first live-action Ninja Turtles: you get how the Foot was able to con these teenagers into committing crimes, because the Foot was targeting wayward youths like Daniel who felt they didn’t belong.

[rel-bis]

Re-reading Ao no Flag cause I'm buying the physical volumes, so some thoughts specifically about Masumi's ending

So in the ending Masumi marries a man, and as a bi woman I have some thoughts about that, positive and negative. Let's start with the positive

I saw some comments from people saying its not explicit that she's bisexual or that clearly her husband is a beard and she got a sad closeted ending. I was confused about these comments tbh, I believe that it's clearly implied she's bi because of this page:

Her husband mentions being jealous of both men and women. And then he basically says "she chose a person, not a gender" which is LITERALLY the message bi people have been trying to get other people to understand forever! Even the comment about her "not belonging to either side" is something any bi person can relate to.

Also he's talking with Touma here, and asks him if he "gets it" regarding being jealous of men and women, and Touma responds in the affirmative("Really? You too?") because he's also married to a bi person(Taichi). Just a tiny thing that only makes sense when you learn that Touma is the POV character lol

It's unfortunately a common trope in Japan that sapphic relationships among young girls are not taken seriously and are treated as just a silly playful phase they go through and eventually grow out of. When I saw Masumi ended with a man, I winced, bracing myself for this scenario. However, her husband clearly acknowledges her attraction to women and her bisexuality by saying she didn't "choose a side", she chose him. It's rare to see such a clear messaging of bisexuality in manga, so this dialogue was honestly a very pleasant surprise to me.

Now the negative. I was happy about this sure, but it was also a bit awkward and hard to accept this happening in the very last chapter when for the entirety of the series, Masumi was coded as a lesbian. In real life no one would bat an eye at Masumi, someone who identifies as lesbian and previously only liked women could discover later she's actually bisexual and anyone who judged her for that would be an idiot, same thing if it was the opposite. But this is fiction, and what you portray and HOW you portray it matters.

One of the main evidences of her lesbian coding is that all her relationships with boys in high school fail, even though they're "perfect boyfriends". I guess you could interpret this as, obviously she couldn't force herself to like these boys regardless of gender while she was still in love with Futaba, but that's me making sense of it retroactively, the story doesn't make it clear and "lets you believe" she's a lesbian, because why wouldn't you, that's a pretty common way of coding it.

Another thing is Masumi's conversation with Akiko, where Masumi reveals that her internal struggles come from the fact that she wants to fit in heteronormative society because things would be easier that way. Her happiness comes from the people she loves being happy and not worried about her, which they would be if she "went against" society. So seeing her end up with a man can be uncomfortable as it can be seen as her making the choice to fit in with society.

SO YEAH I have conflicting feelings about this, I thint it definitely could have been handled better. I think the ending was very clear about her being bisexual and I like that, but there's also definitely a conversation to be had about lesbian erasure regarding how her arc was handled, and I understand the feelings of those who were upset and frustrated by it.

Sorry if I forgot anything lol and feel free to add any comments if you have them

[chateautae]

maybe i do | kth. I

➵ summary :  maybe you love each other, maybe you don’t. when a deal between your fathers leaves you forcefully wedding kim taehyung, arguably seoul’s most powerful CEO, you’re prepared for a loveless marriage of eternal regret and unhappiness. but maybe, it doesn’t turn out that way after all.

↳  part of the high-class series!

➵ pairing : taehyung x reader

➵ genre :  arranged marriage!au, ceo!tae, s2l!au, eventual smut, fluff, angst 

➵ rating : 18+

➵ word count : 11k

➵ warnings : swearing, alcohol consumption, anxiety, lots of feels about marriage, a stupid ex (reader’s), mentions of bad sexual experiences with ex (there’s consent, just bad sex that makes the reader feel shitty), does ceo tae count as a warning? 

➵ a/n: hello my first fic of my favourite trope arranged marriage, AND with kim taehyung?? yes pls !! this will be a series and I’ll be actively working on it so you don’t have to wait too long for chapters, i hope you can follow this series with me <33

chapter one : “my forever’s falling down”  

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“Another one, Father? I thought I told you my secretary would be handling marriage profiles from now on. Stop concerning yourself with who I marry.” 

“But I do, son. Trust me, I know this girl, she’s the daughter of a trusted friend and I think she’s a good match.” 

“Father, everyone you choose for me I dislike and it’s distracting me from my work. I don’t need this right now.” 

“She’s different, Taehyung. I personally know her and I’m certain you won’t say no.” 

“And why is that?” 

“There’s something about her you won’t refuse, son, you’ll notice it when you meet her.” 

“I don’t want to meet her, Father. Like I said, I need to work.” 

“I just knew you’d act this way. Want to know something, son? I’ve made her part of a business deal, you can’t back out of this.”

“What? You made her part of a business deal?! Why would you-”

“Because you wouldn’t have given her a chance otherwise, you haven’t been giving anyone a chance since I’ve been setting up potential partners for you and I’m sick of it. You said you were open to an arranged marriage, where’s that attitude now?”

“Because, Father, I have a company to run and that’s-”

“No. I will not allow you to reduce your life to just this company. There are far more enjoyable things in life than a business.”

“But Father-”

“No, Taehyung. One thing you need to learn is balance. If you don’t give anyone or anything a chance you will live a lonely life behind your desk. Even in this cutthroat world of business where you can lose money or be betrayed by anyone at any moment, the most painful thing to suffer is loneliness, and I won’t let you live in this world alone.”

“Dad-”

“You will meet this girl, Taehyung, end of discussion.” 

“Dad! I told you I want nothing to do with your company, how could you let me get dragged into this?!” 

“Y/N-ie, I know you value the life you have without any of my help, but let me help just this once, especially with finding a husband. I’m being offered the deal of a lifetime and I can’t refuse, he just happens to be part of it. I need this for the company, please.”

“But Dad, I don’t even know him. And if he’s the CEO of some rich company he’s probably an asshole, I’m not doing this.” 

“Y/N-ie, trust me, I know his son. He’s a sincere, hard-working man, I promise.”

“Yeah, right. Even if that’s the case, I still don’t know him, let alone love him, Dad. How can you make me marry someone I don’t love?”

“Because you can learn to love him. There are no rules concerning the way two people should fall in love, love doesn’t always need to come first.”

“But Dad-”

“My daughter, I have not asked you for many things in my life, but this is one thing I must ask of you. Please, just meet him, don’t say no without even trying.”

“Dad, I don’t know-”

“Please, Y.N, do it for me. If not for the company or money, please do it for me.”

And here you were, fidgeting with the tips of your nails, tuning in and out of the present world and overthinking every aspect of your life that somehow lead you to this moment. Sitting on a Leather Italia couch in what was described to be Mr. Kim’s study; listening to your father’s incessant, albeit wholesome chatter next to you with your future in-laws across. 

And next to them was their suave, unreadable son sitting in a relaxed manner, flipping his attention between your fathers’ conversation and anything else in the room.

You on the other hand, were utterly high strung due to the fact that your father failed to mention your future fiancé’s identity until 30 minutes before arriving here, having done a quick search in the car to unveil who he exactly was.

And that’s when it hit you. You weren’t marrying just anyone, you were getting married to Kim Taehyung. The infamous CEO of Kim Enterprises—Korea’s largest software development and manufacturing company, rivaling to be one of the largest in the world. He was part of Seoul’s most prestigious circle of businessmen, having made multiple Forbes international lists of Most Successful, Youngest, Richest, and is even one of Korea’s most eligible bachelors, not just Seoul.

If this wasn’t already taking you out, then it was definitely the fact that his photos through a measly Google search did him absolutely, utterly and completely no justice. They simply could never capture the truth of just how handsome Kim Taehyung was in real life. You couldn’t deny it, he wasn’t just good-looking, he was stunning, gorgeous, seemed as though God had created the universe, heaven and hell in 6 days and left the 7th just to create him. 

He was like a work of art, worthy of being placed in the finest of museums and left untouched, unsodden by the ugliness of humanity. It made you feel extremely inferior to him in an instant. It was sickening, he was sickening, intoxicating, and quite frankly, intimidating.

It was his look, his undivided stare when he eventually settled his sight on you. It didn’t matter his dark hair that landed and perfectly curled above his eyes, the way he occasionally licked his plush lips or how his long, tall legs spread out before him, it was his look that made you want to turn tail and run.  

It seemed to reach into your soul, peer straight through whatever façade, walls or defense mechanisms you could spend years building only to have his simple look tear it down in minutes. He was alluring, captivating, left you wanting to cower into whatever hole you could dig yourself into or discover all the secrets he hid behind those enchanting eyes.

Kim Taehyung was many things you couldn’t quite wrap your head around, though you assessed your priorities and decided they didn’t just include him, but mainly the significance of the current meeting taking place right now. 

It wasn’t a mere one-time business deal to discuss a project, it was a meeting that entailed the partnership of both your family companies and would define the next however many years of your life. More specifically, spending it with the exact same man that looked at you without a single readable expression on his face. 

You distracted yourself by trying to observe as many useless things as you could, flitting around the room many times before suddenly glancing at Taehyung’s index finger coming up to rest against his lips.

You zeroed your vision in more. 

Is that a cut on his finger?

“Jae-in, of course! This is just as important to me as it is to you, your son is a remarkable CEO, and I’m sure he’ll make an amazing husband.” 

“Aish, Namhyun, you flatter me too much. My son may be handsome, though your daughter is even more beautiful. I’m very sure she will make a wonderful wife.”

“Yes, Namhyun, your daughter is absolutely gorgeous! Just as gorgeous as her mother. I know she wasn’t able to make it, though may I ask where your wife is tonight?” 

“Ah, unfortunately, she’s out of the country. Though I was hoping my presence would be enough to fill in for her, am I doing a bad job?” 

