#we apparently got months of off screen character development that we see basically NOTHING of

[haemosexuality]

mannn

[jadoue1999]

The X-Men and the member they lost - Chapter 3

Summary: What do you get when you mix Hayward and the Xmen? A pissed off Erik that's seriously trying to not murder the man!

Previous parts: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, 

Chapter 3: The Maximoff Anomaly

They had settled in fast. The older man that had intercepted them was called Hayward. He seemed very distraught at their arrival and made them go into an unused building. The director hadn’t listened to their protesting, he preferred having them out of the way. For what ever reason, Erik wasn’t sure. They soon realized that time worked differently in this universe. While they had already seen the episode and moved on, it had just ended as they arrived. Charles had told him with amusement that Hank would go crazy over the possibilities. Thankfully, the bunker contained televisions that monitored the town and the broadcast. Hayward had deemed necessary to make sure only people close to him knew of their arrival. They were all sitting around a table when he demanded their story. Charles spoke up. “We’re not from your Earth,” he started.

The director had looked at Kurt with a raised eyebrow, “I had that much figured.”

The professor continued, “two weeks back, one of our members went missing and the broadcast was all we could find. Our universe seems to be ahead of you with the episodes, but we are behind in years.”

“How so?” Questioned the woman sitting next to Erik.

“To us, it’s the eighties.” Charles waited a few moments, letting the people around some time to understand. “We come from a world where people are born with mutations, Kurt here can teleport.” The teenager looked at the professor, silently asking for permission to show his powers. Charles nodded and the blue mutant teleported from one side of the room to another. Hayward seemed shocked as the rest of the people gasped. Charles continued, “this is Raven, she can shapeshift.” Erik smirked as Mystique changed into a perfect copy of the director, making him jump out of his chair in surprise. She turned back into her human form and watched with amusement as Hayward slowly sat back down, eyeing her with caution. Probably seeing how unsettled the agents were, Charles decided to end this quickly. “I can personally read mind and Erik can control metal.”

Erik rolled his eyes as the military people looked at them with wide eyes. He wasn’t going to demonstrate his powers; he had done enough of that with Shaw. The team seemed to get the message that there would be no more demonstrations and moved on.

“So,” said the lady next to the director, “why are you here? Other than the broadcast.”

“Oh well, like I’ve mentioned before, we had a member of our team go missing.” The professor wheeled himself close to a screen and rewound the episode to when Peter appeared. “You see this young man? This is Peter, we had no clue where he went. We watched the broadcast in hopes for answers and we finally found him. Though in a tighter spot than we’d expected, but he does have a knack for trouble.”

Erik smirked at the joke; the speedster had always found himself in the strangest place at the wrong time. He was basically a magnet for trouble.

The director broke the silence. “So, this is not Pietro Maximoff?”

Erik shook his head, deciding to speak up at last, “no, he is not your Pietro, this is Peter Maximoff; my son.”

Hayward seemed surprised that someone other than Charles had spoken. “Is he like you all, enhanced?”

“Yes, he is a mutant,” answered Raven, clearly uncomfortable about the man’s tone. “He has superspeed.”

The director closed his eyes and sighed before turning to his colleague. “Bring the files concerning the Maximoff anomaly, they need to know.” The woman nodded and left the compound. He turned to the other members that hadn’t done much but gape at them and ordered them out. Apparently, he didn’t want people to witness what was about to happen. That left the man alone with the X-men. “Look, I get what you people can do, you barge in and act on an impulse; fix what you think is a threat and leave the rest of us to deal with the mess you leave behind. You might think you’re right, but this is my base.” Erik tensed up at the man’s words, this speech being all too familiar. “I don’t want you meddling in my stuff, Wanda Maximoff is a threat that needs to be dealt with no matter the price. You can go get your friend after.”

It was now official; he hated this man.

Though, before he could show him just how much he despised him, his colleague came back. She didn’t react to the lack of personnel, perhaps she had been expecting it. She was holding a significant number of files and what seemed to be a tv remote. Hayward thanked her and opened a file labeled ‘confidential’. It showed a picture of Wanda. Only she seemed younger, and her hair were a dark brown; there was also a man with bleached blonde hair at her side. They were in a crowd of people, their faces twisted in rage as they seemed to yell to something the picture didn’t show.

“This is Wanda Maximoff, back when she joined a Nazi base and accepted to be experimented on. This is how she got her powers.”

“Director, with all due respect, I believe your thoughts betray you,” interrupted Charles, to the man’s frustration. “I think it’s important to complete your statement and precise that she didn’t know what she was getting herself into.”

Erik secretly praised his friend and his telepathy; Hayward was obviously trying to antagonize the woman. It was obvious they now had to take his version of events with a grain of salt.

“Yes...” grunted the director, obviously upset about being caught in a lie. He pointed to the other man in the picture, “this is Pietro Maximoff, Wanda’s twin, the real one. He too had superspeed.”

He switched on a screen that was flatter than any television Erik had ever seen. It showed Wanda and Pietro in what appeared to be a lab. There was a sort of casket all plugged in with tubes. The pair seemed to be arguing with two older men. There was no audio, so their discussion didn’t make much sense. Suddenly, a blue blur raced through the lab, removing all the tubes in mere seconds. The blonde man stopped next to the casket looking thing and threw the last tube on the floor. It was strange, seeing another version of his son. Their powers were very similar yet very different. While Peter’s trail was silver, Pietro’s was blue, he also left some blue energy lingering in the air. It lasted a few seconds as he stopped before it disappeared. From the few dates in the documents and video, this Quicksilver seemed to have developed his powers only for a few months. It was probably why he seemed to be a little slower than his son. Hayward spoke again.

“The twins were working against the Avengers, those in charge of defending our planet. There was an army of robots threatening to destroy the world, they had sided with the robot in charge.” He glanced quickly at Charles. “They eventually changed sides, but Pietro didn’t survive.”

The footage changed to show a man and a child trying to take cover as a trail of bullets grew nearer. Suddenly, they were out of harm’s way and the speedster was in their place. His shirt was riddled with holes that quickly soaked with blood and he fell to the ground, dead. Fear seized Erik as he watched the man fall to the ground; momentarily seeing Peter in his place. Would a similar thing have happened had Mystique not disguised herself as one of the horsemen?

Hayward continued, showing footage of Wanda fighting in a group against other people, explaining how this event had led to the Sokovia accords, which was nothing more than a differently named mutant registration act. Except this one was actually approved. She had refused to sign and went into hiding, only to resurface when a titan had attacked the Earth. He apparently needed something called infinity stones, one of which was in Vision’s head. From the next chain of event Hayward told them, the titan had apparently succeeded in retrieving the stone. The real mystery was how the Vision was back to life; the director insisted that it was Wanda who resurrected him. She had been blipped, like half of the universe, and had came back grief stricken and ready to do anything to have a perfect family life. She had taken an entire town hostage and made them into her puppets. There was no telling what she might do to achieve her goal. Apparently kidnapping an alternate universe version of her brother wasn’t out of her reach. As Hayward continued telling them about Wanda’s life and what she had done, Erik had only one pressing thought: just how powerful was Wanda?

“How many people are in this town?” Wondered Charles.

“A little more than three thousand. They’re not all casted as roles, most are simply background characters.”

The wheelchair bound man nodded in comprehension. “Have you identified them all? Warned their families?”

He shook his head. “I believe it’s in everyone’s interest if we keep this low, we don’t want to alarm anyone. Especially when the world just came back.”

“You idiot,” raged Raven, “if they can’t reach their loved ones, they will ask questions. They will panic. Your logic is awfully flawed.”

“This is not your dimension, you don’t get to tell me what to do,” argued Hayward, clearly annoyed with them. “I will try to urge the identification process, but you people stay here. I don’t want more superpowered people and their associates getting in my way.”

With that, the man just left the place, followed by his colleague. Whether it was intentional or not, they left their documentation behind. Erik took one of the many files from the pile and opened it. This one described Vision’s origin and whereabouts until he had been destroyed in-

“Charles,” he said, not taking his eyes off the numbers. “This here says that the android died in 2018, five years ago.”

“We traveled 40 years in the future?” Said Kurt, understandably a little overwhelmed by the situation.

Raven put a comforting hand on the teleporter’s shoulder before looking at her friend. Her eyes showed how the situation affected her just as much as it did them. He didn’t blame her; Erik wasn’t sure if he truly grasped the gravity of the implications yet. For now, he preferred to focus on Wanda and her past; the more he knew about her, the better of a chance they’d have to retrieve his son safely and unharmed. The later wasn’t looking too hopeful. From his own experience with mind control and the co-worker’s reaction to being awoken, Peter would likely have a long and painful recovery once he would be back to himself. He just hoped that the differences between their timelines meant that he hadn’t been controlled since he had gone missing. Perhaps, by some luck, he would have arrived a little before he appeared on screen. He didn’t let himself think of what the speedster could have endured before being put under the woman’s spell. Especially if he had been her puppet for the entire two weeks he had disappeared.

“Erik,” interrupted Charles, “I can hear your concerns and I can assure you; your son is a fighter. His mutation is a natural telepath repellent, he’ll be just fine.”

The man smiled at his friend’s words, momentarily comforted. But then, a terrible thought creeped into his head. “Then tell me, old friend, if he is so immune; what horrible torture would he have to go under, so that his mental shield would be lowered enough for him to be vulnerable?”

The silence that followed his statement seemed to confirm that no one had even considered how Peter could be controlled in the first place. They had been too panicked at seeing the young man on the screen and then focused on getting to him to even think of the logic of his newly casted role.

“B-but he’ll be alright,” stammered Kurt, his tail anxiously twitching behind him, swinging, and curling unto itself. “He’s Peter, he always comes out alright.”

Charles smiles weakly at his student, “of course he will, Kurt,” he reassured him, “but we will have to give him time to heal and let him do the first steps when he’ll be ready.”

Erik shared a worried look with Raven, the professor seemed hopeful that the speedster would turn out fine, but he didn’t seem to realize how ahead he was thinking. They were on a military base that had studied for nine days this seemingly all powerful being that didn’t let you in without her consent and a rewrite of your life. And they hadn’t gotten far. From what they had learned, Peter would not be free of Wanda’s control unless she herself brought down the dome. But how could a grief-stricken mutant with powers never seen before just give up what she perceived as the perfect life she deserved?

...

They had stayed up late, learning about Wanda’s past and being horrified at what she had to go through. Erik wasn’t sure how he felt about the woman. She had gone through awful events, a struggle similar to his own. He did feel pity towards her, but he couldn’t look past the fact that she had his son playing her twisted game. The group had eventually settled down for the night, sleeping as good as they could without beds or blankets. They were suddenly awoken by some agitation on the base. Charles stared off into the distance before turning to his team, “Hayward has kicked off people from the base that were being disrespectful to him, now he’s coming our way.”

Indeed, barely fifteen seconds after he had spoken, the director opened the door. He seemed annoyed. “I’m just here to tell you that a new episode should air in the next twenty minutes.”

The blue teen looked at the man, “what happened outside just now?”

His question apparently wasn’t a welcome one since Hayward clenched his jaw in frustration. He answered nonetheless, “I got rid of nuisances. Nothing that concerns you or your team.”

That shut the boy up, but Raven stepped in front of him protectively. “You don’t get to talk to him like that, or to any of us.”

The director narrowed his eyes at her. “You should be thankful,” he snarked, “I could have you all arrested and locked up for the rest of your days, along with your little friend. Yet I haven’t even told anyone about your presence. I’ve been more than benevolent. So, I suggest you watch your mouth.”

Rage built up in Erik, he had heard these words so many times from government figures that disguised their hatred by saying what they could have done but didn’t. The metal bender was well aware that men like him wouldn’t hesitate to sell them out for a raise. What he didn’t appreciate was the way he threatened to imprison Peter as soon as they would get him free from Wanda’s control. Erik felt the metal in the man’s outfit and forced him closer, bringing him at his level. A sliver of fear was seen for a split second in Hayward’s eyes and a feeling of satisfaction crept into his chest. That man was a coward. “You listen to me,” he growled, “we can take out this base in seconds if we feel like it. I’ve seen your kind before, you crush others to rise in rank, but deep down you’re scared. You’re terrified because you’re aware that you are nothing. And if you drop your facade even for a second, they will see you for what you truly are. So, you take out the competition before it even has a chance to realize its potential. But guess what? You’ve met your match because I see you for what you truly are.” He paused as he stared into the man’s eyes. It was a competition of stares that lasted for a few seconds. Erik’s unwavering gaze pierced through the man’s pitiful attempt at intimidation without much effort. Finally, he let his grip go and kept his ground as Hayward took a few steps back. “Here’s a deal, little man, stay out of our way and we’ll stay out of yours.”

The director glared at him and then switched to the other people in the room, probably wondering if the threats he had said had a chance of becoming reality. Whatever he concluded, Erik didn’t know, but the man left the room fuming. The room was silent for a few seconds before Charles wheeled himself closer. He was about to speak but the metal bender beat him to it. “Don’t try to reason with me, old friend, that man had it coming. I only spoke the truth.”

The bald man shook his head. “Yes, you are right, and I don’t blame you for this, but perhaps threatening the director of the base we’re staying in wasn’t the greatest idea?”

Before he could argue, Raven intervened, “I think you did good. It’s been a while since I had seen one of your Magneto speeches; that Stryker knock off deserved it.”

He snorted at her comparison; Hayward was very similar to their own impersonation of the anti-mutant feeling back home. Kurt seemed a little unsettled by Erik’s speech. But he didn’t have time to make sure the teen was alright. Suddenly, the television in their little bunker flickered on; a new episode was starting. They all scrambled to sit down as the screen showed one of the twins running around with a camera in his hands. The upbeat intro song was echoing through the room.

‘Wanda!

WandaVision!

Don’t try to fight the chaos

Don’t question what you’ve done

The game can try to play us

Don’t let it stop the fun’

He opened the bathroom door, showing Wanda brushing her teeth; she also had rollers in her hair. She closed the door with her magic and Tommy ran downstairs to Vision who was reading the newspaper.

‘Some days, it’s all confusion

Easy come and easy go’

Erik watched the screen anxiously as the family members were shown, what would she make her son do?

‘But if it’s all illusion

Sit back, enjoy the show!’

The twin went in the kitchen, their neighbor was looking in the fridge. After a distasteful close up of the woman’s behind, Tommy was now headed for outside.

‘Let’s keep it going

Through each distorted day

Let’s keep it going

Though there may be no way of knowing

Who’s coming by to play’

A blur came out from the house and Erik’s stomach twisted as his son appeared on screen. He was wearing a grey and black shirt and jeans shorts. He briefly stopped in front of the camera and pulled his tongue out like some sort of rock star. He ran out of the shot and came back holding the long-haired twin under one arm. The screen froze to simulate a family picture being taken. The logo ‘WandaVision’ in red and yellow hues.

“Pietro Maximoff as himself?” remarked Raven unimpressed. “Really?”

Erik didn’t react to her voice; he was all too focused on his son. While he didn’t seem that different than usual, he couldn’t help but notice his hair. His usual silver mess of hair were now a bleached blonde. He stared at the screen in disbelief.

This woman had taken away one of Peter’s most unique traits, a part of his personality, to fit her narrative.

He continued looking at the screen with a mix of rage and anxiety. If she had changed him so easily to fulfill her illusion; there was no telling what else she could do if she found out he wasn’t truly her brother.

***

Notes: Next chapter: the halloween special! (and something else)

[galladerocksgamer]

Okay so I love the Paranormal Liberation War arc, it does so much fantastic stuff, dang near perfect across the board. But I think it’s pretty widely felt that the pacing got a bit off the rails near the end, we had big reveals and character moments stacking up and half of them barely even felt relevant. And me being the person who just thinks about things in depth and for long periods, I’ve still been dwelling on it for months. And now as the manga has continued, I’m finally seeing how some of the aforementioned War moments could have been better executed in different situations, because honestly this latest arc seems like it would have been tailor-made to address them all. So lemme take a closer look at three different components here: Mirio/Eri, Bakugo, and Hawks.

1. Mirio and Eri

Probably the most random moment from the war’s climax, don’t think anyone was predicting the sudden return of Mirio to battle. I love Mirio, he’s one of my favorite characters, but it was a pretty anticlimactic way to bring him back into the fold. He doesn’t even really bring anything special to the battle, nothing uniquely Mirio. His role is just backing up Best Jeanist against the Nomu, and anyone could have done that. Burnin could’ve arrived sooner, or Manual and Rock Lock could’ve come back after getting the injured heroes to safety. Heck, if you still wanted the Nighteye agency to be involved, then Bubble Girl and Centipeder could’ve been the cavalry to help Jeanist. But instead Mirio returns unexpectedly and none too remarkably.

And on top of that, we’re basically just told “oh by the way Eri has some control of her power now.” Something that the series had been building up toward for awhile just … occurs off-screen with no forewarning. Really feels like a disservice to Eri and her development to not give that intense moment any real spotlight.

It felt extremely weird for me at the time, but I also kinda wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the coming arcs just couldn’t afford to place focus on Eri and Mirio, so their respective developments were tied together to lend an extra surprise to the war’s final bout. But instead this most recent arc has gone the opposite route … through the return of Chisaki.

The man once known as Overhaul, now thoroughly broken and wanting nothing more than to fix his one great regret. With Nagant’s defeat, he winds up back in custody, but having now once again met with Midoriya and made his wish known. So indeed, the opportunity arises for Eri and Mirio to be brought back to the forefront. I don’t doubt that we will indeed have at least a brief glimpse at Eri healing Chisaki’s boss as Midoriya promised, but the potential for that scene could really have been through the roof if it was the impetus for Eri to willingly use her power on a person for the first time.

Imagine Midoriya coming to Eri with that heavy request, of Eri deciding to offer this kindness toward Chisaki of all people, using her power to heal before the man who always told her that she could only destroy. Because really, I don’t think there’d be a question of that, we know the kind of kid Eri is, and she won’t let anyone suffer if there’s any way she could prevent it. Even if Chisaki was the person asking, there might be hesitation and fear, but is there any doubt she’d offer what aid she could in the end? And for Pops to be the first person she helps, to undo the harm carelessly inflicted by Chisaki … well, it’d certainly be poetic.

As for Mirio in this scenario, that could go a couple ways. Route 1: Eri is hesitant to help Chisaki with Pops because she would rather help Mirio get his Quirk back, and we know that her power seems to have a bit of a limit on it via the energy stored in her horn. So what if it did work, but she ran out of juice healing Pops and then made Mirio wait even longer? Well, of course that’s exactly what he’d insist on, he wouldn’t let himself take priority over another person in need of Eri’s help. And he’d take it all in good spirits as always. Or Route 2, if there was concern that Eri’s power could run wild while trying to help Pops, then they could go the complete opposite direction and have Mirio offer to go first, to be the guinea pig for Eri in case of emergency. But of course, he’d have full faith in her all along and coax her through, ensuring her of just how helpful and brave she always is.

So yes, can see how Eri and Mirio’s development could have taken a more satisfying route, and cap us off with some good ole Chisaki angst to boot (though at least we’ve still got a decent serving of that). Now moving on …

2. Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight

So Bakugo’s long and arduous journey of personal growth reached a new peak during the battle with Shigaraki, where his body moved without thinking and he underwent his true heroic awakening to protect Midoriya. Such a sacrifice seems like a perfect cap for his development for the War arc … and then a couple chapters later he forces himself right back into action to back up Best Jeanist, and as promised he reveals his over-the-top hero name to his mentor. In this case I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the reveal, but in light of his preceding big heroic action, it really feels like a hat on a hat.

It’s not like Bakugo’s hero name heralded some major turning point for the battle; Jeanist’s arrival (and subsequently Mirio’s) had already assured that. And like Mirio, there wasn’t any real special reason for Bakugo to rejoin the fight with the Nomu, especially with Iida and Hado on the scene. After getting skewered by Shigaraki, it would have been pretty simple for Bakugo to just spend the rest of the fight bleeding unconscious on the ground, rather than complicating matters by shoving him back into the fray. And ultimately, the moment feels a bit anticlimactic. All the suspense waiting for Bakugo’s hero name, and then it’s revealed at a time where he barely even has the spotlight.

Of course, such a bombastic name as “Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight” doesn’t particularly lend itself to a quiet or emotional scene, so it wouldn’t be thematically fitting to move that revelation to Bakugo’s hospital bed or his somber apology to Midoriya. That said, given his decision to announce the name first to Jeanist, there would at least be precedent for him to have a “Dabi says secrets in a black speech bubble” moment in the hospital in which he talks to Jeanist but leaves the readers in the dark, before coming back to the actual audience reveal later on.

And there must certainly be other opportunities to present the name appropriately. Bakugo is a master of making an explosive entrance, after all. And when Class 1-A finally catches up to Midoriya, if Bakugo really wanted to make a big impact on his friend/rival before getting into the sentimental stuff, then it would be a prime chance to reveal his hero name in grandiose fashion, both to Midoriya and the audience.

Or if his hero name had been Kacchan, then that reveal would have fit right in with his apology to Midoriya, but that’s neither here nor there

This could be one scenario, of course, but it hardly feels like that would’ve been the only option. And compared to the crammed-in reveal in the final fight with the League, it’s easy to say that there could have been plenty of smoother roads to take.  But setting that aside, moving onto the final touch:

3. Hawks

The long-awaited Hawks backstory doesn’t really disappoint. Admittedly, there weren’t really a lot of holes necessary to fill in there; we’d had enough bits and pieces provided before this point to pretty much put together the whole picture of his crummy childhood. But even without any really surprising turns, the flashback is welcome and hits some good emotional beats. But really, the glaring issue in this area is the timing.

We’re presented this backstory at an instance where Hawks is hardly the most relevant character. Shigaraki is undergoing a personal crisis as All For One seizes the reigns of his own body, Endeavor’s dark history has been exposed and the Todoroki family is in turmoil, escapees from Tartarus roam the streets, and Midoriya consults internally with the vestiges of One For All ... and the narrative decides to take a chapter to look at Hawks. Practically nothing from his flashback directly relates to present events, serving only to further emphasize his already well-established devotion to Endeavor and his (misguided) understanding of Twice’s feelings. The timing is just kind of baffling, especially with some other more appropriate places being readily apparent.

For instance, only a dozen chapters later, we’re properly introduced to Lady Nagant. As Hawks’s predecessor within the Hero Commission, the two have a lot in common, and the similarities and differences between the two could set up some interesting comparisons if Hawks’s backstory was saved to follow up Nagant’s. Two idealistic young children, handpicked by the Commission and groomed into assassins, yet whose outlooks in the present day are starkly opposed? Nagant's guilt driving her to turn on the Commission, while Hawks holds few regrets despite the blood on his hands, longing for freedom from the Commission’s grasp? That kind of parallel could really have built a more solid foundation for Hawks’s past to be laid upon.

That could be an effective setup, but there’s another approach I’d actually much rather have seen, one that brings Hawks’s backstory not later, but earlier: during the dramatic confrontation between Hawks and Dabi. The instant that Dabi reveals he knows Hawks’s real name, the story opens itself up perfectly to dive into his past. And the timing would be superb, showing Hawks at his worst as he murders Twice, then turning back the clock to look at the innocent child who just wants to save people. A little boy whose feathers tingle with the need to rescue those in need, superimposed against the man whose same feathers are used to deliver the killing blow to a victim of hero society’s ills. You want angst? Now that’s how you do angst. Placing the backstory there would play up the tragedy of both Hawks and Twice simultaneously: a “hero” raised by the Commission to cut threats to their control short at the root, and a “villain” who could have been a kindred spirit but instead suffers for their would-be friendship.

And that’s not even the icing on the cake. The real matter of interest here comes in Hawks’s view of Endeavor. By the time we get to Hawks’s backstory, all of Japan has already learned of Endeavor’s history from Dabi, and the result of the timing feels a smidge tone-deaf, and fails to realize the full potential resonance of the situation. The flashback to young Hawks as a victim of child abuse, who is rescued (unwittingly) when Endeavor arrests his father, is presented to us as the moment when Hawks realized that heroes are real, not merely a fantasy. We see why he developed such an ideal view of heroes, and why he is so specifically loyal to Endeavor ... so just imagine if all that was presented during his showdown with Dabi. Imagine if all that came before the tragic revelation of Toya Todoroki. The true terrible irony, that Hawks was rescued from his abusive father by someone secretly guilty of the same crimes, that Hawks’s whole epiphany of “real heroism” was founded upon one of the most corrupt enforcers of all.

