MEMERY????
Sep. 18th, 2012 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebellsI AM STILL WORKING ON MY HEART GAME WRITEUP but in the meantime Swift also just hit 6k, and has . . . THINGS going on, so!
This post is for:
+ heartgame questions ("what did X represent" or "what was I supposed to do with Y" or "what would have happened if XYZ?")
+ THIS INCLUDES IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WINDCHIME or your team's scroll descrip. OR JASPERS HAD SWAG/STUFFED ANIMALS, you can look at those too!
+ r-relationship updates, in light of heartgame or . . . other things OR YOU KNOW BECAUSE I HAVEN'T DONE A MEME IN AGES
+ other questions????? idk I am open
This post is for:
+ heartgame questions ("what did X represent" or "what was I supposed to do with Y" or "what would have happened if XYZ?")
+ THIS INCLUDES IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WINDCHIME or your team's scroll descrip. OR JASPERS HAD SWAG/STUFFED ANIMALS, you can look at those too!
+ r-relationship updates, in light of heartgame or . . . other things OR YOU KNOW BECAUSE I HAVEN'T DONE A MEME IN AGES
+ other questions????? idk I am open
no subject
Date: 2012-09-20 09:31 am (UTC)When you touch the chime, a strange feeling passes through you--love, protectiveness, a little confusion, and a little guilt, a feeling like you've been given something precious, and you don't understand why or quite feel like you deserve it.
I include it because . . . it's a pretty good summary of his feelings. Ash is one of maybe two or three people in Aather who has ever made Swift feel guilty, and he did so . . . basically just by liking Swift so hard that it broke right through his usual layers of dismissive condescension. HE DIDN'T REALLY CARE ABOUT ASH AS A PERSON right up through the Odile game, and in fact fully expected that Ash disliked him, because--really, what else would he assume! Why wouldn't you dislike someone who doesn't care about you and has always been a jerk to you and abused your hospitality to goggle at you and your teammates! And this didn't bother him (Swift is . . . really not a good person), again, up until the Odile game which made it pretty clear that Ash valued him, a lot--and especially the subsequent fallout where not only did Ash explicitize that liking, he refused to back down from that even after Swift told him about hey-that-time-I-antagonized-your-teammate. He had no idea what he'd done to merit that kind of consideration, and still doesn't. And it was big enough that he couldn't be indifferent to it, the way he usually is with people who are fooled by the surface-pleasantries act; Swift is not entirely without a conscience, nor is he immune to people caring about him. QUITE THE CONTRARY. So when he was faced with someone liking him as determinedly as Ash does . . . he almost had to like him back.
SO BEGINS A REALLY LONG SAGA OF BEING FEELINGSPUNCHED IN THE FACE.
SWIFT WAS REALLY CONFUSED FOR A WHILE and also sort of incredulously grumpy about this. Your face makes me feel bad! Why are you still here! Oh my god I am throwing things at you who puts up with that!! There was a lot of tsun, y-you may have noticed this. At some point he just . . . came to terms with it, though? Somewhere during the hundred-comment threads and TALKING ABOUT BACKSTORIES and Ash being INCREDIBLY EARNEST all the time he concluded that Ash was the kind of person who just liked too easily and backed down too easily and didn't have enough faith in his own convictions and this allowed him
to reassert his emotional superioritymake sense of everything. YOU ARE STUPID AND YOU CONCERN YOURSELF WITH OTHER PEOPLE TOO MUCH but he just kind of adores you? You keep caring about him?? How could he not??? Ash has become one of his most important people in Aather very quickly (well, for Swift) and he would shank anyone who tried to take advantage of his good nature. EVEN MORE SO since Swift sort of counts himself among those people.FEELINGS INVOLVING KISSING COME SEPERATELY, also reverse :B
no subject
Date: 2012-09-20 05:36 pm (UTC)Swift was one of the first people Zuko met off-team! Or it feels that way now and I can't go back to check, but either way, Swift made a strong impression on Zuko right away. First, because he was new like him; second, he seemed a lot more proactive than he was (taking notes and asking questions about him because he wanted to get as much information as he could); third, they touched the "I GUESS I REPLACED SOMEONE IMPORTANT TO RUBY AND THEY STILL LIKED ME ANYWAY" thing which was something that bothered Zuko a lot at first; fourth, he called him on him not being too talkative and other people did around that time but Swift was the first. IT MADE HIM THINK ABOUT HIMSELF AS A PERSON, but he's sort of awkward and he was a lot more unsure about himself then.
