#well at least mentioned and maybe implied. idk at this point

[agoodroughandtumble]

Roronoa Zoro x Reader - Hair Tie

Status: Complete (idk might be more parts) Summary: Zoro & Reader explore an island – Reader finds a way to keep Zoro from getting lost Warning: 18+. Language, mentions of NSFW but more innuendo/implied

“That’s...it,” you panted out, resting your hands on your knees as you tried to catch your breath. “Screw what Nami will think. We are getting you a leash.”

Zoro looked down at you, an eyebrow arched and arms folded against his chest. “What’s up with you?”

Standing up fully you glared at him. “What’s “up” with me? I’ve just spent the past twenty minutes chasing after you.” The swordsman merely shrugged, only irritating you further.

Being paired up with Zoro whenever you landed on a new island was always a mixed blessing. Realising your feelings for the man were far from platonic was hardly surprising, but didn’t make his tendency to get lost any less infuriating. Especially when you were trying to spend more time with him and he kept wandering off. At least it wasn’t just you. In fact, the leash idea had initially been Nami’s. At the time she had been adamant that she had merely suggested it to you as a way of preventing him from getting lost – but it quickly became apparent that she was completely aware of your crush, and much to your chagrin found it far too amusing to keep teasing you about the subject.

Since then, it had become increasingly difficult to get the idea of Zoro tied up out of your head. Every time he was working out on deck, beads of sweat adorning his muscles, the small grunts, knuckles whitening slightly as his grip on the weights tightened… It had almost gotten to the point that whenever you saw him heading towards his make shift gym you had to make yourself scarce. Of course Nami always noticed, and always sent a smirk your way which just made you leave quicker.

Fortunately, on this particular occasion you were too annoyed to let your mind wander. Instead, you had an idea. With one hand you untied your ponytail and slipped the hairband around your wrist before taking hold of one of his. You tried to ignore the butterflies erupting at the contact, instead focusing all of your attention to stretching the hair tie over his wrist as well. Not exactly as foolproof as a leash, but you would be lying if you were complaining about the accessory forcing the backs of your hands to touch. You pulled away slightly, testing out your workmanship.

“This’ll do.” You tried to sound casual but the goosebumps running along your forearm were probably giving you away.

“You’re ridiculous.” Zoro gave you an amused look before glancing down to your conjoined wrists.

You raised your eyebrows – the fact that he hadn’t immediately pulled his hand out giving you a boost of confidence. “A big, strong swordsman like you could easily escape.”

His fingers brushed against yours slightly. You knew it was purely because of the proximity and yet your breath hitched a little at the sensation. Maybe it was a blessing you didn’t have an actual leash if you were getting this flustered with only a hair tie. You’d touched his hand before – usually when you were trying to drag him away from a bar but this was different. Intimate. Zoro was choosing to stay bound to you.

A small sigh left you. Difficult as it was, getting ahead of yourself would only cause more problems later. And you hated the fact that you were so far gone that even something as innocuous as him just not walking off was causing you to question whether there could be anything more under the surface. Every interaction was over analysed and questioned and just left you more confused. It was frustrating. Embarrassing.

“I didn’t say I was complaining.”

There it was again. The small flicker of hope. Zoro was infuriatingly hard to read, especially for someone usually so blunt. No, he wasn’t complaining. But that was far from being happy about the situation, being happy about the fact that your fingers were so excruciatingly close. It would take the smallest fraction of movement to hook your little finger around his and yet such an act felt impossible. You desperately wanted him to initiate something, anything, otherwise you were sure your heart was going to rip straight out of your chest. You were pathetic.

Worse than that, your newly found confidence seemed to be fleeting. You flexed your hand a little – suddenly aware of the pure ridiculousness of the situation. “This was just a joke, you don’t have to actually be tied to me. I just thought it would be fu-”

He twisted his wrist and suddenly his hand was clasping yours. You could feel the heat from his palm searing against the back of your hand, his thumb gently rubbing your little finger. A shiver ran down your spine, anticipating his next words.

So of course he was silent.

The pair of you walked in silence. Zoro seemed completely unfazed about the fact that he was very obviously and deliberately holding your hand, and you, well, you were trying to pretend that you had any sort of self-control. Your eyes darted along the street, trying to find something to comment on and relieve the ever growing tension. As if the gods themselves were smiling upon you, you found the perfect place – a place you knew Zoro couldn’t resist. A bar.

“Do you want to get a drink?” You asked, voice a little hoarser than it should be.

“You read my mind.”

The bar wasn’t particularly busy, it seemed more cosy. You scrunched your face a little at seeing that the majority of the tables were dimly lit booths in alcoves. A perfect spot for intimacy. For a date. Trust you to find the most romantic bar whilst stupid Zoro was holding your stupid hand. He strode confidently over to the bartender, almost tugging you along and rested both hands against the bar – seemingly forgetting you were literally attached. Your wrist hit the wood with a small thud.

“We can take this off…” You started, wriggling your fingers slightly.

“I’m fine. Drink with my other hand anyway.”

You let out an exhale. His nonchalance was starting to irritate you. If he wanted to hold your hand then obviously yes, he should do that. But if he was just being stubborn or making a point or it just didn’t bother him in the slightest… The man was infuriating. On the upside, you were in a bar. “I’ll have a beer. And a shot of … something.”

Zoro didn’t waver, purchasing the drinks before leading you to a booth. Since you were both still joined by the hair tie you had to sit with your thigh touching his. In hindsight maybe that had been a really bad idea. Or the best idea. You weren’t sure. All you were aware of was the smell of sweat and steel and how fucking big his thighs were. You adjusted yourself slightly, crossing your ankles together in an attempt to gain some sort of distance between the two of you. That action was rendered completely pointless when you went to take a sip from your beer with your dominant hand. The one that was currently attached to his. You fumbled slightly, withdrawing and then reaching with your free hand.

“Sorry,” your thumb ran along the label, pretending that was far more important than anything else happening around you. “I’m going to take this stupid thing off.” You turned slightly, reaching towards the hair tie.

“Don’t.”

His abrupt tone caught you off guard. You stared at him. All you could do was stare at him. Fuck his eyes were beautiful. At this proximity you noticed the small smattering of freckles along his cheekbones – how was he constantly getting more attractive? Surely at some point he had to run out of ways to make the butterflies perform somersaults. Feeling the nerves rising, you chewed on your bottom lip. Usually you longed for time alone with Zoro but now you were praying for a distraction, any distraction. You waited. And waited. Zoro looked at you expectantly but you were frozen in place. All you were aware of was the rise and fall of your chest and the way his lips ever so slightly parted as he continued to stare at you.

“Don’t…?”

The silence was thick. Viscous.

Zoro’s gaze dropped to your entwined hands. Your breath hitched. Heartbeat racing. His fingers running along your skin did nothing to relieve the tension. It was unbearable. Suffocating. Fuck. If he wasn’t going to break it you had to.

“Zo-”

“I want to be tied to you.”

You both stiffened. Another silence. Your heartbeat pounding in your ears. Eventually, his gaze lifted upwards. You wished it hadn’t. You felt like your entire body was on fire and yet you couldn’t do anything but remain completely still. Waiting for flight or fight. His free hand found your jaw, a gesture you had been waiting for for months, wanting for months and yet instead of relaxing into it, of allowing yourself to indulge in his touch you remained on edge, frozen in place.

“(Y/N) …,” he sighed and rested his forehead against yours. Breathing in the same air as you. “I want to be tied to you.”

[midwesternvibes]

Alright people, it's time for more Villain Leo lore!!!

Today we are diving into Leo and Splinter's relationship!!!

Read under the cut because this got so LONG, these two have so many issues and there was so much to work with.

Alright, so it's no secret that Leo and Splinter have a....less than ideal relationship. You can see throughout all of TMNT history that Leo looks up to Splinter an insane amount, and Rise Leo is no different.

This boy looked up to Lou Jitsu his whole life, and we can often see him doing the same movements and catchphrases that Lou did. Granted, all the boys do, but Leo seems particularly attached to Lou

And we've all seen the smile comparisons, it's insane how similar his grandiose smile is to Lou Jistu's.

The point is, Leo really looks up to his dad, and we can see this in his actions and attitudes towards not only Lou Jitsu, but also Splinter in canon.

"Trust me pops!"

I mean, just look at how happy he is to be there with his dad, in his element. This episode is Leo at his peak, outsmarting everyone and predicting his family's moments to the letter.

Also, idk about you, but that smile seems incredibly genuine. That's not even a Lou Jitsu smile, that's a 100% Hamato Leonardo smile at his dad whom he looks up to so much.

And what does Splinter say to his son's ask for trust?

"I knew I should have brought Purple!"

....what.

That is his SON. His 14, maybe 15 year old son, who is asking for his father to trust him.

....and he responds by saying that he wishes he had brought his more intelligent twin brother instead, who he has already shown an implied favoritism towards in the past

"And I thought Purple was the funny one!"

"Told you guys I was the funniest."

This is a pretty harmless comment tbh, but Leo takes so much pride in his quips, one-liners and puns that this had to sting a little bit.

There's such a huge amount of content to sift through when it comes to these two, and that fact actually saddens me because I had SO MUCH to pick from when making this post, but here's some highlights.

One thing that I noticed while watching a Splinter and Leo compilation is that during the memory episode, Leo is the only one Splinter directly hits

NONE of the other three were directly hit like this is any point in the episode and yeah, this could totally be played off as a bit or just a case of wrong place, wrong time, but we'll get to my theory later, right now I'm just laying out the facts.

An important detail I'd like to point out here too is Leo's face after the first hit.

Guys, he looks HURT. Donnie and Raph are looking at him, checking that he's okay, but he is looking right past them at the shadow Splinter, who is dressed and looks just like his childhood idol, who just hit him specifically right in the face.

Not only his idol even. No, the most pure and unfiltered representation of his father, the man who's raised him his whole life.

And he just got hit in the face.

Ouch. For a kid as emotive as Leo (who I honestly think feels his emotions even more intensely than Mikey when he lets them out), this is a devastating blow. Literally.

Then, let's talk about this scene, you all knew it was coming.

"Can someone tell my son I am NOT TALKING TO HIM!!"

"You got this pops! I love you!"

Guys this scene hurts my heart. Like, once again, he can't be older than 15 at this point. Yeah he's being a badass stratigiser this whole episode, but you cannot convince me that he wasn't at least a little excited to see his dad, his HERO in action, and wearing a matching outfit as well, and show his dad, his idol and hero, exactly what he's capable of. Leo absolutely worships the ground Splinter walks on and what does his father have to say to his son"s encouragement??

"NO!"

GAHHHH like yes, Leo was kinda being a little shit this whole episode and could have clued his dad in on the plan a little bit, but honestly that could have ruined everything if Splinter had any holdbacks.

Not to mention, this is the only Leo and Splinter episode we get. Donnie gets the derby, Mikey gets the Hidden City bonding, even Raph gets the ending of the memory episode, and in each, they have a genuine moment of bonding with Splinter.

Splinter never ONCE apologized for his actions in this episode. Not once. RAPH is the one who tells Leo in this episode later on that he trusts Leo, something he's been begging Splinter for the entire time.

All of a sudden, this moment doesn't seem so out of place.....

"I love you soooo much!" "No, no you don't, I'm your least favorite!!"

This line could totally just be a throwaway line, but as it was pointed out to me by the wonderful @nardos-primetime, the alarms that the boys did for Google home have a REALLY upsetting one for Leo

Go to about 1:57 and listen to that one and just......cry.

NOW that line in "Rat Flu" makes a LOT more sense. Splinter LAUGHED at Leo when he asked if he was his favorite. LAUGHED at him.

But wait, you may ask. What about the ending? Splinter made Leo the leader, obviously he trusts him!

....yeah, just take a look at their faces here.

Donnie and Mikey are basically horrified beyond belief and in complete shock

Raph is.....blue screening, honestly

And Leo looks completely taken aback and shocked and scared and honestly, I don't blame him. There is absolutely NO precedence for Splinter to do this. He has proved time and time again that he does NOT trust Leo, he never ONCE tells Leo that he trusts him even though he asks for that trust during the entirety of "Unhappy Returns". NONE of them look happy about this new change.

You could see this as Splinter finally giving Leo a chance, but I see this a lot more as one of the more popular Fandom interpretations of Splinter wanting to give Raph a break. Raph had a huge breakdown during the finale and I don't think it's unreasonable for Splinter to have heard of that and decide that his beloved eldest needed a chance to recover.

Who better to pass this burden on to than his least favorite son!

We also see in the movie that this shift in power dynamics really doesn't do much other than create a lot of interpersonal conflict between Leo and Raph, something Splinter does absolutely nothing to help out with, other than telling them to quiet down.

Now that we have all of our evidence (and I put more work into getting evidence for this than for the English project I'm supposed to be doing right now can I just cite this as a source for me being capable of gathering evidence???) we can actually get into the analysis of how this all would affect him.

First of all, I mentioned that I would discuss the repercussions of the memory episode. This analysis is more for Splinter, but I feel like it's still important. We've seen time and time again that Leo is very similar to how Splinter was as a young teen in both looks and attitude. If Splinter truly resents his younger self and how he acted, it would make a lot of sense for him to also subconsciously resent his son who acts a lot like himself at that age. This would cause him to lash out at Leo in his subconscious, the one place where his true thoughts and feelings are on full display.

I just wanna point out his face again here, Leo looks so hurt. He definitely already knows that he's not anywhere near Splinter's favorites at this point, but it still hurts him to see that get confirmed.

This brings me to my next point of Leo's psyche. He is a very confident, witty, smart teenager, but he's still just that. A teenager. He's anxious, insecure, and very self-reliant. He looks to others for praise often and rarely receives it, usually having to hype himself up. His relationship with Splinter only emphasizes these qualities about him and makes Leo look so much worse in Splinter's eyes because his son is just a modern-day representation of his past self.

Now let's put this into perspective of Leo's decent into villainy.

If Leo is hurting and under the impression that his brothers are maybe starting to dislike him, even hate him, adding Splinter on to this can only make it worse.

Maybe he goes to his dad for tips on how to lead when he feels like he can't talk to Raph anymore and needs his father's advice.

Maybe he sets up a dinner for him and Splinter to just chat and bond instead of sitting at the dinner table with another one of Mikey's meals that he feels too sick with anxiety from his little brother's disappointed looks to eat.

Maybe he goes to his father crying from another nightmare after not feeling welcomed in Donnie's lab anymore after they fought for an hour the day before.

And maybe, just maybe, Splinter waves him off every time.

Forgets.

Laughs at him.

I mean, this is a kid who relys on others to build him up, to praise him and love him because after all....

Who is he without his family?

Maybe it's time to find out.

