#when your morals are intact nothing else really matters | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

deargravity · 8 months ago

Text

obsessed with hajun because he is so loveable but also deeply unlikeable. which is... literally the charm of his character. he's slightly strange and incredibly elusive and undoubtedly morally questionable but no less human. he's sharp-tongued and insensitive at times, but he's clearly trying to be gentler, and a little more aware in his manner when it's necessary. (congratulations on the cognitive empathy, hajun, i'm sure you'll put it to good use.) i like that his moment of vulnerability didn't soften him up but he's learned to be honest with the people he loves. i know hajun is very much in his senses when he does something wrong, makes someone uncomfortable / embarrassed but i also don't think he'd appreciate his actions being moralised. at the end of the day, he wants to be seen, known and understood for who he really is but he's afraid of baring himself that way. he doesn't want to be an open wound, his childhood home was not forgiving enough for him to express any kind of injury. i suppose he thinks, "if i am to be abandoned, i'd rather be abandoned like a house on fire, not a sick dog. something malicious, unsympathetic and worth remembering, if not possible to return to." he's kind of twisted like that, and it's endearing to me (unfortunately).

we don't know much about his childhood in the yeon household (he did move to japan all by himself when he was 13 - which is a whole another can of worms to unpack because can you imagine having to independently build a life at that age in a new country, learn a new language and stand on your feet after being thrown out by your family? can you blame hajun for being a razor-sharp hazard to society? his childhood was pitiless, the city was even more so, no wonder hajun's only constant companions were his isolation and the fangs he had to grow to survive.) but i'll make a reasonable inference based on dongha's experience. we see hajun as he is now, with his cold, precise anger but we also see dongha's wet, thrashing rage that hasn't realised its purpose or target yet. dongha is the closest we have to understanding the extent of the yeon's family cruelty. dongha is everything hajun would have been if he'd still been his parent's son, hajun is everything dongha could be if he leaves behind his family. which is still insane, if you think about it. and i think about it constantly.

the self-made cynic, as they say. i like that he's disarming, unsettling, insincere, insensitive, sadistic, self-serving, cunning manipulative etc. whatever people want to say about him, but i also like that he's his truest self with allen and anne, and doesn't plan on changing that. the world be damned, they are the only ones that matter because they've looked him in the eye without flinching or turning away. like... BAE are so everything...

anyways, i hope he continues to be perceived exactly as terrible as he pretends to be, and i hope the writers leave his beautiful, skewed moral compass intact because i love every single reprehensible act he commits. (for his next trick though, i hope he uncovers something to launch a billion-dollar lawsuit against yeon conglomerate and sink them into bankruptcy.) i hope he continues to cook for allen and anne, i hope he stays fiercely committed to protecting them and caring for them, because clearly everyone else is nothing and if there is one thing he has faith in, it's the family he chose for himself, the family that chose him right back.

hajun and his quiet, precise rage. hajun and the childhood he had to bury so he could evolve to survive in a bigger, crueller world. the childhood that taught him to be afraid, and the adulthood that hasn't quite unlearned it just yet, but baby steps. something about hajun and i get mean when i'm nervous like a bad dog. something about anne and allen embodying tell me every terrible thing you did and let me love you anyway, and hajun taking the risk of believing it. and taking the risk every morning until he doesn't forget. hajun and i am not brave enough to look those who love me in the eye. hajun and it's not a conscience that assures morality, it's the resolve to be a better person to people you care about.

but we can't unpack all this right now. if you suffered through all that and are still here, i hope you have a good day.

#paradox live #paralive #allen sugasano #anne faulkner #yeon dongha #yeon hajun #bae are queerplatonic excellence to me #happy birthday hajun my little freak #i should write a fic at this point. why am i yapping on tumblr dot com #i hope my brainworms are contagious so that you all suffer too #i love him so bad and i think about him non stop #i hate him he is ridiculous and i never want to think about him again

30 notes · View notes

rphelperblog · 2 years ago

Text

Will Herondale Quote Rp Meme

Based on the victorian era welsh shadowhunter of famed humor, heart, and looks as well as a deep fear of ducks by Cassandra Clare- feel free to edit or change pronouns for rp purposes

“Life is a book and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read.”

"Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.”

"Lack of certification hardly proves intelligence,"

“No, i mean enterprising. When I mean morally deficient, I say,`Now, that is something i would have done´”

“If love is great, then it is worth fighting for.”

“He is my greatest sin.”

"Dear me, massive blood loss. Death could be imminent.”

“With God on your side, what does luck matter?”

“I think I may be in love with you. Marriage could be in the cards.”

“How rude. Many who have gazed upon me have compared it to gazing at the radiance of the sun.”

"Is it because I'm better-looking than you?”

“If there is a life after this one, let me meet you in it.”

“You said I am a good man,but I am not that good a man. And I am--I am catastrophically in love with you.”

“I thought perhaps that when you told me you did not love me that my own feelings would fall away and atrophy, but they have not. They have grown every day. I love you now more desperately, this moment, than I have ever loved you before, and in an hour I will love you more than that”

She may be a thousand years old, but she makes an incomparable jam tart. Beauty fades, but cooking is eternal.”

“On the contrary—in order to learn how to pretend to be inebriated, once must become inebriated at least once, as a reference point. Six-Fingered Nigel had been at the mulled cider—“

"That silly thing? Men going around getting their heads chopped off for love? Ridiculous."

"Clearly the word excellent means something else on this side of the Atlantic.”

“I shall charm him with such force that when I am done, he will be left lying limply on the ground, trying to remember his own name.”

"I have wanted to do this, every moment of every hour of every day that I have been with you since the day I met you.”

"I had come to think i would never love anyone, but I love her.”

“Do reasons matter when there's nothing that can be done to change things.”

T’aint my way to turn down payment, but any man who looks like you has got no need of love potions, and that’s a fact.”

“since you say there will be another life for me, let us both pray I do not make as colossal a mess of it as I have this one.”

Our souls are knit. We are one person,”

“While the society disapproves of trespassers, oddly they take an even darker view of beheading and skinning people. They're peculiar that way.”

you were the mirror of my soul. I saw the good in me in you. In your eyes alone I found grace. When you are gone from me, who will see me like that?”

“Who knows your courage better than I?”

“There are so many worse things than death. Not to be loved or not to be able to love: that is worse.”

“What kind of monster could possibly hate chocolate?"

“Is this a game? We just blurt out whatever word comes next to mind? In that case mine is ‘genuphobia’. It means an unreasonable fear of knees.”

“There's plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it.”

“Oh, I can never get enough, which, incidentally, is what your sister said to me when-"

"You wish to marry me now?"

"Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.”

“I’m boasting of my investigative skills, and I would prefer to do it without interruption. Where was I?”

“Are you implying that shreds of my reputation remain intact? Clearly I have been doing something wrong. Or not something wrong, as the case may be."

We must away at once to the nearest brothel. I seek scandal and low companionship.”

"She is my priority!"

"I've never swum naked in the Thames before, but I know I wouldn't like it."

“If no one cares for you at all, do you even really exist?”

“Sometimes, when I have to do something I don't want to do, I pretend I'm a character from a book. It's easier to know what they would do.”

“Excellent. I've been told I have a lovely, melodic reading voice."

"You do believe everything I say, though, don't you? Do I seem unusually trustworthy to you, or are you just a naive sort?”

"No, here you'll find all sorts of advice about how to chop off someone else's head if you need to; much more useful.”

“It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them.”

“having your annual ‘everyone thinks [your muse’s name] is a lunatic’ meeting, are you? “

“Sometimes,they're even supposed to blow up.”

“What he needs now is to love and have that love returned.”

“Trains are great dirty smoky things, you won't like it."

marry me and stay with me and never leave me, for I cannot bear another day of my life to go by that does not have you in it.”

You are not the last dream of my soul.You are the first dream, the only dream I ever was unable to stop myself from dreaming. You are the first dream of my soul, and from that dream I hope will come all other dreams, a lifetime’s worth.”

Was there ever a more beautiful sound than your name? To speak it aloud makes my heart ring like a bell. Strange to imagine that, isn’t it – a heart ringing – but when you touch me that is what it is like: as if my heart is ringing in my chest and the sound shivers down my veins and splinters my bones with joy.”

“Dear God, I thought she was marrying your brother. I take it all back.”

“Do you even care where I’m going? What if I were going to hell?”

'Was that before or after he tried to eat you?'”

“I hurt everyone but you. I never meant to hurt you.”

“Probably all poisoned by parsnips,”

“You made me want more than that. You showed me I was only ever cursed because I had chosen to believe myself so. You told me there was possibility, meaning. And now you would turn your back on what you created.”

"Nice place to live, isn't it? Let's hope they left something behind other than filth. Forwarding addresses, a few severed limbs, a prostitute or two ..."

The touch was like white fire through his veins. He could not feel her skin only the cloth of her gloves, and yet it did not matter. You kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire. He had wondered once why love was always phrased in terms of burning. The conflagration in his own veins, now, gave the answer.”

“Most people are lucky to have even one great love in their life. You have found two.”

Wherever we are, we are as one”

“What are you doing following me around the back streets of London, you little idiot?”

“I suppose it would depend on whether they cut me a part of the profit.”

“What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, and if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so that we can cross together.”

“I had such plans for the evening. The pursuit of blind drunkenness and wayward women was my goal. But alas, it was not to be. No sooner had I consumed my third drink in the Devil than I was accosted by a delightful small flower-selling child who asked me for two-pence for a daisy. The price seemed steep, so I refused. When I told the girl as much, she proceeded to rob me.”

“What’s to miss? Sheep and singing,” he said. “And the ridiculous language. Fe hoffwn i fod mor feddw, fyddai ddim yn cofio fy enw.”

“It means ‘I wish to get so drunk I no longer remember my own name,’ Quite useful.”

he loved like few ever could love, with all and everything. I see you are like that too; it burns more brightly in you than the fire of Heaven”

“Dw i'n dy garu di am byth,” [I love you. Always.]

“Your honorable father has been impugned. Attack, attack!”

“Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour, then,

“I’ll wake Cyril. And be prepared to swoon at my finery.”

68 notes · View notes

fu-miruku · 2 years ago

Note

I've always thought that Toshio isn't human anymore (I prefer thinking he's now an AI made out of human body rather than sexroid for my convenience) until one of the chapters when Shindou said to his colleague that things have changed now since his emotions are coming back. So is he actually still human inside just with prosthetic body parts? I wanna know what you think as you've read the original version and the original words the author used. Thank you!

Oh, that's not an easy question to answer, anon, haha. Prepare for a long post ahead.

So your question is: Is Toshio still human inside, even with his body modified, and his brain messed with, yes?

First of all, how would you describe a human? Is it having all flesh, mind, and heart, and all the innate characteristics we've identified with, to be intact? How much of a loss or defect of any of these are acceptable before you're not "human" anymore?

In the story, we can see the different characters treat Toshio in their own way, based on their own beliefs on what makes someone 'human'. To the others, they clearly didn't see Toshio as human, and simply treated him as a tool for their own benefit.

Because they tampered with his brain for this purpose, Toshio was even unable to comprehend that he is the one being taken advantage of; to see that he's the victim, and all of these people are using him. He clearly had a lot of work done on him to keep his functions carnal and simple, and we can only imagine he was at the mercies of the people in charge of him before Shindou came in.

Although it was reluctant at first, despite the state Toshio was in, Shindou treated him like human; taught him how to act like human. And thanks to that, Toshio was able to regain and respond with emotion that he probably was unable to display before, because nobody else treated him the same way. ...Or did he really lose the ability to feel these emotions in the first place?

"If you're saying this is human, then it won't be a matter of it having emotions or not anymore."

I think this is the scene anon is referring to (Chapter 7). It clearly shows that in this facility, the people here don't think of Toshio as human. Or perhaps that's what they just say to convince themselves. This particular sentence leads me to believe that they are well aware of what they've done, and because they already know they're in too deep in it, this is the only way they can tell themselves that they're not doing anything wrong. If they call Toshio 'human', that would make them question their moral standing, and a lot more complicated things right? So to keep things easy, they hid behind the excuse of treating Toshio as nothing more than an object.

This treatment may also be out of a sense of guilt, as we can see with Nakamura (the family friend/professional Shindou often talked with). He saw that Shindou was treating Toshio as human, and he believed that if Shindou continued to do so, he would feel responsible for Toshio as well, and then blame himself as Nakamura did. Nakamura said that "It is not human anymore. I made it that way." So he knew all the modifications done to Toshio. He probably saw Toshio as a lost case, and believed that there was nothing Shindou could do for Toshio anymore. But Shindou didn't have any of that, and continued to do everything he could for Toshio.

We don't actually know to what extent Toshio's body has been modified, but regardless of whether you believe Toshio only has an AI in him, having lost the ability to feel emotions due to his mind being artificially modified and was only able to learn them thanks to Shindou - or he actually still has these emotions innately and regained them with Shindou's help - do you choose to believe that the look of happiness he has when he's with Shindou to be real, and that of a human's, or not?

I think this work is certainly one that makes you ask these questions to yourself. The manga doesn't say it outright, so neither will I, but in this story with Shindou's narrative, do you choose to believe in Shindou who thinks of Toshio as human, or not? It's up to you to decide, I think.

I'm sorry for going all philosophical anon, I probably gave you more questions than answers, and for blabbering more than I probably should. Lol. I hope I gave you some insight at least! I'm sure the sequel will give more questions and perhaps some answers??

