#was actually going to make a completely different gifset but then i got distracted with this......... does it make sense? no but oh well
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mecachrome · 6 months ago
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(evolution of) lando + oscar's competence
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i'm so excited about you taking asks again ahhhh okay so. if you'd absolutely had to choose. what would be your top 5 cockles moments, and why? thank you ily <3
here’s the thing: there are so many routes i could go down with this, because cockles moments come in all shapes and sizes and formats. these include moments from their panels, their bloopers, the footage we get when they don’t even know they’re being recorded, stories being passed down from photo ops & autographs(one of my personal favorite ways to get cockles, tbh, because they’re all insane), and social media(tweets to each other, instagram posts & comments, etc.). 
SO! since many a list like this has already been made, and i want to stand out from the crowd, what i’m gonna do is definitively give the number one spot to each of these five categories.(i might even throw in honourable mentions because they’re so despicably in love that they warrant that. i really put my whole pussy into this, guys, i hope you’re happy.) 
disclaimer: these are my own personal opinions. but that also means i’m right. so. enjoy. 
number one: top cockles panel moment
so we’re starting off with a bang, because how do you even BEGIN to rank what atrocities jensen and misha commit at jibcon. every single one they’ve had is damning in it’s own right, for different reasons.
however, considering just how much unabashed fuckery they’ve given us to sift through, it’s a good thing i do have a personal favorite despite it all. it’s heartwarming, the sweetest thing i’ve ever seen, AND it’s jarringly cinematic - mainly because it has a whole ass arc to it that was years in the making. it might even be surprising to some people, but my favorite cockles panel moment, and what i consider the one that encompasses their entire gut-wrenching journey from 2008-2013 in the most sweepingly romantic gesture possible, is this one.
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i want this burned into my retinas. i am not even joking. when i'm through with my explanation, let me convince you why this is thee most romantic cockles moment of all time.
first, some history: people call this the resume off, but many seem to forget the botched attempt at a resume off a year prior. and yes, you guessed it: it's during their break up. it's a juicy time period for a reason, guys. it came across as exceedingly one-sided and VERY awkward. let me refresh your memory as to just how bad it was, and just how hard jensen was trying and ultimately failing at winning misha over: the funniest part of the whole resume off in 2013??? every joke/bit had literally already been made/done. they were just going through the motions again, but the difference THIS time...is that misha reciprocated jensen's energy. it. is. fascinating. i want to get into it more detail in another post, and i'll link it here when i'm done, but the main takeaway, i think, and the main difference that showcases how much they've grown in a year, is that in jib 3, misha flat out refused to do an accent, and this time around, he indulges jensen for literal minutes. when i tell you they're crazy, they're crazy. i can't wait to actually dive into it later.
ANYWAY, the resume off culminates in this moment here. and, like, a million things happen in this gifset. actually, more like a million and one. the music starts playingneediremindyouthatthesongissingingintherain(h e l p), misha starts dancing, jensen 'perpetually fake grumpy' ackles lets misha think he's not going to join, misha sits down defeated, but no!!! that was jensen's plan all along(look at his stupid fucking smirk) and he offers his arm to his dance partner who immediately grins like a fool, jensen then leads misha into their kick step, they perfectly synchronise and let loose, and are then very clearly having the time of their lives, hanging off of each other with joy and ease. from their expressions alone i can tell that this moment is so. so. so. so! much more than what initially meets the eye. i mean-misha is fighting back the biggest smile i've ever seen. to me, it reads like jensen is offering something to misha, something that misha kind of gave up on expecting, and him offering his arm like that is like, a surprise to him in the best possible way(and it's so not platonic, let me just say that.) as soon as jensen did that, it ushered in a new era of cockles. this panel is jensen and misha's favourite for a reason, and i think this moment is the biggest clue as to why.
whew!!! ok. that took a lot out of me and that was only point one. moving on,
number two: top cockles blooper moment
cockles bloopers hold an extremely special place in my heart, because it shows just how fucking disastrous jensen and misha are. they are so goddamn infatuated with each other that they HOLD UP PRODUCTION ALL THE TIME TO FLIRT WITH EACH OTHER(???). let me repeat. let it sink in. jensen ackles; arguably one of the most professional actors on that show who puts everything he has into each scene, with mountains and mountains of notes to prove it: would rather hold up production to flirt with misha collins. this sounds fake. it's not. he does it. all. the. time. and here's the thing guys!!! i'm gonna let you in on a secret!!! misha loves it. he loveesssss it. on top of that-misha collins: overlooked because he's pranked and people assume he's unprofessional as well, but his only pranks are in retaliation/off-set, and he rarely if EVER causes problems if he can help it....lets himself get carried away when it comes to jensen making kissy faces at him!!! are you actually kidding me!!! i mean. misha. it's just a face. you've seen it a million times. i don't buy that it triggers something in you that strongly....you like it, and you like jensen's reaction. you can't fool me!!! lisa berry's face in that one gifset shows just how fed up the crew is with their gross, coupley boyfriend antics.
i could pull up so many examples. sooooooo many. but my favourite was sealed since the moment i saw it.
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i actually already wrote an analysis on it but i can't find it :(((( which SUCKS because i really unpacked the whole thing. i'll try to summarise.
basically, a backstory is part of this too!!! jensen and misha both had a really really hard time with this scene(because it's explicitly romantic there i said it), they sat down for hours and poured over their scripts together, they were super super nervous going into filming, both of them, jensen especially, were super hard on themselves for their performances not being true to their characters but they both complimented the other's work(boyfriend moments fr). so, yeah. they weren't confident going into shooting. and how do they get themselves to feel better???? by cuddling each other, apparently.
a lot. a LOT. happens in this specific blooper. to the point that i saw it years before i knew about cockles and it raised all sorts of flags for me.
1) stop pulling my face towards your crotch(as a thinly veiled request that misha would, in fact, move jensen's face towards his crotch, considering it was jensen moving himself there in the first place. also, why so comfy down there guys???) 2) you're my baby daddy i know(in the most intimate voice i've ever heard please) 3) i know, i know, i love you too i didn't say i love you i know but you wanted to say it etc. misha's right, of course. that's what jensen meant.
it just reeks of comfort, familiarity and intimacy between the two, and it's a moment that is extremely sweet and silly at the same time. they're so <3
number three: top cockles found footage moment
WONDERFUL category. truly the culmination of the cockles experience. many people have said that shipping cockles doesn't work because 'they're just onstage you dummies!! they're playing it up for the audience!!!' here's the thing, love. i could not disagree with you more. once you climb your way up the cockles ladder, you soon learn that they are, in fact, playing their dynamic DOWN, not up. they really are just Like That™, and they could not care less about the paying audience, if we're being honest, considering how much time they take to giggle with each other and refuse to let the audience in on the joke. and i love them for it <3
anyway, my point is that this category is for all you naysayers out there, all you 'jensen and misha's relationship is just for show and is real life queerbaiting'(?????lordhelp???) oh yeah? ok, explain this.
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he. he. he calls jensen sweetheart. literally enough said. there's nothing to really add here, except, misha and jared then immediately engage in damage control. jared's method is distraction and misha's is retconning('get out of the car, dude') this was what got me to buy into the cockles dumpster for GOOD good. you don't call your buddy sweetheart accidentally and sound so completely earnest while doing it! especially not when that buddy is jensen ackles!!! you think he would let any of his friends call him that? do you?
one more thing; if it was a slip of the tongue, little mouth thing or whatever, you think jared wouldn't have jumped on it immediately??? i can hear it now. 'did you just call him SWEETHEART???' yeah. that's what i thought. you know why he didn't? because it was too revealing.
number four: top cockles autograph moment
i mean, i think we all know what it's gonna be, and if you don't, well, do i have the piece de cockles resistance that is gonna send you over the edge.
if you haven't heard of this story by now, as a cockles, truther, i'm gonna go ahead and get you to read it, because there is no possible heterosexual explanation for any of it, and you're fooling yourself if you think otherwise.
spoiler alert: it's the story where phones weren't allowed in an auto session, jensen nuzzles himself in misha's hair, leans his full body weight onto him, holds his hand, etc. etc. i'm imploding just repeating this back, actually. also, just, the sheer amount of stories from photo ops where they tackle hug each other or slap each other's asses or sing romantic songs to each other or almost kiss is, frankly, a lot. if i could wish for anything, it would be to witness them in person.
and finally,
number five: top cockles social media moment
this one is super difficult, because there's obviously a lot to choose from. but you know what? full send, i'm going with this one:
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i just. what to say about this. how often do misha and jensen watch sunsets together for it to qualify as ‘always’ ??? why are sunsets synonymous with their relationship??? that’s like??? a very romantic thing????? ‘this guy’??? the fact that it’s a CANDID??? i don’t know guys.
that could have been better but i am TIRED so. there you go rose ily
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mckkachins · 4 years ago
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gif cut-out tutorial
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ok ok so @subtledean requested a tutorial on how to do stuff like this post with the gif cutouts and the text effects. hopefully this helps aria ;w; i’m not the best at explaining things but i included some screencaps for clarity. i’ve tried to compress all the sample gifs and screenshots down to under 3mb to avoid tunglr compression on mobile so if they look a little different from the actual gifset, that’s probably why!
what you’ll need:
photoshop, i’m using PS 2021 but any version of photoshop will work out
a basic knowledge of gif-making (i’m assuming you already know how to make a gif and color it).
step 0: storyboard
this isn’t strictly necessary but i HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it. you don’t have to do any photoshopping this first step, but it’s really important to check out your footage and the shots you have gathered to see what works, especially if you’re trying to combine three or more gifs onto the same canvas. like literally take a piece of paper and draw out where you want the character’s faces to be, where you want the cutouts to be in relation to their faces, and think about whether or not there’s enough empty space to the right or left of characters heads for a cutout to be placed. is there too much movement that would be distracting or messy in an already busy gif?
things like that really help, and it also makes you double check on your footage quality and feasibility. if you end up making a gif where you want one character’s face to be on the left side of the gif but it turns out there’s not enough empty space on the right side of their face to place a cutout and you then have to hunt for new footage or start all over, it’s kind of a trainwreck and you just waste another hour of your time as you deepen your procrastination hellhole. that’s not a real story—
step 1: make the base gif
i’m assuming you know how to color it already. and aria i KNOW you know how to color already so :) size it accordingly to your desired dimensions.
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as you can see, i left enough space on the right side of abaddon for the knight cutout to be placed.
save this as a .psd file. you don’t actually have to sharpen and do everything that comes at the end of making a gif right away, but make sure your layers are clearly labeled. do NOT convert to video timeline/smart object just yet.
step 2: make the cutout gif
this is critical: make absolutely certain your cutout gif has the same number of frames as your base gif. otherwise it could get really messy! abaddon has 20 frames, so the cutout will also have 20 frames. again, do not convert the cutout gif to a video timeline/smart object. just keep it as a frame animation. here’s my cutout gif. it’s just a simple b&w gif but i added a touch of purple for color consistency sake whatnot.
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now for this particular gif i’ve actually cropped abaddon to be roughly exactly where i would want her face to be in relation to the first gif, but that is unnecessary. helpful, but unnecessary. you do NOT need the cutout gif to be cropped exactly perfect in order to make this work.
step 3: combining the two gifs
there are many different ways to combine two gifs onto the same canvas. some people like to do it via video timeline. i prefer to do it by frames and convert everything to a video timeline only at the end (it’s just a personal preference). here’s a tutorial if you prefer working with timelines, but i’m gonna go over how to do it by frames.
first group everything in your base gif into one folder. then group everything in your cutout gif into one folder as well. you can name them however you want to keep track of things.
then, select all of the frames in your cutout gif. in this case, all 20 of b&w abaddon get selected. make sure its not just frames 4-20 or whatever, but all the frames you made. you can click frame one and then shift-click your last frame to double check.
click the timeline tab group options bar and then go to options > copy frames
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now go to your base gif canvas. select ALL the frames of your base gif as well (it’s critical that all of them are selected).
now do options > paste frames.
a popup should appear and you’re going to select the “paste over selection” option. do not link layers.
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your cutout gif should now be completely or partially obscuring your base gif. however, now you should see two groups on your sidebar of layers. one for the base, one group for the cutout. if you labelled them with names you can tell which one is which.
step 4: creating the cutout
in order to create the cutout, we use my favorite thing in the whole world of photoshop. layer masks.
to make a layer mask, you simply select a layer or group you want to mask and then click this little icon on the row of icons at the bottom of your layers panel.
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white on a layer mask means whatever group or layer is getting masked is completely visible. black on a layer mask means that the group or layer is invisible. if there is 50% gray on a layer mask, then its 50% visible. so on and so forth.
i love these so much i abuse them on the daily. i’ve made a few gifs where i’ve masked every frame one by one because i wanted to get some cool effects. admitting that kind of embarrasses me but oh well.
anyway this is simple though. just find a picture or an outline of a knight. i used these boyes:
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obviously i cropped out the knight of the bunch, got rid of the watermark, and then i placed it on the canvas where i wanted it to go.
select the interior of the knight with the magic wand tool. should be pretty simple since it’s all black.
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now click over to your layer mask. make sure you have selected the mask and not the group. you can tell you have selected the mask when a little white rectangle pops up on it.
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when you know you have the mask selected, click command+i or control+i to invert. if for some reason you do not have this keyboard shortcut, just take a brush tool and color over the area in complete black. as long as the magic wand tool is still selecting just the interior of the knight, it should be fine.
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now once again, black means a layer will NOT be showing, white means a layer will be showing. so right now after i disable the visibility of the top layer we used as a reference for the silhouette, it looks like:
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do not fear the clownery. layer masks are great because they are always non-destructive. meaning that even if you somehow mess up and your canvas is showing something completely gross, you can always go back and edit your layer mask and your original gif would be unharmed as long as you did not touch any layers in the group, only the mask. simply invert the mask (again, make sure your mask is selected and then command+i or image > adjustments > invert) to get:
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for a layer mask that looks like:
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you could have also just made a black layer mask to begin with and then inverted the knight outline to be white. many different ways to do the same thing.
another tip: if you select your outline and then click layer mask upon a group or layer with no mask at the current moment, it will automatically make a layer mask with your selection as white and the unselected pixels as black. this is normally how i do my cutouts, because it’s a time-saver even if it like. saves a few seconds max. but i typed out the above for explanation and clarity, so hopefully i didn’t just make anyone more confused.
anyway.
now say you don’t like where the cutout abaddon is positioned. layer masks can also be linked or unlinked, depending on the little link icon you see between the group and the layer mask in the image above. if the icon is visible, the layer mask and the group are linked. if you cannot see the link icon, they are unlinked.
linked layer masks will move in conjunction with the group if any type of transform is done upon them. if the group moves, the layer mask also moves. but if a layer mask is unlinked, you can move the mask and the group independently of one another. for instance, i can change where the cutout is located on the overall canvas of the gif by simply moving ONLY the layer mask (and thereby changing where the blacks and whites of the layer mask occlude the cutout gif contents). but i can also transform the cutout gif layers without changing where the overall outline is located relative to the canvas itself. basically, i can transform the interior contents of the cutout independently. so here (make sure all of your frames are selected):
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group unlinked. i’m also making sure that now i am selecting the GROUP (ie. the frames of the layers you are actually going to move) and not the layer mask. you can tell because the little white rectangle around the layer mask can no longer be seen.
now i can transform/adjust the contents of the cutout solely “within” the cutout, and i don’t have to worry about changing where the cutout is located in relation to the overall gif. when transforming, make sure all the frames of your gif are selected. like select the whole group and not just an individual layer, basically.
i’ve seen a lot of how to combine and cut out gifs tutorials on this website, and here is a really good one that i know sully also used <3 big shoutout to all the photoshop queens being inspired by each other!! however i haven’t seen anything that mentioned the linked vs. unlinked layer masks, which i really feel like deserves a shoutout. you don’t have to crop your gifs out perfectly every time, you can always adjust them later. for demonstration, i’ve positioned abaddon in a few different positions with an unlinked layer mask.
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step 5: creating the outline
so in order to emphasize the shape of the cutout (the knight), i simply delete the white space surrounding the picture of the knight in the original silhouette that i used. magic wand tool + delete. you can also make a new layer, then paint bucket tool it. many ways to do the same thing.
now with only the knight on a transparent background, i double click the layer to pull up the effects. select outer glow. i used these settings:
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when you are doing this, make sure you are on frame one of the frame animation and the “propagate frame one setting” is selected, otherwise you might end up only applying the effect to one out of your many frames, which blows.
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then i go change the fill setting to 0%, BUT i leave opacity at 100%. fill is basically like opacity, but it doesn’t affect layer effects (whereas opacity does). so you basically get only the outline but not the black. you can also set the blending mode of the layer to screen and get the same effect, etc, etc. feel free to adjust however you see fit, in addition to the outer glow settings.
i move this layer over a couple pixels to give it the little offset effect, but you don’t have to.
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step 6: adding the text
okay the two fonts i used are avenir and perla. i think a LOT of gifmakers use them because they’re really pretty.
i make TWO different text layers, one with avenir in a smaller size and one with perla in a bigger size. this is because for the perla one, i’m going to be changing the blending mode whereas i don’t want to be changing the blending mode for the smaller text. i position the text where i want it to be and make sure the perla font is in the color i like:
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then i change the blending mode of the fancy text (perla) to difference. ONLY that layer, and again make sure to check “propagate frame 1″ and make changes on the first frame to apply the change to all of your frames.
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but i still don’t think it produces enough of a difference. so i right click on the text layer for knights of hell, and then go to: select pixels.
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then i click the curves adjustment layer. this will automatically make a curves layer with a layer mask that occludes everything BUT the area you selected. beautiful. i drag the curves around until i get enough of a difference that i like. normally i make the lights lighter and the darks darker. yeehaw.
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again there are sooooo many different ways to achieve the same effect on photoshop. this is just want comes easiest to me, and it’s totally okay if you find a different way that works better for you at producing the contrast you want or the colors you want.
step 7: export and cry
NOW you can convert everything to a video timeline, put your video frame layers to smart objects, and then apply your finishing sharpening filters. export, cry, and hope tumblr compression doesn’t screw you over.
hopefully this was helpful! pls like... idk support my edits if you found this helpful or reblog this post. feel free to dm me about how u do some of the text effects as well bc i’m always trying to learn new things and i am by no means an expert on like. any of this.
aria please go write your fucking thesis before i delete this entire tutorial challenge. :D
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thedeviljudges · 3 years ago
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the devil judge + the seven deadly sins
so, i made a gifset about who i thought falls under the seven deadly sins. and also shameless plug - please go reblog the gifset i made for this. took me ages to do.
but i figured i might as well make a meta post to correlate. so this is that post. it’s not everything i could discuss. i could be here for hours more, truth be told. but i hope it’s enough to chew on.
while i feel like a lot of these are going to be a no-brainer, i still want to talk it through because idk. i can, and i want to, and i feel like it, lmao.
gluttony
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the elite are privileged and have an opportunity to indulge so much more than the general public, but in many different ways. this is shown throughout the show in the fact that they can indulge on luxury food, have political power, they can make a phone call or snap their fingers and everyone must follow their orders.
and the thing about gluttony is that there is always more to be had. you take a little and then realize it’s not enough and so you ask for more. case in point: in episode 11 when sunah suggests that yohan could be the new president, the current one gives her an alternative: dictatorship. because it wasn’t just enough for him to be an actor and the presiding president.
you’ll also know they turn in on themselves - the two other guys in the elite group. one who owns the company and the other dude - i really cannot remember their names and what they do, but y’all know who i’m talking about. it was so easy for them, when threatened, to fabricate documents to give to yohan about each other in order to get ahead. gluttony is only shared in the relationships we have until one realizes they can take a little extra of the pie. it’s the selfishness of having all the leftovers. gluttony cannot necessarily exist without someone else’s sacrifice.
lust
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i kind of had an ah-ah moment when i was talking this over with @technitango​. i was trying to decide who was going to be lust because lust is portrayed very, very differently in this show than what most of us are used to. we, of course, know sunah who lusts after a life of indulgence and riches because she equates that with respect more than actually wanting it because it’s monetarily worth something.
but then i realized the public is lust because of their need for justice. i won’t say revenge necessarily because they’re doing as they’re told when given the judge show. but we can quickly see how that evaporates into something akin to bloodlust, for criminals and people who normally get away with shit, to have their fair taste at conviction for their misdeeds. we even see it with yohan’s fanboy club - the lust that comes from adoration and dedication.
and even more so, the public is easily swayed and so is the nature of lust. it follows in the vein of needs and wants, and as soon as new information is presented, however may false, so does the wants and desires of what people want sway. how easy was it for them to turn on yohan for a split second on two occasions - on two accounts of bribery.
envy
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envy, above all, is about wanting what others have because you do not have it yourself. it may not be exactly what they have, but a form of it. some people don’t necessarily want money - they want what it can by, which is time, health and material goods.
sunah is the perfect example of this. she envies respect and recognition. she talks about bright and shiny objects, and that’s true to her kleptomania tendences, but more than anything, she wants to be seen as an equal because being poor with a vastly different upbringing means she’s looked down upon by those she thinks matters.
which also begs the question why she feels the need to seek validation from people in higher statuses to begin with when she can be the exception and not the rule - form her own understanding and environment to show others that the typical way of the elite is not actually all it’s cracked up to be - to which we see when she has no one to celebrate her victory with. it’s lonely being at the top. you get to your goal you thought you wanted but then what?
more importantly, sunah also envies family, relationships and simply put, human interaction. she wants to be cared for and treasured, and she looks for that in her position of power. because then all eyes are on you. because then that’s what people care about. what she fails to see is that those eyes are just as fruitless and just as wavering. to be a leader means people loving the idea of you but not you as a person.