Laughter erupted from the parents in the room, meanwhile, Taehyung couldn’t help but notice the way you immediately winced at the mention of your mother. Something he definitely wouldn’t miss with the way he found himself examining your every move. 

It was habitual to him, something born out of his roots in business, only for the purpose of calculating and reading people like an open book. 

He knew you’d also become victim to that habit, though oddly enough, he found himself quite interested in observing you. He had already figured you out; you hated business, there was a clear disconnection between yourself and your father’s company and you reeked of a sense of independence that funnily contradicted the antsy way you bounced your leg. 

Your way of speech, however, mannerisms, gestures, your look; it was all professional enough you clearly have some sort of background in business. You seemed like an heiress to Taehyung, which you were, though you oddly had no interest in business?   

All these details piqued his interest, curious of just who you exactly were, but he was mainly intrigued by the mysterious claim his father made upon mentioning you for the first time. 

‘There’s something about her you won’t refuse.’

That had raked Taehyung’s brain consistently for the past hour now, crossing his legs loosely and his arms folded over his chest, contemplating over and over again as he looked at you, what’s so damn special about her? 

‘You’ll notice it when you meet her,’ the words rang in his ears.

That was the driving force behind his calculation, observation, near inability to take his eyes off of you as he learned new things nearly every minute and led him closer to understanding his father.  

He could tell you were an anxious person, though hid it behind a persona of false confidence. You had a tendency to stick close to your father despite observing you don’t rely on him for much of anything, even less your mother. The softness behind your every movement despite being from a business background where you should be harsh, rigid, rough around the edges, and yet you seemed entirely different.

Taehyung then realized how inherently dissimilar you were to many of the other women he met. They were all relatively of the same cut and look. Cold, sharp, cunning. All women of pure business; daughters, granddaughters or straight CEOs of wealthy companies, simply interested in marriage as a deal or an advantage rather than a commitment. 

And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Taehyung was a man of business himself, married to his work, his home behind a desk and the company the only thought occupying his mind 24/7.

But with you, you were interesting, unlike the others and it made him curious.

Taehyung also couldn’t help but notice you were...pretty. You weren’t too overly sexy nor too innocent, you were pretty. There was an elegance to your looks, features like your hair and eyes complementing you as a whole, and he couldn’t miss that you felt oddly...warm.

Taehyung found himself beginning to understand his father’s original viewpoint, considering the possibility he could’ve been correct. 

You just seemed different. 

“Ah, that seems to be everything. Exact details about the wedding have already been put in place by us.”

“Yes! We’ve been waiting for our TaeTae to get married for so long. We’ve had plans for months now and we can finally move forward with them! You and Y/N don’t need to worry about anything!” 

“Mom, did you really just call me that in front of my future fiancé?” 

“Oh, let it go, son. It won't be long before she calls you that, too!” 

Taehyung could only playfully roll his eyes at his overly excited mother, you scrunching your nose at the embarrassment.

“That’s incredibly generous of you, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, though my conscience is not one to let such things go. My family should contribute to the wedding in some way. Y/N and I would be happy to do so.”

“Why don’t we discuss that outside? I believe we should give the future couple some time alone, shall we?” 

You and Taehyung exchanged a quick look before standing up and respectively addressing either’s parents, Taehyung shutting the door behind them once they exited and having turned to look at you, an awkward silence piercing the air. 

There it was again, his look. It was irrefutably the one reason you avoided eye contact with him, you felt he would swallow you up if you shared even 5 seconds between each other.

“So...” Taehyung suddenly broke the ice, eyeing you.

“So...” 

“Marriage, huh?” 

“Yeah, marriage. Never done that one before.” If there wasn’t a time you vehemently hated yourself, then it was undoubtedly now. You internally facepalmed at your dumb comment, adding a laugh at the end in embarrassment only to look away. 

“Uh..yeah.” Taehyung laughed awkwardly. “Me neither, if you didn’t already know.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and looked away, you fidgeting by the couches everyone previously occupied. 

A beat of silence passed as you both exchanged looks between objects in the room and each other, either of you pursing your lips or blowing light raspberries to cut the awkwardness. 

“I wanted to ask you something.” 

“Hm?” You turned towards him, lips just a pout as your doe-eyes awaited him. 

Taehyung didn’t miss that at all. 

“Um, your mother. I apologize if this is intrusive of me, though I couldn’t help but notice I’ve never actually met her. May I ask where she is?” 

You let out a dry chuckle before answering, another detail that didn’t slip Taehyung’s attention. “Trust me, Taehyung, one thing you’ll never have to worry about during this entire ordeal is my mother. She should be the last thing on your mind.” You assured him with what he could tell was your fakest smile, distracting him from the realization you’d said his name for the first time.

“Are you sure? I’ll be meeting her at the wedding so-”

“You won’t. I don’t think you will. Even if she does make it, it takes very little to impress her, just be yourself and she’ll love you.” You stated with a sense of finality, as though the topic should be dropped. 

“Be myself? I’m one of the best businessmen in Korea. It’s my job to get people to like me, easy stuff.” He casually gloated. 

“You don’t only have to be a businessman to do that,” you paused and looked at him, “you can just be Kim Taehyung, too.” You spoke nonchalantly, eyes lingering with his for longer than 5 seconds and he, in fact, had not swallowed you yet. 

Taehyung instantly furrowed his eyebrows, taken aback as if your suggestion was something outlandish, absurd, maybe even offending.

Nobody has ever said such a thing to him, not throughout the entirety of his life. 

Taehyung tried his best to recover, searching for another topic of conversation before he was cut off by your rather soft voice, he noticed. 

“Oh, I wanted to give you this.” You stepped towards him, reaching into your purse and retrieving something Taehyung couldn’t quite see. You strided over and extended your hand, Taehyung finding himself even more confused.

“A bandage?” 

“Mhm. For the cut on your finger. You should probably clean it and apply something before putting this on.” You stated nonchalantly once again, offering him a small smile whilst holding out the bandage. 

“Uh...” Taehyung started but couldn’t complete his sentence, lost on how you even observed something as small as his cut and spoke of treating it like it was an actual injury.  

After his struggle to form a sentence, you grew bold enough to gently remove his hand from his pocket and place the bandage in his palm, looking back up at him. You shared a momentary look with his chocolate eyes, instantly scrambling after realizing your hand was still in his.

He has really big hands. 

“We should um...probably go.” You avoided his eyes, stepping aside quickly to pull the door open.

Taehyung’s mind felt displaced, eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the fact that someone had actually left him with nothing to say, an extremely rare occurrence in his book.

He was even more displaced looking at the measly wrapper in his hand, then at the cut on the side of his finger, playing through the last 5 minutes of what just happened.

He scoffed to himself.

‘There’s something about her you won’t refuse.’

It had been 3 weeks since that meeting, not having seen Taehyung once as you wasted your time enjoying single life luxuries before you prepared for one of marriage.

It still felt odd to say such a thing, marriage, because it didn’t even feel like one, or a real one at that. It was forced, fake, a pressured one out of convenience. It felt more like a deal, something Taehyung and yourself had to settle for in order to keep your parents’ minds at ease.

That thought racked your brain all those 3 weeks; Taehyung had to settle for you, he didn’t choose you, just as much as you settled for him and didn’t choose him either. You both had ultimately agreed to the marriage only in an effort to optimize your parents’ happiness, not your own.

You had no clue how he felt, a mystery as much as the Bermuda Triangle, knowing he most certainly had a grand pick of women to choose from and you were most definitely his worst option.

You knew you were suddenly dumped on him, leaving him no choice in the matter as you learned your marriage entailed a beneficial business deal between your fathers’ companies, and Taehyung couldn’t really refuse you with so much on the line.

You had already felt inferior to Taehyung since the moment you met him, though your insecurities seeped further into the crevices of your doubtful mind the more you thought over that sad fact, contemplating a married life with him. In your opinion you were pretty much undesirable to him, Taehyung probably kicking himself knowing he had to unwillingly call you his wife for the rest of his life. 

You just knew you weren’t good enough for him, you would never measure up no matter how hard you’d try and that utterly terrified you. You were confident and independent when it came to yourself, though wedding a near perfect being regarded as one of Seoul’s finest in terms of a CEO and a man? 

Confidence be damned, this dude was intimidating. 

These were the feelings that swarmed your head as you sulked at your over-the-top engagement party, set up in a prestigious buildings’ gorgeous 37th floor riddled with baroque styling and embellishments, classical music gracing some of Seoul’s wealthiest patrons as their flutes clinked and snobby chatter filled the hall. 

It was all extremely high-status, reeking of upper class supremacy and quite frankly, it made you want to throw up.

You distracted yourself by bringing any and all types of alcohol to your lips, trying to focus on anything but your daunting thoughts.

The entire night you hadn’t talked to Taehyung, both of you having been too occupied with the numerous amounts of people meeting and congratulating you. This became a genuine nuisance as you’d mentioned before, this marriage was of convenience, one that brought families and companies together merrily and constituted hundreds of people attending your engagement party you didn’t really know.

Your friends were excited, over-the-moon you bagged a man like Taehyung and chastised you for not having told them about your engagement to him earlier. Your relatives similarly scolded you, pinching your cheeks and praising Taehyung like he was a God while they scrunched their noses at you for concealing him.

How could I tell you when I didn’t even know myself?, you thought.

It was funny they praised your ‘choice’ of a fiancé, positive nobody was saying the same to Taehyung without at least lying. The public only knew of you as your father’s daughter, never having seen you due to your vehement absence from anything remotely related to his company, and much of the business world in general. 

You weren’t part of that world, a world of greed and money-driven lunatics. It just wasn't you. It never suited you, left you with a bad taste in your mouth you constantly grimaced at and thought maybe you were the insane one for not understanding its flavour. As you grew older, however, you came to realize it simply wasn’t the path meant for you, someone who valued the independence and achievement of earning something for yourself, by yourself.