First // Previous // Next

Link to an AMAZING ficlet by the FANTASTIC @beetleviolet

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

Rewatching “All 2 U” and under the contexts of how I personally perceived Stolas’s songs in “Look My Way” and “When I See Him” theres so much potential here for this to be actually interesting and its so far just being thrown away. In every song I have mentioned Stolas has moments where he stops and thinks “maybe I was the problem”.

Examples being:

"Unless it's me, and no matter what in this world I could give; it's not enough to get through the walls you've conjured up to live"

"I will try to make amends for making you means to an end"

"Am I doing something I can't take back? Would he want me if he was free? And if he's only here as a prisoner what kind of monster does that make me?"

"But maybe it's all on me for missin' every sign and every glance and every turn."

"Maybe there's somethin' here for us to glean for you to teach, and me to try to learn."

All of these imply so much that Stolas could be coming to the conclusion that he was one of the biggest issues in their relationship. Yes Blitz also hold fault, but thats a post for another day. I so truly believe Stolas could be so so interesting even if I personally think Helluva Boss should NOT be a romantic story, there’s still so much potential to it. I’ve mentioned before that I was in a very very similar relationship to whatever “Stolitz” is, and while I both hate my ex and how she treated me, it was not a one sided issue. Yeah she was abusive but also I can’t just say I wasn’t a bit rude at times. Getting off topic though, what I’m trying to say is even if one person is the main issue and you hate them, in certain circumstances you can still have part of your mind that wishes the best for them. I think my main point is that for people like my ex who have mental problems that get in the way of relationships and can result in abusive behaviours, I want the chance for them to see themselves in a character that has done the same things, recognized it, forgiven themselves, and made an attempt to be a better person.

I myself have been in many relationships where my mental problems got in the way and ended up separating me from people I care about in one way or another and I know how dogshit it feels when it happens, especially when you are the problem. Many people don’t like acknowledging that they may be the problem and then when they eventually do realise it, they struggle on trying to fix the issue.

This spans to the people you surround yourselves with as well. Just for example in “All 2 U” Stolas is not the first person to call Blitz a “motherfucker” he explicitly goes to “I don’t think you meant to hurt me” meanwhile Verosika and Tex push the implication that Blitz is the problem and during the rest if the song, as stated before, we see Stolas point out “maybe I was the problem” to which Verosika and Tex immediately but in with blaming Blitz instead. And honestly they have reason to (at least Verosika does and Tex is going by word of mouth I assume) but it plays into the idea that a bad person or abuser cant also be abused.

You can see every time Stolas considers something isn’t Blitz’s fault Verosika and Tex are so quick to step in and tell him he’s wrong. He’s just surrounded by yes people right now and i really believe thats something that could be used in the narrative. Stolas getting away from these people to take in reality and then finally be like “no it was me i was right about it”. And idk it could even lead into more Verosika development where she acknowledges that Blitz has now seen how shitty one-sided and abusive relationships can be and they talk more instead of just like 3 minutes on the stairs. This is a topic I touch on with my Vox rewrite but thats in a different way. I just think with so much buildup to Stolas realising he was a huge issue they could do so much helpful representation in certain ways for people with problems like BPD, bipolar, ROCD, and a bunch of other things. I suffer from the last two and I hardly EVER see these portrayed respectfully or how they actually affect people. It’s always just “im happy and then in 2 seconds im going to be mildly upset :(“ or “omgg I love cleaning!!” with OCD. It’s just so infuriating to see Vivzie not touch on so much potential again.

Also “stolitz” should not get back together even if Stolas became a better person, just to clarify.

[akingdomscrypt]

War is Over (and what have we done?)

Part Four

Pairing; Graves x m!reader (slow burn)

WC; 2.9k

Summary; Graves is tired of being ignored.

Warnings; not really any? Not yet at least. Minor flashback stuff where it's implied he's trapped in the tank when it caught fire, mentions of death/pondering

A/n; probably my shortest chapter yet. I spilt what was originally one part into two because it just felt??? Off?? To put them together as one thing?? Idk but I felt like it called for more than just a few paragraph breaks

(also thanks to @/rousseau-vargas and @/embry-garrick who are my biggest motivators rn, next half of part will be out soon)

(idk how to explain it, but I love how his mouth moves..)

---"more than he bargained for"---

Phillip was bored out of his goddamn mind and a prisoner in his own fucking base. Which, to be fair, he had definitely anticipated would happen when he came back.

He had known he’d fucked up; he knew you would be angry. It had been a long time, Phil had been gone for nearly an entire year. Him suddenly appearing again after being presumed dead? That was sure to stir up some unsavory feelings; he had expected a bit of rage, some lashing out here and there.

He, for some unknown reason, hadn't predicted this.

You, trapping him in his own goddamn base.

Phil doesn't know how long he's been stuck within these same four walls—thankfully he'd been detained in one of the spare rooms, one with a small bathroom, and not where the temporary prisoners were usually kept—, but he does know that, especially if he stays here any longer, he's about to lose his damn mind.

He thought he knew you. Figured you'd eventually calm down—like you always did—and come back to collect him. Maybe chew him out a bit more, which would be well deserved, but then let him go. Reconcile. That's what usually happened when you two had a minor scuffle.

But this wasn't just a small mishap, some little blip on the timeline because Phil had gone a bit too far once again. Been a bit too snappy; had said the wrong thing. Was it?

With every day that passed, every second that dragged on, Phil was starting to believe he didn't know you as well as he had thought he did.

It's hot. It's so fucking hot. Phillip should have known better than to actually be in the damn tank when all this started, you, his dear co-founder, had warned him against it. But what was Phil to do? He'd rather face this heat a thousand times over, relive it again and again as much as it took, than have one of his own soldiers trapped in this chunk of metal.

Did he really think he would win? Well.. maybe. Phil had his doubts before this, you had your doubts, but he had insisted. And now he was going to pay for it stuck in this gradually melting, scalding hot box.

Another few raps of his knuckles on the wall, and still no answer.

Phil was really starting to get annoyed at this point. He was more than tired of being ignored, which only manifested in an uptick of his provocative behavior.

The hallway is on the other side and you, his dear Phantom, wouldn't leave him unguarded, would you?

Definitely not. So, again, he follows his obnoxious knocking with a shout of, “V! For Christ’s sake, I know you're out there!”

And he did, who better to have stand guard outside his door than your most trusted soldier?

He may not know you like he used to, and you may never admit it, but Phil could pride himself in the fact that you were at least a little predictable. And you had always been fond of their dearest Venn.

But, as had been the norm of how ever fucking long Phil had been trapped in here, there is no reply.

Phil had warned them. He had tried his damnedest to get those damn 141 boys to stand down, his orders hadn't been against them. Not originally. Not until they, as per usual, stuck their fucking noses into shit they don't belong in.

Was this what hell was like? Was this him paying for the horrid massacre he had commanded?

Phil could have gone against orders. He could've told Shepard where to shove it and be on his merry way—with his family Shadows alive. No one had to die. No one but Hassan and his goons had to meet their end.

But, goddammit, so many had. So many innocent lives were wasted.

Phil had been doing this shit for years, doing the dirty work no one else would, the kind the average military couldn't.

That didn't make it any easier.

He often put on a front; he had to. For his family's soldiers sakes’. If he was afraid, if he shied away from the blood and the gore, the screams and the terror, then he wouldn't be the strong, unmovable rock his soldiers relied on. Now would he?

He should have said no. Or maybe made some sort of compromise. But he hadn't, and there was no point in ruminating over what had been done. He was going to die here—it is what he deserved—, stuck and helpless.

Just like the innocent people whose lives he had stolen.

He knew you were just being stubborn. You would come around eventually- right?

Phil had never doubted you before. Having started this damn company together, just two wayward souls searching for something to call their own, tired of being tied down with yards upon yards or red tape—oh, the irony of that sentiment. You two had never been free.

Even when he pushed you away. When he left you the morning after—every damn time—to wake in his bed alone and cold. Not a trace of the warmth from the night before left behind.

Even when he refused to admit what you truly meant to him.

Phil had always assured himself that it didn't matter, he could say and do whatever he pleased, because you would always come crawling back to him. And you always had. No matter what.

Until right now.

Until you didn't.

“V! Goddammit, open the door!”

It was so fucking hot. He could barely move, mind fuzzy and breaths coming out in short, labored gasps.

What little movements Phil could make were sluggish and weak. The latch didn't work, and subsequently that meant the door didn't either. He was well and truly stuck.

Phil thought he was starting to make peace with that. Dying. It had been a long time coming, hadn't it?

After all the bloodshed. After all the things he had done in his life—all the blood and gore, the purposeful ignorance and choice to look the other way. To pretend not to care.

He deserved this, right? He was getting what had been coming for him. Finally.

It should have come sooner. He had lived plenty; he had done enough harm in his time.

Phil's tactic at this point was simply to be as obnoxious as he could possibly be, and annoy Venn into inevitably opening that damn door.

And after a few more harsh pounds of his fist against the wall, and several more calls of her name, Phil gets his wish.

In the form of a frustrated shout and the door slamming against the wall so hard it's a surprise the poor thing stays on its hinges, but he gets his way nonetheless.

“What.” Venn spits when she finally gets inside, arms crossed over her chest and one boot tapping furiously against the floor.

“That's no way to speak to your Commander, V.” Phil sing-songs, all upbeat and shit, against his own better judgment.

Ah, yes. Let's piss off the one direct line you have to Phantom more than you already have.

That's sure to get him his way.

“You're not-” Venn cuts herself off, sighing heavily and starting over. “What do you want, sir?”

She says the word with none of the respect she used to and, honestly, that was fair.

“Better.” Phil still hums. Because he's an asshole. And because he can't seem to stop himself, apparently, the snark seems to be hardwired into his brain or some shit.

“What. Do. You. Want.”

“You know what I want, V.” She makes a face at the nickname, and Phil pretends not to feel that little twinge in his chest. It's not like he doesn't deserve it. They used to be close. All of them.

“Not going to happen.” Venn snaps immediately. Defensive. Predictably.

“You know I'm not going to stop asking.”

“And you know it's never going to happen.”

“Fucking hell, V, why not?” Because he doesn't deserve the right of seeing you. Because he already fucked this up before it had the chance to be great.

“Because he doesn't want to see you.”

She's told him that before, several times over, to be honest, but Phil still can't hide the slight grimace that pulls at his features when Venn says it again. Says it with so much confidence, so much conviction, like it's an obvious fact everyone else has been made aware of and he's just been too stupid to pick up on it.

Phil has already been made well aware plenty of times. He just didn't want to believe it.

But what about you?

Would you be okay without him? Would the others? Phil knows you have never been the most.. well put together. But after you two got out of that wretched regimen, when you two banded together and created this little pretend family, things had been better.

Phil had been able to get you to open up more. To get you to behave more as yourself, and not like the shell of a man who he’d met when you two were still green.

You talked to him more. Got a bit better at talking with your fellow Shadows. Let him touch without flinching first, let him get to know the person beneath the aloof exterior.

Even though he had given nothing in return.

Would you make it out if this? And if you did, would you forgive him?

When you dug up those pieces of metal from the wreckage, those little markers of his identity, no doubt having melted to be nearly incomprehensible, would you bury them with his singed corpse? Or would you keep them safe? Tucked into a pocket of your vest, above your heart?

Would you tell his grave the stories of your future when the ashes settled? Would you bring flowers, or would you spat over the very earth he rested beneath?

Would you leave the stone unmarked, or with those few precious words you two had agreed upon all those years ago?

When he was gone, would you mourn? Would you miss the warmth of him above and beside yourself? Those whispered confessions spoken under that blanket, amidst the cover of night, would you forget them?

Would you forget him too?

“And he told you this?”

Venn goes silent then. One thing about her; though her moral compass was just as fucked as the rest of theirs, though her hands were bathed in the same amount of blood, Venn was a pretty shit liar.

“He doesn't even know you're in here, does he?”

More silence.

“Oh, you poor thing. First lying and now going against your Lieutenant's direct orders? What has become of you, V?”

“I don't need him to say it to know it's true!” Venn huffs, sending Phil a scathing glare.

“So you're making assumptions now? Dearest, Venn, you know what they say about people who assume..”

“The same way you assume he'll want to see you?”

Phil opens his mouth to protest, say something, but he draws blanks. What if she's right? What if you really didn't want to see him? Hell, did he even cross your mind anymore? Did you even remember you'd put him here?

Phil clamps his mouth shut and there's an audible clack of his teeth snapping together.

He hasn't seen you since that fateful day when, like the absolute dumbass he is, he had sent you storming out. Taunting and prodding, as Phil usually did, but you truly had been acting differently that day.

Or maybe it wasn't just that day. Maybe you had really changed, and Phil didn't know that man beneath the shell anymore.

He should've seen it more clearly when you walked in dressed head to toe, even that pretty face of yours masked. You didn't like shit like that. Always used to complain to Phil how much you hated them, being so covered up, made you feel claustrophobic or whatever.

But these days you wear it like a second skin.

“I deserve to see him.”

You had always been so calm, and he would often compare you to the soothing waves of the ocean washing over the cool sand of a beach after midnight.

But even calm waters can turn deadly in the blink of an eye.

“Deserve? You think, after what you did, you deserve anything?” Venn isn't masked, so the disbelieving look she gives him is quite obvious. Paired with a humorless, and honestly a little off-putting, laugh. “You don't deserve shit, Graves. And you definitely don't have the right to seeing him, not when-”

She cuts herself off then, and, if Phil had been thinking clearly, he would've asked for clarification. For her to continue because maybe, maybe he wasn't the only one privy to see that you weren't the same man you used to be.

But he doesn't look deeper, doesn't dip below the surface of that pretty ocean blue.

He never does.

“You can't keep him from me forever-”

“I'm not keeping anything! He hasn't even come down this way all week-”

“But he has come down here-?”

“Yeah- but not for you-”

“Just get his ass over here, V-”

“No! Why are you so stubborn? He doesn't want you!”

Ouch. But he's heard worse. From you—to be completely fair, Phil had usually said his own scathing handful of words beforehand. “You don't know that!”

“I understand you two started this shit together, so you assume you've got some weird, cryptic claim over him-”

“-that's not what this is about-”

“But he is his own person, Phillip! You two may have been friends before, but things have changed. You don't own him-”

“It's not like that-!”

“Oh, really? It's not like that?” She's up close and personal now, face to face, mere centimeters away. Huh, Phil never noticed the few inches she had on him. “How is it not? All you talk about is how you deserve to see him-”

“I do!”

“That's not a good enough reason! You can't just say “I do” and expect me to drag him down here. He's a very busy man!”