“people of envious nature are sometimes stimulated to seek to emulate those who have completed some great achievements and in doing so achieve something great for themselves,” according to Understanding Philosophy.
wrath
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while i realize that gaon not might entirely fit the wrath trope, he certainly has his moments, and i think he’s lived with a tampered flame since his parent’s death. he just learned to briefly put it out in the form of distractions and a false sense of righteousness and justice. it isn’t until he meets yohan that someone finally gives him the okay to feel the entirety of his emotions, that lets him breath and tells him it’s okay to feel anger and hurt. and while gaon ultimately chooses not to exact revenge, his wrath is what led him to becoming a judge and walking away from his teenage crimality.
gaon transposed his wrath into seeking justice, transformed it into livelihood, and reformed his narrative so that he was no longer angry and a teen with rash emotions. it was simply redirected and never really forgotten. yohan turned that redirection back around onto gaon’s ultimate heartache. fueled with that, it became easier to justify himself and his actions.
the most pivotal moment of turning his back on this mindset is, of course, the minister’s suicide, where he takes a good look at himself and doesn’t like what he sees. at this point, gaon’s upset isn’t necessarily at yohan but at the situation in which they got themselves into. because the thing is, gaon doesn’t absolve himself from what they did. he doesn’t turn a blind eye to that and try to dismiss it. he owns up to what happened and confesses how he feels to yohan and how he has to leave for his own good, and in some indirect way, for yohan’s, too.
with yohan, his ultimately weakness, despite never admitting to it, is family. his wrath comes in the form of anger when the ones he loves are threatened. yohan lives by a moral code of loyalty because that means you won’t be abandoned, and as a child who lived with that verdict since the day he was born, it’s an ever-pressing theme of his.
thing is, wrath comes in two particular forms for yohan. again, one is family and the second is the rose-colored glasses he’s given himself in his revenge story. he’s always had a goal to presumably make right the wrong for taking away isaac, but within that, 10 years is a long time to plot revenge, to the point where it becomes so much easier to lose yourself to that, to become enraged with it and forget the initial goal all along. we see this in his inability to form the bonding moments needed with his niece and his casual throwaway comments over people’s lives - the comment he made to gaon about moving on to the next plan, and the ultimately nail in the coffin of pushing gaon to leaving him.
his fury has also led him to convince himself his own humanity is nothing short of a lie. therefore, it’s easier to justify the means to an end because of his own self-worth and self-deprecation. it’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy: he even admitted to gaon’s mentor that he is an abyss. he’s referred to himself as nothing but an animal or a monster - all characteristics of despondency to survive and to justify what he’s doing. sort of like a catch 22, yohan claims he’s an animal/monster and behaves as such, but because he behaves as such, it means he’s an animal/monster.
wrath for gaon and yohan are very different yet the same. they are slow-burning, and that’s a dangerous type. it’s actually interesting when you think about the fire imagery surrounding the two of them because flames are quick to lap at anything in its wake, to destroy within a matter of minutes. and yet for the two of these men, their internal fire eats them from the inside out, painfully, until they’re almost unrecognizable to others and to themselves.
sloth
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sloth was a little more difficult to pinpoint because of its characteristics. it was either the minister versus the mentor, both of which i think could work in this role. however, i chose the minister simply because she’s featured more and intertwines heavily with the plot line.
soth is a medieval translation of the Latin term acedia, meaning “without care.”
the ultimate characteristic of sloth is often identified as laziness, and while it’s easy to argue that the minister hasn’t been lazy in her ability to get where she is, she became as much when she started lying to get to her position. isn’t lying known as the easier way out? it absolves you of responsibility, of putting in the hard work, of apologizing and making things right. in the end, she had a goal and found the easiest solution to get there through her lack of responsibility for the roles she more than likely swore an oath to.
but that also translates into the other attributes of sloth: a failure to do the right thing, lack of emotions for people or of the self, and the fact that it “hinders man in his righteous undertakings and thus becomes a terrible source of man’s undoing” according to The Seven Deadly Sins: Society and Evil.
while i think there are a lot of components of sloth that may not necessarily fit the minister, the apathy and carelessness are enough to showcase her aggression, despondency and restlessness when what little efforts she does put in do not go her way. another interesting thing to note is that many of sloth’s traits correspond with symptoms of mental illness, such as depression and anxiety. it’s an interesting thing to note given the way the minister chooses to end her life.
greed
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i don’t know that jinjoo would’ve had any provocation to the limelight if it wasn’t for sunah’s direction, but she’s eager to please and wants to be useful. it’s only natural for her to want more because it’s clear she’s a career woman, loves her job and has a heart for serving the people.
but like gluttony, greed is also that little thing that plants itself and can take on a life of its own. you start looking for justifications as to why you can’t have more than what you do, and in jinjoo’s situation, she’s already overlooked through no fault of her own. and it’s not that gaon and yohan are doing it purposefully, which is what makes their neglect heartbreaking, because truthfully, they’re after the same thing jinoo is. sure, it looks different and the foundation of it is different, same with their motives. but they’re all three judges on a residing bench working to exact justice - even if all three of them have their own personal agenda. 
i don’t think jinoo fully aligns with greed, but she does want more for herself, and i think that’s only natural. you can tell she has a heart, and she’s keen not to be overlooked. this isn’t her pain point so much as it is she knows her worth and is more than ready to do what it takes to get where she wants. this, in and of itself, isn’t necessarily a bad trait, but we can see how it leads to being deceived, especially for someone who’s been left in the dark for so long.
she is enticed by the glitz and the glamour of being a head judge, but you can tell she feels some remorse and guilt for those thoughts at times. i think her sense of greed is a battle within herself more than it is extremely outwardly.
pride
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soohyun’s pride comes in the form of her imbalance with right and wrong. her sense of righteousness and justice is so far leaning, even more than gaon’s. it can be chalked up to her being a cop, but we’ve seen instances of this outside of her role within that agency. her pride doesn’t let her see beyond saving gaon and getting to the bottom of every mystery that comes her way.
it also comes in the form of impulsiveness and her savior complex, putting elijah in danger, for example, instead of waiting for backup. it’s not necessarily from a belief that she can fix things all on her own, but she sees injustice and immediately jumps in. another case in point is her and gaon watching yohan wreck the minister’s son’s car. she’s ready to go stop him, but gaon pulls her back, most likely because at that point, they hadn’t been observing the situation for very long to get a read on it. also the fact that at that point, neither of them truly knew yohan and his capabilities.
but as to where her characteristics come from, we simply don’t know beyond that of gaon. it’s unfortunate because we don’t have much of her backstory, so there is no real understanding why she so firmly believes in entities of regulation beyond keeping her friend out of jail. she prides herself on her work and what she’s able to accomplish, which is why it’s devastating to her to have to protect gaon by cleaning up his bloody handprint.
aristotle is of the belief that, “pride, then, seems to be a sort of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible without nobility and goodness of character,” from Nicomachean Ethics.
but pride for soohyun isn’t about honors or rewards. it’s for herself and her capabilities, her ability to protect gaon, and the virtues she’s set as the precedent for herself. because sometimes it’s not even about establishing morals and ethics upon yourself. it’s about feelings/intuition, logic and observation. and no, i don’t mean the feelings she has for gaon. there are things that humans do, both actions and words, that we inherently know are bad without someone telling us as much and without the rules of the world seared into our brains. there are some things we know, for a fact, are wrong to us as individuals.
for soohyun, she knows that gaon’s actions, and even her own, have consequences. from what we’ve seen, i think it can be argued that it’s really about not doing those actions to prevent an outcome - not necessarily from a place of being just and right. that doesn’t mean she doesn’t understand good morals/ethics, but again, we have no background of what her internal guidance actually is.
to put this in layman’s terms, we’ll use gaon wanting to stab the conman in his youth. soohyun knows it’s wrong because it will incriminate gaon and therefore she stops it. gaon’s gone to her because he sees her as a moral compass. but is her own internal navigation rooted in justice the way gaon had to find it in the judicial system, or is hers rooted in her pride of keeping gaon safe? she stops him from doing things that will get him in trouble, but is she stopping him because the action itself is wrong or because the outcome will result in undesirable consequences for the two of them?
and of course, there is a flipped argument to be had there - i’m not arguing that gaon stabbing the conman would be right or justified. but what i am saying is that for her, her worldview is the only right one, and when anyone steps out of that, even gaon, it becomes a bit of an issue: the pride she has for that is palpable.
every character indulges
truthfully, every character has at least one form of these sins rooted in their characterization. some are larger than others, but the breadth of it can be explored even further for each. and that’s what makes them more realistic and not just characters written on a page or following a linear progression of their writing deity.
the seven deadly sins are also notoriously rooted in religion. they’re also a defining feature of aristotle’s works that represent the golden mean, in which each vice is parallel to a virtue.
the devil judge is so layered, but i think at the heart of it, it’s about humanity at its core. sprinked in are the philosophies and contradictions and what it means to look in the mirror, what happens when we’re blind to seeing our true selves and most importantly, how much changes when we’re swayed by our own misgivings. it really asks us to understand nature versus nurture, that people must find a belief in something to keep them going, and how futile our hopes and desires can actually be if we’re not carefully regulating ourselves, nevermind the entities established by society to regulate us, too.
the entirety of the show genuinely begs the question as to who is truly right, who is truly wrong, and if it’s even possible to find the correct answer.
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historyofshipping · 4 years ago
Text
My massive Bellarke is epic and here’s proof from s5-7 rant.
Ok guys I cannot stress enough that I am drunk, this is long, it has strong language, and it’s a trip. I am putting it almost all under a cut because it is 20 f*ing pages on word.
For reference: this was on a discord chat and I am removing all names and a few other things but there will be absolutely no editing. Anything in straight text is me, anything in italics is someone else (there’s several different someone elses so people are separated by line breaks). On my page I think it appears as everything grey is someone else, everything black is me. I’m going to put the beginning on here and rest under the cut. If you’re still going through with this, I suggest some popcorn.
Guys... I'm trying to stay optimistic but I'm really worried that jroth is gonna make bellarke canon in a really disappointing way. Like for me infidelity is a huge no in ships and I hate that becho has gone on so long that there doesn't seem to be a lot of room left in the canon timeline for a becho breakup/end that doesn't ruin the start of Bellarke for me
WAIT I GOT YOU I CAN CALM YOU I THINK BUT FIRST I NEED TO EAT MY BREADSTICKS
Every moment Echo is on the screen I want to claw my eyes out because she's so boring please jroth let it fucking end, but the feminist in me doesn't want her to die or be disrespected just because she's a callous asshole who doesn't deserve him yknow
Eat your breadsticks babe I've been living with my dread for 2 seasons I can hang on a little longer I just wish the entire becho relationship had never happened it's a blight and it's gone on so long adenfkidsngksdgnksdgn
Kate will say it better than I will, but don't lose hope! Becho hasn't really been together on screen for very long. It's only been like a few weeks to a month since the beginning of S5. They've stretched it out over two seasons, but in canon not much time has passed. And most of that time had Bellamy either sacrificing almost 300 lives to save Clarke, poisoning his sister to save Clarke, or fucking off into the wilderness with Josephine to save Clarke. They've just straight up not had enough time for Bellamy to be like, "Hey Echo, I know I said things wouldn't change but that was before my wife was actually alive, so bye." Though  to wishing Becho had just never happened. We got one good angst scene with Clarke seeing them kiss. But otherwise, I could have very much done without their whole relationship.
they gave me 2 dozen breadsticks. i ordered 6
You've been blessed by the breadstick goddess.
oh sorry i was misinformed. i only have 22. apparently one bag only had 4 OK SO BELLARKE BITCHES AM I GOING TO ANNOYINGLY DO THIS IN CAPS SO BUCKLE TF UP
I mean, I love the idea that they only got together in the sixth year on the ring when Bellamy totally lost hope but is that canon? I thought we had a 3 year range
ALL RIGHT
We ignore canon in this channel. lol They've been together for 3 months.
SO LET'S START AT THE BEGINNING OF BECHO ok caps off. i even annoyed myself
I'm so here for this.
https://tenor.com/view/murder-she-wrote-angela-lansbury-jessica-eats-popcorn-interested-gif-4594942
Damn, I was ready for caps.
OK WE'RE BACK TO CAPS
https://giphy.com/gifs/popcorn-go-on-keep-going-Zd1BUb0qs6nwjeMUBu
OK SO WE HAVE BECHO'S FIRST SCENE TOGETHER ANYONE REMEMBER WHAT BELLAMY SAID? ANYONE? THIS REQUIRES AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION
"Hey work with me so I can break everyone out of this mountain"? or something?
OH DAMN I MEANT WHEN THEY WERE CANONICALLY TOGETHER XP
"I'm a goddamn delight who's trying to save your life you ungrateful walnut so maybe don't spit in my face" is what I would have written
LMFAO OJN THE RING WHAT'S THE FIRST THING WE HEAR FROM THEM? THE FIRST IMPORTANT THING? ANYONE?
Unfortunately that scene was physically repulsive for me so I don't remember much except for "nothing will change on the ground and my sister totally didn't mean to murder you"
AHA! THERE YA GO NOTHING WILL CHANGE ON TEH GROUND BECAUSE WHAT IS HE EXPECTING ON THE GROUND? NOTHING TO CHANGE BECAUSE THE ONLY THING THAT COULD CHANGE IS -----
>"I'm a goddamn delight who's trying to save your life you ungrateful walnut so maybe don't spit in my face" is what I would have written I SPIT OUT MY DRINK I CANNOT
ANYONE? YUP
I'm behind. lol
CLARKE
AND THEN WE GOT TO THE GROUND, WHAT HAPPENED?
BEING ALIVE
His sister having more taste in his romantic partners than him?
WHAT WAS THE LITERAL ONE THING THAT COULD HAPPEN THAT WOULD CHANGE BELLAMY'S MIND DING DING DING CLARKE IS ALIVE
10 points to 
AND WHAT DOES OUR BABY BOY DO?
SACRIFICE 300 PEEPS FOR HIS WIFE
Clarke with a gun AND a kid AND a rover AND bedtime storytelling practice like what more could he want that's all the things he loves
A LITTLE AHEAD BUT BANG
BABY BOY FOLLOWS CLARKS DAUGHTER FIRST, LEAVING ECHO IN THE LITERAL DUST (that's what he does before sacrificing lives)
WE WENT FROM "I WILL NOT TOUCH THESE PEOPLE BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO DO BETTER." TO "I WILL SLAUGHTER 283 PEOPLE WITHOUT RAISING AN EYEBROW" BECAUSE RANDOM CHILD SHOWS UP AND SAYS "CLARKE'S IN TROUBLE" RANDOM CHILD WHO HAS JUST KILLED A BUNCH OF HARDENED CRIMINALS
He had the dad mug tho, he had to help her
HE SAW HIMSELF IN HER HE KNEW
OK
HIS SOUL KNEW
SO WE'RE THERE NOW BUT THEN BANG, WE'RE ON THE GROUND AND OH FUCK I FORGOT I HAD A GIRLFRIEND BUT BELLAMY IS LOYAL SO HE SURE AF ISN'T DOING ANYTHING UNTIL HE'S DONE WITH ECHO BUT
He's had 2 seasons!!!!!
CLARKE BASICALLY ACTS LIKE SHE DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THE SEPARATION THOU SHALT NOT POKE HOLES IN MY SHIT UNTIL I AM DONE
>He's had 2 seasons!!!!! But only like a few weeks in time.
BECAUSE THESE TWO FUCK HEADS CANNOT HAVE A CONVERSATION
Forgive me!
SO WE HAVE A GRAND TOTAL OF FEWER THAN 3 WEEKS THAT THEY'RE ON THE GROUND AND THEN IN THAT TIME WE HAD.... one sec pPLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO REVIEW THE TIMELINE https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/620425806742749184/season-5-7x03-so-far-timeline FOR SEASON 5 ALL RIGHT SO WE HAVE THEM TOGETHER FOR LESS THAN A WEEK BEFORE BELLAMY'S LIKE (FROM CLARKE'S PERSPECTIVE) "I DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR KID, I HAVE TO SAVE MY FAMILY" SO THEN WE HAVE THEM SPEND THE NEXT 10 DAYS APART BECAUSE SHE LEFT HIM AFTER SLAPPING HIM AND SHE THOUGHT HE DIED BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING MORONS WHO CAN'T HAVE A CONVERSATION (YOU WILL NOTICE A RECURRING THEME) AND THEN, ECHO HAS LEARNED THAT NOT ONLY HAS CLARKE CARED ABOUT BELLAMY ALL THIS TIME BUT THAT SHE'S ONCE AGAIN READY TO PUT THE FATE OF HUAMNITIY ON THE LINE TO SAVE HIM "GO SAVE HIM. EVEN TAKE MURDER!DAUGHTER WITH YOU" BUT BELLAMY STILL DOESN'T KNOW THIS SO ANYWAY WE HAVE ANGST!BELLAMY GET PARENT TRAPPED BY MURDER!DAUGHTER are y'all still with me? AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED IMMEDIATELY AFTER MURDER!DAUGHTER'S INTERVENTION?
BELLARKE FORGIVENESS ™
YAS NOT ONLY THAT BUT SOFT!BELLARKE RETURNS WITH A VENGEANCE [side note: you can pry this theory from my cold dead hands but there was 100% a canon bellarke scene between forgiveness and 125 year wake up just in case they ended at season 5.]
[I need them to publish that scene when this is all over]
ALL RIGHT SO FUCKING MARPER - WHO SPENT A TOTAL OF LIKE 4 MONTHS WITH CLARKE BUT 6 YEARS WITH THEIR FAMILY- DECIDED TO WAKE UP BELLARKE TO TALK TO AND GIVE GUARDIANSHIP TO AND WHY DID THEY DO THAT?
THEY BEEN KNEW
I'LL ACCEPT IT
OK SO WE GET THIS PROMISING FUTURE TOGETHER ON THIS NEW PLANET RIGHT?
WRONG MURDER POLLEN
OK BUT TECHNICALLY BECHO IS STILL TOGETHER. NO PROBLEM - WE NEED TO FIGURE OUR SHIT OUT AND THEN WE'LL HAVE PLENTY OF TIME TO HAVE PEACE AND GET TOGETHER OK SO I'M JUST GOING TO START SAYING "CHORUS" WHEN I MEAN "BECAUSE THESE TWO DUMBASSES CAN'T TALK TO EACH OTHER" IS CHORUS THE RIGHT WORD? OR IS IT REFRAIN? WHATEVER ONE REPEATS - THAT ONE ALL RIGHT SO WE HAVE THEM GOING INTO THE VILLAGE AND EVERY TIME THERE IS DANGER, BELLAMY GOES IMMEDIATELY TO CLARKE WHEN IT'S PEACEFUL, OPE IT'S BACK TO ECHO
(like the husband he is)
I HAVE A WHOLE META ABOUT THAT IF YOU WANT IT BUT SO THEN THE FIRST TIME - LITERALLY THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE MARPER VIDEO - THAT THEY'RE ALONE, IT'S BECAUSE BELLAMY HAS SOUGHT HER OUT AND WHY DID BELLAMY SEEK HER OUT? Y'ALL I'M ONLY AT 6X01. I HAVE SO MUCH AMMUNITION BUT SOMEONE IS WELCOME TO SCREEN SHOT THIS SO THAT THE NEXT TIEM WE HAVE DOUBTS, I DON'T HAVE TO TYPE IT ALL OUT SO WHY DID BELLAMY SEEK HER OUT?
>Y'ALL I'M ONLY AT 6X01. I HAVE SO MUCH AMMUNITION @kate (historyofbellarke) "Give a position show me where the ammunition is" from My Shot just popped into my head lololol
WHY DID BELLAMY LEAVE HIS CANONICAL GIRLFRIEND TO GO SEEK OUT CLARKE?
BECAUSE HE LOVES HER AND ALSO BECAUSE THERE WAS DANGER
OK BUT WHY SPECIFICALLY NOOO WHEN CLARKE WAS IN THE SCHOOL
AND THE LAST TIME SHE WASN'T IN HIS SIGHT SHE ALMOST DIED
OK THAT TOO
Okay I'm lost at this point then.
LOL
Phone a friend.
Bc she sucks and Clarke's the best?
I'LL LET ---- CHIME IN LMFAO I LOVE YOU GUYS KNOW IT'S TO TELL HER THAT HE KNOWS ABOUT THE CALLS
OH THAT SCENE
HE KNOWS THAT SHE CALLED HIM EVERY DAY FOR 2,199 DAYS HE SOUGHT HER OUT, BY HERSELF, TO TELL HER THIS
YES YES
BUT BECAUSE CHORUS
WE'RE BACK THESE FUCK HEADS CAN'T HAVE A CONVERSATION
SHE GOT NERVOUS AND DUCKED OUT BECAUSE IT'S BEEN LESS THAN 3 WEEKS SINCE HE CAME BACK AND SHE'S OVERWHELMED BECAUSE HOLY FUCK WHAT A 3 WEEK PERIOD THAT WAS (REFER BACK TO TIMELINE AS NEEDED) ALL RIGHTY SO THEN AFTER THAT THEY FIND OUT ABOUT THE RED SUN WHICH BY THE WAY IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS BECAUSE HE CALLS OVER ECHO JUST TO PROMPTLY IGNORE HER COMPLETELY [AND BECAUSE IT'S ME, I HAVE A GIFSET FOR THAT] SORRY I GOT DISTRACTED
NO WE'RE HERE FOR THE GIFSET
I'M LOOKING OK IT'S PART OF THIS SO YOU GET A 2 FOR 1 https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/184827185143/bellarke-danger-vs-becho-safety OK NOW I FORGOT WERE I LEFT OFF OH YEAH IGNORING ECHO ALL RIGHT SO THEN WE HAVE EVERYTHING GO TO SHIT AND OF COURSE, BELLARKE LOCK THEMSELVES TOGETHER AND WE HAVE THE ANGST THE ANGST BUT THEY HAVE EACH OTHER'S KEYS
WHICH IS A MARRIED MOVE IF I EVER HEARD ONE
BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE KEY TO MY HEART, WHEREVER YOU ARE, I'LL KEEP YOU
That's a very comprehensive gifset
IF YOU DON'T KNOW THAT SONG THEN I FEEL OLD SO YOU HAVE THEM UNLOCKING EACH OTHER BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY ARE
I might drift in and out of conversation, partner wants attention but I wanna finish reading this asdfgh
AND HE'S LIKE "NAH ECHO, WIFEY AND I GOT THIS. WE GOTTA TAKE CARE OF OUR KIDS." TELL THEM TO WAIT THEIR TURN SO THEY'RE GOING LITERALLY PSYCHOTIC BUT THAT'S COOL. I TRUST THE OTHER ONE ENOUGH TO NOT KILL ME BUT OH WAIT - WHAT IS BELLAMY'S PSYCHOSIS ?
Not needing Clarke anymore...?
YUP WHICH MEAN S
He needed her and knew it at some point
YUP ALSO I FOUND THAT GIFSET THAT I IDD TO THAT SONG https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/184725894498/this-song-popped-into-my-head-and-i-had-to OK SO SKIPPING AHEAD, HIS BIGGEST SECRET IS THAT HE DOES STILL NEED HER OK EVEN I'M STARTED TO GET BORED SO I'LL GIVE BULLET POINTS FROM HERE ON OUT SO WE HAVE HIM NEEDING HER HIM CALLING HER THE LEADER EVEN THOUGH SHE HASN'T BEEN FOR LIKE 6 YEARS AND WE HAVE HIM PINING OVER HER AT THE DANCE FLOOR AND PICKING A FIGHT WITH ECHO OH YEAH AND WE SEE ALL THE  BECHO CRACKS HERE
This has been a v good rundown, I won't lie.
LOL
ONWARD  I'M BACK ON TRACK
WE HAVE JUXTAPOSED: ECHO NOT KNOWING WHAT TO SAY WITH REGARDS TO OBUT CLARKE KNOWING EXACTLY WHAT TO SAY EVEN AFTER 6 YEARS
BECAUSE WIFEY
https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/618426948212965376/historyofbellarke-4-times-someone-knew-the-right
Really you'd think the spy would know what someone wants to hear smh
NAH BECAUSE SHE HAS NO EMOTIONAL EMPATHY. WE'LL GET TO THAT EVENTUALLY
She's also kinda a shit spy. Like when has she ever done actual spying.