#answered

13 notes · View notes

metvmorqhoses · 3 years ago

Note

i have a headcannon that voldemort never really “punishes” bella when she does something wrong, but his punishments to other death eaters are way way worse & so she’s obligated to act as if vold has given her a worse punishment than he actually has. not that she does a lot of things wrong as his “most faithful” though. i’m talking about the occasional slip up like the department of mysteries thing. had that been someone else, he probably would’ve harmed them more, let alone wouldn’t save then from some witch statue holding them down.

this is very true, anon. so true, in fact, i actually consider this much more a canon fact than mere speculation.

sorry if this is very long, but for every thousand of anti-bellamort idiots there must be a very precise bellamort’s defense attorney lol

correct me if i am wrong, but to my knowledge not once in the books a physical punishment coming from voldemort is ever mentioned in relation to bellatrix - and even if, let's be real, after his "rebirth" she became involved in literally the majority of the most crucial errors, the worst happenings ever, that ultimately brought to no less than his very downfall.

and yet, still, she came out of it all not only unscathed, but treated very specially.

even to a lazy reader, this should at least come across as peculiar.

let’s take the primary example of what i am saying, the battle of the department of mysteries.

just freed from azkaban and after being showered in honors and recognition, the first pivotal mission bellatrix was entrusted with was a damning fiasco.

true, it was not entirely her fault, lucius was in fact “in charge” of it, but let’s be real, do you really think voldemort sent his literal general with that malfoy dandy, his pupil, his most trusted and powerful lieutenant, just for company? just as a henchman? as i have always interpreted it, bellatrix was there to keep an eye on lucius, whose silver tongue was famously more apt to political plotting than to field missions.

voldemort wasn’t trusting lucius with the prophecy that had literally already meant almost death to him once, it would have been madness to. you can say anything about voldemort, but certainly not that he was an idiot.

i actually don’t think he ever trusted lucius at all. lucius had renounced him after his fall and didn’t manage to paint the fact as pragmatically as snape did, the cowardly aftertaste of his betrayal blatant and thoroughly disgusting on voldemort’s tongue. lucius’ status, family name, relations and wealth were just very useful for the movement and likely the only things that kept him in the high ranks of the regime (or alive at all) even before the fiasco, along with his marriage to bellatrix’s sister.

i am positive voldemort was in fact trusting bella to see the prophecy retrieved.

he probably didn’t officially put her in charge because she was still recovering from azkaban and therefore not completely stable or/and already with child (even if i tend to exclude the latter option, since she would have been still entirely too weak for a pregnancy to even take).

still, she was the one with the highest military rank there, not to mention the highest degree of closeness to voldemort, so you can bet she was the one that bore also the highest degree of moral obligation in that delicate situation. and she failed.

knowing voldemort, you would have expected to see killing curses flying left and right. had bellatrix been literally anyone else, she could have easily returned home to a murdered family and a pending death penalty.

instead, you see a voldemort that walks into the ministry of magic. you see a voldemort that, even already knowing the prophecy lost forever, renounces his every advantage and reveals himself once again to the wizarding world, moreover having to fight at the same time his very nemesis (nemesis that the mission should have helped him understand better and therefore defeat), dumbledore (the greatest wizard alive besides him) and soon the entirety of the aurors of britain.

what was exactly the reason that compelled him to enter such a nest of vipers, when he had been unwilling to do so in secrecy and surely in a highest degree of safety before and to retrieve the prophecy himself? to kill harry potter?

the very reason of the mission tells us he wasn’t sure about what to do with his potter dilemma and had therefore decided to have a more cautious, academical approach regarding the matter. he wanted to know the whole prophecy before trying again. he was frustrated and puzzled about harry’s absurd invincibility and insolent luck. do you really think he had decided to go for the hardest battle of his life unprepared and with dumbledore present of all people (whom he didn’t even directly kill afterwards) and possibly hundreds more on the way?

had voldemort suddenly turned from cold strategist to hotheaded kamikaze?

the only plausible answer is that voldemort had purposefully entered the ministry, risking capture and possibly his very life (or at least his newly created body, since at this point the horcruxes are still intact and a secret) and not knowing what exactly was there waiting for him, as a rather valiant rescue attempt and quite an unexpected one too.

bellatrix herself just moments before had laughed at the absurdity of the possibility of voldemort ever entering the place in response to harry’s questioning:

“Get it himself?” shrieked Bellatrix on a cackle of mad laughter. “The Dark Lord, walk into the Ministry of Magic, when they are so sweetly ignoring his return? The Dark Lord, reveal himself to the Aurors, when at the moment they are wasting their time on my dear cousin?”

bellatrix herself believed it an impossible and ludicrous thought and yet, less than half an hour later and her life in jeopardy, there voldemort surely appeared.

you could speculate he wanted to save his most valuable, just freed death eaters and then couldn’t, but there’s no evidence of it in the chapter whatsoever. the only evidence points out to the fact he was focused only on saving bellatrix.

this is in fact what lucius tells his hunting party while harry and co are trying to escape the ambush:

Harry put his ear close to the door to listen and heard Lucius Malfoy roar: “Leave Nott, leave him, I say, the Dark Lord will not care for Nott’s injuries as much as losing that prophecy — Jugson, come back here, we need to organize! We’ll split into pairs and search, and don’t forget, be gentle with Potter until we’ve got the prophecy, you can kill the others if necessary — Bellatrix, Rodolphus, you take the left, Crabbe, Rabastan, go right — Jugson, Dolohov, the door straight ahead — Macnair and Avery, through here — Rookwood, over there — Mulciber, come with me!”

so, la crème de la crème of his high ranks is there and everyone is positive the only thing that voldemort would care about is the prophecy, even above captures and fatalities.

rabastan and rodolphus are also there and yet he doesn’t go for them.

he appeared when harry told bellatrix the prophecy was gone, specifically when bellatrix began to have a manic fit because of it, alone in the ministry’s atrium with harry.

“Potter, I am going to give you one chance!” shouted Bellatrix. “Give me the prophecy — roll it out toward me now — and I may spare your life!”

“Well, you’re going to have to kill me, because it’s gone!” Harry roared — and as he shouted it, pain seared across his forehead. His scar was on fire again, and he felt a surge of fury that was quite unconnected with his own rage.

“And he knows!” said Harry with a mad laugh to match Bellatrix’s own. “Your dear old mate Voldemort knows it’s gone! He’s not going to be happy with you, is he?”

“What? What do you mean?” she cried, and for the first time there was fear in her voice.

“The prophecy smashed when I was trying to get Neville up the steps! What do you think Voldemort’ll say about that, then?”

His scar seared and burned. . . . The pain of it was making his eyes stream. . . .

“LIAR!” she shrieked, but he could hear the terror behind the anger now. “YOU’VE GOT IT, POTTER, AND YOU WILL GIVE IT TO ME — Accio Prophecy! ACCIO PROPHECY !”

Harry laughed again because he knew it would incense her, the pain building in his head so badly he thought his skull might burst. He waved his empty hand from behind the one-eared goblin and withdrew it quickly as she sent another jet of green light flying at him. “Nothing there!” he shouted. “Nothing to summon! It smashed and nobody heard what it said, tell your boss that —”

“No!” she screamed. “It isn’t true, you’re lying — MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED — DO NOT PUNISH ME —”

“Don’t waste your breath!” yelled Harry, his eyes screwed up against the pain in his scar, now more terrible than ever.

“He can’t hear you from here!”

“Can’t I, Potter?” said a high, cold voice.

specifically, he appears behind bella when she starts to maniacally invoke him, almost as if they had a special mean of communication with each other even from considerable distance.

(here bella is afraid voldemort would punish her and i find the manner of it very interesting, we will come back to it later on)

voldemort was obviously furious the prophecy was lost, but again why risking his own life on top of it? was he perhaps concerned of bella’s mental state now that she knew she had failed and therefore her ability to flee/fight his very nemesis, dumbledore and the aurors?

normally, we would have expected voldemort to stay away and deal with the surviving death eaters later, leaving them to their deserved destiny (as he did with literally everyone else who was there).

instead we have:

“So you smashed my prophecy?” said Voldemort softly, staring at Harry with those pitiless red eyes. “No, Bella, he is not lying. . . . I see the truth looking at me from within his worthless mind. . . . Months of preparation, months of effort . . . and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again. . . .”

“Master, I am sorry, I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black!” sobbed Bellatrix, flinging herself down at Voldemort’s feet as he paced slowly nearer.

“Master, you should know —”

“Be quiet, Bella,” said Voldemort dangerously. “I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your sniveling apologies?”

“But Master — he is here — he is below —”

Voldemort paid no attention.

“I have nothing more to say to you, Potter,” he said quietly. “You have irked me too often, for too long. AVADA KEDAVRA!”

even when she literally has just lost his one mean to achieve his every goal of a lifetime, she is “bella”. even when we would expect him to tear her to pieces then and there, he had come to stand between her and harry.

the only reprimand she receives is a scowling “be quiet bella, i shall deal with you in a moment”, as you would speak in public with someone who is very close to you and you are very mad at, who shouldn’t let that closeness slip in public, especially now that she’s making you risk a lot to save her sorry ass.

i find this scene very comic, on top of everything else. voldemort is clearly so done and yet there he is, come to save his sobbing mess nevertheless.

the scene proceeds with dumbledore’s arrival, the duel and bellatrix trapped under the statue. during the duel and just after having trapped bella, we see a really curious exchange:

“You do not seek to kill me, Dumbledore?” called Voldemort, his scarlet eyes narrowed over the top of the shield. “Above such brutality, are you?”

“We both know that there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom,”

Dumbledore said calmly, continuing to walk toward Voldemort as though he had not a fear in the world, as though nothing had happened to interrupt his stroll up the hall. “Merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit —”

“There is nothing worse than death, Dumbledore!” snarled Voldemort.

“You are quite wrong,” said Dumbledore, still closing in upon Voldemort and speaking as lightly as though they were discussing the matter over drinks.

(...)

"Indeed, your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness —”

what is this fate “worse than death”, these “other ways to destroy a man” that dumbledore wants for voldemort? we know how it all ended - with voldemort’s literal death, his very disintegration (after bellatrix’s very own). what was this all about then? this one i’ll let you decide for yourself. it’s certainly peculiar, considered the context.

voldemort doesn’t respond to this, he in fact seems very provoked and sends a killing curse at him.

at the end of the duel he disappears and everyone thinks he fled, bellatrix included, who cries out his name sobbing from under the statue.

he in fact, at that, goes straight to possess harry.

And then Harry’s scar burst open. He knew he was dead: it was pain beyond imagining, pain past endurance —

He was gone from the hall, he was locked in the coils of a creature with red eyes, so tightly bound that Harry did not know where his body ended and the creature’s began. They were fused together, bound by pain, and there was no escape — And when the creature spoke, it used Harry’s mouth, so that in his agony he felt his jaw move. . . .

“Kill me now, Dumbledore. . . .” Blinded and dying, every part of him screaming for release, Harry felt the creature use him again. . . .

“If death is nothing, Dumbledore, kill the boy. . . .”

Let the pain stop, thought Harry.

Let him kill us. . . . End it, Dumbledore. . . . Death is nothing compared to this. . . .

And as Harry’s heart filled with emotion, the creature’s coils loosened, the pain was gone, Harry was lying facedown on the floor, his glasses gone, shivering as though he lay upon ice, not wood. . . .

And there were voices echoing through the hall, more voices than there should have been (...)

“...where’s Voldemort, where — who are all these — what’s —”

The Atrium was full of people. The floor was reflecting emerald- green flames that had burst into life in all the fireplaces along one wall, and a stream of witches and wizards was emerging from them. As Dumbledore pulled him back to his feet, Harry saw the tiny gold statues of the house-elf and the goblin leading a stunned-looking Cornelius Fudge forward.

“He was there!” shouted a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail, who was pointing at a pile of golden rubble on the other side of the hall, where Bellatrix had lain trapped moments before. “I saw him, Mr. Fudge, I swear, it was You-Know-Who, he grabbed a woman and Disapparated!”

“I know, Williamson, I know, I saw him too!”

this passage is ever so interesting to me, because dumbledore’s words appear to have somehow made voldemort “emotional”. they provoked him somehow. he didn’t laugh at them. he linked them to the worst pain imaginable and almost killed harry with it, posing a philosophical dilemma - if such pain is worse than death, if my life is worse than death, why don’t you put this boy out of his misery?

there’s no doubt in my mind “that pain” is voldemort’s pain. a pain intrinsically love-related. voldemort’s problems to accept/understand/feel love are the crux of the saga, his every villainy and pain. it’s so interesting that in this whole scene the train of events and thought have ultimately reached this topic (even in the movie love is mentioned here, harry literally fights the possession telling him he shall never have it).

voldemort was furious with bellatrix, feared for his plans and life and went to save her anyway. he is enraged beyond belief but puts himself between her and harry and dumbledore. while they duel, dumbledore traps bellatrix and lectures him about “other ways to destroy a man” and “worse things than death”. he absolutely hits a nerve. voldemort completely feels what he’s meaning, so much he wants to retaliate and mercilessly - he never wants to be forced to face such things, such emotions. i don’t think he’s trying to kill harry there, he’s trying to prove a point, to make them both understand how it feels to be him, how the whole concept of love feels to him. and the matter is addressed in a scene entirely built around bellatrix. in fact, finally he then grabs her, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves, and flees. he effectively saves her and her only.

to me this whole passage is directly linked to the famous scream at bellatrix’s death, and to the way the events leading to voldemort’s own death unfolded. that scream might very well be that “fate worse than death”. jkr loves parallels and to me this one is perhaps the most beautiful of the series.

this really proves, in my opinion, at what depth their relationship stands, absurdly perhaps much more abysmal on voldemort’s part than on bella’s.

anyways, i took the time to analyze this particular episode because it’s emblematic of their relationship and his way to deal with her disasters.

lucius would carry on his face the signs of this fiasco literally for the rest of the entire series. the malfoys would fall from grace because of it, probably alive only because of bella’s intercession. half of the death eaters who were present at the ministry would end up back in azkaban.

voldemort would end up defeated, furious and destined to die.

bellatrix would come out of it not only physically unscathed, but with voldemort’s child.

even when she again loses the trio at malfoy’s manor (along with the sword), everyone ends up physically tortured but her. she says she fears for her life if voldemort was to know she lost the sword, but it seems more a metaphor than an actual possibility. when the cup is stolen from her vault, he makes her leave the room before murdering everyone in it. she’s not present at dumbledore’s assasination, and that’s because she wasn’t disposable.

i don’t think physical punishments are involved in their relationship, or if they are they are very rare, and i don’t think voldemort’s reactions to her transgressions/wrongdoings are in tune with the way he reacts to everyone else’s.

bella can more than anyone with him and never really loses this status of utter closeness, no matter what she does.

this obviously doesn’t mean that voldemort is a saint with her or that he doesn’t occasionally punish her. this doesn’t mean she isn’t rightfully afraid of him.

yet, the main way i see him actually hurting bella is psychological torture and silent treatment.

and here we come back at what bella was sobbing at the ministry, her desperate “MASTER, I TRIED, I TRIED — DO NOT PUNISH ME —”.

i don’t think a warrior, a general, a woman who remarkably survived 14 years at azkaban, would ever react this way to the mere fear of physical punishment, no matter how cruciatus curses hurt. i think she would have taken it as stoically as possible. thought she deserved it, even.

no, voldemort’s punishments must be unbearable to her, impossible to even fathom, because they involve falling from his graces, from the closeness she lives for. voldemort can serve bellatrix the cold, silent, disappointed treatment of a mentor and a lover, and have bellatrix literally rotting away because of it.

this is truly the worst thing he can do to her and the thing that had her sobbing and having a fit before harry at the mere idea of it.

this is also somehow confirmed when hermione, transformed in bellatrix, meets a death eater (i don’t remember who he was) before entering the gringott. he wasn’t surprised to see bella, well, alive and physically well, he was surprised to see her out of malfoy manor, where she was supposed to be confined.

so yes, definitely the way voldemort deals with bellatrix regarding punishments is special. everything regarding his way of treating bellatrix is, to be honest.

their relationship is written in such a subtle, beautifully twisted way. i adore it. the only problem is that because of it virtually no one ever connects the dots.

#i'm sorry for yet another essay #it just... happened lol #bellamort is based on hints and symbols so here i am in the dead of night psychoanalysing my client to the bone lol #bellamort #lord voldemort #bellatrix black #bellatrix lestrange #asks/replies #hp #one and one thousand stories lis told #anon

55 notes · View notes

silhouetteofacedar · 4 years ago

Text

Fox Mulder, Closet Romantic Ch. 10: One With Everything

Previous Chapter - AO3 - MSR, rated E

Thursday, April 30.

Mulder and Scully don’t often get to spend a day in court; it almost feels like a treat. An exhausting, headache-inducing, occasionally disheartening treat.

The only real upside is that they usually drive together.

They’re in Baltimore, and even though the drive back to the office is less than an hour, Mulder can feel his energy flagging.

“You hungry?” Mulder asks, sliding into the driver’s seat. “We can grab dinner before we head back.”

“Mulder, I’m wiped out,” Scully sighs.

“Alright,” he replies, subdued. He puts the keys in the ignition and starts the car.

They’ve gone two blocks when Scully speaks again. “I could go for pizza,” she says softly.

Mulder takes a steadying breath. This is progress.