Ever since the inception of that principal, your young teenage self resolved you didn’t want to rely on your father’s wealth, especially not his influence or power to achieve your own place in life.

Your father had worked determinedly hard for years in order to stand as high he does now, warranting your acute admiration for your role model of a father, his now successful architecture business landing him a few buildings part of the Seoul skyline.

And after finally achieving his dream, it suddenly morphed into your own aspiration. His hard work drove you to want your own design part of Seoul’s breathtaking scenery as well, by means of your own effort, your own hard work. You didn’t want your father’s help. It felt wrong, like you were cheating if you used him to gain your place and so you condemned your life to one that separated yours and his. 

So you lived, worked and earned money without any of his influence.

You worked for an average architecture company where you felt comfortable, happy that you were away from the suffocating high-status business of your family. And although your detachment left your identity a mystery to many, your situation on the other hand was an extremely infamous one.

‘The-runaway-heiress’, was your staple trademark. The judgmental comments about your choice of life and the insults it warranted were never-ending, subjected to that criticism all your life.

There was no doubt Taehyung was hearing all of that, people probably warning him to step out of the marriage before it was too late. You weren’t like Taehyung, who was perfect, desirable, someone everyone either wanted or wanted to be. It left you glad and quite frankly, proud to be wedding a man of such caliber and incredibility, though left you wondering why in God’s name he would ever agree to marry someone like you; average, average and well, average.

“That’s your 5th shot, Y/N, slow the fuck down.” Your best friend Hana’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts, snatching the shot glass from your grasp. “It wouldn’t be cool if you were trashed at your own party, dummy.” 

Her sudden appearance brought a smile to your face. “I know, I just don’t feel well.” You sighed by the counter of the bar, seated atop a stool as you circled an empty shot glass mindlessly. 

“I get you, there’s like, hundreds of people here and you’re probably hearing a lot of different shit.” Hana appealed to you, having read your emotions like an open book. “Speaking of people, I wanted to ask, what’s up with Taehyung and his stare?”

You stifled a snort, looking at Hana’s incredulous face. “It’s just a habit of his. He stares at everyone.”

“Okay... sure, but I didn’t mean everyone, I meant you.” Hana emphasized, comically pointing.

You furrowed your eyebrows at her, arm leaning against the bar’s counter as you questioned, “What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t really stop staring at you, which is kinda weird. Unless you like that, I don’t judge people’s kinks.” Hana mockingly held her hands up in surrender, gauging a reaction out of you. 

You instantly grimaced, “It’s not a kink, Hana. Nice joke by the way, wanna sign up for SNL with that one?”

“I’m serious! I’ve been catching him just looking at you and I don’t know if it’s weird or hot.” Hana informed as you became more puzzled, her becoming oddly excited, “Awh, maybe he’s concerned with how much you keep drinking! That’s so romantic.” She chimed, looking off into the distance dreamily.

“Shut the fuck up, he wouldn’t do that.” You smacked her arm, snatching your shot glass back from her. “Besides, you’re one of the rare people who knows this marriage is fake, you know he doesn’t care.”

“Jheez, way to kill romance?” Hana rolled her eyes, smacking your arm in rebuttal before continuing. “I’m serious, though. This may be fake but he really does keep looking at you, and I don’t know what it means.” Hana speculated, contorting her lips as if in thought.

“It means nothing, Hana. You’re just seeing things.”

“Then why has he been staring at you depressed by the bar for the last half an hour?”

You nearly spit out your drink, “What?”

“Are you clueless or just dumb? He’s been talking to someone for 30 minutes but most of the time he’s been looking at you, and he still is, how haven’t you noticed?”

You creased your eyebrows in surprise as you slowly lowered your shot glass. You turned away from Hana to scan the small crowds of people mingling, eating, drinking in the hall.

You searched the room, drink still in hand until your eyes caught tall, dark and handsome in his finely pressed suit, casually standing with a drink in his hand by a table speaking to someone. You nearly jumped when your eyes locked with Taehyung’s, every cell in your body caught off guard.

What made your heart specifically race was the way he didn’t even look away from you. He held your gaze, casually conversing with the person in front of him, eyeing you until he finally cracked a small smirk before turning back to his companion.

Your eyebrows practically shot up to the sky.

“See, weird or hot? Am I even allowed to say hot?” Hana blurted as she reveled in your reaction. “And you really thought I was joking. You don’t believe anything I say, I could tell you the world’s ending and you wouldn’t believe me. I could tell you aliens finally invaded the planet and you wouldn’t believe me until the green motherfuckers knocked on your door themselves and-”

“Hana, shut the fuck up.” You cut her off abruptly and made a face at her. “Why did you even come here?”

“Grumpy, aren’t we?” She flashed you a sarcastic look before sighing. “Your dad wanted me to find you. You and Taehyung have to meet someone important, so you should stop drinking like an alcoholic, dumbass.” Hana informed hastily as she grabbed the shot glass from you and downed it herself.

“Your dad’s by the entrance, go before he gets mad!” She shooed you away, pushing you up until you whisper-yelled and smacked at her to let you go. 

You began stepping towards the entrance, smoothing over your dress and this was the moment you realized you may have drank a little too much. You were quick to reprimand yourself, cursing your unprofessional behavior as your inner equilibrium became slightly woozy, senses drowning out a bit, every sound hazed over with a buzz in your veins.

You sucked in a breath to pull yourself together, knowing your dad valued this person enough you and Taehyung had to meet them together. 

Taehyung.

You decided to glance in his direction, lips pursing seeing he wasn’t in his previous spot. You chose to ignore it, walking along until you felt a looming presence behind you, almost having time to acknowledge it before a hand suddenly touched the small of your back. 

“Looking for me?”

You nearly squealed, jumping with a hand ready to punish before calming down at the sight of Taehyung, sighing with relief. “Jheez, could you use my name? I thought you were a stranger.” 

“Well, hello to you too.” Taehyung quipped sarcastically. “And why would a stranger touch your back? Of course it’d be the only man in this room marrying you.” Taehyung narrowly eyed you, scrutinizing your reaction with his hand still pressed to you.

“People do a lot of whatever the hell they want, Taehyung.” You responded turning away from him, heels clacking as you continued to pace towards where your father stood. “W-why’d you do that, anyway?” 

Taehyung furrowed his eyebrows. “Because we’re engaged?”

“It’s not real, though.”

“It’s as real as it gets.” Taehyung finalized, making it a statement to smile at everyone you passed, to which you realized just how many pairs of eyes glued themselves to you. “This may not feel like a real marriage to us, but to the rest of the world it is.” 

He then suddenly leaned himself down to your height and lowered his tone, breath just ghosting your ear. “Y/N, we have to make this seem real, it’s the only way we’ll survive.” Taehyung was the closest he’s ever been to you, and the deep baritone of his voice as he called your name did absolutely nothing but manifest butterflies in your chest. 

Why was his voice so deep?

You shook the thought out of your head, ultimately choosing not to say anything because he was in fact, correct. You grinned widely continuing to mask the truth of your arrangements, leaning into him more as you settled for his hand on your back.

You’d noticed it before, but his hand felt particularly large against you now that he was so close. You glanced at his other hand resting by his side, impressed by how masculine they appeared; long fingers with running veins and a roughness to them, sculpted so well you were sure they deserved to be referred to as art. It tickled your giddy side for a second when they seemed to perfectly contrast your more feminine and smaller hands. 

It was kinda cute. 

You neglected your thoughts once you neared your father, warm-heartedly conversing with a well-dressed man you just about recognized. 

“Ah, there you both are!” Your father cheered, reaching out his arm so he could envelop you in a side-hug, returning Taehyung’s bow and addressment.  

“Dad, I heard you wanted us to meet someone?” You perked up in a superficial tone, at least attempting to act as though everything was fine and dandy in your life; maybe owing it to the alcohol to endure all the falsehoods.

“Yes, Y/N-ie, I wanted you to meet Mr. Won. Chang-in, my lovely daughter and whom I guess you already know, her fiancé and CEO of Kim Enterprises, Kim Taehyung.” Your father proudly presented you both.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Won, Kim Taehyung.” Taehyung was the first to address the man, extending his hand and bowing as he greeted him. You were almost taken aback by how polite he could be, the way his charming smile graced his features and attractively displayed his perfect teeth. His manner of speech and etiquette were all refined with a high degree of professionalism as well, internally gawking at his duality.  

Wasn’t he acting all entitled with you just now? 

“Nice to meet you as well!” You collected yourself and cheered, a little baffled as to why Taehyung still rested his hand against your back. “I’m hoping my father has only said good things.” You earned a laugh from the group, Mr. Won responding by receiving your hand with a firm shake. 

“Ah, Namhyun, you forgot to mention how beautiful your daughter has grown, and your future son-in-law has me jealous! What a handsome and accomplished young man, the perfect match, the two of them.” Mr. Won praised you both kindly.

You and Taehyung both smiled and thanked him humbly, feeling some heat collect in your cheeks upon Mr. Won’s words. You two? The perfect match? Unless he believes a rock and a Greek statue belong together, then he’s absolutely correct. 

Other than that, you chest swarms with butterflies thinking you’re now referred to as ‘two’. 

Taehyung for some odd reason encircles the curve of your waist suddenly, pulling you closer to him. You last minute sputter at the intimate action before leaning into him, one arm nervously encasing his torso as the other rests against his chest. 

You feel him tense underneath you. 

“Aish, you’re such a flatterer. Y/N-ie, do you remember Mr. Won? My friend from university? You haven’t seen him in a while.” Your father rested a hand on your shoulder, trying to jog your memory. 

“Oh, you mean Mr. Won from SNU?” You suddenly remembered, looking to your father for confirmation. 