Y'ALL I HAVE A GIF FOR EVERYTHING. I'M THE LIZ WARREN OF BELLARKE GIFS GIFSETS AT LEAST
You don't need empathy to fake it, Madison's right she's just such a bad spy :joy:
I'VE GOT NOTHING ON ---- FOR JUST GIFS LOLi
I say this as someone who was 10/10 a spy in a past life at least according to my recurring dreams about it1
OK SO THEN WE ALSO HAVE BELLAMY SIDING WITH CLARKE AT EVERY TURN, OVER ECHO'S EXPLICIT OBJECTIONS AND WE HAVE HER NOTICINGGGGGG WE'RE HERE FOR THIS CONTENT
https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/185265380768/6x04-bec-scene-follow-up-with-6x05 JUST ONE EXAMPLE
HATE TO SEE IT 
SO WE HAVE BELLAMY CLEARLY SHOWING THAT HE'S HER LEADER - WHETHER HE MEANS TO BE OR NOT - WHICH COMES IN IN 7X01
Total aside but now I want a modern au where Bellamy doesn't know how to break up with Echo so he tries to ghost her while everyone around him is pulling their hair out
OH SHIT ONE SECOND I HAVE TO DO DUOLINGO SO I DON'T LOSE MY STREAK BRB
>Total aside but now I want a modern au where Bellamy doesn't know how to break up with Echo so he tries to ghost her while everyone around him is pulling their hair out ---- I love this, actually. WE SHALL HOLD YOUR SPOT
No one in this goddamn canon knows how to have an actual breakup conversation they only know how to die
CORRECT CHORUS
BECAUSE THESE TWO DUMBASSES CAN'T TALK TO EACH OTHER
Ironically Raven and Finn are the only ones who have had a half-normal breakup.
Will be back, partner is dramatically exclaiming that I don't love him anymore bc I won't go give him a goddamn hug bc the meta's too good
BOOM OK I'M BACK
SIDE NOTE BEFORE WE'RE BACK
GO ON
What language are you learning on Duolingo?
relearning spanish and then german german for work, spanish because i used to be fluent and i'm so bad now xp
This entire convo is a chaotic mess
We are a chaotic mess.
WELCOME TO THE HELLMOUTH, ----
Our ship is a chaotic mess.
It all tracks, honestly.
WE WOULD'VE ALL BEEN SO MUCH BETTER OFF IF JASPER HAD DESTROYED THE CHIP OOK SO MOVING ON NOW I FORGOT WHERE I LEFT OFF OH YEAH LEADER PERF SO OH YEAH I FORGOT TO ADD - 6 & 7 ARE ONE SINGULAR SEASON SO
This convo should totally be convered into a Masterclass session at the end. YES
WE'VE GOT A RUNNING THREAD OF ECHO BEING A FOLLOWER OF BELLAMY AND HER KNOWING IT
6/7 ARE ONE SEASON WE'RE HERE WE'RE LIVING
BUT BACK TO S6 SO WE HAVE BELLAMY BEING THE FIRST TO REALIZE THAT CLARKE WANS'T CLARKE AND WE HAVE THIS BEAUTIFUL MOMENT
I’m here and all of this is glorious
OH YEAH THERE'S ALSO THIS BUT I DIGRESS https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/618548726524510208/historyofbellarke-5x09-6x04-6x05 THE FIRST ONE HERE - https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/616075629201408000/just-some-clips-ofabout-bellamy-where-either HE'S WILLING TO RISK EVERYTHING EBCAUSE CLARKE MIGHT BE AT RISK  EVEN THOUGH THEY LITERALLY HAVE NO WHERE ELSE TO GO OH YEAH FUCKING MURPHY - I'LL GET BACK TO HIM ALL RIGHT SO THEN WE HAVE BELLAMY FIGURING IT OUT AND THE HORROR BLOOMING IN HIS SOUL AND THEN WE HAVE HIM LITERALLY WITH A ROOM DESTROYED EVERN THOUGH HE IS CHAINED UP LIKE SERIOUSLY HOW DID HE MANAGE THAT AND THEN TRY TO KILL RUSSELL THE SECOND HE COULD BECAUSE HE HURT CLARKE EVEN THOUGH, AGAIN, THAT'S THE ONLY WAY HE AND HIS PEOPLE COULD SURIVVE BUT WITHOUT CLARKE, HE'S NOT ALIVE. HE ONLY SURVIVES AND HOW DO WE KNOW THIS? BECAUSE HE FUCKING SAYS IT (implicitly)
I just came into this. I have nothing to add I just want to say I’m living for it
:heart:
Agreed, this conversation is giving meaning to my insomnia :joy:
https://historyofbellarke.tumblr.com/post/618973621000585216/just-a-reminder-that-bellamy-canonically-only
WHOLE F*ING THING ON SURVIVING VS LIVING AND THEN ONCE HE DECIDES THEY'RE GOING TO LIVE (AND LET RUSSELL LIVE)  BECAUSE IT'S WHAT CLARKE WOULD'VE WANTED, HE SAYS "WE SURVIVE" LOOKING LIKE THE SADDEST FUCKING PUPPY IN EXISTENCE AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE FACT THAT WE HAD A WHOLE DAMN EPISODE OF A 13 EPISODE SEASON DEVOTED TO BELLAMY SUFFERING BECAUSE HIS WIFE DIED AGAIN 3 WEEKS AFTER SHE WAS RESURRECTED SUBTLE, JASON. SUBTLE. OK NOW BACK TO MY BELOVED COCKROACH MURPHY AND BELLAMY ARE ARGUABLY THE TWO CLOSEST NON-ROMANTIC (:upside_down:) PEOPLE ON THE SHIP THE RING RIGHT? OK WE'RE GOING WITH IT ANYWAY
Hmmm yes(I agreee) but also Clarke and Murphy have that understanding that transcends words?
THEY ARE THE CLOSEST ROMANCE WITHSTANDING ON THE SHIP
AND MURPHY, MY BELOVED MURPHY, HAS BEEN THERE FROM "I'LL CHOP HER HAND OFF" TO "OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK CLARKE IS UNCONSCIOUS AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO" TO "YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY ONE HERE SAVING SOMEONE THEY CARE ABOUT"
BECAUSE BELLAMY DOES NOT EVEN KNOW ECHO'S ACTUAL NAME AND THEREFORE THEY ARE NOT CLOSE
LOL SO MURPHY AFTER 6 YEARS IS TRYING TO GET BELLAMY TO DO SOMETHING HE WANTS (WE'RE BACK IN SEASON 5 NOW, SORRY) AND HOW DOES HE DO THAT?
AND INVOLKES MOM'S NAME
BLESSED BE "WELL IF CLARKE WAS HERE" BELLAMY ESPLODES OK SO NOW WE HAVE MURPHY AGAIN WHO KNOWSSSS AND WHAT DOES HE SAY TO JOSIE? ABOUT BELLAMY
If Clarke is dead Bellamy will kill us all HE KNOWS
BAM ALSO, REFER BACK TO PREVIOUS GIFSET, SAME MURPHY "OH YEAH I'LL TRY TO HELP ECHO TOO" BECAUSE MURPHY KNOWSSSS OOK THAT'S ALL FOR MURPHY NOW SO WE HAVE BELLAMY "WE'RE GOING TO SURVIVE BECAUSE I CAN'T LIVE WITHJOUT CLARKE BUT I'M GOING TO ONCE AGAIN HONOR HER FUCKING MEMORY" UNTILLLLLL WHAT HAPPENS
lol @ Murphy having to remind Bell his gf exists hahahah UNTIL HIS SOUL REALIZES CLARKE IS ALIVE
BUT HOW DOES HE REALIZE THAT
BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CONVINCE ME HE KNEW IT WAS MORSE CODE BECAUSE OF EARTH SKILLS NO
HE KNEW IT WAS MORSE CODE BECAUSE HIS SOUL FUCKING KNEW HIS WIFE WAS ALIVE
Yesss
PLATONIC SOULMATE MY ASS JASON
Morse code is life
[okay rant over, continue Kate]
MILLER'S FACE WAS LIKE "YOU FUCKING WHAT MAN?"
(side note- i am getting alive in morse code on my wrist when covid clears) OK SO WE'RE BACK SO WE HAVE JOSIE TAPPING HER FINGERS
Oh I love that I have friend who has that tattoo
YES TAP TAP MILLER GOING WTF BELL GOING ALL GIDDY PUPPY WITH A BONE
WHICH MEANS BELLAMY HAD TO HAVE GONE BACK TO HIS FAMILY AND SAY "OK WE'RE GOING TO RESCUE MY DEAD WIFE. SHE'S ALIVE. IKNOW BECAUSE JOSIE WAS TAPPING HER FINGERS." AND THE FAMILY HAD TO GO "YEAH OK THAT MAKES SENSE."
AND NO ONE QUESTIONED IT BECAUSE THEY BEEN KNEW
Yessss
SO WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO? LIKE IT WAS EVEN A QUESTION. THEY'RE RESCUING CLARKE AND BY THEY'RE I MEAN HE BECAUSE HE DOES NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THEM AT THE MOMENT SO HE'S LIKE "READY OR NOT, I'M RESCUING MY WIFE. BYEEEEE" AND JORDAN'S LIKE "WHAT ABOUT PRIYA?" AND EVERYONE'S LIKE ".... SORRY BRO. CLARKE. YOU WANTED HEART BELLAMY. YOU GOT HIM." SO HE GOES, LEAVING HIS FAMILY BEHIND WITH A BUNCH OF PSYCHOPATHIC MURDERERS WHO KNOW THAT BELLAMY IS GOING TO KILL THEIR DAUGHTER BUT HE'S JUST LIKE... BYE AND HE KNOWS, AND WE KNOW THAT HE KNOWS, BECAUSE JOSIE TAUNTS HIM ABOUT IT THE WHOLE TIME BECAUSE JOSIE IS THE AUDIENCE BASICALLY
JOSIE IS US BUT SLIGHTLY MORE PSYCHOTIC
ALL RIGHT SO SKIPPING AHEAD, SKIPPING AHEAD, YOU HAVE JOSIE'S WHOLE RUN DOWN OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP
TOGETHER
AND HIS VERY LONG PAUSE FOLLOWED BY "I WON'T LET YOU DIE"
EXHAUSTING
INSTEAD OF I FUCKING LOVE YOU BECAUSE CHORUS SO WE GET CLARKE BACK THROUGH SHEER FORCE OF BELLAMY'S WILL
>AND HIS VERY LONG PAUSE FOLLOWED BY "I WON'T LET YOU DIE" @kate (historyofbellarke) "I LOVE YOU, BITCH. I AIN'T EVER GONNA STOP LOVING YOU, BITCH."
"I'LL SHAVE THE BEARD" SO WE HAVE CLARKE WHO GAVE UP LIVING BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT BELLAMY GAVE UP (REMEMBER, JOSIE SHOWING HER THE MEMORY OF BELLAMY SAYING WE'LL TAKE THE DEAL) AND THEN CLARKE COMING BACK TO LIFE BECAUSE BELLAMY WOULDN'T GIVE UP AND THEN WE HAVE OCTAVIA, MY BROTHER POISONED ME FOR HIS WIFE AND I STILL RAISED MY NIECE ON STORIES OF EPIC BELLARKE, BLAKE IN THE BACKGROUND BEING ALL OF US
>SO WE HAVE CLARKE WHO GAVE UP LIVING BECAUSE SHE THOUGHT BELLAMY GAVE UP (REMEMBER, JOSIE SHOWING HER THE MEMORY OF BELLAMY SAYING WE'LL TAKE THE DEAL) @kate (historyofbellarke) OMG I HAVE A SPEC ABOUT THIS I HAVE A SPEC ABOUT THIS BUT IMMA WAIT TIL WE'RE DONE TO POP INTO SPEC TO TALK IT OUT OKAY CONTINUE
i'm going to keep going, but have i done a pretty good job of convincing anyone who was wavering? because remember this is all canon.  i have done absolutely no spec-ing at all.
I'm very hype rn. Ngl.
lol
Could flip a tire for Bellarke rn kind of hype
OK SO NOW CLARKE IS ALIVE BUT OH FUCK, THE REST OF THE FAMILY IS IN TROUBLE WE LITERALLY HAD MURPHY, MY BLESSED MURPHY, SHOW UP TO GO "YO. YOUR GIRLFRIEND." AND BELLAMY GO https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/591463308117278720/716493560610029708/tumblr_pv4mkld49N1xsmktho1_500.gif SO OF COURSE, IT'S NOT TIME TO TALK BECAUSE CHORUS
DUMBASSES NO TALKIE
SO WE GET EVERYONE FIXED. A BUNCH OF UNNECESSARY PLOT SHIT HAPPENS. AND THEN BELLAMY LITERALLY PUSHES HIS GIRLFRIEND OUT OF THE WAY TO GO AND DO A DRAMATIC SUNSET REUNION WITH HIS WIFE AND THEN PLOT SHIT PLOT SHIT PLOT SHIT WE'RE IN S7 AM I MISSING S6 STUFF? PROBABLY BUT Y'ALL IT'S LITERALLY BEEN 4 WEEKS IN CANON AT THIS POINT AND I MISSED A LOT OF SHIT. SO Y'KNOW. OUR BABIES ARE TIRED N AND NOW WE'RE ALL GOOD RIGHT? JUST GONNA GO HAVE A QUICK MEETING WITH GABRIEL AND THEN GO BACK TO MY WIFE SO WE CAN TALK OVER SOME TEA THEN BAM, O GETS STABBED AND THEN WE HAVE . 4 EPISODES THAT HAPPEN OVER 2 DAYS BEFORE CLARKE'S LIKE "WELP. I'M THROWING MYSELF HEAD FIRST INTO A WORM HOLE TO GO GET MY HUSBAND AND HIS STUPID GIRLFRIEND." AND YOU HAVE EVERYONE ELSE GOING "I'M SORRY, DID YOU THINK ANYTHING ELSE WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?" AND FOLLOWING AND THE S6/7 WRITERS MOSTLY JUST CHOSE TO IGNORE THAT S4/5 WRITERS GAVE CLARKE A DAUGHTER BECAUSE, WELL, I DON'T BLAME THEM EVEN THOUGH I LOVE MADI SHE'S AN UNNECESSARY COMPLICATION SO HAND WAVING SHE'S FINE SO NOW WE'RE UP TO PRESENT
Fully convinced Madi was there to ensure Clarke didn't go fully insane on Earth and provide motive for that bitch slap scene from S5.
brb spilled beer
Oh, and to parent trip Bell/Clarke.
>brb spilled beer @kate (historyofbellarke) makes sense after the tea you're spilling on this channel
Someone really oughta document this convo for a later date. lol We will need to reference it before end of the season, bet. lol
blesss i do not deserve my partner he told me to go sit down and is cleaning it also i went to finish the last of the unspilled stuff and promptly spilled it down my chest so ALL RIGHT WHERE WERE WE OH YEAH AND BELLAMY FORGAVE HER BECAUSE MADI WAS LIKE "YO YOU'RE A PARENT TOO AND REMMEBER SHE STOOD BY YOU WHEN YOU PUT OCTAVIA ABOVE LITERALLY EVERYTHING" AND BELLAMY WAS LIKE "OH... SHIT." AND THEN SHE WAS LIKE "SHE CALLE DYOU EVERY DAY YOU DUMBFUCK" AND YOU HAVE THE PATENTED "OMG, DOES CLARKE HAVE FEELINGS FO RME TOO???" JAW DROP BUT NOW BACK TO PRESENT
(Now if someone will just fucking tell her that he did the equivalent grant gestureTM of the radio calls except w/ poison)
i didn't even include the fact that he fucking poisoned O, that diyoza referred to her as his girlfriend, etc etc etc OH AND AS TO WHY HBECHO ISN'T GOING TO BE A HTING ANYMORE BESIDES EVERYTHING I'VE SAID
FINN COLLINS THAT'S WHY
BASUCALLY YES
FINN COLLINS EXCEPT AT LEAST CLARKE KNEW HIS REAL NAME
THEY DID A LITERAL EXACT PARALLEL BETWEEN BELLAMY AND ECHO SPFEIHOi4ur YES LIKE IT'S LIKE THE WRITERS FOUND BESTOFBECHO AND WENT "FUCK, ARE WE NOT BEING OBVIOUS ENOUGH? TIME TO CALL IN ZACH MCGOWAN" ( THEY FUCKING GOT ZACH ON A PLANE FROM LA TO VANCOUVER TO JUST SAY "YOU DON'T LOVE HIM" LIKE I DON'T THINK PEOPLE REALIZE HOW INVOLVED OF A PROCESS IT IS TO GET AN ACTOR THERE - ESPECIALLY IN CANADA WHERE YOU HAVE TO BALANCE NON-CANADIAN WITH CANADIAN ACTORS OR YOU CAN'T SHOOT IN CANADA SO THIS AMERICAN HAD TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT FOR THE WHOLE SEASON FOR A 2 MINUTE APPERANCE BUT THE WRITERS WERE LIKE "YO HUGE NEON SIGN RIGHT HERE" AND THEN SHE CONTINUED ALL SEASON IN THAT VEIN UNTIL 7X05 WHEN SHE BROKEEEEE OVER HIS "DEATH"
BECAUSE HER SOUL DIDN'T KNOW HE WAS ALIVE LIKE BELL DID CLARKE
AND DID THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING BELLAMY DID WHEN HE FOUND OUT CLARKE WAS ALIVE
And also as mentioned, she's a shit spy.
BECAUSE THE WRITERS ARE LIKE "CAN WE MAKE IT MORE OBVIOUS? I'M NOT SURE HOW!" so now we're at present day and here's a bit of crack spec-ing
THANKS FOR THIS LONG ASS META !!
YOU ARE WELCOME once again if i put that amount of effort into my dissertation, i'd be a phd with a published book or 3
This was a joy to read An utter joy This reaffirmed all my beliefs and got rid of all doubts I had
https://tenor.com/view/about-to-ugly-cry-ugly-cry-emotional-sensitive-crying-gif-8033343 i aim to please so now we have that O/B scene so we as the audience know something is off. bellamy was dragged sobbing and unconscious by his captors to suddenly being awake, fine, and killing a bunch of trained soldiers and holding someone hostage with his left hand. so then you have O, noticing something isn't quite right, casually bringing up clarke's name clarke. fucking. griffin. who bellamy had JUST brought back from the dead after learning she was alive and he's just... calm? about O possibly doing something with these psychos that's related to clarke? HE JUST POISONED HIS SISTER LIKE A WEEK AGO TO SAVE CLARKE'S LIFE i cannot stress this enough. bellamy fucking blake would not just go "huh?" when O, his sister that he's barely tolerating, goes "i'll tell you, you psychotic cultists, everything about my sister-in-law" and that's it. that's where i'm at s6 was about bellamy literally pulling clarke back from death s7 will be about clarke literally crossing time and space to get back to bellamy THIS IS AN EPIC FUCKING LOVE STORY AND ANYONE WHO THINKS OTHERWISE IS WRONG AND NOW I'M GOING TO TAKEA . SHOWER BECAUSE I SPILLED BEER ON MYSELF BUT I WILL BE BACK also i didn't think iw as drunk but then i reread that and started crying so it's definitely shower time
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woozapooza · 5 years ago
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Why Sayid Jarrah’s s6 storyline makes perfect sense in theory even if the execution wasn’t perfect
(This is a post I started working on last year during my first re-watch of Lost. I got distracted and put it aside for a while, so I don’t remember everything I was originally going to say, but I really wanted to finish this post, so here it is! Warning: it’s Looong. Like, over 2000 words long.)
“Evil is not a thing. It is not a condition. It is a choice. You are only what you choose. That alone is what makes you.” - Reign 1x15 (YES I’M STARTING MY LOST META WITH A QUOTE FROM REIGN DON’T JUDGE ME oh hey gifset idea!)
While rewatching “Sundown,” I was struck by the scene in the flash-sideways in which Omer asks Sayid to deal with Keamy once and for all:
OMER: Sayid, don't forget who you're talking to. I know what you did in the war. You were an interrogator for the Republican Guard. I know what kind of man you are.
SAYID: If you think I'm going to hurt someone just because you made a bad business decision…
OMER: No, this is not about me! Our life savings... it's all gone, Sayid, all of it! We could lose our home! Please! Look, I know you care about Nadia. If you care about us, about her, you will do this, Sayid.
Omer takes two different, seemingly contradictory approaches to convincing Sayid. When he says “I know what kind of man you are” in the context of Sayid’s history as an interrogator, we can assume he’s implying that Sayid is, if not exactly bad, then at least capable of things that most people would consider bad. Note the phrasing: it’s not “I know what you’re capable of,” it’s “I know what kind of man you are,” implying that Sayid’s actions as an interrogator represent an essential part of him. It’s reminiscent of Ben telling Sayid, “It’s what you are. You’re a killer” (”He’s Our You”). It’s also reminiscent of Sayid himself saying to Ben, “You want to know who I am? ... I am a torturer” (“One of Them”). But then Omer appeals to Sayid’s loyalty and compassion to get him to confront Keamy. 
This is very similar to the approach Dogen takes in the same episode when he tells Sayid to kill “Locke.” (Side note: “Locke” eventually deduces that Dogen's real agenda was for him to kill Sayid, but even if he’s right that Dogen knew there was no chance that Sayid could kill “Locke,” it doesn’t really matter for my argument, as Sayid doesn’t realize that this is Dogen’s real agenda until “Locke” points it out to him.) Dogen enlists Sayid to kill someone—i.e. to commit a morally difficult act that also happens to be one of the things he’s best at—with the argument, “You say that there is still good in your soul. Then prove it.” It’s a lot like what FS!Omer argues: doing a bad thing—thereby giving into the proclivity for violence and cruelty you’ve dealt with all your life—is the only way you can prove that you’re actually good. While Dogen doesn’t explicitly describe violence as an inherent part of Sayid’s identity, surely his instructions would nonetheless have that implication for Sayid. There really isn’t a right answer in either of these dilemmas for Sayid. He can give into his worst tendencies for the greater good or he can resist his worst tendencies at the expense of the greater good. There is no option that won’t leave him feeling like a bad person. It’s predetermined and presupposed that he’s bad.
And this connection in turn got me thinking about Sayid’s whole storyline. My first impression of his storyline was that his central conflict was whether he’s a good or bad person. Now I see another, parallel conflict: whether he gets to decide whether he’s a good or bad person.
Sayid isn’t the only Lostie with this conflict. Kate killed her father because she hated him for making her worry that she was destined to be bad like him. Similarly, Jack’s FS is about him discovering that he’s not destined to be like his father. Sawyer implies that he has no choice but to be a bad guy when he says “a tiger don’t change his stripes.” When Locke says “don’t tell me what I can’t do,” he’s not specifically saying “don’t tell me I can’t be a good person,” but he is protesting against the idea that anyone else gets to tell him who he is. There are two main strands to the Losties’ psychological conflicts: good people vs. bad people and free will vs. the absence thereof. (I phrase it like this because the alternative to free will isn’t just fate. It’s all external pressures, whether they come from fate or from genetics or from other people’s actions.) Sayid is the point at which these strands overlap the most thoroughly.
As a kid he kills a chicken (“He’s Our You”). It doesn’t necessarily mean he has no compassion for the chicken, just that he knows they have to eat. We know it’s not merely the way he was raised, or Omer would have been able to do it. As an adult, the violent promise he showed as a child comes to fruition when Kelvin teaches him to torture (“One of Them”). He says he’ll never do it again, but Kelvin knows he will, and Sayid later confesses to Ben in the same episode that while he “was a good man” when the American army came to Iraq, “there was a part of me that was always capable [of hurting people].”