It’s only been a week since the Great Mark Implosion, and things between Mulder and Scully have been thawing slowly. There’s residual awkwardness around them, like the last compacted piles of old snow in the shady places on the sides of the road. Slow to melt, but not a real impediment.

They find a little brick hole-in-the-wall pizza shop not far from the district courthouse. Scully took an appraising sniff when they walked in, declared the scent inside “pizza enough”, and they proceeded to make their order.

“So, how’ve you been?” Mulder asks. It’s a stupid question, but he’s hungry and tired and a little nervous, picking the mushrooms off of his slice of pizza before taking a bite. Scully always insists on ordering one with everything. Thank god she hates anchovies.

“You tell me,” she replies. “You’ve seen me practically every day for the past week.” She takes a first bite of pizza and moans softly. Mulder’s cheeks warm at the sound.

“I mean… in regards to what happened last Wednesday,” he clarifies. Broaching this subject feels suddenly dangerous, and he wants to take his words back.

“You can say break-up, Mulder,” she says gently. “It’s not a secret. And I’m fine,” she says, chewing, then raises a finger. “I know historically I say that when I’m not fine, but I mean it this time,” she explains. “I’m not hurt, just… disappointed. Tired. A little annoyed.”

“With him, or me, or both?” Mulder asks.

She shrugs. “Both,” she says candidly. “But you provided me with sustenance, so my annoyance with you is diminishing.” She takes a sip of diet Coke before she continues. “I’ve been thinking, and I’ve determined that the part of this that bothers me the most is the fact that Mark, or anyone, would base their summation of my character off my sexual history. I’m thirty-four years old, a fully-matured and capable human being, and yet I felt like I was stuck in a web of high school gossip. It’s insulting, being subjected to outdated moral codes by men who have no business passing judgement.”

“I have an impertinent question,” Mulder says. “You don’t have to answer.”

“I’m bracing myself,” she replies, taking another bite of pizza.

“From an outsider’s perspective, these outdated moral codes and judgment seem like a fundamental part of Catholicism. So I guess I’m wondering… why are you still Catholic?”

Her answering sigh is deep and slow. “That’s a big question, Mulder; one I ask myself all the time. I think it boils down to faith. I believe in God; everything else is just window dressing. My relationship with my faith, with religion, is complicated. But ultimately, that’s between me and God. Everyone else, namely Mark, can fuck off.”

He loves her so much in this moment, this tiny self-possessed scientist voraciously eating pizza. “Fair enough,” he says, removing another mushroom from his slice of pizza and putting on the edge of her plate. “So faith in God is intact; faith in men, however…”

Scully chuckles. “It’s at a low plateau,” she jokes, “and yet this may actually be the best break-up I’ve ever had.”

“Ouch,” Mulder says with a wince. “I’d hate to imagine the worst.”

“I egged a guy’s car once,” she says around a bite of pizza.

“No, really?” Mulder asks in surprise. “What’d he do?”

She swallows, wipes her fingers on a crumpled napkin. “Let me be clear, this was when I was in high school,” she says, “So all the emotions were heightened. My boyfriend cheated on me,” she explains. “I was seventeen and wanted to wait to have sex, and he didn’t. It was pretty traumatic for teenage Dana, so I reacted with criminal mischief.”

“Did you get caught?”

Scully shakes her head, picking up one of the stray mushrooms on her plate and popping it in her mouth. “No. I was stealthy,” she says. “And a good church girl. I think most people assumed it was a dumb teenage prank by some local boys.” She pauses. ��In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this,” she says in realization.

“Your secret is safe with me,” Mulder vows, passing her another mushroom.

“So what about you?” she asks, serving herself another slice of pizza. “What sort of romantic entanglements did you get into in high school? Any horror stories?”

“Not much,” Mulder says with a shrug. “Though I was pretty in love with a girl when I was sixteen or so. Her name was Laura and she was the older sister of one of my friends; I think she was probably 18? I was at their house all the time but I hardly ever talked to her.”

“Why not?”

“I was, uh, actually pretty shy back then,” he admits. “Especially with girls. She was really pretty and kind, but every time I opened my mouth to speak I’d get nervous and end up just saying nothing. Once I almost threw up.”

“That’s actually very sweet,” Scully assures him. “Trust me, she probably thought you were adorable.” She chews thoughtfully. “Did you ever tell her how you felt?”

Mulder shakes his head. “Not really. I wrote her a letter confessing my feelings and was halfway to their house to leave it in the mailbox when I chickened out. I took it home and burned it in the kitchen sink. Then she left for college.”

Scully hums in understanding. “A tale as old as time.”

“I looked her up once, after I finished at Oxford. She was married with a baby,” Mulder says, chewing a piece of crust. “Nothing would have happened if she weren’t, but part of me kind of wondered.”

Scully is silent, and when he looks up at her she’s got her cheek cradled in her hand, a soft smile on her lips, watching him.

“What?” he asks, suddenly self-conscious.

Her eyes are gleaming. “I don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but… you’re a romantic, Mulder.”

He swallows. “Is that... is that a bad thing?”

She drops her hand, shakes her head. “No, it’s not a bad thing at all,” she says softly.

Scully’s face is awash with blue and red from the neon sign in the window, and her eyes are deep and glimmering. He has to look away to steady himself before he says something he’s not ready for her to hear.

“I think I assumed you dislike romance,” he says, dipping a toe into shallower, yet unexplored waters. “It seems to me that science is somewhat at odds with the concept, when you can explain away all these feelings as chemical reactions with evolutionary precedent.”

“These feelings?” she asks, and he freezes.

“Romantic feelings in general,” he clarifies, recovering quickly. “The heart palpitations, fluttering stomach, desire for physical contact, all those things we felt as teenagers.” All those things I’m feeling right now.

“Some things aren’t meant to be examined through a purely scientific lens,” she counters. “I also firmly believe in instinct and trusting your gut in certain cases. Hell, that’s why I broke things off with Mark. No matter what he said, I knew things didn’t feel right.”

Mulder’s puzzled. “What he said?” he asks.

Scully licks her lip. “When I called him after work,” she explains. “I told him what you told me, and he claimed you twisted his words. A misunderstanding, coupled with manipulation born of jealousy,” Scully sighs.

Mulder’s heart stutters. “And you didn’t believe him?”

“No, I didn’t. It was his word against yours,” she says, voice gentle and firm. “There was no question.”

Mulder feels the weight of her words drape over his shoulders like a warm blanket. She trusts him, believes in him, chooses him.

He’s floored.

“Scully, that offer to elope still stands,” he says with a grin, and she smiles back.

Scully predictably falls asleep on the drive back to DC. Mulder glances over at her periodically, drinking in the sight of his partner curled up in the passenger seat. Her head is resting against the window, rosy cheek pillowed on a small hand.

Scully trusts him, rests in his presence, weighs his words. He doesn’t deserve what she gives him, but he realizes then what he needs to do anyway; fear and uncertainty be damned.

She deserves the truth; she is the truth.

#my fic #xfiles #txf fic #msr #fox mulder closet romantic #fmcr #PIZZA IS LOVE #slow burn is slooooowwww

97 notes · View notes

mtraki · 4 years ago

Text

Brain chemistry is messing with me... got me in the bad feels looking at dark roads... So let’s try and drag ourselves out of it through hyperfixation! It’s time to rant about Agent 47′s brain chemistry-- specifically all the serums and antidotes that artificially change it! (It’s a rant... I won’t take up space on your dashboard scroll if you don’t want to see it, but if you do, please check out under the cut. Spoilers for the comics and Hitman Season 2-3 are unmarked...)

The focus of the rant is thus: “Exactly what did Ether’s antidote do?” ‘That’s easy, MT,’ I hear you tell me, ‘It brought back 47′s memories that were wiped by Ort-Meyer before he escaped the lab.’ Forgive me, strawman Reader, (but as always, thank you for your faithful engagement) but I don’t think it’s that simple... Maybe because I overthink things, or maybe because the details aren’t adding up... Let’s discuss. In the cutscene in HITMAN 2 (Hitman Season 2) ‘Long Shot’, Olivia and Lucas provide a syringe from Ether Biotech Corporation. According to their information, Ort-Meyer’s estate and his research were granted to the corporation (through Providence) after his passing. The syringe is supposed to be an antidote to what Ort-Meyer used to wipe 47′s memory. Using the syringe, 47 is able to remember Janus, the first Constant of Providence, so they can go get his info on the Partners... and kill him. ‘Yes, MT,’ you say, ‘so it’s easy. The answer is right there.’ Well, please bear with me... In the next cutscene ‘Gifts and Curses’, our leading ladies Diana and Olivia are doing the real work (tracking Janus’s coffin) while our lads are being moody. Lucas asks 47 if he’s all right and 47 says, “It comes back in flashes. Fear. Anger. But like it happened to someone else.” Later, in ‘Precautions’, Lucas and Diana talk about how Lucas has feelings about the things he’s done, and 47 does not-- a parallel is drawn between these feelings and “having a conscience”. In ‘The Ark Society’ mission, on the Isle of Sgàil, as you’re marching Arthur Edwards, the Constant you are abducting, to the harbor, he’ll fish around for information by giving some of his own. For the purposes of my rant, there is an exchange I want to focus on: Edwards: “...Your murdered him [Janus] to get to me.” 47: “Not just that. He had it coming.” Edwards: “Interesting. It was my impression that you were cured of such... sentiment. The ‘good doctor’ built his serum specifically to target the seats of your emotions. Has Miss Burnwood’s sense of justice rubbed off on you, I wonder?” This is where I feel the need to stop and point out that there are TWO DIFFERENT SERUMS at play here, that were forced on 47 at TWO DIFFERENT TIMES in his forgotten past. This is shown in the comic series. SERUM #1) This serum was given in 1989, after 47 and 6 failed to take over the Institute. 47 sacrificed himself so 6 could escape (though he was presumed dead) and instead of being killed like he expected, due to pressure from Janus (who spoke as Constant for the Partners of Providence) Ort-Meyer instead used a serum to stifle his and the remaining clones’ emotions. This one was an injection to the neck (like the antidote). Here are his exact words: “I gave you something most people lack: a true purpose. And you cast it aside. For some misguided dream of freedom. Why?” “It’s that storm inside you. All those feelings I fought so hard to lock away. Raging, driving you. So now I must wipe them out entirely. A small chemical insult designed to target the amygdala, the hypothalamus, the cingulate gyrus. The seats of emotion. I’ve just sawed the legs off them. Do you understand, 47?” “Your memories remain intact. But now they’re a series of events with no significance.” The effects of this serum were devastating. With the singular exception of 47, every other clone more or less lost the will to live. They died of starvation, dehydration, infected bed sores... losing any and all motivation for anything. Meanwhile, 47 became an apex predator of murder, stating that the opportunity to complete the assassinations handed down by Providence through Ort-Meyer were the reason he went through each day. He had a hand in the deaths of a good number of clones, either via poisoning or smothering. SERUM #2) This serum was given in 1998 (that’s nine years after the first one) after Providence demands Ort-Meyer give them 47 as the only success of his very expensive perceived failure. Ort-Meyer gives this serum, without the permission of Providence, very specifically so that 47 will not remember him to assassinate him. This serum is given orally, and through a hose and pump apparatus. Here are his exact words: “I only need one more day, and a moment alone.” (This is included strictly to point out that 47 must have escaped that exact same day) “I raised you as my own. Taught you everything you needed to thrive in this fallen world. And now I have to take it all away. You would come after me. It’s the only way I can be free from having to watch over my shoulder for the rest of my life. It feels like drowning at first. Don’t struggle. I’m going to make you perfect. Now you have all the potential in the world.” 47 wakes up later to the voice of Ort-Meyer over the intercom. He implicitly trusts the voice, as he knows nothing else. He knows about the existence of nothing outside of the room and the voice. He starts making associations as he goes on, and points out that he understands how some things work (”The mechanics of breathing, the science that makes remotely operated restraints possible.”) and the justifications behind their existence (”Somewhere deep down, I even understand the need for them.”). As he makes his escape, he observes that their is familiarity in the sensations of killing. Out in the world, he continues killing on his own for about a year, claiming that his work is his only indulgence and that he doesn’t need things, friends, or stories. He does also claim to have a few stray memories that haunt him-- elicit emotional responses in him (which we also see in Absolution with the whole “doctors” flashbacks). Edwards should not know about the mind-wiping, and his dialogue does not betray that he does. Lucas apparently knows about both, but I’m going to attribute this to “Lucas became personally invested in learning what happened to 47 specifically after learning he was alive and working for ICA, so put the pieces together once he stole the data from Providence” because he wasn’t around for either serum. Meanwhile, Edwards doesn’t have many reasons to worry about 47 until he starts trying to use his past as a lure for Diana. Because his angle is to eventually reveal that it was 47 (AND 6... they were on the job together, per the comics) who killed her parents, and the fact that that juicy reveal would hurt that much more if he could reveal it as something 47 knowingly hid from her... I don’t think he’d go out of his way to discredit Janus’s reporting on the situation that only the first serum was given, and something else happened that allowed 47 to escape into the wild. Janus is apparently Edwards’s beloved mentor, after all. ‘MT,’ I hear you say, ‘You’re rambling. What’s the point here?’ The point is that 47, a man who does not mince words, makes the observation, when asked, that he remembers fear and anger. These are the things that stand out to him in his memories. The emotions. This is in violation of the first serum’s properties as well as the second. Now, why is this happening? Perhaps the first serum has an effective lifespan, and perhaps it’s wearing off. Perhaps 47′s human (arguably superhuman, per some sources) brain is adapting to make necessary associations despite the “chemical insult”. Or... was this antidote supposed to also be an antidote for the first serum? It is noteworthy that 47 starts behaving in ways that suggest more emotionally-driven motivations after the antidote is given-- at least it seems that way to me. This seems especially the case at the very end of HITMAN 3 (Season 3), ‘Untouchable’, when 47 is confronted with his guilt, with his feelings about what he perceives Diana’s thoughts and feelings to be, and with his choice in the end concerning Edwards in the final confrontation. No matter what he chooses, he owns his choice and all the baggage and consequences that come with it. At the very end, in the cutscene 'New Deal', he tells Diana that he isn’t ‘Agent 47′ anymore. That he chooses this path because he can. Perhaps I’m very much misunderstanding the themes, here, but 47 not remembering his past never struck me as something that held him back from choosing something else. It has always been his inability to connect with others in any way outside of infiltrating their spaces and killing them... with very, very few exceptions... that has kept him from choosing a path outside of murder-for-hire (perfectly executed, of course ;) ) So I’m left at the end with the conclusion that 47 is now able to operate as his own conscience because he now has a... mostly usable independent sense of morality-- which requires a certain level of empathy. So... again: what’s the deal with the antidote? Is it two-in-one? This would be fine, (Okay, not really, I would then have to rant about how this only makes sense as a convenient plot device because for which person BESIDES Agent 47 would such an antidote be useful unless they also work with the first serum... and oh boy IMPLICATIONS... I know we keep crashing their stock but can we crash their production too?) except the antidote is only referenced as working to return 47′s memory... and his ‘warmer’ dialogues through the end of 2 and into 3 with his allies is simply treated as matter of course-- nobody points it out. I don’t know if this is a problem with my perspective, the writing, or what... But it seems like Lucas knows and doesn’t know about both serums at the same time (he comments specifically about 47 remembering things... but not him behaving more emotionally engaged)... Or like the games smooshed both serums together while the comics had them separate. This isn’t like the whole “we don’t talk about Absolution though we do wink and nod that it mostly happened in canon” thing. The comics were written as a companion for the HITMAN: World of Assassination trilogy! I know how I’m treating it for 'Monstrous’ (because if I don’t, I’ll go crazy and rage-quit the fic) but it still bothers me... Anybody got any ideas? Nuggets of lore I missed? Am I the only one stressing out about this??