“Yes, so you do remember!” 

“Of course I do, how could I forget!” You smiled brightly and returned your gaze to the familiar man. “Mr. Won used to sneak me ice cream when you wouldn’t let me have any, Dad.” You scolded him with a playful jab to his arm, inviting more laughter. “I apologize for not recognizing you right away, it’s been a long time, Mr. Won, forgive me.” You solemnly apologized, Mr. Won giving you a look of understanding. 

“Ah, forget it, Y/N. Don’t worry about it, although since it’s been a long time I hope you remember my son? He should be here somewhere..” Mr. Won trailed as his eyes fished over the grand hall, scanning around. 

“Your son..” You repeated to yourself, realizing there was a familiar connection itching at your mind, he was your age actually-

Wait. 

Oh God, not him. 

Anything but him. 

You felt raw panic seep into the spaces between your ribs, your chest filling with a constricting feeling of anxiety you couldn't shake off. Your heart picked up speed and the alcohol coursing through your veins didn’t help your judgement or memory at all, mind fogged over with the poison we dare call alcohol.  

You felt stupid, so utterly stupid. How could you forget Mr. Won and who his Godforsaken son was? 

You felt an anxiety attack riddling you, shifting your weight on your feet as you tried to bite back your uneven breathing. You just couldn’t see this man, especially in a situation where you were standing next to your husband-to-be. 

Taehyung wasn’t so invested in the conversation before him, mindlessly nodding along before he felt you physically freeze next to him, his glance to the side confirming your pale look, watching as your panicked eyes faltered to the floor and revealed... fear? 

He registered your odd shifting and your failed attempts at plastering a smile, confused if you knew this guy and if you did, why were you freaking out so much?

Were you in love with him or something? 

The thought minutely bugged him until he watched you turn straight up uncomfortable, horrified when Mr. Won called out his son’s name. 

“Kiseok-ah! Come here!” 

You stopped breathing when you heard the name, eyes going wide as you avoided eye contact with anyone in the group, but caught Taehyung’s undivided attention. He grew curious when Kiseok sauntered over to the group, your hand on his chest suddenly squeezing his suit as the mysterious man greeted everyone respectfully.

Taehyung watched as his intrigued eyes locked on you, eyebrows perking up amusedly as his lips curved into a smile Taehyung honestly couldn’t admit to liking. 

“Y/N? Wow, long time no see. It’s been what, a year?” The man Kiseok called out happily, like there was absolutely no problem occurring here but as Taehyung felt your hand clutch onto his suit, lips just about quivering before you forced a smile, he knew there was most certainly a problem. 

“Yeah.” Your voice was weak, small, and Taehyung found himself wondering how a courageous person like you was all of a sudden cowering. 

He’d heard it all night, all the accounts of your other life away from the business world. He wasn’t going to lie, he heard a multitude of opinions concerning you, many of which including either looking down on you or telling Taehyung there’s many other, more powerful women in business he could’ve been marrying instead. 

But Taehyung didn’t care for their opinions, he found you the most powerful woman he could ever marry, and agreed to do so because of that very prospect. Sure, you were estranged from the business scene and practically abandoned any role you’d play in your father’s company in order to pursue your own personal aspirations, but if anything, Taehyung found it highly commendable. 

Taehyung knew it took guts to do what you did, a bold and daring act that no other heir or future heir of a wealthy company could ever think of doing, including himself. 

What he found to appreciate most was your unwillingness to give in, where you had to have heard all the back-handed and snobby comments, yet you still held your head up high, remained rooted and adamant in keeping your current way of life. It instantly signaled to him you were courageous, fearless, unable to be stopped in your tracks.

So when he watched you become smaller and smaller the more you stood in the vicinity of this Kiseok, he knew something was sincerely wrong. 

“Ah yes, it’s been quite some time. Why don’t we step away from you three? You could do some catching up.” Your father urged as he motioned Mr. Won to step away with him. You lightly addressed them only to have your hands neglect Taehyung entirely and start fidgeting, attempting to calm your nerves as the alcohol inebriated your system and magnified your anxiety by tenfold. 

“Ah, yes, Kim Taehyung, CEO of Kim Enterprises. I’ve been meaning to meet you.” Kiseok extended his hand as his voice irked you with every syllable, trying your best to seem like absolutely nothing was wrong. 

Taehyung reached out his hand in response uneagerly, giving a small shake while wondering why you let him go. “That’s news to me, nice to meet you.” Taehyung responded, already feeling an intense aura of discomfort and tension between you both, sensing he was missing out on something that seemed 6 ft deep. 

“Likewise. Y/N..” Kiseok suddenly turned towards you, making you wince. You painted on your smile as you lifted your vision. “Kiseok.” 

“How’ve you been?” 

“Better than ever. You?” 

“Marvelous, just wondering what your life’s looked like since I haven’t been in it.”

“I believe I said better than ever, didn’t I?”

Kiseok scoffed unamused, “So a year, huh? In all that time you suddenly found yourself a fiancé, and Kim Taehyung at that?” Kiseok seemed to be making light-hearted conversation to anyone outside of your group, though you knew deep down the hostility behind his words.

“Yeah, I did. It just happened.” You shrugged, gaining the confidence to counter him. “And you? Plan on putting a ring on any of your girls? Maybe the 5th or 7th one you liked?” You sarcastically questioned, furrowing your brows in mock contemplation. 

“No, you know I’ve always had my eye on one girl when it came to marriage.” Kiseok eyed you knowingly, purposefully, like he was trying to make it obvious.

You snorted and glared at him, “If I remember correctly, your attitude said otherwise.” hatred began boiling under your skin. You felt yourself growing angrier by the second, memories between you two coming back in flashes. You didn’t even realize you were shaking until Taehyung’s hand suddenly entangled with yours, pulling you towards him almost defensively. 

You were surprised, looking at your connected hands and back up at Taehyung. He returned your look, peering down at you as he smiled warmly, affectionately. 

“I’m sorry, Kisook? Was it? My future wife and I have plans for tonight. May you excuse us?” Taehyung didn’t even let Kiseok respond before he was pulling you away, in complete shock at his first lack of manners you’d ever seen. You were only left to watch Taehyung as he lead you along, gaining the timely opportunity to realize he was taller than Kiseok, and in fact significantly taller than you. 

Taehyung was a large man in general, you noticed. His shoulders looked broad from behind, accentuated by the fit of his suit which also emphasized the expanse of his chest, tastefully exposing his sculpted neck. His legs were long, proportioned perfectly in accordance with the rest of his model-like figure, which was ideally fit and contained just the right amount of muscle. 

Dear God, you took your time with this one. 

You didn’t even realize Taehyung had pulled you into a secluded hallway or that you were ogling him when he suddenly stopped, turning in your direction and snapping you out of a near fever dream. 

Yeah, alcohol was not a good idea tonight. 

“Who the fuck was that?” 

“What?”

“That douche, who was that?” Taehyung inquired slightly pissed, in need of the asshole’s identity after watching whatever shitshow he didn’t pay for. 

“Nobody, Taehyung, he shouldn’t concern you.” You looked away from him, pouting in a way that made Taehyung momentarily notice the plush of your lips. 

Again?, was all he could think, first, your mother, and now this guy? Just how many people did you have bad connections with and he needed to ignore? 

Why were there so many intricate pieces to you? 

“Are you kidding me? He concerns me now, your mother I can understand but this guy? Nothing to me. I could step on him.” Taehyung proclaimed confidently and stood up broader, conviction written all over his face.

You couldn’t help but giggle at his remark, resembling the thought you had earlier. “I was just thinking, you’re a lot taller than him.” 

Taehyung couldn’t help but bite back a smile, watching you giggle like a shy high schooler and his ears gladly welcomed the soft sound. “Damn straight I am.” He adjusted the jacket of his suit suavely. It was then he remembered what his other hand was doing; still holding yours. 

His eyes suddenly gleamed with mischief. 

He squeezed your hand a little tighter and yanked you towards him, bodies just centimeters apart as you crashed into him, all up in each other’s personal space.

Your eyes widened in complete surprise. 

 “So you were thinking about me, huh?” Taehyung teased with a stupidly lowered tone, a smug grin decorating his face. 

You ignored the electricity shooting through you, rolling your eyes and playfully sneering at him. “Shut up, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see you’re taller.” You forced space between you two and tried snatching your hand from him, but his grip transformed into an iron lock. 

“Says the one who was thinking about me.” 

“Taehyung, shut-” You almost huffed out but as soon as you stepped away, your copious consumption of alcohol suddenly attacked you all at once, vertigo making you lose your balance until Taehyung reached out to steady you. 

“Jheez, did you have to drink tonight?” Taehyung chastised you as you fell into him, head spinning with disorientation and growing flimsier by the second. “You’re probably a lightweight at your size.”

“I am not a lightweight. You don’t even know how much I drank, it was a lot.” You bit back in rebuttal, hooking onto his taut forearms as he supported you. 

“But I did see.” He voiced barely above a whisper, causing you to snap your vision up at him incredulously. “What?” 

“Nothing, it shouldn’t concern you.” Taehyung mocked, though still tried to fix you onto your own footing.  

You didn’t even get to scrutinize him further when you felt another round of dizziness plague you, balance faltering again. Taehyung huffed out and finally flanked you on his side, arm encasing your shoulders as he adjusted you. “Okay Miss I’m-Not-A-Lightweight, you should eat something.” He fit you beside him, beginning to walk you towards the main hall. 

Taehyung in this moment didn’t understand what he was doing, utterly clueless as to what was fueling his actions. He was uncertain why he found himself.. caring? He didn’t even know you, yet he couldn’t help but become a little concerned when he watched you down drinks like it was New Year’s Eve. 

How can all that alcohol fit into one tiny person?