“You don't understand, V-”

“Then tell me! Help me understand what could possibly earn you the right to deserve seeing the man!”

“Because I fucking love him!” He shouts. “and I deserve to see my fucking boyfriend, for Christ's sake!”

Phil doesn't realize the words that had accidentally tumbled out of his mouth until Venn is pulling back, brown eyes widened in shock.

Oh. Oh shit. Ohhhhh shit.

You were going to kill him.

Seriously this time. Phil was a dead man.

“You-” she stutters. “Him- what. I- huh??”

“Shit- V-” Phil rushes closer, hands fidgety and hovering awkwardly around Venn as if wanting to grasp hold of her shoulders. He backs off and opts to pace the same nine foot strip of carpet instead, hands fisting into his hair. Tugging a bit here and there until he manages to settle enough to cross his arms instead.

Still pacing, pulse jumping.

“You can't tell him I let it slip, alright?”

One dark eyebrow raised, she asks, “Why not?” and rightfully so. Phil probably looked like he was losing his damn mind right now.

“Because-” because he had never said it before. Had never had the courage to admit it. To name what he had with you. What he wanted with you.

Because despite that so clearly being what you wanted from him, written so openly on your face when you looked at him. The most obvious you ever had been, about anything—and it was him who caused that.

Still, he had never put a label to it.

“Because he doesn't need to know.”

“Bullshit.” Venn scoffs, curiosity now flipped back to protective anger.

“It's not that big of a deal-”

“If it weren't, you wouldn't be acting like this. Would you?”

Ah. She had him there.

“Listen, Venn,” he says, voice low, tired. “You don't know Phantom like I do. This won't blow over well if you tell him.”

“I think I know him plenty well...” She says, more so like that of a stubborn child.

“If I get him-” Venn starts, hesitating. For a moment Phil thinks she's going to give him some big speech about not doing anything, blah blah blah, or she'll send him to an early grave or whatever. She exhales deeply through her nose, shutting her eyes briefly before looking at Phil again.

He doesn't think he's ever seen her look so damn exhausted. Suddenly seeming much more like the grown woman she is, and not the rambunctious teen they usually tease her for behaving like—all in good fun, of course.

“Just..” she trails again, as if weighing her options on whether to tell him or not. “Be.. gentle.. with him. He's not–not the man you used to know. He's.. changed.”

He had figured that much, but Phil surprises even himself when he utters an, almost soft, “okay.”

Venn gives him the barest hint of a smile before dropping the expression entirely, a far away look in those dark brown hues.

After a moment of silence, she turns to walk away. Appearing unable to even gather the energy to speak a goodbye, the door shutting inaudibly behind her; Phil can't even blame her for that one. Seems he wasn't the only one to pick up on your odd behavior, and he had only spoken to you once since his return.

He wonders what you had been all this time with no one to report to, under zero supervision—then he considers that he may not want the answer.

__

Masterpost | One | Two | Three | Next

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[izzyspussy]

@fanficfanattic you will regret this

okay so. it wouldn't be the revenge specifically because that is its own story and i think the whole general Thing is really dependent on the characters in it (as it should be! most of the time) and the shameless characters really don't mesh well with it (as it also should be! most of the time). HOWEVER. if the characters of shameless were put into a plot/setting framework of a golden age pirate romcom with a defining theme of self actualization especially regarding gender expression and/or trauma recovery...

the milkoviches would be the ranking crew on one ship, with terry as the captain. the gallaghers are also the ranking crew on their ship, and frank is the captain. very early on in "canon" or perhaps pre-"canon" they mutiny and elect fiona as captain instead. kev and vee own a bar at a pirate port. i wouldn't pick nassau because like. that is reserved for real life and black sails. to me. maybe tortuga or maybe port royal. anyway one day the bar was owned by some guy. the next day the bar was owned by kev and vee. nobody knows how that happened. every "episode" the bar features in there is a new version given. none are ever confirmed.

i like the families knowing each other/having close enough experiences that a main relationship conflict with any of them is each not understanding that their circumstances are actually not the same (i.e. how ian can't quite grasp that being gay is a much bigger deal for mickey than it is for him; they live in the same town, they went to the same school, they're in the same tax bracket, they both have a shitty dad who hates them personally and no mom, ian was in the closet too, etc, so there's kind of this disconnect there where i think ian expects mickey's experiences of homophobia to be at least similar enough to his that it shouldn't make that much of a difference - but of course there is actually a huge gulf between a shitty dad who hates you because you were conceived through infidelity and shows it by insulting you but mostly is absent anyway and a shitty dad who is. a fucking neo nazi and organized crime boss who regularly beats you blue. and i think the same is true for other members of each family, like how fiona judged mandy, and i guess in later seasons i didn't watch [insert gallagher] says some kind of something implying gallaghers are better than milkoviches and mickey points out if that's true it's only true by an insignificant margin. not that any of that was ever textually explored because the writers weren't actually interested in exploring anything. who said that).

and also! i always love a character or characters that are famous, or infamous as the case may be, in-universe. EveryoneTM knows who the milkoviches are. EveryoneTM knows who the gallaghers are. and they each have a distinct reputation that comes with their name. and! i also like the knowing Of each other for a long time before getting to Know each other dynamic that the canonical milkovich and gallagher kids have via having gone to school together and buying (or bullying) goods and services from each other. love childhood Ugh This Guy Again to lovers waaaaayy more than childhood friends to lovers. personally. not to mention the capulet and montague vibe.

anyway so i'd want to preserve that as much as possible. so idk maybe frank and terry used to be whalers for the same company or even on the same ship, and the kids lived in an isolated island whalers' families ghetto (which would also preserve frank's and terry's frequent long absences). wait wait yes. okay. here it is i've got it.

they are employed/indebted to the same company but actually work on different ships, and they generally dislike each other because they are both supremely dislikeable, but there are limited socializing opportunities in a whaling community so they are extremely bitter frenemies because it's either that or nothing. and obviously they hate whaling because who doesn't, but terry hates it out of anger toward the company (reasonable) and frank hates it out of laziness (also reasonable tbh). anyway so at some point they start talking about mutinying and going pirate, and frank thinks they're talking shit but terry's serious. and terry's also scary and frank's a coward, so alright looks like he's going to mutiny and go pirate because he said he was going to and terry said yes he sure was.

so terry starts (drunkenly) strategizing, and his strategy is the very peak of violence. and frank is not exactly a paragon of compassion, but violence is pretty high risk and you know once you kill a guy you can never get a loan from him again. and maybe a little tiny itsy bitsy weensy ickle part of frank just doesn't want to do murder because it's murder. so for once in his pathetic little loser life he puts up a fight, kind of, and argues with terry that all that isn't necessary and it's possible to unlawfully secure a ship through other means. and he actually manages to not back down about it until terry gets too annoyed to keep the discussion going, and because he's already piss sloshed and frank is the only man he's spoken to outside of work in like twenty years, terry doesn't kick the shit out of him for being an annoying pansy or whatever and instead makes a bet with him that terry will get a ship his way and frank's way will fail. they obviously don't have any fucking money or literally anything the fuck else because they are fucking whalers, and anyway it's more to their style to bet years of service on the other's ship instead. so if frank fails to take over his ship, he and his family will be indebted to terry instead. and if terry fails to take over his ship (or doesn't have enough survivors left to sail it back), he and his family will be indebted to frank.

unfortunately, they both successfully mutiny and take control of their respective ships, so the wager is void. frank doesn't press the issue for real but he constantly bitches and moans that technically he didn't lose so terry owes him. terry makes it Well Known that if he ever runs into frank off neutral grounds and not on a job he will kill him extremely dead since, you know, technically he didn't lose so frank owes him.

anyway fast forward. the milkoviches and the gallaghers both become Big Name pirates. they make port at the same place and frequent the same bar and do business with each other, but they are ENEMIES. (i think i like port royal for this, because it was not quite as definitively a pirate port for a lot of the age, so it's more believable for the bar to be neutral ground that terry would actually honor since offending the colonials that also hang out there would ruin it for everyone - and most importantly would fuck up his business in addition to putting a black mark on his reputation.)

okay so. positions. terry is the captain. they don't have a quartermaster at all because terry is a tyrant and won't allow it. mickey is the closest they've got, as the only one who is brave, angry, and informed on everything enough to occasionally challenge terry. don't get it twisted, it's definitely not often. the general rule of the ship is that everyone is subservient to terry and nobody looks out for each other in a way that might get in terry's way. but just. every now and then, mickey will make a fuss about something or redirect terry's anger (sometimes he ends up as a whipping boy in the latter case, but never intentionally. yet! ☝️). mandy is also brave and angry enough to challenge terry, and she does sometimes, but she's at an extra disadvantage because she is not informed or (pseudo-)respected like mickey is. yet.

his official position is bosun, but really mickey is a jack of all trades. he does a little bit of everything, and is the understood second in command despite terry not allowing for a real quartermaster or first mate. mickey keeps the inventory, ensures that everyone gets their correct percentage of rations and loot shares, assigns whatever duties terry couldn't be assed to, and carries out discipline for whatever offenses terry doesn't take personally (sometimes obeying terry's orders including the method/severity of the punishment, sometimes punishing someone terry said to but didn't give specifics on how so mickey can decide that for himself, and sometimes completely of his own volition; usually the latter is either for neglecting a duty, endangering one of the milkoviches in some way, or of course something mickey took personally lol). (compare to izzy hands)

iggy is the navigator/pilot, has good control of the boat, can read currents, winds, and stars, but mickey reads the maps. he's happy with this position and is one of only two brothers who never enter into the power struggle. he likes sailing, he likes the frequent semi-solitude, and he likes not having to be involved in on-ship discipline or in making any hard choices. (compare to fang)

in what i watched the other brothers really didn't have much personality so idk about them, but they each have some level of rank/leadership over the non-milkovich crew members. one is in charge of commanding the gunners, one is in charge of commanding raiders, etc. mickey will give them a general "this is what terry wants" guideline and mostly leave them to it unless what terry wants is something particularly (and needlessly) dangerous, in which case he does his best to give them more specific orders that will hopefully lose less crew without them getting pissed off he's stepping on their toes, which would of course make them make the situation worse out of spite/power display.

mandy is the cook/surgeon when terry is around, but she's a strategist and raid leader when mickey's in charge (compare to roach) - which happens because the milkoviches have a fleet, mostly just due to their reputation and the fact less established pirates and sometimes merchants will surrender once the flag goes up and bargain to be annexed into terry's command rather than slaughtered (which works maybe. 30% of the time), and terry is so power hungry and paranoid that he can't stand to let any of the other captains in the fleet actually captain one of his ships for too long at a time. he's always going from ship to ship just to undermine his captains and exert his own power over each crew, leaving mickey to head the flagship.

mickey ends up with all the responsibilities of a captain but not much respect; everyone knows he's not the real dad boss and he has to fight for every single order he gives. the real reason(s) he's the understood second in command is because 1: nobody else wants to be that close to terry (again, compare to izzy hands lol) and 2: none of his brothers are as (realistically) ambitious as he is (they want power but aren't aware of or willing to put in the work to gain/maintain it + they don't jump on opportunities as fast, etc). so nobody ever calls mickey 'captain' or 'sir' or anything else that denotes or implies a higher rank, both to keep him cut down and out of superstition that terry will somehow Know and take offense to anyone except him being given even that much authority.

and of course all of the milkoviches including mandy are general enforcers of the milkovich rule on the flagship. they all participate in mutiny-busting, routine intimidation, etc. and they all give unofficial punishments for insults or just for pissing them off. manny, who i assumed is an uncle and have no interest in being corrected on if i'm wrong, is a fence.

sveta (and yevgeny) would be included Later as a prostitute working at a brothel near port, with the same general Circumstances of Meeting mickey (and ian) as in canon, marrying mickey for financial/social status reasons while he's forced (which i kind of assume is the canonical situation since she seemed genuinely happy on their wedding day), and then the same plotline of mickey having a problem with her madame but instead of the madame turning all the girls out she gets killed by definitely mickey for sure ("i kill, you take credit." "why the fuck would you not want credit?" "don't want precedent you kill boss get promotion when i will be boss." "..." "you should be happy, this give me good reason to not kill you." "...jesus, you fit right in with this fucking family.") and svet buys the brothel property under mickey's name (since she can't legally own it herself) and becomes the new madame while he keeps pirating, so now he (and mandy) has somewhere to go separate from other milkoviches while at port where he can actually fucking relax for once in his fucking life. & ig if you really want sandy to be here she can be a fence too, but tbh if i ever do write anything in this fandom again i have no intention to include her or any other characters introduced past season four :)

on the gallagher ship frank is captain for a while, at least in name. he is usually both drunk and seasick in addition to his natural laziness and inability to work with others, so a lot of the time he doesn't even try to captain and lets fiona handle it without interference. every now and then he gets some kinda fucking bug up his ass and goes banging on about his rightful authority or whatever and sends them on some deeply stupid and pointless farce and/or will say they're doing something and then give orders that absolutely will not accomplish that thing. for a while, the gallaghers follow along with this, then they start just not obeying him/quietly belaying his orders to other crew, then they start telling him directly they're not going to do what he wants, then actively preventing him from giving orders in the first place (usually fiona locks him up, or lip knocks him out, and debbie got to knock him out once too, but if it ends up being left to ian he'll do something more creative and lowkey humiliating like shoving a gun rag into frank's mouth or dunking his head in the pickle barrel), and then finally they officially commit mutiny and kick him off the ship entirely.

the gallagher ship doesn't include any extended family. no aunt ginger, no uncle clayton, no whoever the fuck else was in there. their non-gallagher crew is all the mentioned neighbors and etc that they're friendly with in canon, minus kev and vee.

fiona is captain, lip is quartermaster, ian is navigator and he likes to correct and expand maps and has big dreams of going straight (ha ha) and becoming a chartered cartographer/expedition leader. lip and ian also lead raids. carl is the master gunner. debbie is officially bosun but has a pretty in between job. she assigns shifts and chores and supervises and all that, but she doesn't ever handle discipline, and she also does the more i guess administrative is the best way to put it quartermaster duties that lip is too bored by to do. she also is always on the up with the rumors and can typically be relied on to know who's who and where they are (*mickey mouse meme* this is a tool that will help us later).

liam is the surgeon. several non-gallagher crew members think he's a witch because he is way ahead of his time wrt medicine (simply because he treats based on evidence lol) and because he so very rarely talks. he has no strong opinion on this perception as it usually doesn't interfere with his ability to do his job and often keeps strangers from approaching him uninvited (the boy. is autismal. and also has selective mutism. which really should be called something else by now but i digress).