#my mic #agent 47 #hitman #lucas grey #world of assassination #MT is ranting #I know I overthink #13th #April #2021 #April 13th 2021

29 notes · View notes

marirable · 4 years ago

Note

Angst 1 + Berlermo pls

(Angst) 01. “why don’t you just go?”

Andrés sat on the sofa across the room from him, bottom lip dripping blood, hands folded on his lap; a picture of decadence and fake dignity.

It had to be fake. It would be much easier if this was all a grand fucking joke.

Martín didn’t want him composed. He wanted him dishevelled, distraught, destroyed. A mess, like Martín himself. But Andrés had never been less than picture-perfect, no matter how much Martín wanted him to be.

No matter how much Martín wanted him.

He heaved a sigh, stretching his legs and leaning more heavily against the wall. His hands were still shaking from moments before. From when Andrés had to wrestle him to the ground, trying to unclench Martín’s fist, untangle the vine-like grip he had on what he thought was the salvation from all his troubles.

The gun was now kicked away to a far corner of the room.

The silence in the monastery was eerie, despite the early hours of the morning when the monks usually began their prayers. Martín thought to time his actions with the singing so that the morning service turned into a mass for the dead. He knew it would piss off Andrés. He’s never believed in any deity besides himself.

What a waste of a perfectly sane plan.

“Talk to me, Martín.” An order, if he’s ever heard one.

Martín glared at the man. With his ass perched on the sofa, he had the physical high ground in addition to the moral one, which he no doubt thought he possessed right then.

“And say what?” Martín exhaled. More than anything, he was tired. “Sorry for spending ten years making no moves on you? Sorry I thought it decent to pull through several of your weddings without being an ass about it? Sorry I once again decided to accommodate you by doing exactly what you told me - leaving?”

Andrés’ lips formed a thin line.

“Don’t pervert my words. I asked you to leave and heal the wound.”

Martín scoffed.

There was no band-aid, no medicine, no surgery that would help heal that wound, and they both knew that.

“And then when-- what was it? When the time brings us back together again, what do I do? Pretend it never happened? Pretend my fucking heart is still intact, my pride was never hurt, and this whole evening was just a figment of my imagination?”

“Why don’t you take a breath and just--”

“Why don’t you just go?”

Andrés stared at him, eyes round, as though in disbelief.

What exactly had he expected to find when he returned from the dinner with his wife? An empty house, with no Martín in sight because he followed his instructions to a tee, packed his things and left?

Tough fucking luck.

“I’m sorry.”

Martín’s head snapped up.

“What was that?”

Andrés gritted his teeth.

“I’m sorry. For what I’ve...” He licked his lips and winced. Martín traced the movement with his gaze. He probably should’ve punched harder; the lip wasn’t bleeding enough for Martín’s taste. “I shouldn’t have left you.”

Martín shrugged. “But you did.”

Andrés took a shuddering breath.

“I shouldn’t have said that I don’t...” He paused once again, searching for words. “I’m sorry.”

For the longest moment, they stared at each other.

Then Martín nodded.

“Alright.”

He pushed off the wall and got to his feet. Andrés slowly rose from his seat as well, eyes burning as they followed Martín’s every movement.

When Martín made for the door, Andrés grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him closer.

“No.”

“I will leave on my own terms, Andrés. Let go of me.”

“No.”

The fingers around Martín’s wrist dug painfully into his skin and he almost snapped at Andrés before turning to meet his eyes and freezing.

Illuminated by the candelabra light, a single line of tears crossed Andrés’ cheek.

Martín’s breath hitched.

“So you are a coward, huh?”

Andrés did not reply. He just stared at Martín, eyes unwavering, blinking only to allow another tear to roll down the very same path to his jaw.

If it was anyone else, Martín would have labeled the gaze “pleading.” But there was nothing in this world that was worth enough to make Andrés de Fonollosa beg.

“I really don’t want to be here right now, Andrés.”

“I know. Just... give me ‘til sunset.”

The “please” was silent but it echoed across the room nonetheless.

Martín’s chest tightened painfully.

“Until sunset. But that’s it.”

Andrés nodded slowly.

Perhaps, come nightfall, one of them would still leave.

Or neither would leave at all.

#tw: suicide attempt #la casa de papel #lcdp #berlermo #prompt fills #berlin x palermo #fanfiction #fic prompts #mine #anon

19 notes · View notes

astrologista · 4 years ago

Text

Kristoph Gavin Character Analysis I

Part 1 of... fucking infinity, I hate this bitch so much lmao.

Well, it's Halloween time and I just thought, why not. So let's answer this question.

What makes Kristoph Gavin a scary character/villain? A soft spoken gentleman with a deadly secret... the Devil, who lives in his hand, that crazy evil scar thing, his creepy music theme... damn, he’s a scary dude. But scariest of all? His psychology, as we all know. (This is mostly gonna be headcanons. but ya know what, I have a license (hands you a piece of paper that says ‘i can do what i want’))

Kristoph seems like a person who is very aloof, particularly when it comes to personal relationships. At first he kind of just seems like the typical anime glasses guy whose main emotion is like whooa he does the glare thing with his glasses sometimes. But... what is he really about?

You know, let me digress for a moment, what's really interesting to me about the AA characters is how much depth they have in their writing. Case in point, Adrian Andrews. There's a character who you assume is just going to be the typical "anime glasses girl" who is a career woman who don't need no man, and is very aloof, cool, and as she says, not concerned with irrelevant topics or things. Later you learn about the true depths to her personality. The fact that she is codependent, that she needs other people telling her what to do in order to survive. Just because she masks these emotions doesn't mean they don't exist. I felt that really gave a lot of depth to her character and added another dimension that stories in this genre don't often address as boldly or fully (especially when it comes to a female character). So the quality of the writing is always really top notch with only a few exceptions. Take this as context...

Now getting back to Kristoph Gavin. Typical anime glasses dude, right? But no, though. One of the reasons why he's so interesting to me is how his emotional understanding of personal relationships really works. Or seems to, anyway. Based on the endgame testimony and his crimes, Kristoph Gavin is extremely dangerous because, should you get involved with him in any way, he will never, ever let go of you, ever. Once you are entangled with him he wants you to stay entangled, not unlike an overbearing parent who refuses to let you go. It's partly that he thinks he knows what's best for you (that is, to stay completely loyal to him). And also partly... because he is pretty dependent on what other people think of him. So he needs to keep them around him closely.

Kristoph's biggest fear was his lying being exposed for what it was. That Phoenix was really the honest, straightforward attorney, and not him. Kristoph would do anything to perpetuate his own false reality. He kept it going for seven years. His absolute worst fear of all was losing his reputation. Being seen for what he truly was in front of others. He could never accept that. That fear drove all of his murders. Fundamentally, he sees himself as benevolent... when nothing could be further from the truth of how he was hurting everyone who had the misfortune of crossing his path.

Kristoph has a need to perpetuate this false identity of himself above all else. A very adjacent second goal to that is to keep all of his personal associates very close and under his control in order to keep the first goal intact.

Reject him and he will stalk you until you are dead. By his hand, or otherwise. Slight him, and he will get you at the first opportunity, case in point, Zak Gramarye. (He only had to get a quick glance at the guy and his fate was sealed. Turnabout Trump is a chilling case.) Replace him, and he will tear your life and livelihood up into little itty bitty pieces. He will then continue to stalk you aggressively for seven years while pretending he is your best friend. Case in point, Phoenix Wright.

Create false evidence for him and you become a loose end. So does your daughter. Like I said, just don't get involved with him. If he feels threatened, Kristoph Gavin will not hesitate to end you. It's definitely an obsession. I mean the first word that comes to people's minds when it comes to Kristoph usually isn't "obsessed", because he gives off the aura of being calm and uninterested. But he is, he's obsessed. You have to be obsessed to do what he did. This shit consumed his every waking hour, and that's what he won't admit. That he was so sick, he completely lost the plot. Phoenix was already living in his head rent free the day he ordered the forgery. And even though Phoenix wasn't physically present at the Misham trial and was only watching everything by video camera, you can bet Kristoph was seeing Phoenix. Hallucinating him, images of him. Probably multiple images of him. That's how obsessive. Imagine letting something or someone control you to that extent. Imagine thinking that you're so important, that Phoenix taking Zak Gramarye's case at all was meant to be a slight against you personally. (It's funny because Phoenix mentions not even knowing Kristoph at all until after the disbarment. So Kristoph's own logic in thinking that Phoenix was just out to shame him absolutely doesn't track. Ob-sessed, dude.)

It's actually pretty astonishing that someone like Apollo made it out alive. On a side note, I really think Kristoph enjoyed having someone to mentor. He sought someone like Apollo out. Someone naive and new to the field for him to indoctrinate. And maybe I have a post about that later, cuz that's a whole 'nother barrel of monkeys right there. (It kind of involves Apollo’s naivete (also, daddy issues, hello.) being a huge reason why he would gravitate towards having a mentor known for having a “caring” personality. And I think Apollo genuinely liked that about him, which makes the end result so much more awful for Apollo to deal with because to him, that was real.)

But now think of Klavier, right. Being forced to grow up with that. To live with that your entire life. To have a familial relationship that is that smothering, that suffocating, that strangling. That controlling, to criticize every single thing that you do or say right down to the way you say it. And remember... He's never letting you go. I would go on a world tour as a rock star, too. Anything to be anywhere he isn't. This is horror movie tier stuff. (now im imagining a horror movie trailer for aa4 focusing on gavins stuff... eep!)

And Kristoph Gavin markets himself as someone who simply doesn't care. He's the coolest defense in the west and he doesn't care for what you may think about it. Except... he does care. It totally consumes him. Your perception, your opinion, is everything to him. He has shitty self esteem, deep down, because he knows Phoenix is better than him. And tries to mask it with narcissism as the two duke it out. Appearances are everything, evidence is everything. What people think is true is the only thing that matters, truth doesn't. And it makes sense that his closest contacts and associates are the targets for his constant narcissistic abuse and gaslighting. Their opinions matter even more than the common crowd - of course, Kristoph hates them. Which makes it even worse for him when the jury decides unanimously that Vera is innocent (and by implication, he is therefore guilty). The jury verdict was kind of like the ultimate confirmation that guess what, the evidence doesn't matter. The common and boorish masses have passed judgement, no matter how "mindless, emotional and irrational" they are, even they can see behind his crappy little facade. Even a blind woman like Lamiroir can see that insecurity; even a common person can understand it just by looking at the facts. That's what absolutely wrecks him... that his “poker face” couldn’t hold a candle to Phoenix’s. And he loses the “hand” again (because of his “hand”... get it??).

The identity that he needs to maintain is part of how he sees himself in his mind. As Phoenix's protector, not as his stalker. As Klavier's benevolent big brother, not as his abuser. As Apollo's teacher and mentor, not as someone guiding him into ruin. He lives in a false reality.

Try to bring this up in any way, shape, or form and he will write it off. You're just imagining things...

Because at some level, Mr. Black Psyche Locks himself doesn't even realize. (I feel like that might just be basically canonical fact, based on Pearl’s explanation of how black psyche locks are supposed to work.) That’s pretty freaking terrifying.

At the end of the day this is a big part of the reason I think his character is just so interesting. In a very messed up way, Kristoph is one degree away from being such a good person. He could've been obsessively protective of Klavier - the way a big brother is supposed to be - instead of abusive, could've actually been very caring of Phoenix instead of manipulative. Terrible people can have good traits, just as good people can have awful traits. His attention to detail and understanding of psychology (like getting Vera those gifts she would like so much) could've been used for genuine good. He could've been someone who cares deeply about other people because he does care deeply about other people. But only in terms of their relation to himself, what do they think of him, how are they useful to him.

Maybe this is why I kind of like his character. Intelligent, semi-neurotic protective characters are just my ish. But, no, he has to have a narcissistic bent that skews everything into complete abuse. That’s what makes him awful... that he’s devoid of a moral compass or true compassion for other human beings.

So in closing, fuck off, Kristoph Gavin.

Postscript, he's also such a good foil for Phoenix for this reason. Kristoph does everything for himself. Phoenix does everything for Trucy, because he's a dad and he understands the weight of what it means to really care for someone. Kristoph couldn’t understand motives like that. And Phoenix can't help it if he's an order of magnitude smarter and more mature than Kristoph is. He was just born like that. Classy as fuck. You know what, Kristoph Gavin is like the dollar store version of Phoenix Wright as an attorney. Has many of the same functions but actually doesn't have a leg to stand on and will fail you when you need it. And is revealed to just be a cheap knockoff of the real thing.

#kristoph gavin #aa4 #apollo justice ace attorney #im just thinkin thoughts here #dont know why im in such a creepy mood right now #maybe halloween has something to do with it #srsly i need to do some analysis on some other characters lol #and ignore this rat man #btw im totally up to analyze specific characters and interactions #lmk #maybe nahyuta?#or phoenix and trucy #or phoenix and apollo...aaa

58 notes · View notes

raevenlywrites · 4 years ago

Text

The Ties That Bind 7 of ???

Two chapters? TWO CHAPTERS??? *nods* Two chapters

Kneeling before Zane and promising to find a way was one thing. Getting back up off the floor and actually doing it was quite another.

So we compromised, staying on the floor but moving the lean up against the bed. It was surprisingly easier to talk to him this way; yes, we were touching, a bit of leg here, shoulder there, but I didn’t have to look at him, and that made all the difference. I suddenly realized that part of what made talking to Andreios in those late nights was that I put my back to him. Leaning into the solid warmth of his chest and talking into the dark made confessing my heart so much easier.

I don’t think it was my heart I was confessing to Zane, but it was still made easier by facing a neutral tapestry covered wall instead of my would-be king.

Shouldn’t that be a sign that this was a bad idea? That I could only talk to him if I didn’t look at him.

But then, he hadn’t tried to meet my eyes either. Maybe we just weren’t that sort of couple.

Couple. The thought took my breath away, and I struggled to release it, to keep from that trembling tension that I knew Zane would misconstrue.

“I’m alright,” I breathed before he could ask. “Just... adjusting. Overthinking.”

“Your thoughts might do us more good out here in the open.”

A surprised hiccup of laughter escaped me. “I don’t think telling you that the thought of us being a couple makes my limbs seize up with fear is helpful.”

“On the contrary.” Zane’s voice was soft enough it made me want to look at him, to see the kind of expression that went with that face. But I kept my eyes on the tapestry, wandering its warp and weft without seeing more than the colors.

“I think it’s extremely productive to talk about exactly how we feel with one another. My people will have a hard enough time embracing an avian queen. One that hides behind her haughty mask of reserve will never be tolerated.”

“And mine won’t like you no matter what face you show them.”

“Do you dance, Danica?”

The question caught me so off guard that I did turn to look at him then, staring in incredulity.

He gestured to the tapestry I’d been staring at without seeing.

It’s threads wove the tale of the first hawk, the golden queen Alasdair. The center was a radiant riot of gold, the hawk queen framed in triumphant flight against the sun. But the borders showed more subdued scenes, of brown and dying earth, of an infant in a feathered nest, of a young woman dancing among the clouds and then the fields, grown green at her feet’s touch.