What was he even thinking when he dragged you away from that Kisuk guy? Why did he feel like protecting you all of a sudden? A near sense of possessiveness? He wasn’t even your real husband. 

It started giving Taehyung a headache. This was all strange, a foreign concept he wasn’t familiar with and he didn’t know if it was the result of his considerate personality or only manifested solely because of you.

The same way Taehyung dealt with his inner turmoil, you dealt with yours; you were always so adamant on independence though ironically found yourself leaning on Taehyung.

Oddly, you let him carefully guide you back into the hall with no protests. 

It was the day of the wedding. 

You wish you could recall your emotions throughout the day, certain there would be at least a sliver of a positive one. Though as you remained unmoving, nearly catatonic, unresponsive to your surroundings, you knew there wouldn’t be a single happy memory in the tsunami of sorrow that attacked you today. 

Emotions of grief plagued consistently as you realized the loss of everything you valued most in your life. Your happiness, your freedom, your ability to choose. The stripping of all those bundled into an stifling wad in your chest that left you in a perpetual state of wanting to cry.

The sting in your heart when you realized your mother didn’t bother to come, the excruciating smile you forced onto your features when Taehyung’s mother delicately placed the veil atop your head, the secret tears you shed after adorning your body with a wedding dress you didn’t even choose; it all left you internalizing feelings of utter agony. 

And none of it was your real choice. 

Even the flowers at the wedding weren’t your favourite. 

This day was horrifying. You couldn’t believe you prided yourself on your independence, refusing to give in despite numerous challenges and never taking a word of what anyone said to you. Even when someone begged you to change or come back to your old life, you always chose for yourself. You never allowed someone to push you around, seldom coerced into anything solely based on the wishes of another. 

Yet here you were, standing just before the grand doors of a wedding you never asked for, having easily followed every word of your father’s and sacrificed your deepest principles in order to make him happy, to appease and live up to his expectations that weren’t your own. 

It was utterly frightening, appalling. As if you had lost the one true commendable feature of the intricate character you were, suddenly lost the acclamation of others even if they didn’t know the true nature of your marriage. 

But what disgusted you the most was truly, that you had lost respect for yourself. 

These grim thoughts were the ones that attached themselves to you as you hesitantly hooked your arm with your father’s. You used every ounce of strength to not flee, to remain here, to still walk down that isle with your head held high like you always have despite abandoning every foundation of the character you’d spent years working on.  

You didn’t care that your eyes watered, masking them with the facade of happy tears from the blushing bride. You didn’t care when your father looked incredibly concerned and wondered what was so wrong, you didn’t care how sorrowful you may have appeared to anyone at this ironically glamorous event. 

Though what you did care for was that you couldn’t hold your head up as you walked down the isle, vision fixated on the ground as your tears betrayed you, spilling out at the traumatizing feeling of not being able to stand tall like you always did, something stripping you of your self-reassurance, your strength, your confidence.  

It all spelled the requiem of your soul as you reached the end, dwelling in the impossibility this was happening to you until you felt the touch of Taehyung’s fingertips, guiding you up the stairs. It was then confirmed to you this was in fact real, part of your new reality you had no choice but to accept. 

You suddenly felt eternal gratitude for the veil that now covered your face, hiding the tears you cried at mourning the loss of everything you worked for.

While the priest’s words were read, you didn’t exchange a single look with Taehyung, knowing you’d only want to evaporate into the air, to run away at light speed or have someone in a turn-of-events suddenly take your life, just so you didn't have to face the humility of giving up the life you’d spent blood, sweat and tears building if you looked him in the eye. 

You felt the weight of your unknown future crushing you, pushing you towards the precipice as you gripped Taehyung’s hands harder to ground yourself. 

You were to rely on Taehyung, to share a bond with him you had never spent time cultivating, expected to live a life next to him while never being able to truly understand him, know him, love him. The natural process of falling in love now tainted with the coercion of a pressurized marriage, losing the opportunity to achieve any true sense of love. You’d never experience finding the one anymore, your soulmate, the other end of your red string of fate. 

That realization made your tears spill harder, disconnecting your hand from Taehyung’s to prevent your choked sobs becoming audible, holding your palm against your quivering lips. 

To anyone beyond you and Taehyung, it would look as though you were crying tears of happiness, joyously weeping at your matrimony with the love of your life, though as Taehyung felt the shaking of your hands, your refusal to meet his gaze as you reluctantly walked down the isle, the agonizing pain he could see through the sheer of your veil, he knew you were far from happy. 

He couldn’t help but purse his lips together tightly, knowing you were probably swallowing insurmountable torment down your throat because of this marriage, and tears pricked at his own eyes finding himself able to relate. 

He wasn’t just upset for you or himself, it was the entire situation, quite frankly the fucking world. The fact that the universe planned this as your destiny, his destiny, that the happiness of your parents and two companies came at the expense of both yours and his.

He knew you didn’t hate him, that he wasn’t the reason just as much as you weren’t the reason either, it was the arbitrary nature of the arrangement. That whatever version of true love and happily ever after you and Taehyung had separately dreamed of, it could never come to life. 

Even if the company meant everything to Taehyung, his CEO position more important than whatever position he’d play as some husband, seldom having time to consider love and relationships, he still harboured the same wants and desires any human would. A partner, a companion he truly loved with whom he’d start a family eventually, create a life for them and himself defined by love and comfort.

Though Taehyung only knew now you would both die with your decision-making capabilities robbed of you, bound to each other forcibly without the ardor of real love. 

Taehyung’s every thought was proven correct when the two of you exchanged your vows in near strangled chokes and shaky tones, appearing as happy emotions to the guests of the wedding though only you two knowledgeable of each other’s suffering. 

Your vision finally met Taehyung’s once you heard the rawness in his voice, your miserable emotions doubling when you registered he was just in the same pain as you. It was in that moment the priest’s words became audible and rang loud in both your ears, suddenly grounding you two to earth and reminding you of your reality. 

“You may kiss the bride.”

Both of your eyes grievously locked for a moment of horrified realization; that you were seconds away from going through with this, throwing each other’s lives away for the utilitarian benefit, abandoning any sense of choice in whom you both would spend a lifetime with.

Taehyung swallowed thickly as he removed your veil, feeling his eyes fill with tears again when he laid them upon your utterly devastated, tear-stained face. You were using every nerve in your body to stop yourself from sobbing and caving into the ominous thought of fleeing the ceremony.  

Taehyung’s sight wondered to your lips as they still quivered, nearly swollen red at the intensity in which you bit them, awaiting the kiss you were certain would be filled with frustration and hatred, hatred for the mud you were dragging him through, hatred for pressuring him into suddenly valuing something more than his work and his company, to suddenly become a husband to you. 

Though as he watched the terror flashing through your eyes, tears watering your lash line, he knew he could never feel anything so ardently negative towards you, remembering exactly what he was stripping you of. 

The life you built on your own, defying any and everyone’s expectations of yourself, cursing your heir status to hell, your strength, your independence. Now? Your life was bound to his, bound to one where you were obliged to sacrifice yourself for your father’s company and the upper class cesspool you’d spent so long trying to run away from. 

So as Taehyung began closing the gap between you two, nearing your shaking figure, he resolved he wouldn’t make this hard. He would try, try to accept that his life now entailed you, would try to work towards the balance his father insisted he needed, try to understand that you were now part of his priorities and could never simply ignore you.  

He glided his thumbs against the back of your hands that held his pacifyingly, leaning down until he was just inches from your lips as you squeezed your eyes shut. He unexpectedly spoke quietly, meaningfully, seconds away from sealing the deal of an uncertain future, though, remained certain of this one thing. 

“I’ll take care of you, Y/N, I promise.” And he kissed you in a single breath, no haste, no pressure, only the gentle touch of his lips as they met yours, soft and light. 

Maybe Taehyung didn’t know the exact feelings behind his promise, but he knew the meaning; that no matter the arrangement, the non-existent feelings, the loss of choice, he would at least take care of you like any husband would, a good husband.  

He at least owed you that.  

You were left shocked at the nature of his kiss, Taehyung’s warm lips connecting with yours tenderly. You were convinced the tears you saw in his eyes were enough to assert he hated this, frustrated he had to sell his soul, wishing to only rush the kiss so he could call it a day and ignore you for the rest of his life. 

Though what you never expected was the promise he made, or the way he kissed you with such intimacy you found yourself melting into his touch, reciprocating. He kissed you like you were fragile, locking your lips in a way that solidified his promise, as if out of all the empty vows you spoke today, this was the one, true vow he would keep. His lips felt plush against yours, catching his mouth just a little more before the bittersweet disconnection. 

You and Taehyung exchanged a poignant look, small smiles decorating both your faces with a mutual understanding swimming in your eyes as you gripped each other’s hands. You let his promise permeate the air between you two, finding solace in his words as the applause of everyone attending the ceremony filled the hall.   

Maybe it was the warm way Taehyung always pressed his hand to the small of your back when you spoke to others the whole night, maybe the way he veered you away from excessive amounts of alcohol with a light-hearted scolding considering that last time you drank, or maybe even the way he gently held you during your first dance..

Maybe it was all these considerate, kinds act that made you view Taehyung in a less negative light and rather a favourable one, that maybe he wouldn’t be the asshole CEO you’d first accused him of being.  

You would also be an idiot to not mention how completely and utterly handsome he was, looks carved by the Greeks themselves, quite possibly the hottest, most attractive man you’ve ever had the pleasure of laying eyes on. 

And maybe all that accumulated into your assured opinion that when it came to consummating your marriage with Taehyung, you’d have no qualms or worries whatsoever. You would be absolutely willing, ready to take the night on and maybe even have some fun for yourself with whom you could tell was a really, really nice guy.

Though as Taehyung walked calmly in front of you towards your hotel suite, reaching into his suit pocket for the card key he’d retrieved at the front desk to swipe against the lock, your chest clogged with a crushing feeling of anxiety you couldn’t subdue. 

