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chocosvt · 6 years ago

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⚬ pairing: soonyoung x fem!reader. ⚬ word count: 12.8K. ⚬ warnings: drugs, alcohol. ⚬ genres: theme of unrequited love, friends to lovers, romance, a good dosage of angst, fluff to mend your heart, spiciness near the end.

✧✎ synopsis: there are lots of bits and pieces that come with being a best friend and soonyoung is certainly taking his time in figuring them out. was it right for his stomach to somersault at the sound of your laughter? was it normal his smile fell when junhui took your hand? he isn’t exactly sure what a best friend really is, but he’s sure of what it’s not.

✧✎ a/n: this was requested to me awhile ago! anon asked for a hoshi!best friend confession w lots of fluff. but ME being ME. i literally cannot write anything without turning it into some angsty, love-laced, fluffy fuckin roller coaster of ??? so..um.. yes… enjoy!!!

If Soonyoung had one wish, he would – without question – wish to glean the thoughts of others, to understand the precise lettering in their head when he stared them in the eyes. Sure, it was kind of lame in comparison to something like invisibility, the power of flight, a wish for a hundred more wishes, but he didn’t really care about those things because they didn’t apply in any way to the one thing he did truthfully did care about: you.

He knew he was rather eccentric to say the least, and maybe that caused some people to glance at him strangely, develop their own notions concerning his variety of behaviours. Soonyoung knew that you at first saw him that way too, and he was perfectly content with that. However the pathway into your thoughts soon became blurry when your relationship escalated.

Because at this moment you were ‘best friends.’

At least in the premature days of your friendship Soonyoung had been fully certain you thought him to be bizarre and oddly energetic. But things were largely different now. The more you know about a person, the more your head fills and fills with the shiny bits of their character; everything that makes them, well, them.

And sometimes the people you meet are so outstanding that you can’t even pluck one word down from a sky full of twinkling adjectives to describe them. So how was Soonyoung supposed to live comfortably when he looked deep within your eyes and couldn’t read their writing? What did you think of him besides a best friend? Did you ever let your mind wander beyond that? He was itching terribly to see within your mind.

Yet he was equally suppressing a fear that you could perhaps gauge into his own galaxy of notions, that you could fix the constellations together and see how Soonyoung’s thoughts about you delved much further than friendship. Hopefully if a genie ever approached you, you would never pick to have the same wish as him. You were more of the invisibility type anyways.

Soonyoung was a dancer. It built into a passion that burned him hotter than bubbling wax, a compulsion to illustrate an entire story through the art of his movements.

Dancing invited more blessings into his life than setbacks. Twisting an ankle was temporary, but turning the lights off on Lee Chan to hear his high-pitched scream pierce through the practice room walls was forever. Aside from meeting Chan, Soonyoung came to know Minghao, the boy with a knack for photography.

He was always outside the studio at dawn taking pictures of cobwebs that sparkled with dew, or the mute colours belonging to the downtown street as they would blend against a soft, lavender sky. Soonyoung was so extraordinarily close with both boys that he thought it was time to start warming up to the studio’s newest addition, the sharp-featured, broad-shouldered, incredibly long-legged Wen Junhui.

The studio was full today. Chan was busy mounting his iPod to the doc station, Minghao was highly concentrated on tying his sneaker, and even you were there, sitting in a chair off to the corner sipping impetuously from a milk tea and thumbing through your phone. Soonyoung loved having you visit the studio during his training. There was such a prideful glow that encompassed his chest at viewing your complete awe of his performances.

Junhui was the last to arrive. He pulled off his long, wool trench coat and tossed it onto a hook after the duffle bag slid from his shoulder onto the polished floor. Beneath the heavy coat he wore a simple white t-shirt and black sweatpants. When Soonyoung caught a peripheral glimpse of himself in the anterior mirrors, he did a double-take, subsiding with the fact he was wearing exactly the same as Junhui, even down to the stripes along the leg.

There wasn’t much versatility available when it came to practice clothes. It was of course more appropriate if they were loose, comfortable, and breathable. Minghao was usually the one to come in a wide array of outfits since fashion was another dominant area of his life, but still, Soonyoung found his gaze trailing to the mirror a little too frequently to switch between himself and Junhui. He looked at you as well, but you had yet to note Junhui’s presence.