The end result would be the same, I’m sure. After all, this is certainly the same thought process Hawks was going through all along, and his decision to maintain his faith in Endeavor’s personal growth would presumably remain unchanged. But presenting Hawks’s backstory before Dabi’s would have opened up a lot more room for us as the audience to actually see Hawks’s views be challenged. If there’s one real complaint I’ve got about Hawks’s character, it’s that we don’t really tend to see him questioning himself or his actions; whatever happens, he rolls with it and presses on, no matter how his ideals are brought into question. But this simple matter of timing could go a long ways to remedying that, granting the audience the chance to watch Hawks grapple with his personal image of and approach to heroism, and his relationship with Endeavor, rather than allowing most of that to pass unseen in the wake of the war’s end. Even if he would ultimately come to the same conclusion, at least such a narrative structure would provide a much more satisfying presentation of his struggle up to that point.

So, I’m not great at endings, but that brings us to the conclusion of my rambling though process here. To recap, the more I’ve thought about it, the more obvious it is that the backloaded War arc could be remedied, and the following arc only made that more obvious. Why force Mirio’s return so soon when he could be tied in later with Eri mastering her powers and the desperate pleas of Chisaki? Why shove in Bakugo’s hero name when the boy has already made a tremendous impact on the arc, and will be more open to further focus during the conflict with Deku in the next? And why throw in Hawks’s backstory as a standalone chapter at a time when it’s largely irrelevant, when there was such great potential to emotionally contrast him with the backstory of Nagant or Dabi? These are the kinds of things I think about. Little things, really, and honestly the whole reason they stand out to me is just that the rest of the arc around them is so dang fantastic. So … yes. This is the testament to my love for this manga, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk, byeeeeee

[blackbatpurplecat]

Catwoman 80th Anniversary

In 1940, one of the now most popular comic book heroes of all time got his very first solo run. It would become a milestone in comic book history. But he wasn’t the only one who had a chance to shine. In that premiere issue, even TWO of his most famous antagonists would be introduced: The man who laughs and the woman who steals.

That woman was intended to become the love of the hero’s life. The good guy and the naughty girl, the appeal was palpable. However, she wasn’t just a love interest or a generic thief or only another villain in the ever growing gallery of rogues the hero would face over decades to come, no - she was quite the character.

Her first alias was “The Cat” which would ultimately become Catwoman. Selina Kyle, the best thief in the world, a literal cat burglar, a classy seductress and queen of sass. And fans loved her so much that over time, she grew to become just as famous as the hero.

Her story has had its ups and downs. Mostly ups. ;) Going from the pages of the comics to the little and the big screen in the 60s, then she disappeared for a while, then made a comeback. She married the hero and had a child, though that marriage was later rebooted and was followed by a depressing origin story a sexist author made up for her in the 80s.

The 90s then turned out to be her decade! She found herself on the TV screen again, animated this time. She was portrayed by a Golden Globe winner on the big screen again. And she finally got her very own solo run in comics.

Her solo title was successful enough to run for over 20 years, a time in which her development from antagonist to anti-heroine would pan out. She would be a member of several teams, dance on both sides of the law, and even have another child. The screen called her back in form of a movie and a tv show. In one she was a thief with a love for killing, in the other a teenager. And we already know that her movie career will soon continue with two more projects.

In 2016, DC rebooted their entire universe. Catwoman’s origin story was changed, her relationships were lost, her solo run got canceled. No one knew what was real anymore - and fans didn’t like it. Only a year later, a retcon followed in a pathetic attempt to restore a status quo fans were familiar with and approved of. Even her solo run came back and today, in June 2020, we celebrate her 80th anniversary!

Catwoman is my favorite DC character ever. She’s clever, she’s funny, she’s stubborn, she’s classy, she’s confident, she plays by her own rules. When written right, she is such an entertaining character, unpredictable and fun.

In 80 years, there have been countless appearances, so many incarnations and interpretations of her - sure, I didn’t like all of them but you can say there’s something for each one of us. You don’t like her in the 2010s? Check out the 90s. You don’t like her in the 40s? Check out the 80s. There’s a version of Catwoman for many different tastes. She never goes out of fashion.

So to celebrate one of DC’s most famous women, they published a collection of 10 stories in total, written and drawn by people who have had touched her character over the past years.

Did Catwoman 80th Anniversary - Celebrating Eight Decades of Beauty and Burglary do her justice?

Warning: Spoilers!

Let’s check out each story and see what the writers came up with for this very special occasion. Except for one, none of these are meant to be canon, it’s just a collection of shorts meant to emphasise why Catwoman is so good. Something I noticed was that each writer had not picked any Catwoman to write but “their” Catwoman. A nice detail. Consistency, why not? Write what you feel comfortable and familiar with. This can only help with the quality of the stories, right? ... Right? ...

Strap in folks, this is going to be a LOOOOONG post!

Story #1: Skin the Cat by Paul Dini

Selina’s just living her normal life with her cats, occasionally stealing some money and jewels. Hey, a girl’s gotta eat. ;) What catches her attention are news reports about stolen big cats. I’m a cat lover myself and this series of crimes would worry me just as much as it worries Selina. She deduces where in Gotham someone could hide those wild cats, breaks in, and is welcomed by an eerie voice - as well as the taxidermied cats. Fucking bastard... The villain Taxidermist, quelle surprise, is behind the cat murders. He now intends to gas Selina and add her to his cat collection but Selina reveals that she’d already turned off the gas before breaking in. She escapes his long knives and watches as three big cats she had brought with her attack and kill him.

What an intro! A story about Selina’s love for cats and her strategic thinking. I really liked the first half! But once the Taxidermist shows up, it loses itself in drawn out exposition. Selina goes on a long monologue to explain to the reader who the Taxidermist is, how she knew it was him, how she turned off the gas, and how she replaced three of the dead cats with alive ones. I would have preferred to actually SEE her preparations for the face-off in flashback panels instead of having to read it. It didn’t feel natural at all. Also how the fuck did she bring 3 wild cats and switch them for the stuffed ones?! How?! And when?! I’m also quite sad that she didn’t get to save the cats. That was a bummer. So all she basically did was bring 3 big cats to kill a killer.

The art’s gorgeous, nothing else to say here!

6/10

Story #2: Now You See Me by Ann Nocenti

Ann Nocenti’s name immediately made me go uh-oh... Her bad and convoluted writing style made readers drop the Catwoman books which eventually lead to the solo run’s cancelation so you can understand why I was concerned.

So Catwoman is hiding a little pouch in a pigeon loft on a roof while pondering who to sell her stolen goods to - as well as where to vacation afterwards. She then notices a surveillance camera. The scene cuts to two cops on surveillance duty. They’re both bored as hell so when one spots Selina, he quickly distracts his colleague and leaves to find her. He takes the pouch out of the pigeon loft and a fight between him and Catwoman ensues. He reveals that he wants to become her partner. He wants to feed her any intel he can see on his screens so she could steal and sells some goods, and they’d split the money. When Selina refuses, he tries to blackmail her into complying. Selina presses a button on a little device and whatever’s in the pouch the cop sacked, explodes, sending him over the edge. Luckily, he lands on an umbrella Penguin had sent off apparently because we see him in one panel, angered that his plan was foiled. I’m not entirely sure what his “brilliant plan” was supposed to be. Something with gas tanks that were strapped to the umbrella I assume? I have no idea.

This one is missing too much context for my taste. What was in the pouch? Did the explosion kill the guy? What was Penguin doing there? What was his plan? Why did we need the second cop? For a super obvious but unnecessary parallel between Catwoman vs. corrupt cop and random woman vs. random man on one of the surveillance screens? Why give Catwoman so little “screen time” and so little dialogue? Is this short story referencing anything from Nocenti’s awful run and I just forgot? To quote Val Kilmer Batman: “It just raises too many questions.”

The art’s okay, nothing too special.

3/10

Story #3: Helena by Tom King

Oh boy. This is the big one. The one everyone’s been waiting for, I guess. The man who not so long ago had promised us a BatCat wedding just to shove a huge middle finger in our faces, promised us a pregnant Selina this time. I was skeptical of course. Also other readers were convinced he’d just let Selina have a miscarriage. Well, the good news is it wasn’t a miscarriage. The bad news is he almost makes Selina seem like she would have preferred a miscarriage.

The story goes like this: Selina hasn’t been feeling well so instead of going to a doctor like a normal person, Bruce scans her head and checks her vitals and blood (I can only assume because we’re not shown). Selina’s convinced that she’s seriously ill but a gentle, hopeful smile on Bruce’s face reveals the actual truth: She is pregnant. And her first reaction is shock and denial. We cut to BatCat fighting Tweedledum and Tweedledee (I think, you can’t really see them but the two men they knock out look identical). Selina then bends over and says that she’s about to throw up. Followed by a Batbucket joke. I’m getting so tired of all the forced self-awareness, guys. We cut to Catwoman, now sporting a baby bump underneath the skin-tight leather, sitting on a roof. She prepares a glass of wine while telling the baby that it is just like Bruce and it’s such a dick for taking away her freedom. After one sip, she chucks the glass away and curses. We’re then treated to a montage of BatCat fighting several rogues while Selina’s belly grows with each panel until it’s an 8, maybe 9 months along belly. I... I have no words. Except for yes, this was written by a man. BatCat are then standing on a roof and Selina laments that she’s a thief, not a mother, and the baby will derail her life and plans. The scene switches to Bruce and Selina in bed, arguing because she’s in labor. Bruce is ready to roll while Selina is STILL in denial, crying that she’s not a mother, that she’s not a hero or a good and brave person like him. Bruce tells her she didn’t run off so that means she’s a good person and they agree that it’s time to have the baby. Another cut to Selina having to take care of a crying baby Helena, asking why she’s crying when it’s Selina’s turn to stay at home and not Bruce’s. Selina talks to Helena, saying she’s luckier than Selina was because Selina’s mom ran off. She fucking FINALLY says something nice about her own child (”You’re a cute little kitten.”) and wonders what they’re going to do with her. The last page is old Selina and grownup Helena after Bruce’s death. Selina’s complaining about the pretty cemetery while Helena likes it. Her daughter’s ability to not shit on just everything and not be a total killjoy all the time causes Selina to say again that Helena is like Bruce. Upon Helena’s question if she’s anything like her mother, Selina answers that she’s just as stubborn as her. If she wants something, she steals it. Helena asks what she ever stole and Selina delivers the last predictable cliche of the story: “You stole my heart.”

Ugh. King’s Selina is just such a boring read. She’s not charming or interesting or sympathetic. Maybe I’m too used to a fun Selina but this one’s just a drag. A heavily pregnant Catwoman fighting Joker, yeah sure, totally not absolute bullshit. And the way Selina keeps distancing herself from the child inside her? For over 9 months?! Is she going out in that ridiculous catsuit because she wants to cause a miscarriage, is that it? So she doesn’t have to make a decision like abortion, adoption or leaving the baby with Bruce? Her constant cussing over the situation and crying and whining turns the pregnancy of my favorite DC couple into such a depressing ordeal.

The art is very pretty! Thank God.

4/10

Story #4: The Catwoman of Earth by Jeff Parker

After the depressing pregnancy of Catwoman, we switch to the wacky 60s version of her. Catwoman and her henchmen are robbing a science fair when suddenly, a UFO arrives. WTF?! Four aliens and a robot are beamed down to the surface and the group’s leader, an arrogant jock-like guy proclaims that they will take over the planet and enslave humanity. Catwoman angrily stands up to him. Turns out the evil aliens are sexist too when the male one tells Catwoman females have to ask for permission to speak and the female alien in the group unhappily agrees. The jock alien tells the muscly male alien to dispose of Catwoman but she’s not easy to dispose of! She fights off the brawler, she cuts the tentacles off the tentacle alien (someone WILL jerk off to that one panel), dodges the jock’s laser gun, steals the laser gun with her whip, shoots the robot to bits, and lets the police take the males away. The female alien seems much happier now and invites Catwoman to a flight around the world in the UFO. Catwoman suggests a trip to Paris so she can loot the Louvre.

Aliens and Catwoman don’t mix. I didn’t really care for this story. I mean it’s great to see Catwoman in action and taking down four guys on her own but... aliens and Catwoman just don’t mix. It was a bit jarring to me. Also the aliens’ designs weren’t super interesting. They were basically pink elves.

The art is beautiful. Catwoman looks like Julie Newmar and the entire color scheme is very 60s.

4/10

Story #5: A Cat of Nine Tales by Liam Sharp

Catwoman’s caught stealing a diamond necklace by an armed security guard. He seems a bit scared of her but knows it’s his job to stop her. She’s not engaging in a fight - of course not, he has a gun pointed at her! So instead, Catwoman relies on her talking skills. And intimidation skills. She tells the guard that there are 9 ways their situation could play out: 1. The guard lets her tie him up and escape with the necklace. 2. She beats his ass. 3. He kills her. 4. She scratches his eyes out. 5. He slips and gets knocked out. 6. He fires his gun, misses her, and the bullet ricochets until it kills him.  7. They team up. 8. She gives up. 9. She kills him. However, the story ends with the guard fainting because Catwoman’s just so damn scary.

Very short, very simple. Even the art is simple, on one page there are 3 very similar panels with only minor changes. Nothing memorable but not too bad. It shows how Catwoman can take someone out even without touching them. It’s okay.

The art reminds me of a comic from the 80s or maybe 90s. Hard to describe why. Guess you have to see it. Again, it’s okay.

5/10

Story #6: Little Bird by Mindy Newell

Selina learns from a news report that a priceless mezuzah has been found at a flea market. It’s currently at the Jewish Museum of Gotham City and Selina immediately steals it. Later, Batman shows up at her place and asks why she wants the mezuzah. She doesn’t give him much of an answer so he leaves. Pretty pointless scene I would say. A flashback reveals that a young Selina used to live with a Jewish lady. I dunno, I guess she’s a foster mother? And the woman liked Selina so much and considered her family so she gave her that mezuzah to pass it on to her own kids one day (even though Selina doesn’t want kids, is not related to the lady, and isn’t Jewish). Back to the present, Selina’s punishing a client. That prostitute background made an unwanted comeback for this story because Selina’s resisting and denying herself love so she’s “whoring”, to prove to herself how despicable she is. Okay...? There’s an inner turmoil going on, she’s torn between selling the artefact or not. Eventually, she decides to bring the mezuzah back to the lady she used to live with. The lady’s grown old and demented, lives in a home and is at the verge of dying. Selina places an envelop between the lady’s hands and leaves. The home’s director finds the envelop which contains the mezuzah, an official document which basically ensures that the lady will be taken care of before and after her death, and a poetic note from Selina.

My least favorite story out of them all - and that is quite an accomplishment when there are King and Nocenti in the same book! It had that Frank “I’m an insane sexist racist asshole” Miller prostitute bullshit in it and Selina hating herself again. This time, the “whoring” (and this word is not me, it’s from the actual story) is used as a way of self-punishment. Because it’s disgusting and wrong and Selina only does it to torture herself. Dunno if that’s the right message you wanna send here... The Jewish lady was kinda random to me because Selina’s not Jewish and never has been Jewish. This is not a negative point, it’s just so random. And the Batman scene was pointless, I have no idea what purpose it served. Except for showing us Batman pay Selina like a john and having Selina make jokes about “whoring.” Ugh.

The art was great, very clean.

1/10

Story #7: Born to Kiln by Chuck Dixon

Going from my least favorite to my favorite story in this book!

Catwoman knows there’s a diamond in a safe on a boat that is set to leave the harbour in the morning. So she climbs aboard at night to steal the gem. She finds several dead sailors and they’re all covered in mud. Who could have done this? Yes, you guessed right - it’s Clayface! He’s already at the safe, opens it, and retrieves the big stone. Catwoman reveals herself and aims a fire hose at him. Her confidence, however, dies the moment the hose doesn’t work. Clayface swallows the diamond and starts chasing after her. There’s apparently a machine to spray-paint cars on the boat so she lures him inside, activates the paint to blind him, and the hot lamps for the drying process immobilise the big pile of mud. Now that he’s nothing more than hard clay, Catwoman takes a wrench to him and takes the freed diamond.

FINALLY a story I really, really like from beginning to end! First off, IT’S PURPLE CATWOMAN!!! Selina is wearing my favorite costume, the iconic Jim Balent suit from her 90s solo run in this story - and I LOVE IT!!! Yeah, her boobs are quite loose in it and sometimes dangle in strange ways but fuck it! LOL I prefer hanging boobs over a tight corset that should reduce her agility or a back breaking pose anytime! We get sneaky Selina, we get playful Selina, we get over confident Selina who has to think fast and run even faster, and she gets what she wants in the end without killing anyone.

The art is gorgeous! It’s very fluid and alive. I also absolutely adore the cute facial expressions on Kitten’s face, especially when she locks Clayface in. I miss Catwoman being fun. In this, she’s just adorable and not sexualised at all.

8/10

Story #8: Conventional Wisdom by Will Pfeifer

Selina finds herself at a Bat Con and is supposed to give autographs. The whole scenario seems weird and confusing to her, she doesn’t remember how she got there or what is going on. Bruce, Joker, Riddler, and Two-Face being there with her to give autographs is even weirder. And why does no one except for her react to that unconscious, bloody man on the floor?! On her way to her panel, she runs into several cosplayers which is basically only fan service. But you will find the male, dark-skinned version of me at her panel, asking when the fuck she will finally put that 90s suit back on!!! The dialogues keep breaking the fourth wall, pointing out that this story is about to end. One of the panel’s attendees looks like Marvel’s Taskmaster and another is Selina herself in her Catwoman suit. Selina slowly remembers what happened: The Taskmaster dude is Doctor Destiny, she broke into his lair and stole his reality distorter, a little machine she’s been carrying around for the entire story. She smashes the machine to wake up back in the lair and cracks her knuckles, ready to take down Doctor Destiny and his goons.

And it was all a dream! That twist has never been a favorite of mine. Even though it’s not really a twist; you know immediately that it’s a dream. We don’t learn anything new about Selina or see anything Catwoman-y in this. It’s really basically fan service. They wanted Selina to see and interact with real life fans of hers so they made it happen. She also comments on various versions of her costume. It’s cute but kinda forgettable.

The art is good, it’s rare to see light and bright colors in a Catwoman book so it was a nice change. And the cosplayers looked nice. But they could have used different body types to make the fans more diverse and visually appealing.

3/10

Story #9: Addicted to Trouble by Ram V

And here we are, the premiere of the duo that will take over Catwoman’s current solo run from #23 onward. We get a first taste of the writing and art and I must say it’s a good taste.

This short story serves as a continuation of Joelle Jones’ #21 issue where at the end of the arc, Selina and her sister Maggie left Gotham in a purple car. So we see a short recap of how they got the car and where they were headed but unfortunately, the engine dies. They hitchhike to Memphis. Selina’s frustrated that Maggie doesn’t talk to her. They get drunk and start a fight at a bar. The cops show up and arrest them. While sitting in the back of the cop car, the girls start laughing together and steal the car. They leave behind their luggage which only contains stuff they won’t miss - including Selina’s cat funeral dress. They drive back to Gotham, Selina steals food and drinks on the way, and they cuddle on a rooftop overlooking the city. The story cuts to Selina and Leandro, a character I would know if I had continued the Jones run. She tells him she wants to lay low for a while and stay out of trouble. When he asks “Oh? Really?”, Selina throws a naughty smile towards the reader. Yeah yeah, lay low my ass. :D

First off, I have no idea what happened before the road trip, I don’t know why they took it or why Maggie doesn’t talk or what the purpose of all of this was because all they do is get drunk, fight an entire bar, and go back. No idea what that accomplished. And I feel sorry for the car because it was so gorgeous. Anyway, I am happy to say that Ram V has a great writing style! He gave a good voice to Selina, it sounded very natural and like a human would talk, no forced exposition or fake deepness.

The art was good, there were a few expressive faces and the bar fight was well executed.

5/10 (because I don’t know the context)

Story #10: The Art of Picking A Lock by Ed Brubaker

Instead of ending with a transition to the next Catwoman issue (which I would have preferred), the collection offers one more story and it’s written by the man who successfully handled the second half of Selina’s first solo run. He turned her stories more into the film noir direction and gave her sidekicks. The run also gave her a fugly suit and made her have sex with old men and Brubaker wanted to kill her off and have her not know who the father to her unborn child was so... yeah, I’m torn about that guy.

The last story shows us Catwoman breaking into a warehouse full of Joker goons while thinking about the thrill of breaking locks and how she learned how to do it when she was at a juvenile detention center. She beats them all up and demands to know where “he” is. Later, her friend Holly is on a motorcycle chasing after a cab while Catwoman is riding on top of a subway. Both reach Gotham’s harbor. We see that the cab is filled with Joker gas and the driver is laughing maniacally. Holly can’t reach the cab in time and it drives off into the water. Catwoman swings down and jumps after it. She breaks the trunk open and reveals a handcuffed Slam Bradley. Cut to the three back on dry land. Holly chides him for going after Joker alone and not waiting for backup. He admits that it was dumb, then shares intel on where Joker will strike and Selina should tell “her friend.” She says she will and Slam ends the book with the words that he could really use a cigarette. NO, this book was not that good that it would warrant a cigarette at the end!

This short obviously takes place during the second half of the first solo run. We see Catwoman in action, that’s cool. Taking down almost a dozen of armed Joker henchmen, that’s pretty badass! And a woman saves the man damsel in distress at the end, that’s a nice ending as well. However, I don’t care about the costume so the visual appeal wasn’t there and I really don’t care about Slam Bradley so the reveal at the end was pretty ugh to me.

The art is great! It’s like a modernised/smoother version of Darwyn Cooke’s style, the artist Brubaker worked on the Catwoman title in the 00s with. So that gives it a pretty nostalgic feel. 

5/10

In addition to the 10 stories we’ve now covered, there are pages to show off the Catwoman costumes of each decade as well as pinups. The costume pages are designed in the decade’s style (the 40s are black and white, the 60s psychedelic etc). But what I don’t get about the 90s one: It’s purple Catwoman grayed out in the background and gray BTAS Catwoman in color in the foreground - why make the purple outfit gray when you have an already gray outfit?! Just switch them! Also who put together the 70s one, couldn’t they find better costume examples?!

The seven pinups are pretty, unfortunately the majority feature the black outfits. I was surprised that even Tim Sale drew the black costume and not the purple one from his Long Halloween series. We get one of the gray BTAS costume and Jim Balent thankfully gives us BatCat with his purple creation. Nice!

Well, looking back at my personal scores for this collection of stories, Catwoman’s anniversary issue reached a total of 44/100 points in my book. Wow. That’s... not that good.

Most of the stories ranged from average to bad. Nothing spectacular, nothing memorable. There’s a lack of witty dialogue, Catwoman’s rarely fun to watch. In six stories she’s seen fighting, in three she’s seen being chased so I’m missing the variety here. I would assume you can do more with Catwoman than that. She often rather fights instead of using her wits and smarts. And actual cats are only featured in two stories but in one they die and in the other, Selina says she should drown them. -_- 

A collection of 10 new stories was a great idea but celebrating the character this is not. I’m happy that the next writer for Catwoman left a positive impression on me and the story feat. Balent’s Catwoman was a delight. However, the writers didn’t really bring their “A” game for this anniversary issue which is disappointing.

Would I recommend it? Hmmm. It pains me to say: not really, no. You don’t miss much by skipping it. You don’t miss sassy lines or breathtaking art, you don’t miss out on funny scenes or emotional depth. This anniversary issue is merely average and I highly doubt I’ll go back to reread it.

(a huge THANK YOU to everyone who read this entire, way too long post! i highly appreciate it 💜you’re a real trooper!)