These weren’t the same nerves of maybe being not pretty enough, body insecurities or fear of what to expect from Taehyung, no, these nerves came from the utter panic of having to experience sex with another man.

Especially since your last partner. 

It always started with your permission, that wasn’t the issue, Though what left you afraid, so utterly frightened with the thought of spending a night with a man like this came from the treatment you received from that partner. 

Safe to say, you weren’t treated kindly. Far from that, actually, you were treated as though you had no needs or were a means of simple use. Your last partner was the opposite of giving, he was selfish, self-absorbed and only concerned himself with his own pleasure, going on and on only until he was satisfied and neglected you in every sense of the word, sometimes even refusing to listen to you if you protested. 

To make matters worse, he wasn’t faithful. 

You knew he slept around, a lot, it was the number one reason you never agreed to actually date him, never make things official. 

But the reason you would end up sleeping with him was because of the most perfectly imperfect concept among the human race; love. You believed every time with him was a new chance to make that love real, that it was the genuine manifestation of your feelings for one another, thinking maybe he wasn’t the asshole he always portrayed himself as and could man up enough to love you unconditionally. 

And he completely reeled you in, made you fall in love too quickly and made you believe he was capable of love. This grew exponentially when you were often described as ‘the different one’, the one he always came back to, that you were special. You clung onto those words as much as you could, convinced each time you were in fact the one for him, that maybe one day, he’d wake up and abandon his fuckboy lifestyle and mature.

But everyday that went by, every promise that was never fulfilled, every word that wasn’t met with an action, and especially after every hook up that resulted in nothing new, you began to understand you were everyone’s favourite role in a Shakespearean play. 

The fool. 

You were a joke to believe anything he said, the most naive person on earth to think you were any different from the others, when every night simply ended in rough fucks, virtually no orgasm and miniscule aftercare.

It left you essentially scarred, traumatized that every man in the world was built like this. It didn’t help that whenever you look back, many of your ex partners were of the same cut, the same trope of assholes that don’t seem as bad but end up being exactly so. 

It was what made you swallow thickly as Taehyung opened the door to the suite, holding it open as he moved aside to let you enter first. You walked forward and unintentionally brushed against him, realizing how much smaller you were in comparison to him all over again. 

He towered over you, and it made you more nervous. 

You looked up at him momentarily and quietly thanked him as you stepped inside, setting your sights on the large, king sized bed situated on one side of the room, a lounging area with couches to the other side which lead to a bathroom. Seoul’s breathtaking skyline was visible in the dark of the night through wall-to-ceiling windows opposite to you, covered by flowy, sheer curtains. 

You took a deep breath, trying to remind yourself Taehyung was not the same. Not all men are the same, you can’t inflict the mistakes and wrongdoings of one man onto another, categorize them into one kind. You wanted to think this way, and you knew it was the humane way to think. 

But as the memories of those heart-aching nights filled your head, the empty words, the lack of care or concern, the neglect, the feelings of pure abandonment and use only caused your heart to beat profusely in your chest, clutching onto the neckline of your dress to breathe. 

What if Taehyung really was no different?

It then suddenly hit you you didn’t know him. All you knew of Taehyung was that he was a fiercely successful business man, sitting atop Seoul’s most prestigious with Godly looks and a stare that could kill a man. You remembered your initial feelings about him; his stare in fact intimidated you, quite frankly all of him intimidated you, he was the epitome of perfection and you were far from that very notion. It left you thinking you didn’t measure up, and that he could view you in a dissimilar light than you viewed him; an unfavorable one. 

He could simply not want you, but is forced to.  

You’d observed his kind behavior and actions over the odd two days you met him, though that was exactly the inculpatory factor; you had only met him twice. You didn’t know what he would be like alone, when it was just the two of you, when there weren’t eyes scrutinizing him and cameras snapping shots of his every move. 

You didn’t know how he would be like in the bedroom, either. 

Your mind raced as you conflicted with yourself, trying to understand that Taehyung could be different, though apprehensive with the miniscule knowledge you actually had of him. 

You discerned after that last asshole of a partner you needed the love and care of a real partner, someone who would tend to your needs, adore you in the midst of their actions, be a giver and not just a receiver.  

And you didn’t know if Taehyung would be that partner. 

“Y/N...” Taehyung called out to you rather softly as he removed his suit jacket, the rustling of the cloth signaling he had indeed done so. His footsteps were hard to miss, the soles of his shoes sounding against the hardwood floor as he neared your lonesome figure standing in the middle of the room. 

Your breathing quickened with nearly every step he took, attempting to resolve the civil war you were battling within. You were trying to convince yourself Taehyung would be a nice man, a nice husband; though couldn’t help but feel deflated by the fact it was all mainly coerced out of him.

Your thoughts overwhelmed you as Taehyung finally stood behind you, mere inches from your back as he watched you from behind, unbeknownst of any feelings or thoughts currently riddling you.

He hesitated, though gently placed his hand against your bare arm, the sudden warmth of his hand against your skin causing you to flinch. He peered down at your smaller self squarely focusing in front of you, anticipating your response. He grew slightly soft when you tentatively looked over your shoulders, clearly teary-eyed. 

Taehyung couldn’t miss how scared you seemed, and he his heart inexplicably stung at the thought you were afraid of him. 

“We don’t have to do this.” Taehyung’s voice was low and resembled warm honey, reverberating in a way that made you ease up. 

You worked towards a stable voice. “W-we don’t?” 

“No, we don’t” His voice held no disappointment, only the intention of seemingly wanting to assure you, firm and oddly comforting. 

“I’m sorry, Taehyung. I’m really sorry.” It was hard to keep your tone leveled, clutching your hand over your mouth as you swallowed your emotions. 

“Don’t be sorry, there’s nothing for you to apologize for.” 

You strangely felt the desire to hold his hand that rested against you, though you ignored the urge and simply stepped out of his touch, clutching your chest tightly in an effort to cower away from him. But it was here you suddenly remembered that he kissed you, and the way he did so. 

It made your cheeks fill with a rosy blush. 

“Do you mean that?” You’d finally turned to meet his eyes, his face only visible by the moonlight illuminating the room. He seemed to have retracted his hand and stood with both tucked in his pockets, relaxed. 

This became the first time you noticed just how ravishing he looked tonight. 

His dark hair was slicked back loosely and left enough pieces to fall as a comma, graciously exposing his forehead, his Tom Ford suit attractively hugged his model-like body, watch and accessories accentuating his expensive look. 

His features were casted over by soft lighting, somehow adding to his beauty as the glow made him appear... less intimidating, dare you say warm or inviting. 

His expression was funnily enough, one that you could actually read. He held no contempt, no impatience or anger, only a hint of consideration as his calm eyes looked at you. His face may have been predominantly blank, void of a smile, though certainty held a form of reassurance.  

“Of course I do, why would I do anything with an unwilling person?”

You scoffed lightly, “Not a lot of people would say that.” Your eyes faltered from Taehyung’s and clutched yourself tighter, expression completely telling of trauma.

Taehyung instantly picked up on it, eyebrows slightly furrowing at your words though softening once registering their weight. He felt an overwhelming sense of apology take him, thinking of his next sentence before his mind oddly flashed back to the night of the engagement party.

“Y/N, did Kiseok..?” Taehyung trailed hesitantly. 

You winced at his line of thinking, “No, no...not what you’re thinking,” you immediately denied. “Just, shitty experiences.”

“Shitty, as in...?”

“As in only seeking self-satisfaction, neglect, lies, infidelity. Can we go to sleep?” You deflected with a heavy sigh and a hand at your temple, the day’s events catching up to you.

Taehyung nodded in agreement, “Yeah, sleep. We both need that.” His eyes then landed on the bed, registering even if it were large enough you two could sleep apart, he still opted for caution. 

“Um.. you can take the bed, by the way. I’ll sleep on the couch-”

“No, don’t do that.” You replied quickly. “I can’t sleep on a king-sized bed all by myself, it’s huge.” You side-eyed the massive mattress and laughed a little, lightening the heavy aura casted over the room. 

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to be uncomf-”

“Don’t worry, Taehyung. You don’t make me feel uncomfortable.” You smiled at him lightly and received a small one from him, both your eyes mirroring the same sense of understanding you exchanged at the altar. 

“I’ll let you wash up first, your overnight bag should be in the bathroom closet.” Taehyung informed, pointing towards the direction of your things. 

“Thank you.” You voiced with an amount of warmth that made Taehyung want to genuinely smile, though crushed the weird urge and nodded agreeably instead.

You began walking away from him until a nuisance suddenly occurred to you, cursing yourself as you came to a full stop. “Um, Taehyung.. I forgot but could you..?” You angled your back towards him to call out to the ribbons tying the back of your dress, knowing you would’ve taken 20 years just to untie your bodice yourself. 

The fact that you weren’t looking directly at Taehyung made him feel relieved, glad he wouldn’t embarrass himself with the his eyes slightly widened. He was quick to reprimand himself, it’s just a woman’s dress, why the hell are you shocked? 

Taehyung swallowed dryly before replying, “Uh, yeah I’ll--I’ll do that.” He walked towards you sparingly and positioned himself behind you.

He’d noticed it before, but you were relatively small compared to him in size and it continued to poke at his brain, maybe even momentarily think it was cute. 

Cute? When have I ever found a girl cute?

Taehyung exhaled before his hands carefully made for the silk ribbons, his tentative fingers fiddling with the ties until he eventually began loosening each one. He started unlooping your bodice, breathing out considerably when each loop began exposing your back inch by inch.  

Taehyung’s sweet, hot breath fanned your skin, tensing each time as your every nerve went haywire feeling just how close he was. His slender fingers brushed against your bare skin here and there, making heat collect in your face.