Not that it needed to be a competition.

“So, do you guys just jump in or…? Do you do some stretching, an exercise?” Junhui asked whilst swaying back and forth, his hands awkwardly digging into his hips.

Minghao looked at Chan, but Chan was looking at Soonyoung who was looking at you who was looking at Junhui. It was a mouthful, but the point was that Junhui wore the expression of tiresomely holding a grin much too long for a family photo, desperately waiting for someone to cut the tension and throw him a bone. Soonyoung was sort of the captain who orchestrated the practices, so he took initiative, pulled his gaze from you, and smiled warmly at the newcomer.

“Yeah, we do a bit of stretching first, and play some music to get pumped up. Minghao got you caught up with the choreography for our newest project, right?”

Junhui carded his fingers through his black hair, though the tresses simply flopped back to their initial curtain over his forehead. “Yes,” He then said, “I’ve got it all down.”

“Great,” Soonyoung replied enthusiastically, (he heard your muffled cackle escape the hand tightly woven across your mouth, but chose to ignore you), “Better get started then. How’s the music working, Chan?”

“It’s set up. Do you have any suggestions?”

Soonyoung saw you cross your legs and take a notably loud sip from what remained of your tea. He scoffed playfully at you and inquired, “Do you have a suggestion, [Y/N]?”

“Why yes, I do, thank you for asking,” You responded whilst eyeing him with a composure that suggested you were withholding laughter, “I think that you should play Life is a Highway for your warm-up song.”

Minghao snorted almost too quickly, “You’re so funny.”

“Shut up,” You toed off your flats before tucking your legs close to your chest, “You guys play the same three songs every time. I’m trying to spice up your boring lives.” It was then that your gaze fell upon Soonyoung, and for a split second a tiny, electric jolt smoothed up the length of his spine, the imploring glint of your eyes already sanding away his resistance.

“Please can you play something different, Soonyoung?” You cooed.

Like a wilted flower, he was far too weak to conjure the strength to protest. “Okay, okay,” He agreed, “But it’s Chan’s iPod. He has to have the song.”

“I have a suggestion,” Junhui’s dulcet voice suddenly intervened after remaining quiet amongst the dispute, naming some song Soonyoung had never heard of in his life.

Immediately you squealed from your perch, your hands flailing about, “I love that song!”

Soonyoung heard Junhui’s laughter for the first time, brassy and in short breaths, his face pulling taunt in a wide, ear-to-ear smile that let his teeth and their rosy gums show. You were beaming in Junhui’s direction, babbling on and on about the artist and your love of her music as the boy eagerly nodded and continued brightly laughing. Soonyoung felt his chest tighten, like it was trapped within a balloon that had just popped, the thin plastic pulling so harshly it was almost suffocating. The feeling only became more apparent when he looked between you and Junhui.

“I don’t think I have that song…” Chan mumbled as he flicked through his playlists.

Soonyoung breathed out almost gratefully, “That’s okay, we ca—,”

“I have it actually,” Junhui piped up, “Would you mind using my iPod instead?”

Chan shrugged, “I’ll hook it up for you.”

“Awesome,” Junhui chirped before diving into his duffle bag.

Minghao had finally popped up from the ground and was making his way across the room to grab a water bottle. Soonyoung joined him, and together they hovered at the opposing corner whilst Chan, Junhui and you included swarmed the doc station. Soonyoung couldn’t evade the manner in which his stare adhered to you beside Junhui, how you titled your head up at him, eyes seemingly enchanted.

There was a bitter taste washing into his mouth, though it certainly wasn’t the water. He felt Minghao nudge his shoulder, a warm chuckle then fanning against his ear,

“Careful with Jun, or else you might not have a best friend any longer.”

Soonyoung didn’t possess the right heart to laugh, so he feigned a lousy scoff and began walking toward the centre of the room, the music at last easing through the speakers and echoing between the glossy wood as well as the high ceiling. You returned to your chair, grinning with pleasure and chewing at the straw of your emptied milk tea. Soonyoung was stretching, occasionally tracing his movement in the mirror, though he faced ample distraction.

You usually watched Soonyoung stretch, but now you were watching someone else, and that horrendous, tight feeling in his chest stayed with him throughout all of practice.