So on the one hand, we know from the opening scene of “He’s Our You” and Sayid’s words to Ben in “One of Them” that Sayid is naturally gifted with…not exactly cruelty, but the ability to do things that could be perceived as cruel. On the other hand, we know from something he says to Nadia in “Solitary”—that he can’t desert or his family would be killed—and the flashback with Kelvin in “One of Them” that he would never have started torturing people if he hadn’t been coerced into doing it.
In order for Sayid to really come face-to-face with himself, the element of coercion needs to be removed. Sure enough, on the island, for the first time (as far as we know), he tortures someone (Sawyer) completely of his own volition, and I think that’s the main thing he’s dealing with when he goes off on his solo trek—not just that he can’t break the ol’ torture habit, but that he resorts to it even when no one is making him. That’s just my interpretation rather than something that’s spelled out or even heavily implied, but I think it makes a lot of sense. If you think about it, Sayid’s self-imposed exile is sort of a strange reaction to what he did. After all, Jack was complicit in what Sayid did to Sawyer, and he doesn’t even seem to regret it, let alone punish himself for it. You’d think that someone who heals people for a living would be more torn up about about causing harm than someone who hurts people for a living, yet Sayid is the one in crisis. It’s counterintuitive, but it makes sense when you consider that Jack has no reason to define himself as a torturer, whereas Sayid absolutely does, and that’s what takes him beyond the guilt of doing something you don’t want to have done into the shame of being someone you don’t want to be.
So Sayid has two major struggles throughout the show: “am I good” vs. “am I bad” AND “is it up to me to decide whether I’m good or bad” vs. “is it up to other people to pronounce me good or bad.” In “He’s Our You,” when Ben tells him he’s a killer by nature and shouldn’t try to resist his nature, he’s using this lifelong struggle of Sayid’s to his advantage. When this plot of Ben’s rebounds on his younger self at the end of the episode, we see Sayid finally make the choice to let himself be a bad person. He gives in, both to the idea that he’s a bad person and to the idea that someone else (Ben) has the right to identify him as a bad person. (“You were right about me. I am a killer.”) Still, I would argue that even in this episode, Sayid’s arc hasn’t gone as far as it could go. For one thing, he could make the argument that he shot Ben for the greater good, just like he killed the chicken in the flashback at the beginning of the episode for the greater good. More importantly for the point I’m trying to make, Sayid makes the choice to pull the trigger. He concedes that a killer is “what he is,” but his actions are still clearly his own. I mean, after all, he’s messing with the established timeline. It indisputably takes free will to do that. So if he’s going to figure out beyond any doubt whether he has the power to decide that he’s going to be a good person, he needs first to be pushed further into the realm of doubt.
The real culmination of his struggle is when he gets the “sickness,” then Dogen declares him evil, and then finally, after resisting a little, Sayid gives up and teams up with Smokey. He makes his choice: he’s bad AND it’s not his decision. By giving in to the sickness, Sayid gets to give up on the struggle to be a good person and the struggle to convince other people that he’s a good person. But in addition, he gets to give up trying to figure out whether he’s the one who gets to decide if he’s a good person. Remember what he says to Miles: “Apparently I’m evil.” Sure, he says that line kind of sarcastically, but his subsequent actions show that he’s taking that judgment as the gospel truth. He gets to accept that whatever diagnostic Dogen ran on him can measure his moral quality as accurately as a scale can measure his weight. Then he gets to hand control of himself over to someone else (“Locke”).
That’s what makes his ultimate sacrifice so powerful. It’s a combination of the fact that he overcame the “sickness” AND the fact that the “sickness” arc was really just the culmination of his central internal conflicts. If he hadn’t done it, he’d have had an excuse—a supernatural excuse, nonetheless! But he did it, and that means everyone who made him out to be a “killer” or “evil” (or a “terrorist"—thanks, s1 Sawyer) was wrong, not because he was inherently good but because he had the power to CHOOSE to be good, and he used that power. Remember “Enter 77,” the highest-rated Sayid-centric episode? “We are all capable of doing what those children did to this cat. But I will not do that. I will not be that.” I doubt the writers knew at the time what purpose that episode would serve in the grand plan (I use the term “plan” loosely, lol) of Sayid’s arc, but in retrospect, the flashbacks in "Enter 77″ serve a purpose greater than simply breaking everyone’s heart and letting Naveen Andrews act his heart out. They serve a purpose even greater than just explaining why Sayid chooses to stop Rousseau from killing Mikhail at the end of the episode. This episode foreshadows Sayid’s final act by establishing that both good and evil are choices that everyone is ultimately free to make.
In “The End,” Hurley, the character who is probably the most consistent voice of morality on the whole show, declares Sayid “a good guy.” He acknowledges that “a lot of people have told you that you're not. Maybe you've heard it so many times you started believing it. You can't let other people tell you what you are, dude. You have to decide that for yourself.” This is a very succinct, powerful summation of Sayid’s arc. Hurley acknowledges the power other people have to shape our perceptions of ourselves, perceptions that become self-fulfilling prophecies, but also states unequivocally that you write your own story, even if you’re someone like Sayid who has ample reason to give up on themselves. Listen, I agree with fandom that Sayid’s s6 storyline wasn’t handled very well, but I can’t agree with the people who think Sayid should never have turned evil in the first place. His redemption is just way too powerful. When Sayid snaps out of his zombie state with Desmond’s help (the power of friendship!!!), he’s not only deciding that he’s a decent person, he’s realizing that he can make the CHOICE to be a decent person. And in a show with so much destiny nonsense (I mean that lovingly) it’s extremely important to me that my main man gets an arc that affirms that you get to decide who you are. <3<3<3
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dyadsaber · 5 years ago
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A New Reylo Shipper Reads the TFA Novelization Part 3: In which I Have Squishy Feelings About Rey Being Taken Care Of, and The Dyad Meeting Each Other Makes Me Capslock a Lot
One of the fun things about reading this novel was discovering all of the little differences that hadn’t been all over tumblr.  Not that I minded being spoiled.  All of those “I should be afraid of YOU” snarky Kylo Ren gifsets brought me great joy.  But you know what I didn’t know going in? That Unkar Plutt was supposed to catch up with Rey at Maz’s place, and when he’s about to turn her over to the first order, Chewie shows up and RIPS HIS ARMS OFF.  
I get that they likely cut it for time, but it was just really a gratifying scene to read, and I am 100% here for Rey being witness to the fact that there are people in her corner who will rip the arms off of those who would use her and hurt her.  
And then we get to the scene where Rey finds the legacy lightsaber and OH BOY. 
So Finn just decided to leave for “as far away from the First Order as one can get,” and here’s Rey’s PoV:
“Under the weight of her loneliness Han’s voice seemed to fade, and Maz Kanata’s as well, until there was nothing surrounding her but a silence as deep and profound as the distant reaches of space itself. Then something came, stealthy and unidentifiable, to fill it.” 
Part of this is her own individual connection to the Force , but reading backwards, part of this could definitely be her connection to Ben through their dyad bond, because she isn’t alone, neither of them are, even if they don’t know it yet.  They always had each other, and no, I didn’t cry a lot at those panels of young Rey from The Rise of Kylo Ren, WHY ARE YOU ASKING??? 
And then, in the MIDDLE of the flurry of things she sees/hears, THIS HAPPENS…
“Someone, somewhere, somewhen, spoke her name.  “Hello? Wreathed in the irrationality of the moment, she called hopefully, but received no answer. A boy appeared at the end of the hallway.”
It was in this moment that I screamed at my kindle, in my best Kylo voice, “WHAT BOY???” No really did she see a much younger version of Ben here? My personal answer from now on is YES SHE DID.   
I remember a whole lot of talk a couple of months ago about the following two “I’ll come back for you”  lines, and about JJ Abrams confirming who said them, but all I can find now is speculation from before TRoS came out, and that is NOT HELPING ME REMEMBER. If you have a link to the article/interview where Abrams or anyone else clarifies this, please @ me. 
She’s seeing Starkiller from the future, here, and I think that’s telling.  Because after describing all of the noise of battle, we get…
“Then behind her, another voice. That voice. “Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”
“That” is actually italicized in the text, which means that it’s a voice Rey hears enough to recognize and give importance to it, but WHOSE VOICE? I mean I know that it was left vague intentionally here because ADF didn’t know whose voice it was supposed to be, and neither did anyone else, but the vagueness makes it COMPLETELY possible that this was Ben, and that she’s been hearing little fragments from him for years. This line, though, raises questions that I don’t think anyone at DLF thought about as hard as we are now, but the idea of this being WBW Ben telling her to wait for him because he’s trying to get back to her GIVES ME A LOT OF FEELINGS EVEN IF IT IS NEVER GOING TO BE CANON. (I’m from the school of “canon can go jump in a lava pit if it doesn’t respect the fans or the characters” so I’m an old hand at reimagining things shitty creators screwed up.) 
In between this scene and the one where dyad finally sees each other for the first time, we get: 
An incredibly frustrating tease of a line from Maz about how she acquired the lightsaber. I want a whole comic about how that thing fell into her hands. TAKE MY MONEY, DLF. 
Leia feeling the Hosnian system being destroyed, thinking about Alderaan, and making me very very upset in ways that aren’t fun to read or write about, so… 
On to the first meeting! Mostly, I got really sarcastic in my kindle notes at this point.
Rey sees Kylo Ren from a distance for the first time. 
“She had seen this man before, in a daydream. In a nightmare.”
...in the weird Force-induced version she just experienced not fifteen minutes ago… 
Also, what happened to Rey back at Maz’s place is NOT something I would describe as a daydream, which can only lead me to wonder about but having random “Wtf where did that come from” daydreams about Ben “I am in FULL KYLO COSTUME” Solo in the middle of scavenging a Star Destroyer, shrugging it off as her mind playing tricks on her, and going about her day.  Someone PLEASE draw this. (I know this is a reach and I’m nitpicking at less than awesome writing, but it’s day I don’t even know what of quarantine, and this is how I’m making my own fun.) 
And the first time he becomes aware of her… 
“Sir, we’re still searching for Solo, but the droid that’s wanted was spotted heading west, with a girl.” At this Ren said nothing, but instead looked sharply in the indicated direction.
“WhAT gIrL” - Kylo Ren at this point definitely 
“Each shot from her blaster he deflected with the lightsaber’s beam. Almost as if it were a game, she thought in terror as she continued to fire. He was playing with her.”
“Let's see what you can do, Scavenger”. - Kylo Ren playing with the dyad partner he doesn't know he has yet IN THE MIDDLE OF A BATTLE. Typical. 
“When he finally spoke, he sounded at once impressed and surprised.”
Ben Solo begins as he means to go on... She is constantly impressing and surprising him. 
“So afraid,” he murmured. “Yet I should be the one who should be scared. You shot first. You speak of the Order as if it were barbaric. And yet, it is I who was forced to defend myself against you.”
“Wow you’re SCARED?” he says, looming in black, waving his red lightsaber around, and using the Force to control her…
“Something.” He sounded mystified. “There is something…Who are you?”
She’s a Force user, what you’re feeling is your Force bond, and she's your other half, Kylo my guylo. Get it together, jeez… 
“Is it true, then? You’re nothing special after all? You’re just a—Jakku scavenger?”
Keep telling yourself that, KR - Love, Your Future Self
And then there’s this Rey PoV that breaks me a little… 
“She’d tried to keep her mind blank, her memory locked, and still he had wormed his way in. He touched her anew. This time the pain of trying to stave him off brought tears streaming down her face.”
I think Daisy gets this across in her performance her really well, but being reminded so starkly of the fact that what he’s doing when he roots around in her memories HURTS HER drew me up short when I read this.  I headcanon that this is one of the things Ben spends a lot of time apologizing for later because he feels so guilty about it. 
But before I can get too wrapped up in Ben Solo’s occasionally crushing guilt, we have THIS delicious dose of irony: (He’s talking about her affection for Finn, here…) 
He drew back slightly, bemused. “You’ve even begun to care for him. A weakness, such distractions.”
YOU HAVE NO IDEA, DO YOU, SIR… COME TALK TO ME WHEN YOU’RE CUTTING YOUR MENTOR IN HALF INSTEAD OF HURTING HER, OK?
And finally… just because the visual of this cracks me up… the novel implies that Kylo Ren let Rey DROP TO THE GROUND when he force-whammied her, instead of catching her like he does on screen.  My proof (this is PoV of some random First Order officer): 
At a gesture from Ren the young woman standing before him collapsed. [...] He had no wish to join the woman on the ground in a state of oblivion.
WHAT A CAD! Not CATCHING the woman you just made PASS OUT with the Force? Bad form, KR. (Movie Kylo is a gentleman and keeps her from hitting the floor. A++ “not as much of jerk as you could have been” moment.) 
And that seems like a good stopping place for Part 3.  Next time: I scream about Han and Leia’s characterization as parents and try to defend one of my oldest ships from the outright character assassination this novelization engages in.  Also, there’s some scene with Rey in an interrogation chair thingy and Kylo taking his mask off. I had some thoughts.  
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softeddiek · 5 years ago
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howdy everyone and happy holidays!! for the @gendrya-gift-exchange i got alexa aka @fugascious aka the QUEEN of gendrya gifsets!!
the prompt was “a gift mix-up causes a misunderstanding” so here is my attempt at being funny and lighthearted lol
my heart is thrilled by the still of your hand 
2.6k words | read on ao3
Gendry isn’t a gift giver. Growing up with a single mom struggling to make ends meet hadn’t left much money to blow on presents. Now, don’t get him wrong, his mother had tried to make the holidays of his youth special. Not much emphasis had been placed on gifts though and, as such, Gendry didn’t really see a point to them.
But this year is different.
This year, Arya had surprised him by saying that his Christmas gift was on the way. They’d never exchanged gifts before, but this year she said she couldn’t pass up something she had seen in one of those holiday catalogues. He’d panicked for about four days over what to get her in exchange before he finally came across a cool looking wolf pendant in a secondhand shop in town. It hadn’t been in the best condition, but he’d bought it anyway and cleaned it up enough that it almost looked good as new.
He had actually gotten really excited about giving it to her and seeing her reaction, but then she had told him she would be going to the Vale with her family for a Christmas ski trip, and that she would wait to open it on Christmas day.
“Your present is in the mail though,” she’d said, “so open it whenever you want, so long as you call me when you get it. I was thinking we could use it together.”
So now here he is, opened package on his lap, torn wrapping paper littering the floor of his apartment and all he feels is…disbelief.
Because his present is not at all what he expected.
Inside the package lays a shiny pair of handcuffs. Nothing else. Not even a key.
He gulps nervously, mind running wild with what this could possibly mean.
Gendry has been in love with Arya for years, he thinks everyone knows that except Arya. But now…well with this present it seems like she might know. And, if he keeps letting his mind wander, she might have some sort of feelings for him too. Still, he never would have guessed that she’d be so bold in saying so.
This could always be a gag gift of course, but what’s the punchline? Gendry’s never been arrested or accidentally handcuffed to anything.
No, she had said “I was thinking we could use it together,” he very distinctly remembers those words (mostly because he had, he’s ashamed to admit, preened over the idea). So, this has to be Arya’s forward way of telling him how she feels, right? Not wanting to completely get ahead of himself, he decides to try his best to casually bring it up in conversation. (And if in that conversation, his feelings are finally admitted and she just so happens to share those feelings, well then what’s the harm in that?)
It takes him half the day to talk himself into just sending her a message about it. After more drafts than he’s proud to admit, he settles on just starting with a greeting.
Gendry: Hey! How are the mountains?
But when all he receives are disjointed messages sent multiple times and a half-decipherable, staticky voicemail about bad cell service, he realizes it will have to wait until after Arya returns from her trip.
Gendry would say he’s disappointed, but his thundering heartbeat at hearing Arya’s voice over the crackle of her message tells him he probably should take the time to put some thought into what he’s going to say.
“Arya,” he breathes out, feeling only a bit ridiculous at hearing himself say the words aloud in the quiet of his empty apartment, “we’ve been friends for awhile now. And sometimes friends, they uh…they grow feelings for each other that are un-friend-like.”
Gendry groans, the sound punctuating the air louder than he’d let his words. “Un-friend-like? That’s how you’re going to tell the girl you’ve been in love with for years how you feel about her? Un-friend-like? Fuck.”
Knowing he’s not going to be able to come up with something worthwhile—not now, not with those handcuffs in his line of sight from their spot on his coffee table—he decides he could use some help. He’s known Arya for years; they’re each other’s closest friends. But there are other people that they’ve known just as long—ones that know the both of them well. A voice in the back of his head—one that’s getting louder the more he considers the idea—is telling him not to do what he’s about to do; it’s shouting at him really. Unfortunately, his fingers don’t heed that voice as they start moving across his phone screen, opening up the group chat.
--
A loud burp echoes sharply from Gendry’s right as a hand reaches out across the small, circular table to slap harshly against the outstretched hand of the burper in a high-five.
“So,” Hot Pie starts, patting at his chest with his fist in an attempt to expel any lingering gas. Gendry cringes. “What’s so urgent that we all just had to get together immediately for some beers?”
Gendry scoffs. “Please, like you two had any pressing plans for the night.”
“How do you know I didn’t have a hot date to meet up with,” Lommy exclaims at the same time that Hot Pie says, “The new season of The Great British Baking Show just came out.”
Eyes rolling, he replies, “Like I said, no pressing plans.”
He tosses a few peanuts into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully as Hot Pie and Lommy raise their eyebrows at him in question. Washing them down with a swig of his drink, he sighs before saying, “I got my Christmas present from Arya.”
Hot Pie’s eyebrows furrow, “And?”
“It’s uh, not what I expected,” he mutters out, scratching at the back of his neck.
“What is it, some weird sex thing?” Lommy jokes, grabbing for his own drink. His hand stills around the neck of the bottle, eyes widening at Gendry’s silence and averted eyes. “Holy shit Gendry, no fucking way.”
“It’s not like that exactly…” he trails off, already regretting bringing this up to them.
Hot Pie’s mouth, which had been hanging open, snaps shut. “What was it then Gendry?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, “A pair of handcuffs.”
Lommy lets out a hoot of laughter, his hand coming down to smack the table, jostling their drinks and the bowl of peanuts. Hot Pie’s eyebrows are furrowed.
“But you’ve never been arrested.”
“Exactly,” Gendry says.
“Hot Pie, my dear boy,” Lommy begins, voice adopting a tone of faux sweetness as he wraps an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Sometimes, when two consenting adults want to have sex, they use—”
Hot Pie throws the arm off his shoulders, clamping a hand over Lommy’s mouth. Over Lommy’s muffled words he says, “Why don’t you just ask her about it?”
“She doesn’t have cell service in the mountains,” he responds.
“So, what do you want our help for?” he asks, removing his hand from Lommy’s mouth and grimacing as he wipes it off on his pants.
Gendry worries at his lip, nervous. He, Hot Pie, and Lommy have been friends for years, but they didn’t exactly do feelings. “I want to tell her how I feel. Even if…even if this doesn’t mean anything at all, I want her to know.”
“And if she doesn’t feel the same way?” Lommy quips, grunting when Hot Pie elbows him in his side.
Gendry shrugs. “Then she doesn’t. She’s still my best friend.”
Hot Pie sends him a small smile. “I wouldn’t worry about it Gendry. We’ve seen the two of you around each other. I’m sure she feels the same way.”
Gendry sends a grateful look toward him before draining the last of his beer to distract his hopeful thoughts.
Of course, Lommy, wanting to show his support, has to add, obscene eyebrow waggle and all, “He’s right. She wants you Gendry, I’m telling you, no question about it.”
--
Christmas day had come and gone with little fanfare. Before Gendry knows it it’s the 28th—the day that Arya’s supposed to get back from the Vale. He doesn’t know how he didn’t work himself up into a nervous wreck over the last week (Hot Pie and Lommy would say that he in fact did) but now Arya’s on her way over to his apartment and Gendry feels like he might faint.
He’d cleaned up his apartment—the handcuffs had been moved to the top of his dresser; he definitely couldn’t have this conversation with her with those right in front of him—and is sitting anxiously on his couch when he hears a knock on the door.
Taking a deep breath, he gets up off the couch and opens the door to see Arya’s face grinning broadly at him. He can’t help the smile forming on his own face.
“Hey,” he greets her.
She launches at him, arms wrapping around his middle, a muffled “hey” coming out of her mouth.
He laughs as they take a step back from each other. Before he can step aside to let her in, something around her neck catches his eye.
“You’re wearing it,” he says, surprise in his tone.
Her left-hand darts up and wraps around the pendant hanging around her neck. “Of course, I love it.”
Some of Gendry’s nerves relax, glad that he at least managed to get her a present she liked. But as Arya pushes past him into his apartment, plopping down on the couch and looking at him curiously, those nerves go right back into overdrive.
“So, where’s yours?”
He shakes his head, turning to close the door before cautiously making his way over to her. “My what?”
“Your present. I want to see how it turned out.”
Gendry’s brow furrows, confusion written on his face. “You want me to go get it? Now?”
“Yeah!” she exclaims. “I wanted to call and ask about it over the phone, but my service was spotty. Maybe we can use it now that I’m here.”
Gendry chokes on his own spit, mouth hanging open as he gapes at Arya. His mind is running wild as he thinks about the implications of her words. He had thought maybe they could talk about this all first, not just jump right into it.
“Are you sure now is a good time for this? Maybe we should talk about it first?”
She cocks her head to the side. “Are you worried about safety? I know your living room is a little small but—”
“Oh my Gods,” he takes a breath, feeling perspiration forming on the back of his neck under Arya’s increasingly confused stare. “Okay,” he breathes out, pivoting on his heel to his bedroom. “I’ll be right back then.”
He barely spares the things a glance as he grabs them and heads back to the living room, hoping that not looking at them will calm the heat that’s begun to spread all over his body.
When he’s back in front of Arya, handcuffs hanging limply at his side, he finds he can’t meet her eyes. Which turns out to be fine because, when his head snaps up at her questioning, “What are those?” he finds that her eyes aren’t on him, but on the handcuffs.
“My, er, Christmas present?” he answers.
Arya looks at the handcuffs, then at him, then back at the handcuffs before a laugh bursts forth from her.
Gendry startles. “What?”
Between breathes, “That’s not your present Gendry.”
He finds himself at a loss for words. “I—”
Seeing his blatant confusion, “Those were for Jon.”
His cheeks must be crimson by now if the heat he’s feeling in them is anything to go by.
“It was a joke gift. Because it took him two tries before he passed his exam to become a Night’s Watchman.”
“Right,” he mumbles. “Of course. Just a mix-up.”
“Why did you think I would give you a pair of handcuffs? You’ve never even been arrested.”
“Yeah, I know that,” he bites out.
Arya hesitates for a minute, looking at him unsure before her eyes widen a fraction. “Oh.”
Gendry would very much like for the floor to swallow him up.
“You thought—”
“It’s not, it’s not like that,” he interrupts. “I mean, Lommy thought it might be but—”
“You told Lommy that I got you handcuffs for Christmas?!”
“I mean, I didn’t know what to think!”
“You could have asked!”
“I wanted to, but you didn’t have service and…,” Arya’s glare cuts him off. He lets out a sigh. All of this is getting messed up. This is not at all how he wanted this to go. He was going to tell her how he felt first, get her reaction, then bring up the gift if it all went well. At least if things had gone that way he could have saved himself some embarrassment in the process.