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Late to the slapping discourse but I think another thing is, well, p much everybody, be they makoto fans or haters, despise that confidant, especially due to eiko hogging up so much screentime, so seeing makoto slap her was likely pretty cathartic

sfdjkhla I get where ya coming from anon, but sorry you just reignited this fury inside me again I’mma just rant (not at you, just at the void that is tumblr, I’m just mad and I have more to say about this topic apparently laskfdj;af Just know you didn’t do anything wrong, but your ask did make me think of something new so yay!). Tho tbh, I’ve seen other Mako haters hate that she slaps Eiko for my similar reasons (aka Mako is a pretty bad person who gets away with some bad shit because she’s an main character and we need to be “on her side”). But I don’t think that slap should’ve been viewed as cathartic (tho I get WHY people do), or the fact that it is showcases a big (writing) problem.

(also sorry this is all over the place, I’m writing it very quickly, while quickly reviewing her CoOp, before I go to bed)

Y’all know I hate Makoto, and I think her CoOp is hot garbage, but I don’t actually blame Eiko for it tbh (I mean Ryuji/Anne’s are just fine with juggling other chars, despite having their own issues.....not so much are because of said side chars, it’s other things but again the side chars are juggled just fine with Anne/Ryu). I don’t really hate the char, I think she’s fine. She’s a pretty friendly person, maybe a tad airheadish but she’s not mean (at least she doesn’t say mean things without a reason). Hell I think she does her role pretty fine, it’s Makoto who fails to overcome flaws (mostly her hotheadedness and applying these new view points she’s learned). 

If the writers intended Makoto’s slap to be cathartic no offense but fuck those writers yo. Because it showcases Makoto really is unable to understand any other person’s mindset (at least in practice), does her own selfish shit, and gets rewarded even tho she hurt someone or failed to actually do the bare min to make up for shit she’s done (like the Kamo arc, sorry but you had her say it yourself writers “it’s not that I couldn’t do anything, it’s that I just didn’t care enough” your whole “adults make me do things I don’t want to/they are mean :(” bs doesn’t mesh well, you don’t actually resolve or address the flaw of that char, you just shoved responsibility onto someone else....with that something else isn’t really explored/expanded upon either). Basically, if that slap was cathartic, I think the writers failed....I mean they already did fail with them actually writing that slap in, but they failed at their theme/moral to boot.

So when I have Makoto, who’s CoOp literally starts out with her wanting to learn new perspectives (and you know, maybe kinda learning a little EMPATHY) it’s hard to argue she learned that shit when she literally is unable to do just that and slaps someone. As well as reinforce the fact SHE SHOULDN’T BE IN THE POSITION SHE IS IN (aka our planner/advisor/whatever). 1) It shows she can’t control her emotions (and if we’re gonna give Ryu shit, she def deserves it too), 2) she can’t come up with a gd plan to save her life (the best plan the PT came up with was the first dungeon in PQ2 and guess what? She wasn’t a part of it, gee I’d be shocked but....I’m not). 

It just showcases the poor writing ability of that writer. Makoto’s CoOp is about her learning new things about society and her peers she’s failing at, and ability to connect/understand the people around her....and at that freaking climax it just shows.....she didn’t learn shit. She’s been saying she did all CoOp, even basically says she understands why Eiko is acting that way, but what does she do with that info? Does’t apply it when confronting her and just reverts to bullheaded Makoto mode. It doesn’t matter what happens after, we don’t see her reconcile with Eiko, all that is off screen. In the climatic moment, she fails to accomplish the goal of what her CoOp set out to do....and she’s rewarded for it. She doesn’t realize why Eiko is upset, she doesn’t try to think of a backup plan in case her first one fails, she acts only on her own emotions in the moment. And no “her friend is in danger of prostitution so it’s now or never” is NOT a good excuse, you wanna know WHY? The freaking, change of heart part of the ENTIRE GD GAME! Any argument of ��we can’t always use hear changes” goes out the gd window with like 90% of any problems we encounter when we can just go to the Metaverse (to even just interrogate tbh!). The only reason Anne/Yoshida work is because Anne’s we don’t know till the literal last second and by then it’s resolved itself, and Yoshida is dead set on fixing it himself! Makoto’s CoOp? No, that guy should be bumped from “shady boyfriend” to “yeah this guy is now on our request lists holy shit does he fit our MO”

But back to Eiko, yeah it’s great Makoto is expanding her horizons, so glad she knows what a cardigan is~! Too bad, despite actually knowing her friend’s circumstance and possibly why she’s acting that way, Makoto doesn’t approach it with the level of tact that is freaking needed. Showcasing she’s learnt nothing, nothing from her past mistakes, not from “these new viewpoints I’ve learnt,” nothing from knowing WHY her friend might be feeling this way. She literally just does what she’s been doing. She just has the smoke and mirrors benefit of saying “well I learnt a new viewpoint” but your actions speak louder than your words. You didn’t learn shit. 

Wait....no I’m not giving Makoto enough credit, haha, you see she did learn something, at the beginning of the CoOp, and that’s actually not ignoring something shady going on. Unlike with the Kamo arc. My bad, so instead of seeing her bull her way through feeling “forced” to do something, we see her bulling her way through “caring” this time. But here’s the thing, that wasn’t her arc for this CoOp, her understanding other viewpoints was. She failed. Somehow she freaking failed. It’s a talent Makoto! It’s a real talent you have there!

You know why I think Makoto/Eiko thing pisses me off so much? I have a friend that reminds me a lot of Eiko. She’s nice, def a girly gal type person, as well as other things. She had just begun dating someone I deemed a red flag (not Tsukasa bad like selling yourself or that she was in any kinda danger, but still a “yeah you should know” kinda thing....like...I’d feel bad if I didn’t know about it and I was in her position kinda thing). And you know what I did? Did I take her out into public on a crowded street and yell at her and say you need to break up with him and when she got (pretty rightfully) defensive I then slapped her and got on my high horse and was like “I’m doing this for your own good! YOU  don’t understand MY position, what I’M going through, but you need to know what I’m doing is for the BEST!”? No. That never crossed my freaking mind cause I’m not a psychopath. I instead, took her out for ice cream, sat in a more remote spot for privacy, and reassured her of her emotions and own autonomy and that I cared and that I understand she cares about things and I’m coming from a place of good faith and I wasn’t there to attack her, and then I broke the news to her. You know what she did? She laughed, was happy I was a normal human being with some tact, said she wished another friend of hers did what I did instead of through text. Said she’d take what I said into consideration. She broke up with him a few months later.....cause he was a twat apparently, but our friendship was well in tact and strengthened. And I was barely a year older than Makoto was at the time, AND a super awkward honor student AND my friendship with her was about as new as Mako’s and Eiko’s (AND we were very much opposites like those two hell even more so).

I dunno, it just would’ve been so much more impactful if Makoto, instead of slapping Eiko after she called Mako a “bitch.” Mako stepped forward (making everyone think she’s going to be physical but instead it showcases Makoto thinking rationally for once), looked Eiko in the eye and said “What you think of me is not all that I am. And even if you hate me, know I still think of you as my friend and will be here for you for whatever reason. But I won’t let you throw your life away, not for this scum of a human being. *turns to Tsukasa* Listen to me asshole, I say this not as some honor student, but as Eiko’s friend. You will be delivered justice, and you will apologize to Eiko and all the other girls who’s lives you’ve ruined” to which we either get Tsukasa’s name via asking around (low key Ichiko could probably help), or by getting it from Shadow!Eiko in the metaverse. The next rank we see Eiko and Mako making up, and Mako explains how she’s more than just an honor student (basically the shit she says after she slaps Eiko), and Eiko apologizes for all the mean things she said in the moment and how she felt afraid or whatever other stuff they wanna add to deepen her char or whatever. And we have a theme kept intact, and Eiko even learns about new perspectives (as well as reinforcing this whole moral/theme to the viewer)....but we legit get to see this development for her, and we learn how to do it with compassion and understanding and not ‘slap to be dramatic~!’ bs (because then it comes off as like....using force to change someone’s behavior.....and like????? probably not the best message ESP for P5′s setting). You can dislike Eiko, but the CoOp technically became just as much as her arc as Mako’s and the fact we don’t see the resolution is poor. (btw the “how/when” it would’ve taken place would’ve been rank 9 still, we just wouldn’t rank up till the mementos mission was done, that or restructure the link but the former is easier)

So....yeah....maybe it’s the fact that Makoto’s CoOP belittles how teens can actually resolve these problems. Maybe it’s the fact we’re supposed to root for Mako’s bad behavior. Maybe it’s the fact when it came down to the wire, Mako didn’t utilize the knowledge she has been bragging about getting over the CoOp. Maybe it’s the fact she resorted to violence when there was another avenue to take. Maybe it’s the fact we never see Makoto actually hit a bad guy/aggressor (instead we have to save her from those) but instead only see her hitting her so called friends. Maybe it’s the fact of her showcasing flaws that she shouldn’t have (her hotheadedness and shitty planning skills). Or maybe it’s the fact we root for a “cathartic slap” in favor of doing what this CoOp is supposed to be: teaching Makoto AND the viewer about learning to see someone else’s perspective, and coming up with a plan that we never would’ve thought of to help fix that issue. Sacrificing a big theme/moral of the CoOp for something “dramatic.”

But I don’t know why I should be shocked, this is P5. Contradictions everywhere, in the lore, in the themes, in the writing, in the morals. Just. Everywhere. 

[gravityuniverse115]

Why I don't like svtfoe anymore Part 1

Oh boy. I've been wanting to get this off my chest for a long time. This is going to be very long so hold tight. The show was off to an amazing start. It had great characters, a great story, and it kept fans very engaged. Star and Marco had so much chemistry and felt like real people. They had quirks, personality traits, insecurities. The friendship felt so organic and looked like they belonged in the actual real world. They could've been one of if not the best ship in an animated series. Not to mention the background characters. Each one felt like a natural person! They added a lot of realism to the series. Also the villains. Ludo's transformation from a wacky one off antagonist to a actual threat was incredible. This guy nearly conquered Mewni single handedly with an army of rats, a giant eagle, a giant spider, and the other half of Star's wand. Every time he was on screen in season 2, I legitimately got scared. Especially in Bon Bon the Birthday Clown. That whole episode had me on the edge of my seat. Then there's Toffee. Dear Lord I love this raptor so much. The second he showed up, I wanted to know everything about him. He kinda reminded me of Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls. Cunning, deceitful, master manipulator, charisma. They even mentioned that he had some connection with Star's family and Marco. That would have been such amazing plot development. Having the villain have some relations to the two main characters?! I would've payed to see that! Now I'll explain how the crew managed to fuck everything up!

Plot/Lore

The first half of the series had a very clear path. The story was pretty basic and easy to follow. Magical girl goes to Earth, meets a boy, learns magic, and battles every evil doer who wants the magic wand for themselves. All these hints were put in to suggest that maybe something bigger was going on. And yet they never did anything with them! Countless times there was some plot thread shown only to go nowhere. Like what happened to the monster arm? Why did Toffee know the first spell Moon taught Star? Who is Celena? Does Marco have a connection to Celena? Etc you get my point. All this buildup and no payoff. Did they just forget about it? Besides that, the first two seasons had a great arc. Then season 3 happened. For some reason, they decided to change the structure and went for a seasonal approach. You can't just change the structure of your show like that! Tbh it's a dick move. And the villains at the end suck. But I'll get into it later. Oh! And let's not forget the mAGiC bOoK oF sPeLLs. Apparently Daron thought it would be a good idea to put pieces of crucial lore in as a "fun fact". Um I'm sorry but TOFFEE KILLING SOLARIA IS NOT A FUN FACT!! And with the wasted potential for Seth, Toffee's boss. He would've been a great villain for the end of the series. But nope, we got fucking Mina. Almost forgot about the racist plot. THAT LASTED FOR 2 SEASONS! There was reason it should've lasted that long. So much time was just spent doing nothing. It could have easily been solved in 2-3 episodes and then you can do something else. It's not that hard. Instead you were just jerking us around and wasting our goddamn time

I think I'll end it here. We still have a lot to go through. Sorry that it might feel like an essay. I've been holding this in for months lol. Anyway, to be continued in part 2!

[andoqin]

K-Dramas of 2020

Well, like the general mood of 2020, the dramas this year were uh, certainly an adventure. I was going to put all the dramas I watched this year here, but uh. This turned out longer than expected so I’ll guess I’ll separate K-dramas at the very least.

Putting this behind a cut because Long.

Completed:

365: Repeat the year: I barely remember this one, but I gave it 8/10 on MDL, maybe I should lower that, because honestly all I remember are the time-travel meet up set and the main actors.

CHIP-IN: A short who-dunnit, which has interesting characters, although the show was very wise to be capped at 8 Episodes, because the “mystery” was pretty predictable and also starting to wear thin. Still, the younger cast was stellar and I hope we get to see them in more.

Diary of a Prosecutor: The cases in this drama were actually legit interesting to me and I found the politicking surprisingly not bad. People were flawed in very human ways, but the drama gave us enough time with our main characters to enjoy getting to know all of them.

Do you like Brahms: Contender for worst drama of the year for me, good lord I hated the way this tanked its story line, its characters and the romance. Is it believable that the main characters might act this way? ... Debatable. Is it entertaining to watch? Hell fucking no. Don’t watch this one, unless you like stupid misunderstandings and non communication. 

Extracurricular: Short action-y show on Netflix that makes me hopeful for what Sweet Home might be. 

Flower of Evil: Lee Jun Ki gets to suffer prettily. That is All. Okay Moon Chae Won and LJK were great together, but it got almost makjang-y by the end. 

Hospital Playlist: Delightful Slice of Life Medical show, that despite its delightfulness never quite got me. Very enjoyable and at 12 episodes it doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it didn’t stay with me either. 

Hot Stove League: Pretty entertaining and as a drama about sports management seems reasonably accurate? (Not that I’d know of course). 

Hyena: Flawed as heck in some aspects (the lawyer-plotting got lulzy and boring at the same time), but oh my god some of the HOTTEST chemistry this way from sunday. Joo Ji Hoon and Kim Hye Soo just crackled anytime they were on screen together and Joo Ji Hoon as the high powered lawyer who falls head over heels in love with KHS’s character who is more reluctant to act on those feelings is just *chefs kiss*. Also didn’t suffer the Dreaded Plot Denuement of 2020 (DPD2020). Sure the latter half wasn’t as tight as the beginning, but it stuck the landing and that’s all that matters. 

Into the Ring: Weird camera angles and sometimes overly sharp edited shots aside, this had a solid romance, great characters, great romance and almost made me want to get into community politics lmao. 

It’s Okay Not To Be Okay (Psycho But It’s Okay): The first half of this show is just *amazing*, the way the scenes transition is pretty much film-like and the main character trio is stunningly well acted. Sadly the story with the mom is resolved in the weirdest fucking way, but the drama decides to do the smart thing and just forget about it once that’s done and the finale made me cry ;_;. 

Itaewon Class: Sadly also suffered the DPD2020. I was really into the first half, loved the way the characters found support in each other, plus: a main trans character! Handled really well! Also iconic OST. I was one of the few people who was into the romance of the main couple, but the way the latter half of the plot developed was just completely nonsensical and felt like the writer was just trying to tie off the lose ends as much as possible. 

Kingdom Season 2: The first season was stellar and this continues the trend! Although it doesn’t quite reach the highs of the first season I am still so looking forward to season 3! More Joseon zombies please!

Money Game: I... apparently watched this, and looking at the logo there is some vague feeling of “Yeah this is familiar”. But nothing else...

Mr. Heart: Okay-ish BL drama that has it’s cute moments but nothing that made me go “Ooooh”. I am glad SK is getting in on this trend though!

My Holo Love: So all of those Robot/AI shows that came before that I’ve seen and had the premise of “Oh no, I’ve fallen for a ROBOT” when it either turned out their object of affection was either human or actually a robot, but their human counterpart was so shitty that no sane person would like them worked pretty well for me. This one didn’t. From what I remember the heroine does very much fall for the holographic version of this guy, but the human version is *different* and yet whoops the main couple is still human/human. Granted you can’t really do romantic kiss scenes between a girl and nothing, but the switch-over felt abrupt and the way our main lady just transfers her affections to the dude never sat right to me. 

Mystic Pop Up Bar: Quite a few dramas this year went with 12 eps, and were all the better for it. Hwang Jung Eum is incredibly hit or miss with me (mostly it’s miss honestly), but in this one she’s used really well and I liked the way the premise was used!

Private Lives: I recently wrote a longer post about this, but honestly another victim of terrible writing and maybe DPD2020. 

Stranger 2: Love! Not as much as Season 1, but man this writer is *so* good at writing smart and interesting plots and looking at things from many different angles!

Tale of the Nine Tailed: Flawed but man do I ever love the OTP. Like really really love it. Plus it stuck the landing for me in a way few dramas did in recent months.

The School Nurse Files: So weird. So fucking weird. And yet, so very entertaining. Thanks to its short length ( I think) some plot threads felt very much unceremoniously dropped, but it has a canon lesbian couple!

The World of the Married: Makjang to the Nth degree, got kind of exhausting by the end, but Kim Hee Ae is so good. 

Train: Yoon Shi Yoon gets to suffer prettily! 

When the Weather is Fine: Kinda mellow and sweet and I wish I could live like the main character does (just have a bookshop in the middle of nowhere and still no money issues??? The Dream) but for that also not super memorable. 

Where Your Eyes Linger: SK’s first major Webdrama I believe? Cute and as a foray into this genre not bad, but I hope this is just a taste of things to come.

Dropped:

Hi Bye, Mama: So many people loved this, I couldn’t get over the basic premise and the way my brain tried to tie the logic in this together made my head hurt.  The King: Eternal Monarch: Maybe KES dramas just aren’t for me, I didn’t like the plot or the main couple. Woo Do Hwan and Kim Kyung Nam were amazing though and please please I beg both of you do more stuff. 

18 Again: Nope. Lee Do Hyun is pretty, but the setup drove me bonkers and I pretty much liked no one. 

Zombie Detective: Yikes no thank you. Complete mismatch of tones I wanted and the drama gave me. 

Romantic Teacher Dr. Kim 2: Zzzzzzzzz. I found the first one mildly entertaining at least but this one just made me fall asleep immediately. 

Black Dog: Yeah I watched like 2 Episodes of this and lost interest. 

Search: I’ve watched like 6 eps and I know there’s zombies, but I couldn’t tell you much more tbh.

Start-Up: I watched 2 episodes in the beginning, didn’t think I’d want to live watch this and then just popcorned the tag until it got insufferable with the ship wars and this dropped out of my watch list pretty immediately.

Record of Youth: Pretty much the same deal as with Start-Up only in this case there wasn’t so much a shipwar as the tag showing me that this drama would *not* be my bag at all. 

Still Watching: 

Kairos: Hmmmm timey-wimey stuff. The FL is this close to losing me though. The fact I thought it plausible that she would murder someone just based on a TEXT from someone else says it all. (She didn’t, thank god, and seems to have found a few of her lost braincells, but by god she was frustrating). 

Birthcare Center: I like what it’s trying to say and the main character and her husband are very cute, but a lot of the side characters don’t really interest me. It’s only an 8 ep drama, so I might finish this.

The Spies Who Loved Me: Honestly I’m this close to dropping it. Only my intense love for Yoo In Na and fondness for Eric are keeping me going. But she might not end up with Eric and I’m gonna be mad. Honestly if they just went OT3 I’d be really cool with this, but despite the small advancements in dramaland, they aint ready for that yet. 

Lies of Lies: I watched 2 eps and I might continue (the premise seems hilariously makjang and sometimes I’m into that, but it’s *very* much on the backburner)

The Uncanny Counter: Delightful Webtoon vibe, with some great visuals and actually nice action. I’ve only seen 2 eps so far but at least they don’t want to make me poke my eyes out or make me fall asleep. Let’s hope it avoids the DPD2020 plague. 

[eunahfmdarchive]

idol headcanon / not accepting!

tw: eating disorders under the cut.

send ◙ for an audition headcanon. ( wc: 215 ) eunah auditioned for dimensions entertainment online, with a video of herself singing ‘home’ from the musical version of disney’s beauty and the beast. she sent it in on a dare from a friend, who was a big fan of dimensions soloist one and a casual fan of gal.actic. it wasn’t supposed to be serious, and eunah really didn’t expect anything to come from it, so she didn’t dance for the tape at all, but her being pretty, small, and with a serious set of pipes was enough to pique dimensions’ interests. when they expressed their interest in meeting her in person, eunah was torn, but ultimately decided it couldn’t hurt to try. by that time, she already had quite a bit of experience performing on stage in musicals, and there was a big part of eunah that was already looking for something more than school and community produced amateur theatre. she was due to perform as the lead in her high school’s production of thoroughly modern millie when she received the invitation for the in person audition, and actually used her school’s choreography for the titular song for the dance portion of her audition. the fact that she actually passed, while auditioning in such a discombobulated and theatrical way remains beyond her to this day.

send ○ for a training headcanon. ( wc: 200 ) eunah trained for just under two years before debuting as 7rophy’s lead vocal. she struggled a lot during that time, and she had to spend a lot of time for the first few months there working on her korean, as she didn’t know as much as she thought she did before she moved. she was babied and heavily sheltered back at home by her parents and older sisters ever since she was born, on account of being born a month premature, so adjusting to the much tougher world of being a trainee. her struggles with weight began during this time, when her trainers encouraged her to lose weight and her fellow trainees also started to comment on it - much more maliciously than even the trainers did. eunah was never the strongest dancer, but she had the very basics of musical theatre dance and movement down, so she had to work really hard on her dancing to get it up to scratch, and unfortunately, that fact was something she used to her eating disorder’s advantage, using it to justify her weight loss to her concerned family back in seattle who were starting to ask questions whenever they video called her.

send ♥ for a headcanon about something my muse likes about being an idol. ( wc: 218 ) despite it being one of the first things 7rophy is always criticized for by anti fans and the general public, eunah really appreciates having so much experience in so many different concepts. she’s an actor by heart, and enjoyed shifting into different versions of herself. granted, it’s a bittersweet kind of appreciation, since eunah wishes that their concept changes had been better received by the public, similarly to how fuse’s were. though, she does recognize that fuse were actually marketed by gold star as a concept changing group. whereas 7rophy, on the other hand, just so happened to fall into constant concept flux by ways of dimensions entertainment’s poor management. nonetheless, eunah is glad that they got to try out lots of different styles of music, and at least the constant reinvention managed to save them from disbandment if nothing else, until dimensions allowed lux to have a heavier hand in their songs. and after all of those changes in concept, eunah is also really enthusiastic about the more “self produced” image 7rophy are being marketed with now, what with lux writing the vast majority of their group releases, eunah’s participation here or there, and what she likes most of all, as most people would expect is the control eunah has been given over her own solo music. 

send ♫ for a performance headcanon. ( wc: 210 ) eunah is a very clean and polished performer. there’s always room for change and error when you’re doing any kind of live show, so it’s extra important, in her opinion, to make sure you’re as consistent as you possibly could be before it’s time to present it to the public. she has been praised for her precise way of performing by fans, who understand it’s part of the effort she’s making to execute 7rophy’s choreography as best as she can. even if she isn’t anywhere close to being the best dancer in the group, she always makes sure that she’s doing her best to try to match them. as a lead vocal, singing is where she really shines. eunah grew up doing musicals, and that particular flare for the dramatic is something she’s never lost. she doesn’t get to do it very often as a member of 7rophy, but she loves performing ballads and emotional solos. eunah is very expressive while she sings, and can easily fall into the character of a song, and usually she’s performing from that point of view, rather than from her own. even when performing her self written music, there’s a certain level of detachment there that allows her to give a fully developed performance.

send ☀ for a variety headcanon. ( wc: 204 ) eunah is pretty poor on a lot of variety shows. at a lot of hosted shows, she finds it difficult to just relax and get on with what they’re there to do or to play along with any stupid jokes. her personality really does err more on the serious side, and she does end up get teased for that a lot on shows too. she’s known for being kind of difficult to get good responses out of, which means that a lot of her good variety show moments during her career have actually been very, very much scripted. she usually does any english speaking segments in shows, too. overall, she just comes across a little bit awkwardly. eunah ends up faring a lot better on 7rophy’s own reality shows - not that they’ve had more than one or two of them over the course of the last five years - such as to. pepe, that they filmed and produced themselves last year in partnership with kaja beauty while in san francisco. things of that ilk, short segments that are more casual, and hosting are things she’s fine with, but she wouldn’t be able to survive on a show like we got married or roommate.