Considering that Soonyoung spent nearly an entire day at the dance studio, he was expecting to feel nothing short of fatigue; a particular drowsiness that might tug at his eyelids until it became a chore to keep them locked open. Most days he went to the studio a little earlier than lunch so he could have an excuse to go out on the town and eat with his friends. Besides, they often played nonsensical games, such as whoever tapped the light switch last was the one to pay for the entire meal.

It was usually Chan who lost since he was always occupied with something else whilst his older friends were deciding the game. However, Minghao generously payed the most, taking advantage of a vacant table to call over the server whilst Soonyoung and Chan were discussing the scent of the soap in the washroom.

This particular morning, Soonyoung received a text bright and early from Minghao, his phone vibrating next to his disheveled, spiky hair as an amber spool of sunlight slanted through his curtains. The next thing he knew, he was standing on the bridge just a block down from the studio with Minghao kneeling across the street, setting up what he referred to as ‘an immaculate shot’ of Soonyoung against the sky’s flush, peachy pink colour, illuminated beneath the fire of sun rays.

“I just needed someone to model,” Minghao explained as they walked back to the studio together, “You were one of the first people to come to mind.”

“Awe,” Soonyoung crooned, the faint blush on his cheeks identical to the hue that blotted the sky, “Thanks.”

But then Minghao had to go and throw a bucket of water over Soonyoung’s happiness.

“Next to Junhui. You know, when I first saw him in the studio I wanted to ask if he had ever experimented with modelling. He’s quite defined, like his face was cut from marble or something. He opened up to me a bit when I was catching him up with our dance. He did a lot of acting when he was younger, went to one of the most prestigious schools in Shenzhen, and won first place in a bunch of piano and Wushu competitions. Can you believe that?”

There was that feeling again, that stupid bitter feeling that made itself painfully known by wedging into Soonyoung’s chest like a wooden splinter. He had only walked a short distance from the bridge, but he hardly contained enough breath in his lungs to even sound fascinated or deeply intrigued. Junhui had never given Soonyoung any reason to formulate malice toward him, so why was such a sullen atmosphere suddenly clouding his mood?

“He’s a pretty extraordinary guy,” Soonyoung commended whilst staring straight ahead.

Minghao huffed, sounding marvelled, “No kidding. I mean, yeah, he’s kinda odd, but he’s got a hundred lifetimes beneath all those trench coats. We should invite him to eat with us next time.”

Soonyoung wasn’t properly filtering his thoughts. Suddenly he scoffed, “Yeah, I bet he’s a world class chef too. He’ll just whip up the whole meal from thin air at the drop of a hat.”

Laughter immediately bloomed from Minghao’s chest, the younger then slouching an arm around a stiff Soonyoung’s shoulders and lightly punching him in his side, “I think he has some experience in cooking! Sounds like you need to talk to him more.”

“I think we talk plenty,” Soonyoung earnestly defended whilst steering away from his friend’s grasp, knowing that plenty in his own dictionary meant: ‘as much as I think is necessary, so probably once or twice.’

When Soonyoung was nearing the end of his day at the studio with Minghao, you made the decision to swing by and bring them take-out from a small family business down the street. He was so hungry that hardly any conversation clung to the air apart from slurping, chewing, and drinking noises. Minghao tried to be more civil in his eating, but Soonyoung had known you for so long that he could eat like a starved animal and still meet your warm, adoring gaze afterward.

You then walked back to Soonyoung’s place together, smiling and laughing and haphazardly bumping into each other as day faded into night, fully expecting to receive a brutal shove that made him stumble off the sidewalk in consequence. Whilst Soonyoung took a shower, you threw yourself happily onto his bed, flipping through old comic books that had the particular scent of aged paper and fiddling with his Rubik’s cube that never seemed to change colours apart from when you touched it.

Soonyoung remembered the few times you’d asked him why he kept all this stuff.

He always said something along the lines of, “Oh, y’know, I’m gonna start hoarding now so I can get on TLC,” when in reality it was a far fonder reason that engendered his skin to surge with an embarrassed but candour heat.

He kept them because of you. He was in love with the way you looked when you lay perfectly content across his bed still rumpled from morning, smiling faintly at the fragile, yellowed pages of the old comics he kept on the shelf because you always read them. He was in love with the whittled concentration on your face as you hunched over the Rubik’s cube he won at some spelling bee in the tenth grade, valiantly twisting the cubes, adorably huffing when it was never quite right.