ian knows all the myths and legends, though he doesn't really believe any of them, and frequently regales the crew with them. lip doesn't really like the stories because he suffers from a whimsy deficiency, but when he has the patience for it he'll back ian up on the lute (Later, mickey will play for ian too, or sometimes for his girls to sing/dance to).

so the milkoviches and the gallaghers both use port royal as their port of call, and they both spend a lot of time in kev and vee's bar. kev and vee are personal friends with the gallaghers, but as said their bar is neutral ground so they keep civil relationships with literally anyone who abides by that neutrality, including the milkoviches, other pirates, merchants, fishers, pirate hunters, naval officers, natives, colonials, anyone as long as they pay their tab and don't cause trouble.

sheila and karen are merchant class but seem like gentry to ex-whalers, especially since actual gentry nearly never deign to go somewhere so close to the docks, and even tho technically after a while being quite successful pirates they are richer in terms of material wealth (but still not in social wealth). karen loves to come to the bar whenever she hears pirates are in town. she loves the thrill of the baddest boy a bad boy can be (and also the thrill of bad girls who are proud about it), and she loves the attention she can get when she dresses up in something classy just to go slum it with a bunch of society-fringe sailors. lip is her favorite, sure, but he gets it in his head that she's his shore wife or whatever and that she'll eventually tearfully beg him to retire and stay on land with her (extremely loud buzzer noise).

jimmysteve is a fence. and a drug runner. and a semi-pro snitch. he (in some ways, much like frank) thinks he is much cleverer than he really is and that he can play multiple sides at whim. he gets himself in trouble with the pirates for breaking neutrality, and gets himself in trouble with more than one royal navy for thinking he could snitch but only when he felt like it lmao. he somehow always manages to weasel his way out of trouble and back into good graces (again, much like frank, except frank gets his hundredth chances through pity or trickery and jimmysteve mostly just uses daddy's name and plantation money).

kash and linda are also merchant class and have a little curio shop and bakery. ian likes to do basically the opposite of karen and 'sneak' away from the lowbrow area of town that caters to sailors to shock and impress all the not-poors with how Just Like Them he is, which is how they meet and start hooking up.

but of course it IS a romcom about self actualization and. you know. comedic romance. so the Main Plot is actually just gallavich and not as much of an ensemble here.

the Plot in question happens because mandy gets sick of shit and decides she wants to just fuck off. she just has to figure out where to fucking go instead. she doesn't want to just run away. she doesn't want to be alone. the gallaghers just kind of seem like the only real choice. she knows them by reputation to be damn good pirates but as kind and generous as pirates can reasonably be. they don't torture, they don't rape, they don't hurt young kids or pregnant people, they don't kill unnecessarily (and yet all of them are still alive, so like. for Real they must be fucking good pirates), etc. she figures if she seduces one of them on the last night of their leave, they'll take her back to their ship to fuck her and then in the morning the chaos of making way will make them forget to make sure she disembarks.

she picks ian because fiona is busy with jimmysteve, lip is busy with karen, and the other three are too young for her. and also. she thinks ian is cute, and she's seen him act like a whole gentleman with her own eyes more than once. she like. actually kind of wants him. and he's sitting alone. so she goes over. at first he seems into it. he's not intimidated by her even though she knows he knows who she is. he listens to her when she talks and has relevant things to say. he's funny. he's charming. he doesn't treat her like a whore. it takes like half an hour before mandy's goal has changed from "seduce him to get onto his ship" to "fuck him so much forever and maybe have an epic romance or something". but of course when she starts really putting the moves on, he just flat out rejects her. he does it gently, but still. just a straight-up full-stop no.

so then. mandy's plan changes to "get mickey pissed off enough at this guy that he ends the stalemate and kills his whole family and then convince him to give the damn ship to her". and well, the best way to do that is to make mickey think ian hurt her (which also will later provide them all an excuse to give terry as to why they blew up his legendary status's structural support rivalry from his backstory - they started it).

so she makes a scene in the bar, and she uses some very skillful body work to make ian look like he's aggressing her - which only works on him despite him also being very skilled in that area and usually very tactically observant because he's unnerved to have been hit on so boldly by a woman.

as it happens, at least two of her brothers (notably NOT mickey himself) are in the bar when she does this, and she kind of thought that would be enough to at least start a fight if not the war she's planning to work them up to. but. they don't really do anything. maybe they cuss at ian or throw something at him or whatever to warn him off or let him know it's time to leave if he knows what's good for him, but like. they don't even get up. so now mandy is humiliated from being rejected by ian AND humiliated to have made a scene, to have publicly positioned herself as a victim, and nobody caring enough to put down their fucking grog.

so now she really doesn't know what to do. she's upset, she's embarrassed, she doesn't want to go back to her own ship almost doubly as much as when she sat down at ian's table. in the end, mandy makes it onto the gallagher ship regardless, by stowing away. she does recognize that it's their ship when she carefully tucks herself away in the farthest corner of the hold, but really... where else could she go? on any other ship she'll be treated even worse than on her own, at least in a day-to-day sense, and that's only if she manages to convince someone else to take a woman crew member in the first place. and if she's caught as a stowaway, which she inevitably will, any other crew would put her to death. when she's caught on the gallagher ship they might whip her and put her in the brig, but they won't hang her or toss her overboard, and she thinks she can probably plead her case to them given enough time. she'll just have to try to stay hidden until they're well out to sea to buy that time in distance back to port.

the only problem with this is that terry is off on another ship just now, and mickey is in charge-ish. and unlike terry, or even like some of the other brothers, mickey 1: notices when mandy doesn't board and 2: cares. he makes them wait for her, getting increasingly pissed off until he seems almost as scary as terry, until finally one of the brothers who was there steps forward to fearfully admit he saw ian gallagher mess with her.

first, mickey punishes that guy. he gives up the other brother who was there pretty easily, so mickey punishes that one too. they are both expecting a terry-level It's Personal punishment - everyone knows mandy is mickey's favorite - but it's not even quiiiiiite on the level of a mickey-level It's Personal punishment. he's not holding back on purpose, and he absolutely is taking this so fucking personally, but. they're family too. he wouldn't torture them unless they tortured him first. or made too credible of a threat that they were going to.

anyway, when that's done mickey immediately assumes ian has kidnapped mandy and is certainly forcing himself on her at this very moment, or else he murdered her for bruising his ego last night and mutilated her body so no one would know to tell mickey someone needed to be return-killed. so uh. well. mickey is officially pissed off enough that he orders the ship off course to hunt down and kill ian's whole family. and for once he's not contested on it, even though it's against terry's preceding orders, because first of all. he is so so evil right now and no one wants to breathe too loudly at him, let alone argue. and also secondly... mandy's family. none of them would want her dead unless she killed them first.

so the milkovich flagship hunts down the gallaghers, and they make no secret of it. terry catches wind, but the teller includes mandy's presumed fate at ian's hands, so he's pissed at being disobeyed and double pissed at mickey for daring to take initiative, but he approves of the reasoning enough that he decides not to catch up with them and crush them back underneath his thumb until after they've razed every last gallagher from the earth. insert atla book one style imminent redemption arc anti-villain misadventures here (perhaps even complete with manny purposely giving mick bad intel to keep him sailing around in circles lmfao).

meanwhile. mandy gets caught as a stowaway. luckily, it's ian who finds her. like in canon, he impulsively confesses that he's gay - or whatever euphemism or obsolete term they were using for that back then - and asks her to pretty please call her brothers off. mandy, having been hiding in the bowels of a ship at sea in the 18th century, had no idea that her brothers were on. whoops! together, she and ian explain a severely abridged version of what happened to fiona and convince her to let the milkovich flagship catch up to them. mandy swears up and down that her brothers won't sink the ship while she's on it, and she can convince mickey to board so she can explain before leaving the gallaghers without her presence's protection. (fiona had never had any personal beef with any of the milkoviches, beyond just thinking poorly of them as people as a whole and having a particular distaste for many of terry's best known atrocities, but now mandy is definitely on her shit list and mickey is on the thinnest of thin ice.)

so the milkoviches catch up to the gallaghers. they do some damage to the ship before they notice mandy on deck, but it's just warning shots anyway. they had every intention of exploding them into a billion pieces, but a warning shot is just the proper thing - even if you've got no plans to accept a surrender or give any time for return fire before you obliterate them into viscera and sawdust. but then it turns out mandy is right, and mickey orders an immediate (slightly panicked) ceasefire, and thoughtlessly boards when mandy asks him to even though that's objectively tactically very stupid.

as privately agreed, mandy tells mickey it was a misunderstanding. that ian hadn't actually menaced her. he'd just been clumsy with his words and actions and she'd taken offense, but he'd apologized and then she perfectly willingly went back to his berth with him where they spent the whole night thoroughly and consensually enjoying each other's company. they simply slept through the morning bells, and by the time they did wake up it would have been such a horrible inconvenience to take mandy back to port, and she'd figured mickey would have left without her by then anyway. she didn't realize it would cause such a hubub, and btw she and ian are courting now.

mickey is pissed obviously - not least because now he's going to have to face biblically apocalyptic wrath from terry - but mandy is really really his favorite, and he's relieved she's okay, and maybe he's a little bit relieved he doesn't actually have to vaporize like twenty people too but that is for absolutely fucking nobody to know up to and including mickey himself fuck you very much. so all she gets is the milkovich pirate captain version of Go To Your Room Right Now Young Lady. she is unconcerned, and offers her hand to ian so he can make a small production of gallantly kissing the back of it before she goes over the gangway.

mickey stays just long enough to give ian the milkovich pirate captain version of a shovel talk, which involves a lot of disturbing kraken imagery (it's kind of homoerotic too, but surely that doesn't mean anything haha. unless...). for some totally unknowable fucking reason, ian seems to be entertained by mickey's uh. way with words, more than he is threatened. at the end of mickey's speech he's even smiling. he offers a reasonably chilling rejoinder, and then fucking bows like he's some kind of bougie rich fuck seeing a guest out of his big bougie fucking house. fucking... dickhead. fuck.

anyway so yeah. it's so over for mickey. cooked! and soon to be stuffed and basted ;)

[broken-heart-raven-queen]

I HAVE AN UNHINGED THEORY!!

What if... what if Andrew was Jeremy's brother at some point?? Okay, I know this sounds crazy and might imply that probably Jeremy's dad that we don't know about it's in fact a bad person BUT STAY WITH ME IN THIS.

Andrew lived in 12 homes in California before Cass (non of them good, btw) and we all know that Andrew was little when he did ended up with the Spears. Now, he has an eidetic memory, so he can recall this from those years, but no normal personnin their twenties would remember vividly everything that happened when they had idk 10.

Following this, remember that Jeremy is at least 2 years older than Andrew.

Jeremy does not mention once his dad's name nor his surname (thing that you may see I'm obsessed with) but we know it wasn't Knox. But why? Why would you not mention you father or think about him once specially when you have clear daddy issues sorrounding your step-father??

Unless he was a bad person. Unless his name not only brings back bad memories but it's forbidden because of something he did to the whole family.

Then we have all the issue with his brother that it's mentioned weirdly. For the sake of this theory imagine little Jeremy so very happy that he finally had a little brother to pass time with because your parents are fostering this kid that had obviously had a rough life but never gave up but then something happened and you are not sure of what because you are a kid too but the next thing you know is that your new baby brother is gone (as well as your dreams of playing and teaching him) and your father's name is a bad word.

He would still considered him his brother but because all of this Andrew (or "the blonde quiet kid he barely remembers") is not mentioned often to people when Jeremy talks about his family, but it would make sense that his best friends know about it.

Also Jeremy goes to therapy and he sure had a lot of other stuff going on as people normally have, but the girls mentioned that a GOOD therapist can change a person A LOT. And if that therapist had to deal with all this trauma is fair to think that maybe Jeremy reacted badly to this sudden change and how the rest of the family could start again as if nothing happened when they became Knox.

Andrew probably remembers Jeremy, but we don't know because he didn't talk about this with Neil at least during the books, but he maybe talked to Betsy before they had to play the Trojans.

And I know this is something hanging by a literal thread but in a way I want to think that Jeremy and Andrew had a bond of some sort and that is something that affects both of them to this day, so yeah.

[thecrescentmind]

Silly sanders sides au I made up: the kids show au!!! As the name would suggest, the basic premise is the story of Sanders Sides but if it was a tv show for younger kids instead of a webseries for whatever the age demographic for SaSi is supposed to be.

C!Thomas is a child in this one (like eight/nine I’m thinking?) and on his birthday he receives a magic (kind of not really? I’ll get to that) mirror and with it he can travel into his mind and meet his sides! With his creativity, logic, and morals by his side he goes on adventures through his mind fighting imaginary monsters and even other sides. Through these adventures he learns lessons about himself and how to deal with problems in the real world. This au is pretty light hearted compared to the other ones I’ll post about, there are story developments and bad things do happen, but since it’s meant to imitate a kids show it’s a lot more sanitized and everything always works out eventually.

More info under the cut:

It’s sort of vague whether or not Thomas’ adventures or imaginary or not and if the mirror is actually magic, I think it’s kind of implied it is his imagination? But like in the same way it’s implied the canon sides are imaginary so nobody cares and we all collectively treat them like they’re real

The biggest difference in the characters other than age is our creative side, I picture Thomas’ creativity not have been split, at least not when the story starts. So we have Romulus aka King Creativity (we’ve all accepted that piece of fanon right?) hanging around. I picture at some point there’d be a big fight between him and Patton that results in the split, imagine like a two part special. In the end they’re able to save Romulus (it’s a show for young children afterall) and decide to keep him aswell as Roman and Remus around, so sometimes they’ll be seperate and sometimes they’ll be fused depending on the situation.

All of the sides are kids in this one but not all of them appear the exact same age as Thomas. Logan is the youngest (do yall remember that thing that was going around a while ago about Logan being the youngest when Thomas was a kid cause the logic part of your brain develops later or something idk). The creativity twins are around Thomas’ age but a bit younger. Romulus and Janus are both the same age as Thomas (Janus might be slightly older but just barely). Virgil is older than Thomas, sort of imitating Thomas’ perception of a mean older kid type. And Patton is the oldest (he’s still a kid though).

I haven’t mentioned orange but I will probably add an orange side if I do more with this au, I think he’d be anger. I’m a firm believer in him and Patton being related somehow so they’d probably be siblings in this au. Not sure when that split would happen but that could maybe be after Romulus’ split because Patton feels guilty about what happened. “You can’t get angry anymore! Look what happens when you get angry! You hurt people” or something like that. I think he’d appear the same age as Logan.

The dark sides aren’t really a plot twist here, especially since two of them might just- not exist at the beginning of the story. They do get introduced over time though in probably the same order as in canon. They get redemption/acceptance arcs over time as well.