send ♞ for a non-performance talent headcanon. ( wc: 203 ) eunah’s main talent off stage and off screen that’s actually beneficial to her music career is writing lyrics. it’s definitely a more recent development, and isn’t ever something that she thought dimensions would ever let her follow up with. she only got the bravery to after seeing the success that lux’s lyrics and music brought 7rophy. it isn’t a skill that she’s intentionally been honing for a particularly long time, but she has kept a diary for almost her entire life, ever since she can remember, so she has become really quite adept at expressing herself through the written word. a lot of the lyrics in her first mini album, mezzanine, are directly lifted from either her diary or from her recurring late night thoughts. it’s therapeutic and cathartic for her to do something productive with what are mostly negative and self disparaging thoughts, so it’s a talent that she plans to continue honing. where eunah fails to communicate well aloud, she makes up for it in her diary, in her poetry and in her song lyrics. she’s proud of herself for learning to express herself one way or another, especially since it’s apparently a profitable method for her and her company too. 

send ‼ for a career goal headcanon. ( wc: 205 ) eunah would really, really like to act more. her number one priority is getting back on the boards in a theatrical sense, whether that be in a play or in a musical. her number two priority would be to make a television acting debut. that being said, after seeing the success of a-teen, she definitely wouldn’t turn down another role in a web drama either. the bottom line is that she wants to act, and she wants to be taken at least relatively seriously as an actor too. she knows that that isn’t exactly easy for an idol actor to do, but she genuinely loves the craft, so eunah is willing to keep on trying to prove herself. other than acting, eunah is currently preparing for eunah mini album number two quietly in the background of all of her other activities, so she just wants to make sure that the songs on the album are the best that they can be, and that she shows another new side to herself, or at least a shift in herself in the songs. she’s also interested in potentially writing more for 7rophy, whether that be a throwaway lyric here or there or in collaboration with lux or not.

send ♡ for a social media headcanon. ( wc: 208 ) eunah is surprisingly active on social media for someone who’s as reserved as she seemingly is. she only really actively uses instagram, and doesn’t have a twitter, private or otherwise. she posts fairly regularly, at least three or four times a week, and they’re usually selfies or otherwise pictures of herself, sometimes alone, sometimes with crys, her and lux’s cat, sometimes with other 7rophy members. occasionally she also posts part of her creative process - nothing that could be considered a spoiler, just a picture of herself at work and a few sentences about how she’s feeling about whatever she’s working on. eunah finds it easier to be sincere and talkative with fans when she can think things through and write them out. therefore, her use of instagram has been extremely beneficial in clearing up any qualms over eunah being cold or ungrateful to her fans and to the opportunities she’s been given. she kind of also uses it as a public visual companion of sorts to her private written journal. she doesn’t have the patience for scrapbooking or instant photographs or anything like that, but she does enjoy the idea of it, so she uses her instagram has an outlet for that side of her artistic interests.

send ∞ for a future (post-idol life) headcanon. ( wc: 224 ) after idol life ends for eunah, i imagine that she would continue to be active in the entertainment industry as an actor, a soloist and a songwriter. her acting career would be her primary focus, and she would like to finally establish herself as a “serious” actor, and would likely work mostly in theatre, though not exclusively. eunah would really, really have an interest in making a broadway debut one day, potentially moving between seoul and new york regularly. it’s been her dream ever since she was a little girl to be on a broadway stage, and with the experience she’s wracking up under her belt and her american citizenship, she’s pretty sure that she can make it happen. her solo music would come second to acting. i don’t think that she’d necessarily be doing the music show circuit anymore, but that she’d mostly release digital singles and albums, promoting them minimally but ... enough to see success. the goal would be that by this time, her name would precede her to an extent, so that she could really do her music stuff on her own terms. she would love to still be at least collaborating with the other members of 7rophy, and she would rather die than be separated from milk, but she doesn’t expect the group to last forever by any means.

send ✈ for an airport fashion headcanon. ( wc: 202 ) eunah’s taste in fashion is actually rather colourful. she likes most colours, but pink and orange shades are her favourites. she’s also a big fan of clothes that can hide her body relatively well while not being too baggy. she saves the extra baggy stuff for when she’s at home. in airports though, fans are likely to see eunah wearing comfortable, tailored cotton dresses, usually still worn slightly loose fitting on purpose, oftentimes paired with an oversized corduroy or denim jacket. other times she wears cuddly cardigans, usually in white, cream and beige shades, usually paired with high waisted pants. her preferred styles of pants are slightly ill fitting, straight leg jeans and loose, wide legged cotton pants. eunah’s airport outfits, and her outfits in general, are usually affordable. she has one or two expensive statement pieces, but she uses them to death. one example would be her marc jacobs crossbody bag. she’s had it for over three years, and it’s definitely not the height of fashion anymore, but it does the job, and has consistently shown up as part of every airport outfit eunah’s been seen in since she first bought it. eunah also often wears her glasses to the airport.

send ☛  for a public image headcanon. ( wc: 220 ) at the moment, eunah’s public image is mostly favourable, though some people do see her as being too cold and too quiet for her own good. since embarking on her solo career over the last year, the number of people with that impression of her have dropped significantly. the idea that dimensions currently have for her is a shy, girl next door from the us, who can really turn it out on stage, someone who genuinely loves and cares about her craft and art. it’s easy enough for eunah to play into, since it’s not that far from the truth, even if she would never admit to naturally falling a little bit into the typical girl next door role. during the early days of 7rophy’s career, when they were almost nonexistent in the eyes of the public, eunah was really only known for her extremely low weight. she wasn’t even known much by name, she was just a photo and a number on a list of “skinny idols”. this, combined with the weight loss narrative that was spun around her after predebut photos and videos were uploaded to the internet, was very harmful to eunah’s body image and emotional well being, and is something she still struggles with having as part of her history as an idol to this day.

send ❂ for a voice-related (singing or rapping) headcanon. ( wc: 210 ) eunah is a comfortable mezzo soprano, and she has very good control over her head, chest and mixed voice. aside from her vocal training under dimensions, eunah was also coached in singing for musical theatre as a child. she takes care of her vocal chords as well as she can. she keeps drinking to a minimum, keeps dairy to a minimum and always warms up very, very thoroughly. she likes how her voice sounds the most when she sings in her upper range. eunah is also very comfortable experimenting with her voice, trying out pop sounds, jazz sounds and theatrical ballad sounds depending on the mood that she’s in. she never, ever likes to sacrifice technique though. keeping her voice safe is paramount to her. she’s been lucky that the lines she’s been assigned over the years in 7rophy’s songs have suited her voice well, and that she hasn’t had to strain and damage her vocal chords. when she was still just a kid, she heard about the dreaded legally blonde high notes that had to be lowered because of the damage that they supposedly did to the original elle woods’ voice, and it’s the main reason that she’s so careful with her voice. that story made her extremely paranoid.

[nadunacreates]

NANOWRIMO 2019 • WEEK FOUR

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WIP: heroes bleed red

THIS WEEK’S WORDCOUNT: 7’054 / 11’669

TOTAL WORDCOUNT: 58’242 / 50’000

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read on under the cut for some excerpts and other fun stuff.

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GENERAL RANT:

this week was like the exact opposite of week two. i had such a hard time and really hit that writing slump, hated everything about my story but still forced myself to write at least 500 words a day. i’m not sure if i’ll be able to use a single one of those in the end. i completely lacked the motivation to write this round up, which is why i’m only doing this now, on december 1st and i’m also really just counting that week four and not the last two days. i’ll post a total roundup of the whole month, too, as well as future plans, but i don’t know yet if i’m going to manage to do this today or only tomorrow. anyway, week four was positively shitty all around and thus the following excerpt won’t be great, but… have them anyway.

•

FIRST LINE BIT I WROTE THIS WEEK:

“Sorry,” Kaliope says, and decides to just once in her life fuck it and tell the truth. It’s not it can do much damage, right? She’s not interested in a friendship with Moe, after all, or even getting to know her any more closely than what is strictly necessary for the observation of her enemy. She’ll be keeping an eye on her, as much as possible, and nothing more. It doesn’t matter if Moe likes her or not, whether she thinks of her as a freak or not. Kaliope will not matter more to Moe than any other customer does. So. Truth it is, no matter how bitter it tastes going over her tongue, the regret and fear of rejection just things she doesn’t really feel.

-

yeah, kaliope, keep telling yourself that. so it runs out i’m really bad at writing consistent characterisations and not turning everything into an angst fest. also this is somewhat towards the end of my main characters’ first interaction as civilians, and it’s definitely one of those things that will drastically change in the second draft, if i ever make it that far.

 •

LAST LINE I WROTE THIS WEEK:

Amethyst likes these days, when she’s got enough brainpower and energy left to place these kinds of mind games, think about all the possible consequences to her actions. When she’s not just left playing catch up and trying not to die.

-

amethyst is moe’s hero identity, in case i’ve forgotten to mention this before. which i probably have, knowing me. it’s a bad line of an even worse scene and it’s most likely to get cut, heh

•

AN UNEXPECTED REVELATION THAT HAPPENED:

apparently both moe and kaliope are bad at making friends (or at least feel that way). so both their co-workers decide to friendship-match-make them. which is so not how i planned this whole thing to go, but oh well. now at least i get to write them texting and having moe be oblivious that kaliope is that annoying villain that she likes to complain to her about. identity porn is my jam, even though i feel like i’m really bad at writing it and also i’m giving out spoilers here like warm bread or however that saying goes. although i doubt that anyone is even reading this, or that i might ever get to the point where these things count as actual spoilers because i feel like i’m never going to be able to finish this. one of the reasons is the other “unexpected” revelation, with a lot of emphasis on unexpected, because by now i should really know myself better:

this story will not be done in 50k. is not done in 50k. i barely reached the middle of the first act now, although my outline is patchwork at best. which means that i think this story is going to be at least 175k, which would mean writing more than 1000 words every day until the end of february, sooo. gonna be playing the long game here. which means, in turn, that i’m probably going to be posting about this wip for a long time to come. if anyone wants to opt out of the tag list, feel free to do so, because i feel like my incoherent ramblings are not the most aesthetic things to read, or whatever. but also if you’d like to cheer me up, please do so. i need it ^^°

- the following excerpt is the second part of this match making thingy, happens very soon after the first lines of this week’s writing -

“What are you trying to do?” Moe asks then, and there’s so much suspicion in her voice that Kaliope can basically hear it dripping off of it. She did mention that Farren could get into strange moods, though, so maybe this is just one of their great ideas that Kaliope and Moe will have to wait out.

Maybe not, though, because Emerson suddenly clears their throat, moves down the bench to sit close at Kaliope’s side, and then they slip her own phone back into her hand. Kaliope startles, first, and then she glares. “Where did you get that? Why did you get that?” How didn’t I notice?, most importantly, because what kind of super villain is she if she doesn’t even notice her own phone getting stolen?

“You put it down on the table in front of you,” Emerson explains, calmly, as though this is something entirely rational. “I know you don’t have a code. I just put in Moe’s phone number, don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t worry about— why the fuck would you do that?”

“You need more friends,” Emerson and Farren both say at the same time, because apparently Farren is trying to explain the same thing happening to Moe. It’s making Kaliope feel a little better, to be honest, that even the Great Hero Amethyst didn’t notice that her phone got stolen, that as an actual hero she should be able to prevent that kind of thing, let alone let it happen to herself.

“And Moe is the perfect choice, seriously. You don’t have to do anything but come here a few times a week and let her talk to you during her break.”

“What in all hells? Why are you trying to take our lives in your hands like that? We’re actual grown adults—”

“—and certainly older and more mature than you, Farren,” Moe puts in, and—

“—and certainly older and more mature than you,” Kaliope repeats, “and we don’t need you to friend-match-make us.”

“We were getting there on our own,” Moe puts in, and—

“We were getting there on our own,” Kaliope repeats. “Wait, what? No, we were not!”

“See?” Farren says, probably to Emerson, considering their conversational tone of voice. “I told you they wouldn’t get around to it by themselves. We did a good thing, there, and you don’t have to feel guilty.”

“Oh no,” Kaliope says, “you have to feel very guilty. Keep on right doing that. I’m done with you, you little traitor.” And Kaliope doesn’t even know herself if she’s joking or not, because she does mean it, a little, and at the same time she doesn’t, there’s just— something that she feels, something curling low in her belly and squeezing tight around her chest, something she doesn’t have a name for, something she doesn’t want to find a name for.

It’s an unfamiliar kind of feeling, and she doesn’t particularly like it, wouldn’t want to have it repeated.

•

RANDOM CHARACTER FACTS I DIDN’T KNOW BEFORE:

there are way too many side characters that suddenly got way too much screen time and importance to the whole story. and it seems like i can’t stop making new ones.

there’s the owner of the garage where moe has her second job at, for example. he turned out to be lenny’s grandfather (lenny is one of moe’s best friends from her high school time and it was basically their death that triggered her whole “i’m going to be a superhero now” thing and yeah. it’s probably time i make some proper character introductions. maybe that’ll help me get my motivation back.) and that’s big. also he apparently knows that moe is the hero amethyst? although i’m pretty sure that i mentioned in one of the first scenes that absolutely no one knows about her being amethyst. seriously, this is going to take so so much work to edit.

but yeah, another new character is the wind, apparently, and that’s going to change so much? but also make a lot of the things make more sense?

also there are like four cops or “hero liaisons” as i call them for some reason, and somehow they get to have a lot of impact as well??

look, i have zero control over anything in this story, i’m just glad to get any words out at all and maybe do some world building and character development while i’m at it.

•

SOME LINES THAT I ACTUALLY LIKE, SOMEWHAT:

Moe doesn’t know if she’ll be able to sleep now. […].

She wants to. She wants to get to. No Amethyst, not today.

(And yet, she turns on the radio, puts it on her nightstand, lets the static trickle on and hopes it won’t get interrupted, won’t turn into voices asking for backup to go up against a villain.)

(And yet, she puts her suit on the free space next to the radio, ready to be slipped into at a moment’s notice.)

(And yet, she’ll be ready to leave at that same moment’s notice, no matter the time of day or night.)

•

and that was the last roundup! i’m kinda glad it’s over, save for the total roundup now, because i’m really bad at picking out interesting stuff and not rambling too much and actually stick to a posting schedule and everything else, basically. i hope that at least some of you liked these posts, but well, even if you didn’t, it still helped me reflect on the week and see that i actually managed to get some things done, and yeah, not everything is bad and a lot of it is fixable. much more fixable than an empty page would be, at least, so! and i won nano early, that’s worth something, right?

[yoon-kooks]

With Love and No Regrets💋 2

Pairing: ??? x Reader, Taehyung x Reader (this chapter)

Genre: Angst, Handwritten!AU, inspired by TATBILB

Summary: Seven stories, seven regrets, seven letters… to all the boys you may or may not still think about…

Word Count: 2.8k

Parts: Prologue // 1 // 1.5 // 2 // 2.5 // 3 // 

Warnings: none

A/N: hands up if you remember your first crush ever 😔✊

Fifth grade might’ve been your prime. You were a whopping ten years old, all the kindergarteners looked up to you as their senior, multiple boys in your class had their eye on you, and you developed your first crush. His name was Kim Taehyung.

Unlike Jungkook who you had met in kindergarten, the existence of Kim Taehyung was unknown to you until fifth grade came around. And boy did he hit you like a truck.

Taehyung was cute. Perhaps one of the cutest boys in your class, up there with Kim Namjoon and Jung Hoseok. And sure, you would’ve loved for fate aka your teacher to seat you right next to him for the entire school year. But the truth is, fate wasn’t always so kind. Because Taehyung always somehow ended up on the opposite side of the room from you.

But why leave everything up to fate? You weren’t that passive when it came to love—at least not at age ten. So you found another way to connect with the boy.

One stormy October morning, you discovered a common interest between Taehyung and yourself. Rainy days were always your favorite because your class was blessed with some free time in the school’s computer lab during recess. After all, you were the type that opted to stay behind a screen instead of facing things head on.

“Ahin, how are you level 77 already?” you asked your best friend as you glanced back and forth between her level 77 mage and your level 32 bandit on the computer screen. Her character had a lot more swag with the sunglasses and shit compared to your basic ass character with the default clothes.

“That’s because my screen time isn’t limited to one hour a day like you,” Ahin shrugged. “At this rate, you’ll be a noob forever, Y/N. Taehyung’s gonna over-level you soon.”

“Taehyung plays StapleMory, too?” You were intrigued because StapleMory was already your favorite MMORPG, but with the addition of a cute boy thrown into the mix, you’d have to beg your mother for an extra hour of play time.

“Yeah, he started playing a few weeks ago and he’s only a few levels behind you.”

“What’s his username? I wanna add him to my friend list.”

“Why? Are you in love with him or something?”

“What? No, of course not.” You didn’t have a crush on him just yet. You didn’t even know what a crush felt like.

“Well I don’t know his username either,” Ahin said. “I just heard him talking about it with Hoseok. Try asking them instead.”

You’d only made the smallest of small talk with Taehyung in the first month back from summer break, so you didn’t know him well enough to casually start a conversation with him at recess without it feeling a little forced. On the other hand, you did have an already established acquaintance with Hoseok thanks to summer school a few years back.

You peered down at the pair of boys several computers down from where you sat, locked onto your target, and rolled your chair over in that direction. When you caught a glimpse of familiar character sprites on their screens, you knew what to do.

“You play StapleMory, too, Hoseok?” The character on his screen was a heavily armored warrior holding a long blue spear.

“Y-you play too, Y/N?” He looked shocked. Shocked but not upset. Though maybe if you both had put two and two together sooner, you could’ve advanced your acquaintanceship with him beyond summer school.

“Yeah, and Ahin plays too.”

“I play too,” Taehyung jumped in. Contrary to his natural handsomeness, his character was on the ugly side equipped with a bow and arrows. “Well I just started, so I’m only level 30.”

“Oh, so you’re still just a noob,” you laughed as if being two levels higher than him was anything to boast about.

“Well what level are you then?”

“Higher than you.” You really should not have had that smug look on your face, but you did.

Taehyung narrowed his eyes at you. It was a challenge. “What’s your username? I’ll add you.”

“YoungHinata.”

“Is that some kind of Naruto reference or something?”

“Yeah, duh.” You didn’t know. It wasn’t your username.

After typing the username in, Taehyung’s jaw dropped. “Level 77? That’s… impressive. You already have your third job advancement?”

You wanted to psych him out a little, not impress him. Clearly that didn’t work out, so you abort. “Nah, I’m just kidding. That’s Ahin’s character.”

“Haha very funny. I guess I’ll add her then, not you.” Taehyung sent Ahin a virtual friend request right in front of your eyes. “Unless you wanna tell me your username.”

Were you feeling threatened? No. But did you want Taehyung to be your friend? Yes.

“It’s… TacoCat98.” You admit you were self-conscious about the name, and you would’ve picked something a little wittier like TacoBelle if you’d known you’d be playing with a cute boy. But nobody could’ve predicted that.

“Seriously?” Taehyung laughed at your username as he typed it in. He had no right to clown you when his own username was something as simple Vante, and you totally did not get the reference if there was one. And he only stopped laughing once he saw your character. “You called me a noob when you’re only like two levels above me? Noob.”

“It doesn’t matter! I’m still higher than you, so ha!” You got the last laugh, but not the last say.

“Not for long, Y/N… Not for long.” The confidence in Taehyung’s voice was admirable with a hint of flirtiness, but you wouldn’t let him get the best of you. Or so you thought.

-

It had quickly become a regular thing for you to hop online after school with either Ahin, Hoseok and Taehyung, or just Taehyung. Your mother was pleasantly surprised to see you zipping through your homework with newfound motivation, and she even granted you an extra hour of screen time to reward your excelling academics. Little did she know that your motivation had everything to do with a boy.

With that valuable extra hour of play time, you did everything in your power to stay ahead of Taehyung. You grinded, took on quests, asked Ahin for advice on the best equips and places to train, and you did so without a minute to waste. The only time you took a break from leveling up your character was when a certain notification popped up on your screen.

[Vante has logged in!]

[Vante sent you a message!]

Vante: hi Y/N >:)

TacoCat98: why r u sending me a mean face? :P

Vante: freedom of speech?

TacoCat98: ok?

Vante: come train with me :(

TacoCat98: where r u now?

Vante: where the fire boars are

TacoCat98: kk

You might’ve been in the middle of a jump quest that you’d have to restart later, but you were willing to forfeit some good EXP in exchange for time with Taehyung. The two of you were close enough in level where it’d be mutually beneficial to train together on the same map anyway. So you hustled over to the fire boars.

As soon as you walked through the portal to where Taehyung said he was, you witnessed a hoard of flaming pigs chasing an ugly green-haired archer. Rather than extending a hand to help the boy out of danger, you take pleasure in watching him struggle to find safety on a nearby platform.

“why didnt u help me????” A speech bubble appeared over Taehyung’s character. “i almost died!!”

“i didnt wanna kiss you,” you typed, with a very embarrassing typo. “i meant KS you… not kiss you lol”

“r u sure that was a typo?” Taehyung changed his character’s facial expression to a hmm face.

“KISS wouldnt have made sense in that context!!” K.S. was the abbreviation of kill steal, which was when someone (often a noob like Taehyung) is trying to kill a monster but then a higher level player passes by and instantly kills the monster as a form of mockery. Kiss, on the other hand, meant something very different.

“right…”

“RIGHT.” You made your character flail around in the air like a kid having a tantrum before jumping down to release all your awkward energy out on the fire boars. “can we just train now??”

You sent Taehyung a request to join your party, and he accepted it, but he remained right where he was instead of joining you on the battle grounds.

“or we could just talk,” he typed. That not only surprised you, but also meant something to you. It meant he’d rather spend time chatting with you over leveling up his character. You were more important to him than the game itself.

You jumped back up to the safe platform and faced Taehyung’s character. “we could.”

You didn't know if he was just luring you away from training so he could sneak past you in levels as soon as you logged off, but maybe it didn’t matter. You only had two hours a day to do whatever you wanted on the computer, and Taehyung was what made your time feel well-spent.

And if he ended up surpassing you in levels as a result of that, you’d lose bragging rights and that hold over him, but something in you wanted to believe he wouldn’t leave your noob ass behind.

-

For a solid year, you never grew bored of Taehyung and his antics. Even in the classroom, it became apparent that you two were no strangers. You teased him about his new haircuts, he teased you by shouting “TacoCat98” across the school yard, and you both exchanged ugly faces as you passed by each others’ desks. All of that was innocent and cute, though the more intimate stuff remained online.

You can’t remember the exact moment you first acknowledged your feelings for Taehyung because it was your very first crush and you had no way of recognizing the signs. For a while, you assumed your first crush would be Namjoon because he had all the stunning physical qualities you thought you wanted in a boyfriend. But with Taehyung, it was something else that you couldn’t quite comprehend. All you knew was that he made your day a little brighter. And you found yourself thinking about him. A lot.

But nothing could’ve made you realize your crush more than when he asked you about it right after graduation.

Vante: hey

TacoCat98: hey

Vante: do you like anyone?

It was your chance—the golden opportunity. You wanted to scream “YES, IT’S YOU” through your computer. But on the off chance that he didn’t feel the same way, you wanted to save yourself from a potential rejection. You told yourself you’d only confess to him if you felt 100% confident that he felt the same way. Despite having a gut feeling that that might’ve been the case, you needed more answers.

TacoCat98: lol why r u asking?

Vante: bc u know how my group of guys had a talk after the grad ceremony?