I think the second time they talked was when Aang and Zuko were arguing about memories? UNLESS I'M FORGETTING SOMETHING WHICH IS POSSIBLE! Zuko appreciated that Swift didn't push as much as the other people that approached them that time and that he tried to direct the conversation somewhere else, but at the time Zuko was less willing to talk as much and he felt guilty about it. SO HE TOLD SWIFT HE COULD GO TO RUBY SOMETIME!!1 Zuko didn't think Swift wanted to go because he liked Zuko, but because he wanted to know about them as a team since . . . he was interested in learning all the things.
AS A NOTE. IN THE ELEVATOR GAME. Zuko felt responsible for Citrine dying and later as a result he felt responsible that Jasper died, too. He never told Swift and I'm not sure if he will now, but Zuko had no idea which team was Citrine's partner when they died. So, he was around for Citrine and carried Percy to the ocean and stayed with Kurei as he revived because he felt guilty and NEEDED to do something. Percy told him to never tell Jasper about it, but it's something that was very relevant in Zuko's mind for a while. Also the reason Zuko felt responsible was because the last two teams they had to pick from was Heliodor and Citrine! Heliodor was the team Ruby was paired with, and they didn't want to risk dying again, and Citrine . . . well Tavros and Zuko didn't want to throw Citrine under a bus. BUT NOT DYING WAS MORE IMPORTANT (right?) so.
SO THIS IS PART OF WHY ZUKO WAS MORE AWKWARD THAN NORMAL FOR A WHILE. It's also why I didn't tag Jasper much and I was also busy with school so it was a mix of both, because Zuko felt guilty and avoided them for like over a month OOCly. I don't remember if they talked much before Swift visited Ruby? AND AROUND THAT TIME, Zuko had received more memories and remembered his sister (when they were kids) so people teasing him made him grumpy :T. So Swift vaguely reminded him of Azula but he didn't think his sister was that crazy or wanted to kill him yet, IN FACT, Erika reminded him more of Azula. ANYWAY. Then Odile's game happened and Zuko wanted to keep as many people alive as they could! He wanted to protect Mako, because he was knew and he liked him quickly because FELLOW FIREBENDER and Citrine and Jasper. GUESS WHY. So Tavros helped to protect half of Citrine and Zuko focused on the people he liked more. I THINK HE PICKED RIKU, SAYA, SWIFT, MAKO AND RED?! Zuko sort of liked Swift as a person by then even if they weren't close and he wanted to help him because he knew how much dying sucks and he didn't want him to go through something like that again.
Oh god this is getting long. OKAY. So things happened, they got drunk and that thread was hilarious and Zuko kept thinking that Swift was better than Swift himself thought he was! AND AT SOME POINT THEY HAD MORE INTERESTING THINGS TO TALK ABOUT LIKE MEMORIES AND THE LIKE. Swift always offered a very interesting view on things and Zuko never felt like Swift would judge the bad things he did in the past so that also helped. ZUKO BEGAN TO TRUST HIM A LOT, BASICALLY. At some point, I'm not sure when probably after that drunk thread, Swift became a very important person to him. The fact that he was there after he died for the second time pretty much established him as someone Zuko considered as a close friend. It meant a lot to him. He also listened after the wolf game, which was something Zuko needed badly after being burned alive.
IT'S JUST, in general, Swift was there more often than not for him to the point Zuko was comfortable with hugging him or reaching for his hand. Swift became one of his important people outside of Ruby, and he doesn't separate Ruby from the rest of the teams as much as he did at first (HE WAS REALLY BITTER ABOUT HELIODOR KILLING THEM OKAY), so in general Swift was part of his Favorite People. Zuko also . . . lacks trust in himself and he doesn't see much value in what he does due to considering himself a failure even if he does recognize he was trying to do the right thing at some point in his life. Most of his memories he's called a failure, that his father didn't even want him, that he had to hide, that he lacked honor, that he was conflicted enough that he didn't know what to do. So Swift giving him reminders and seeing value in him was a big thing, because while Ruby also helps in that department Swift always makes a strong point of it. Zuko does remember that he got better and was trying to make up for his mistakes, but those were his first memories and then I locked the rest of the third season because I didn't want to run out of the good ones when he doesn't even remember that his father ruined his face forever :'D So again, he's always touched when Swift does that.
ZUKO IS GENERALLY LIKE A PUPPY, REALLY. A PUPPY THAT LOST HIS WAY FOR YEARS AND TRIED VERY HARD TO DO WHAT HE THOUGHT HE HAD TO DO TO BE ACCEPTED BACK INTO HIS OWN FAMILY. Until he decided he didn't need to be accepted and that there was a bigger picture than that.
AND THIS IS LONG SO I'M STOPPING HERE. I babbled for like two hours and I need to go back to study. Again, I'm sorry if this is full of mistakes and all over the place.