“It’s just a metaphor,” I murmured. “Avian magic comes through song, not dance. But how do you weave a song?”

My gaze lingered on a corner piece, the queen Alasdair raised in supplication, stretched out long from the tips of her toes to her delicatedly embroidered fingers, raised high overhead with her wrists crossed. The details doublestitched over the base weaving made her pop, standing out in radiant golden threads on the more humbly woven green.

I was focusing on nonsense details again, remembering the technical skills that went into this piece rather than thinking about its deeper meaning.

“I just wondered,” Zane said casually, though this moment was anything but. “She’s woven against a backdrop of the Ahnleh, which is the sign of the dancers’ nests among my people.”

I tried to pick out the sign he’d indicated, but all I saw was the seal of Alasdair, a glyph as common to my eye as any. All coins, contracts, and sigils of protection bore some incarnation of that mark, a single line stretched from heaven to earth, with delicate branching wings meeting in the middle. It was mostly obscured by Alasdair herself on this work, but I knew it well.

“I’m sure there are differences we just can’t see because she’s in the way,” I said, not really knowing what else to say. Was he just trying to distract me, til I calmed down and could speak more rationally?

“I’m sure there are similarities, too.” His voice had gone all tender and soft again, and I couldn’t resist turning to look at him. “Enough so that I recognized it.”

Our faces were unspeakably close, a breath way from touching. I knew that wasn’t objectively true, but... I’d never let my face linger so close to a man’s before. The thought of that beautifully cruel mouth so close to mine...

“I never kissed anyone before.”

The words came out on a breath unbidden, my mind tumbling from lips too preoccupied to hold anything back. They wanted nothing more than to press themselves against the hard softness of Zane’s, to see if those lips so clever and cruel could also be gentle and tender.

But Zane had jerked back at my soft declaration, utterly shocked.

“You’re joking.”

The heat of desire flared into outrage. I felt my eyes harden and my lips thin out in a narrow, tightly pressed line.

“Why would I joke about something like that?” My words were cold, measured, precise. “Why would I admit to such a weakeness in a moment of vulnerability where we are trying to be truthful with one another? You said anything to make this work, yet you’re mocking me for keeping chaste? It’s the way of my people, Zane. We don’t sneak into each other’s bedrooms in the middle of the night--“

My words caught on the jumble of anger, and the memory of Elanor sneaking him into my room so he could propse to me while I was not even awake to recieve it.

”--and propose mad fancies as if that will solve anything! There is no easy way out of this, Zane Cobriana. We either have to work together, or make enmity anew with this pointless conversation!”

I’d crossed my arms over my middle, holding my own ribs in that way of my most intimate of comforts. It was what I did when Rei was not there to hold so. I did it now to keep from flailing about, letting my hands speak the aggression my tone would not. I would not scream at him. I would not escalate.

I would not be the reason the guards poured into the room and broke us apart.

But I would also not sit here and be insulted.

He was quiet for far too long, face turned away, hiding from me as surely as he accused me of doing with my ‘haughty avian reserve’. How dare he? How dare he! He was such a hypocrite, coming to me with this mad scheme, making grand gestures and pretty speeches and never once suggesting how this mad thing migth be done.

I was so caught up stewing in my own fury that I almost missed his softly spoken answer.

“I never said proposing marriage would be easy.”

“But you never said anything more about how such a thing would be done, either, did you Zane?”

It was all I could do to keep my voice quiet, to contain my outrage in harhly whispered tones.

“You just dumped this problem in my lap as if I’d have any more luck solving it than you did. What am I supposed to do with this, Zane? If I say no, your feelings are hurt and we’re still without a solution. But if I say yes, we still haven’t really solved anything, have we? We’ve just made a complicated scenario more messy and entangled and vulnerable--“

The rest of my words were cut off by his face suddenly in mine. I jerked back so quickly, I didn’t immediately process that he’d been attempting to kiss me.

Fury burned, hot on my cheeks and in my eyes, and in my fiercely whispered words.

“How dare you. How dare you! You think this can all be solved with an uninvited kiss?”

“I thought that’s what you wanted!”

He cut off my tirade with an equall fierce whisper, eyes dark with hurt and frustration. “Why else would you have brought it up, if not in invitation? I don’t know how you do things in the Keep, Danica, but I am trying my best. I know you expect me to persue you, to be the active party, so that your avian virtue remains intact, but what am I supposed to do when that isn’t the right answer either?”

I just stared. He’d caught me so completely off guard, I had no idea what to do with him. My shock kept me from monitoring my words, kept me from doing anything but pour out the honest truth of my whirling thoughts.

“You know--you know, do you? Well tell me, Zane, how am I supposed to act according to your serpiente morals? Because while you think you know everything there is to know about avian pairbonds, I don’t know a thing about serpiente--” I paused, groping for a word I didn’t have. “Skies above, Zane, I don’t even know what your people call it! You don’t have pairbonds, do you even marry?”

“Would I have asked you to marry me if we didn’t have such traditions?”

“I dont’ know!” I hated the emotion that crept into my voice. “I don’t know anything about what I’m getting myself into. I dont’ know the first thing about your people or your expectation and you’re asking me to marry you. Don’t you understand how absurd it is?”

“Yes!” He met my fire with his own, both of us growing ever louder. “Gods, yes, I do, but I’m really out of ideas. I thought spending time with your people would help me understand them better, but I really have no idea--“

“What do you mean, spending time with my people?”

Zane looked away, eyes fixed on the floor. He was quiet long enough I almost thought I’d have to ask again, but he finally admited, “This isn’t my first time visiting Elanor’s aunts.”

Again, I just stared at him. What on earth could I possibly say to that revelation?

But he carried on, eyes drifting up to the tapestry, as if searching it for inspiration. Or apparently, memory.

“I knew this tapestry becasue I spent a full night and a day staring at it, as I fought to work through a delirious fever brought on by that damnable falcon poison. Adelina brought me here, to the first shelter she’d found, and demanded a place to keep me safe while I healed. All I can say was that it must have been the will of Fate to bring me here, to a house sympathetic to true peace, with a wound minor enough that the am’haj didn’t just kill me outright.”

I thought of Elanor’s retelling of his dramatic ride, of declaring it the will of Fate that he find her--and had to wonder if my dearest friend had lied to me. But Zane continued, sweeping me away with his dramatic story.

“I stared at this tapestry and tried to keep my grip on reality as she sang to me of peace, a halluciantion to be sure. But when I heard of what you did for Gregory, I couldn’t help but remember that fevered dream, and hope...”

“Hope for what?”

“Hope that maybe it was a sign. That maybe things really could get better. That maybe hawks could dance with cobras, and peace could rise from bloody fields.”

“Alright,” I said again, with less conviction than before, but more of an idea of how to proceed.

“Alright?” Zane echoed with a raised eyebrow. I nodded.

“I’ll sing you back to health. We send messengers to both palaces that you were injured on your return journey from the Mistari lands, and I’m attending your bedside to give you what healing aide I have. It will give us time to brainstorm, and maybe come up with a less ludicrous idea than a marriage neither of us actually want.”

Zane just stared. I shrugged.

“It’s the best idea I have. It buys us time. I just... I just need some time. To do what, I don’t know yet. But I didn’t have this plan until just now, so maybe, with a few more days...”

“And what’s to stop the Keep from scouring the fields to find me and finish me off?”

“My word,” I said firmly. “I’ve commanded the generals twice to stand down, and if they cannot obey me in this I’ll... I’ll,” I shook my head, trying to shake off some of the fury that had been building over the past several days. “I’ll discharge each and every one of them. I’ll discharge the entire army if I have to. I am done fighting. This ends here.”

“Or they overthrow you,” Zane said with a dry wryness that was anything but humorous.

“They can try,” I said through gritted teeth. “Shardae magic holds the key to the hidden fields on the far side of the mountain. If they want a civil war, we’ll see how long it lasts when their soldiers are starving.”

Zane gave me wide eyes, but they were marked with approval. “Wisely put, my most bloodthirsty queen.”

“I’m not--” But I cut off as I realized he was teasing me. I wasn’t used to people laughing at me. I was going to have to learn how to turn it into Zane laughing with me, as it was clear that was how he intended it. I was too accustomed to taking myself seriously. Even if it seemed no one else did.

I realized with a bit of a start that I liked Zane laughing at me--with me. I liked that it felt like he was honestly trying to engage me, not just manage me. I liked the thought that he, of all people, might actually see me. The thought brought color to my cheeks, and again, I felt the urge to get up and move.

Which was why I made myself stay put, and even found the courage to lean back against Zane, to close the distance our fight had put between us.

“I need an ally in this,” I said madly, hopefully, absurdly. “I don’t think I need a husband, but...”

I let myself lay my head over against his shoulder, to show my serpiente counterpart that I was willing to try. Maybe not something as absurd as becoming lover, but at least co-conspirators. Maybe friends.

“I certainly need an ally.”

The Ties That Bind Tag list: @thehellinsideyourhead @therecouldbecolorsandlove @adventuresofacreesty

Raev’s Gen Tag List (should I tag you guys in this? It IS a thing I wrote. I’m gonna say yes unless you guys are like “no of course not we’re sick of hearing about your stupid fic for a twenty year old book XD)

List is currently: @lordkingsmith @writinglyra @drbibliophile @mperialscribe @adie-dee @adie-dee @lexiklecksi @writinginslowmotion @raenawrites @apollon-arium @anika-writes

#raev does fic #the ties that bind #hawksong fic

23 notes · View notes

phoebehalliwell · 4 years ago

Note

!!!! Piper finding out she's pregnant with Kyle's baby!!!!

okay no but see i’ve been thinking about an au where like we go like balls to the fall canon with piper and kyle still a slowburn obvi but. season six still remains pretty much intact expect for the fact that, while chris knows he’s piper’s son, he has no idea who his father is bc, in the dark future variant of the piper/kyle timeline kyle would definitely end up sacrificing himself to save piper fully not knowing that she was pregnant (odds are she didn’t even know) which would probably be a breaking point for piper okay let’s go into detail.

chris (khris? lmao? wait should i remain him after kyle’s dad? jon hamm? jack. shure we’ll call him jack to differentiate even tho u gotta admit. kyle!chris would basically be the same as canon!chris bc like. look at him. like he is very much Not like leo. but like. could ever easily be kyle’s son. but, to differentiate, here’s jack halliwell, the bastard of the charmed line.) bc wyatt is the son of a piper halliwell and leo wyatt this is a known fact especially because leo remains one of the last pillars of the elders in said dark future and everyone begs him to do some grand act to stop wyatt but he never does that’s his son that is his son he can’t he cannot kill him he still believes there’s some good in wyatt there has to be some good in wyatt we’ll say jack even had an opportunity to kill wyatt after killed piper and leo intervened and saved wyatt’s life which is why, if chris hates leo, it’s nothing compared to jack’s beef. and like. quite frankly. okay here me out this timeline is about to get real weird. leo becomes and elder at the end of s5, jack’s doing as he steps into his place as the charmed ones whitelighter, seeing as he’s still a witchlighter. kyle takes the place of sheridan in the sense that he enters the narrative in s6. jack, for the record, has no idea this is his father. kyle works kinda parallel to the story, jack is trying to find out exactly what’s going on with wyatt becoming evil to no avail, kyle’s like idk doing something they have interacted a couple times they don’t like each other. we push forward the avatars narrative, giving gideon pause. evil wyatt isn’t possible in utopia, the avatars would neutralize him before he became a threat. gideon actively advocates for the avatars. kyle becomes more integrated as the avatars become more relevant, jack continues his digging on the wyatt situation, somehow finds out that gideon was the one who turned wyatt evil by attempting to murder him, which immediately brings into question the avatars, since gideon is such a big fan of theirs. does a bit more digging, finds out that utopia comes at the cost of free will, anyone who isn’t perfect is eliminated. he’s about to blow the cover on the whole thing when either gideon or the avatars kill him. piper is devastated bc like we’ll say she still knew that was her son. like he’s been there a while phoebe’s a psychic and at some point he’s kinda gotta fess up as to how and why he knows so much about the family. and his death has been pinned on somebody else in a play to get piper’s support behind the avatars. kyle becomes more integral here as, up until this point, he’s assisted on a couple cases (i.e. a styx feet under situation, but his main focus has always been the avatars) but piper’s like listen they just killed my son i need everything in my arsenal to get revenge and i mean if there’s one language he speaks it’s revenge. kyle and piper together are actually amazing at deciphering jack’s notes because it like walks immediately down the middle road of how their brains works which for the record they literally never piece together the part where jack’s their son, but, in all fairness, jack didn’t know that either. issue being jack had multiple theories so there are a lot of one off demon adventures to further strengthen their bond and like. piper still doesn’t fully trust kyle. also jack was her son, so there’s a personal element here too, but the main reason piper has the most interaction with kyle is because she’s protecting her sisters from him because she still does not trust him for shit, and she wants to keep him distant from her family which is undeniably her vulnerabile spot. and like, kyle is 100% aware she’s doing this, but he doesn’t really care because, again, his primary motivation is stopping the avatars. everything he does is just to get him closer to that goal. he just has to get piper to trust him because he’s feeling like the power of three is crucial to that goal. catch-22 tho, because it is the feeling that he needs the power of three that makes piper so untrusting of him. the jack cases are their bonding era where they start to steer away from their previous mindsets. we see kyle do something entirely selfless, without ulterior motive. we knows he did this, piper does not. blah blah blah, they get to the meat of the matter with jack’s notes and find out the whole avatars/gideon thing just in time to stop utopia, kyle dies in the process. as he saved the world, they make him a whitelighter, and, as an act of good faith because after learning gideon’s plans for evil wyatt, piper is very very against the elder, and then also because the charmed ones have been without whitelighter since jack, they assign kyle as their new whitelighter. blah blah blah something something something again. slowburn. this time added, because piper has done the forbidden love thing once before and she’s not gonna do it again. and kyle’s like that’s my coworker. whatever respect i have for piper is professional. and paige and phoebe are also there like. like piper and kyle are drift compatible (in a sense, piper hates his moral compass and yells at him a lot, but they understand how the other thinks) phoebe thinks kyle is weird and paige thinks kyle has a major stick up his ass (which he does!!) also. fuck it. kyle keeps his job at the fbi like how are they gonna know he died. and sinces he’s a newly minted whitelighter it’s not like he’s got other charges. it’s just the charmed ones and then working at his job. so blah blah blah piper will bring cases to him he will bring cases to piper so on and so forth again. slowburn. he’s literally their whitelighter piper’s still like. don’t trust him. sometimes kyle says this is how you should do that and piper chews him out because like. fuck you!! and then maybe ends up doing it that way anyways which kyle will be really smug about he’ll never bring it up in conversation but again piper and kyle’s communication is unspoken so she knows when he’s invoking it and he knows that she knows. and phoebe and paige both have two insanely different views to their relationship piper and kyle are talking strategy while paige scrys (scries?) and piper’s brewing potion and her and kyle are like. they’re in disagreement meaning it’s a lot of silence a long of prolonged, bitter stares, stubbornness, speaking in low and controlled voices in an attempt to sound like the more rational one when it’s very obvious both of them wanna be yelling their points but they’re not it’s all in a very low register it ends with kyle yielding grabbing the final potion ingredient getting unnecessarily close to piper and saying i guess you know best dropping the ingredient in and orbing out in the puff of smoke from the potion and piper just keeping her gaze level even after he’s gone with just steel in her eyes like you’re goddamn right i do like the energy doesn’t dissipate she’s still buzzing from it and paige just over in the corner of the attic like ...............................so um. have you guys fucked about it yet? and piper’s like have we what (yes.) and paige is like yeah there’s a lot of unresolved tension there it’s getting pretty weird to be in a room with the two of you so you should probably um. fuck about it. Versus. piper phoebe and kyle being all out on some excursion kinda akin to the things w the guardian angels where there’s press everywhere and they’ve saved the day and are trying to get the hell out of dodge and there are press cameras and kyle sees them first and immediately positions himself in between them and piper piper notices the cameras and tenses up kyle puts his hand on piper’s lower back to steer the two of them out of the maze of a media frenzy and phoebe’s like Oh. you two are In Love in love. which piper is absolutely against like absolutely not no and phoebe’s like oh come on you told him about your fear of the press after the prue thing i can tell the way he moved to get you out of that situation and piper’s like i’ve literally never told him that and phoebe like okay well. he knows regardless, which actually speaks volumes more than if you had told him. so congrats!! and piper’s like no. absolutely not. paige and phoebe compared notes after they find out they have bold made bold statements about piper and kyle and then realize that not only have they definitely slept together they are also definitely in love and Do Not Realize It