TacoCat98: umm no? and yall arent “guys” yet btw. youre still boys lolol

Vante: whatever -_-

Vante: anyway

Vante: the BOYS had a talk about who we liked in our class

Vante: so i know who likes u

Someone liked you? That was definitely news to you. No one (to your knowledge) ever had a crush on you in your ten years of life. Naturally, you were curious as a kitten as to who it was, and if it was in fact Taehyung himself. Or maybe he was just bluffing. If that were the case, you were going to bluff back.

TacoCat98: well i know who likes u too :P

Vante: who?

For some reason, your dumbass didn’t anticipate him asking you to spill the tea. Especially not when you were alluding to your own crush on him.

TacoCat98: u tell me first and then ill tell u

Because how romantic would that be if the feeling was mutual and realized on the online platform where it had all begun to bloom?

Vante: hoseok

TacoCat98: wat

Vante: hoseok said he likes u

Vante: ok next

You needed a long minute to comprehend what had happened. Hoseok liked you? Hoseok? Hoseok didn’t even know you the way Taehyung did. You rarely even spoke to him outside of when he’d play StapleMory with you and Taehyung. So how was it possible for Jung Hoseok to develop a crush on you out of nothing? Spoiler alert: It wasn’t possible. But you didn’t know that at the time.

Vante: so… who likes me?

An idiot liked Taehyung. And that idiot was you. But after he didn’t confess to you like you had hoped, there was no way you’d confess either.

TacoCat98: actually i promised to keep that a secret

Vante: but u said u would tell me >:(

TacoCat98: well im srry!!

TacoCat98: it’s not like you were sharing your OWN crush, so why r u so mad lol

TacoCat98: hoseok probably wanted to keep that a secret but u told me anyway

Vante: true

Vante: dont tell him i told u >.<

TacoCat98: ok i wont

Vante: good

Vante: now back to the original question… tell me who u like

TacoCat98: i dont like anyone lol

Vante: seriously…

TacoCat98: really i dont lol

Vante: everyone has a crush

TacoCat98: and your crush is…?

Vante: ahin

He typed it without hesitation, not a sliver of doubt. He confidently told you about his crush on your best friend as if that information wasn’t going to get back to her. Maybe he intended for you to tell Ahin so he wouldn’t have to confess himself. Or maybe he just wanted to make you jealous. The latter was what he accomplished.

As a friend, you loved Ahin and envied her for how easily she got along with the boys in your class. Just as her StapleMory character outshined yours, she had the same effect at school. It honestly didn’t surprise you that Taehyung chose her over you. You had just hoped and envisioned that this time it was you.

TacoCat98: AHIN!!! can i tell u something?

YoungHinata: sure lol

TacoCat98: i like tae

YoungHinata: omg

YoungHinata: really????

YoungHinata: u should tell him!!

YoungHinata: he always acts like he likes u too

TacoCat98: i dont think he likes me like that

YoungHinata: y tho???

TacoCat98: i just have a feeling :(

YoungHinata: well youll never know for sure unless u confess to him

TacoCat98: nah im fine with him never knowing

TacoCat98: i just wanted to get it off my chest so i told u instead of him lol

-

After elementary school ended and middle school started, you were more thankful than ever that you and Taehyung had established an online friendship. You wouldn’t have otherwise known he attended the same middle school because you had zero classes with him in sixth grade and literally never saw him on campus. You owed a lot to the online platform for all the opportunities it provided you with in chatting with your crush. At the same time, a relationship built upon online engagements had its limits.

[Vante has logged in!]

TacoCat98: hihihi

Vante: i havent seen your face around these parts in a while

TacoCat98: blame my teachers >:(

TacoCat98: more hw = less staplemory

Vante: same

Vante: dont u think it’s weird tho

TacoCat98: whats weird?

Vante: how we talk on here but not irl

TacoCat98: i guess we never see each other at school anymore

There were a million better ways to respond to Taehyung’s comment, but that’s how you chose to respond. You had every opportunity to say, “hey let’s meet up at lunch tomorrow” or “wanna get milk tea after school?” But you were too dense to realize what he wanted out of that conversation. You took it more as a subtle breakup like “we can’t be friends anymore because things are awkward now irl.” After all, you were on the wrong side of an unrequited love, and it was almost inevitable that he’d develop other crushes on his new classmates who outclassed you.

It was only after you both quit StapleMory later that year and left your friendship to die in cyberspace that you heard a rumor floating around regarding you and Taehyung. One of your new middle school friends said Taehyung had asked her if it was true that you had a crush on him.

How did Taehyung know about that? And why did he even care? He was supposed to like Ahin. He told you himself that he liked Ahin. If you were his crush, he would’ve told you. He should’ve told you. Because you were fully convinced he no longer cared about his little gamer friend when there were plenty of prettier kids to pursue. And whether or not it was the truth, you took it to heart, despite all the other signs that had said otherwise.

So, no. The rumor wasn't true. You didn’t have a crush on him. Not anymore.

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

The deal with my deer tail: Continued from the last tagged post (MENTIONS OF EX’S AND OHS OFF THE PORT BOW).

Like, I’m very painfully aware that this is %200 a trauma/coping thing that I’ve developed for myself now because deer were … My exe’s absolute favorite animal of all time ever and he associated with them deeply in regards to certain aspects of his personality and hobbies and this kinda plays a little bit into why I was attracted to him in the first place because it was such unique interest for someone to have and then ….Of course his favorite film ever was “Bambi” like, to the point of having the plushies and the original ORIGINAL book by Felix Salten along with it’s original sequel book and everything and it’s like …So odd for me because I live right by the woods in the middle of nowhere anyway and not a day goes by without discussion of these creatures in my house or without an offer to go “deer spotting” or “Bambi Spotting”… And I don’t have much room to say “no” because who would say “no” to deer sighting so I typically just go along with as if it doesn’t effect me because I have no choice…..  And anyway outside of my home life I know tumblr typically loves deer and deer aesthetics as well and while I thought I’ve been trying to go out of my way to avoid this particular animal (at least on social media if I’m unable to in my home life) for the longest time because I associate them so deeply with my ex … Because deer were *HIS* thing … I’m slowly coming to terms with this creeping realization that I’ve had that I’ve not only been surrounded by the actual animal since before I met him …. But I’ve also just … Been surrounded by just …. All these deer characters and deer aesthetic since he left me…. And that also hurts me ….Because ….Since he’d been trying to find ways to get back in contact with me for the better part of the decade yearly since then, without ever apologizing, and since 2017 I’ve only had two years without receiving something from him in order to fully process how he’d been in my life for a near full decade like, wether I wanted  him to be or not … That sort of just … devolved into this odd habit of me projecting unto certain characters with these kind of aesthetics and relationship dynamics to help cope because he never gave me anything else and it’s weird because I started to seek out these things and look at them in context to my relationship with this person and I just felt ….. bittersweet but okay because I would think of him and I would think of the way that he used to make me feel and feel and I would feel sad but because of the nature and narrative that I was projecting toward I would also feel comforted in a way and validated and calm? Which is also the way I’d start to feel whenever I’d see an actual deer or mention of deer or even see clips or concept art from “Bambi” or a baby deer …

But ………

So back in 2018, just a couple days after what would have been one of our “anniversaries” had past, and I hadn’t even keeping track of how many at that point but like, basically something happened that triggered me into a remember the time that in 2013 he had found my tumblr and followed me without warning, context or permission, without even speaking to me after finding me the year before this just to let me know how much he couldn’t care less about me, apparently ….. which, sure, Jan.

But … This time he was freaking me out because he was just following me silently on a blank account out of nowhere and I kind of managed to find what could’ve been considered my first ever girlfriend within the six months to a year that he’d been out of my life and it is me and this new girl had only “official” for 3 days after like, 6 months of slow burn flirting with each other and then this other cowardice arsehole who didn’t even have the dignity to speak to me proper was … Someone who had known for me for 3 years and someone whom I had once shared the most intimate parts of myself with.

In short I could already foresee this becoming a pattern after he’d managed to contact me the last time so I ended up breaking down and having a panic attack.

I didn’t know what to do and I felt sick to my stomach and I didn’t want him putting me in a spot, so…  I made a screen cap and a post and kind of explaining who he was and how he hurt me and how I didn’t want him hurting my girlfriend or anyone else so just PLEASE don’t talk to him etc. And then I blocked him and threw up. And would-be-girlfriend blocked me the next day because of this…

A couple weeks later around New Years, I decided to log into the old hotmail account that I had just because I was curious….

The first email that he sent me was to let me know that he was going to follow me on tumblr and he was asking how my Christmas was and inquiring how I was doing, he wanted to know if I was “fine”. His version of pet names all included as if nothing had gone wrong between us ….

The next three emails, sent within minutes of each other, each only sentences long, were all responding to my reaction to his following me on tumblr without a word, without context, and seemingly without context …. These emails all of which I did not end up saving or screen caping because…. I’m pretty much 99% freaking. Percent. SURE! That he stated something passively along the lines of: “ If I REALLY wanted to *BLANK* , I would have done so… >.>” cause I distantly remember his little side eye emoji that he placed after the words “done so”  and like, it’s really easy to kind of place the words “HURT YOU” in the middle of that, because that’s what I was talking about him doing in context, which would lead to at least vaguely remembering this in a full sentence as: “If I REALLY wanted to hurt you, I would have done so … >.>”

So yes, I’m at least 99% sure that he had threatened me, like that …  

And of course I didn’t respond, but I do remember feeling threatened enough that it made my heart race and it made me cry and I needed to ask my mom for champaign to calm and I also remember that the whole reason why I didn’t save those emails was because if I did it would make the threat real and would need to tell my parents and I just didn’t want to think of him that way or what he’d meant by that and because this was already becoming a pattern, I didn’t want to spend another entire year of being paranoid he was planning something …

And he also kept going about what a nice guy he was and told me to have a nice life and told me he was gonna check up on me anymore and said that I treated him like shit …

So I just took a sip of my champaign, told myself I’d see him in a year, and deleted his emails… This was in 2013.

In 2014, I caught him spying on me through the visitors page of an account I’d already gone out of my way to block him on, and I noticed that, even though it been two years, he still had the icon that I had personally picked out for him as his avatar, an odd memory to keep from someone you claim to not care about, constantly ….

In 2015,  he sent me a silent skype request…

In 2016.. He found my tumblr again …Actually saying something where I could access it this time … He sent me like, 7 IM’s and for the most part was back to being nice as pie, back to his version of calling me pet names and everything …  claimed that he just wanted to say Hello …

He said that we could talk someday if I wanted to and that it was up to me … I still didn’t answer, because for one this was past midnight on Friday The 13th and when I saw that I had 7 IM’s and a new follower I just …. I got this sinking gut feeling that I knew that it was him and then I told myself that I was being paranoid again and that he couldn’t possibly because I’d already blocked him and so I opened up the messages just to prove to myself that I was wrong and got met with his username and a single smiley face emoji like:

:)

“:)” Was the first thing I saw when I opened his messages…

And I immediately closed them out again and I closed tumblr out and I just sat there …. for awhile … Because the last thing he did say to me verbally was to threaten me and tell me that I treated him like shit …  And I had no way of knowing what could be behind that smiley face …

But I needed to know … So I opened the messages and read them …

And that’s when he went back to being as nice as his own pie recipe and seemingly pretending like those emails and the spying didn’t happen …

Like, I don’t know if he knew I knew about them, but I have an inkling he must’ve otherwise he wouldn’t have been that cocky … “:)” is not a friendly smiley face, nor will it ever be.

And in the middle before all that he was like: “Let’s hope you don’t bite my head off this time …. xD” referring back to only the 2013 incident when I said something indirectly and that scared away the girl I was about to maybe start something with, again as if that didn’t happen ….

So, I didn’t answer him, because he didn’t earn it.

So like yeah, back in 2018, due to …. certain contexts of certain things which would also lead into me having anticipated myself getting caught up in an over abundance of people’s appreciation for deer, due to something that I not mention, I’d also been triggered/hit with a sharp realization that, October 27th, 2019 would have been the 10 year anniversary of having met that person in the first place, if he hadn’t discarded me after 3 years and then spent like, the better part of the decade trying to get in contact with me, upon the deeper realization that, even as of now, I’ve only really officially had this person out of my life for two years, and on top of that, he’d still find a way of showing up in my life Every. Single. Year. For the past four years. And now I would have to be dealing with an over abundance of deer and ‘Bambi’ references and puns, even more so than I obviously did and still do now, in my home life…

So my reaction was to laugh. REALLY fucking hard. And then I realized that deer might actually just…. LEGIT be my trigger always and then I started crying laughing cause I was just like “OH dear GOD… (and I can’t even like, say that that or type that without it already being a pun without it being a pun …which only makes it FUNNIER …) I might LEGIT have Bambiphobia!”

And then I broke down. Because I didn’t know how to feel about this or how I was gonna deal with it.

I’m still figuring out how I feel about this and how I’m dealing with it ….

My ex  …. Was….He wasn’t a very complex boy but, he had always been more ,… In touch with things like femininity and sensitivity, or at least made a show of it, but I’d like to think he was genuinely like that considering what his interests were and he might’ve been autistic too just, looking back on things in context?

(His absolute FAVORITE music to listen to was also Owl City and he loved Adam Young, and considering Adam Young is self diagnosed and my ex’s special interest in deer, and Bambi and the books and the plushies and the the way he could just …talk and talk to me about anything for hours and hours and hours and we’d never we’d never get tired of each other…. I’ve just been doing all this math in my head I’m not trying to imply anything bad about these things and they all play into factors of why I was originally attracted to him to begin with).

He openly identified as Bisexual before I even knew what that was for myself and still kind of considered myself “Straight but not Narrow TM” or whatever kind of definition I saw on Television.

He wrote poetry as a hobby and of course knew how to play the piano while I did none of those things.

He was 17 when I met him but due to cultural difference of where he lived… he enjoyed wine and opera.

He was extremely well spoken and charming and articulate, and he also loved Mr. Rodger’s and Albert Einstein to the point of just having just … One big black and white poster of Albert in his room and one time, he was going on about his admiration for Rodger’s and so innocently told me how he intended to write and send him fan-letters one day and then reasonably became extremely upset when I informed that Rodger’s passed away, and I felt even more so helpless to comfort him when he asked me if I could tell him a little bit more about Rodger’s life to make him feel better and I knew absolutely nothing about the man aside from vaguely remembering that I used to watch his show when I was small …

So yeah my ex’s personality could essentially be summed up as: “ Eccentric, Silly “Smart” boy”, if I needed to …

He once excused himself when I told him that I needed to eat soon and came back, all decked out in a tuxedo to “have dinner together”, and I was about to eat a taco…

This one time he noticed that I was super uncomfortable and upset because I just watched this disgusting ableist film that had like incest in and shit and I didn’t wanna tell him but he got it out it out of me and HE KNEW WHAT FILM I WAS TALKING ABOUT AND THEN WANT ON BIG RANT AND ESSAY ABOUT HOW VILE IT WAS AND HOW I SHOULD PAY IT NO MIND AND AFTERWARDS HE WAS LIKE: “You know what? We need some music to wash the taste out of our mouths…” and then he just started playing the piano to calm me down further.

And I’m only saying it like this because incase no one has noticed it’s been a little bit more… Confusing? For me to try and throw a man like this into everyone’s typical “FuckBoyTM” box and call that “Healing”.

I wouldn’t even wanna put labels on him …  

I genuinely feel as though I would need to think back to olden times in order to find a way to insult him that would accurately combat and deconstruct the amount of passion we brought out in each other, if it is appropriate to speak of my feelings for him in this context.

His mistreatment of women that he did not like …. Left much to be desired in regards to his attitude. Though his comments were mostly reserved for his half sister, my half sister, and fictional characters and I’m not bringing this up to try and say that this was justified or frame it into a: “Well, he never did that to ME sort of picture …” Though, the odd thing is that, for all the things that my younger self had shared with him, after his abandonment, ever year for four years I’d kept on waiting for the shoe to drop and for him to call me names and slurs and for the verbal abuse to finally commence and he just …

He wouldn’t do any of that. He never did. Not once. Not even during times he would get angry with me when we were together.

So when HE DID, lose his patience with me, he never resorted to name calling, so when he said and did things that hurt me, that he should’ve known better for doing, that meant he was really fucking harsh ….

So harsh, that one night….. It would be the final night I’d ever thought I’d speak to him again. Or at least begin to test him to see if he would come back and apologize and therein lies the the issue: HE ALWAYS came back, HE NEVER apologized.

Perfect. Gentleman. (Of course I’m using sarcasm).

Seriously, you know that new chat post about Male Victorian Novel Protagonist has fucked by his Lady Love and Knows This, BUT is Too Proud to admit this though still pines for her so when he speaks to her now he just: *sweats*…Is your family in good health?

Legit triggers my PTSD cause for the past four years with me it’s been just: Hey mate. Wanted to see how your X-mas was. Is your family okay? Are you fine? I’ve got some time off… Okay fine, I won’t check on you anymore, it’s not like I still love you or anything, baka! >.<  *cue two more  years of silent bating before* Hey kiddo you doing okay? I know it’s late but my days off today and if you wanna talk someday you can I’ll leave you alone now! :)

Like I know I’m paraphrasing but that’s pretty much it (and I know I know I’m sorry for the “baka” joke, but he WAS a huge otaku nerd to a certain extent and all the anime that I would watch before I really started interacting with AMV editing community on YouTube was recommended him so needless to say I do not watch Anime so much anymore but I couldn’t resist making a “baka” joke in my own mind while reading his poorly veiled passive aggression and it’s written down and out of my system how I’m gotten to properly share one of the ways I’ve teased him for this if only in my own mind.

The thing that makes me feel weird/guilty about all this though is despite his behavior suspicious as shenanigans, he’d only ever attempt close contact once per year (as far as I know) and as far as I know aside from that one time I’d caught him spying on an art group from an account I’d already blocked him on which I don’t really know how he found (which okay, still a little shaken up about that one every time I type about it) his way of always popping up in my life somehow never really strayed from his ordinarily open way of trying to do it, and he’d never verbally abuse me or call me names or slurs while this was happening, despite how condescending or ominous he was while trying to get a razzle out of me …

MEANWHILE, because I let him get a razzle out of me, no matter how long ago it was before I found cpunk, I ended up deliberately calling him an extreme ableist slur just to send him away from away from me, over what was nothing more than a silly misunderstanding and classic case of miscommunication because I couldn’t see his first email and didn’t think to check before I went off on him, regardless if the misunderstanding could’ve been prevented if he communicated directly or not.

And I was too caught up in my reaction to him choosing being ominous and condescending when once he finally decided to try to speak to me again after two years of silent lurking after the last time he tried to speak to me he passively threatened me, that I didn’t get to take back the use of my ableist language toward when I had the chance. Which is the only thing that I’d ever apologize for before his, if he ever gave me one, and of course not conditionally for the both of us.  

My ex’s most sensitive spot has always been his mental health and I’ve always known this because I found out once in the early stages of our relationship when we were roleplaying and I went a little too far with my character, so that’s in 2013 when I panicked I decided to say something…like that to upset him in hopes that he would leave me alone but I was really more hurt than I was scared and I would have confronted him directly but again I had a putting it quite bluntly flakey rebound “girlfriend” at the time and I had no idea where she was and I was freaking out and I didn’t want him putting me in a spot and I didn’t know what would happen if he left me alone. And this was at a time when I was taking the “stealth” mode about being disabled. Partially because of him (Gee I WONDER what could’ve happened).

The only person who knew this about me, very intimately (not intimately enough), was him and of course at the time I would NEVER tell my silly abled-bodied brit of a rebound girlfriend.

So, I did what I did and I said what I said.

At the time I only became slightly afraid when I read his reaction in those emails, and then the next year when I caught him spying on already blocked account and the blocking system worked both ways so I had no way of confronting him about it even if I wanted to ether way.

Though, I was admittedly slightly comforted knowing that he never changed the icon I’d picked out for him ….enough to kinda calm me down a bit…… Is that weird of me? It was weird of him.

Now because of this trigger and the context of certain things as to WHY this was such a strong trigger and in context of certain things that we both said… and in regards of the way he handled trying to get back in contact with me for four years and responded to the one reaction he got out of me and proceeded to continue the pattern for 3 years when he couldn’t just used that time to apologize like I’d been waiting for him to do and meanwhile I’m still… confused  and guilty … because the first and final reaction he ever got out of me was …that.

For the past year now…. I haven’t been able to stop myself from crying and I just don’t feel like I can let it be like this anymore because I already felt awful about everything before but relating everything in context of the trigger which is another case where I could actually use it help cope is just making me feel so much worse.

What makes this even worser though is that this particular trigger is not only very popular and very public and with this substantial involvement of deer and deer aesthetics and then certain aesthetics  and even names …. That I feel like only the two of us would get that it’s just ouch… But like, this thing is also interconnected with Owl City, like not officially but in it’s own way? Which is one of the first things that I thought of once I let the trigger settle because one of the FIRST questions that my ex asked me the day that I met him was wether or not I liked Owl City and I had never even heard of them before so I looked them up and my heart melted and I just knew I had to keep this God Damn Fucking Ray Of Sunshine in my miserable life and never let him go….

And I like to think obviously that the tables must have turned a little bit since then which is another part of what makes using my triggers as coping mechanisms if I can, so cathartic and funny to me and why people can pry this method from my hysterical hands …..

But what I’m getting at here making the Owl City mention even though I hadn’t had myself listen to a single Goddamn thing of theirs for 7 years up until this FREAKING. YEAR (because the tears were already flooding, my honey’s, so I figured MIGHT AS WELL! And yes I did end up crying my eyes out like I knew that would happen if I’d ever let myself listen to Adam Young ever again …) is that… This this thing….. That I love….. Is also a thing my ex would love ….And the reason that all my projectional coping mechanisms work so well is because the dynamics that remind me of our relationship tend to work both ways and is probably part of the reason how I was able to keep (at least reasonably) calm through the 4 years he kept tabs on me was because I felt like I had this very specific trope-y outlet to project my feelings onto and I know that he was a nerd so, if he was … paying attention and absorbing the same media I was …(he would’ve already learned how to apologize…)

No, but seriously, the difference is with THIS media though… Is because it has so many ties to so many of his own aesthetics and things he enjoys …..I just know ….. That he was seeing exactly what I was seeing. I was DREADING the concept of knowing that I was going to fall in love with this thing from the very beginning and it got to the point where I’d be reminded of certain elements I’d forgotten or I’d see certain things play-out for the the first time and, my breath would hitch in my chest …. and I feel guilty (You cannot be attracted to this you cannot be attracted to this you cannot be attracted to this. Not THIS time. Not again. Never again.  Stop it …. Stop it…Stop it.  Because ether way this is bad. This is terrible. This is going to be by far the WORST one because you know it involves the actual THING now for both you instead of just elements of the thing why are you subjecting yourself to this?!  You know he’s seeing this right now….If he watched the Owl City thing that we’re not watching, then he’s watching this. And YOU shouldn’t be watching this ether!

And so, I would discipline myself to disassociate: You will NOT project THAT relationship onto these two characters, they haven’t even interacted yet!

And then …. that happened. They interacted. And it obviously felt so much worse then…. I prepared myself two seconds in for how it was gonna play out. But I wasn’t prepared that it would end ….or even be that close to home. And then I reminded myself that he was probably watching the same thing that I was, as I’ve always done because it was fun being reminded I was right, my only solace really because projecting myself through these characters was the closest I’d ever get to an apology, but the time that the first viewing was over, everything just felt so wrong and I just felt so uncomfortable about everything and I started to cry cause I knew my reactions to this dynamic were gonna be the most intense from here on out and ………I was so confused and afraid of my own emotions at that moment… And I was feeling a lot of them.  

What concerned me the most here though,  was being almost certain of the fact that that, if I was watching and it triggered a reaction, HE was most likely watching and it triggered a reaction.... And given the context of the trigger that I’m talking about .... I mean, if it hit close enough to send me into a freaking emotional whiplash and make ME breakdown and make cry and make sick enough to tell my parents and they didn’t even care ... because they said that they already “knew”...(not even discussing the fact that a year later, I would be assaulted by the one man in my family who should have never been the one to guide me through something so awkward but who “helped” me through this emotionally but, again would beat me a year later while my useless mother watched and laughed and would tell me it was it was my fault and I would end briefly removed from my home because of this because he’d left me with bruises and a permeant physical scar    ... over food) 

...then, I can’t help but think of how my ex would ....Ether be absolutely disgusted with himself or... be... very entertained by all of this. Or both. I know I’ve been both.