You grew even hotter when your kiss with him suddenly crept back into your mind, unknowing of the reason why excitement and electricity shot throughout your body because of it. The way his soft, full lips met yours, mouthed at you tastefully repeated in your head, making you extremely nervous at how much a measly kiss from him was occupying your mind; it was just a kiss. 

Taehyung found himself tensing by the intimacy of the moment, remembering the way he so boldly kissed you. He found that he liked the plush of your lips, the way he had to bend down to your smaller height to lock lips; and it made him feel strange. 

How the hell was he taking interest in something other than his work? No, this isn’t interest, Taehyung thought, and would spend however long denying it. 

He’d finished the task throughout all his thinking, unrealizing of how proximal he was to you. He oddly hated that the moment was over, coming back down to Earth.

“There you go.” He cleared his voice and stepped away from you. 

You held your bodice up against your chest, realizing Taehyung had a full-access view of your back and you grew 10x hotter. You gulped at the thought before hastily turning around to thank him, quickly disappearing into the bathroom for a moment of reprieve. 

You shut the door and instantly breathed out a breath you didn’t remember holding, looking at your hot mess of a face in the mirror trying to cool down, reliving the last 10 minutes of what just happened. 

You took a deep breath. 

Maybe Taehyung is different after all. 

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[bumblebeehug]

i think a lot of the times that were mentioned in the og posts are seen as makarov ignoring/not acting interested in his guild members, but i think that he still deserved his title as a beloved grandpa. like, i definitely agree that he’s extremely flawed, and though it may feel unfair towards the other characters, i think it makes him an even cooler character. because as we saw in the first episodes, makarov has an easygoing friendly act, but he has a lot of authority and could see through kageyama’s courage (or lack thereof). he gave kageyama space to admit to himself that he didn’t want to be a bad guy, and clearly this “giving space” theme is something makarov uses throughout the course of the series.

what i’m trying to say is that while part of why he’s flawed is bc he doesn’t know much about his guild members, him not meddling with them is what makes them trust him. makarov knows that everyone carries their own past and their own problems, and he’s a steady rock that doesn’t ask for anything in return. lucy didn’t have to explain who she was, why she had run away or anything, so she felt like she could come to him with any problems - same with mystogan. (he messed up a little with cana, but at the same time, she could’ve insisted more on telling him about gildarts, but truth is: she wasn’t ready within herself to come clean, so the interruptions were most likely something that came with relief for her)

i would compare him to a cat owner: a cat owner who picks up a scared, injured stray doesn’t demand to know everything about it. if the owner wanted to know everything about their cats, then they would get bred cats with proper knowledge about its background. no, with the stray there are going to be unknown traumas and injuries, and the trust will be null if the owner demands contact. so instead the owner gains trust and love by giving the cat space - just like makarov and his guild. he lets the cats (guild members) come to him when they’re ready.

everyone in the guild knows that there’s no judgement with makarov. they know that he trusts that they can handle the secrets they have, and if not, they’ll come to him for advice.

makarov messing things up by this off hand approach is a repeating theme in fairy tail - the romeo macao incident in the beginning of the series, when laxus is introduced (clearly his hands off parenting didn’t work with neither him nor ivan) and then of course the most obvious one where the guild disbanded. still, it gives the show dimension and proves that everyone has flaws and that everyone still can find ways to overcome them.

in a way i kinda feel like the first impression we get from makarov in the series is the same with how the guild members see him in the beginning. then, as more of the story plays out, they learn how flawed and complex he is, but he still manages to regain our trust, over and over again, which makes him just as powerful as we initially thought he was in my opinion. everyone grows up thinking that their parental figure is perfect, but then we learn that they aren’t, but we learn to love them unconditionally either way. and with that said, the found family trope in Fairy Tail really earns its place.

When I first became a fan of Fairy Tail I really had this notion that Makarov kind of secretly knew what was actually going on with everybody but knew he had to let them sort out their own problems. There are even fics written about this. But with these latest rewatches I'm realizing that really...isn't true?

When listing potential future guild masters, he said mystogan was a "silent recluse" who "wasn't really leader material." He's a whole-ass prince in edolas and literally the most noble person ever.

He unknowingly interrupted cana like three times when she was trying to tell gildarts he was her dad. So he wasn't aware of Cana's reason for being there.

He brought natsu and Gajeel to the guild, but was more surprised than anyone when a barrier revealed they were over 80. So he wasn't aware of the eclipse project.

He had no idea Lucy was a Heartfilia until Jose told him.

Idk kind of a small and belated realization but sort of interesting.

[aotopmha]

Chainsaw Man episode 8:

Eventhough the first 4 minutes of the episode is basically just a longer repeat of the end of the last episode, somehow this episode has a whole lot to 'build' our screwed up band of characters.

What I mean by that is that all of the stuff thrown at particularly Denji and Aki keeps being piled up.

The situation with Himeno resolves fairly tastefully, but Denji is still just as emotionally ignorant and awkward and susceptible to manipulation, and Makima immediately takes advantage of his vurnability to affection. He doesn't refuse Himeno because of boundary setting, but because of his attraction and dependence to Makima. And Makima is doing the same as Himeno: taking advantage of Denji.

Himeno is also still going along with getting them together.

And although his moment with Himeno didn't go anywhere, the kiss and the scenes in her apartment still happened and added to his baggage concerning connecting to people.

Himeno's death added the most to the baggage Aki already has, though.

And all of that is potentially setting up some really screwed up character material for both of them. I feel like all of that unresolved emotional trauma will have to come ahead in a very strong way at some point.

Power gets the least of it, but we see her vurnability pop up again, so I'm hoping that vurnability will be explored in an interesting way, too.

Makima clearly isn't dead and if I didn't know the twist with her, here's the point where any speculation disappears on my part. The options are that she either has a contract with a devil, too or is a fiend and her eyes are similar to Power's so I'd absolutely go with the latter.

Wouldn't surprise me if she set up this whole thing just to get Aki and Denji to single-mindedly go after the Gun Devil and grow Denji's dependence on her as fiercely as she possibly can. The only thing to learn for me is whether there is more reason to Makima wanting him to be dependant of her than 'just cause'.

But I think if at this point she would actively start opposing Denji, he would basically be emotionally destroyed.

It's some fantastic villain set up – how Makima manipulates everyone is continuing to probably be the strongest aspect of the writing in this series so far to me. She continues to be a fantastic character because she is written as so emotionally intelligent and I feel like that isn't focused on enough with manipulative, scheming villains and it's also kind of rare for women to be in the hyper-intelligent manipulator role.

The stereotype is that women are 'manipulative bitches', but whenever it comes time to write that kind of villain, those kinds of characters mostly exist to fulfill a revenge fantasy because a dude was dumped by a woman they usually were complete trash towards – it's not out of a desire to write a good character.

So far Makima is the manipulator trope, rather than stereotype and I'm here for it.

And I hope the writing around her doesn't devolve into stereotypes.

So I feel like this was a good 'long-term' set-up episode. As said, it's all about building the baggage within the cast. I'm curious where, when and whether it'll lead to pay-off and what that pay-off will look like.

[ohnominamino]

An Essay on Love in Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time

Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is a movie about love in all its forms. From the love of family, friends, and neighbors, to the compassion we feel for people we have never met. The movie reminds us that love is something we continuously gain, lose, and choose, again and again. Which love is greatest? In my opinion, the answer to that question is left up to interpretation. In this essay, I will give my own personal interpretation on certain character interactions and what I believe we are meant to take away from their Rebuild portrayals. 

The character I will start with is one I’ve noticed the most outrage over from people who haven’t seen the movie and read out-of-context spoilers: Kaworu Nagisa. 

Kaworu is a beloved character among many Evangelion fans, especially those who are members of the LGBT+ community. He is a canonical love interest of Shinji Ikari and I want to reassure people that this final movie does not change that fact. However, it does not make the couple blatantly endgame either. This skirting around the couple might make some fans upset, and while their feelings are completely valid, I do not think they fully understand the difficulties faced by LGBT+ people in Japan, nor do they understand the way that romance is typically conveyed in Japanese storytelling. (I recommend watching “Is ‘Yuri On Ice’ Good Gay Representation?” by James Somerton for more about storytelling nuances.) 

What have we been shown about Shinji and Kaworu’s love? The good news is, anything you read into the original TV series and End of Evangelion is completely true for the Rebuilds— because Kaworu is the same Kaworu. This movie proves Evangelion is a single universe set on repeat, and that Kaworu and Shinji meet each other every loop, and in each, Kaworu is trying to make Shinji happy. Within the final movie, Shinji becomes aware of the loops and chooses to break the cycle and free Kaworu from his pain. 

What does the relationship between Shinji and Kaworu teach us? I believe the purpose of their love is to show the audience that first, in the words of Kaji, “love has no gender.” Second, I believe Kaworu’s love in particular is a warning about basing your own happiness solely upon another person. There are parallels drawn between Gendo/Yui and Kaworu/Shinji. Gendo could not exist without Yui, and so he was willing to destroy the world to be reunited with her. For Kaworu, it was not the destruction of humanity, but the destruction of himself that defined his tragedy. What’s important within the final movie, in my opinion, is that Shinji does not reject Kaworu’s love. With the insight he’s gained from remembering past loops, he sees Kaworu’s love and appreciates him, but he also sees his suffering and wants to ease it. He helps Kaworu into a new world where he can seek his own happiness and find balance in his life (something his father did not have). 

While Kaworu and Shinji are not seen as an explicit couple at the end of the movie, it’s significant to note that, when he sets Kaworu free, Shinji holds out his hand to Kaworu as a promise to stay together. Over the course of the movie, Shinji comes to accept his connection to others through accepting touch (in the form of hand holding and hugs from Rei, Misato, and Gendo); however, Kaworu is the only character in the movie who Shinji initiates physical contact with and that speaks to how much Kaworu means to him. This simple gesture, in my opinion, keeps the door open for Kaworu and Shinji to be a couple one day, after Kaworu has found more balance in his life. 