[broken-glowsticks]

What Once was Mine

Chapter 10 - Make it fit

Genre: Childhood friends, Eventual Friends to Lovers, Slow Burn, Love corner/love triangle, love rivals, Series. Not all chapters will be proofread!!

Warnings: 18+, mdni, mentions of sex and alcohol consumption, additional warnings will be added to individual chapters as needed.

Additional warnings: there's some implied, almost cheating. Idk how else to put it, but it's there, and I just thought I'd let people know.

Previous ● Main ● Next

Hyunjin dragged his brush against the canvas, smearing paint together as music blasted from his speakers. Along the walls hung numerous canvases already covered in his artwork, drenched in all his emotions.

The past few weeks, whenever he wasn't at work or being dragged from his apartment by Minho, Seungmin, and Jeongin to spend time with them, he was holde up in his spare room that he had been slowly converting into a make-shift art studio - as it had the largest window and the most ventilation. It was cathartic, spilling every thought and feeling into whatever medium he had on hand, which turned out to be quite a bit. He and Minho had bought an art class's worth of supplies when they went out, but it was well worth it.

Painting truly became a respite. He had turned dancing into his career, sucking almost every bit of relief the activity brought him, leaving only his art as a way to process the feelings that demanded to be felt.

Yes, dancing didn't mean what it used to, but at least it was still a good way to work off his sexual frustration, an exceedingly agitating sensation he's been feeling quite a lot lately. No matter what he did, no matter who he did, it was never enough, it never felt right. What the serious hell was wrong with him? He's been like this ever since you started dating “The Boyfriend”, and Hyunjin really couldn't wrap his mind around what the connection was between his upset feelings over that and his out of whack libido, if he didn't know any better it was almost like having sex with you was the only thing that could get him off.

Hyunjins brush paused on the canvas as a realization hit him. That's exactly what this was. After all, he only slept with those other girls because he could never fully have you, and as far as he knew you never wanted him as something more, so he just kept up his fuckboy habits from highschool as a way to work off all that extra need. In hindsight, that was not the best idea, downright dumb even. Other girls were only ever good for a night. None of them were you and thus couldn't last, which caused him to leave a trail of broken hearts in his wake. But he couldn't seem to stop. For him, it was a desperately needed distraction and enough to hold him over until the next time you were in his arms. Yet, now that you've essentially broken up with him, nothing was enough. What was the point in working off all that pent-up carnal desire with strangers if, in the end, you would never end up in his arms again?

Hyunjin let out a rough sigh, this really was like a break up - not that he actually knew what that felt like. In all his life, he was always the heartbreaker, never the heartbroken and to make matters worse he did this with his own two hands. Maybe he should have listened to Minho and taken the chance to confess his feelings for you, to just get them off his chest and let whatever happens, happen. Or maybe he should have been selfish and not let Changbin have you to begin with, effectively breaking your heart but leaving room for him to pick up the pieces, maybe then you'd see him as someone to love. Not as a friend but as a lover to spend the rest of your life with as easily as you spent the start of it. But he was too much of a coward, too scared to risk rejection, to risk what little intimacy was left between the two of you, too cowardly to face the reason why he never felt like you loved him to begin with.

Scoffing at himself, Hyunjin slashed his brush, splattering acrylic in an action that mirrored the agony swirling in his heart, before flinging his paintbrush across the room in an attempt to push down the disgusting feelings of filth and inadequacy that rose in his throat like bile. He loved you. He's loved you since you were children but never knew what to call the emotions that tethered him to you. He knew you were comfort and dependability, that your smile was amazing, that your laugh was a shining light in darkness, that your scent belonged to linger in his life, in his bed, on his clothes, and in his hair, but he never knew that was love and as he got older he got lost in trying to find out exactly what love was. He got so lost, in fact, that when he came to his senses, you were crying next to him in your bed, asking what you did to make yourself so unwanted. How did he lose so much time? How could he even do that to you? His most precious person.

It was that night when he found out what love was and - most important - that he was in love with you. But that was also the night he thought you could never be in love with him.

How could you? He left you, completely abandoned you, and for what? To be with other girls, sometimes even older women? Girls and women that only used him - either for sex or status, sometimes both? He did dirty things, drank too much, partied too hard, got into a few scrapes, made some enemies, nothing too severe but enough that he knew he wasn't the same innocent kid he was before your parting. At the end of it all, despite realizing he was in love with you, he came to the heart rendering realization that he doesn't know how to love - only how to fuck. How could you love someone who didn't know how to love you back? It would never be enough. And so, Hyunjin decided to give you the only thing he knew, hoping, praying that it would be enough for you to stay by his side.

It worked for a while, it gave him enough time to heal and work through his issues - some of which you were integral in helping him overcome - but by the time you two had settled into becoming adults, Hyunjin had convinced himself that there was truly no chance for the two of you. After all, if the two of you were meant to be, it would have happened by now, right? Or was that just him being cowardly again, too afraid of change? If you loved him, then there would have been signs, but he didn’t see any. You would come, you would accept his affection and kisses, but it was always him that wanted you to stay. That had to mean something, right?

Hyunjins' hands rubbed roughly over his face before sliding upward into his hair, tugging harshly at the roots and staining the locks with splotches of acrylic. He was filled with frustration and loneliness. It’s been weeks since you called him, complaining about The Boyfriend leaving you alone in his apartment to work out. It’s been even longer since he’s even seen you in person. How long, he’s not entirely sure. It’s been agony being without you, but what could he do? If he saw you, Hyunjin wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to stop himself from pulling you close and kissing you, partially out of habit, but mainly because he missed you.

The sound of a phone call interrupting his music snapped Hyujin from his mental torpor. He hoped to god it wasn’t one of his friends or work. He was in the mood to wallow. However, the contact made his breath stop as he fumbled for his phone, attempting to answer as quickly as possible, to hell with smearing paint on his phone.

“Y/N?” Hyunjin breathed out, causing you to hesitate, surprised by his use of your name.

“Yeah, uh, hi Hyunnie- I- I mean, Hyunjin,” you facepalmed. When were you going to break your habit of using pet names with him? “How… How are you? It’s been a while.”

“Yeah… it has…” Hyunjin answered, still bewildered. A pregnant pause passed before you finally brought yourself to speak, feeling the need to break the silence.

“I miss you, Jinnie.”

“I miss you too, Beautiful.”

“Can I see you?”

“Can you?” Hyunjin asked gently. If he were honest, the reason he hadn't gone to see you is mainly because he didn't feel as if he deserved to. Would it really be alright? Spending time with you, being with you, alone, when he was the one who stepped away in the first place? Him, the guy you were sleeping with, and who The Boyfriend knows is in love with you?

“Of course I can! Just because I'm dating someone doesn't mean I can't see you. He's my boyfriend, not my dad.”

“At least I would hope he's not. That would be weird,” Hyunjin replied rather flatly, but his face broke into a smile when you laughed.

“I'll be over soon,” you said once the giggles subsided.

“I'll be waiting, Beautiful.”

○●☆♡☆●○

Hyunjin felt nervous as he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Was he too overdressed? You two were just going to hang out at his place, right? His eyes dragged over his slicked back hair - still wet from his shower, the pricings in his ears, his pinstriped button up shirt, the necklace dangling from his neck, it looked like he was ready for a date. The only thing that was casual on him was his jeans, and even then, if Minho saw him now, he'd say Hyunjin was trying too hard. Maybe he should change?

It was too late. The sound of his doorbell told him you were here. Taking a deep breath, Hyunjin made his way to the door. Time to face you.

When he opened the door, Hyunjin was stunned into a temporary silence. Had you dressed up, too? Or was it just his imagination? Little did Hyunjin know, you had also put effort into looking as casually pretty as you could in your tights, black denim shorts, ankle boots, and button up, long sleeved crop top. You also had the exact same thoughts as he was in the moment.

“Hey, Beautiful. You look gorgeous tonight,” Hyunjin said, pulling you into a short, chaste hug. “Oh, was that okay to say?”

“I think it was?” You giggled, returning the hug, “ thank you, by the way, you look really good too.”

“I always look good,” Hyunjin grinned as he ushered you inside, relishing in the familiarity of your responding eye roll. It was a welcome distraction from the fact that the last time you were in his apartment he was fucking you into ever surface of his apartment. A memory that had been screaming at you too ever since you crossed the threshold into the entryway. This was going to be an interesting evening. Not once since the two of you reconnected had either of you felt so awkwardly around each other.

“Sooooo, did you have anything you wanted to do?” Hyunjin asked tentatively, looking anywhere but at you.

“Well… we both seem to be dressed to go out, wanna… go get dinner?” You suggested as timidly. Hyunjin miles the idea over for a bit before smiling down at you.

“Sure, I could go for food. Let me get my keys, I know a spot.”

○●☆♡☆●○

“You know, when you said you ‘knew a spot’, I didn't think you were talking about a bar.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Hyunjin tutted, his finger wagging, “bar and grill,” he corrected.

“Whatever,” you said with a roll of your eyes, taking a sip of the drink in front of you. You were in desperate need of alcohol, once again feeling awkward and unsure of how to act. How did you act with Hyunjin before you and Changbin began dating? You weren't sure, and you felt so stupid for it.

An extensive silence passed between the two of you, only being broken by the bartender coming to take your orders. The bar and grill was small, only allowing the impressively large bar and a few tables to fit within the four walls of the establishment, most of their business seemed to have been from take out orders by the way people shuffled in and out. Thank God the weather was starting to warm up.

It was only when the two of you received your food and had begun eating that Hyunjin was unable to bear the silence and the pitying looks from the people around him.

“Okay, enough of the awkward first date energy. This isn't us.”

You sighed, taking another dig at your food before nodding, unable to fight how right he was.

“I just…” you began, “I don't know what to do, basically our whole lives we've never had any boundaries and now that I'm suddenly trying to figure out where to place them, it feels wrong because it's you.” You paused to chew on your lip a bit before taking a swig of your drink, Hyunjin simply sat patiently beside you, listening attentively. “But the thing is, things have changed and as wrong as it feels it's the right thing to do. My main problem is that I'm over analyzing everything, torn between trying to still be your best friend and be Changbins' girlfriend.”

Hyunjin released a small huff, swallowing down his selfish thoughts of how you wouldn't be having these kinds of issues if you were his. Now wasn't the time. Even though he took a step back, you were hurting, and, quite frankly, Hyunjin could sympathize as he was also facing the same conundrum.

“My poor Y/N,” Hyunjin tried his best to sound nonchalant as he popped a fry into his mouth. “I'm not going to sugar coat this, that's rough,” you glared up at him as he held his hand over his plate and ran his thumb over the pads of his ringed fingers, dusting off the crumbs from his fry.

“Thank you, Hyunjin. That is soooo helpful.”

“I'm not trying to be ‘helpful’, I'm agreeing with you,” he corrected with a bit more seriousness than before, adjusting in his seat to face you. “Let's be real here Y/N, this is your first boyfriend since we started our relationship. I'll admit, neither of us knows how to do this without worrying over whether we're crossing any boundaries here, but you know what I just realized, baby? We shouldn't be so worried about this.”

You threw him a quizzical look, egging him to continue. Hyunjin gave you an exasperated sigh, rolling his eyes and leaning back in his chair to continue eating at his food.

“If you're so concerned about boundaries than go talk to The Boyfriend about it, not your friends who you used to fuck. Secondly, other than the fact that we've stopped fucking, nothing else has changed about us, so what's there to overthink? We just have to break a few habits is all.” Hyunjin earnestly tried to sound collected, informative even - judging by the enlightened glow softening your features, he was successful - but truly Hyunjin spoke with more confidence than he had. “Break a few habits”? How the hell was he supposed to casually stop pulling you close to hold you gently or kiss your lips when, even now, he was longing to lay his hand over yours? To pour out every ounce of love he has for you until it fills you whole?

“Oh my god, Hyunnie, you're a genius,” you suddenly mumbled out, making him break out into a smile.

“You should tell me that now often,” was his curt reply as he continued eating his food, with you following suit.

After that conversation came easy. You two had tons to talk about, eager to catch up on the time you've spent apart: New hobbies, change in work conditions, how the change in weather has affected your respective wardrobes and how you were needing to buy new sandals for the upcoming warm weather, Hyunjin was even in such a good mood that he was willing to ask questions about your relationship with Changbin - much to your surprise.

“What about you, Jinnie? Any repeat offenders since I've been gone?”

“Nah, I've actually stopped the casual hookups.” You choked on your drink in surprise, coughing into a napkin as Hyunjin patted your back.

“Is the Hwang Hyunjin seriously off the market? What made you stop the hookups?” Hyunjin shrugged, giving you a sheepish smile.

“My painting has just been taking up more of my time, making me happier. If I'm not at work or the guys, I'm at home with my art.” You blinked at him, truly looking at him under the dim bar lights and drinking in his expression. You couldn't remember the last time he looked so content outside of his mornings alone with you.

“Hyunjin, will you show me?” The words were out of your mouth before you could process the fact you had even said them. Hyunjins gaze turned to you and softened, his smile growing but retaining its contentment.

“Of course, Beautiful.”

○●☆♡☆●○

You sat perched on the edge of Hyunjins couch, watching him with amusement as he dashed in and out of a spare room, collecting his favorite pieces. Some were on canvases, painted in oils or acrylics, others were on sheets, scribbles of pencils, charcoal, ink, and pastels flooding the pages. You were impressed. He hadn't limited himself to a single medium, as if testing which one he would find himself only to see there was a piece of him in all of them.

“What, no sculptures?” You teased as he set some loose leaves of paper beside you on the couch. Hyunjins head snapped up, and his sheepish smile returned, all white teeth and crescent moon eyes.

“I don't think I have space for sculpting,” he said with a chuckle, standing upright to scan the pieces he's picked out. “Okay, yeah, I think these are all of my favorites. What do you think?”

“I think you look like a pregnant mom when you put your hands on your waist like that.” Hyunjins baffled face looked down to his pose, suddenly seeing what you meant before playfully batting at your arm.

“Yah! I meant the art!”

After your giggles died down, you made Hyunjin go get you a drink so you could truly appreciate the copious amount of art laid out before you without anxious eyes drilling into you. You were amazed at the story the pieces told, a clear depiction of Hyunjins' rapid growth. Hyunjin had laid everything out in the order he made them, grouping them off by medium. In every group was seemingly his first ever attempt at each category and you were so impressed by how the third or fourth piece he had seemed to have gotten a firm grasp on what he was doing - but he especially excelled at mixing oils, charcoal, and pastels. Pieces of implied figures defined by rough, purposefully unstructured lines and filled in with smears of colors became a staple as you continued to flip through pieces. One of your favorite pieces was what appeared to be a page of scribbles, but as you focused your gaze, the features of a familiar face came into view. You were unable to put a finger on who the person in question was, but you were able to make out that it was a woman.