“Why didn’t you think it was a mix-up in the first place?” she asks, voice oddly emotionless in that way it gets when she doesn’t want people to know what she’s thinking. Usually Gendry can manage to figure it out, even if just a little bit, but he’s much too caught up in his own head to even try.
“I don’t know I just….” He stops, head pounding, eyes feeling uncharacteristically watery as his hopes come crashing down. “I just thought maybe you felt the same way about me,” he admits softly.
There’s silence between then as Gendry squeezes his eyes shut, prepared for Arya to walk out. Only instead of hearing his front door closing, he hears her voice, wavering slightly. “What way?”
He cracks his eyes open, sees hers looking at him with her own eyes wide and open and it all comes rushing out. “I love you Arya. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember, and I think I’ll always love you. But more important than that, you’re my best friend and I don’t want that to change, I don’t think I could bear it to…so if you don’t feel the same way that’s fine, really, it is, we’ll just forget about all of this, okay?”
Arya’s lips part soundlessly, her eyelashes fluttering quickly as she blinks back at him. Despite his unease and embarrassment, Gendry firmly meets her eyes.
He falters only a little as she gets up off the couch, moves around the coffee table, and stands in front of him.
She cracks a smile that sends Gendry’s heart pounding heavily in his chest and says, “I love you too.”
His sharp exhale is cut off by Arya’s lips as her hand wraps around the back of his head, tugging him down to her height. All Gendry feels is warmth—against his lips, in his chest, everywhere—and all he can think about is the feel of her waist pressed beneath his hand. When they pull apart his head is swimming, a dopey smile on his face as he sees Arya’s shy one.
They’re both breathing loudly, giggles entering the space between them and he can’t help himself from leaning down and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“A replica sword.”
He pulls back, confused expression on his face as he meets Arya’s eyes, now twinkling with mirth.
“What?”
“Your actual present. I don’t want to ruin the whole surprise since it still isn’t here yet, but that’s what I thought we could use together. I know how interested you are in medieval blacksmithing, so I just thought…,” she trails off.
Gendry laughs in disbelief. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
She sends him a smirk in return, and then, “You know, Jon already thinks his present is late. I could always send him something else and he’d never know.”
It takes Gendry a minute to catch on but when he does he thinks his face is likely to catch on fire.
Gendry isn’t big on gift giving and hasn’t received many gifts in his life, but he’s never been happier to have received the wrong one.
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softjeon · 5 years ago
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Drown in me | Pt. 3
• Pairing: Pirate!Yoongi x Siren!Jungkook • Genre: Angst, Fluff | Pirate!AU / Siren!AU ( → Gifset Trailer) • Words: 9,5k • Disclaimer: mentioning of blood, alcohol, abuse, nsfw content
written with @cassiavioletblue
↳  “When I sing…people do weird things. Strange things happen.” Yoongi laughed awkwardly but stopped right away when he realized that Jungkook was serious about what he had said. This wasn’t a scared little boy trying to make use of some fairytale to scare the captain of the ship he’s been brought on into submission. He believed what he said.
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Since Yoongi had found the map on Jungkook’s back a lot of things had changed. He looked at it first thing every morning, right after waking up. Jungkook had made a little habit of his own as he tended to sleep in his bed now. Of course Yoongi would never say it out loud but he actually loved this, getting to bed and finding that Jungkook had already warmed it for him with his body or spending the sleepless hours he sometimes had and usually spent staring holes into the planks of his ship and questioning his existence with different distractions like tracing the star spots on Jungkook’s back or just watching him sleep. He just seemed to become more and more beautiful the longer he looked at him.
Namjoon had joked that apparently Jungkook had bewitched him after all because he looked at him the same way he had looked at treasures before. Needless to say, that Yoongi had just completely ignored him. No one bewitched the black captain. He just was a man with needs and having someone like Jungkook close to him all the time brought up certain thoughts of course.
That was all.
While the crew was getting the ship ready, some men were loading sufficient provision, some saying goodbye to their families as they were ready to take on a new adventure and Hoseok leaned over the map that had been transferred from Jungkook.
“And you are sure that this is the only way to get there?“ Hoseok hummed, eyeing the map and studying it carefully. As the main navigator he had to make sure they all got to their destination safely and the route that the captain chose this time wouldn't make it easier. “We're sailing close to Nightmare's territory and this isn't calm water. And this right here, there's a reef, we could run aground if we’re not working together. We have to be careful and slow. You sure you want to do this?“
“Ah, no, now that you told me this I think we should all just retire, give up the ship and live calm, riskless lives till we die.” Yoongi laughed at Hoseok’s face, “Come on, we are pirates. Since when are we afraid of reefs or riffs or other pirates?“ He had to admit that those kind of pirates were pretty scary, and the ‘Nightmare’ was a ship that lived up to its name but he definitely wouldn‘t say that out loud in front of his crew. To them he was their fearless captain!
“Just wanted to make sure. You have been acting awfully soft lately,” Hoseok nodded nonetheless with a proud smirk. “Let’s get some magical treasure then.”
...
Jungkook leaned over the edge of the ship, enjoying the salty breeze. It was still weird sometimes to be able to roam around freely - well, as freely as he could. Yoongi was always close, his eyes on him as if he still didn't believe Jungkook would stay. But the siren wanted to see the mirror, too. He had an aim now. And staying with the pirates hadn’t turned out to be so bad.
“Oh, this one is pretty!” Jungkook had wanted to go back into the cabin, when he saw the shell collection that a pirate was sorting out, taking in new ones, carefully cleaning them and making sure they would glisten perfectly under the sun. He got onto his knees, reaching for one of the closed oysters that were still alive “Can I?“
Jungkook motioned for the young pirate to be quiet, to not make a big fuss about it and held his palm on top of the oyster careful not to hurt it. “I can't promise that there will be a pearl,“ Jungkook whispered, when the oyster began to tremble and open up, “This way you don't have to hurt them.“
The young siren smiled, seeing Yoongi out of the corner of his eyes, observing them carefully as if someone could jump and try to attack him again. He came up to them, watching how delicately Jungkook handled the oyster. They would die on land and for a horrible second he wondered if keeping Jungkook on his ship would kill him too. Not for the lack of water but because of the risks Hoseok had just reminded him of. His crew was used to this kind of life - but Jungkook was gentle and caring and if they got in a fight Jungkook would be the first to fall if he couldn’t defend himself. He couldn’t just start to sing or else all of them would feel the effects. “Hey fishboy. Are you trying to get yourself a pet here?” He smiled as if he wasn’t just thinking about how he wouldn’t be able to take it if Jungkook died. Just because of the treasure of course.
Jungkook shook his head, “I don't know what you call it, but I wanted to make a friend. Not a pet.“ He looked at Taehyung who was just as cluelessly looking back at his captain, thinking Yoongi had talked about Tae and not the oyster. His expression only changed when he saw that there was really a pearl inside of the oyster. Jungkook smiled at him, “If you take him back into the ocean, I'll promise every oyster will open for you in the future.“ He winked at the pirate and got up.
“So, you are friends with oysters?” Yoongi smirked. “What else are you friends with? Just so I know what not to serve you.” He wasn’t entirely joking because since Jungkook had taken him swimming and that oyster had given him a pearl he hadn’t asked for oysters in the kitchen again. Seeing Jungkook so happy about their interaction had ruined his appetite for them. Hopefully Jungkook wasn’t friends with every fish in the ocean or else they’d run out of food.
Jungkook sighed, thinking about answering Yoongi for a second before he just walked ahead and back under deck. He had enough of his teasing, and he couldn't count the times that he told Yoongi that he wasn't a fish and couldn’t communicate with them.
With the Siren gone Yoongi could talk freely to Tae who was tossing the oysters and other clams that were still alive back into the water. “Hey.” The pirate looked up at the careful tone of his captains voice. “You know that we’re going to sail some dangerous waters right? I’ll be a lot on deck and Namjoon and Hobi will be as well. I figured you’re not scared of Jungkook like most of the others? So, it would be really nice if you could have an eye on him in case anything... happens.” He didn’t have to elaborate, something ‘happening’ on a pirate ship usually meant the same things: shallow banks, navy ships or other pirates. He would feel better knowing that Taehyung was looking out for Jungkook because even though Taehyung seemed just as soft as Jungkook at first glance he could become a ruthless, merciless pirate in case someone threatened to hurt crewmembers - and hopefully he would think of Jungkook as a crewmember as well.
Taehyung simply nodded at the order, returning his attention to his collection. Maybe the siren could help him find more rare shells in return.
Down in the captain's cabin, Jungkook watched Jin set the table for two. But when Yoongi still wasn't showing up Jungkook just ate by himself, shuffling over to the bed right after. The salty air had made him tired. Even though it had become almost a routine to eat dinner together, Jungkook knew that Yoongi still had to lead his crew and his ship. He yawned tiredly, getting rid of his clothes, before he slipped under the blanket.
Yoongi returned to his cabin late with the sky already dark and the stars glistening. Every time he looked up at them it made him think of Jungkook now. He sighed deeply as he stretched out his muscles from a long day of ‘pirating’ as Jungkook had called it once. Speaking of which the younger had stolen his bed again, lying so outstretched that he would have to gently nudge him aside to find room. He got out of his clothes and then tried to make Jungkook roll over without waking him - which he failed because the siren sniffled a little and then opened his eyes. “Don’t mind me, I’m just trying to find some room in my bed, pretty.” Finally, he could get into bed with Jungkook and the warmed up covers felt perfect against his cold skin.
Jungkook only mumbled something that he couldn't understand as an answer, before he noticed how cold Yoongi's body was. He shivered, turning around to pull the captain closer and the blanket tighter around their bodies. “You're ice cold,“ Jungkook whispered sleepily, placing his warm hand onto Yoongi's cold and naked chest. The pirate captain chuckled at that, liking the feel of Jungkook’s hands against his body way too much. “Well why don’t you warm me up then?” He leaned in to brush a lost strand back behind Jungkook’s face and let his hand linger there a little before he let it trail a tingling path all the way over his shoulder to the small of Jungkook’s back. “Have you decided on a proper location yet?” The amusement was sparkling in his eyes.
“Whenever you aren't afraid of me anymore.” Jungkook answered boldly but the younger’s heart skipped a few beats nonetheless as heat was rushing up into his cheeks. “You're still afraid to be bewitched by my kiss? To drown?” He smirked, nuzzling his face back into the cushion and closed his eyes again. “I always thought pirates aren't afraid of anything.“
The surprise rendered him speechless but just for a second. He had thought that Jungkook would blush again and get flustered, maybe shyly admit that he wasn’t sure yet. That the siren practically gave him a pass right now came as a pleasant revelation.
He lowered his voice, whispering dark and promising into Jungkook’s ear, “Oh pretty, I’m not scared of you. I just tried to be polite and give you time to wrap your head around what it’s going to be like for you to be my companion in bed. Though if thinking I’m scared of you was the only thing holding you back then now that it’s out of the way…” He finished his sentence by shifting his weight and leaning over Jungkook. The younger looked up at him, so beautiful, so tempting and Yoongi just surrender to his desire. He closed the sirens mouth with his, hungry and demanding while his hand was finding a way to Jungkook’s chest, touching, feeling, teasing his naked skin. He was kissing the surprised gasp right from Jungkook’s lips. The kiss was effectively shutting down every worry or doubt in the siren’s mind. It had been a long time since someone had kissed him like that and Yoongi’s hands on his skin just felt too good to push away again. He had wanted this, he wanted Yoongi. He would have lied if he told otherwise. Wherever he went, Jungkook felt the longing stare on his back and when he turned around he saw Yoongi and his heart ached blissfully, a feeling he was chasing without even noticing. He had gotten used to sleeping next to him way too quickly and whenever Jungkook woke up without Yoongi by his side it felt like something was missing. He barely knew him and still, here he was, lying underneath the handsome pirate, kissing him back just as eagerly. Before he had wanted nothing but his freedom and when Yoongi gave the choice back to him, Jungkook fought the urge to just stay in the other’s arms. And although he was scared that Yoongi would not care anymore as soon as he got the treasure and that he only wanted him because of the part that was seductively siren in Jungkook, he couldn’t stop.
Jungkook moaned quietly, pulling Yoongi in closer by his waist. Yoongi felt relief wash over him as Jungkook kissed him back just as heatedly, obviously on the same page as him. He hadn't been entirely sure if it was just the siren’s nature to react to flirting and tease right back, but this reaction felt real. He quickly pushed down Jungkook's underpants that the younger wore for sleeping because everything between him and Jungkook's body felt like a personal affront. He couldn't wait to touch all of him, explore every part of his body, every inch of his skin…
The need started burning in his gut, his body reacting to the mental stimulation it got. Jungkook could feel the need rush through his body, making him impatient and feeling way too hot. Nonetheless he couldn’t help but blush, when Yoongi pulled down his underwear so eagerly. Jungkook just kept on kissing Yoongi, nibbling at his lips, his jawline and only let go off him when the pirate got rid of his own pants.
He had seen Yoongi naked before, it was nothing new, but still it felt like he saw him for the first time like this. He gulped, a rosy blush on his cheeks when Yoongi hovered back over him, kissing his neck. Jungkook instinctively spread his thighs a little further so he could feel Yoongi even closer on him, while his hands were exploring Yoongi’s body, tracing softly over a few scars from what he assumed must be from fights, before he pushed his lips back onto his. Yoongi comfortably lied back down in between Jungkook’s thighs. Feeling how willingly the younger spread them for him had him stifling a moan. He couldn’t wait to be inside him.
He inwardly groaned - not the nice kind of groan this time - when he remembered that he needed to use something on the siren to make it easier for them and that he didn’t keep stuff like that next to his bed. Though when he needed to get up from the bed anyways he could also lock the door to prevent a drunken visit from Namjoon again. If it was going well then his crew members would hear what was happening anyways as he doubted that Jungkook wouldn’t be vocal.
Jungkook propped himself up on his elbows, watching Yoongi with a fast beating heart. The sound of the door locking made him jerk a little, as he felt so on edge and sensitive already, while his eyes stayed glued on Yoongi’s back. He tried to see what the other was doing, for a second thinking that Yoongi might have changed his mind. The doubts came just as fast as they were gone again, when the pirate turned around. Jungkook relaxed visibly when he saw that it wasn’t a cloth or anything alike to stuff his mouth with.
At the wide eyed look Jungkook gave him Yoongi startled a little. Getting up from the bed without a word after making out probably hadn’t been his best idea. “Don’t worry I just got some coconut oil from the shelf. It should work. I’ve used that kind of stuff before.” He got back on the bed, sitting back on his heels and then ordering, “Turn around for me, please.”
Jungkook couldn’t decipher the feeling inside of him, anything of it really: The aching to let Yoongi have him, the fear in him, the anxiety that he would let go off him as soon as he got his treasure and that he was just someone to spend the nights with. And still he wanted him. Jungkook tried to wave it off that he was just having his ‘needs’ too. He just couldn’t keep his hands to himself. Jungkook did as Yoongi ordered and turned around to look at him over his shoulder, biting his lip in excitement. Yoongi gave the younger a once over, from his long neck down over his shoulder blades that still stuck out a little too much even though Jungkook ate more regularly now since they had established their new rules of him being not-quite a prisoner. His small waist gave his body a slight curve that Yoongi found incredibly attractive. His eyes were glued on the siren as he opened the jar with the oil. He generously coated his erection with it, jerking himself a few times until it became too slippery to be enjoyable. However, it would be different with Jungkook‘s body so he added a bit more just to be sure and then wiped his hands clean on the sheets. He needed a good grip on Jungkook‘s hips.
Jungkook’s heart was only beating faster when he watched Yoongi jerking himself, soft, low groans leaving his lips and the need to lean in and kiss him again overwhelmed him completely. He felt a little left out, that was until Yoongi gripped him tight around his hips, pulling him closer and tearing a squeal from him. Jungkook instinctively spread his thighs a little more to give Yoongi better access. Yoongi positioned himself at Jungkook’s entrance and started to push in, only going slower when he felt how much Jungkook’s body resisted. He’s had a lot of sex so far, seeking distraction on every island they landed on, but he had always chosen the easy, no-strings-attached way; which meant male prostitutes, rent boys, the men he found on the side of the street or in certain bars. He’s never had to prepare them before. Jungkook was different though and Yoongi was a little out of his depth when he realized he might be going too fast for him.
“You... you’re not a virgin, are you? You’ve done this before…with humans?” He stuttered, trying to keep himself from pushing further in because the tightness felt heavenly - even though he knew it must be a little too much for Kook.
Jungkook nodded his head, his hands gripping the bed sheets tightly. “Y-yes, but you know…the kidnapping and…all,” He was panting, chuckling low, “The last one sold me to those sailors.” Reaching behind him, Jungkook held onto Yoongi’s waist keeping him steady, “Just go slow, okay? I can take some pain.” He looked over his shoulder for a moment, his gaze turning sultry, “I really want you, Yoongi.” Slowly, Jungkook moved his hips, gasping when the feel of being stretched out hit him hard – but he didn’t stop.
“You mean..?” Jungkook didn’t seem the type to look for one night stands so if Yoongi wasn’t wrong then the Siren had just told him that the last person he had trusted or been in love with had sold him into being a prisoner on a ship. Which only very few managed to survive. Ships had their own laws. Even for a human being sold like this promised a nightmare to come - and all the more if you were a creature of the sea supposed to show the crew a way to magical treasures you didn’t know much about. It must have broken Jungkook’s heart.
Yoongi leaned over him, suddenly feeling protective and started kissing his neck,  soothing over his shoulder to relax him. The only thing he was grateful for was that if Jungkook’s last time had been with that dishonorable prick it meant that the sailors at least hadn’t touched him. Going slow together with his caresses seemed to make it a little easier for the younger as he slowly opened up to him, inch by inch. Yoongi’s thighs trembled from the tension of holding himself back. It felt so good, better than he had ever felt before. “Fuck, you’re... incredible!” His suppressed moans sounded desperate already even though they hadn’t really started yet.
Jungkook couldn’t keep from smiling, feeling proud that he was the one making Yoongi so desperate, his fingertips digging deeper into his waist. The younger felt totally breathless when Yoongi completely bottomed out and he was sweating already. Jungkook moved his hips slowly, circling them to get used to the feeling of being filled, pushing back onto Yoongi with a little pressure, then a little more. Soft moans were spilling from Jungkook’s lips, “Please, Yoongi!”
Yoongi cursed filthily in best pirate manner when his hips met Jungkook’s ass. The younger felt better than he could have ever imagined or dreamed of; he was pure tightness and velvety heat, perfect muscles and peachy skin under his touch. “You good?” His breath didn’t last for more and he was actually quite proud that he waited for Jungkook’s affirmation before moving although everything in him ached to thrust forward and indulge himself in the younger’s sweet body. He wanted to take as much as he could before he would lose Jungkook to the water or another ship again. “Mh’ yeah, would be better if you started fucking me, or is this it?” Jungkook answered cheekily, although he knew better by now not to tease the pirate. He smirked, pushing his ass back onto him sensually.
”Did you just..?” Yoongi’s mouth hung open before his expression turned dangerous. “Whatever you want, baby. Just don’t come crying to me if you can’t walk tomorrow. I’ll make you remember who had that sweet ass of yours.” He rubbed his palm over the firm flesh before roughly pulling the boy back against him. He could feel himself slide in deeper and from the way Jungkook shuddered helplessly he wasn’t the only one who felt like he was losing his mind from pleasure. With his hands on Jungkook’s ass and his weight on top of the younger he controlled him completely, setting a deep and dirty pace that had the bed shaking. Jungkook was trying to hold onto the headboard to keep himself steady, the thrusts making him jerk forward with each push. “Ah, it feels so good,” He moaned and laid his head back down onto the cushion, his ass up as he reached for Yoongi’s hand. He placed his own on top, just to feel him even closer. Jungkook couldn’t withstand Yoongi, not physically nor emotionally. The thrusts were hitting deep, making him shake and tremble so quickly like he never had before. Jungkook closed his eyes, dwelling in the pleasure, sweet, melodic moans the only thing that mixed with his heavy pants.
The moment Jungkook started to moan for real was when Yoongi felt it; it was like being hit with something hot, like a wave that pulled him under. He didn’t stand a chance from the onslaught of pleasure that filled him, so suddenly that he almost lost balance.
“Oh.. oh fuck!” He held onto the younger for dear life as his harsh, deep trusts only teased more sounds from Jungkook’s throat. The more he used his voice the more unbearable the desire became, ebbing and flowing through his body like the ocean, filling his senses, his mind until he couldn’t think about anything else but Jungkook and that he was inside of him. He wanted to become one with Jungkook so desperately, to come inside of him and make the siren fall apart because of him that it became a need more important than oxygen. He needed to feel Jungkook closer, to fill him out, make him his, etch himself into Jungkook’s heart and body as deeply as he could.
Jungkook could feel his thighs shaking with the way Yoongi was going for it. He sat up a little more, leaning back and letting the pirate wrap his arms around him to keep him seated on his cock while he turned to kiss him sloppily. Jungkook loved the feel of Yoongi’s sweaty chest against his back, his warmth and secure hold and the force with which he fucked him. He stole one more kiss, before the siren let himself fall onto his hands again, spreading his thighs a little more and starting to jerk himself off. Jungkook moaned Yoongi’s name loudly, his hole tightening deliciously around the pirate’s cock with each stroke.
Yoongi held onto the siren as if he was everything that kept him from losing his mind and right now it felt like exactly that. He whispered praises into Jungkook’s ear, telling him how beautiful he was, how kind, how much he loved to see his smile first thing in the morning when it was still a little sleepy and only meant for him. He told him breathlessly how much he loved to watch Jungkook by the sea and how he had wanted to drag him into his cabin and just take him whenever Jungkook had gone skinny dipping, presenting that well rounded ass to the pirate as if he was teasing him with a delicacy he wasn’t allowed to taste. The words just kept coming as if something had loosened his tongue and made his heart spill over, so that he was confessing all his feelings in a rush, a fresh haze of heat burning him from the inside out whenever Jungkook so much as gasped or moaned or melodically whimpered his name while he touched himself.
Jungkook’s jerks were getting more desperate, his pants and moans louder so that he was sure his magic was reaching further than the captain’s cabin by now – but he didn’t care. Nothing of it was harmful anyways. A smile played on his lips, when he trembled and Jungkook pushed his ass back a little more, “M’ so close, please.”
Yoongi was close as well - but he couldn’t speak or tell him otherwise, his voice had been lost in what he was feeling. He was too far gone to realize that it was the siren’s magic that had infected him, heightening his pleasure because that’s what Jungkook was feeling. He was at the mercy of his own desires, his own lust and the closer Jungkook got to finishing off the more intense it got and the more overwhelmed he felt.