Soonyoung was in love with how you were always patiently waiting for him to emerge from the shower, head poking up from the mattress, your eyes drawn to him as though he were brilliantly glowing. He never got used to the feeling of his heart jumping so profoundly in his chest when you fell asleep beneath his bedsheets either, even when you promised you could stay awake for ten minutes at least as he dried off his hair with a towel.

No matter how many times it had happened, he still felt the same. He still had this feeling that never quieted.

In fact, it blared incessantly when he was with you, demanded to be released because there would come a point when Soonyoung would be incapable of compressing it any longer.

Now that the day was approaching its final chapters, and the sky had bled out its soft, rosy colours into patches of cobalt and dark indigo, Soonyoung wasn’t at all exhausted like he expected. Maybe it was because he had you tucked close against his side, your leg strewn over his lap, your arm curled around his stomach like a tight wire that never lost its shape. He could feel the gentle warmth of your breathing tickle his neck as your head cozied at his shoulder.

Together your eyes were transfixed on the sea of stars that speckled the sky, stretching so far and wide you almost believed you could see the Earth’s curve. It looked like a silk sheet that had been pricked by a thousand pins, leaving tiny breaks of luminescence to shine through from a different world that perhaps constantly glistered with light. A few meters away at the floor of your feet burned a small fire, slowly crackling out its embers.

He was only in his backyard, yet having you pressed so close with entire galaxies looking down on him, Soonyoung felt that he could be in a paradise beyond anyone’s comprehension. It was his paradise, but it only became complete when you were in it with him.

And maybe tonight as you leaned against half an oak trunk, entwined beneath an endless sky and a fire prickling at your feet, its light capturing your expressions like a photo frame, would Soonyoung unearth the courage to confess his heart to you.

“[Y/N],” He hummed, rolling his shoulder gently, “You still awake?”

When you shifted your gaze to blink up at him, your faces were in such proximity that Soonyoung could count each of the golden flames that reflected in your eyes.

“I guess,” You replied, laughing slightly at your own humour, “What’s up?”

This was it, the perfect moment to confess, to put his one wish into action and finally comprehend the pictures your mind illustrated when he intruded your thought. Soonyoung hadn’t planned much to say in advance, he was more about spontaneity, seizing moments as they came rather than charging a current that would never crackle. There was nothing to distract you from each other, just the black sky and cool earth that remained silent as Soonyoung pressed you closer against him with the arm wrapped around your waist.

“Well, actually,” He began, knowing there was quite literally nothing that could make his confession any easier, “I want to tell you something, and I’ve been meaning to say it for a while now, but it’s not like, the simplest thing to tell somebody, especially your best friend, so if it sounds stupid and just totally incoherent then…”

You set your palm on his chest. The very second your stare met his frantic eyes that fluttered faster than a hummingbird’s wings, a weight dropped to the soles of his feet. How was it possible that someone could make him so downright nervous, yet so enamoured and spellbound at the same time? You giggled at how tongue-tied he was. Soonyoung’s laughter mixed with yours, but it was evidently uneasy and oddly breathy and the sincerity of your gaze had brought his heart to pulsate in his throat.

Your brow stitched together as your hand continued to lay on his chest, the mellifluous, innocent chime of your giggles replaced by accumulating concern.

“Gosh, your heart is beating a hundred miles a minute, Soonie. Are you feeling okay?”

No, he fought off the dire urge to scream, but somehow found a single tassel of composure to latch onto. He thought he would be able to elaborate, but then your hand rose from his chest and suddenly your fingertips were brushing softly along his jawline, stroking the sweltering skin with a gaze that could melt thick slabs of titanium. He wasn’t sure if you were attempting to calm him, but it certainly did the exact opposite.

You appeared so innocent beneath the moonlight, yet the fire’s orange glow ignited half your face with such an intense beauty he could hardly break his desire to kiss you right then and there.