“Here we go, one hot chocolate with marshmallow and whipped cream.” You head jerked up as Hyunjin returned with two mugs, and you mumbled a thank you as you took it, making room so Hyunjin could sit beside you.

“So, thoughts?” He asked as he took a drink from his mug, smiling at how you already had whipped cream clinging to your lips.

“Mmh, I love these. You got so good, so fast.”

“I told you my art's been taking up more of my time. I've been kind of addicted to the feeling of making something.”

“It suits you,” you smiled, resting your mug of chocolate on your leg and reaching for your favorites. “I love these. You can really see that at this point you've developed a style, and it's really cool.”

Hyunjin looked at the pieces you've collected, chuckling at himself. You probably didn't notice, but, in a way, each of these were about you. One was an abstract portrait of your face, based on a memory from when the two of you were kids. The second was what it felt like whenever he made love to you, not whenever he would fuck you silly, but when he would hold you gently, kiss you passionately, and would tell you he loved you in every other way but in words. The third was a representation of the pain he felt, realizing that despite everything, you would never truly be his.

“Would you like them, Beautiful?”

“Oh, Hyunnie, really?” You asked with glee, your bright smile filling him with joy.

“Of course, I wouldn't let anyone else have them,” he said gently, reaching out to wipe the whipped cream that you so selfishly refused to lick from your lips. You gasped at the contact, his fingers eliciting flames beneath your skin, and you found your abruptly standing, setting down your drink and making your way to the door of the make-shift art studio.

“So what else have you been working on?” You asked with a bit more force than was needed.

In a panic, Hyunjin bolted from the couch, almost spilling his hot chocolate over some of his charcoal sketches as he hastily set down the mug.

“No, no, no, barred from entry!” Hyunjin shouted, lifting you from the ground mere seconds before you could even touch the handle.

“Ah! Hyunjin, put me down!”

“No!”

“Why can't I go in?!”

“Because I said so!” Hyunjin rebuttaled, putting you back down on the ground but refusing to let you go. For a moment, you believed you had a chance to escape, but before you could even attempt to sprint away, Hyunjins fingers began dancing at your side. You squealed, squirming and jolting as Hyunjin tickled you mercilessly.

“I- I want… to seeeeee!” You whined between gasps of air, but Hyunjin only doubled down, releasing your waist entirely to tickle you with both hands, causing you to drop to your knees with Hyunjin following.

“Barred. From. Entry.” He enunciated, reaching beyond your sides to any vulnerable spot he could use to his advantage, giggling as you attempted to squirm away.

“Okay, okay, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I won't go in, I promise!” You acquiesced.

Instantly, Hyunjin removed his hands, letting you sit up and catch your breath before wrapping his arms around you. Resting your head on his chest, you pouted, a childish need to see what he was currently working on rushing through you.

“You must be working on something big. You never hide anything from me.” You felt Hyunjins’ laugh rumble in his chest as he nuzzled your head.

“Don't be mad, it's just… the art in there. If I let you see it, it would be like I let you read my diary. I get really vulnerable in there and not that I don't trust you, but I've just been… feeling some things I'm not ready to share with anyone yet.”

You pouted again, this time at yourself, feeling silly. He shouldn't feel like he had to defend himself. That wasn't fair to him. Yes, it hurt not being aware of every facet of his life, but he deserved to have things he could keep to himself, it was only fair considering there were things you could no longer share with him either now that your relationship has changed. So, with a huff, you relented.

“Don't apologize, Jinnie, I'm just being pouty. If you feel like it's too private, then I won't pry,” you reassured him, leaning up and pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek.

Hyunjins heart gave a clunky thud but he attempted to just take the moment for what it was. A warm moment between friends, a moment where one friend was simply reassuring the other and showing her comfort through a platonic show of affection. But when Hyunjin pulled away, fully intending to simply smile and thank you, his eyes met your lips over your gaze and he couldn't feel anything other than the warmth of your body in his arms, the softness of your hair, the memories of your lips against his and thoughtlessly he began to lean in.

You held your breath, completely captivated by the electricity buzzing between the two of you. Your mind was blank, your body waiting for the heat that always came when Hyunjins lips brushed against yours. If you closed your eyes, you could always recall how he'd tease whenever he had the time to, how he would ghost his lips over yours before pressing into you more aggressively, lingering just long enough that you melt before snapping away and leaving you breathless.

It was when Hyunjins ringed hand rested against your cheek that you broke back into reality, the cold metal a biting reminder that he was too close.

“Hyunjin…” you breathed, his lips a breath away from yours.

A slight gasp spilled from Hyunjin as he swiftly pulled away from you, standing and walking into the living room. He had to put as much space between you and him as possible. What the hell was he doing? What was wrong with him?

“Oh god, Y/N, I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me.” Hyunjin could feel the guilt washing over him and had to bury his face in his hands to keep himself calm. He couldn't help but notice that the metal on his hands wasn't as cold as it usually would be.

This was it, though, right? He's totally crossed a line. Surely you'd never want to be alone with him again.

“Ah… that was close,” you said after a moment, your head still reeling. “I guess this is what you meant when you said we'd need to break a few habits.” Now it was your turn to smile sheepishly. Hyunjin dropped his hands, and your heart constricted as wide, glassy eyes looked over to you.

“You're not mad?”

“What? Hyunjin, no, of course I'm not mad. It's not like we actually kissed, we just got caught up in the moment,” you said, walking over and taking one of his hands in yours, your gaze focused on twiddling with his fingers. You had wanted to hug him but thought better of it, you didn't want to risk another close call. “I… I'm not saying I feel good about what almost happened, but… this is our first time seeing each other since Changbin and I started dating, and we're still… adjusting. I don't know if this really is the right thing to say, but I don't think we did anything wrong since we didn't actually kiss.”

Your eyes trailed up to his, your gaze holding his in a silent urge for him to calm down. Taking a deep breath, Hyunjin nodded, running his free hand through his hair.

“I guess… it wouldn't be bad of us to give each other a little bit of grace, yeah?”

“Yeah, I think so too,” you said with relief, dropping his hand and taking a step back, trying to work some breathing room between the two of you. “And if you're really feeling bad about this, you can always paint about it in your little room there.”

Scoffing Hyunjin tossed a pillow from the couch at you, walking over to the spare room and rapping on the door with his knuckles.

“I’ll let you see it if I ever do.”

“I'll hold you to that.”

After a beat of silence, you decided now was a good time to bow out, still feeling awkward from the almost kiss and not wanting to push your luck. Hyunjin walked you to your car but made sure to keep a small gap between you two, too afraid to even touch you. He may still want you but not like this, he never wanted to ruin your happiness in such a way, so instead he simply imagined a part of him was being held close in the three pieces you clutched tightly to your chest.

Once you had wished him goodnight and drove off, Hyunjin dashed back inside and changed into his ratty paint attire. He needed to paint, to vent, to get out all of the overflowing feelings he had struggled so desperately to reign in the moment he almost kissed you.

Walking into his studio, he gathered his supplies and replaced the canvas he had on the easel with a painting he had been working on periodically. This one was special. He had to get it right. Stepping back, he looked over the piece before continuing to render out the forms, sweeping his brush over his pallet and collecting hues that matched the mood he wanted to convey. If he was being honest with himself, out of all the pieces, this was the one he wanted you to see the least, the main centerpiece of all his vulnerability and desires. He had been struggling to name it, but after tonight, he knew exactly what to call it. Taking a nearby hard pastel, Hyunjin turned over the canvas, scrawlling in swift motions the words:

“What Once was Mine”

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

DEAR GOD I STRUGGLED LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER TRYING TO WRAP THIS CHAPTER UP!!! I started off all well and good, had a good rhythm going. Then freaking mom life stepped in and next thing I knew it was Friday already, what the FAWK???? I barely got this chapter out by the skin of my teeth 😭

Anyway just... here, here ya go. Enjoy the moral shades of grey with that almost kiss at the end. I'm gonna go rest my eyes now omg.

Taglist: @groovygroovyhyunjin @hhwangsmoon @luvyblossom @doggezz@kayleefriedchicken @hyunjinhoexxx

[annoying--moth]

No matter how many times it is explained to me or I talk about it with someone, I can't fully grasp what exactly is going on with art in the arc of a scythe universe. Because like,

It's stated multiple times that post-mortal art is "bland" and "uninspired" and "redone to death," and while I can certainly understand SOME art being like that, surely not all art is like that?? And I understand this in the sense that like, everyone's constantly remaking/repainting/making their own versions of famous paintings and such, but also there still has to be people who don't do that, right??? Like maybe I just have zero reading comprehension and somehow missed the bigger picture, but I feel like all this talk about art being redone to death implies that no one is making original art anymore? Which just. doesn't seem feasible to me?? Because as an artist myself, I can't see immortality taking away my ability to draw or come up with cool ideas. I don't draw because I'm going to die one day, I draw because I like it, and it's a form of creative expression. You can always come up with something new to draw- whether it's a cool oc, or someone you know, or just something random and abstract. The possibilities never end!

Of course, I suppose there is the argument then that people just aren't creative anymore, but I also find that hard to believe. I couldn't imagine ever truly running out of ideas. Like I mentioned above, OCs people??? I highly doubt there's no one in the post-mortal era still making weird, whacky, badass, or just cute OCs. Heck, I'd expect scythe ocs to be really popular! I wonder if it's like a thing for every kid to have a scythe oc phase..? Or at least kids in certain communities/fandoms (like scythe card trading- maybe they make their own cards for their scythe ocs!)

And also, it's confirmed that fiction is still very much a thing in the post-mortal era (I know zombies are referenced in one Gleanings story) so it's not like people can only connect to non-fiction. That's another thing that's discussed more in terms of theatre and writing- people not being able to connect to the themes because they're so far removed from it in reality. But my thing is, I've never experienced war or death (until very recently at least) and I still don't find myself unable to sympathize with people losing their loved ones to death or war or disease, although I suppose this could also have to do with the nanites. Plus the fact that death and war still exist in society as an actual thing that happens, but idk.

Also by the way- I feel like that one Gleanings story The Mortal Canvas has a subtle diss on digital art? And I have nothing against traditional art- heck I probably draw traditionally more often since I'm always doodling/sketching, but I feel like just because art is digital doesn't mean it's "uninspired" or whatever people were saying in the books. In fact, I've found myself moved emotionally by more digital pieces than traditional ones (although I don't see a lot of traditional paintings compared to digital ones tbf)

Also also I want to say- I don't exactly know how well this relates to my point but that one dude in The Mortal Canvas who made the others' artstyles into filters was a huge douchebag. AI art type shit, I was ready to strangle him reading that.

I remember the bit in The Toll about Ezra the artist, and how he said he was just "decent" or "moderately good" or something along those lines when we first met him, and I was going to make an argument about that part too but to be honest it's been a little while since I've read The Toll so I'll have to come back to that one once I reread it. But I think it also had to do with the emotional/creative aspect of art, which again, I refuse to believe immortality has such an influence on creativity that no art is original or interesting anymore. Sure it might make certain things harder, or make motivation worse, but I feel like if someone is truly creative it doesn't matter? Though then again, I'm not immortal so what do I know.

I briefly mentioned nanites earlier, and that is one thing that I do think probably has an impact, and I specifically mean emo-nanites. Since post-mortals can't feel as strong emotions as us mortal humans, perhaps that's also why their art seems more uninspired or whatever, because they can't put as much emotion into it. However, an excess amount of emotion isn't exactly needed to make art either. Like as I was writing this I was looking through my own art and realised that for some pieces I wasn't putting any emotional thought whatsoever into the pieces, yet there's still a clear emotion there when you look at them. Joy, wonder, whatever.

Anyway in conclusion, I think that it's unrealistic to say that all post-mortal art would be dull, uninspired, and meaningless, because I believe there will always be creative people who will make art not because they're gonna die one day, but because they want to and enjoy it, simple as that. Thanks to whoever stuck around long enough to read this far, I really hope it made sense. It's kinda late while I'm writing this and tbh I'm half-expecting there to be some huge detail/plot point that I missed that makes my whole argument totally invalid, whether that's me misinterpreting all the bits about post-mortal art or just being a complete dumbass with zero media literacy. Either way hope this was a fun read, I don't write long-form posts like these super often (note the lack of confidence in my media literacy skills) and if I made a really bad argument/missed something huge please be nice in the notes, I have a fragile ego :(

Uh yeah anyway I think I got everything as usual don't take my rambling *too* seriously, I just always found it confusing how post-mortal art is said to be so "uninspired" (I keep using that word cause I reread chapter 3 of Scythe today and Faraday uses it there) when I personally can't imagine not being able to be creative, though perhaps I'm just self-projecting. So uh, yeah.

[beardisable]

The Ring

ok im very suprised i havent seen a post about the ring yet(maybe i didnt look far enough idk) but here's some Thoughts i had right away hurm, its long oops

my first thought seeing this was the caduceus symbol as ive seen at least some ppl mention

which i thought was VERY interesting, considering 1 the hermes connection and 2 the connection i recalled to doctors/medicine

according to wikipedia at least this symbol IS for hermes, with some great connotations for both the rogue's identity and for the doctor who has the ring now

Hermes himself... protector of humans, travelers, thieves(rogues...?), messenger of the gods... can move anywhere quickly with the aid of something, mercury which is the beautiful volatile liquid metal... the divine trickster(are you the court jester lmao), god of cunning, language, wit...

the wand itself, to send people to a gentle death or even resurrect them? role of the soul guide.

much to think about...

ANWYAYS the use of the caduceus for medical organizations is actually kind of a misuse

the Rod of Asclepius is actually the correct symbol, with no wings and one snake

i went on kind of a Dive and the rod's name is related to a god that was seen as a patron for medical practicioners, and invoked in taking the hippocratic oath

Now how is this relevant ??

WELL it might not be. maybe i got the symbol wrong, as i honestly feel i did, bc it looks a bit like a sword if i look at it differently

BUT. if i were to indulge myself i think this has many interesting implications.

So like. first thoughts: oh its the caduceus symbol? i think it has some kind of relation to doctors? AHHHH see very much fits for the doctor! and its a symbol for hermes as well who is a traveller god, jack of all trades... fits !

which might just be the correct reading, a cool significant choice

But im also now thinking about the Layers that i pointed out earlier... how its NOT actually the symbol of doctors/is mistakenly used as it... implies some kind of "not what it seems" that has been constant over this season, implies lying, a front, a mask... possibly incompetence? misunderstanding?