#another insanely funny thing to consider about piper and kyle Specifically a piper/kyle kid #is like au where all of the next gen meet each other they're like #okay phoebe/cole's kid yeah that tracks prue/andy aww</3 prue/jack that's a weird one i guess but like. sure? who's that.#and jack's like hi my name's jack peter halliwell i'm the son of piper halliwell and kyle brody #and piper's eyeballs explode out of her head and paige pisses herself laughing phoebe damn near has an aneurysm #none of them can like. make eye contact with jack because what the fuck. a piper/kyle kid what the fuck!!!??!? WHAT THE FUCK!!?!??!?!?!?#bonus round of jack realizing in this world his dad dated paige he's like what ew no what the fuck how that's so weird that's so wrong #(& he's right lmao piper/kyle supremacy then phoebe/kyle dead last paige/kyle these r the facts)#charmed #piper x kyle #piper halliwell #kyle brody #jack halliwell

6 notes · View notes

the--sad--hatter · 5 years ago

Text

Mischief, Meet Your Match - Chapter Two (Loki x reader)

WARNINGS: Violence, Swearing, Smut, Loki

SUMMARY:

Sam would say your liking for bad boys has gone too far.

Tony would kill the God of Mischief with his bare hands.

Steve would lock you in your room and never let you out.

Natasha would probably just throw you off the roof.

But there's just something about Loki that draws you to him, and you couldn't help it even if you wanted to.

Read Part One Here

The last time The Avengers had put Loki in a cage, it had been exactly where he had wanted to be. This time they were more careful. Loki was safely ensconced in a glass cube that had been enchanted by Dr Strange to contain the tricksters magic. The cube itself was in an empty, bland warehouse that was highly guarded and miles away from civilisation and the Avengers themselves.

It was dull for the first few days until what he guessed was around mid afternoon on the fourth day when the camera’s in every corner of the room that were pointed at his cell all simultaneously beeped and switched off. He looked around the room with curiosity but for at least ten minutes nothing happened.

“Hey Mischief.”

Loki stilled before he finally, slowly craned his neck to see you casually perched on the top of his cell, wiggling your wingers as you waved happily at him.

“Ever notice how they always put the attractive bad guys in glass prisons?” You asked, smirking down at the dark god who looked remarkably unimpressed by your presence.

“Have you come to gloat? To taunt me?” He asked coldly.

“Nope, I’m here to entertain you.” You said jovially, hopping down to the ground gracefully and holding up a book for him to see before you carefully slid it into the slot where his meal trays were delivered.

“Without the permission of your teammates I see.” He noted, looking pointedly at the camera’s and ignoring the novel.

“Better tell them you do whatever the hell you want than ask permission.” You shrugged as you settled on the floor in front of his cell, ignoring the way he towered sinisterly over you through the glass.

“Ah, a woman after my own heart.” He teased.

“It’s not your heart I’m interested in Mischief.” You rebutted, winking at him.

For a brief moment he looked kind of delighted by your quick response, even going so far as to shoot you a blinding smile.

You pulled a deck of cards from your pocket shuffled them.

“What are you doing?” He asked and you looked up to see him frowning down at you.

“Entertaining you… My options are limited what with you being in a cell and all.” You told him, dealing the cards and slotting his into the metal rim that ran along the edges of the cage, keeping the cube intact.

The backs of the cards were facing you so he could see what they were but you couldn’t.

“I could think of ways you could… entertain me.” He said in a low voice and you laughed.

“Well beggars can’t be choosers. Ace cards can be one or eleven, it’s up to you. Face cards are ten. The goal is to make 21 without going over, go over and you’re bust, you lose. Hit or stick… Want another card or are you happy with what you got?” You gave him the most basic explanation.

“I’m happy with what I have.” He said.

You shrugged and checked your own cards, managing to make 19 with your Queen of Spades and 9 of diamonds. You turned your cards over first before checking his. King of Spades and Ace of Hearts.

“Son of a… did you use your magic?” You demanded.

“My magic is contained by this cell.” He reminded you.

“Sure Jan.” You muttered under your breath.

You got a mischievous smirk on your face and reshuffled the cards.

“My magic is intact thankfully… wanna see?” You asked him.

“By all means… Impress me.” He smirked down at you like you were a silly child he couldn’t even be bothered placating.

“Pick a card, any card but don’t tell me which one you pick.” You ordered, splaying the deck for him to see.

He nodded once curtly to show he’d made his decision. You theatrically shuffled the cards one last time before tapping them and revealing the card with a flourish.

“Is this your card?” You asked smugly.

“No.”

Your grin faltered.

“Ok fine, Is this… your card?”

“No.” He sighed, looking less than impressed.

“Come on! Are you lying?” You asked him with a disappointed look.

“A fair assumption but again, no. I chose The King Of Hearts. You failed to produce my card twice, so you lose.” He taunted.

“It’s your stupid cell, it’s playing havoc with my magic.” You huffed in annoyance and shoved the cards back into your pockets.

“Then perhaps you should let me out? We could go somewhere with no interference and make some magic together.” He offered.

“I’m not easy Mischief.” You scoffed.

“My mistake, I can see how I should have known you were a lady of strong character and morals.” He sassed.

The corners of your lips twitched and you leant back on your elbows, sizing him up through the glass.

“Why did your friend call you Kitten?” He asked abruptly.

“I was this adorable stray that was brought back from a mission and never left. The Avengers adopted me.” You explained with a fond smile.

Loki cocked his head, obviously expecting more information so you sighed and gave it to him, remembering the life changing event that had led to you being an Avenger.

“The serum that made you into a god amongst men is in your blood. This serum we have developed will allow a test subjects body to absorb the characteristics of your blood… if they survive.” The Doctor explained, his clear excitement for the subject bubbling through.

It made Steve feel sick. He pulled at the restraints pinning him to the operating table but they were strong and he was weak from blood loss as his blood was currently being extracted. He shouldn’t have gotten pulled into this situation but he’d only been given half the information. What was supposed to be a simple rescue mission had blown up in their faces because of secrets he hadn’t been privy to.

“Bring in Patient Zero.” The Doctor ordered.

You were dragged in by two dark suited, burly agents, a third trailing behind you with his gun drawn. One of the agents had a split lip and the other had scratch marks on his cheek.

“Unhand me you fiends!” Yu demanded.

“The sedatives didn’t calm her down, they just made her loopier.” One of the agents snarled.

“It matters little, she will likely be dead soon but her corpse will provide us with information about how the serum works when combined with the Captains blood.” The scientist said giddily.

The second you’d been dragged in, Steve had redoubled his efforts to break free and at the mention of his name your attention was drawn to him.

“Pleasure to meet you Cap, shame about the circumstances.” You crowed loudly as you were manhandled onto a table like his.

“Let her go! You don’t have to kill innocents to do this!” Steve yelled.

“We won’t be using this formula on our people until it’s safer so she should be honoured. Her death will pave the path to a brave new world.” The scientist.

“Psst, Cap.” You stage whispered.

Steve turned to look at you.

“Do all bad guys really talk like B-Movie villains?” You asked.

“Enough.” The scientist hissed, slapping you across the face.

“Oh buddy, if I survive this I swear to god I’m going to use the super strength to punch you in the dick.” You vowed.

“Don’t worr, it is far more likely you will die, this is only a first attempt after all.” He sneered.

“Captain, if I die punch this guy in the dick for me.” You ordered, twisting your neck so you could look him in the eye.

There was a tick in his clenched jaw as he regarded you with a stormy gaze before he looked at the tubes that were rapidly pulling his blood from his body. He nodded once, decisively.

“Yes ma’am.” He agreed to your request.

What else could he say, he couldn’t promise you would survive or tell you that it was all going to be ok. All he could do was promise that you would be Avenged. You appreciated the assurance.

“You were made into the Captains image through experimental science?” Loki asked with a frown.

“Not his image exactly, but internally… kinda. The blood in my veins is the same blood that runs through Steve Rogers veins. He still gets ruffled if I call him dad though.” You sniggered.

Loki seemed to take the information in blankly, his face impassive but you could see the way his eyes were looking at you in a new light, reassessing you speculatively.

“Of course evil scientists don’t really know their stuff because they failed, epically. I would have died but Dr Banner managed to manipulate the enhanced healing aspect of the serum before I died. I can heal anything short of a life threatening injury pretty easily.” You explained.

“So when I hit you hard enough to discombobulate you…” Loki trailed off.

“You’d have to hit me a hell of a lot harder to keep me down.” You scoffed.

“Noted.” He said dryly.

“Aw Mischief, I thought we were getting along? After I brought you books and games and everything.” You pouted.

“If we were truly friends you wouldn’t be keeping me in a cage.” He pointed out.

You stood up and smirked at him, leaning into the glass.

“I like you Mischief, doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“Wise decision Kitten, I may like you more than most of your race but I will not hesitate to kill you when I escape.” He told you, his words venomous but his tone pleasant, friendly, almost respectful.

The camera’s beeped and you backed away from the cell.

“I suggest you kill me first Mischief, because if you don’t I will take you down again.” You vowed and with a short running start you leapt back onto the top of the cell with ease and disappeared through a panel in the ceiling, seconds before the camera’s came back on.

It was hours after you left when he finally grew bored enough to flip open the novel you’d brought. Something fluttered from the pages and he caught it deftly, flipping it over in his hand with an awestruck expression. There hidden in the pages of the book you’d given him before you played your failed card trick was The King Of Hearts. He dropped the book on the ground, discarding it as he turned the playing card in his hands.

“Well played Kitten.” He muttered to himself, his lips twitching in amusement.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N – Fun fact, In my story Asgard is still there, Odin’s alive (ugh) and Hela hasn’t been freed.Ragnarok, Infinty War and Endgame don’t apply to my Marvelverse!

PERMA TAG LIST @likes-to-smell-books @thelostallycat @dilaila95 @dropthepizza346 @destiel-artemis @hiddles-rose @myfandomlife-blog @thosesexytexasboys @liveonce-sodoitright @spnrvt @tarastudiesalot @dahkness @sexyvixen7 @jaynnanadrews @littledeadrottinghood @pinkisokay @angieptt @anamcg317 @belladonnarey @queen-kayy92 @breezy1415 @penumbrawolfy @fairislesheets @lianadelphius @coolmassivenerd @youhavebeenspared @candyxcyanide @musingpredilection @isaxhorror @destiel-artemis @my-drowning-in-time @isabelcrichards @teh-nerdette @dlcita @deathofmissjackson @life-wanderer @cleo0107 @spicymagz @drdorkus @inquisitor-selvala @le-mow @zeannastardust @nighmxre @blue-cat-1989 @writingforbucky @abo4280ooof @mad4oak @jsmith509 @aven-gers33 @helloimanavenger @brownlee-22 @amoonagedaydreamer @barnesb1tch @scarletraine @cowardlycandy @secondsineternity @mywinterwolf @luminous-lillies @stressedandbandobessed7771 @jamesbucktitybarnes @thirstofgames @boxofteenageideas @dark-angel-be-thirsty-af @mintzxi

MMYM Taglist @woohoney @vikkleinpaul @libbymouse

#Loki #Loki x Reader #Loki Odinson #Loki Laufeyson #God of Mischief #Hattersmarvelverse #The Avengers #The Avengers x Reader #Avengers #Avengers x Reader

1K notes · View notes

x0401x · 5 years ago

Note

Hi there! Just want to thank you so much for translating for the VE fandom! I've been looking through your VE posts and noticed you mentioned how anime!Gil is completely different from LN!Gil. I agree with you and was wholeheartedly disappointed in the anime. I was hoping you could elaborate more on your thoughts, where you thought anime!Gil and anime!Violet went wrong and how they were different from the anime. Sorry if you've already made a post on this previously. Thanks again!

Hi! You’re welcome!

This reply took me long enough, lol. I haven’t gone too much into detail, or else I’d just end up writing a bible. It still turned out long as hell, though, so I’ve put it under a cut.

I really didn’t know how to begin with this. “Where they went wrong” kinda implies that those two were going right until some point, and that’s just… not the case. They were a trainwreck from start to finish. And it’s kind of impossible to really discuss this without touching upon the massive fails in the writing of the entire show. It does try to convey important messages to the viewers, but mostly with visuals and repetitive lines, never with the actual plot or the characters. You get an inkling of what the story was attempting to do with them, and that initial idea is what seems to stay with most people, because there’s nearly nothing beyond it.

As director Ishidate has stated more than once before, he made changes to the story because he thought the novel was, in his words, “too orthodox”. But watering it down meant watering the characters down too, Gil and Violet more than anyone else. And this results in a show that ironically fails to grasp its own themes and cast — the personalities and conflicts get lost in the details and have to be patched up with excuses that end up displaying how little the show trusts its own audience. It keeps spelling out plot devices and character traits in an almost robotic manner, with very scarce effort put into actually showcasing them in the situations and dialogues. Everyone is too one-dimensional and the main plot line is repeated over and over instead of being alluded in parallels or even just slightly more intelligent exchanges. Animators like Ishidate have grown dangerously used to committing a grave narrative suicide: to give vague and unconvincing reasons for things to be the way they are and expect the audience to take it all as is simply because it was stated there. Everything is oversimplified because they clearly want the viewers to get invested in the emotional baggage of the show, and only the emotional baggage, because they think that’s all we get invested on. They forget that details are necessary for the whole experience.

These problems are recurrent in Violet and Gil, and they never stop. I’ll start with Gil, since he was mentioned first.

Gilbert Bougainvillea is a very complex, humane and multi-faceted character in the novel. What’s interesting is that he doesn’t look like it at first, so he surprised many readers in volume 1 with how caring and endearing he can be. And I mean caring for real. Anime!Gil seemed like a poor excuse for what he was supposed to represent, which in turn made him into a walking contradiction. In the novel, Gil is by far the person that emphasizes the most with Violet, because the two of them are two sides of the same coin. This is where the anime falls short most frequently. They at first look like polar-opposites, but are absolutely not, yet the show portrays them as such. Novel!Gil is gratuitously kind and righteous, and he’s brave and pure-hearted enough to stand by his values no matter what. He’s used to giving up everything for the sake of other people, but he has morals that he holds to the roots of his very being, so he always chooses to donate himself to what he deems as good causes. And once he has his mind set on an objective, he doesn’t mind playing dirty to achieve it, as long as he’s not hurting anyone. That’s exactly the same as Violet, and Gil isn’t the only one who sees himself in her — Hodgins and Dietfried also notice how alike the two are. Novel!Gil relates to Violet on a spiritual level, and he knows first-hand how she must feel. He’s been there and done that. And that’s why she’s his number one priority. His purpose in life is to protect her and keep her in a healthy lifestyle within a blessed working environment and a loving family. Quite literally, all he wants is to make sure that she’s happy, and he’s active and vocal about it. He’s also an unapologetic and unabashed feminist, so he completely approves of her doing anything for a living — she doesn’t need to live her life like an ordinary woman and whatever she wants for herself is fine, as long as it’s not too dangerous.

