Board Thread:What Would You Do?/@comment-35738644-20190918012820/@comment-36855838-20190918230758

"Long time no see, string puller."

She looked down at him, six foot titan that she'd become, and the tears continued to trickle down her face, to drip from her chin.

"Should I know you?"

He spied his reflection in a shop window.

"I suppose the beard doesn't help much, does it?"

She blinked, leaning in for a better look.

He put on his best scowl, and her eyes widened.

"Well, this is certainly a surprise! You've lost weight since I last saw you!"

He forged a smile.

"Yeah, I suppose I have, and you seem to have gathered a bit."

She looked herself over, clad as she was in a hoodie and sweat pants, her new curves were pretty obvious, incluing a newly round belly.

Her face contorted for a moment, and then she returned the plastic grin.

"Hey, want a candy bar?"

She held out a Horsey's milk chocolate.

"I couldn't possibly-"

"I insist, take it."

He reluctantly complied.

"Let's go sit down!"

She put an arm around him, and pulled him to the bench.

Plopping down first, she pulled him into her lap, and held him there with two of her keratinous limbs.

"What do you want?"

She paused, her hard legs having slid down his thighs to press against his knees, drawing him closer.

"I want you to stay."

"And why do you think you deserve that?"

"I know I deserve it."

"Why?"

She stood up, held him tightly by the hand and dragged him to the food court.

She stuck him to a chair and returned with two plates, piled high with chicken tenders and fries, and a pair of drinks.

"I can feed you."

He nodded.

"I don't care, I can feed myself."

She motioned towards him.

"Clearly not, you're starving."

"So what if I am? I'll endure death by starvation before I become your punching bag!"

"I'm sorry you saw our friendship that way."

She took a fistful of fries and ate it without chewing.

"You never could apologize, could you."

"I apologized plenty."

"You never said you were sorry for what you did to me."

"I'm sorry you saw it that way."

He chewed slowly on a chicken tender.

"What I don't get," she said between bites of food, "is why you thought you were too good for me," she sipped her soda, "I'm the best thing that ever happened to you."

"You're a child in a woman's body, and you couldn't control your emotions so you took them out on me, every day for years."

"You're one to talk, throwing a tantrum so things will go your way, than giving up seconds later."

He stopped eating.

"Oh, no, don't quit on my account, I actually care about you, you know. I'm just a bit rough around the edges, that's all."

He pushed away the plate.

"I'm sorry you think that will work on me."

She shifted subtly, but it made all the difference, she now looked like a pot about to boil over.

"Explain, I'm oddly hard of hearing."

"I left that day, wound up a few towns over, and for the first time, I felt like I was free. I thought I could finally be happy."

He took another sip of lemonade.

"But there was a hole inside of me, you were gone, I had spent every day for years, waking up, and dreading our fights. I was drowning without you, without someone else to blame all my feelings of worthlessness on."

"So you found a replacement?"

The tears got tangled in his beard, they always did.

"No, I found someone worse."

She moved to sit next to him.

"Tell me about her."

"She was everything I hated about you and more, and the perfect person to fill that void. But she kept chipping at me, making the hole bigger, carving it out to suit her."

"And how did you separate?"

Her arms were around him.

"I felt like I was choking, I couldn't breathe, I h-had trouble walking without jumping at the slightest sound, I couldn't sleep for weeks, she was always, always in my dreams, just like when we met."

"Trevor-"

"Don't say my name."

"Why?"

"It's what she said, every time she-"

"E-every time. She said it every time."

"It's okay, you're not with her anymore. You're with me."

"She said those things, so sorry you thought I meant to hurt you, I really do care, you just can't see it, I'm not like the last girl, I really love you, I can't possibly hurt you, I love you after all, I'm the girl of your dreams, Trevor!"

He was panting, out of breath.

"Come on, Trevor, I'd-"

"never do that to you!"

He fixed her with a pointed gaze.

"I don't need love, Caroline. We need therapy."

She nodded.

"I'll do it, I promise, will you?"

Trevor nodded.

"When we finally put ourselves right, let's go for coff-"

"No. We will put ourselves right, and we'll stay in touch. If we fall in love, that's what will happen. For now we need to focus on our health."

"Okay, but let's do lunch again, here every day. I need something to do, and you need at least one friend around here."

"Yeah, I found out about Marcus the other day, that leaves you, me, Kenneth, and Andrew."

"Yeah, it makes you think, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Let's finish eating, I'll walk you to your car."

"Thanks, Caroline."

He took a bite of the next 'Tender.

"Friends?"

Trevor smiled, his eyes finally joined in, like they hadn't in years.

"I'd be delighted."

---

Do let me know what you thought, I had a few things in mind while writing this, including the episode "Free Churro," from season 5 of Bojack Horseman.

Of course, the Tsundere is definitely the sort of person nobody should ever want to be with, and I clearly saw it in a pretty dark way.

My story, as I see it, is not true, not in the sense that it is a fiction, but in the sense that it is not perfect, I am certain others can (and will) write far better down below.

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Replies I recieved, and my responses to them reside below.

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JoeKeep wrote:

@Justheretowrite: Okay, I was legit crying at the end. That was literally me and my first GF ever. It was 25 years ago, and I still remember.

I suppose I should mention the one line I had in mind most of all from that episode of bojack.

"My husband is dead, and everything is worse now."

This line, as Bojack says, was what his mother decided to say at his father's funeral, both of them were awful people, and while Bojack rambles, he guesses at what she meant.

Perhaps she just felt like that was what a normal, nice person would say at a funeral, or perhaps she knew that her husband had replaced her savings with crippling debt, and she would later have to pawn off all her valuables and sell her home.

And then he says, it's like Becker.

A show that he says had all the right pieces, but that could never put them together, and he always watched it, hoping it would.

When the show got cancelled, he was upset, not because of what it was, but because as long as it was on the air, a part of him, the stupidest part of him, was hoping it would get better.

That's what losing his mother was for him, what he supposes losing his father was for his mother.

"My mother is dead, and everything is worse now."

I suppose the other big influence was the Non-Apology, if you missed the news recently, The canafian head of state was recently discovered to have gone in brown-face for a costume party.

What stands out about this, is that he apologized sincerely, something which is so often absent among U.S. politicians and public figures.

The Non-Apology falls into an emotional area similar to GasLighting, (denying reality in an effort to confuse, disorient, or drive insane another person).

These three all tie into a person blaming themself for the transgressions of others, who are manipulating them to believe they are nothing, such that they will follow demands.

These concepts all pull at a core theme of what i personally find especially abhorrent, unfairness.

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Abyssal Champion1038 wrote:

You know, I really don't like the tsundere trope. but strangely i know a few people who are attracted to the idea of a tsundere. I wrote this so I could see how people would react to a situation where a tsundere became self aware and starts having a crisis. I like your reply, I find it really thought provoking. good work

I suppose the initial appeal is the Dere part, they are incredibly cute by design.

Then, over time, if written properly, the tdundere will gradually soften and naturally form a relationship with whoever they're interested in.

The key is in avoiding going too hard with making them rough, slapstick levels of antagonism are not a healthy basis for working towards a relationship.

"It strikes me that the only reason to take apart a pocket watch, or a car engine, aside from the simple delight of disassembly, is to find out how it works. To understand it, so you can put it back together again better than before, or build a new one that goes beyond what the old one could do. We've been taking apart the superhero for ten years or more; it's time to put it back together and wind it up, time to take it out on the road and floor it, see what it'll do."

— Kurt Busiek, Astro City on the whole point of Deconstruction