And oh, remember all that emotional whiplash I just mentioned in the above paragraph? Well it’s only gotten worse as time went on. Right now I’d say it’s at it’s peak.

Funny this thing is ....I’d been trying to fight back against this temptation to reach out to my ex since this whole thing started and like .... Once we were well into 2019 I just .... realized that fighting this wasn’t going to work anymore if certain circumstances were going to be what they were and things ended up cutting so close to what I feared that it almost doesn’t matter anyway and it still hurts me just as much if not now more so, because of other certain happenings that I will not mention.  

And now I can openly admit why the entirety of 2019 has just felt like a ticking time bomb to me. Like of course there are plenty of other factors adding into why .... I’ve been preparing to go through with reaching out to him now but ,like... My paranoia has been like, trying to tell me that this has all just been one big long game or a test and has been making me feel as though he had somehow pre-planned this all and is he currently anticipating me contacting him before 2019 is over.   

And that notion is driving me just as bananas as the idea of actually letting myself go through with contacting him.

So I might as well.

I mean ....

Our relationship was taken extremely seriously by the the both of us for the most part... up until the end.

And we were technically each others first times. 

We weren’t even dating, really... I just refer to him as my “ex” to make things less complicated..... But for those three years.... We were each others partners....In a way. It just makes things easier to say He Vas My Boyfriend.

I’m suggesting it that would make sense if he would want to try getting back in contact with me and check on me but feel shy and not know how to make it better since he’d have to understand how he fucked up that badly. And for a time... he was the only one who kept extending the invitations for contact.

At least this way I can check to see if he’s okay. 

Everything is so fucked up. I know this.

Though Christmas might be the right time to except his last open invitation, all things considered.

I would’ve originally had more time to plan this out had it not been for everything that happened.

My coping mechanisms are as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a doubled edge sword. 

I’m just a creature. That’s it. I cannot change this.

I might not be online for a while.

Another Friday the 13th.

Well fancy that.

[goliath-de-senfina-sango]

Homo Ecto Sapiens

Chapter 2 Fandom: Danny Phantom Rating: General Audiences Relationships: Jack Fenton/Maddie Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jack Fenton & Maddie Fenton, Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton, Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson Characters: Danny Fenton, Jack Fenton, Maddie Fenton, Jazz Fenton, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley, Mr. Lancer (Danny Phantom), Dash Baxter, Lunch Lady (Danny Phantom), Dorathea "Dora" (Danny Phantom), Paulina Sanchez, Valerie Gray, Princess Dorothea, Princess Dora, Skulker (Danny Phantom) Additional Tags: Fix-It, Danny Fenton has ADHD, Multilingual Tucker, Trans Male Character, Multilingual Danny, Bisexual Danny Fenton, Bisexual Tucker Foley Summary:

Danny Fenton stood inside the dark tunnel of the only portal his parents couldn't get to work because he couldn't say no to a dare. He tripped on his way out. Now he has to deal with figuring out how to come out to his parents as being half ghost, while dealing with all the ghosts that come out of the portal.

Tucker and Sam stare at each other.  For a handful of moments, neither is entirely sure what they should do.  Sam is full of shock and anger and regret and terror.  She could've died.  Her best friends could have died.  How is a teenager even meant to process that?  She wants to curl up on the ground and hide from everything in that moment, will all the nasty reality that is Ghosts away.  But Tucker is bent over Danny, and Danny is out cold.  So she packs away the emotions, cools her shit, and bends down.  "You get his legs, I'll take his shoulders.  FentonWorks?"

They get him there.  Danny's parents are downstairs, working on something.  They get Danny on his bed, and Sam slumps against the door.  Tucker and Danny skipped over a detention essentially and all three have skipped school.  So Tucker goes down to erase the Fenton's voice mailbox and sends out a bug to his own.  Sam has no clue why he has that ready but asks if he can do it with her folks' line.  He asks for a few minutes. The silence passes, Tucker gets on Danny's laptop.  He always fled to the tech when he needed somewhere safe.  Eventually, he asks.  "You ok?  Today went to shit."

"No, I don't think I am.  Like, the worst I've got is some bruising that my make up can handle.  I need a shower, I guess."  They both know why she isn't actually ok.  Neither wants to bring it up.  So instead, Sam checks Danny's closet and finds something she'd left there a couple months back.  "I'm gonna do that actually.  Keep an eye on him?" Tucker grunted in acknowledgment.  That was the best she'd get so Sam grabbed a spare towel from the dresser and headed to the shower.

When Sam got back she looked over Tucker's shoulder.  Images of old ladies in familiar looking uniforms were all over the screen.  "Looking her up?"

"If we know more about her then we can talk it out with her right?"  Tucker's fingers paused over the keyboard.  He stretched, looking over at her.  "Right?"

"Probably.  Looking to work that Foley Charm on her?"  Sam elbowed him lightly in the ribs.  Tucker clutched his chest as though he'd been broken.  Thank gods for that smile on his face.  "Tell me you aren't planning to flirt with her.  Danny might get jealous."  Tucker snorted.

"I don't think Danny is into old ladies who occasionally burst into flames." Tucker went back to typing and clicking, screen light glaring off his lenses.  "So, my theory is that ghosts draw on ambient energy to sustain themselves.  When we went into that fight my phone was on like… 50 percent.  When we got here it was at 17.  So maybe we should carry batteries on us?"

"And our wrist rays."  Sam was never letting herself be helpless like that again.  "what've you got on her so far?"

"She said the menu hasn't changed in 50 years and she wasn't kidding.  So I'm looking back at people employed by Casper back when she was alive, and hoping I can recognize her facial structure."

"Impressive."  Sam sighed and looked over at Danny.

He zipped up his suit.  Sam made a face at him and pulled off the logo of his dad's face.  "You can't go around with this on your chest."  He agreed. If Danny ever met aliens of the extradimensional kind, he didn't want them to see his dad's face plastered on him.  Danny walked into the tunnel that was his parents' ghost portal, looking all around it.  The whispers of those other worlds called out in his head again.  As he walked deeper into the portal, Danny saw nothing wrong.  Not a nut or bolt out of place.  He got to the end. It was dark.  Too dark to see anything.  Turning back, he kept a hand on the wall to steady himself.  His foot hit a raised panel, and Danny leaned to the left for support. There was a click.

Danny opened his eyes and saw Sam looking down at him.  Not unusual.  The soreness in his muscles, however, was.  Danny stopped mid-stretch and winced.  "Oh. Right.  20-foot meat monster."  Tucker was at his desk, turned around in the chair and giving him that frown he had when Dash had slammed Danny into a locker.  "How long was I out for?"

"Four days."  Tucker reached under Danny's bed and lifted up a bag of Nasty Burger.

"Four Days?!"

"Nah, like, 2 hours dude."  Tuck chuckled and handed him a wrapped burger.  "You need this dude, that fight took a shit ton outta you."

“Don’t I know it.”  Danny unwrapped the burger and sank his teeth in.  He'd been hungrier than he thought.  It felt like a blink before the burger was gone.  "Thanks, dude, I really needed that.  We basically skipped lunch, didn't we?"  That thought had a horrible domino effect and Danny tore the burger wrapping in half.  "Fuck, my parents are gonna kill me!"

"I erased the voicemail from your box, mine, and Sam's.  Don't worry about that."

"Speaking of, how ya doin Sam?"  Danny turned, looking his friend over and wincing at the bruises on her arms.  “Fuck, the meat pile did that?”

“Yeah, turns out being grabbed up by a bunch of proceeded corpses can do some damage.”  Sam shrugged.  “It’s nothing I can’t fix with some concealer and sleeves.”

“It’s still warm though,” Danny said.  “You good baking yourself?”

“The heaters in the school barely work, and it’s nearly October, Danny.  Things have cooled down plenty.”  Sam frowned and looked over to Tucker.  “Do head injuries affect the perception of temperature?”

“I’m sure they can.  If only someone hadn’t summoned up a meat-obsessed lunch lady with a menu change.”  Tucker paused and raised a brow.  “Actually, how in the hell did you even get them to change it?  Nevermind the why.”

“The why, Tucker, is that schools need to promote healthier changes in the food we consume.”  Sam had that fire in her eyes.  Again.  Danny let out a long sigh, which went ignored by his bickering friends.

“And removing an entire food group from the menu was your solution?”

“It’s one we don’t even need Tucker!  Do you know how inefficient the transfer of calories from meat into our bodies is?”

“We need protein, Sam!  If there’s anything that the Lunch Lady said truthfully it’s that!  Look at Danny!  He barely gets any protein, you can see how that’s turned out for him.”

“My dude, I’m not the only skinny person here.”

“And whether or not we have meat and protein isn’t your decision to make for us all, Sam!”  Tucker glared balefully at the vegan and stood up from Danny’s chair.  “You had to be an individual and have all your individual needs met over what anyone else wanted, didn’t you?  No one but you even wanted this menu change and I’m going to fix it!”  Tucker stormed out of the room, leaving the door open.

“Oh like Hell you’re gonna undo all my hard work!”  Sam barged out as well, completely forgetting Danny as she slammed his door shut.  And Danny stared at that door for a moment before groaning into his pillow.

“This is going to be a whole thing, isn’t it?”  For several moments, Danny laid there and stared up at the constellations he’d put up on his ceiling in glow in the dark stickers.  His stomach reminded him of its existence, and Danny groaned again.  He still had some allowance left, so he went out and headed to the Nasty Burger.  Considering Tucker’s words and how much he’d done that day, Danny ordered a full meal.

After he’d eaten and walked it off on the way home, Danny let what had happened that day go through his mind.  Even as he fought off a small angry blob with his wrist ray, growling at it.  “Ghosts aren’t mindlessly violent beings. I know that.”  He needed to believe that.  “So, that means that she can be calmed, somehow.  She kept going on and on about the benefits of meat, and she died years ago…”  An email notification popped up on Danny’s computer, and he sighed.  “Right, homework assigned by Lancer.  What would I do without Tuck?”

The next day, Danny pulled on one of his darker shirts - a gift from Sam with some constellation’s accurately displayed - and some jeans.  His parents didn’t come up to join him and Jazz that morning, which was likely for the best.  Danny didn’t need their ghost radar pointing at him before he could figure out how to break their biases.  The second his cereal was finished, though, Danny pulled out his journal and attached pencil.  “No,” Danny snapped when he heard Jazz take a familiar breath.  “It’s not a diary, no you may not read it.  For the 11th time, Spazz.”  One weird benefit of super hearing - I can tell when she’s about to speak.  Everyone had different rhythms for when they spoke and when they were thinking etcetera.  Danny knew his sister’s patterns almost as well as Tucker and Sam’s.

Danny wrote into his journal a goal of recording his encounters with apparently sapient ghosts and how quickly he managed to pacify them.  If only he could think of how to pacify this one.

Once the hybrid got to school - later than he would’ve been had those damned blobs not been so interested in fucking with him - Danny groaned as he was dragged to the Vice Principal’s office.  There he found Tucker, who was glaring down at the desk in just the right angle to look like he was glaring directly ahead.  A trick he’d developed for gathering valuable passwords while tricking Lancer and other authorities into thinking he was just a semi-rebellious teen.  Danny couldn’t tell what Tucker could possibly be trying to gather from the desk now, but he may have just been scowling.  Tucker was complicated that way.

“Take a seat, Mr. Fenton.”  Danny obeyed and took his seat, looking steadfastly at the space just behind Lancer’s head.  “Tell me, gentlemen, how and why did you leave my office when both of you were already being punished for starting a food fight in the cafeteria?”  Before either could come up with an answer, Lancer slammed his hand down hard on the desk, and Danny flinched.  “What could possibly have possessed you two to skip school for the rest of the day?”

Danny squirmed a bit, while Tucker took even, obviously measured breaths.  He then looked up at Lancer directly.  “We were worried about Sam, sir.  She hadn’t answered any of her texts, and she always answers even when we’re fighting to make sure we know she’s safe.”  Not untrue, Sam wouldn’t have been able to answer a text if they tried that.  Danny nodded along to Tucker’s story.

“We left out the window to find her, which took forever since she had gone to find a way to help organize something for the school.”  Danny put on his most apologetic face.  “We’re truly sorry about ditching you, Mr. Lancer, but we had to make sure our friend was safe, you see.  We wanted to make sure none of the jocks or anyone had gone and done something horrible to her as revenge for getting the menu changed for a week.”

Lancer glared between the two of them for several seconds more, and Danny fought to keep himself still.  “Fine,” Lancer finally allowed.  “I will be following up with Ms. Manson to confirm all of this, but you won’t be receiving too harsh a punishment for looking out for your friend.  For endangering yourselves by leaving through the window, however, and for leaving without simply telling me, you will be serving both lunch detention and after-school detention.  Do you understand, boys?”

“Of course, Mr. Lancer.”  It amazed Danny, at times, that he and Tucker could speak in unison.  They were like twins.

“Dismissed.  You two best not be late to my class.”

On the way to class, Danny brought up his thoughts on trying to appease the Lunch Lady.  “Her name is Agatha,” Tuck said.  “Agatha Reece.  And maybe you could, I dunno, teach her about the health crisis in America?  Help me organize the school to reform the menu the right way?”

“You want it changed too now?  I thought you were gonna get it changed back early, or something?”

“Oh no, the food around here sucks either way.”  Tucker rolled his eyes.  “I just wish we had like, a better storage of better food in general.  I could recommend my uncle and aunt’s farm for fresh, nearby food products.”

“If only we knew how Sam had convinced the school to do this whole ‘vegie week’ thing.”  Danny shook his head.  “That’s what really doesn’t make sense to me.  We’ve only been in school for like, a month or so.  How the hell did Sam ‘wear them down’ so quickly?”

“No clue,” Tucker growled.  For a moment the hair on Danny’s nape stood on end at the sound.  “But, I’m going to make a petition, and head around the school getting signatures for a better permanent change decided on by the students.”

Danny patted Tucker’s shoulder and nodded somberly.  “Leave some printer paper for the rest of us at least?”

Tucker raised his nose, Danny now straining to hold in the laughter in front of the door.  “Sorry Danny, but a man on a mission has to go to all lengths to complete his quest.”

Danny bowed at the waist.  “Of course, Friar Tuck, how could I possibly forget?”

“You are forgiven, peasant Daniel.”  Tucker laughed and pulled Danny into the classroom.  Things would be alright.  Danny just needed to weather the storm and make sure both of his friends were still friends by the end of it.

It proved far more difficult a task done than said.  The three had most classes together, but Tucker was busily writing something down every few seconds in a second journal in his desk while he worked.  Tuck had the most fascinating form of ambidextrousness.  He barely paid any attention to Danny’s attempts to start a conversation and crumpled up any notes about Sam he slid over.

Similarly, Sam was ignoring him almost entirely.  She took her notes, but every time she caught him whispering to Tucker, she glared and went cold on Danny himself.  Am I not allowed to talk to both of my friends?

Lunch came around, Lancer had them eating in his room, and Danny had never been more grateful to Tucker’s mom than he had been when Tuck handed him an extra bagged lunch.  “Tuck, you are the best.”

“I know it, dude.”

“Gentlemen!  This is meant to be a time of quiet reflection upon your misdeeds.”  Lancer glared at them until the teens went to silently eating, and Lancer went back to whatever he was doing on his computer.  If Danny focused on the man’s headphones hard enough he could pick up the faint sound of… blasters?  Weird.

At the end of the day, however, while the two were meant to be heading to detention, Tucker was going around and asking groups of friends who were lingering about something and holding up a clipboard that Danny was almost certain he stole from his dad’s office.  Along with that pen.  Never was Danny ever earlier than Tucker to something, but apparently, detention was one of those things.  Sam, surprisingly, was also there.

“Lancer got you too?”  Danny asked as he swept a bit nearer to the goth

“I was gone all day.”  Sam shrugged, pushing the few remains of grass and mud into a pile and then grabbing a dustpan.  “Plus I wanted to help clean it up anyway.  We need this place to eat in after all.”

“Actually, I heard Jerry and Katelyn at least were eating on the theater stage.”  The two scooped everything up into a trash bag with the dustpan.  “They were inviting some other people to bring sandwiches and chips and stuff.”

“Oh wow,” Tucker called out from where Danny was very sure he shouldn’t have been able to hear them.  “No one wanted to eat garbage right from the ground?  I’m surprised, shocked even.”

“Had you actually been there to see, Tucker, there were plenty of people eating peacefully in the cafeteria today!”  Sam looked downright murderous and stomped off to clean away from Tucker.  Danny sighed a heavy sigh and shook his head.

The detention had gone on for an hour, but it’d felt like forever.  Danny watched both his friends march off in different directions and groaned.  Another friendless night for him.  After a trip to the Nasty Burger, Danny did a little walk around the city.  A few ghosts that he could see when the world lost focus skittered away from him, or ignored him entirely.  Some attacked, but his wrist ray had yet to run out of juice even though he forgot to charge it last night.  “Maybe something to do with my other self.  Gonna have to ask mom and dad about that.”  A shiver ran down Danny’s spine, a puff of mist coming out of his mouth and he looked around, letting his senses shift into that surreal state of his ghostly self.  He saw nothing out of the ordinary.  Relaxing, Danny sighed and headed home.

"Danny!"  His dad, Jack Fenton, only seemed to speak in exclamation marks. Danny wondered if he'd ever had an inside voice.  "C'mon, dinner's ready son!"

Danny raised a brow.  "Who cooked?" He'd eaten his Nasty Burger meal and was pretty sure he got all he needed.

"I did!"  On the other hand, more food that wasn't infected with ectoplasmic residue sounded nice.  Danny set down his bag and headed into the kitchen, where his dad had set out chicken, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, and spinach.  His mom and sister were already sitting and eating, and Danny gave them both a wave.

"Hi, Danny!  Juice is in the fridge.  Jazz reminded your father and I we need to refresh our minds with some air every now and then.  I thought, why not a family dinner?"  Mom shrugged as she picked up a chicken leg.  "Jack insisted on cooking."

"Mom," Jazz said in her best calming voice, "Dad never mutates the food."

While Mom and Jazz debated who had the bigger mishaps with ectoplasm - Danny felt the Christmas turkey and Dad dragging them into a world of blinding perpetual light ranked as the biggest mishaps period - Danny grabbed himself a plate and fruit punch.  Jazz clearly grabbed some groceries before telling their parents to surface.

Halfway through his meal, a thought struck Danny.  "Hey Dad, Mom?  How does ectoplasm interact with electricity in its rawest most natural form?  The ectoplasm not the electricity."

Jazz stared at him in betrayal, Why written in her expression.  His parents, however, jumped on the thought of their son having an interest in their work.  Danny had never seen his dad swallow food that fast.

"Ya see Danno, ectoplasm as it is when we retrieve it is naturally an energy thief.  In relation to electromagnetic radiation, it soaks in any and all of it from the area with the exclusion of green visible light.  That's why it feels so cold."

"If we can refine our engines properly we can utilize the flip side of  that natural state," his mom added, "We could revolutionize energy efficiency in technology around the world!"

"It can store up a lot of power, but once it hits it's maximum?"  Dad held his hands together then spread them out so fast he almost smacked Jazz and Danny.  "It all comes out in an intense burn!  Ectoplasm is either plasma hot or cold as space.  When it's cold, it'd drain the power out of everything around it."

Danny nodded, letting the info process for a couple of moments while he ate.  "So if, say, a ghost was to eat human food…?"

"Well," his mom twirled her fork around.  "It likely wouldn't, but if it did the ghost would soak up all the energy that could be gotten out of the material in the food, leaving nothing but ashes."

Danny nodded, curiosity satisfied, and steered the conversation elsewhere.  Once he was done clearing off his plate, Danny was struck with a realization.  It was the sort of thing that happened all the time, when a thought lingered in his head, waiting to present itself.  Usually, that was artistic inspiration.  Now he knew exactly how to calm down Agatha.  Up the stairs, he ran to his computer.

AO3

[noraarchontis]

Nostalgia

Link: AO3 | FF

Status: 1/?

Characters: Erwin Smith, Eren Jaeger, Levi

Relationship: Erwin Smith/Eren Jaeger ; Levi/Eren Jaeger

Summary: It had been eight years since he gained his memories of what happened in his past life. It had almost driven Levi crazy, but he remembered the boy who accompanied him wherever he went. But what happened when Levi was not the first one to find Eren? 

Chapter 1: Cigarette

The sunset from where he stood was astonishing, yet he couldn’t appreciate the loud noise going on outside the building. Well, he never could as the cars honked at everything that blocked its way from speeding past the traffic light. It was past work time and everyone was just trying to rush back home away for the long weekend. They had a Monday off for a certain national holiday, and it was nice to get away from the boring office life.

But, it was exactly the opposite for him as he turned and walked back to where his table was. The empty seat was covered with a fluffy grey blanket and an extra cushion. All of them were gifts from his coworkers and a reminder of how long he had been working in the damn good company.

The dark and tight lips escaped a sigh as he touched the blanket and turned the seat for him to sit down. He wasn’t done for the day, not till three to four hours into the evening. It was the end of the month and end for Winter, which explained the additional workload he had to take despite not wanting to do so. The dark bags underneath his eyes justified his tiredness. He was there, on his desk, from early morning until now.

No one blamed him, to be honest. Everyone looked just as tired as he was, but the shorter man decided he wanted to have less work to think of during the weekend. The man deserved the rest after everything he had worked on.

“How’s work going?”

A voice and smell of coffee decided to interrupt his mind. But, the man didn’t turn to see who it was.

“You know better than to ignore me, Levi.”

Levi took his eyes off the computer screen and met the man with the hoarse voice. Upon looking at him, he only took a long breath and exhaling it slowly to ease off the flaring nerves on his neck.

“You know how it’s going when the stacks begin to collect dust,” the man replied sarcastically but only to sigh and start typing again. “This is the last stack of the month for me. So, you know how it is going.”

The blond man hummed in recognition as he sipped away the coffee in his hand. The sun had set as his eyes explored what lies beyond the outside windows of their office. Lights had begun turning on and so did in their building too.

“Seems like only you and me working overtime in this office.”

He could hear his coworker low and unheard chuckled. The taller man moved his body to face the working man in front of him.

“You know what to do if they don’t finish their work, do you, Erwin?”

Levi’s eyes were off the screen again as he looked at the tall, white man with thick eyebrows. His face didn’t change into any expressions at all but both knew how exhausted each other were.

“We all know what will happen if they don’t finish this by the end of the month. It’s a massive project with a lot of pressure,” Erwin smiled before chugging down the remaining of his coffee. “You know how stressful it can be.”

The shorter man only grinned before turning back his attention to the computer screen and the stack of papers beside him. The keyboard repetitive clicking indicated how much work he had done before his eyes trailed back to the paper. His stack wasn’t as much as he said, to be honest. But, he liked to think of it as more because it’d motivate him to finish them all in one go. There was nothing he couldn’t finish on time unless he had to take a sick day off.

Erwin was still standing close to his table, playing with his phone while holding the empty coffee mug. His tie was off as he undid one of the top buttons of his long shirt. Both Levi and him didn’t need to look formal anymore when it was after work-hour, only when there were clients that they needed to.

“How’s the new boyfriend going along?”

The bigger man was taken aback by the question. It was rare for Levi to ask him personal questions despite trusting him with everything. But, trust wasn’t something that came easily from him.

“I love him,” he smiled, a daydream in his voice was very apparent. “More like a little brother than a lover. But, I want him to stay with me forever.”

Levi’s eyes soften and the typing slowed down for a moment. Erwin’s definition of love was selfish, yet he couldn’t believe how much it hurt him. He was envious — jealous of what life had become to his friend.

“Selfish but good. You deserve it.”

The standing man nodded as he looked at the cup in his hand.

“After all these times, maybe I do.”

He returned to his work, typing in front of the computer and letting the silent to overcome the ending conversation.