The oath taken invokes the god of the correct symbol, and it just made me think about The Doctor title... about all the conflict over it and if it fits the doctor after all, how it's a self imposed title instead of something given, does it really fit with their actions all the time? do they follow the oath? first do no harm? they surely try

and yes it did make me think about the rogue is master theories and hints, i am not completely convinced on it, but if it were true? Very Master to give the Doctor a ring with a false symbol for his identity...

OTHER read on this is of course. what if the symbol is about the Rogue instead? He does also seem to fit many of the allusions. especcially being a thief/rogue... hummmmm

i dont really have a Big Point, this is mostly rambling lmao, i wanted to get these thoughts out

also most of my knowledge is from wikipedia and percy jackson so if anyone actually educated in this mythology or the history of medicine wants to weigh in, i absolutely welcome you :D

[squidflavoredsoup]

Let me get this straight.

You tell proship people not to interact, using the word 'proshit' too. Meanwhile, you have a 'ponysona' who is modeled after Homelander. 'The Boys' is a show that on multiple occasions, makes jokes out of rape. One character is raped by getting his gills fingered and while it is meant to be an intense scene, it's also meant to be satirical and funny. Someone also dies from being sounded. It's a hilarious show, but not one that, if you actually stuck to your 'proshit dni' ideals, would accommodate because the show makes jokes out of serious topics. Friend, you're literally telling YOURSELF to dni. If not that, you're saying, 'well, I can like this show because I'm not one of those other gross nasty weirdos', and are unable to understand why that is fallacious.

Anyways. You've also made at least one piece of art where another one of your OCs is chumming around Homelander. So let me get this straight. Homelander is a man who was groomed from birth to be a public entity and his moral are extremely effed up. He kills people without mercy, he doesn't really have much of a conscience. So if that's the case, why is your OC with him unless they've been written to be accepting of Homelander? Or if your OC is a self-insert, would that not mean YOU'RE accepting of Homelander? That would mean you're a bad person!

Within the context of the show, everyone in Homelander's circle is either in on the toxicity, or accepting of it, because that's how their whole business goes. They're in and endorsing everything, or you're out. So why is your OC with them? You're depicting them being friendly to homelander, that must mean you're endorsing supporting murderers and manipulators. Not to mention Homelander looks very annoyed with your OC touching them, implying the OC is somehow able to make Homelander, a generally unflappable and confident guy, annoyed in the first place.

I can't express enough how fucked up your hypocrisy is. Or how deep your self-loathing must be, that you just can't admit you like fucked up fictional scenarios, and instead have to yell 'proshit dni' from the rooftops. Maybe it's just to cover your ass? And you hope the very blatant hypocrisy on display won't actually get on other antis' radars? But spoiler, it definitely will at some point.

Frankly... This is incredibly sad.

lemme try to explain bc i can so see how u think that way

first off that’s not an oc or a self insert, it’s my sona (i think i tagged it as self insert cuz it’s me but idk yk tagging n interaction shi)

i chose the pose bc i thought it’d be funny to further push the point that i don’t take him seriously— i made him look annoyed/angry at me bc dude he would HATE me if he were real lawl ik im annoying— but then there’s also the “guess who’s getting their brains blown out today” as like a threat of sorts

bc he SUCKS

i’m not “accepting” him or anything it’s more like teasing (?? idk what other word to put it rn) like just being annoying

[pain-is-too-tired]

Honestly,I think one of the reasons I hate how quickly the writing in TLO onward dropped mentioning Michael so fast is, not only cause I think he's a really interesting character and I love the Lil guy, but-

It's very likely that without his quick thinking, Kronos mightve won.

That, theoretically he dies before he can point out the fault in the bridge to Percy, maybe he's one of the demigods that Kronos knocks off earlier in the battle or something.

Percy is too focused on his fight with Kronos to notice the fault of have the same plan that Michael had, even more so with Annabeth being hurt and Michael being dead his fighting with a lot of grief and rage at that point (I mean, if he screams so loud it carried off into the air after he can't find Michael in canon, I imagine seeing him knocked off by Kronos along side Annabeth being hurt as well is gonna have him pretty upset.)

But at that point he's fighting mostly on his own, even if the living members of the Apollo cabin jump back in to help they're still highly outnumbered.

Percy might be mostly invincible with the Achilles curse, but it doesn't give him infinite energy. And not only is he fighting Kronos, but if Kronos told his army to back him up again they very much will. And 1 on gods know how many monsters and demigods ain't gonna do good

Especially since I'm sure Kronos is fully aware that Percy is gonna to avoid killing demigods as much as possible. And Kronos is willing to kill his own demigods so he's not holding anything back.

Maybe Percy's grief and rage might get him to be a tiny more reckless, but it's just a very bad situation if he doesn't notice the fault or manage to break the bridge in time.

Now if Kronos manages to wear Percy down enough to overwhelm him or whatever, idk exactly what he do after that? Find a way to keep him contained or attack every spot until he finds his weak point(like tigerclaw telling bluestar he'd keep killing her until all 9 lives were gone.) And we already know he had some close idea of where his weak spot was after Annabeth jumped in front of the knife sooo-

Anyway, yeah- so if both Michael and Percy are taken out the picture in the first battle, and Kronos marches on, there's multiple things that's gonna probably ensure his win.

1. He's likely gonna wipe out the rest of the Apollo cabin once he deals with Percy, which includes Will, and 11-12 year old Kayla and Austin(I'm mentioning their age mainly cause MY GODS THEY WERE BABIES)

2.Without an Apollo kid to heal Annabeth, I'm pretty sure it's heavily implied she wouldn't have made it. Like the Hunter's healing would not been enough. So they're out Annabeth too

3. The party ponies don't come until after Hyperion and all that iirc(like the end of the second night i think?) So there's no saving from them unless Chiron manages to convince them earlier but I'm running on the idea that it happens about the same as in canon with the Party Ponies.

4. Ares cabin doesn't come until the final day in canon. Now with this maybe Silena is able to report that Percy, Annabeth (if she dies before Silena goes to get the Ares cabin, at least she able to say Annabeth not looking good.),Michael, and the whole Apollo cabin been wiped out, and that might knock some sense into Clarisse to get her going earlier. But even then if Clarisse doesn't manage to get blessing of Ares somehow or whatever, they still might be cooked on that end in some form.

5. Hades, Persephone and Demeter probably wouldn't have made it in time either, maybe if Nico gets even more pushy after sensing Percy's death they might, but it's really up in the air how that'll work out and what would happen if they did get there earlier.

6. Poseidon is still focused on his fight in Atlantis, and without Percy he probably would jump in to take out Typhon. Maybe he might somehow go full rage of he manages to sense/ learn of Percy's death, but that's up in the air and, Like with 5, no telling how exactly that'll play out.

7. Gods likely will keep fighting Typhon. Which if the demigods and nature spirits are wiped out then Kronos going really have more freedom to tear down the thrones and wreck Olympus.

8. Rachel is a wild card, like maybe if she senses Percy might die at the bridge she might try to get to Manhattan before the battle even starts. But there's a lot of uncertainty if she could get there in time and everything. So that's up in the air at least

Over all, the BoM was 3 days of very close calls. The fact that the managed to push through each time by the hair of their chin is incredible and was built on a lot of lucky events.

Like a tower of cards. Remove one card the whole tower goes down.

And Michael's sacrifice was one of the cards that definitely kept Kronos from winning. And the fact that Rick doesn't even bother to finish his arc (We don't see Clarisse reaction to his death nor do we learn if his body was found or not, not even a burial shroud described, the chariot situation was solved off screen and then completely destroyed the next book. Like Rick did not give a care in the world about Michael after the bridge dhdyd)

It's very much a frustrating thing to me because how much Michael's death could've been something that really drove Percy in battle at least in one of the battles after Williamsburg Bridge. Heck, not only him connecting Ethan to Annabeth getting hurt but with Michael's death because he was there(even if he had nothing to do with it, Percy's at least gonna be frustrated with grief.)

The scene after Percy breaks the bridge is one of my favorites, because the small details. Kronos still looking a bit smug when he retreats. Percy's frantic search when he sees Michael's missing, HES SCREAM CARRYING INTO THE MORNING.

THE FACT MICHAEL DIES AS THE SUNS COMES UP,THAT HIS FINAL MOMENTS HE STILL GETS TO BE UNDER HIS FATHER'S LIGHT. THAT WILL RISES TO HIS POSITION AT DAWN-

And just. Michael Yew my beloved.

[ihaveforgortoomany]

Discussing *that* person with the 2.2 story (again so much and yet so little given at the same time)

Again 1.9 and onwards spoilers. I can be alternating 1.9 specifc and 2.2 speculation posting.

Urd. Or Besmert. Or Martha. Or Delores (or whatever spelling the last one is idk right now) but for the sake of simplicity for this post I will call her Urd since this name is the one popping the most in the story.

List of confirmed things:

All of the above are the same person, why multiple names is still up to speculation

Seems to be a doctor of sorts, cared for 6 and 37 on the island, now looking after veterans and Vertin in 2.2

Urd is the Friend From Afar, literally carrying the typewriter and she open with her typing just like Rayashki and Rimet Cup.

The Marble Chair in Urd's room belonged to the White Marble of Doves back in the Foundation.

Urd knows Igor (well the other way since Urd seems to go silent near the end of the story, again lack of translation means I lack substantial story bits and information).

There was a battle before the Storm, Urd did something and whatever it was involved pressing the red button on the chair.

For some reason she is important for the Manus, or more specifically for Sophia and those who directly follow her (again it is hard to tell if FMN and Sophia are working together, likely not but still align in common interest)

Similarities between Vertin and Urd:

Tendancy for physical affection - when Vertin is unconscious and Urd is caring for her, Urd does make a comment on Vertin's hair while stroking it and that kinda reminds me of of the head and hands voicelines when Vertin either headpats or hand holds members of the suitcase. (Also Nala why are you poking Vertin's nose she nearly drowned lol.)

Self sacrificial - This patch reminds me so much of the story beats in Book 2, Urd like Vertin is willing to give herself up for the safety of others, completely disregarding her own safety the moment Vertin was in danger.

Other notes on Urd: (Consider this theory time)

Igor seems to know Urd on a personal level, they worked together in the past before the Storm, and again mention a large battle before the Storm, whether this battle led to the Storm is unclear. It almost implies that whatever Urd did by pressing the button on the Marble chair led to the Storm potentially? If anything we can possible start to narrow down branches in the Foundation involved with the first Storm to Zeno and the White Marble Doves of the Foundation. Whatever happened there caused the Storm maybe?

Again why kidnap Urd? Does Sophia recognise its Martha she asked Igor to kidnap? Igor seems convinced that taking Urd seems to be in the best interest of whatever his motivations are (I need to watch it again). Why Urd and not Vertin? Arcana wanted Vertin so maybe this is some form of 4D chess where with Urd being taken by the Manus, Vertin could be allured to a trap?

Urd is also an anomaly here, she does not seem to acknowledge Igor's questions, and how is she here if she is Martha as we saw her disappear? The only concrete thing we have gotten so far is that Urd was at one point a member of the Foundation, affiliated with Zeno with Igor, potentially a high ranking member of the Foundation.

There is also a sense of tragic irony, Urd cannot see who Vertin is, and Vertin was unconscious the whole time she was with Urd (dammit BP whyyyyy).

Truly Urd is the engima of R1999, pun intended, cannot figure out anything right now, at least we have some confirmations and hints towards what led to the first Storm and Urd being a higher member at some point.

[imustbenuts]

ouggh could you please elaborate on your criticism of brave Alfonse ...I like hearing your thoughts (⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

alright. so this is just a messy sloppy thought vomit essay again im so sorry in advance.

and i am salty overall about this.

in 2 words: traditional conservatism

in many many words:

ALFONSE. OPEN UP YOUR WAY CARVE YOUR OWN PATH WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGGGG IF YOU ARE SAYING HE HAS POTENTIAL JUST. FUCKING. COMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU COWARDS! HAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHG learn from your dad's ruling policy yes but don't become your dad and carve for the affection you cannot have jfc

IN MORE WORDS

gustav is. objectively speaking, not a good father in the emotional growth department. I've mentioned and maintained by him looking like an Asian tiger parent from my pov. even if he does lay out proper foundations and maybe good hc adjacent policy for country ruling, his approach of parenting is questionable at best.

I get him operating under pressure and sickness with a limited time left to raise his son in a manner befitting of the throne but like. All sink and no swim? No proper explicit guidance? You can't just be "I want my child to meet expectations and dispense no love", that's just straight up neglect my guy. hes very much the 2 faced proud big important parent person.

realistic, but yuck.

i dont think they even have a father son moment probably ever. Henriette and Gustav have a more functional relationship bc they actually dated and had proper human interaction, but it's likely given cultural asian and high expectations context irl, his kids were treated more like objects and successors. Despite everything he might have felt and expressed behind the scenes. again, the affection is not expressed and conveyed directly enough to his kids, and alfonse being his successor means. alfonse has major daddy issues and anxiety about succeeding the throne.

So now, brave alfonse, having lost this dad and understandably craving for fatherly affection and going through it in the plot, is. you know. in the process of redefining himself. arguably is always, but now, its either he's the successor of, King Gustav the Great II or The Next King of Askr. his role as with many many other of his type are to be a signifier of a new era. thats the whole point of successors!

hes even all "ILL OPEN THE WAY". implying that something before wasnt working out and a new path must be blasted open for a better future. thats the whole theme.

But the effect of Alfonse donning his fathers armor in this case is not respect, it reeks of insecurity! again, does alfonse know his father as Gustav The Person to a reasonable degreee? if by that we mean a neglecful parent but a decent king, okay. but why is there a need to repeat this cycle by wearing from head to toe, from body language to skill 1:1 of his dad. howis this a good thing...

dude. what the hell is intsys doing. do i need to call their parents or what the hell is this conservative traditional filial pathetic nonsense. what the hell happened to all of the other fire emblems who are 5 steps more progressive than this

(granted i do find FE to be very conservative on the whole now that ive stewed in the pot of it all but thats a me thing. it could also be dependant on the writer but idk them well enough to know who does what)

and heres my ideal fucking scenario, right. not very hard. id argue just picking up gustav's mantle OR axe and then working it into a new outfit that is explicit alfonse's would be miles better and what i would want. a signifier that alfonse the character knows himself and wants to walk his own path while honoring the good parts of gustav and discarding the bad.

not this. reanimation method of almost wanting to wear his fathers' skin. as if he cant move on and stand on his feet. as if hes unsure. as if they dont want him to commit (at least not yet bc we gonna milk FEH for as much as we can). despite. all the things that have been happening.

instead of rolling with the punches the armor feels like him not doing that. it might have been an easy alt to decide on, but character wise, i dislike it a lot.