GIVE ME FEELINGS INVOLVING KISSING NOW? I'm so curious about those and I'll reverse. :B
FEELINGS INVOLVING KISSING
Date: 2012-09-21 10:18 am (UTC)He has never been comfortable with romance things (p-putting it lightly, haha)--he is leery of emotional intimacy, he doesn't like being put in a vulnerable position, and . . . he is also a very young sixteen in some ways. Doesn't yet understand these feelings, doesn't like what he doesn't understand (doesn't like feeling powerless, really), and instinctively rejects them because of that. So while he was nursing some proto-crushes, on Zuko and a couple other people, he almost couldn't be aware of them because he flat-out refused to acknowledge that they might exist.
THEN CAME MISTLETOE 8D Where he was smacked in the face with the reality that he both wanted to kiss Zuko and was really, really scared of kissing Zuko, and . . . didn't understand any of this because again, he had actually MENTAL BLOCKED himself against doing so. Freaked out! Tried to ESCAPE CLAUSE, was blocked, yelled at Ash . . . what he was doing, I think, was trying to get answers. And he didn't want to think about this himself, because that would mean--really fully considering WHAT THIS MIGHT MEAN . . . he wanted someone else to lead him to those answers, so he didn't have to do any thinking or talking. And when Ash wouldn't do that he just sort of stormed off.
I didn't at all plan it this way, but I don't honestly think a lot of their subsequent EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS would have been possible without heartgame. Awareness was let out! AWARENESS IS RUNNING AROUND IN THE HEART and suddenly Swift is painfully conscious of the fact that he's trying not to think about what he feels because he's scared of it. And he stared down his own fear and pushed through it because he is a Tales protag and has INFINITY DETERMINATION (this is also why I was like CONGRATULATIONS ON DOING AN ADULT THING SWIFT) . . . and on the other side he was greeted with "o hay so I guess I might also already like someone else" :'D
I MEAN IT IS OKAY NOW and based on other conversations I can only presume it will remain so for the moment, but THAT WAS A THING, gosh.
Right now he is . . . simultaneously really happy and, yeah, really terrified. He doesn't totally understand his own feelings still and is sort of flailing around madly and also--is incredibly conscious of all the ways he is in a vulnerable position! To a certain extent he has handed someone else the power to make or break his happiness; if Zuko were to toss him out tomorrow he would be totally gutted and he is dimly aware of that. It's not something that sits comfortably with him. During their LIKING MULTIPLE PEOPLE conversation he kept trying to turn the issue over to Zuko . . . not just because that's how he saw it (it legitimately felt like Zuko had all the power there), but also because he was trying desperately not to SAY "you can date as many people as you want as long as you don't break my heart" in as many words. And he was incredibly unguarded in that moment and Zuko kept hugging him and things and he was just like, this is really nice but you could GO AWAY and that would suck a lot!! God.
He has not guarded himself, though, still. He . . . can't really bring himself to. Swift is someone who really just wants to love and be loved and get close to people; he is more open right now than he has ever been in Aather and that feels really great, even if he doesn't like the idea of where it might lead.
SO ARE YOU GOING TO BREAK MY HEARTI-I mean, reverse??Re: FEELINGS INVOLVING KISSING
Date: 2012-09-21 06:50 pm (UTC)Zuko started to like Fuuma during that bingo game. He basically kissed everyone on Ruby but C.C., and since you could kiss the same person more than once he ended up kissing Fuuma three times as a totally smart tactic to win and the kisses had to escalate so they did just that. That's when Zuko had to admit to himself that he . . . preferred to kiss Ruby (because it was comfortable) over kissing other people. He always felt closer to Fuuma in a way because Fuuma arrived immediately after Zuko did, they got used to Ruby and Aather together, and more or less always took memories together. Zuko identifies with Tavros a lot, he had an almost crush on Naha for a while (he's normally attracted to dark-haired, mysterious women and it's tied to the fact he lost his mother early on in his life) until he remembered his mom and then Naha took a more motherly role in his head, he never knew what to do about C.C. but he appreciated her advice and ended up liking her a lot, he was fond of Oz and Yukio, but Fuuma was the other new Ruby that replaced someone important to the team and so circumstances made him like Fuuma a lot. So after that game, Zuko was very aware of the fact he liked kissing Fuuma! He didn't do anything about it for a while, until Fuuma one day decided to kiss him for no reason and Zuko . . . flushed and he was okay with it. I think that happened a couple of times until they had to admit it was a thing and Zuko felt they had to, talk about it. SO THEY BECAME A THING, that mostly kissed and touched but Zuko was always super awkward about it until he slowly became more comfortable with it.