“How’s the search?” Erwin decided to continue the talk even as the gray eyes suddenly turned towards him.

“Far from being found,” he said like a sigh coming out from his mouth. He was not only tired but exhausted by everything weighting his shoulder.

Erwin was still standing despite having the opportunity to sit down in any chairs close by his co-worker’s desk. His friend could only imagine how uncomfortable it was to be standing for so long at the same spot.

“How long has it been?” The question tore his attention away from the computer. “You told me you’ve been looking for him, how long has it been?”

The typing stopped as the younger man looked at a small paper sketch pinned on the cubicle. It was someone who he had been searching for and the name was written on it too: Eren Jaeger. The sketches were rough because he did it from memory and his dream. People would’ve called him crazy if he said anything to them about the sketches, so he kept it there. Just a small drawn sketches that only he knew what it meant.

“Eight years,” came out like a sigh. “It has been eight years, Erwin. Probably counting.”

Levi forced to gain his attention back to the work, fighting his betraying mind.

“Sorry to hear that,” was the reply as Erwin had finally decided to stop disturbing his coworker. “I hope you find him soon.”

The younger man only nodded as the typing noise began to fill the entire floor and sinking all other noises around him.

--

It was completely dark when he had almost finished all his works. Levi didn’t realize how late it was until he turned around to take a break from the last thing he needed to finish on. The outside was completely engulfed by the darkness with only street lamps and some restaurants emitting its lights to the street. The street wasn’t as crowded anymore, only a few people passing by and trying to get home as quickly as they could from cold winter wind.

The thoughts of being home and relaxing filled his mind. It gave him the energy to finish the last piece of work he needed to do, knowing that he had been working late for almost a week now. He was done with his workplace, and thank goodness for the long weekend ahead of him.

His report was done, printed, and placed on his assistant’s desk. It never occurred to him that working as the head scientist would be this hard. At the end of every month, he would have to write a month-long report that was basically the summary of what his regular reports were about. Plus, he had to meet people either to interview them or to work together with other professors and scientists in the field.

But, he wasn’t complaining since he loved what he was doing with everyone else. That was the reason why he wanted to pursue this career anyway.

“Are you finally done with those stacks and the report?”

Levi turned his head towards the husky voice. Erwin was all ready to the building, just like he was. All he needed to do was to wear his sweater, jacket, and gloves before fighting the cold night.

“Fucking finally,” Levi said as he wore his thick jacket after the sweater. “So tired from typing that stupid report. I don’t get why I need to summarize the other reports if they already have it.”

Erwin laughed at the statement and frustration that came out from Levi’s mouth. He knew how much the head scientist was an annoyance with the organization’s system, but this was his first time being so openly irritated at it. It was probably because of the recent and major development in their projects which was good, yet could be annoying at the same time.

“Don’t complain about the progress. You’ve been stuck for a while, so this is a good thing.”

That earned him a nod from Levi as he packed hurriedly yet carefully not to forget anything. He was done for the day and didn’t need anything more than he already had. All he wanted was to go home.

“You know why I’m complaining. Don’t change the subject, Erwin,” he said and grabbed his phone and bag from the table. “Ready to leave?”

All Levi got was a smile on Erwin’s face as they walked away from the desks. The smaller man tied the warm cashmere scarf around his neck when they entered the elevator. Silence filled the void of their ride; both of them were on their phones, catching up with the things they missed from the day or the morning.

However, the silence was broken when one of the phones suddenly rang, and it was Erwin’s. He picked it up as he glanced at the number of floors they were passing.

“Hey, how are you?” Erwin asked sweetly over the phone. “What are you doing still up at this time?”

Levi wasn’t listening to the conversation; he could guess that it was the boyfriend and probably worried. He wasn’t bothered since he couldn’t hear anything from the phone. He just went on with his business, checking his emails and unread texts.

The talking went on for a little bit before the blond man hung up with a soft “Good night,” and “I love you.” A smile still decorated Erwin’s face, and they were only a few stories from the lobby of their building.

“Boyfriend, I’m guessing.”

Levi’s phone was out of sight too as he waited patiently until the elevator dings. They were almost there. Out from the elevator and out from this building for a good while.

“You guessed right,” Erwin replied, still a smile on his face. “He was getting worried since I rarely worked till this late.”

The elevator finally dinged and opened up, freeing them both from small space. Levi walked out first and waited until his co-worker did the same before continuing their steps toward the entrance. A security guard greeted them as they walked away and into the big lobby area.

“Go home to your husband, darling. I bet he missed you so much right now,” Levi said sarcastically but they both knew it was just joking.

The bigger man only giggled as they kept walking towards the door. They both saw someone sitting on the side as if it was waiting for someone. It didn’t bother them to be honest because if anything, the security guards would’ve already handled it.

The door opened for them to leave when suddenly, the person waiting suddenly stood up and turned around to see them. He was smiling from ear to ear, even as his green eyes smiled. Erwin froze solid on his feet as his eyes widen at the sight of the person in front of him.

“Eren, what are you doing here?” come out louder and higher than he would it to be.

The man paced towards Erwin and hugged his lover tightly despite the coldness. Eren was still smiling and happy to see his boyfriend after being swept off by works for the last couple of days.

“I was out studying and doing a group project around the area,” he explained excitedly. “So, I figured that we could go back together. It’s been a while.”

Levi stood frozen, a different kind of frozen as he witnessed everything that happened. The cold wind didn’t help to bring him back to reality when he saw the person he had been looking for all these years. All these years, the Eren Jaeger was in front of him and in his friend’s embraced.

“...Eren?”

The name finally came out from his mouth as he saw Eren left the warm embrace to find him. Then, it dawned on him. Suddenly, he understood what just uncovered in front of his eyes. All the happiness laced with betrayal happened in front of his eyes.

He saw as Eren’s eyes widen at the sight of him and immediately stepped back from the man he had just embraced. He shook his head as if he didn’t want to believe what was in front of him, and so did he.

Levi didn’t want to believe it either but there he was.

“Levi?”

His breath stopped when he heard his name called through those lips. He found him. Levi finally found him — the person who had been haunting him for all these years.

“How…do you do, Levi?”

The question came out softly against the cold night air but it soothed him after all this was the voice he had longed to hear. Yet, that was only the beginning of the endless questions in his mind. The question about his coworker, the truth, and the meaning of it all; there were too many to list them all, and he couldn’t even think about it all.

“I’m...doing just fine,” a lie that came out so easily from everyone’s mouth. “How are you doing, Eren?”

Levi’s heart was on his throat. Anything and everything could have made his heart jumped out if he wasn’t trying to collect himself and calm down. He tried to keep himself calm but to see the person he had longed for embracing another man and clinging to it for protection, maybe he was in the wrong. Maybe he shouldn’t have found Eren at all. Was this all a mistake? Was looking for Eren something that he shouldn’t have done?

Levi quietly sighed as he glanced at Eren clinging to his boyfriend’s hand while hiding behind him. Was this really the end of his search?

Erwin cleared his throat all as if trying to take his attention away from the boyfriend. It was normal since Eren looked at the bigger man with those eyes pleading for Erwin to take him away from this meeting. It was normal for the boyfriend to feel weirded out by a third wheel after all.

“I need to talk with Levi for a moment. Would you wait for me over there?” Erwin pointed his finger at the nearby cafe that was still open and with that Eren nodded. A smile formed on his lips and before the boyfriend could walk away, Erwin pulled him for a kiss and a hug.

His eyes were still on Eren even after he walked away. The breaths turned to sigh when he turned to face Erwin and those shining smile on his face.

“What is the meaning of this?” Levi asked. His voice was shaking but he toughened it up.

This wasn’t a place to have a breakdown just because everything was drowning him. However, the silence from his colleague wasn’t much of an answer too.

“You never had the intention to tell me, do you?” A follow-up question to the one unanswered.

“No,” Erwin finally answered, a clear-cut no for a lot of things. “I never do.”

His jaw clenched from the answer — the straightforward answer that made his heart boil despite the winter’s cold wind. He had no idea how long had this been going on, how long had his colleagues been hiding this fact from him. But most of all, how much did they remember about the past.

His chest tightened as he tried to regulate his breathing slowly and quietly. He was tired yet angry and frustrated at everything. Yet, this was his reality. He was supposed to be happy, but how could such happiness turn sour almost immediately? The happiness that he had longed for so long just turned its back on him right away.

All he could do was laughed at it and at himself. His hand was on his temples, messaging and covering the droplets of tears that betrayed him. The laughs that were so fake and unhappy that anyone who heard it would probably pity him, and thank god there was no one around them.

The look on Erwin’s face wasn’t much better either as he stood there and did nothing. All he could do was watch and wait until Levi stop doing whatever he was doing. Besides, it was not in his position to give a comforting word since he had taken all those comforting words for his own.

“Tell me, Erwin,” Levi breathed, wiping those tears from his eyes and looking properly at the person in front of him. “Why are you doing this?”

He smiled at the question and thought for a moment before answering. Erwin had made up his mind for a long time ago, and he could care less of anything that was going to be thrown in front of him right now. Eren was his and he would make sure it would stay that way.

“Eren was yours because I thought it could change you. But I need him right now, Levi,” he paused and turned to the direction of the cafe where his boyfriend waited. “I need him more than you do now, Levi.”

The moment he finished the sentences, another big smile decorated his face with quick greetings of good night and enjoy your weekend. Those greetings sounded repulsive, yet Levi just stood there in silence as he watched Erwin walked into the cafe and greeted by Eren — his Eren.

He took a deep breath and turned away from the cafe’s direction, looking at the empty street while stealing glances at the happy couple exiting the place and walking away. Everyone knew he should do the same and he could, but could he walked away from the person he had been looking for years?

Each breath he took eventually turned to sighs as his hand searched through all the pockets he had. When his hand stopped, he only giggled quietly since he realized that he had quit smoking for a long while now. But now could be the perfect moment to smoke.

Now could be the perfect moment to drown in that ecstasy.

[elenathehun]

reading is emotional, part 13

So I read volumes 11, 12, and 13 several months ago, at the end of September, and then real life basically interrupted any attempt to write a reactions summary. So in lieu of that, I'll just pull my initial impressions from a Naruto group chat I participate in:

Jiraiya's intro is horrible - why is he a fan fave again? - but it also overpowers the most important thing in that scene: a foreign seal had been placed on top of Minato's work and was interfering with the original. I mean, wow, so many stories should come from just that. What haven't I seen this utilized by fandom more often? Orochimaru had access to Naruto as a baby, for one.

[One chat member points out that Orochimaru placed his seal on Naruto during the chuunin exam] When did he have time to do that? [another chat member points out that Orochimaru hit Naruto in the stomach to get him out of the way] Is that all it takes to apply a seal? Dammit, that's lame.

Anyway, is it just me, or does it seem pretty clear that Jiraiya was basically MIA in part 1? It doesn't seem as though Sarutobi knew where he was, given that jounin were supposed to report seeing him to command...

Meanwhile, an unstable jinchuuriki is just killing people all over the place - and our one sacrificial jounin is tasked with watching him. Dammit, I forgot how annoying this arc is. There is no chain of command in Konoha. No one seems to know what anyone is doing, ever.

[Chat member asks how Konoha has not fallen apart with no chain of command] I honestly assume ROOT has an actual purpose aside from fluffing Danzo's ego, and that is acting like an actual military. But seriously, nothing about how Konoha is portrayed makes a lick of sense. There should have been teams set to just watching the sand nin, especially Gaara. Jiraiya should have immediately reported for duty to Sarutobi.

Also, it's sort of horrifying how bad a teacher Jiraiya is. I mean, Kakashi is a bad teacher, but at least he never claimed to be good at it. [chat member asks if I'm at the point where Jiraiya throws Naruto off a cliff] Right now he's just trying to help a 12-year-old boy with shit control over his own chakra learn to use demonic chakra instead. In a lot of ways, Jiraiya is actually worse as a teacher, because it's clear that he's able to accurately assess Naruto's weaknesses as a shinobi. He's just uninterested in helping him get better at using his own chakra and not the fox's. I guess I'll have to re-read the early part 2 section, but aside from summoning and the Rasengan, what the hell did Jiraiya ever actually teach Naruto?

Anyway, in the next scene, we get an up-close and personal look at how incompetent Sarutobi was. All these jounin look pretty worried, and for good reason! One of their number is dead, and the Hokage is saying they're going to wait and see. This is a massive disaster in leadership.

Anyway, cut back to the hospital, where Sakura and Ino only show up to play spectator to Lee. It's infuriating. Why even bother having female characters, Kishimoto? I would have found it less insulting if he'd just decided to portray a totally gender-segregated society.

Anyway, I do appreciate that relationship we see between Sarutobi and Anko. I think it's clear that whatever his failures as a leader in the present, he was quite charismatic previously. But god, new leadership is absolutely necessary from a military POV.

...and Jiraiya threw Naruto off a cliff. I think it's safe to say that Tsunade was clearly the best teacher out of the lot of them.

Baki travels back and forth between Sand and Leaf with no chaperone. Because that makes total sense.

And Temari makes the same argument against war and for peace now that kid!Tobirama did 600 chapters later. It's a shame she didn't become Kazekage, but her vagina disqualifies her. [Chat members begin discussing the viability of a Kazekage Temari AU] If Sand's Kages all come from the same family, why the hell would you choose the nutty, psychopathic 12-year-old over his far more stable siblings? I understand it's not a democracy, but there's still an element of choice here. [the chat then considered Kazekage Kankurou] Kankurou's too sensible. Only nutcases become Kage - if half the men in your family had died on the job, you might pass too.

[chat member asks why Jiraiya is so keen on using the fox's chakra when everyone else is adamantly against it] He's an irresponsible weirdo in-universe. Given what we know in part 1, it was staggeringly incompetent: the only other example we see of demonic power is a boy who has killed about a half-dozen people on-screen. The real reason, of course, is that Kishimoto didn't want to do the hard work of developing Naruto's abilities organically, so the unearned superpower it is.

[Same chat member asks how I feel about Sasuke so far] He's not dumb. He actually has a survival instinct of a sort. And call me crazy, but there are a lot of Sasuke = Tsunade parallels there. He's lost literally everything, and there is a deep skepticism of Leaf propaganda that Naruto and Sakura haven't developed yet, and maybe never will. Like Tsunade, he is the scion of a founding clan - the very definition of the insider. That that hasn't saved either of them from tragedy and loss.

Anyway, reading the Neji/Naruto fight was actually the worst because I don't like Neji at all, but Naruto doesn't really deserve to win. Why couldn't Sakura beat Ino in the prelims and then go on to fight Neji? Anyway, I can skim a lot because Kishimoto's fight art isn't very dynamic.

O hai, Kabuto is still at large, still killing ANBU mooks. I definitely have to write the story where Team 7 gets involved with Kakashi's investigation of the mysterious traitor instead of participating in the chuunin exam.

anyway, Naruto shows he has a bit of a brain during Neji's fight. It's a shame this only happens every so often when dictated by the plot, instead of growing organically as part of his character.

What is the point of the Hyuuga? I mean, they have that nifty seal, you'd think the village council would really pressure the main house to ensure the branch members were able to use the entirety of the gentle fist skillset. If I were Danzo, I'd be maneuvering in that direction: hundreds of sealed Hyuuga with the full power of the gentle fist would really augment Leaf's manpower. I can understand the main house keeping the branch house down with superior knowledge of the gentle fist; I can see the main house using the seal to quash rebellion in the branch house; I can't see both, not in a world where the Hyuuga are part of Leaf and have a manpower requisition of some kind they need to fill. Leaf needs soldiers, and deliberately handicapping the ones who serve the village...yeah, if I were Danzo, I would force the issue.

OK, more of Kabuto just wandering around the stands, randomly healing Hinata.

Anyway, time for Neji's monologue. Mostly what I got from this is that Neji actually has no idea what really happened. Apparently, Cloud's Kage came directly to Leaf for the peace treaty, and Hiashi is strong enough to kill a Kage-level opponent. This doesn't even count the fact that the Kage of Cloud is actually in the stands right as Neji is telling Naruto his tragic story. Given that Neji was about 4 when his father dies, that makes sense - he probably cobbled his story together from household gossip.

Anyway, what I got from this is that Gai should have ensured that Neji got the crap beat out of him at least once by a social inferior. This is not the sort of lesson you want occurring during an international event open to the public, and honestly, Neji's overconfidence could have gotten him killed very easily - and not just by his opponents. Talking about Konoha's internal politics in front of outsiders is the sort of thing that involves the secret police...

Anyway, Naruto uses dangerous demonic power to beat up a 14-year-old boy. Jiraiya did not clear his training plan with Sarutobi ahead of time, looking at the unhappy surprise on Sarutobi's face. Also confirmed: the Byakugan can see demonic chakra that is invisible to the regular human eye. Would have been nice to have multiple Hyuuga guards on Gaara, right?

Ugh this Hyuuga bullshit is infuriating. I'm tabling it for another day until I can finish editing my Hyuuga rant post.

Moving on, Raidou's little "shinobi must be punctual" speech makes me think the blatant favoritism we see in canon wasn't appreciated by the Joe Schmoes around Sasuke. Kakashi can do that crap because he's basically been active a million years and is good for it in the clutch, and his co-workers still hate it! Sasuke doesn't have that leeway.

Ah, Shikamaru: one of Naruto's many out-and-out chauvinists.  

Anyway, it's pretty annoying that the matches have been set for a month, but not one of these dumb children bothered to do research on their opponents.

Kishimoto again devolves to show, not tell: Shikamaru is apparently the reason the rather weak Team 10 survived the Forest of Death, although how he did so is never explained. It would have been nice to see it, you know?

Oh, that's right. Shikamaru is a genius, who apparently never does shit unless dictated by the plot. So in real life, he'd be like one of those weird child prodigies who end up hermits in Montana, but this is Naruto, that ain't going to happen here.

The group chat had pretty divergent opinions on the tunnel Shikamaru was using to spread his shadow. For the record, I thought it was a pretty amazing asspull, but that's been my feeling the entire time I've been suffering through this arc, so go figure. I'm still sort of salty about how Shikamaru went from "maladjusted fuckup" to "GENIUS" in the space of one freaking battle. Every time Kishimoto talks about the "ideal chuunin psycho profile", I get an eye tic. In what universe is Shikamaru commander material at this point in canon?

OK, time for Kakashi's dramatic entrance, which is very dramatic.  

@hiruma-musouka proposed a while back that Kakashi is a fundamentally avoidant personality, and I can't stop thinking about canon in light of that. So an alternate reading of Kakashi's tardiness for Sasuke's match - Kakashi was actually hoping Sasuke's match would be forfeited due to tardiness, and Sarutobi's weak will foiled his cunning plan!

Gaara casually kills two mooks in plain sight. Where is Leaf's internal security? The only thing I can reconcile is that the Uchiha did all internal security, and given their deaths and the fact that Leaf still seems to be a largely pre-literate society, no group managed to fill the vacuum afterward.

How has Sasuke gotten so much better in a month of training? I don't care if your fancy eyes allow you to mimic moves and see very fast movement, you still need to build up the muscle to actually go fast yourself!

A moment of silence for the people of Sand, who are so familiar with the Ichibi they can tell right away when Gaara lets it possess him totally.

Those panels where Sarutobi and the "Kazekage" are looking at each other are actually pretty good. Ramps up the tension.

The invasion starts, and there is absolutely no coordinated response from the Leaf-nin.

Anyway, Shikamaru pretending to sleep through the invasion of his village is a massive black mark on his record. Like, God save the Nara clan level of black mark. He's technically an adult, he's the heir, he ought to be representing his clan...him trying to sleep through an invasion is a mark of cowardice, and would have terrible repercussions on his family. This is, in fact, the sort of thing that starts complicated succession disputes.

...and we end on Sarutobi, ready to fight all the time.

Anyway, reading this part of the manga sort of solidified why Naruto is a bad character for me, from a writer/author POV. Naruto spends so much time talking about how he understands the villain's pain. The problem is, Naruto's tragic life history never really shows up as a tangible issue in the plot! He's a lonely kid, but good lord, everyone in Leaf is lonely. People are jerks to him in a general way because he's an orphan and poor and stupid, which sucks but happens a lot in real life too. And even though people are jerks to him, we never really see them be cruel to him because he's got a demon in him. Iruka treats him like a wayward student; Sakura is basically his friend in a few months; Kakashi is a sadsack teacher, but he's not singling Naruto out with his awful teaching, and he does trie to find someone competent to instruct him; Sasuke isn't nice to him, but he's no crueler than the rest of Naruto's classmates. Basically, when Naruto talks about how he feels the villain's pain, I'm very meh. Contrast this to the chick version of Naruto, where lots of little girls beat the shit out of each other in the name of friendship: Nanoha. Fate Testarossa is a deeply tragic figure, and you are really, really, rooting for her to move to a better place by the end of that show. Or geez, just the first two episodes of Michiko and Hatchin, which features some truly awful child abuse.

Anyway, I'll post my long-awaited (?) Hyuuga rant later this week, and then I guess it's back to the old grindstone to try and knock out a reread of Naruto volume 14-16 before the new year begins!

[mbtvdiaries-blog]

Dawson’s Creek and the girl you fall for

That creek though. OK, I didn’t care too much about the creek - the only body of water I was familiar with during my teens was the London Thames, and it wasn’t a place you took a gentle swim in, unless you had decided to give up on life that day. No, it wasn’t the creek in Massachusetts that moved me, but the love triangles surrounding it.

From 1998 to 2003 I would sit for what felt like hours (probably only forty minutes a week actually) watching a show full of hyperbole, dramatic heartbreak, and hyper-intellectual but convoluted dialogue from teenagers. I did not have that same vocabulary; no one I knew did, especially not my friends. Yet still, this show spoke to me. And I didn’t completely know why at the time.

It definitely was not about seeing myself physically represented - there were approximately three black characters in the whole series: Joey’s brother-in-law (played by Ode Ndefo), Dawson’s film geek nemesis (Bianca Lawson) and her principal father, played by TV legend Obba Babatundé. Joey’s brother-in-law was a recurring character who appeared about five times throughout the whole series. He was talked about a lot but his absence did feed into absent-black-father tropes a little, even if he was supposed to be “off working”. To be honest, my biggest issue with him as a character was that his name was Bodie.

So although the main characters looked nothing like me, I too was a tween/teenager, and thus everything they went through felt personal to me. And most of all, I just wanted to be Joey. It wasn’t because I was crushing on Dawson (he was always just a tad too whiny for my taste). Nor did I have the ability to be lowkey shady like she was, but still, I loved the idea she represented. Girl Next Door/ Across the Creek, coming into her own as a heartbreaker, unassuming and whip smart with big life potential. Plus she was in love with her best friend and I strongly identified with that storyline. I didn’t have a male best friend that I was in love with, but that was really not the point. It was simply about being the girl who is looked at differently one day; the she’s-been-here-all-along-but-I-never-really-saw-her-until-now girl.

I wanted to be that girl for someone, and I mean, didn’t we all? It was very of the era too (see: She’s All That, Ten Things I Hate About You, The OC and One Tree Hill, to name a few). Plus, the bonus of falling in love with your best friend, the one who knows you the best; I think that’s pretty much everyone’s dream in general, when it works.

It was naive to say the least, but I would try to reenact that storyline in my own life well into my teens and “adult years” (I use quotation marks here because there is nothing grown up about trying to live a storyline of a teen show). One particular scenario when I was between 16 and 18, involved me making friends with and then pining after a boy who was not as enamoured with the friends-to-lovers storyline as I was. He was instead much more interested in getting into the pants of my best girlfriend at the time, so although it didn’t go the way I wanted it to, I still got to indulge in some good old fashioned teen drama.

And then I discovered the other side of the romantic friends trope: enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, in the shape of Joey and Pacey.

Pacey was the underdog of the show; scrappy, intelligent, with a big heart and an even bigger lack of faith in himself. He only pulled himself up to succeed when a strong woman was involved (his teacher - dodgy, his first girlfriend Andy, and then finally, Joey). Joey however, managed to bring out the best and worst in him, because he loved her so much. That was when I most wanted to be her. Aren’t the greatest love stories the ones where only the object of your affection has the power to destroy you fully, but they don’t, which stupidly makes you love them more? No? Just me? Whatever. I loved Pacey a.k.a. Joshua Jackson.