If I were to write an entire essay about Kaworu, it would be titled, “Out of the Coffin: How the Resurrection of Kaworu Nagisa Buries the Tragic Lovers Trope” because this movie truly does just that. 

Another potential love interest for Shinji for many years was Asuka; however, unlike with Kaworu, the nature of this relationship is not left up to interpretation by the end of the movie. Before her big final battle, Asuka tells Shinji, “I think I loved you back then” (regarding their time in middle school) and Shinji, during Instrumentality, tells Asuka, “Thank you for saying you loved me. I loved you too.” It is past tense. 

What does this relationship teach us? It’s a beautiful way of showing that we can love people, and grow and learn, and let go when we no longer fit each other. Letting go is an integral part of life. Whereas other Instrumentality scenes involve touch, Asuka’s, mirroring the ending of End of Evangelion, has a distinct lack of touch. Shinji sits with his arms around his knees and Asuka turns her body away from him. He gives her his thanks and he sends her off to find her peace. Asuka and Shinji teach us that it’s okay to grow out of relationships. You can appreciate what they were to you at the time they happened and move on. 

What about Rei? To be honest with you, this movie is less about Rei’s relationship with Shinji, and more about her relationship with the world. Rei teaches movie viewers about the simple pleasures of living. While Shinji is in mourning for the first quarter of the movie, Rei (as “Sokkuri”) is learning about crop growing and community, the wonder of babies and kittens, the joy of the bath after a long day of fruitful work, and the power of words and picture books. At the end of her life, she only regrets not having more time to spend with the people she loves. In Instrumentality, Shinji accepts her hand when it is offered to him, which I hope signifies he is ready to see life as she had come to during the final movie. 

Rei teaches us that we can love living and to not take our limited time for granted. 

Next, we move on to parent figures: Gendo and Misato. I think they both represent people ill suited to the role, who do the best they can despite it. Gendo, as mentioned for Kaworu above, is a warning about defining yourself by your relationship to another person (Ikari, afterall, is Yui’s name). He is also a lesson in how people mourn and how they can lash out. Misato, like Gendo, felt herself a poor parent, and while mourning the loss of Kaji, she gave up her child to be raised by other people, but, unlike Gendo, went forward to put all her energy into protecting humanity. Both of them reach out to hug Shinji within the movie and he accepts them where they are. 

While I wouldn’t say the movie shows that Shinji forgives Gendo, it does show his making an effort to understand and make peace with what others have done. For Misato, it is fair to say we can still hope for a better future, even when it feels like everything is crumbling around us. Her self-sacrificing love for her son and the whole of humanity is what enables Shinji to then save the people he loves (via the spear of Gaius). 

In the movie, we are also shown friendship. Touji, Hikari, and Kensuke are important members of their community who maintain open communication with those around them and respect others’ boundaries. They are patient and kind and represent the importance of being present. They teach us to meet people where they are and support them how we can, whether it’s giving them a warm meal or giving them space when they need it. 

There are many more characters that could be talked about, but today I am going to end on Mari. Mari’s love is physical. She enjoys being in people’s personal bubbles. She cuddles Asuka and helps trim her hair, she gets into Gendo’s space at college, and at the end of the movie, she reaches out her hand to Shinji to help him stand up from his seat. Upon first glance, some viewers might take Mari and Shinji’s final scene to be romantic, but the reality of it is this: We do not, and cannot, know what kind of love she is meant to represent in his life.

We do not know Mari’s relationship with Shinji because they hardly interact in the movie. She clearly cares about him, but in my opinion, it comes from a place of duty and compassion— Mari was friends with Gendo and Yui. She has been there since he was born. (If we take the manga to be canon, then Mari even had romantic feelings towards his mother. Her hairstyle and glasses are from Yui. At the end of the movie, Mari has changed her hairstyle, which to me implies she has moved on, and “getting” with Shinji would be a thematic break.)

Additionally, their conversation, while flirty, is very much one that implies they haven’t seen each other for a while. Mari is someone who is very physically affectionate. With everyone. If someone ignores that and focuses on the fact she gets into Shinji’s space and claims that’s romantic, they better acknowledge it’s possibly romantic with Asuka, who we see far more intimacy with. When Mari flirts, Shinji flirts back and her initial reaction is surprise, “Wow, you’ve learned to talk back!” Her purpose is clear. She is there to remove the DSS choker from his neck. 

Personally, I love that Mari is the one to close the movie, for the exact reason that we do not know her relationship with Shinji. For Mari to have an assigned role would be to say, “This kind of love is most important,” when the entire movie was spent showing us each love is of equal importance in the balance and building of our lives. (It’s wonderful to see those types of love embodied across the platform from Shinji at the end of the movie: Rei and Kaworu, who, just like in End of Evangelion, could signify the ability to connect with others and be loved.)

If you view Mari as a romantic love interest, then I think it speaks to the value that you as an individual give to romance rather than what the characters themselves are feeling. To me, Mari, the character who was created to “destroy Eva,” is a symbol of all love. When Shinji takes her offered hand and then pulls her to run into the new world, it’s a symbol of balance. The give and take of any kind of relationship. 

We are the product of every relationship we have ever had, from our parents to the people we once loved, from our friendships to any other person we want to stay connected to. Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time is a story about these relationships. It is a story about love. 

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you mentioned that youre reading some of sarah j maas’ books, what do you think about it so far? i read her stories (the acotar series and the tog series) as a younger teen and reread it again recently now that im older. when i learned that youre allowed to criticise a book (i was a blind follower with weak opinions 😅) i found out that there are some readers who arent too fond of her and her writing, it was quite a shock for me cause she used to be my fav author (i read only her books as a preteen 😂). personally, from her books that i’ve read my favourites are throne of glass and crown of midnight (the novellas were really good too)

So I’ve really only read the acotar series so far, so that’s the only one I can comment on (my favorite book was a court of mist and fury, followed by a court of silver flames). There are a bunch of things that I really enjoyed in that series and a bunch of things that annoyed me about it. There will never be an author that every reader agrees about. My favorite living author is John Green, but there are people who criticise/dont enjoy his books. I hate Catcher in the Rye but it’s considered a classic. Different readers are going to resonate with different books more or less and certain things will bug some people more than others. For every author that is someone’s favorite author, there will be a bunch of people who hate them. I think it’s more interesting to look at what book does well and what it doesn’t.

Things I enjoyed about acotar:

1. The main characters, love interests and ensemble casts are great. I really like Feyre and Nesta. They are both flawed and fierce and show real character growth over the series. I love Rhysand. He is pretty much everything I want in a love interest, wings included, haha. I love Azriel and Cassian too. The whole Inner Circle is well drawn and makes you want to read more to find out what happens to them.

2. The romance is great. The whole misunderstood villain/enemies to lovers aspect of Feyre and Rhys is great and made especially compelling because it plays out over such a long time. It’s also some of the most enjoyable smut I’ve found outside of fanfiction.

3. The action scenes are great. When there is a lot happening and things are changing rapidly, it’s very fun to read. Her scene and action description are very immersive and she does a good job of keeping you surprised and invested in the outcome. The scene with the giant worm, the scene in the weaver’s cottage, the battle of Velaris and Nesta in the Blood Rite are all still things that I can picture very clearly in my head.

4. It’s easy to read. And the combination of compelling romance and good action makes it very hard to put down when you’re in the middle of it. So for someone who wants a fun, quick, romance series, I would highly recommend it.

Things that bugged me about acotar:

1. It really needs more editing. The prose on a line by line level is sometimes infuriatingly bad. She will have paragraphs that are just the same sentence written three different ways. There are weird descriptions of internal reactions that get way overused. Like I think Feyre’s “bowels turned watery” at least three times in the first novel alone, which is three times too many. There are long stretches with no action where characters just wander around big houses doing nothing that I found hard to get through.

2. The world building is shallow. There are all these different courts (spring court, fall court, night court, etc) but other than aesthetic differences it’s really not clear how they are in any way culturally or magically different. There are different classes of Fae, but the potential political or social repercussions of that are rarely examined. Some classes of fae are just ugly and bound to serve the pretty High Fae, which is a fairly problematic trope. The villains are rather generically evil without really examining what their motives are. There are characters of different races, but their race has no impact on their character or story arc. Certain cultures like the Illyrians are written as fairly monolithic except for our few “enlightened” main characters.

3. The stuff around gender is not great. One of my favorite booktokers (pagemelt) explained this better than I can, but the whole series and potentially all of Sarah J Mass’s writing, suffers from what she calls “gender essentialism”. All the women are small and thin and young and beautiful, and they might be warriors, but they never overpower the main male characters. The men are all large and strong with giant *ahem* “wingspans”. The male love interests are all much older than the female love interests (like centuries older) and vastly overpower them in both physical and magical abilities and familiarity with the world around them. SJM frequently uses the terms male and female in descriptions such as “he gave her a male smirk” or “looked at her with a male gaze”. I think because she wants to emphasize that they are Fae and not humans, she always uses the terms male and female instead of man and woman, but it creates an atmosphere where the terms male and man always mean the same thing and there is only one specific way to be male. There’s also a whole bunch of stuff about fated lovers and soulmates and such that seems to only leave room for cishet relationships (though there are hints that this may change in future books).

4. It’s fairly predictable. This may be a pro for younger readers or people just getting into fantasy/romance books but it fairly obvious where things are going in advance. The answer to riddle at the end of the first book is so glaringly obvious that it makes the whole ending of that book and the fallout from it seem kind of stupid.

So for someone looking for a complex fantasy story with elaborate world building that more accurately reflects the complexities of the real world, there are a lot of other books that will provide that better than this one.