[pythonteeth]

hi these are THE notes i took might expand on them later but maybe others wanna compare and contrast idk

reminder that these are straight up copy-pasted and there's stuff that I didn't expand upon entirely HOWEVER these r all things I noticed while I was watching the movies :3

Going to start with a few o the notes I have from Kurayukaba as well.

Main points:

-The police are the same, same chief. Same cops. Same Machines. 

-Laughing Mask guy leading the group that had Soutarou ends up quitting and dipping with two henchmen I BELIEVE to also show up in Kagari later on during one of the meetings with the Ichizaru Family. 

-Soutarou and Kagari BOTH are missing their parents and end up going on a little journey to find someone they care about who goes missing. 

-Soutarou is looking for Saki, an informant in the main capital; which we can assume is Taihei considering the Box Garden is in the same province enough that the same police show up in both as well as the *Masked Mascot Miss Thang running around with her show within The Dim and the City and then later the Box Garden. 

*Note, it could be said that she is more of an entity/narrative device used by the animators to give us, the audience, more explanation into things. However I don’t believe that’s true, I believe she travels around the close districts. 

-Saki (Kurayukaba) being the Saki (DRRR) adjacent character is interesting to think about considering she’s basically adopted by Soutarou and works as an informant away from Iseya (inch resting in Saki’s (drrr) story as well )

-Mushikui cavities were hinted at earlier when describing the discovery of The Dark. In fact this is what leads into kuramerukagari

Moving into the Kurameru Kagari notes:

We learn that the Box Garden is formerly a jail turned into a coal mining town, which I find interesting considering The Dark is clearly near enough to the Box Garden and contains a black market within as well as an entire society. It’s possible to infer that a lot of former criminals from the initial Jail contributed to the rumors and stories of The Dark containing a whole new civilization. 

The Komainu Family seems to be in charge of the specific sect of the Box Garden we find ourselves in. We’re also introduced to the concept of The Mujina (who are hinted at a little bit later) as well as Ichizaru (who we learn more about later) I don’t think the family controlling the Northern Pump are part of the Komainu but rather work in tandem with the Komainu. We’re not given any reason to think these two groups are at odds but they are wearing different jackets than the rest of the Komainu in the movie. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that they are NOT part of the same Group. 

The Komainu family is INTERESTING to pick apart. Because we can assume that Eiwazima is in charge, considering he’s the Security and the Muscle. It seems to be that people follow his lead and what should be done (especially during the later attack) and of course he gets his Information and perhaps even guidance from Iseya. Though the guidance isn’t necessarily a “shadow leader” sort of deal so much as it’s a “royal advisor” type deal. Interesting. I’m thinking of his after typing up notes i physically wrote down.

Candy Shop mentions that the Mappers in the area are scoundrels or not really trustworthy despite Kagari being well known they either do not KNOW Kagari or simply don’t view her as a trustworthy person for some reason. 

We can assume Kagari is well known at least within the sect of the Box Garden she lives in; one of the members of the Komainu mentions “i don’t know if she gets it from her mother” which implies he knew one or both of her parents.* *sidenote: i have a theory about what happened to her parents irt the new years day thing

We also know that Taiehei Industries own the entirety of the Box Garden, as mentioned the Komainu have only a small sector of it. One in which they’re attempting to lobby for higher wages and seemingly safer working conditions or the miners (as mentioned during the planning scene where the aburamashi is revealed) AND they want to fix the currency system. It’s also mentioned the borders to these sectors are always changing which is why there are no “official” maps of the areas.

We know of three groups in particular: -Komainu -Mujina -Ichizaru

The Northern Pump is not confirmed it’s own “family” but to me it comes off as if they are separate from the Komainu.

The Mujina were bandits that lurked around in caves. TO ME this signals mention of The Dark and implies that our Laughing Mask guy is a member of the Mujina family. He is a bandit. He lurks in the dark. Weasels around the mine shafts and cavities. We don’t have enough information to claim the Mujina were actively working with the Ichizaru family especially considering it wouldn’t make…MUCH sense. Unless it would have turned into Mujina taking over the Ichizaru at the end of it. 

Shiina and Iseya have history, she mentions knowing an Inormant in the box garden which implies she either came from the Box Garden or Iseya CAME from Taihei. 

To me this is supported by the way he speaks about New Years Day and what he knows about Kuchinawa HOWEVER it’s also possible he simply knows this information because he is an informant and a librarian and quite enjoys learning about things clearly. 

Iseya was suspicious about Yuya and clearly knows things about Kuchinawa. It’s also likely that Kuchinawa recognized something was going funny, or that things might be hiding in the underground and Iseya also clearly knew something was up. 

They seem to be on good terms so I’m a bit curious as to how much of their interactions are friendly information sharing. (going off of the instances of Izaya actively exchanging information for other information or even compensating others for the information they offer him. It feels safe to say that Iseya does the same thing. ) 

Eiwazima comes in “not here for chit-chat. This time I’m a customer” which implies a level of certainly coming in to chit and also chat. 

I think it’s interesting to note that Kagari dips when Eiwazima mentions mapping the mushikui cavities. It gives the impression that she has made the connection to Yuya, if only because he spends a lot of time mapping those particular cavities out. 

“Closing for the day” they fucked in that library. 

ALSO INTERESTING that Shiina, who is notably looking for a mapper, and also has notably been trying to get in touch with Iseya runs into Kagari outside of the library. And instead of checking with her as a mapper instead decides to continue on with Candy Shop’s plans instead. 

SHIINA is looking for Kanra-do which is now Iseya’s library at the top HOWEVER this lowkey supports the idea that she’s actually from the Box Garden initially (imo) to me this feels like  HUGE potential for her being the “Shinra” adjacent character to round out the trio fully. 

I also really want to talk about the Kanra-Do to Iseya Pipeline, um. It has to be on purpose. I don’t really care what direction anyone thinks Izaya/Iseya is going but this man is clearly under the trans umbrella. It’s hinted at within the characters of Izaya’s names in Durarara and it’s clear enough here in krmrkgr that Kanra-Do is a ref to Kanra. Idk. Argue with the wall. * ykw too in some of the promo material Shiina was also given he/him pronouns amongst she/her ones. Could be a translation issue.

Earlier on in the film Iseya mentions not being Kagari’s guardian or her boss but he OBVIOUSLY cares deeply about her. Her family photo is in the library for fucks sakes. Also she spends like..all her time there. Does she live there? Does she help Iseya with his chores? Do they both live in what was formerly Kanra-do? 

We see at least a day in between the Library Closing Early in which she mentions that Yuya hasn’t been around. Likely she went to look for him 1) to hang out and 2) because. Well. he’s been mapping out the cavities. 

Does Kagari live with Iseya? Does Yuya literally live in a mineshaft hole? I feel insane. Kagari has people caring about her and Yuya seems to be STUCK and STRUGGLING no wonder he wants to get out so badly

I think Kagari has killed two people. 

Kagari (handshake) Soutarou “Too Sturdy!!!” Solidarity

Shiina and Candy Shop must be on Yuya’s side of the Box Garden because we genuinely only see Shiina cross paths with Kagari ONCE (1). And only because Shiina was very clearly looking for Iseya

Also they’re VERY gender Loving that for them. 

Yuya Says he kept distance to “not be involved in the fighting” First thought was how do you know about the fighting, bud? But thinking about it further, he lives in a hole on the side of town where the majority of fighting and initial cave ins have been happening. He’s also mentioned his side of town not being As Nice as Kagari’s which I find interesting. 

No wonder the poor kid wants to get out, it seems like he doesn’t really have anyone looking after him the way Kagari does, and further his side of town seems to suck eggs. Let the Komainu in bud. 

OKAY i had a bit of a time discrepancy here but i BELIEVE thru context clues we’re on the next morning When Shiina meets with the Northern Pump. At the same time is Kagari getting into clothes that are no longer soaked through and talking with Yuya before finally making it to Iseya’s library to let him know what’s going on.

Iseya also consistently refers to the Taihei as “overlords” which i find interesting and signals a sort of disdain for the people in charge of the box garden. 

Automation Regulation Act was passed after the Fucked Up NYE rightfully so

Komainu man the valley

Upon the attack there is no confirmation whether the library was destroyed or simply raided and wrecked. I’m under the impression it was merely raided since some of the Ichizaru report that the librarian was nowhere to be seen. Fingers crossed it wasn’t destroyed but I guess we’ll find out for certain in the manga. I feel like if it were destroyed there would be more mention of that BUT fic writers and art makers keep this in mind i guess. Fun angst potential.

Clearly they did more than just fuck in that library because Zima greets the Ichizaru knowing right where they’re gonna pop out of the ground AND he’s prepared with blockades and weapons. 

My man really said “The entire town is closed. Please leave.” we love a man who is polite and prepared and precise anyway then he goes “Then I’ll hasten your exit 🖤” i’m in love with him

“Komainu brat” I think i mentioned this earlier but i’ve seen a lot of fans assume Zima like…only owns a restaurant…but like. I don’t think yall are understanding that he RUNS this whole marketplace. Like. My man is the equivalent of a Sherrif-Mayor with Iseya as a sort of advisor type. Like they are pillars of this community working together to keep it safe and i think that’s so beautiful. It’s what Shizaya should have had and yet here we are with Eiwaseya living their dream. Anyway I just think it’s so interesting. Eiwazima is clearly in charge here he is the most respected member of the Komainu to the point where people are straight up reporting to him. The fact that he has to specify “i’m here as a customer” to iseya earlier is so interesting and just further cements the idea that they’re always working together and basically The Dynamic Duo. 

Iseya, when Yuya suggests getting out of the box garden to further safety “This is a problem we need to solve” as in he took the initiative to get innocent people to safe area. Safely away from the fighting and evacuated so that the Komainu can defend the territory they’ve been working so hard to uplift. 

Ichizaru got the abumurashi from the Mujina, which further leads me to believe that our Laughing Mask Guy is Mujina aligned but he could also just be a rando. I don’t believe thaat tho.

Zima being visibly worried when he’s told the valley couldn’t be contacted AND that there were explosions heard. I don’t know that he’s terribly worried about Iseya, i mean realistically all of the townsfolk they evacuated are there. But Also….boyfriend….

Also I just want to say Iseya is very cool under the barrel of a gun. He really held it down. Go off king. 

Ushigaeru and the reveal of Kuchinawa’s ‘children’ really FUCKED i loved that bit. I expected it, and during the flashback it made a lot of sense. I’m glad he took Sasara in. Also I think Kagari’s parents died in that NYE mess and it’s possible Iseya has history there too going off of his expression and voice during his explanation of it.

Iseya scooping Sasara out of the dangerzone was cute and he’s so motherly in this iteration he’s so HAPPY to be around people and to have connections. 

“Just like he said” ok zima we get it you’re married

Laughing Mask guy dips as soon as it gets too hairy no one is surprised. 

I really feel bad for Yuya. At first i was really agitated with him but upon recollection and yadda yadda i feel awful for him. He’s got no parents, no guardians. Barely even a boss that cares enough about him. It’d be nice to see him stay with Kagari in Komainu territory and actually get some decent treatment by the town rather than…what I can only assume is being taken advantage of by scummy adults on his side of town. (evident in how his maps were used and he didn’t even receive full payment. Iseya doesn’t even knock him for selling the maps. Why would he? It’s not like he was intentionally planning sabotage and then he was double crossed. He just wanted to get out and make a better life for himself.) 

Iseya’s trust and support in Kagari is very sweet, the battle goes all night long and Kagari had left sometime in the middle to go find Yuya. Interesting. 

The shaft….

Same police chief as kurayukaba and uh i guess they couldn’t get to the box garden coz they were too busy dealing with the aftermath of The Dark and that fucking Circus (omg dark woods circus reference? Inch resting. Might need to look at that later too) 

“Some things never change” Shiina what do you know. I need the backstory NOW.

The trust between Zima and Iseya is so….make me happy. Zima literally puts him in charge when he leaves to go speak to the police. I wonder  like. What that’s like. Iseya is clearly loved by the town as is Zima so obviously their relationship is well known as well. They’re like….a package deal. 

It brings me back to wondering about the possible “growing up together in the box garden” idea i have for Shiina, Iseya and Zima. Cute. 

[redg5]

I’ve been left alone again so it’s time for “random thoughts that seem to have taken over my brain” TM:

Why is there two Collector Mirrors? There is the one Belos had, but there is also the Trappers’ mirror, which by the time we see it is already broken. What was the point of there being two mirrors? Who made the mirrors? And why was one broken but the Collector still trapped?

Ok, so we know that the Trappers’ mirror is broken by the time we see it. We also know that the Collector’s mirror that Belos had breaks when King frees them. When King, I guess, astral projects himself into the In Between we see what looks like shards, of which look similar to the mirrors, floating around the Collector’s prison.

I kinda have to ideas of what this could mean. I think no matter what, the mirrors we see are meant to be a communication device. Either between Archivists, or whatever you wanna call the Collector’s species, themselves or between them and the Trappers.

If it’s between the Archivists and the Trappers then they’d only need two mirrors. This would allow the Trappers to contact the Archivists when they found another Titan, and allow the Archivists to give the Trappers orders. Of course this is under the assumption that the Archivists formed the Trappers, not the Collector, which I think makes more sense anyways when it comes to the Collector as a character. Sure, you could say they made the Trappers and somewhere along the line there was a disconnect in communication which lead them to hunting Titans but there is still that picture in the Archive House.

So the disconnect could get you the “even when those trapper jerks started acting weird” but it doesn’t explain this photo which implies the Archivists themselves started the Trappers. So with the assumption that the Archivists created the Trappers, the mirror could have been used to give/receive orders.

However this doesn’t really explain how there are shards around the Collector’s prison. So, if the mirrors are used to talk between Archivists, well there are at least four older Archivists.

Maybe they each had their own mirror to talk to one another. If that’s the case, then the Collector is probably too young to have one himself. That means there could be upwards to four mirrors and maybe if one of them breaks it’s no longer able to communicate but is still somehow connected to the other mirrors. This could explain why we hear the Collector’s laugh in Edge of the World when the Trappers are about to sacrifice King. Then the main question would be how did the Collector bring them into the In Between when he was trapped and how did the mirror shatter?

I’m less confident in the four mirrors honestly but oh well. It still gets me to how the Trappers’ mirror broke. Maybe their mirror was used to trap the Collector and that’s how it broke. We already know they break when set free, what’s to say the same can’t happen when reversed? Not to mention we aren’t really given a clear answer on how the Collector was trapped anyways. I don’t think one of their siblings could have been trapped as well because both the Collector and Papa Titan make it seem like they were the only ones left at that point.

Idk. This is all just speculation that I felt should be typed down somewhere. I don’t even know if this is coherent anymore. Or if it ever was.