I had a major crush on Joshua Jackson, way before The Affair and before everyone else was wising up to his hotness potential. My crush is decades old, from way back when he dunked his head in bleach and made an attempt at playing a gay teenager in Cruel Intentions (side note: Sarah Michelle Gellar’s finest role if you ask me). But as Pacey, he was the ultimate. Cute but flawed, sometimes suffering from acne like I did in my early teens, and he had a fraught relationship with his parents, specifically his father. He was raised to believe he wouldn’t amount to much, but then Joey came into view. He had bickered with her for most of his life and suddenly she was all he could think about.

Here’s an embarrassing confession; I have the box set of the show now and re-watching as an adult, I would try and pinpoint the moment he fell in love with her, as if it were a simple formula I could later replicate. But to the writers credits, there is only the moment he realises, which is then revealed to the audience as him watching her sleep, after another character makes reference to that being one of their own markers for loving someone. It’s a nice scene if that kind of thing doesn’t creep you out.

Anyway, the reasons why Pacey was pretty much the perfect guy (for Joey, for me, whatever) are obvious. He patiently teaches her how to drive. He saves her family’s B&B. He picks her up after she breaks up with her college boyfriend and is stranded in the middle of the night. He’s basically the friend that drives you to the airport at the last minute but gives you shit about not arranging alternative transport the whole way there. Not to mention she lost her virginity to him after NINE MONTHS of no sex as a teenage couple, which had nothing to do with a religious promise or future plans for marriage. He just waited until she was ready, and even then, she initiated it. I know, we really shouldn’t congratulate men for doing what they’re supposed to do, but we’ve all been teenagers and hormones don’t often come with a lot of sense.

So Pacey was awesome and he never bragged about it because it was just how he was, plus he didn’t think much of himself. But boy could he love you. He was the underdog of my dreams; giving too much of himself and then blaming himself when it didn’t work out. In fact in a lot of ways I identified with Pacey. I didn’t have a car or a boat, but we were basically the same person. Joey very quickly became the centre of attention after going unnoticed for so long, but as a teenager that was just never my story. Pacey on the other hand, only thought something of himself when someone else did, and I was the same.

I think most of my teen years were spent sitting quietly in the corner, waiting patiently for someone to tell me how great I was and that it was OK to step into the light. Which explains why back then, I coveted any attention I received from boys, even the ones I had had zero feelings for up until that moment. I was forever wondering; could this be my Pacey? Could I be his Joey? Not necessarily the most healthy.

Childish fantasies aside though, Joey and Pacey’s relationship was the first on screen romance I had followed and watched progress (not counting Ross and Rachel in Friends because I was not yet old enough to fully understand the jokes and tension in their “adult relationship”), and their interactions gave me a hearty dose of what I saw as reality. Apparently Disney was a big fat liar, and happily ever after was not waiting for all of us when we finally found love. In fact, sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

The episode where Joey and Pacey break up after he yells at her because secretly he’s frustrated about the different directions their futures are inevitably going to take, broke my heart. Plus, they were at the prom ON A BOAT which in my view, is an act of violence by the prom coordinators. But Pacey was frustrated and I remember watching and thinking “What are you doing? You’re meant to be!”

And even though I had to wait another two seasons for it, in the very end, Joey chooses Pacey (this isn’t a spoiler; the show has been over for 15 years, get it together). All was right in the world I felt, and I would have been pissed if she had chosen Dawson. Plus, I grew up alongside this show, and I cared about what happened to the characters, even if it was just a story. And it was my first real experience of watching character development, which would later help my own writing.

The girl next door wasn’t real - Joey moved out, went to college, lived in France and became much more than just the object of someone’s affection. Dawson chased his own dreams and made a career out of his teenage self obsession by making a TV show about it (I know meta, possibly lazy writing, whatever). And Pacey, well, Pacey struggled a lot - he found his calling as a chef, then he lost it, then he was a Wolf of Wall Street type, then he lost all of his money, and then he was a restaurant owner, whilst continuing to indulge in some good old fashioned self destruction with an older married woman. But then Joey comes back into town and reminds him that he’s great all by himself. And she chooses him.

So the things that needed to change did, and the one thing - L.O.V.E - stayed the same. Joey and Pacey ended up together. And out of all the characters, as a teenager I was mostly Pacey; secretly self-destructive, emotionally complex, with a desperate need for love and an inability to handle it. But I was also smart, giving, and willing to be anyone’s friend. I wasn’t exactly the girl you fell for, but I had the potential to be.

[starlighting-with-vixx]

Series: An Unexpected Casualty

Title: Marigold - Part 1 Characters: Poppy/Reader, Monsta X Warnings: dumb cops, crooked cops, drugs, death, Wonho, stupidity Genre: Multifandom AU, Dramedy, Tragedy, Romance Word Count: 4300 (the long ones were a bit much, right?) Summary: Everything you hate about your life occurred on a Monday. Tuesday through Thursday is filled with chaos, and internal conflicts happen on Friday. That leaves just two days to brace for it to happen all over again.  Author’s Note: The first part of the fourth installment in the Unexpected Casualty series/universe. This is the last group. Enjoy! –> View All Chapters <–

Victory was so close you could taste it. There was only one man left to find and you weren't going to let him get away without a fight. He was headed towards the exit and you were prepared to ambush him as soon as he entered your vision. Your finger hovered over the trigger as you heard him approaching and you readied yourself to spring on the count of three.

One… Two… Thr--

“Poppy!” A pair of hands slammed down on your desk startling you and causing the words ‘Game Over’ to flash across the screen of your laptop. Not only was your record tanked, but also the losers you were playing against would continue to brag about their unexpected win for weeks.

You were brought back to the deafening noise of several telephones ringing and the shuffling of papers on nearby desks. Two years ago you could have said you loved the sound of the police station, but after a series of unfortunate events you hated the place and very much wanted to quit. Unfortunately, you were too damn good at your job to find something else to do and you couldn’t necessarily leave the people that had helped you get through the most difficult time in your life. They too had suffered a major loss along with you.

You looked up at the man that had caused you to lose your number one ranking. “What did I tell you about playing video games while on the job?”

“Nothing,” you replied. “Because I don’t work for you, Kihyun.” You rolled your eyes and unhooked your controller from your personal laptop before closing it and shoving it underneath your desk. Personal gaming was a direct violation of work performance, but it was an exceptionally slow day at the precinct, so you wanted to pass the time. Besides, if the Captain--the only person you answered to-- hadn’t said anything about your behavior then you guessed it wasn’t a big deal. “What do you want anyway?”

“That's Sargeant Kihyun, Poppy.” He dragged his finger across his badge that let off a slight twinkle underneath the fluorescent bulbs of the precinct.

There once was a rumor that he shined it every night right before he went to bed, which was later proven to be an accurate assumption when he pulled out the buffing paste one day after a suspect was brought in and knocked it off his shirt with disorderly conduct. It was like his existence was under attack with the way he dove under a desk to retrieve it. Kihyun had only reached Sargeant status about three months ago when he was promoted to work on a long unsolved case that had recent developments.

The unsolved case was none other than the murder of your late boyfriend and colleague, Officer Lee Minhyuk. Two years ago on your birthday your boyfriend of three years had taken you out to dinner to celebrate. Unbeknownst to you, a red light had been aimed right in the center of your forehead while you were enjoying your meal. So your boyfriend, as truly in love with you as he was, valiantly jumped in front of the laser pointer and took the bullet in your stead.

It was still unknown as to why you had been targeted, but thanks to Kihyun, the precinct was able to connect Minhyuk’s murder to another one of a local young woman that had occurred a month after. Each case had one similarity, a single red bullet was found in both victims. Through undercover operations, Kihyun was able to track that lead to a group of assassins infamous in the underground networks of the area due to that staple piece of evidence. His accomplishment had earned him his fancy new title and he never missed a moment to rub someone's nose in his success.

Even though Kihyun had recently been promoted, nothing really changed in terms of justice. The murders were still left unsolved and there had been an increasing number of weird deaths around the city, some involving red bullets and some not. The team of assassins was almost impossible to track down. It was as if their existence was entirely fabricated. The precinct had a visual on a potential suspect, but the guy practically vanished out of thin air, so they couldn’t keep an eye on him--and there also wasn't enough evidence to prove that he was even a part of it in the first place. The only thing that changed in the past three months was Kihyun’s increased insistence on making your life miserable. He thought he could boss you around now that he had a new title, but like him and everyone else that worked there, you had to attend combat training, so you knew how to kick his ass if necessary.

Most days you truly believed he was being a complete ass towards you, while other days you chalked it up to him still grieving that his best friend, your boyfriend had died. When Kihyun had first gotten to the force five years ago, Minhyuk was his first partner and the two became the best of friends as they arrested drug dealers, petty thieves, and parking violators; and they threw just about everybody that was minding their own business on the wrong side of the street behind bars. Their boredom caused an overuse of resources that resulted in a financial strain on the precinct and required the Captain to send ‘suspected’ criminals home with hand written apologies every day.

The two were inseparable even when Kihyun moved to the crime scene investigations unit as a detective where he could make better use of his skills. Their close camaraderie resulted in you and Kihyun becoming close friends, as well, once you and Minhyuk started dating. Kihyun was even the one that urged Minhyuk to ask you out. But after his death, Kihyun’s attitude toward you had started to shift and you sometimes thought he blamed you for what happened.

He dropped a huge stack of folders onto your desk. “I need you to double check all these case files and see if we missed anything in regards to these frequent murders around town. There has to be some kind of connection.” He placed his hands firmly on his hips waiting for you to acknowledge his request.

You looked at the behemoth of papers on your desk and realized it was the same stack of files that you had checked three days ago. The same stack you were told needed to be checked and ran against the evidence database, collated, and then filed alphabetically but also in order of occurrence. You had spent six hours filing those folders in the precinct’s prehistoric file room, which was filled with cobwebs and dust because everything was digitally formatted on a computer for faster access, and mostly everyone liked the ease of using the computer. However, as soon as Kihyun was promoted to sergeant, he suggested that paper copies should not be ignored because he didn’t trust computers enough to keep everything safe and accessible should the system be hacked or shut down. In your mind, that was actually code for being technologically inept.

The only reason it took you six hours was because someone had spilled hot coffee all over their shirt and needed help shedding off said shirt before he caught first-degree burns. Luckily, you saved him from any possible injury and in return he thanked you by pinning you against the wall of paperwork and helped you shed your own blouse. As a result, re-reorganizing most of the old files had to be done since the two of you had knocked them off of their old, rickety shelves.

“Poppy!”

“What Kihyun?!” You had apparently zoned-out. You had been doing that a lot lately. It was a result of lack of sleep as you replayed inside your mind an impromptu tryst with one of your coworkers. Plus it was Monday and you fucking hated Monday’s.

“That’s--whatever! Did you hear what I said?”

Anyhow, none of those basic clerical duties were in your job description and you had no business even doing them the first time. You were a technical forensics specialist—a more modern term: a hacker that worked for the police. And a damn good one at that. You shoved the stack back toward Kihyun and watched as he knitted his eyebrows. “I checked these on Friday per the Captain’s request before I left. There's no connection between any of these cases and the new cases. Dates, suspects, evidence, nothing correlates.”

He shoved them back toward you. “Well check them again. You might have missed some-”

You shoved them back toward him again and this time a little more harshly causing your utensil holder to fall off your desk. “I didn't, Kihyun! I'm not checking these again. If you really want them checked then ask the kid over there who's been doing nothing but twiddling his thumbs all day.” You motioned toward Officer Changkyun who had just graduated from the academy. The rookie cop was hired around the time Kihyun was promoted and was already causing trouble with his ‘shoot in the air to scare, ask questions later, and hope you didn’t hit an artery’ mentality. His behavior was chalked up to the fact that he was a dorky drug dealer Kihyun arrested once that the captain decided to reform by making him work in law enforcement.

He looked up from the desk upon hearing his name, quickly tucking something into a drawer on his desk. “I have all these speeding tickets... and accidents... I have to report. I'm behind on my work.” He said in a very relaxed and even tone. You knew what his demeanor meant as you facepalmed. The guy was definitely high on whatever that was that he hid away. You sighed trying to figure out how the precinct got so messed up.

“Fine!” Yelled Kihyun causing the rookie to flinch and you to roll your eyes back into your skull. Damn, he was so dramatic. “I’ll check them myself. I can't get any of you lazy ass people to do any real work around here. No wonder crime rates are skyrocketing! We don't do our jobs!” He grabbed the stack and fumed towards his desk, rushing past Detective Hoseok who quickly spun in a circle in order to avoid another coffee catastrophe on his apparel. You prayed he wasn’t en route to your desk and tried to hide your face from him with your hand. But that was a waste of effort because he could clearly see you from where you were sitting. You had been avoiding him since the “re-filing” because he was the let’s-talk-about-our-feelings type and you were the forget-it-ever-happened type. Plus it was Monday. Your nerves were already bad.

“That's not true!” piped Changkyun. Oh, he must have not inhaled the strong stuff considering he was still coherent. You had labs that tested those type of things but he had yet another weird mentality of ‘I must be one with the streets’, so he tested the confiscated materials himself.  “We just found out who’s been tagging the highway en route to East Port!”

Kihyun stopped in his tracks and turned around toward Changkyun. “Yeah. We did. And then you let him run away because you were stoned and we never saw him again!” He threw the files on the rookie's desk and slammed open a seemingly random folder. But knowing Kihyun, it was the exact folder for the case mentioned because he memorized the order of how he stacked the files. Yes. He was that extra.

Hoseok simply shook his head and he continued to walk towards your desk. Your body betrayed you as you tensed up and couldn't lift your butt that was firmly placed on the chair. You had nowhere to go to be honest. The chance of escaping was very slim. The captain should let you have five lunch breaks a day. That would have given you ample enough time to hide from your sexual frustration—er, Hoseok and the rest of your idiot coworkers.

Hmm, five lunch breaks a day? The captain would never go for it, you thought. But as Hoseok continued to approach with a big grin appearing on his face like he had been dying to see or speak to you for the past three days, you changed your mind and decided to try your luck anyway with the captain. Quickly bolting from your desk, your boots clacked loudly against the tiled floor as you brushed passed Hoseok, who barely had time to open his mouth because he had to secure his coffee from spilling for the third time.

You safely made it towards the the captain’s office and rapped on the door before hearing a brief ‘it’s open’ in return. You opened the door and found your captain, Son Hyunwoo sitting on the edge of his seat, papers in disarray across his magnolia stained desk. He had his hands stretched out in front of him as he gazed at them like they weren't his. He was known to act super strange when he hadn't eaten, and by looking at the clock sitting on his desk it was about feeding time.

Son Hyunwoo had been captain since you joined the force five years ago. His father was Chief of Police of the city, so he was a shoe-in for the higher rank once he was deemed suitable for the position even though he was still young. He was number one in his trainee class and had the most arrests during his time as a lower ranking officer. He kept the precinct afloat for the most part, things only getting a little hazy after Minhyuk’s death. He tried his best to keep up the team morale but there was only so much healing that could go on at the time. Now he had to deal with the recent increase in crime, finding the person responsible behind the death of one his best officers, and keep both of his teams functioning simultaneously--his precinct and his wife and two toddlers.

Deciding that your conversation would be best heard if he had food in his stomach, you reached into your pocket and pulled out a granola bar you were saving for later and placed it on his desk as you sat down in the chair in front of him. You hated seeing your captain when he was hungry, he wasn't himself and the precinct would always be momentarily off balance. However, giving him candy was a direct violation of Code 514 from the annoying book given to you at the ethics training your precinct was forced to undergo every year: bribing city officials for special services. But you didn't care, half the shit that went on in that precinct was unethical.

“Captain? I have a request.”

“Mhm.” He replied without looking up from his hands. You pushed the granola bar even closer towards him, figuring he hadn't noticed it was there.

“I was wondering if I could have two lunch breaks? I'm still...emotionally unstable to be at work and the stress of the job and my coworkers, namely Kihyun,” you said his name under your breath, “is all starting to get to me and--”

“Okay.”

“Wait what?” That was too easy. “Are you sure?”

“Mhm.” He  was still looking at his hands, his eyes growing in size as if he was looking at sixteen fingers instead of eight. You picked up the granola bar and placed it underneath his hand, prompting his eyes to grow even wider and look at you. You noticed his pupils were dilated and he had slight perspiration above his left brow.

Considering his current state you decided to push your luck. “Umm…How about three lunch breaks? I think I’m still healing.”

“Make it five! Just to be sure.” He gave you a wonky smile before narrowing his eyes and then opening them wide again. You were about to make another comment thanking him for his surprising generosity when Kihyun burst through the door with obvious distaste on his tongue.

“You're giving her five lunch breaks?! I loved Minhyuk just as much as she did! He was my best friend too and I'm still hurting! As sergeant of this precinct I must interfere! This-”

“Back off Kihyun! This doesn't concern you!” That prick was eavesdropping on your talk with the captain. He most likely had his ear to the wall to listen in because that was the kind of shit he did.

“The hell it doesn't! You can't just get special treatment while the rest of us work our asses off to solve crimes around here. We work as a team and you're a part of that team.”

“And I will work. But I will have five lunch breaks.”

“That's impractical!”

“Five lunch breaks for you, too!” shouted the captain, scaring the hell out of both of you as he slammed his giant hands on his desk and continued to look at them like they weren't his. You were starting to become concerned about him.

“Alright. Cool.” replied Kihyun with a smirk forming on his lips like he had just proven he could be just as persuasive as you.

You gave him a scowl when a gentle knock was heard on the door. Hoseok entered and glanced your way but you averted your gaze and started fiddling with your hair to distract yourself. “Captain. I terribly miss Minhyuk as well, maybe-”

“Five lunch breaks for you, too, Hoseok!”

“Awesome!” He punched his arm in the air causing the coffee in his hand to drizzle down his arm reminding you of the very thing you wanted to erase from your psyche. You needed to get out of there and fast, but your route was blocked when Changkyun strolled in upon hearing the free lunch breaks the captain was dishing out.

“Captain!” yelled Changkyun as he made his way next to you, “I may be new, but—”

“You get five lunch breaks too!”

“What?!” You, Kihyun, and Hoseok turned simultaneously toward the captain. “But he's a rookie!”

“And I'm the Captain of this ship and I say he gets five lunch breaks. As a matter of fact, I'm going to put all this in the system right now.” He opened his laptop and laid his hands on the desk in front of it. The four of you stared silently as he sat motionless, not a single word being inputted into the machine.

“Umm, Captain?” asked Hoseok whom Captain Hyunwoo himself then shushed.

“Can't you see I'm typing?”

The four of you barely had time to discuss the current situation when Jooheon barged into the room. Jooheon was one of the precinct's best detectives if not the best detective considering he was the only one who ever got any work done. He had been promoted to detective about two years ago and even received a medal of valor for his commitment to protecting the city. He had successfully found a drug ring and was on his way to prevent the distribution of narcotics into the city; however, the perps he caught were located at a remote stable and he didn't account for them actually having horses. So he was caught off guard when Rémi the thoroughbred clocked him above his left eye with her hoof. He went unconscious and Hoseok actually made the arrest of the drug lord, which was bitter pill to swallow for Jooheon who had worked on the case for so long.  But he still was rewarded for his services so he got over it. But now he's forced to wear glasses in the field or Kihyun writes him up.

“And the embarrassment continues,” he said looking around the room at you all.

“What are you talking about?” asked Kihyun, planting his hands firmly on his hips. It irked you when he did that.

“I just heard from my buddy down in dispatch that a West Port officer arrested someone all the way here in East Port because none of our men were available. Do you know how embarrassing that is?! And then I find you all huddled in the captain’s office so it makes sense.”

Hyunwoo looked up from his desk. “Sense is a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus. We have five senses and every one of mine are on fire right now. I can smell the flames!” His nostrils flared with the last word, causing everyone to look at one another distressed.

Hoseok stared into your soul longer than you would have preferred, so you quickly stood up and placed your fingers on the captain’s carotid artery. His pulse was racing.

“Captain, what did you take?!” You asked a little panicked. If you cared about anyone in that precinct it was the Hyunwoo. He was your brother from another mother. You could always count on him. “Changkyun! Did you rearrange everyone’s sticky notes on their lunch again? I told you people have specific dietary restrictions!”

“No! I didn't! I promise,” replied the officer who made his way closer to the desk. Upon inspection, he noticed a wrapper and a lollipop stick scattered near a stack of paperwork. “Oh, shit!” He exclaimed upon realization of what happened to your captain.

“What?!” Yelled the rest of you in unison, including the captain.

He had a smirk on his face, which, as convoluted as it sounds, meant the captain was going to be all right. Now knowing exactly what was going on, you facepalmed for the second time that day before the next words came out of Changkyun’s mouth.

“Hey, Captain~,” he teased. “You're exceptionally high right now. On a new drug that's being pushed around in the party scenes. It’s like a very mild version of LSD.”

“That is correct. I am Hi. Hello. Good day. Nice to meet you LeSter D.” He made a derpy face and proceeded to spin around in his chair, but Hoseok rushed over and grabbed the chair before Hyunwoo made a third rotation. His arm muscles were flexing on display before you, and you couldn’t help but think he did that on purpose.

Jooheon quickly closed the door not wanting anyone in the hallway to hear what was transpiring in the office. “How'd this happen?”

“Looks like he finally got around to eating the Halloween baskets Kihyun prepared for everyone,” said Changkyun as he pointed towards an orange jack-o-lantern basket of candy on the floor.

Everyone peered at Kihyun who looked just as shocked as everyone else. “Don't look at me! I would never purposefully get the captain high. I mean, I too would like to become captain one day and I would need an outstanding letter of recommendation from him. So of course I didn't do this.”

“Then who?” Jooheon asked, crossing his arms.

“I did.” Replied Changkyun. “I was trying to get Poppy high with these baby drugs from a dude I know. Ease her tension, y’know? But I guess the baskets got mixed up. My bad.”

“Your bad?!” You screamed as you gripped the newbie’s collar in your fists. “Our captain is currently unable to perform his duties, you moron!”

“Poppy! Calm down!” Bellowed the captain causing you to almost jump into Changkyun’s arms.

“See. He’s fine,” said Changkyun. “He’s coming down from his high right now. It's a mini trip. Not long lasting. Plus he's a big dude so he’ll have no side effects. And the stick is yellow, which means it had the one with the non-addictive formula. My guy’s a genius in the lab. There was this one time--”

“Changkyun, enough!” cried Kihyun. “We need to speak in private. Follow me. Everyone else, back to work.” Kihyun ushered everyone out the room and you were the last to follow until something in your mind prompted you to turn around and check one more thing before you left.

“Captain.” He looked up at you as his pupils began to return to normal.

“I'm fine, Poppy. I’ll--”

“No.” You interrupted. “Empty your pockets.”

He stood up and did as you asked. When you gasped at the two lollipops he pulled from his pocket, a look of our shock engulfed his whole face. “I almost brought them home to my kids!”

You moved back towards his desk and confiscated the lollipops before they caused any more unnecessary damage. “I'll do away with these. We can be civil if you want to go home and rest.”

He nodded at you and you stepped outside, closing the door behind you. Upon turning around you were met with a very thick structure against your nose. You realized you were staring at a striped surface that was slightly raised on either side of your face. The surface also held two slightly almond shaped protrusions. Almonds that were always angry, it seemed, because they would never go down. There was no room for you to step back, so you were forced to look up and finally face Hoseok. His cup of coffee was long gone, but you were still engulfed by the smell that was now attached to his person. Your eyes moved up to see him staring down at you with a triumphant smirk on his face after finally cornering you.

“We need to talk,” said Wonho as he turned on his heels and expected you to follow him down the hall. Yet another thing you didn't want to deal with yet you had too or else he would never go away.

“I fudgin’ hate Mondays,” you groaned as you followed Hoseok down the hall.

Welcome to the precinct.

More to come! And it won’t take nearly as long! Thanks for reading! - Cheezy ^_^ & Dearly :3