Okay, Soonyoung thought, I know what I’m going to say. He’d swallowed the remaining taste of his fear, nodded confidently, and took your hand that sweetly grazed his jaw to hold within his own grasp. But then—

Something buzzed in your jean pocket. And then it buzzed again, and again, and again. You heavily sighed whilst fishing for the device, a lurid sheen bathing your face as you separated from Soonyoung to check your messages. His entire chest thundered to the floor, shattering as though it were a glass vase, his confidence and composure instantly seeping away like the water inside that once gave life to the vase’s beautiful flowers.

When you turned back to look at him, an apologetic glimmer in your eyes, Soonyoung had this sinking feeling his confession wasn’t meant to be tonight.

“I forgot I asked Junhui to pick me up. He’s waiting out front.”

Soonyoung nearly choked. “Junhui’s picking you up? Usually I drive you home.”

“I know, I know,” You replied quietly whilst staring into your lap, “But I thought you would be tired after such a long day, I didn’t want to bother you. Besides, Junhui was really happy to do it, you should have seen him.”

As much as Soonyoung yearned to argue, he wasn’t about to leave what was once a perfect and spectacular night on an unpleasant note. He simply nodded. Your heat that had encompassed his body drifted away into the night as he grabbed the pail next to the fire, silently dousing out the entrancing flames and glowing embers in a tiny hiss. He saw your frown when he set the pail down and led you inside, your arms folded over your chest as the cold air suddenly nipped into your skin.

“That thing you wanted to tell me,” You murmured whilst standing at the doorway to his front porch, “How important was it? Can it wait?”

Soonyoung opened the door for you, smiling half-heartedly as you ducked under his arm and waved at Junhui who had the car running at the end of the driveway. Figuring he should wave too, Soonyoung gave a lousy toss of his hand, this cloud that was heavy and depressing growing denser and denser in his chest by the second.

“It can wait.” Soonyoung really had no other choice but to make that his verdict.

You smiled meekly at him, giving his cheek a small pat before stepping off the porch, hands delving into your pockets as Junhui popped from the driver’s seat to open the passenger door for you. Soonyoung observed how the contours of your face brightened when looking up at Junhui, how your laughter was already echoing into the crisp, chilled air. He wasn’t sure how to describe the feeling that rung through his body at watching you two together.

Soonyoung could only think of the once brilliant fire that lost its heat, its strength, to the wave of water that snuffed out its radiance in a mere second.

Maybe he felt something like that.

Soonyoung sat on a patchy green sofa that had at least four broken springs, ten coffee stains, and twenty-five burnt circles from cigarette ashes, feeling the lowest he had ever felt in his life. He kept purloining Minghao’s silver flask of cranberry vodka and partial gin to take quick, impetuous gulps, hating how the alcohol hardly stung his throat because he was just so damn numb to everything. The party was probably approaching its climax, yet in lieu of enjoying the raw energy Soonyoung was stuck on the stoner’s couch.

Minghao was next to him, but not because he wanted to be. He was simply cognizant to the fact that when Soonyoung let his melancholy consume him, he became even more unpredictable and his behaviour could spike at any given moment. Minghao would rather not get trapped in the whirlwind of his friend’s rage, though he figured he could keep him settled with more vodka if that storm were to start brewing.

Wonwoo orchestrated the stoner’s corner like it was his own business, constantly offering the use of his chrome grinder and organizing his rolling papers in case anyone had the instant urge for a hit. He offered Soonyoung a joint at least three times already. Minghao had declined each invitation for him since the sole thing Soonyoung did was unresponsively stare into the distance, but on the fourth attempt, he finally seemed to break from his musing and accept it.

Using the elder’s lighter, Soonyoung leaned forward with the blunt between his index and middle finger, giving sharp little sparks to the end of the paper until it began to slowly crisp. It had been awhile since he’d last gotten high, but the wispy curls of smoke he exhaled off his lips transiently distracted him from what he’d been blankly staring at. You and Junhui were situated at the base of the staircase across the room, looking with very evident ardour into each other’s eyes, smiling, flirtatiously brushing the other’s cheek or arm.

You were dating him, had been for the past six months.

Well, at least now Soonyoung knew what had been most occupying your thoughts, and it certainly wasn’t him. That initial jab to the chest when you first gushed to him about your new relationship with Junhui was absolutely one-hundred percent terrible. He didn’t think the pain could get much worse. But then the hole in his chest where that jab struck began slowly collecting with this estranged poison. As it filled and filled, the poison seeped and seeped, spreading throughout his body with the burning sensation of a wildfire.