His grip around Jungkook’s waist tightened as if he never wanted to let go of the boy, his thrusts becoming more sharp and reckless as he chased his own pleasure. He fucked Jungkook so hard that the boy gasped for breath each time the pirate snapped his hips forward, right into his sweet spot that made him see stars flashing in front of his eyes. It didn’t take long for Jungkook to fall apart right on his cock. His thighs were trembling, his whole body shaking from the pleasure as he cried out. Jungkook fell forward, a quivering mess, his muscles clenching tightly from the waves of his orgasm, feeling blissfully gone in pure ecstasy. Each stroke inside of him, made him shiver even more, intensifying the feeling and when Yoongi began to tremble, his thrusts faltering, Jungkook was still clenching around him in aftershocks, trying to catch his breath. Yoongi came hard and with a hoarse cry, harder than he could ever remember coming before. He kept Jungkook close to him, riding out his orgasm buried deeply inside the younger’s sensitive body until the siren started twitching and jerking every time Yoongi’s shallow thrusts send him further into overstimulation. Yoongi tried to find his voice or get his breath back but failed miserably, still lost in the waves of pleasure when Jungkook's body stopped shaking and his own muscles stopped trembling as well.
When Yoongi finally pulled out, Jungkook just let go and let himself fall into the bed. The wet, hot cum inside of him had him feeling so utterly dirty but Jungkook couldn’t get himself to get up right now. He sighed softly, feeling Yoongi’s body slump down next to him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the…the moans,” Jungkook whispered and turned to look at him, “But you looked so beautiful when you were gone, and it doesn’t harm you. I didn’t want you to be scared.” A faint smile appeared on his lips and Jungkook shifted a little closer to Yoongi, holding onto him tightly. “Oh,” It made a lot more sense now, how incredible Jungkook had felt and how he had lost himself so quickly. He couldn’t find it in him to care though. He felt amazing. Sated and boneless, limbs heavy and mind blissed out. “Were you trying to bewitch me, or does it come naturally to you?” He lowered his voice to whisper into Kook’s ear, “Do you get everyone hot and bothered every time you jerk off too? Maybe that’s why I wanted you so much. How often did you make yourself come next to me at night, moaning your siren song into my ear?” He didn’t mind the sweat or cum on Jungkook, so he pulled him back in, nipping at the juncture of his neck. When it didn’t have enough of an effect he rubbed over Jungkook’s nipples, knowing that the other must be hyper aware of his oversensitivity right now.
The siren shivered, “No, it comes naturally.“ Gasping lightly, Jungkook felt too weak to hold Yoongi back, letting him nibble and kiss him everywhere he could reach. “What?“ He placed a hand on Yoongi's chest, “I would never, not when you're sleeping next to me. Did you?“ Jungkook's eyes grew wider at the sudden imagery in his head.
Yoongi smirked, kissing Jungkook's cheek half smug, half apologetically. "Yeah, I did. After we went into the sea together and I saw you naked and wet, and so so fucking beautiful and then you let me touch you - and practically told me that I could fuck you some time...you didn't think that would leave me cold, did you?" At Jungkook's shy reaction he added, "Don't worry, I didn't touch you, I just waited till you were asleep and then imagined how it would feel to sink into your tight heat and take you right on that beach. Nothing I imagined came even close to what it actually feels like to fuck you though. I hope you enjoyed it because I definitely want to do this again. And next time I know I need to go slow first. You're not hurting, are you?”
The younger’s cheeks were blushing, and he mindlessly drew pattern into Yoongi’s chest in his embarrassment, “N-no. I’m okay. I’ll just go and wash up really quick.” Jungkook leaned in and placed a kiss on the pirates cheek, one that let his own heart jump, because he’d never been the one to initiate things like that. Jungkook carefully got up and around the bed, giving Yoongi the perfect view of the bruises forming around his waist where he had gripped him tightly. Looking over his shoulder, he smiled, before he vanished into the small bathroom to wash himself. The bowl filled with water was ice cold, but Jungkook didn’t mind right now. He could hear Yoongi shift around in the room and when he came back, he noticed the changed sheets. “Thank you.” Jungkook whispered and laid back down next to him, not even bothering to put clothes back on. He put his arm around Yoongi’s waist, pulling himself in. Tiredly, he nuzzled his face closer, blending out every doubt and thought about how Yoongi was just using him and would drop him soon after he got what he wanted: the treasure. Jungkook was just a beautiful siren that passed his way and the more he thought about it, the more he realized his own fears had changed. Jungkook shuddered.
"Are you cold?" Yoongi had misinterpreted Jungkook's shudder and held him a little tighter to his chest, rubbing over his arms to warm him up. "I can get you another blanket if you want?" Suggesting that Jungkook put his clothes back on wasn't an option as he liked it too much to have the younger naked in his arms. Seeing the bruises on Kook made him feel satisfied as it would mean Kook would remember him - it was something he thought about sometimes. As a pirate he went in and out of people's life whenever they visited an Island and except for his crew no one really knew him. He couldn't change that - and also shouldn't for safety reasons. But at least he could imprint his presence in someone’s body, hoping he would live in their thoughts a little longer.
“I’m fine,” Jungkook closed his eyes and leaned his head on Yoongi’s chest, seeking the warmth of his body heat, which made it so easy to fall asleep, feeling safe in the pirates embrace.
He only woke, when the sun was shining through the bullseye again and there was no way he could sleep any longer.
Jungkook groaned, turning when he felt Yoongi leave the bed. Pursing his lips into a pout, the younger blinked his eyes open. With a sigh, he pushed the blanket away from his body and got up as well. He walked past the pirate and towards the drawer where Yoongi stored his clothes to try and find something that fit him. Unfortunately for the pirate, he could see now that the bruises were all gone and where his handprints had been the night before, there was only soft, milky skin now.
Yoongi, stopped short. He had to make a double take before he could believe it: All of the marks he had so proudly and possessively left on Jungkook‘s skin were gone. Of course, when the siren‘s ability to heal himself was able to handle cuts then a few superficial bruises were gone in no time. He hadn‘t thought about this yesterday so today came as a surprise. Yoongi huffed, feeling personally offended by Jungkook‘s healing abilities even though he knew that it was childish, that Jungkook couldn‘t control that - and that it would just give him a reason to bruise Jungkook up anew. In bed. Maybe even tonight.
“You okay?” Jungkook turned to look at the pirate when he huffed, walking over to him to brush his hand through his hair. He let his hand wander down to Yoongi’s cheek, lingering there for a little while as his gaze locked with his. Jungkook leaned in, wanting to kiss Yoongi again, but a knock on the cabin’s door made him jerk away and leave his embrace. He quickly put a shirt on, before Namjoon peeked through the door once more interrupting them. Yoongi wished he hadn’t unlocked the door already.
“You slept pretty long. How about you skip breakfast and come on deck? Hoseok needs you to help and guide through the shallow sea.” Jungkook sighed softly, folding his hands together. If Yoongi would skip breakfast, then he would need to, too. No matter where Yoongi went, and although he didn’t call him a prisoner anymore, the captain never let him out of sight.
“Great.” Yoongi’s voice was saturated with sarcasm. “You really know how to ruin my mood, Namjoon,” He took Jungkook’s chin and turned the boy’s head around to kiss him deeply and possessively, completely ignoring Namjoon’s presence. Then he leaned in, whispering a few words into Jungkook’s ear, “Why don’t you have breakfast without me and then we met back at lunch. You shouldn’t skip a meal because you’ll need your strength. Apparently your body is adamant on making it seem like I never touched you which means I’ll have to make you remember me every night.” He smirked, half promising half annoyed from how they needed to part and then quickly followed Namjoon back on deck.
Jungkook stood frozen on the spot and when Yoongi was gone and the door closed, he was completely and utterly confused. Turning around, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself now, when usually he’d follow the captain around. And only after a couple of minutes of calming his fast beating heart, did Jungkook get out of the cabin, carefully tip toeing into the kitchen to search for breakfast. Whenever a crew member passed him, Jungkook almost pressed himself to the wall, averting his gaze, not wanting to get any attention on why he was walking around alone – but luckily, no one seemed to mind.
“Yoongi god fucking damn it,” Hoseok yelled, “Tell your dumb ass crew to look out larboard as well. If we run aground because they thought they only need to observe one side then I’ll fucking jump off this ship and let you all sail with ten knots against a cliff.”
The captain’s answer was an angry growl. Not only was Hoseok  talking to him in a way that he shouldn’t but he was also right with what he was saying which made it even worse.
“You are part of that dumbass crew!” He reminded him roughly, “And if you don't stop running your mouth like that then you’ll go overboard either way.” He normally just overlooked Hoseok’s way of talking to him as the other did an amazing job, but he was agitated already so angering him further wouldn’t be a healthy choice for anyone today.
Jungkook was munching on an apple that Jin had given him, saying that he looked as if he was lacking vitamins, and got back on deck. He regretted it the minute he stepped out into the sun. There were crew members running around, he could hear the navigator and Yoongi screaming orders, yelling over of each other.
“If you fucking get just one scratch into my beautiful ship…”
Jungkook turned to look over his shoulder at the angry growl and up to the steering wheel, chuckling quietly. He walked ahead, his eyes only on Yoongi, when someone bumped into him roughly making him stumble. The crew member just disregarded him quickly, running off to the other side of the ship. Jungkook huffed in annoyance. “Here, Jin made you some tea and this bread is for you.” He held the metal can and the food out for the captain with a smile. “He says you shouldn’t drink whisky this early and you’ll only get it at lunch.” Jungkook quickly stepped aside again when another pirate was almost running him over.
“I can’t eat right now!” Yoongi disregarded his nice gesture with an annoyed glance. It was cute that Jungkook had thought of him but right now he didn’t have any capacities left for pleasantries, he was busy trying to stay afloat and keep them on the water instead of under it. “You eat it - you need it anyway.” He ran over to another pirate, yelling at him for taking the wrong rope and messing up the knots.
For the second time today, Jungkook stood completely confused, looking down at the bread and tea. He bit his lip. The younger could clearly see that Yoongi had his hands full, but still the way Yoongi had talked to him left a bitter taste in his mouth. Jungkook smiled faintly at Hoseok, who looked at him pitiful and he quickly began to place the food and can down where Yoongi could still take it if he wanted to. It was too chaotic on deck for him, a perfect mirror for the turmoil of feelings inside of himself. Jungkook barely had managed to get up when a wave hit the ship. The tea sloshed out of the can first and then the rest of what was left hit the planks together with the high sound of porcelain shattering. Yoongi cursed before he even saw where it had come from or what had happened. “Which of you fuckwads was stupid enough to leave dishes on deck? If anyone gets cut and bleeds out I’ll make the idiot who’s responsible for that share that fate! Clean it…” He broke off, when it hit a little too late that Jungkook’s had dishes with him when he had come on deck to bring him tea and bread. He turned and there he was, standing close to the white, sharp shards that were scattered all across the planks and tumbled even further every time the ship moved a little too roughly.
Jungkook’s eyes were wide and he looked back at Yoongi for a second, eyes fearful and then he quickly got onto his knees and began collecting the shards. He pulled his shirt out of his pants to form a little hollow to put the shards in, mumbling a few apologies. He didn’t really notice when he cut himself on a shard, trying to catch it before it flew further away from him as they sailed through the tides. The younger tried not to show how embarrassed he felt, but the laughing and pointing of the crew members around him made him feel awful. “It was your little siren, captain.” One of them said, holding their stomach as if they couldn’t contain their laughter. “Not as graceful as we thought.”
Jungkook quickly grabbed the can, mumbling something about how he would get something to clean it up further, as he balanced the shards and everything else, trying not to stumble. He was so concentrated on not letting any of the pieces fall from his grip that he didn’t notice when one of the Pirates tripped him up. Yoongi didn’t see that from his point of view, however he saw Jungkook lose his balance and fall forward, effectively throwing everything he had collected all over the place. More laughing from the pirates and curses from Yoongi washed over the siren who looked as if he had fallen into a few of the sharp, broken pieces himself.
Jungkook cried out in sudden pain, carefully bringing his palms back up to see the damage. He was shaking with the anger, blood dripping down his hands. Jungkook hated this day already and the crew was adamant on making it worse. In his vibrating anger, the siren didn’t notice how the waves were starting to tremble too, as if the ocean was mimicking his emotions. He snapped around, his eyes narrowed as his gaze bored through the laughing crew members when a wave hit overboard and drowned the pirates with it. Jungkook’s eyes widened in shock when all three of them tumbled over, now soaking wet, coughing for air. Jungkook gasped, when the tension fell off him, just like the wave ebbed back into the ocean. He had never done such a thing before and for a second he was completely stunned.
Yoongi had tried to get to Jungkook to check up on him but he wasn’t in time to stop him from working his water magic or spell or whatever it was that he was doing. It definitely helped with the laughing because there was dead silence the second they all realized that the sudden wave came from Jungkook, then there was murmuring, like an angry swarm of hornets. Out of the corner of his eyes Yoongi could see one of the pirates draw his blade and instead of carefully helping Jungkook up like he had wanted he gripped him painfully on his arm to pull him up right away. “Get up!” He hissed, dragging the younger along with him under deck.
“I didn’t mean to! I swear!” Jungkook was trying to explain right away, his heart beating into overdrive out of sheer panic that Yoongi would imprison him again, “I’ve never done such a thing before. I was angry…they hurt me, they made me fall into the shards on purpose.” Jungkook whined quietly, stumbling after Yoongi whose grip only turned more painful. “I swear, please…please don’t hurt me,” Jungkook shivered, feeling light-headed and when Yoongi stopped, he tried to turn his head, closing his eyes, waiting for the blow to hit. Yoongi held him tightly on both his arms now, turning him around so that the younger’s back hit the wall behind him, “Do you have any idea what you just did?” His voice was icy and his eyes just as cold as he stared him down.
“I’m trying to protect you! And the first time I let you be on your own, thinking that you might handle this you fucking ruin it! You’re risking not just your life but mine as well! What do you think they’ll do when they come for you and I’m trying to protect you, hm? That their captain is a reasonable human being and so they should listen to him even though he’s keeping an “evil sea creature” from them? Or that said creature bewitched him and so both of them have to die? Do you really want to drag me down with you so badly Jungkook? Is that it? Do you want to die?”
“I’m not evil! You know I’m not,” Tears stung in Jungkook’s eyes as he shook his head, “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know I could do that…and I didn’t hurt them…they hurt me! You’re hurting me, Yoongi!” Jungkook tried to pull his arms away, his palms still bleeding. “I don’t want to die.” He shook his head, tears running down his cheeks as he sobbed, “Please…Yoongi, please don’t.”
Watching Jungkook cry in front of him made his anger vanish so that only the worry and fear were left, and his own words left a bitter taste in his mouth. He didn’t let go of him, but he loosened his grip a little. He was no longer yelling at him, but he still couldn’t look at him without the emotions washing over him, so he simply didn’t. Instead he just took him back to the cabin and sat him down. “Show me your hands.” There was still blood all over and Yoongi wasn’t sure if he might make it worse trying to clean it because that would definitely hurt. “You’ll heal, right?”
Jungkook’s eyes widened at that, pulling his hands back in fear, scared that Yoongi would punish him now. It wasn’t the first time someone would, because he hadn’t been able to control his abilities. People always feared the unknown and as soon as they found out that he healed quickly it had turned into a wicked game. Jungkook felt defeated, his heart aching painfully. “Just get it over with, please.” He looked up at the cabin with tear-filled eyes, his hands shaking, whole body shivering in fear.
The pirate nodded; his expression grim as he misread Jungkook’s reaction as a request to care for the wound despite the possible pain. “It’s going to hurt,” He warned him before getting a clean piece of cloth and the bottle of alcohol that he had used to disinfect the cut on his leg as well. Carefully he took Jungkook’s hand in his before wetting the cloth with booze and then dabbing the blood and dirt away from the younger’s wounds. A gasp fell from his lips when Yoongi didn’t hit him, but instead went for his hands. His gaze was unsure as he watched the pirate care for him. “Y-you’re not beating me up?” Jungkook asked carefully, regretting that he had asked right away. Maybe the captain would still do it.
Yoongi furrowed his brows. “I will next time you risk your life like that!” He dropped his gaze again, voice becoming softer. His crew members knew when to take his threats seriously and when to dismiss them. Jungkook however, didn’t. And considering what he had just expected him to do he would probably believe him now as well so he should better make it right before Jungkook would go back to being frightened and scared of him. “No. I won’t. The reason I’m that harsh to you is that I don’t want you to get hurt. I need you. For… for the treasure I mean. I can’t let anything happen to you. You just got me really, really scared up there. Because each time you remind them that you’re not human I feel like I need to prepare against a mutiny and…honestly I’m not sure if I’d stand a chance to protect any of us.” He gently caressed the back of the siren’s hand, the only part of it that wasn’t injured. “So please, do me a favor and lay low with your powers, okay? I’m sorry I yelled at you up there. It’s... complicated. We’re in dangerous waters and there’s a million ways thing could go wrong so I have to think about a million and one things, if you know what I mean.”
“O-okay,” Jungkook blinked a few tears away, wiping over his cheek. “I really didn’t mean to. Believe me, I didn’t know I could do this. I don’t know what happened…I was just so angry.” He took a deep shuddery breath, “I…I…won’t do anything anymore. I promise. I’ll be human!” Jungkook smiled at Yoongi faintly and obviously exhausted from the breakdown, “Just human. I am sorry I made such a fuss.”
Jungkook would have promised Yoongi anything right now, visibly relieved that he hadn’t hurt him. When Yoongi still locked the door behind him, Jungkook didn’t even jerk. He knew that in a way it was just to protect him, from keeping anyone from barging in. Tiredly the young siren let himself fall back into the mattress. He stayed like this for the rest of the day, too exhausted, not even touching the food Yoongi brought him throughout the day.
Jungkook had never been good at deciphering his feelings. As a siren, his empathic nature had always caused him trouble and finding out what he truly wanted was a struggle. When he laid on the bed alone, staring off into the distance, memories kept haunting him. It took a while until the exhaustion pulled him under and into a light sleep, only jerking awake again when Yoongi came back. The thoughts had been keeping him conscious that night, listening to the soft snores right next to him, while his eyes were wide open. He felt alone, awfully alone, holding onto himself a little tighter. Jungkook was shivering, feeling cold and exhausted and still he couldn’t sleep. Not like this. He needed to clear his head, maybe get back to bed then or wait to see the sun set outside. The crew had anchored the ship after they made it through the dangerous tides, everyone visibly exhausted and needing the night to fuel their energy levels back up. Jungkook made it out of bed quietly, closing the cabin door behind him without a creak. He grabbed one of the lanterns and a small blanket on his way up. When he was up on deck though, the young siren came to a halt, standing in complete awe. Jungkook couldn’t see a thing - because there was fog everywhere. He could barely make out his own hand. The vapor devoured it all and it seemed as though the ship was the only thing left in the world. He couldn’t even make out the ocean. All was quiet apart from the soft sound of the waves, the silence magnifying the noise of the sea lapping against the sides. But there was something different about the fog. Something that made his stomach churn. It was like the ocean was telling him to be careful.
Jungkook held on tightly to his lamp, walking ahead, narrowing his eyes to see through the fog. Something had caught his eye. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes again, thinking that they were playing tricks on him. Putting his lantern down, Jungkook leaned over the rail of the ship so he could see better.
There was another ship.
A bit further away from theirs. He could see it now. A chill ran through his body and a weird feeling inside his stomach made him want to run but the curiosity kept him still. A sudden loud crashing noise next to him had Jungkook jerking around, his heart beating fast. His lantern had fallen, the glass splintering into a million pieces, the candle extinct – he hadn’t touched it. Jungkook’s eyes were searching in the dark, trying to keep his breathing under control. Something felt awfully wrong.
“Y-Yoongi?” Jungkook stumbled ahead and through the fog, the urge to be back under deck and slip under the blanket was overwhelming now while he was internally pleading for the morning sun to rise quickly. When he neared the door, Jungkook stopped abruptly. His eyes flickered back and forth. There was a women blocking his way. Her dirty smirk only enhancing her haunting aura.
“Well, well.. aren’t you quite the catch..” She sounded excited but completely relaxed as if her being on the ship was completely normal. Before Jungkook could react she gripped him at the shoulder and turned him around until his back was pressed against her chest and she could wrap her arms around him completely, one hand closing over his mouth to keep him from making a sound, the other one reaching for her weapon to threaten the siren with. “Be smart, little boy. No sound or else you’ll have a few more holes than you need.” She whispered, still sounding more amused than threatening as she casually spoke about killing him.
Jungkook was panting against the hand over his mouth, his eyes searching through the fog as more and more women stepped out until he was circled by six of them. “He isn’t one of them,” One of them said, brushing through her short dark hair.
“But then why is he here, Dami? Black never takes strangers on his ship - especially not ones that can roam around freely like this?” A woman with long blonde hair answered and came closer, eyeing Jungkook dangerously, before she pulled off a piece of cloth from her belt and they quickly exchanged it for the hand, so Jungkook kept quiet, stuffing it into his mouth, “Black hasn’t visited us in a long time… how nice of him to bring us a gift….well, then we’re allowed to do whatever with you, right?” She leaned in so close that Jungkook shivered.  
“Absolutely!” The one who held him chuckled, brushing back Jungkook’s hair as if she was caring for him or assessing his worth. “I could think of a thing or two to do with him. Look at him, he’s so pretty! Either Black developed taste all of a sudden or there’s more behind those big brown eyes than we see. He’d look amazing in the captain's cabin on her silk sheets, don’t you think?”
“Oh yes, he would,” The leader walked up to Jungkook and his eyes widened in panic, trying to get away from her but the women were strong, keeping him in place firmly. Her bright red hair flowing in the wind. “Bring him onto my ship and then…rob this awful place. Take everything you can get and try not to wake the sleepy boys. But make sure he knows we’ve been there,” Jiu laughed. She walked a few steps, pushing her heel onto a seemingly lifeless body, that Jungkook only registered now, and lifting the poor pirates chin, who apparently has had the night shift and had to take a hit on the head, blood oozing down over his brows. Jungkook tried to scream, panicking, writhing to get out of their grip.
He wouldn’t survive another kidnapping.
They carried him easily, tying his hands up with one of the ship’s ropes until he was practically a package, one carrying his feet and another one his upper body. They hoisted him over the railing and then let him fall and for a second Jungkook was falling downwards, thinking that he was about to be dropped in the ocean to drown - before his body hit the ship’s tender boat with a dull thump. There was another woman waiting there, flinching when he landed hard on the place next to her and keeping him from falling off the side out of reflex. “Oh, hello you. I see our pilferage was worth it already. You’ll come with us?” She looked at the way he was gagged, chuckling to herself, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to answer anytime soon. “I guess so. Welcome on board then little one.”
Jungkook couldn’t help but cry out of frustration and fear. He couldn’t believe this what happening. Not now, not like this. He was begging and pleading inwardly, praying to whatever god there was to get him out of his misery. Jungkook had wanted to apologize to Yoongi again, promise him to be good and not use any of his powers anymore. He just wanted to stay with him. Everything in him just screamed to be back on the ship. Jungkook’s eyes widened in sudden realization, his heart skipping a few beats as the ship went further out of his reach.
He wanted to stay with Yoongi, be by his side, be liked by the crew members. He wanted to be seen as someone who could be at the captain’s side and not just the clumsy, frightened siren. Gulping against the lump in his throat, Jungkook began to struggle against his restraints.
He liked Yoongi.
And no matter how mean the pirate could be and although it didn’t make much sense to his own heart, the young siren wanted to be with him. Tears filled his eyes and the sounds of the women robbing the ship carelessly and the crashing of the ocean waves against the boat was the only thing he could hear.