Zuko never thinks about it as Fuuma being his boyfriend but as Fuuma being the person he liked and never talked about it because he was still awkward and wasn't sure of what to do with those feelings. And honestly, Fuuma going Kamui more constantly and plot and dying and memories are always more important than romance in Zuko's head. IT'S CANON. So he never thought of saying it, and only Ruby knew about it. Then Fuuma dropped the bomb of him having feelings for his childhood friend and Zuko was . . . somewhat jealous and conflicted and suddenly expected Fuuma to pick Kamui because it made sense! Except Fuuma didn't want things to change and Zuko was willing to try that, as unsure as he was of the whole situation. THAT WAS THE STATE ZUKO WAS AT RIGHT BEFORE MISTLETOE.
Then mistletoe happened. Zuko kissed a lot of people in the most awkward ways possible and in all of those threads, Zuko didn't really feel attracted or wanted to kiss them. The only exception was Swift, but Zuko was completely unaware of the fact the reason he was so embarrassed and awkward and unsure was because not only Swift is one of the people he liked the most in Aather, but because he didn't mind the idea of kissing him. HE WAS A BIT AWARE, in that he said he didn't want to force Swift, but he was more concerned about how much it bothered him that in his own feelings about it. Then they kissed, and he experienced a memory that made him more concerned about him, and he liked the kiss until the moment it hit. Zuko was UTTERLY CONFUSED then, but didn't want Swift to just LEAVE like that and then he couldn't . . . say that it mattered was because he cared and obviously Swift had to care, too. He was so unsure about the whole situation already due to his own complications, he was scared and he tends to retreat when that happens, too, so Swift wanting to leave and insisting it didn't matter obviously meant Swift didn't care.
HE WAS GOING TO LEAVE IT AT THAT. He was going to sit on those feelings and let it go because the idea that MAYBE he liked someone else was SCARY enough. So he barely let himself be conscious of most of it, HE WASN'T UNTIL HE TALKED TO RED ABOUT IT. Allen suggested that maybe he liked Swift (he didn't say names) and Zuko blushed and was like NO, WHY. That's when it finally hit him and when he was completely terrified but again. He sat on those feelings! SWIFT WAS HIS FRIEND AND HE HAD A THING WITH FUUMA AND SWIFT PROBABLY DIDN'T WANT HIM AND WAS FREAKING OUT BECAUSE GOSH MAYBE KISSING WAS JUST GROSS TO HIM. So Zuko was very mature about dealing with his feelings, and yes he's seventeen, but his only romantic experience in canon was Mai and he leaves her once without saying goodbye to stop the war and later on in the post-canon comics Mai dumbs Zuko because he never tells her anything due to his own issues. He's generally very inexperienced. A girl nearly kissed him once in canon after she practically bullies him into a date thanks to his uncle and Zuko . . . refused to get too close, and then when another girl showed him compassion about his scar he rejected her. He often pushes people away in canon because of the way he sees himself and he lacks a lot of experience in a lot of ways, so he's not that mature in that aspect of his life either.
THEN SWIFT'S HEART HAPPENED. He got to experience Swift's side of it and he . . . suddenly was aware that there was a lot more there on Swift's side of things. He couldn't keep denying to himself that there was something there, but he wasn't entirely sure either. OR MORE THAN HE WASN'T SURE IF HE WANTED TO ADMIT IT OUT LOUD. But he didn't lie to Swift and he decided it was better to talk and then Swift took the initiative of wanting to kiss after Zuko admitted he wouldn't mind doing it without mistletoe and . . . he couldn't deny his own feelings anymore. AND THEN THAT MADE HIM FREAK OUT, but not . . . hurting Swift became more important than his own mental freak out so he couldn't just run away from it. He had to face it head on, because it wasn't honorable to hurt Swift after saying that, after kissing him and after everything. HE FELT RESPONSIBLE TO DO THE RIGHT THING, except the Right Thing is such a huge theme for Zuko in canon. :'D WHAT WAS THE RIGHT THING? To end things with Swift before they even started because he already liked Fuuma even if that meant hurting himself and Swift; to find a way to make it all work out even if monogamy is a huge deal to him personally and he probably would get jealous of Swift or Fuuma liking someone else; or to end things with Fuuma and stay with Swift because Fuuma and Kamui seems like a thing that will eventually happen and potentially hurt him a lot?
He's still not sure if what he's doing is what he should be doing, since he doesn't trust himself enough for that. But Zuko sure doesn't want to hurt Swift (or Fuuma). So when Swift made it super clear that he was okay with it as long as Zuko didn't just leave him, he . . . decided he couldn't. He didn't want to, because Swift was important. Not wanting to hurt either of them was more important than his own fear and unsure feelings about not being able to handle it, or the possibility of hurting himself more in the process. He also feels very selfish about that decision, because he's more aware than anyone that it's unfair to like two people and maybe date them both, but Swift saying he's okay with it and Fuuma . . . being Fuuma, are giving him the reassurance to try.
THOUGHTS?! DO YOU WANT TO DATE ME IF I DON'T WANT TO BREAK YOUR HEART, SWIFT.