Apparently, his personality is one of the book aspects that Ishidate believed to be “too orthodox”. He depicts Gil the way you’d expect any male creator to depict a man — a brooding martyr figure who only has a heart of gold in fleeting moments that get replayed again and again in flashbacks to serve as justification for Violet’s undying love. He makes very little strides and there’s a lot of flawed reasoning behind his affection that makes it oddly disconnected, which is the fact that said affection is barely ever there. Gil hardly treats Violet like a person, let alone an equal. Violet is ready to give her life for him anytime, and as we see in the last battle at Intense, he’s ready to cling onto that to save his own life. Ishidate doesn’t shy away from making very evident that he thinks it’s okay for Gil to do only the minimum to earn Violet’s respect and trust, like it’s a given and all he’s required in order to earn her love is to exist. This is very visible in scenes like the one where they first met. Gil seems to shield Violet from the abuse of his brother, but shows next to no distress or even interest over it as he doesn’t even question where she came from or why Dietfried was treating her that way. There’s also the scene where he takes her to one of his family’s residences, and she has his jacket on, just like in the novel… yet he’s letting her walk barefoot in the snow without giving a single flying fuck. He then leaves her side as soon as he instructs the maid what to do with her, not looking back. I also hate that scene where he gets back home and she bumps into him and falls on her butt. He just stares at her and makes no effort to help her back up. But the one I hate the most is that festival scene where he nearly thanks Violet for fighting so well in battle. I mean, she’s killing people for him. She, a literal child, is in the frontlines of a long-lasting war, risking her life and committing mass murder for his sake. That’s literally nothing to be grateful for. Especially not when he’s supposed to love her. And I despise that he only stopped himself from finishing the phrase because he noticed the bruises on her.

Another major defect of the anime was changing Gil’s backstory. Anime!Gil was, by the looks of it, just a rich kid who enlisted simply because that’s the family tradition. And if you take away Gil’s backstory, you take away the viewers’ reason to empathize with him. Why? Because that means he’s morphed into someone who can make choices. Erase any factor that binds Gil to doing what his family and his superiors make him do, and what you have is a grown man with his free will intact. And he uses none of it to help Violet. Anime!Gil was always given the opportunity to say no. He could’ve said no to Dietfried and sent Violet straight to the Evergardens, he could’ve said no to his superior officer and not taken her into the military, or he could’ve at least said no to assigning her to the men’s troops. He didn’t because there would be no story otherwise. Novel!Gil is always attempting to save Violet from the war and from herself, while anime!Gil’s actions beg to differ. And so, anime!Violet’s obsession with Gil stems from the fact that he was the first to treat her remotely like a human being and that, for a long time, he was all she had. None of that fate thing, because it’s also “too orthodox”. But without the fate element and without Gil having no control whatsoever over how he feels about Violet, he’s straight-up a pedophile. If he feels regular romantic love for Violet, who is in her mid-teens, that’s pedophilia right there. This one is my biggest beef with anime!Gil, and I don’t take criticism for it.

Now Violet. Not to be rude, but I see so many people talk about how interesting her anime counterpart is, yet I rarely ever see anyone going in-depth on it. It’s like the way the fans talks about the show. Literally every single person who comments that they liked it always says the exact same thing: “I cried during every episode”. I sort of feel like most of them are just reproducing what they see other people say out there, which is probably what got them interested in watching it in the first place. I don’t mean this with ill-intent; it’s just seriously the impression I get from looking at the tag. I’ve accompanied it since the novel came out all the way back in 2015, and when the show was running, believe it or not, I didn’t really see much of those comments. It started becoming a habit to say it after episode 10, which seems to be the highest-rating episode (the irony being that it was the closest the anime ever got to the novels). Hence why it feels to me like some people just say it on automatic, and I get the same vibe from the fans of anime!Violet.

I’ll just be blunt here: the main difference between anime!Violet and canon!Violet is that canon!Violet was made to be liked by girls and women, and anime!Violet was made to be liked by men. I have already said this before, but Violet is the very definition of independent professional woman in the novel. She’s educated, confident, strong, reliable, altruistic and overall well-versed in at least a little bit of everything. Half of it is due to luck and half of it is her own merits, but all in all, she was created not just to be relatable but also a character that people could look up to. Meanwhile, anime!Violet was clearly made to be waifubait.

I can’t really stress how little thought was actually put into her portrayal and development. We never truly see her internalizing the lessons that she supposedly learns in each of the self-contained episodes. We only ever witness her displaying sudden significant hints of emotion at convenient times, paired to her either repeating what she was told earlier by one of the characters or taking an extremely obvious conclusion to a question that was already half-answered by someone else. Because of this, Violet’s growth process has an unsteady pacing in the anime and mostly feels disjointed. In comparison, novel!Violet is usually not the point of view — she’s often in the role of observer, and we notice through the solutions she comes up with for her clients’ issues that she does have a very humane connection with them. We also notice through the clients’ opinions on Violet that she shows subtle changes at certain specific points, such as smiling just a little when she manages to not only accomplish her duties but also help solve their problems. This makes her more real and believable because, unlike the anime, it presents no abrupt alteration to the essence of her person. She’s growing in her own way, but it’s still easy to tell. It’s also very clever to have Violet be disliked or misunderstood by her clients at first because she’s so aloof and apathetic-looking, but then she grows on them after they actually understand her, and the readers can absorb that from them. I’ve seen many people complain that they can’t really empathize with anime!Violet, but in the novel, the author takes care not to let this happen, and it really doesn’t.

What upsets me the most is that anime!Violet is overly infantilized. We all know that director Ishidate loves her like a father loves a daughter; it’s been said by himself and his colleagues quite a lot. That’s cute and all, but it made her depiction extremely shallow. The biggest problem was making her 14 in the anime. I still struggle to understand what would’ve been so bad with keeping her as a 17-year-old. Sum that up with removing many of her merits and adding forceful childish traits, such as being okay with changing clothes anywhere in front of anyone or pouting when she’s frustrated, and you have the perfect recipe of what waifu junkies like to be spoon-fed with. In my opinion, anime!Violet was a downgraded tragic heroine played in a cheap and boring way to attract tearjerker lovers.

I hope this has covered enough of my take on the matter. ✌️

#violet evergarden #gilbert bougainvillea

39 notes · View notes

ghostmartyr · 5 years ago

Text

SnK 125 Thoughts

Things Eren’s Plan Has Made Better:

Open, infuriated communication between people living under fear of imminent death! :) :) :)

This chapter makes me laugh. Almost nothing good happens within its pages, and it’s delightful. Eren’s stated intention of killing off the outside world is actively disrupting even the imitation of peace every society in this universe has.

He’s fighting for the protection of Paradis? See all these dead Paradis people who were just minding their own business. See also all these living Paradis people who are minding their own business into a civil war.

He’s ending the Eldian cycle of titanization? Nope, still got the inheritance problem to work out, and if the rest of the world dies, that just means nine people are forever going to be killing each other over it.

There is nothing in this chapter that is worth any of the carnage Eren has inflicted.

So I can’t wait to find out what it’s really about.

There’s a bad plan, and then there’s this.

No part of the world is untouched by Eren’s decisions, and even the people he’s claimed to be interested in protecting are actively suffering from what he’s done. Unless Eren’s sanity is such that he is pursuing a future where there is no one but him and a pile of bodies, there is no outcome here that he’s said he wants.

Which is good, because it means that we’re not done.

If this were a video game, and Eren was a character inside it with an open strategy guide, his choices would be the mark of a player looking to pick the worst possible ending.

[Eren] enters a farmhouse for the night, looking for shelter. [Eren] is discovered, and met with a warm meal.

[A] Say thank you for your meal.

[B] Throw the potatoes in the kind, elderly housewife’s face.

[C] Kick the table over and murder her young children.

[D] Commit omnicide.

Eren wants the D, so any other possibilities are out.

Paradis isn’t safe. Eren and Zeke invited global scorn at an international event.

Paradis isn’t safe. Eren woke up thousands of titans who remake the landscape by going out for a stroll.

Paradis isn’t safe. Every citizen living on the island has their own thoughts an opinions on what this is, and if they vocalize them the wrong way in front of the wrong person, they’re being subdued with violence.

Plus, at this point, the rest of the world doesn’t even know the titans are coming. The only people who are going to spend their last time on this planet in hours (days?) of petrified fear are interned Eldians, who are screaming warnings at everyone and getting beatings back. At best.

Eren announced his plans to every Eldian. They, unlike their non-Eldian counterparts, are privileged with knowing exactly how they’re going to die, and how little everyone is working to prevent this outcome.

If killing the entire rest of the world does work out, Eren’s actions have made it so that the people who have grown up in internment camps spend their last days even more miserable than they were to begin with.

Naisu.

As Pieck and Magath discuss, there is no way to stop this. Everyone on Paradis is in shock, starting fights, or pulling dying people from rubble. Staring out at the horizon in horror. There is nothing anyone alive can do about this.

Submit, and be free. It’s over.

Or fight and die.

That’s always the case in this world, isn’t it? Fight against insurmountable odds, and fall with your pride intact, or decide that this burning world is a good place to rest.

The remains of Marley’s military giving voice to that offends my sensibilities, somewhat. Magath actively pursued lighting this fire. Without his assistance, this never could have happened. The fact that he thought he was only scapegoating Paradis and eliminating his country’s military hierarchy so he could take control does not particularly make it better.

But the will to fight doesn’t belong to only people with squeaky clean morals. This, unfortunately, is not a story where only the protagonist side gets to have good philosophical views.

Landing Magath on yet more pages of this manga. Cheers.

And of course, we have the turnaround where Floch, a member of the Survey Corps, is now arguing that the fighting is done now. While there’s still titans roaming the world, causing death.

He’s never been a very good Scout.

“What’s so bad about submission...?”

Submission, Floch, is bad because it leaves fucks like you having the last word. It leaves people who smile about genocide because of how it improves their lives free to spread that poison and think that this kind of atrocious violence is a good thing.

The man Floch claims to speak for has never known how to submit to anything.

Eren’s love of the world, and of freedom, is not isolated. He doesn’t want his freedom. He wants freedom as a concept to reign. Humans are born free, and anyone who tries to disagree with that doesn’t matter. That’s been his view from the start. That’s the startlingly intense perspective that has him killing people when he’s nine.

The Paradis Eren’s current choices are making is not a Paradis worth fighting for.

So what do we get? Paradis finally, truly being the last bastion of humanity on the face of the planet? A rebellion of thought rising to object to the ideals that led to this tragedy? A final chapter where our heroes have the chance to save one island from itself while the rest of the world burns?

That’s awfully limited.

Not to mention that there are always survivors. People on the outside would always live, and they would always remember what’s been done to them.

Really, nothing done here has changed anything.

“In the worst case... we’d have to repeat the last two thousand years of conflict surrounding their power. All on this tiny island.”

Humans in this world are not particularly good at avoiding the worst case scenario.

One particular human appears to be actively pursuing it.

None of his supplied reasons currently support this being a good plan.

The only thing Eren will get out of this is death, and his public statement is against that--for Paradis.

Paradis has not been excluded. It’s just going through a more specialized kind of death than the rest of the world is getting.

So in conclusion for this part of the post, everything Eren has done has made the world worse, done nothing to progress his stated goals, and is just such a collection of bad ideas that a valid explanation is that Eren has completely lost his mind and there is no logic moving this train.

That being a boring story, we’re looking down the barrel of some hardcore Reveals to liven things up.

Bon excite.

I’m not going to bother with chronological order this month because why, but also because I think there’s a good chance I’d forget to mention Hange and Levi if I waited until the end.

So. How ‘bout that Hange and Levi. Both being alive.

Genuinely, the most surprising thing to me about this is that Hange not only located a horse, but somehow found Levi some quality bandages before he started bleeding out. How that has turned into finding it in their best interests to approach Magath and Pieck remains to be seen, but I guess the Marley-Paradis dream team is not as dead as it should be.

Like. I don’t disagree that stopping Eren is a priority.

I just really have no interest in forgetting that Marley is The Worst. On the whole, I think the manga’s been rather good about balancing the humanity of the characters with their vile chosen actions, but. I like having a clear focus of hate, and don’t feel a need for them to be further humanized?

Especially when, as Bad as all Eren’s actions are, MARLEY THREW THE FIRST DOMINO AT THE HOUSE OF CARDS, SPARE A SECOND TO THINK ABOUT HOW THAT FUCKED UP PEOPLE BESIDES YOURSELVES YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES.

They can share The Worst crown when Eren steals it. That works.

Anyway, yay Hange and Levi. They join the realm of the officially not dead.

Like Falco!

Hell. Talk about awkward. Connie and Falco are both easily identifiable through their hearts. Connie’s has just been through a few more brutalities than Falco’s. He’s worn down and bitter, whereas Falco still as his eternal fount of optimism going for him.

Sasha’s dad is right; Connie will hesitate. It’s in his nature. He’s found the one thing in the world he can bring back from this war, and he’s desperate for it, but Falco is a little boy, awake and thanking him.

Connie joins the Survey Corps back when it’s a death sentence. He doesn’t run away from the hard things. He fights and protects his friends, and that’s done nothing except break him down into someone who’s considering killing a child to save his mother.

I don’t think there’s much suspense in Connie’s eventual choice. That’s not to say that Falco’s free from danger (even if Connie decides against it, deciding against something after you’ve put too many of the steps in motion... yeah), but it isn’t even a full chapter before Connie’s being confronted with the nature of his work (protecting people) and the nature of this choice (killing person).

However, there are a bunch of people wandering around on horseback in the middle of nowhere. We’ve got Connie and Falco, soon to be joined by Armin and Gabi, as well as Hange, Levi, Pieck, and Magath.

None of them are going to wind up near the walls. All the tension will have to be derived from their interactions, but what’s there? Hange, Levi, Pieck, and Magath have the most reasons to throw down, but also the most experience to know that maybe it’s time to talk. Connie’s future decision is practically written in stone, so why bother taking Falco out into the boonies? A dramatic reunion between him and Gabi isn’t going to do much we haven’t seen already. Quality bro moments for Connie and Armin? We could have done that back anywhere.

We have a cast divided in terms of geography, but not much else. Only Floch’s gang is perfectly fine with what’s going on here. Everyone else is in favor of figuring out a way to fight it. Throwing a bunch of pairs out in the woodlands when none of them are going to be fighting seems like wasted panel space.

tfw massively secret reveal in the woods like whoa and it’s a race to bring it back to the rest of the cast and explain that not all hope is lost and things are magically better

I sense a plot.

Hopefully this part of it involves less dead children.

Also, it’s impossible to tell because non-populated Paradis always looks the damn same, but there’s a chance that any number of the horse groups could be near Historia.