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A/N: I posted this a day earlier than usual as I am going on a small vacation the next three days. So instead of a break you’ll get the new chapter now! Thank you so much for the lovely support we have gotten for this story so far!!! It really means a lot to Cat and I! And yes, surprise ;) It’s Dreamcatcher coming to kidnap Jungkook <3 (I mean who wouldnt want to get kidnapped by those beautiful women). If you don’t know who Dreamcatcher is...what have you been doing?
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(asoue-sideblog) Do you have headcanons for autistic ASOUE characters, to complete the trifecta?
oooooh absolutely let’s do this thing
For starters- I should mention that it’s pretty easy to assign special interests to the ASOUE characters, seeing as most of them have one (1) interest that defines them, so I’m just gonna list that at the top to get that out of the way and then go for other headcanons :D
Violet {gifset of her own here}
Special Interest: Inventing, but she probably had other minor SIs like Female Finnish Pirates and Nikola Tesla
Her hair in her face normally doesn’t bother her but becomes a sensory issue when she’s thinking too hard, and tying up her hair when she’s thinking has become part of her Inventing Routine
Tends to hyperfocus on her inventions/plans to the detriment of basically everything else around her 
Really dislikes being put into social situations; during parties she’d hide in the corner with a book or a watch to take apart and put back together
Figured out how to sew just so she could make her and her siblings weighted blankets; she’s found that Sunny tends to like them best, but they all love them
She’s definitely got insomnia, and would stay up all night working on a new invention if her siblings didn’t keep track of her and help her get to sleep
Klaus {gifset of his own here}
Special Interest: General Literature, but he definitely gets hooked on a lot of topics he reads about. And I feel like during the canon timeline he got a special interest in the VFD Mystery
Blunt AF and literal to a fault
Literally infodumps all the time, and often doesn’t even realize he’s doing it until it’s been an hour and the conversation has moved on three times. His sisters, the Quagmires, and Fiona (for the brief time he knew her) were the only ones who weren’t really bothered by this 
Often doesn’t understand verbal instruction, and definitely has trouble understanding metaphors and sarcasm
Unlike Violet, who was a bit more social, before the fire Klaus didn’t have many friends aside from his sisters. He couldn’t pass as neurotypical as well as Violet, and so a lot of the other kids saw him as the “weird” one. He usually didn’t care, especially since he preferred to stay inside and read, but he did get a bit lonely sometime. He considers Violet his best friend, as they understand each other much better than they can understand anybody else 
Most of his minimal social skills were learned by watching his parents talking to their friends, which means he’s talked like an adult from a very young age
Sunny {gifset of her own here}
Special Interest: Cooking! Though it’d also be cool if at some point Sunny becomes interested in snakes, trying to figure out all about her bff Inky
Cannot focus on anything at any point; she gets distracted incredibly easily and tends to triple-task herself 
Overstimulated by noise quite a lot - in the books, that’s the reason the rattle’s noise scared her 
Is incredibly blunt, to the point where she can’t remember the last time she lied. This isn’t as much of a problem when she’s still speaking in baby-talk, but once she starts using actual words, Violet and Klaus have to figure out how to keep her from straight-up telling people they’ve burned down a building
Wears a lot of weighted clothing, and even as she gets older she still stims by biting 
Has absolutely no sense of time - can’t remember if that conversation with Klaus over Bea’s birthday cake happened last week or last month, also she was talking to Vi ten minutes ago… wait, no, an hour… or two… 
Duncan 
Special Interest: Journalism of any kind, thinks he wants to be an Investigative Journalist someday 
Definitely the least social of the triplets, social interaction kinda gives him anxiety and he’d much rather go over compare newspaper stories than attend parties or join clubs
Tends to infodump about Dorothy Parker or the different types of Journalism on anyone who will bother to listen, usually Isadora. As much as Quigley wanted to listen, he really couldn’t pay attention to anything at all 
In contrast, Duncan is actually very good at paying attention, mostly because he takes notes on everything he’s heard and every conversation he’s had
Absolutely hates Prufrock for more reasons than just the obvious; he hates having to sit still for so long, be around so many other people who all seem to understand interaction better than him, and be judged more on test-taking than actual knowledge. Also I can guarantee that Prufrock did not have any accommodations for neurodivergent children 
Has a very strong sense of justice, which is definitely why he especially hates corrupt newspapers and will rant on how much he hates The Daily Punctilio to anyone who will listen 
Isadora 
Special Interest: Poetry, probably specifically the works of Ogden Nash and Lord Byron (and Sappho, let’s be real)
Poetry is really the only outlet she has to emotional expression; for the life of her, she can’t figure out how she feels about anything any other way
Verbally stims by repeating famous poems to herself, or sometimes throwing in her own work and reciting it on repeat
Incredibly good at memorization, almost better than Klaus- she can recite the entirety of Rime of the Ancient Mariner if need be
Brutally honest, especially to people she considers rude; she will not hesitate to tell Carmelita exactly how much she hates her 
She and Quigley were both disasters when put together because they were both Incredibly Impulsive, though in different ways: her impulsivity tended to manifest in rushing into situations without thinking through the consequences or doing something without reading instructions, while his impulsivity tended to be more “our parents are gone so i’m cutting the sleeves off of all of my shirts, they’re like 85% of my impulse control”
Quigley 
Special Interest: Cartography and Geography, he definitely used to have a collection of cool-looking globes and maps 
The most obviously autistic of the triplets, he tends to completely ignore social cues, forget that people have boundaries, and stim whenever he gets nervous 
Waaay too trusting of people, and easily deceived because he kinda forgets that people would just lie to each other 
Has intense difficulty sitting or standing still and paying attention; if he’d been sent to Prufrock, he probably would’ve tried to run away before the first week was up
Needs mental stimulation at all times, or else he’ll go do something wild like try to bungee-jump off the roof with glued-together rubber bands while Isadora cheers him on and Duncan desperately drags him back inside 
Sleep is a Foreign Concept 
Hand-flapping and jumping up and down are his main stims, but Modern!Quigley 100% has a million of those sequin pillows to run his hands through and shares them with Sunny, who also adores them 
Fiona 
Special Interest: Mycology, but she also sometimes gets intense fixations on types of marine life, which is to be expected when she’s constantly surrounded by the ocean 
Unfortunately Widdershins never really pays attention to her when she infodumps, so she gained a habit of talking to herself. The Baudelaires and Phil were among the first people to actually listen to her when she talked about her favorite fungi 
Incredibly fascinated by how the Queequeg works and all the details of how it functions, which is how she ended up being the Chief Engineer, even though she’s not super great at actually fixing things  
Gets really bored by things that don’t interest her, and often will find a way to distract herself, whether she wants to or not (see: “When I want her to research the life of Herman Melville, she works slowly, but she’s quick as a whip when the subject is mushrooms”) 
Actually very sensitive to touch, especially from people she doesn’t know. Will really only make physical contact with people she trusts 
Even though she’s technically pretty introverted, she’s very codependent, and panics when she thinks she might have to be alone
When she’s not in uniform, Fiona wears mismatched clothing and doesn’t care how bad it looks; it feels good and that’s what matters to her, so who cares if she’s wearing a pink sweatshirt with a green skirt and two different kinds of shoes? 
so yeah, the vfd kids are very autistic and i love them
{stranger things autism headcanons} {losers club autism headcanons}
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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years ago
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I haven't been keeping up with the season, but obvi I've seen gifsets galore & I wanted to know your take on how human Cas is behaving. I know he's had a soul since Metatron (& I assume he didn't lose it just bc he got his grace back), but I feel like since returning from the empty he's been wearing his emotions & thoughts on his face & in his movements more clearly. Do you think this was a conscious choice after facing the empty or a less tangible change that occurred within him as a result?
I think something less tangible that’s been happening for a long time, because back in season 10, even, we were talking about this. And I know in season 9 there was also at least some commentary on the way Cas was operating, when he had some grace again. Though I missed most of those conversations… My first Cas episode with fandom was 9x21 and I remember people talking about him leaning on the desk in his office and how it was a human mannerism. And that was all before we discovered he’d sewn his coat in 9x18 and we only got it in deleted scenes. 10x09 as well, I remember commentary on his mannerisms, as I think there were some especially noteworthy moments where he was behaving much less stiff than usual. 
All of early season 10 for Cas was pointing out how he’d rather be on earth, rather be with the Winchesters, and in general suggesting that he might one day be better suited for a human endgame than even he realises, especially played off against Hannah, who copes so poorly with being on Earth compared to how Cas has grown so comfortable there. 
And I don’t think Cas has ever really got more stiff and formal after any of this, just that the writing moved away from directly challenging Cas about who and what he was for a while and started asking him different questions and framing him in other lights. He picks up a lot of trauma towards the end of season 10, once he gets his own grace back, and he’s out of the zone where he would die without it and therefore challenged in the story to think about this himself. The writers don’t really wanna spend all their time telling the same thing over and over and if it’s a few season renewals before this can be relevant again, all I know is that Cas never answered the major questions he was posed, and this was never satisfactory resolved in any way when it comes to the themes of that time, just that we moved onto his depression arc. 
But I think in that time we saw a lot of stuff where Cas supposedly, at least with his original grace and often times without any magic effects on him, was still in a really terrible place, being depressed and traumatised, saying yes to Lucifer, and all the punishment season 12 put him through, including some very emotional moments like in 12x09 where he kills Billie on their behalf. 
This season his return from the Empty has made him seem more confident in some ways, but at the same time he’s still lost about his purpose, still struggling with being sure he’s completely accepted by Dean and dealing with low key self worth issues which of course affect him, because he can’t come out squeaky clean. But he had at least to fight off some of the worst things he believed about himself in order to defeat the Empty and on the other side of that he’s been standing taller and more confidently, which is great. But I think his mannerisms have been slowly creeping in and evolving for a long time, especially since being human, and while playing Cas since then always as a lower powered version of Cas, I think the change has been a long, slow process, but at this point we’re getting to where it’s extremely obvious how he’s so different from how he used to be.
My favourite example this season is in 13x19 where he’s bored waiting in Heaven, and he isn’t waiting like Cas would do in the old days, where if he was impatient he’d still stand still and radiate annoyance, or maybe pace back and forth if he was REALLY agitated. But we get a whole montage where he flops all over the furniture, pokes and prods things, and moves around the room bored and curious and very very much in a human way where it’s not even being disrespectful or whatever, it’s that he genuinely is bored and is distracting himself from a long wait in a really human way. I don’t think it’s really surprising with where is NOW or particularly weird for him. It’s not a red flag that anything is short term weird with him. Based on how the last like 4 years at least have gone for him, it’s not super strange for him to be behaving like this in season 13. But if he was doing it 5 or 6 years ago and longer it would have been much stranger, maybe even a red flag that something was wrong with him, and would have had way more purpose than just being to make us laugh at how bored Cas is, but to make some really profound point about him which would be new and revealing instead of expected and just a way of reminding us how different Cas is these days. I don’t think it’s revealing now in the sort of way of saying “wow! how human Cas is!” except maybe for people who REALLY weren’t paying attention, compared to if stiff and proper Cas had been revealed to act like this away from the Winchesters’ eyes in like… season 4 :P 
But, yeah, idk, Cas goes through so much and he’s been gradually changing for a long time, and in season 9 and 10 especially there was so much focus on who and what Cas was, and things like Claire calling out how much he changed and stuff, that it was a time of a lot of growth and shaping of Cas while season 8 had very deliberately been a sort of soft reset where it turned out Naomi was responsible, but it’s a last hurrah for Cas being remotely like he was in his most angelly times. They really rebuilt who and what Cas was in that time and since then we’ve been exploring deeper the new version of Cas.
I suppose no one really reads my episode notes but if you see me joking about party!Cas a lot, it’s because of this from 13x19: 
elizabethrobertajonesListen, at some point Cas transitioned from the stoic Cas we once all knew to a new and better Caswe’ve been talking about this a long timesince season 10 at leastbut I think finally I can say for certainthe season 10 - present Cas is…party!Cas
mittensmorgulPARTY CAS
elizabethrobertajonesand will refer to him as such meaning this period of his life indefinitely until it changes again :Pwe can keep it to season 13 if that makes more senselike his newfound purpose since the Emptybut I was harping on Riverboat Gambling!Cas earlierso I think this is actually something that’s been going on a whileand Party!Cas is just a more dominant trait this season than ever beforebut the arc to  becoming party!Cas has long been in motion
mittensmorgulthat reminds me of some of the early s12 meta talking about ‘growing up’ and how the characters were getting to experience adolescence for the first time… and Cas is kinda going through growing pains too. guess this is late adolescence for him now :P
elizabethrobertajonesawwwwwteenage party CasI love himso much
(I ended up typing this all to Mittens while first watching Cas messing around in 13x19 in the heaven waiting room. Though at the start of that episode, Rowena complains they don’t go to enough parties, and when she hangs up on them, Cas is like, “she’s right, you never go to parties.” I figure he’s waiting for someone to throw him a birthday party while Sam and Dean are too awkward to ask when it is after all this time.) 
But yeah, the traits I identify with party!Cas are all the ones where he seems less angelly and more human, more a truer version of himself and especially when it’s because he’s confident and owning being more than anything he ever thought he was “only”.
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ava-rosier · 7 years ago
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Ta-dah, have a preview of my Theonsa tumblr fic. More like ‘I wanna prove to @theonbaejoys and @soapieturner that I haven’t forgotten about it’. It’s untitled because I haven’t thought up the perfectest wittiest title yet. 
Rated Mild-for-Theon, with a little kick.
“I can't believe I've never done this before.”
“What- slept with me?” Theon wriggles his eyebrows suggestively.
By this point in her life, having known him for fourteen years, Sansa's eye roll is reflexive. “Me on your couch while you were in your bed doesn't count as sleeping together. Or is the number of women you've claimed to have had sex with inflated?” she retorts, making Theon hold his hands out in show a of halfhearted self-defense. She knows he isn't offended, he's teased her worse than this and she's snapped back at him harder than this.
“Hey now, don't go casting aspersions on my ability to count. I'll have you know every single woman left me knowing I'd fucked them so good their mothers probably felt it before they were even born.”
Sansa groans at the tasteless modifier; he snickers. This is classic Theon; he's always been a horndog chasing after girls and, to hear Robb tell it, he's equal opportunity about college women and horny divorcées nowadays.
She holds up her wine glass, waving it in front of his face. “I meant this. I've never drank alcohol before nine in the morning. Actually I don't think I've ever drank alcohol before noon. And drinking at a club at two a.m. doesn't count!” She rushes to add the last before he could catch her on a technicality.
“Math and alcohol at 8:38 on a Sunday morning. Well, you can always count on me to provide you with new experiences here, Princess.” The old nickname rolls off his tongue easily, but it settles on her differently.  Here, thousands of leagues south of where they'd grown up, Theon's pet name for her feels like a special, secret language shared by only them, that no one else knows.
Blinking away this strange, intrusive thought, Sansa glances around the empty pub backyard instead. It's a chilly Sunday morning in Blackcrown and the skies are just gray, gray, and more gray. Even with the building in the way of the wind, it blows strongly enough that droplets of rain periodically hit her in the face. The Salty Hoar has all the markings of a dive bar: sticky, banged up wooden tables that rock unsteadily when you place any weight on them, chairs that don't match, and a very basic bar selection that reluctantly includes some greasy fare. She can see how Theon loves it.
Despite the cloudy day, they both wear sunglasses, and neither can claim to be hungover. The shades do make them look like they have no fucks to give, which perfectly accessorizes the Naval-brand sweats she is borrowing from Theon to wear on the train back to Oldtown in lieu of the rather fussy and dramatic black dress she'd worn the night before, which is now folded up in a plastic shopping bag.
This is the strangest walk of shame she's ever taken.
She takes advantage of the relative anonymity provided by the sunglasses to study the man sitting next to her. Theon slouches in his chair, looking out at the homes and businesses situated on the hill below them, leading to the shoreline. He's always been boisterous and cocksure, perpetually in motion and in your face. But now there's a genuine self-assurance about him, a contrast from his teenage years. Clearly the military has been good for him.
His head nods to the rhythm of a song only he can hear, fingers lightly drumming on the side of his glass. Sansa isn't sure why it feels so alien to be sitting here with Theon Greyjoy, someone she's known over half her life- laughing and talking with him until her cheeks hurt.
Robb. That has to be it. The answer comes to her with the sort of quiet clarity that makes her feel external to the moment. She had only ever interacted with Theon as Robb's best friend. That has to be why it feels so...taboo...to be here without Robb in between them.
“Thanks again for rescuing me last night and letting me crash at your place.” Harry had never treated her particularly nicely, she could see that now. But what she'd thought was a sweet summer flirtation that could grow more serious had only become tense and distant once the fall term had begun and everyone was back in Oldtown.
He'd been too cowardly to tell her outright he didn't want to be in a relationship anymore and instead had resorted to treating her like shit until she got fed up and called him out on it. Of course, she had decided the last straw was when they were out of town and he kept passively-aggressively complaining about every activity Sansa wanted to do. Hence how she had ended up abandoned in an unfamiliar place at a very late hour of the night.
Theon shakes his head, making a little moue with his mouth. “Nah, don't worry about it. And I meant what I said before. I know some guys. Just say the fucking word and we'll castrate this douchenozzle.” He sounds gleeful at the thought.
A wave of fondness sweeps through her.  She's glad, rather than irritated, with her older brother now for having the foresight and determination to put Theon's number in her phone before she moved so far away from her family. “There's no need. I am in a sorority, after all, and all I have to do is tell a few of my sisters what Harry did, and they'll spread the word. He'll be symbolically castrated at the Cit.” She smirks as she fishes through her purse for her phone, having now remembered Margaery's demands of an update this morning. Her friend might actually be awake by now.
“A patented Sansa Stark revenge, nice!” Theon whistles before taking another slow pull of his beer. “I always knew you were gonna be a sorority chick by the way.”
Sansa arches an eyebrow. “Did you now?”  He looks altogether too smug, chest all puffed out.
“Yup.  In high school, you and your girlfriends were into the whole 'wear tiny pajama shorts and have pillow fights to tease the boys' thing. That cute friend of yours, Beth? It always was obvious she wanted a bounce on Robb's cock. Sororities are basically the same thing, just times ten.”
Sansa is torn between gagging at that mental picture, and smacking him over the head because of the warped stereotype about sorority girls. “One: I really don't need to hear about my brother's penis, thank you. And two: we don't have pillow fights, we support each other and organize charities,” she argues. He is unrepentant, however.
“No, but you get all dolled up and go clubbing, don't you? I betcha have lots of guys panting after those legs of yours in a tight skirt.” If it weren't for the sunglasses, Sansa suspects she would see Theon's eyes roving over her body. Did you pant after my legs in those tiny pajama shorts? She wonders with a small frisson of excitement.
“Maybe so.” To distract herself from the way her body is flushing, she scrolls through her notifications before unlocking her phone. Bran had texted her something with the latest meme sweeping through the internet, one or two of her friends had asked what her plans tonight were, and there are a few Tumblr notifications.
“Anything from Dick Move?”
“Nope. I kind of want to block his number outright,” she admits, “but I'm also hoping he'll try to get a booty call out of me someday just so I can completely ignore his text.”
Theon slides his palm through the air in front of him. “Read 10:23 pm.”  He chortles at the thought.
“Exactly.”
She goes to her Tumblr app, promising herself she won't eat through most of her monthly data in one go.  When the page loads, there's a gifset from her favorite historical fantasy show, she makes sure to like it on the spot. Before she can stop him or tilt her phone away, Theon's bending his head close to see what she's got on the screen.
"You’ve got a Tumblr too? No fucking way!” he exclaims.
Why does he have to be so loud? At least she doesn't live in this town and there's barely anyone within earshot. Sansa hisses as she hits the home button on her phone, glaring reproachfully at him. “What's so 'no fucking way' about me having a Tumblr?”
He shrugs, shaking his head in the way men do when they know better than to tell the truth. “Nothing, I'm just surprised. Dunno why.” There's something different about his attention now, even though she can't see his eyes.
“Too. You said 'too'. That means you've got one. If anything I should be surprised you're on that site,” she says accusingly.
“What can I say, I'm a man of surprising depths.” She snorts at that, which he accepts with good humor. He snaps his fingers and points at her, grinning. “You know what you should do? You should give me your url.”
She gives him a look like that's the stupidest thing in the world. “I'm not sure I want you to know the depths of some of my fandom obsessions.”
“Come on,” he cajoles. “It's Uncle Theon-”
“Ok, that is so creepy. Never do that again.”
“Fine. But my point still stands. It's me. D'you think there's much that's going to shock me?”
She bites her lip and contemplates it. Maybe it's the weirdness and giddiness of having wine in the early morning, but Sansa finds herself grabbing a pen and scribbling her url down on a napkin and handing it to Theon, who slides his sunglasses to the top of his head to read it.
“'lemoncakess'. Cute. I bet it's very aesthetic.” As he chuckles at the url that had taken forever for her to settle upon (all the good ones she wanted were being hoarded), Sansa finds herself mentally scrolling through her tumblog's archive, trying to remember if there were any incriminating text posts or embarrassing reblogs.
“Don't diss the aesth. I bet yours is full of shitposting.”
“And then some.” He winks, folding the napkin and shoving it into his jacket. “Expect a visit from T-money in the next few days.”
“Is that your url?” It's horrid enough that she's cringing with secondhand embarrassment.
Her assumption only gets her an eye roll. “Nah. I just figured that if 'Uncle Theon' didn't fly, then neither would referring to myself as 'Big Daddy'.”
“But T-money seemed more acceptable?”
“It's what my buddies call me. It all started this one time I was dared to act like a stripper at a bar. I had tons of chicks- and some dudes- sticking their easily-earned stags in my smalls.”
“That I can believe.” She deadpans.
Theon has a wicked grin on his face even as he drains the last of his beer before grabbing his keys and standing up. “C'mon, sweet cheeks, let's get you to the station. I have the depths of a blog to plunder.”
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ktrosesworld · 7 years ago
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WIP Meme
I’m pretending that @whoinwhoville has tagged me because I’m hoping that doing this will inspire the muse to write some more
List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.
