#romance rambles

my secret slightly ashamed romantic power fantasy (because all romance is a power fantasy, make no mistake) involves the unmanageable, emotionally unreliable, loud/crass man coming to heel because he meets a woman he cares for so much. like, the guy who has a personality but it’s abrasive and sharp without bein ~edgy. he just runs his mouth and it gets him into trouble and then he just isolates himself further. like a male daria. or mr. darcy whose social awkwardness involves him being the cause of many awkward silences.

and suddenly all the years of a lack of self-awareness or his utter lack of interest in the feelings of others comes crashing in on him as he realizes hey, he has to be better than this. he knows to be ashamed of himself, his past behavior, and his inability to realize he doesn’t have to sacrifice a value he has (honesty) while also maturing as a person. and this shame inspires him to change and grow not for the woman, but for himself. he unlearns bad behaviors and starts to listen, starts to communicate, starts to just... be less of a battering ram with a mouth and legs.

and the woman who inspired all this doesn’t have to lift a finger. she has no emotional labor to shoulder at all. hell, maybe she even has a contentious relationship with him throughout all this because she has such a good read on why he’s terrible. the point is, he changes because he listens to and respects her.

Minho, Newt and Thomas started smoking (they refused the liquor, they were very much attached to Gally's special drink) Gally refused because of his missing lung and was also the catalyst in why the Ivy trio didn't end up with a nicotine dependency. He first noticed Thomas moving to steal one, he'd been swamped by translation work and was extremely stressed. He grabbed Thomas by the shirt and dragged him to the beach. He let Thomas vent about his work and his other gripes and soon enough found himself venting to Thomas as well. They built a small bubble of trust with each other, where their old rivalry doesn't matter, where nothing matters but the present and their friendship. Minho was the next, Gally caught Minho with a cigarette perched between his lips hiding under a tree in the forest that was nearby the camp they had. Gally snatched it from his mouth and insisted that Minho talk to him instead of smoking away his stress. It didn't take very long for Minho to be inducted into Gally and Thomas' bubble and when he was, they only got closer. Thomas was the one who found about Newt, he didn't try to hide as much and Thomas and Minho did, he was laying in the grass drawing as he took drags from a cigarette that he held almost proudly between his index and middle finger. Thomas laid beside him and asked if was was alright, Newt tried to insist he was but Thomas was always good at telling when newt was lying to him, so he pressed a little more but assured Newt that it was fine if he didn't want to talk about it. Eventually Newt was pulled in the trust bubble as well, it took him longer to get comfortable with everyone but they were still tightly knit as could be.