She gets a whole mention this chapter.

Almost like someone cares about her.

That’s two separate people in two chapters.

Whoa.

But also there’s the whole setting sun thing, and sitting outside doing nothing but glaring at the sun is a patented timeskip Historia activity. So maybe now she’ll finally have something to do.

No one else really has that, admittedly. It’s all a lot of watching Eren’s plan, thinking, “gee that’s bad,” and dealing with the fallout of who is already dying thanks to Eren’s plan. Everyone is very busy, but not providing constructive solutions to anything except pulling people out of buildings.

Based on the world as it is explained to us, there is nothing anyone can do against Eren.

Manga please. Please give me the explanation that changes this. We know it’s there.

But yeah, that creates a very anticlimactic dead space where everyone’s solving the problems in front of them, and shrugging at everything else. What else is there, really?

I think I’ll be in the minority when I make the comment that this chapter brought back more of my pity than disdain for Floch.

He’s a crappy person doing crappy things, and someone should probably shoot him in the head sooner as opposed to later. That would not be a bad thing to have happen. He’s invested in raising an empire that no one in the world needs.

He’s also alive through freak chance that left him the sole survivor of a suicide charge, and when he managed to bring his commanding officer to the people who could save him, and bring some sense to the chaos, his actions are invalidated.

Many things could be solved with Floch if he ever was implied to feel a fraction of empathy for people not himself.

That said, it’s... very glaringly obvious that this is his radicalized response to trauma.

The volunteer he kills is left with a mangled hole in his face.

That’s how many of Floch’s comrades die in Erwin’s last charge.

For their pride and obligation as Scouts, and their belief in Erwin’s strategy, they charge. And they all die.

Except for Floch.

Floch’s turned into many things over these four years. A liar is high on the list.

But this moment, and when he talks to Jean, strike true.

Jean’s in shock. Too much has happened, and he understands far too much of it. He’s completely blank, and that is a surface Floch can speak to. Floch knows, and has never forgotten, the shock and trauma the fight can cause. He knows how to put comfort, when he talks to someone like that.

“It’s over.”

He can talk about the rise of a grand new Eldian Empire all he wants, but he’s only smiling when he’s talking to Jean. He isn’t smiling over the new beginning. He’s smiling when he tells a quiet, horrified audience that the fight is done.

Floch’s not a good person. He’s lost in a variety of ways. The war of thought between Eldians and the rest of the world stripped him bare after the battle in Shiganshina flayed him, and he let all of the rot consume him.

All because he happened to live through one of the bloodiest fights in their island’s history.

He should probably be punched in the face and killed. Whichever order.

It’s still a sad fucking story.

-glances at Armin and Mikasa-

HEY SPEAKING OF

This chapter is just the rest of the 104th who haven’t officially experienced it going through their complete mental collapse.

Armin’s in hysterics while trying to hold himself together. The fact that he can still do that second part puts him at the top of the tier list. Mikasa’s lost, with her only avenue left being explaining to Armin why him running off isn’t actually going to fix anything. Connie’s out on his own, contemplating child murder. Reiner’s unconscious and better off for it. Jean’s a wreck. Annie’s spent four years in a dark hole and can’t even win a fight with Hitch. Historia’s main contribution to this arc is being sad. Eren directly caused more than half of all this.

Our Heroes.

Armin has always been the idea guy. He’s the person you ask when you don’t know what to do next. Mikasa doesn’t know what to do about Eren. Eren is literally the most important problem to solve in this world, even outside their emotional complications, so Mikasa asks Armin, her smartest friend, what to do.

Cue the waterworks. Armin goes ballistic, and just like everyone always has, yells at Mikasa for caring about the only family she has left.

She’s taken aback when Armin says he doesn’t know what to do. For the rest, there’s only sadness. She can’t even offer comfort or a denial when Armin takes in everything he’s just said and says he isn’t the one who should have survived Serum Bowl.

Mikasa and Armin have always chased after Eren. Together. They’re the most stable part of the trio. Now Eren’s destroying the world, and the first thing Armin does is lose it with his other best friend for looking to him to be her stabilizing force like he always has.

In Trost, Armin comes to realize that his friends have never looked down at him for the reasons he looks down on himself. Mikasa and Eren love him for his own good qualities. More people start to realize how smart he is, and as the plot progresses, more and more pressure piles on, with people coming to depend on his brilliant mind.

It fails him here. The one thing he’s always been able to offer simply isn’t there. Just like against Bertolt, where all he could come up with was sacrificing himself.

If that had worked the way he thought it would, Erwin would still be here. Solving all the problems Armin can’t.

Mikasa and Armin lose their best friend, and Armin flips out on the one he has left, when what they both really need is those few days of sleep and some damn hugs. Leaving both of them rather ashamed of themselves and isolated.

They’re soldiers. Their job is to keep going.

Also Mikasa’s scarf is gone, and I’d assume Louise has it, but I’m unsure of what the Drama value of that will turn into. Put a pin in it and wait.

Probably the most ominous content goes to Shadis.

The idea that the Yeagerists have the island, so blend in until it’s time to rise up... that is a horrifying potentiality. The time it will take for the Yeagerists to have control of the island is probably slightly more than it will take for Eren to destroy his first city (assuming that’s what he’s up to). If our next climax is going to be a rebellion taking the island away from the Yeagerists... we’ll see a hell of a lot of damage first.

I guess that’s a given, with where the plot is headed, but it’s still appalling to think that Paradis has come so far only to be thrown back into cages when their walls walk away.

I really hope that Shadis isn’t pulling a foreshadowing card. I’d feel more comfortable if his scene came before the scene in Marley, so it could more cleanly be marked as a link to them, instead of a link of what might come to pass in Paradis.

Though the link still stands.

Mr. Leonhart wants his damn daughter back, you fascist jackasses. Staying in line for a decade hasn’t made him forget that.

Anything I could say about Annie and Hitch would diminish my love of their time together. Hitch joins the MPs as a selfish brat, and she lives her truest self that way, but she also saves lives. When duty comes knocking, she sighs and opens the door.

Annie’s a selfish brat too. She’s not as immune to seeing other people as human as she wants to be. She would still kill everyone all over again to make it back to her dad.

Who was a right bastard until he realized he’d done fucked up.

After the long series of poor parenting we’ve gotten, it’s painfully refreshing for Annie’s dad to apologize to express how much he cares for her to her face. He might have fucked up everything else, but he was sorry and he said it. He actually took the first step in doing better, and a decade later, he’s still waiting to complete that journey with his daughter.

Yes, okay, the bar is so fucking low, but he still jumped it. The existence of genuine love at all is a long stretch better than certain other characters get.

Lots of waiting yet to come. Nothing can be done, and Colossal Titans take a long time to travel. If there isn’t a prompt list about what x character does waiting for the apocalypse yet, there should be.

Everyone in this chapter is really just waiting for everything to die. The extinction of the rest of the world is taken as an inevitability, with the only question being how you want to go down.

The world ends with a slow scream that keeps growing louder.

Someone needs to tell Eren to stop doing that.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 125 #Armin Arlert #Floch Forster #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post

99 notes · View notes

tiaragqueen · 5 years ago

Note

Can I request a yandere garou not letting his s/o breakup with him !!

At Variance

✂ Pairing: Yandere! Garou x Reader

✂ Word Count: 1,7k

✂ Trigger Warning: Slight violence, possessive behavior, yandere theme

[Edited]

***

It’s official, Garou has become one of my favorite characters. A villain with a soft spot for kids makes me go soft myself.

Part 2

If you like my writing, please support me on ko-fi!

“You think you’ve changed your mind. You’d better change it back or we will both be sorry.” - Don’t You Want Me [Human League]

There was a time when you used to love Garou.

You remembered very well those memories when he used to train under that old man, Bang, as if they happened yesterday. Garou was his beloved student, not to mention the best among other trainees. A prodigy, you could say. Never once did he skip training, no matter how exhausted and pained he was. He had trained hard – too hard, in your opinion – to the point where his back developed muscles as well, thus making it seem bigger and broader.

Sometimes, he would come to your house with bruises and scratches littering his toned body. You used to fuss over him, occasionally scolding and telling him to take better care of himself. You wanted him to know that you couldn’t be around him forever. However, he simply dismissed your concern with a flick of his hand.

“If you can’t be around me anymore, then I’ll force you to,” he said. You didn’t mull over the meaning for too long, thinking that he was joking. But you couldn’t deny the confidence from his words, or that self-assured smirk, as if he was sure that you wouldn’t be able to leave him.

Well, you certainly hadn’t thought that way. You loved him, after all. What kind of a girlfriend was you if you break up with him simply because he had said some… questionable things?

As his lover, it wasn’t unusual for you to visit the dojo yourself. You would come and cheer on him, sometimes bringing some food for him and the others. Bang had grown accustomed to your presence and considered you as a ‘good supporter’ for Garou, much to your delight. His students had befriended you too, mainly because of how often you came, and referred you as the ‘Wolf’s Lover’. Of course, they still kept their respectful distance to avoid any… unpleasant consequences. Garou was, after all, a possessive boyfriend.

But that was a long time ago. Now, you didn’t have the same feeling for him anymore.

And no, it didn’t happen because you loved someone else or other equally bad reasons. Different opinions had long caused a rift between the two of you, ever since his confession to destroy the fake peace. Your belief in heroes and their ‘biased’ justice as he had oh so kindly put it, versus his belief that an ultimate monster would take the stage someday. And the worst thing was, he believed himself to be that ‘ultimate monster’.

Now, you had to admit that his motive was somewhat noble. He wanted to bring peace – the absolute peace – to the world, and possibly end all the wars, bullies, fights, and the like. Everyone wished for that too. But the way he carried out that intention was simply wrong.

Defeating the heroes? Sure, some of them might not be as pure as they seemed. However, it would be unfair to lump them in the same label, whereas not all monsters were keen on dominating the humankind.

Uniting people through fear? What would happen when they finally put him in his place? What would he do? You couldn’t think of a better outcome than killing him, had you were one of those normal people. Heck, the heroes would probably think so too. But Garou was your boyfriend; someone who had chosen to stick with your annoying guts and accompanied you through thin and thick, no matter how awkward he was at comforting you.

“You did what?” you asked, staring at him with an incredulous frown. You wondered if sleepiness blocked your hearing somehow since he had barged into your apartment unannounced. After all, you were in the middle of napping when he entered through the window.

Honestly, it wasn’t the first time he’d done that. Sometimes, you questioned if he even knew the use of a door. But the news he’d brought to you was shocking, to say the least. Probably more when you witnessed him beating up his fellow trainees at Bang’s dojo at that time.

“I said I beat up all those fuckers.” He raised his chin and grinned smugly, ignoring the way you gaped like a fish out of the water.

“But they didn’t… do anything wrong.” Your voice turned softer as you tried to comprehend the absurdity of his story. He’d told you that he’d gotten a letter from the Hero Association, announcing that they would recruit criminals as heroes. Well, they wouldn’t know Sitch’s true intention had that ninja didn’t reveal it. There were some high-class heroes in there too, acting as the bodyguards. But what you didn’t understand was why Garou even bothered to come if he would only beat them up in the end.

Was he really that bloodthirsty until he was willing to fight all the participants – including the heroes in charge – right in front of the minister? If so, then maybe he was too far gone now. Or maybe he had always been this way, and you just failed to acknowledge it in favor of clutching your values and morals.

“Exactly!” he exclaimed, still bearing that sick grin you used to think as ‘sexy’ in the past. “They didn’t do shit until that motherfucker went to recruit them to join his shitty organization.”

You examined his face. Like, truly examined it. From the drops of blood that splattered across his cheek to those dilated, amber irises that reflected his restrained excitement and triumph. As if he took pride in his so-called victory.

This couldn’t be overlooked any further.

“Garou…” you began gingerly yet softly, scared that he might snap the moment he heard what you were about to say. “I don’t think we can continue this relationship anymore.”

Your heart started to beat faster when you saw his grin dropped. “Huh? The hell are you talking about?” he asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Swallowing the nerves that clogged your throat, you mentally prepped yourself up to tell the thing you’d been wanting to say and face the consequences.

Were you, though?

Garou was quite unpredictable, and while he had never laid a hand on you, it didn’t mean he couldn’t do it now. He had the strength and speed to incapacitate you. You’d be damned if you fight him.

Not that you could, though. You would most likely lose at first attempt.

“I think we should break up.”

There was a moment of thick silence that surrounded the living room. You peeked through your hair, attempting to decipher his otherwise stony face. It wasn’t common to see him act this way – so stiff yet unreadable – and you knew that it couldn’t mean anything good.

“What?” It was like the role was reversed. Now, he was the one who asked for clarification.

“I said we should break up.”

“No…” he muttered, a frown distorted his dangerously captivating features. “You said ‘I think’. Well, I don’t fucking think the same way if that’s what you want me to say, [Name].”

“Well,” you rolled your shoulders in fake nonchalance and boldly stared at his eyes. “We definitely should. We have different beliefs about heroes and such, and with how you’re acting now, it’s best if we part ways. You can continue your hero hunting, and I can do my own things.”

Garou fell silent again. Slowly, he lifted his left hand before slammed it down against the coffee table. You stiffened, watching the once intact desktop split in two through your peripheral vision. Splinters of wood scattered on the marble floor, but that was the least of your concern.

It was the message he conveyed to you. He was stronger than you, therefore you stood no chance against him. You were fully aware, and you acknowledged it. That was why you never acted upon those violent thoughts whenever he spoke about his burning hatred towards phony justice and heroes. Still, you could discern the other idea that he’d implied to you.

This was what you could and would be if you kept resisting him.

“We won’t last long, Garou.” you mumbled, despite the underlying threat. It might sound as if you were trying to appeal to his conscience, while in reality, it was nothing but the truth. A couple with contrasting opinions – especially about something as subjective as peace, justice, and society – could never survive. At least, that was what you thought.

A hand wrapped itself around your throat, instantly cutting off the oxygen supply from entering and leaving. Garou glowered and clenched his jaw; the very same expression he always showed to his enemies. Or, in other words, this wasn’t his usual playful and sadistic self.

This was a serious Garou.

“Is this how you fucking repaid me, after I’ve protected you from those weak ass villains?” he asked through gritted teeth.

You wriggled at the increasingly tight grip and clawed his skin, face blanched. It was moments like this where oxygen became invaluable to you. “Garou, let me… go.”

“Honestly, [Name], I’ve never thought that you would be a fucking coward. Breaking up with me? Really? How the fuck would you protect yourself, huh? You’re weak! You need someone strong like me to protect you.” He breathed heavily through his nostrils and observed your pathetic attempt to release yourself from his grasp. “You think we can’t last because we have different beliefs? Don’t make me laugh. In half a year, I’ll grow stronger. More powerful! And I’ll show you, and those shitty heroes, that a villain can change the world too. I’ll be the ultimate monster and bring the peace! And you’ll regret ever doubting me!”

Garou threw you on to the couch unceremoniously before you could pass out, or worse, die from strangulation. You coughed and inhaled deeply, trying to fill your lungs with air as much as possible. Meanwhile, Garou headed towards the exit with no apology whatsoever and looked over his shoulder.

“We’ll make this shit works. No buts or what ifs.” He pursed his lips in dogged determination. “Remember that.”

The aftershock and exhaustion finally settled in when you heard the slam of the door that sounded distant in your ears. You collapsed, the buts and what ifs became your last thoughts before everything turned dark.

991 notes · View notes