10 Steps to Reclaiming Your Life - Hannah Baxter x Mark (96 Ways to Say I Love You) ... I’ve written a goodly portion of the next chapter but the muse keeps getting distracted over the quality alone time Mark has been having in the shower ... she just wants to keep reading that section over and over
Diary of a Single Rose - Giacomo Casanova x Rose Tyler ... the plan was for the next chapter to be the last one ... I’ve known what the last chapter is going to be for ages ... but then someone wrote an idea in the comments and the muse is mulling over how to write it ... I’m trying to argue against it but she won’t listen
Untitled (might be Pictures in the Mirror) - Dave Tiler x Rose Tyler ... it’s set after Journey’s End and it’s hopefully going to be about them learning to live again after losing the loves of their lives ... so far I’ve written about 7k words and they haven’t met yet but that’s on purpose because I wanted to challenge myself to write an epic multi chapter ... I’ve been writing it for a year now so don’t expect to see it anytime soon
Untitled - Peter Carlisle x Rose Tyler ... Rose is a Detective Constable who moves to Kendal with aim of climbing the career ladder. Peter’s career has been limited by the whole Blackpool incident and just wants his next partner to be a competent investigator ... I’ve taken this in at least two different directions already and not really happy with either ... it would help a tremendous amount if I could think of a crime they could solve
The Dating Game - Hannah Baxter x Peter Vincent/Casanova/Don Juan ... Hannah is trying to choose between three invitations to accept to the sex party event of the year and asks Bambi to help her ... I’ve asked @pipertennant to consult her muse about co-writing this one with me ... so far neither muse is being very cooperative 
It Happened One Night - Ten x Rose Movie AU ... it’s a brilliant classic movie that just screams Ten x Rose to me ... she is a runaway heiress trying to get back to town and marry her fiancé Jack Harkness ... he is a journalist trying to land a scoop on the story ... mishaps and adventures ensue
Love is a Battlefield - Campbell x Rose ... it started out as a submission to a TPP prompt about packages being left at the wrong door and has morphed into Rose phoning into Campbell’s breakfast show ... they have a battle over "girl power” music ... of course it makes his show even more popular and Rose is offered a job as his co-DJ ... I got too preoccupied with choosing songs and the story has lost it’s way completely ... might need to go back and read this one again and see if I can rescue it
Make My Heart Fly - Ten Rose University AU ... I was trying to challenge myself with one of those 50 prompt things but have no idea where to take it now as none of the prompts are speaking to my muse anymore ... I’m actually kind of happy with where I’ve left so I’ve been tossing up on whether to change the settings to say it’s ended
Taking another leaf out of whoinwhoville’s book and tagging anyone who is interested in doing this meme ... make sure you tag me so I can read about all your WIPs :D
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musingsofabooklover · 7 years ago
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Do this:
List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or as little detail as you’d like. Then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.
I decided to do this after I read Culture Vulture’s post (which tagged everyone who wanted to or something), though I also saw it from threadsketchier. Both of you are awesome!
I’m working on, though rather slowly because I got distracted by work and Lois and Clark:
an original young adult fantasy novel set in the modern day
another original novel
an original poetry collection
the next chapter of but here’s a helping hand (and I am up and on my broken limbs), my Star Wars fanfic about Luke healing after the Force lightning
I started writing but am not really actively working on:
a Dresden Files fic featuring Karrin investigating something, which I got stuck on because I hadn’t decided what the thing she was investigating would actually turn out to be
a Lord of the Rings fic which was aiming to be a realistic Girl-Falls-Into-Middle-Earth fic, complete with language barrier, inspired by the excellent existing fic featuring the character named Penny which I forgot who wrote it but it’s excellent, but mine is set in a different part of Middle Earth and part of the timeline to that one, in which I ran out of inspiration for now and I’m not really sure how much I like the part I’ve done
I want to work on but haven’t started yet:
a new blog post for my blog
I’m such an easily distracted procrastinator. But there are too many new shiny things!
I did write some poems, which usually I write quick enough that they wouldn’t make it onto this list because I wouldn’t have time to go on the internet in the middle of writing them.
Tagged: If you want to be tagged in this post, then you, yes, YOU, are tagged. If you don’t want to be tagged in this post, you’re not.
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noahsflynn-archive · 8 years ago
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looking at edward nygma during that final scene in 3x14: how it affected him, and how it might in the future.
so I had a lot of feelings while making this gifset and this gifset, and ya’ll might know that I love to take any opportunity to talk about my son edward nygma (and nygmobblepot) so here we go. 
all gifs in this post are from the gifsets I linked above just fyi
starting off with this gif:
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maybe I’m just seeing things, but it seems, if you look at ed’s throat and mouth, like he gulps when oswald says that, which just shows that what oswald said affected him in some way, possibly in a way that he never expected. 
if you want to get a little cynical ed’s reaction could just be because at this point he’s still not sure if oswald really does need him, because he’s not sure if oswald is still the selfish person he always believed oswald to be.
either way ed is clearly conflicted and is (not for the first time in the episode) having a visible reaction that displays that. 
then there’s this gif:
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sounds very much like that love riddle ed spouted back in 3x04, no? “I can't be bought, but I can be stolen with one glance. I'm worthless to one, but priceless to two. Love.” not the same, but I would argue a similar concept. and either way, we have ed’s reaction to oswald saying this:
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first he has to readjust his grip on the gun, and then he says “you killed isabella” while refusing to look at oswald. in fact he adjusts his grip, pauses for a moment, then looks down as he speaks. sure, the looking away as he says it could be down to the fact that he’s still clearly broken up over losing isabella, but earlier in the episode we have the scene where oswald is willing to give up his life to protect ed from barbara, tabitha and butch. that’s something ed didn’t expect, when oswald says (while laughing), “does that mean I passed? ed?” to which ed responds with “I don't know what it means.” so of course that’s going to play on his mind. before that point (in the gif above) ed’s main motivation and reasoning for being able to go through with the idea of killing oswald, is the fact that oswald killed isabella and also that oswald could never change.
this is ed’s face after oswald tells him he can’t do it (kill oswald):
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now oswald has proven he’s capable of change, so ed doesn’t have that reasoning anymore. of course he wants revenge for isabella, what made that easier with butch and tabitha was that he doesn’t like butch, and I’d like to point out that he never intended to kill tabitha. don’t get me wrong, what he did to her was still horrible but he was absolutely willing to kill butch because he thought butch had wronged him, whereas tabitha has never wronged him, they barely know each other. (yes, she wronged oswald, but ed still wouldn’t have killed her for that, because that would take away oswald’s right). but of course with oswald it’s different. they’re best friends, they’re supposed to care about each other. ed still has motivation: the fact that oswald killed isabella, but he clearly needed more than that. the fact that he believed oswald was seflish and could never really love another person completely destroyed oswald’s excuse/reasoning of “I did it for love” but then oswald proves that he really does love ed, that’s real. and although that’s still not a good enough excuse to kill isabella, ed can no longer rely on the fact that it’s just some throwaway excuse that oswald is using to try and get out of the situation. I personally would say that ed adjusts his grip on the gun after oswald says “you can’t have one without the other” because it’s just another reminder that his reasoning, his justification for killing oswald has just slipped away. we also see it in these gifs:
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in both ed readjusts his grip (in the first one it’s after oswald says “ed, I love you. I know you believe that now), in both (especially the second one) he looks away, and he clenches his jaw in the first one.
really ed didn’t have to kill oswald for killing isabella, and to actually take that final step he needed to justify it (to himself), because oswald is absolutely right. they’re both better together, (well they were before all the drama went down anyway and even then they were fine for a bit, but ed was clueless about what oswald had done). ed knows they’re better together. sure they’ve both grown separately, and no doubt will do in future episodes, but they’ve made a lot of progress because of each other.
also this is going to be the first time since arkham that ed has been on his own. he had oswald, and then arguably he had barbara, tabitha, and butch. and even if he works with those 3 again it won’t be the same, and we don’t know how all of this, and what’s to come, is going to impact ed so really he’s going to be, or at least feel, very much alone.
anyway, moving swiftly on, we have these gifs:
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which show something I’ve always said about ed, he does believe in justice, just perhaps not in the conventional way. back right after he killed kristen (during 2x07) a part of him at least considered handing himself in, hallucination/dark ed says “you probably have half a mind to turn yourself in. luckily, I have the other half.” and with jim it’s a fact that ed’s paranoia was the only reason jim (and the gcpd) found out he killed kristen, and I agree it was that, but also that that small part of ed that wanted to hand himself in was still in there somewhere. flash forward to more current events he punishes butch for killing isabella, now yes this is most likely for pretty selfish reasons, to make ed feel better, but to ed he’s doing it to seek justice for isabella. you could perhaps even use the example of setting butch up for working with the red hood gang. yes it benefited ed anyway because it meant butch was out of the picture, but it was also justice for oswald, someone ed cares about.
I’d say the first gif above is that moment where ed realises that it doesn’t matter if oswald’s changed, he’s still the reason isabella is dead and he needs to be punished, she deserves justice, but that doesn’t make it any easier. 
and I’ll get onto the second gif in just a second, I promise, because it adds to another point.
anyway from this point to the end of the scene/episode ed is more determined that oswald needs to die (or has regained any determination he lost), however, as this gifset shows there are various times in which, although ed has that determination back, he’s still incredibly conflicted, maybe more so.
going back to the second gif above like I said I would, we can see that ed not only went after oswald as justice for isabella, but for himself too. you can clearly see that he genuinely thinks killing oswald will make him feel better. everything else I’ve talked about shows that that’s clearly not the case. on some level ed was aware that killing oswald was not going to change anything or make him feel better at all, hence the times where he looks unsure or stunned, or when he looks away, or when he readjusts his gun, or clenches his jaw, any of the times in the two gifsets (and at other points earlier in the episode). so when he pulls the trigger, during the bit where he gently grabs oswald’s shirt and pushes him in, ed seems kind of emotionless. he most likely feels some kind of relief at having finally got his revenge and pulling the trigger, but that’s only momentarily, because as oswald sinks into the water he looks like this:
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ed is not okay with what he’s done. I really think that him throwing himself into the riddler stuff in episode 15 is going to be partly down to him wanting to distract himself from what he’s done and/or to possibly try and justify what he’s done (to himself). of course I expect the riddler stuff to be about him finally going over the edge in every capacity, but I feel like how he feels about this final act of episode 14 will contribute to that in a really big way. I could never believe that these facial expressions and actions (and whatever else) are mistakes, cory is too good of an actor for that, I don’t doubt that every single bit of body language was deliberate. every thing about ed in this scene, no, this entire episode, is so much more complicated and detailed than it first appears. I see a lot of ed hate around, and this post isn’t about whether those people are right or not (I personally don’t hate him), it’s more about the fact that in this episode it’s more complicated. there’s more than just what we see on the surface, and this episode, this final scene, is going to affect ed for a long time to come in some way, shape, or form. and I think it’s also a clear example of how complex his character is too.
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jolteonjordansh · 8 years ago
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Thoughts on Digimon Adventure tri.: “Loss”
Well, it’s been over a month. I’ve watched “Loss” at least twice now. I kept putting this off because of life/laziness/being distracted by BotW, so I should really get this done or “Symbiosis” will be here before we know it and I still won’t have even watched Digimon Tamers.
Plus I’m listening to a ton of Digimon music right now, so that always helps me get through writing these walls of texts. Go below the break for my thoughts if you’re curious.
Well, after the devastation “Confession” put us through, despite me having to wait about a month or so after watching it compared to most who waited several months, there was a lot to wait for and be anxious about with “Loss”. I said after my thoughts on “Confession” that “Loss” was going to have to be really careful with what it did next. Between the whole reboot, the partner Digimon (except Meicoomon of course) losing their memories, and setting up Gennai as an antagonist, these could all be things that could easily be screwed up or anger people, myself included. So how does it stack up against “Confession”?
I won’t lie and say that “Loss” is a step down in comparison. It is significantly shorter after all--the shortest of all of the films so far even--so it had to deal with a lot in such a short time. Now, that doesn’t make “Loss” bad by any means. I would say it’s about the same level as “Determination” for me, and that’s not bad at all. But it does have its problems. I’ll start from the beginning.
I will say, I really like how “Loss” starts out. I really like the silent film feel of it. Maybe some people wanted voiceover, but I liked the stylized storytelling here. I also really like that tri has brought the “original DigiDestined” plot element back, something that they never went into detail with and could have been easily left alone. But what I’m also really glad about is that they showed the four Digimon Sovereigns--something I was really upset that Digimon Adventure 02 pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. Getting more backstory on Himekawa and Nishijima was good too, and I’m really looking forward to how that may turn out. This does leave me questioning what happened to the Dark Masters between this flashback and the events of the original Adventure series since they didn’t really explain it. I’ll just assume they were temporarily sealed away since it’s clear that they weren’t defeated.
Now for how the Digimon were handled in this, I’m glad they were careful and took the right step in not having their memories immediately or quickly given back after reacquainting with their DigiDestined partners. I personally do hope they get their memories back, but I definitely don’t want said memories to just be handed out, or it would really kill the impact “Confession” had. It is good to see their emotional bonds are intact, as seen towards the end with their Digivolutions. The Digimon themselves were great too, and it was heartwarming to see them get to know their partners once more... with a couple of exceptions.
I did enjoy seeing all of the Digimon again, though my first problem was Piyomon. Before I discuss Piyomon, I have no problem with Sora and Piyomon having to work to know each other again. I don’t even necessarily have a problem with Piyomon pushing Sora away. If a stranger approached you and claimed to know you, it would make sense to push them away. It’s the execution more than anything--I feel like they honestly stretched it to the point of writing Piyomon OoC. I didn’t expect her to be loving towards Sora and I get they were trying to do an inverse of when Sora and Piyomon met for the very first time, but they wrote Piyomon to be too mean-spirited in my opinion.
Piyomon was almost never a jerk to anyone like this, unless they were rude to her first. Sora was still very careful and gentle with Piyomon, but she continued to be really rude to her. I would have understood maybe if Piyomon was more scared, confused or even became more firm and rude to Sora as she kept pushing herself as her partner. But Piyomon was rather harsh from the get-go, so it just doesn’t come off right. Even as an inverse, Sora was never cruel or rude to Piyomon as she kept clinging to her--she was more confused, creeped out, and a little annoyed than anything. I guess I can respect that they were trying to do something different and ultimately, Sora and Piyomon became partners once more, but I do think they could have treated it better.
The other issue is, unfortunately, Meicoomon. I’ve had a hard time liking Meicoomon as it is--I’m not even that fond of her design--but I think she was at her absolute worst in “Loss”. The intact memories not only makes her out to be a “special snowflake” (which seems to be the case with this whole “Libra” thing), but it’s still unexplained as to how she has those memories. I’ll assume they will eventually explain it, but holding it off still does it make things frustrating. This isn’t helped by the fact that Meicoomon honestly comes off as really annoying for me in this film. She goes from crying for Meiko’s attention, to going on a rampage because Meiko isn’t there, then getting angry when Meiko actually does show up. She’s all over the place, and her mood swinging honestly got annoying for me really fast. Maybe the writers are trying to convey that losing Meiko made her lose her sanity, which could lead up to another plot point, but without many answers it’s just a chore to sit through.
Meiko is hard for me to discuss in this too. I’m extremely bothered by the fact that she conveniently ends up in the Digital World when she finally decides she wants to see her Digimon again, but at the same time I expected this to happen anyway (which unfortunately just continues to meet my low expectations for her). I can already guess that some convenient distortion showed up to bring her there, but that’s another unanswered question. At the same time however, I have to admit her character actually improved in this film. Mind you, it didn’t improve much and I still don’t like her, but she did admit she screwed up and is trying to make an effort to make up for her mistakes. Not to mention, she isn’t having moe traits and blush stickers constantly slapped on her as much anymore. Still, her admitting she screwed up was also something I expected, so she has done nowhere near enough to change my opinion on her. I do hate feeling this way, but that’s just my opinion. She has improved, but not by much, and I can only hope her character finds a way to get better in the last two films. I don’t expect to like her by the end, but I’m not going to make a firm, final jugment on her just yet.
Now, back to things I liked. For Digimon I did like, I need only one word: SALAMON. I am so, so glad that Salamon finally got some screentime with tri. She only had extremely brief appearances in the original Adventure series and Adventure 02, so to get a few full episodes with her was so great. She is downright adorable, and I’m glad she got all the screentime she got (Where are all of my gifsets, tumblr!?). Honestly, had Salamon been part of the main cast of Digimon partners, she could have been my favorite instead of Gomamon (no offense to my favorite seal). It may be insignificant, but I’m glad tri gave time to Salamon. Unfortunately, Salamon’s Digivolution animation to Gatomon is... pretty bad. The Champion Digivolution animations are really hit or miss, but Gatomon’s is definitely a miss unfortunately.
More onto the plot(mon), I did like seeing some of the DigiDestined visiting old locations and being with other Digimon partners was a fun idea. I’m only sad they didn’t do very much with it, though I guess that would be something better to serve as filler. And considering the limitations of these films, filler is something they can’t really do too often. This is especially the case in “Loss” because they established a lot of new plot elements and worldbuilding. From what I understand, a lot of Digimon fans aren’t happy about Yggdrasil being in tri. It’s completely different for me because this is my first exposure to Yggdrasil in Digimon, and since it apparently crosses different Digimon universes, I’m really curious how the writers for tri will handle this (plus oops I’m a sucker for Norse mythology inspired material). Still, I think the writers have done enough story building at this point and need to bring it to a halt. With only two films left to answer all of the questions they’ve brought onto us, any more worldbuilding would just hamper the plot. 
Gennai also plays a bigger role in this now, seemingly an antagonist. I have no idea how this is the case and they don’t really explain, but I can only assume he’s been corrupted somehow and is now being influenced by Yggdrasil. He is outright creepy in this, and I can’t really say I like that he’s a creep, but I will say it’s effective considering how much he did creep me out. What interested me more was some of the things he mentioned with the reboot, with all Digimon being brought back--including ones that died in the real world. Does this mean we’ll see characters like Wizardmon again? Old villains like Devimon? Or God forbid, are they going to bring Myotismon back again? Strike me down if he ends up being the one behind all of the events of tri again somehow. He’ll basically become the Ganondorf of Digimon.
Also, does this mean Leomon died only to be brought back again and probably get killed off again? His deaths really are just a giant running joke at this point, aren’t they?
That’s all just speculation though. More to my feelings on “Loss”.
On the note of villains, I really hope Himekawa just goes nuts from here on out. After all the work she’s gone through only to meet her Tapirmon once more and have him reject her, I’m really excited to see her just break like an eggshell. I don’t know why, but I just love seeing calm and collected antagonists absolutely lose it when they don’t get what they want and just fall into madness because of it. That’s not to say I don’t feel for her, I do, and I feel for Nishijima as well, but I do want to see just how crazy Himekawa will go after seeing her years of selfish efforts mean nothing.
I honestly really like how Himekawa is a sort of antithesis to what the DigiDestined are in this series. The DigiDestined have struggled with trying to grow up, but are gradually accepting they can still hold onto the things they love while moving forward. Himekawa, on the other hand, is someone who has grown up (or at least pretends she has grown up) but is so stuck in her past that she absolutely refuses to let go of her childish dreams to the point that she will risk everything and hurt everyone for her own gain. It’s honestly pretty twisted and I just love it.
One little thing I will say I’m disappointed in is that the two Dark Masters that return in this film don’t really talk at all. They seem to just be mindless vessels, and I assume that’s actually the case since they’re under Gennai’s influence--otherwise they would just be doing what they want. Granted, Machinedramon was kind of always mindless and emotionless. But I’m kind of sad we won’t be hearing Doug Erholtz doing a campy surfer dude voice for MetalSeadramon in the dub. If the other two Dark Masters do appear in the next film, I kind of hope they talk since Piedmon and Puppetmon were so reliant on talk with their personalities. Piedmon was extremely cocky and a jokester, while Puppetmon was very childish. But again, if these Dark Masters are just hollow shells of their original incarnations, I guess I shouldn’t expect it either.
Now, for the few fights that were in “Loss”, I still had a lot of fun with them. If you follow me, you already know that Joe tackling Gennai and Gomamon fish slapping him with Marching Fishes is my favorite scene. But in terms of the actual fights, I did still like how Sora and Piyomon reconnected, despite my initial complaints on Piyomon. Seeing Hououmon was definitely a highlight for me (gosh is she just beautiful), and after how much of an ass Machinedramon was, I was just rooting for him to be torn apart. I am starting to think the evolution animations are taking up too much screentime, but I can’t deny that I do still like seeing all of the Digimon in each stage. Still, for time’s sake, it might be best that the animators start doing Warp Digivolution animations from here on out.
The biggest controversy in terms of the fights is for sure Seraphimon. And I do admit, I would be lying if I said it didn’t feel out of nowhere and there was definitely less focus compared to Hououmon. It does sort of feel like T.K. got cheated out, but at the same time, he basically managed to go beyond his own darkness by the end of “Confession”. He and Patamon did get their focus in the previous film, and it would have been anticlimactic for an infected Patamon to Digivolve all the way to an infected Seraphimon, but come with the same outcome as the reboot that happened in “Confession”. You could make a counterargument with HerculesKabuterimon’s appearance I guess, but the difference here is that T.K. is meant to be a symbol of hope with his crest. By having Seraphimon fail in preserving the other’s memories, it would basically be saying that hope means nothing. And with Patamon being infected and T.K. being devastated by it, their hope was gone. It wouldn’t have really made sense for them to have achieved that there.
I guess the writers were sort of torn between cheesing their way out of the memory loss by having Seraphimon save the day and actually having the Digimon lose their memories. I wouldn’t change what the writers did in “Confession”, with all of the emotional development T.K. and Patamon got as well as their struggles, so I think they just had to make a tough call here. Had they given T.K. and Patamon another big arc (which as a fan of both characters, I wouldn’t have personally minded), it probably would have come off as unfair. Still, it was a tough call regardless, and I was still happy to see Seraphimon show up and help with downright annihilating Machinedramon.
“Loss” does end on another cliffhanger (though haven’t pretty much all of these ended on a cliffhanger of some kind?), but it’s nowhere near as devastating as “Confession”’s cliffhanger. “Loss” may not have been good as its predecessor, though I do think “Confession” set up a pretty high bar for tri, and it was by no means bad. “Loss” was still good, just with a few glaring flaws for me here and there. 
I will say that I’m really looking forward to “Symbiosis” based on what little we know so far. We know Kari is now the focus and has her own darkness to go beyond, which will be interesting, but the low quality image of the poster apparently depicts Ophanimon Falldown Mode. I know apparently some really want Magnadramon as Gatomon’s Mega, but I personally prefer Ophanimon for consistency with Angewomon and for what the PSP game did. But Ophanimon Falldown Mode is really interesting because of its descriptions, being a Digimon that became “so angry that it suppressed its own emotions and fell into madness. It swelled with anger at the world, where atrocious sins keep mounting no matter how many times they are purged, and it closed off its heart.” With this, Gatomon’s lost but tragic memories, and Kari even feeling that Gatomon is better off without said memories, I feel like this plot could practically write itself.
Not to mention, tri has probably made Kari more human than she’s ever been. I actually like her quite a bit in this series, and I really think they could potentially work wonders with her in this. Please tri writers, please don’t mess this up. You’ve managed to get me to like Kari up to this point. Please make her a character I can really like and really give her some good development and a chance to shine here. Don’t mess it up when we’ve come this far. There is so much good you can do here.
I know Meiko will probably get a fair amount of development in the next film too, but I honestly don’t know if it’ll be enough to make me like her. If they can at least make me more indifferent or neutral towards her in the way I felt about Kari originally, I would be satisfied with that. But please don’t mess this one up guys. There is so much good potential for this next film, I can just feel it, and I really want to enjoy it.
Still, that’s months away from now, and we don’t even have so much as a synopsis for “Symbiosis”. I guess from here on out it’s just several months of waiting, and I really hope we can get another good set of episodes like with “Confession”. I’m curious and really wanting to know what they’ll do next, and overall I’m still honestly really enjoying tri and enjoyed “Loss”, despite all of its flaws.
But uh, can we finally get to the 02 cast in the next film? Like at least get some answers about what happened to them? Please? Please?
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