The fire seemed to irreparably char his nerves.

In the beginning it unbearably hurt Soonyoung to see Junhui hug you, kiss you, stroke his fingertips down to your hip before pulling you tightly against his body. But then he noticed himself feeling nothing at those same sights that used to be so painful; there wasn’t even a crackle, a fizzle or a hiss. If he were to glean one feeling, it was emptiness. As he blew the smoke in gentle puffs from his mouth, alcohol scorching hot in his veins, Soonyoung found himself looking at you again.

He supposed that beneath the ashes his heart still beat, and it still beat because it refused to give up on how he felt about you.

He darkly eyed the flask in Minghao’s lap.

“Give me that,” the boy suddenly barked at his friend.

“Are you sure?” Minghao posed with concern, watching Soonyoung eagerly take another hit off his joint before he left it on the coffee table’s ash tray. “Do you want to step outside for a minute maybe? Get some fresh air?”

Soonyoung growled, “Just give me the fucking flask.” He’d already swiped it from his lap, hastily spinning the cap off and taking a long, deep gulp of whatever alcohol remained.

He didn’t even grimace after shoving the flask back into Minghao’s grip, instead scratched a hand through his thick, black hair, further disarraying the strands. Wonwoo had pretty much rolled over in his seat at this point, counting invisible sheep that jumped on the ceiling, and everyone else occupying the stoner’s corner was too blazed beyond coherence to even take note of Soonyoung’s sudden aggression.

Minghao opened his mouth, then silently closed it, following Soonyoung’s clouded gaze to where Junhui had you pressed against the wall, hands slowly squeezing down past your hips to the black fabric of your pleated skirt.

The manner in which your fingers slowly plunged through Junhui’s hair and tugged wantonly at the strands suggested what your mouths were busy with. It certainly was far from conversation. Maybe then Minghao understood what was racing through his friend’s mind as he rose from the couch, using Minghao’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Be right back,” Soonyoung mumbled, not squandering another breath as he weaved his way between small congregations, leaving Minghao to sit on the couch in slight bewilderment whilst the cogs turned in his head.

Feeling emboldened, Soonyoung marched right up to Junhui’s broad backside, an unusual calmness steadfast in his blood even when he could hear the way you softly moaned against the boy’s plump mouth. It could have been the alcohol, it could have been the intoxicating aroma of the blunt still lingering in the dense air, or it could have been the fact that Soonyoung just didn’t fucking care anymore. He was determined that this would be the night he at long last confessed his heart to you.

“W-What?” Junhui stuttered when Soonyoung tapped his shoulder, turning around in a disoriented fashion, his eyes lasciviously hooded and lips shiny.

You appeared to recognize Soonyoung before Junhui had. Surprise leapt across your face like a tidal wave, and whilst Junhui was still processing that someone had interrupted his make-out session, you were harshly swallowing, appearing overwrought beneath the dim lighting.

“Can I talk to you outside?” Soonyoung said very firmly, making it clear he was speaking to you and you only by gently grabbing your wrist.

You licked your lips, eyes darting between your boyfriend and Soonyoung, seemingly unsure on whether you should agree or not. Soonyoung was well aware of the fact he most likely reeked of alcohol and marijuana, his hair was completely strewn in every direction, his gaze not the clearest nor was his patience concretely stable, yet he still prayed that above his manic state you would be able to connect with him. He needed you to share a moment of your time now more than ever.

“Please,” Soonyoung implored, hardly able to care about the desperation rife in his words, “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Junhui parted the lust curtain draping across his concentration, finally seeming to acknowledge the situation. Well, more like the situation he was more or so not included in.

It was then, as your hand fidgeted to properly hold Soonyoung’s, fingers fitting like puzzle pieces between his own that the boy knew he’d gotten his wish. You stepped away from the wall your body was once pressed against a mere minute ago, quickly stroking Junhui’s cheek whilst murmuring into his ear, “I’ll be right back. Sit tight.”

Junhui blinked a bit mistily, but nodded, allowing Soonyoung to guide you out the front door where the cool night air dusted his skin and refreshed his senses. There weren’t many people out front. A majority of them were walking along the end of the road, talking on their cellphones, presumably calling someone to pick them up or asking a friend where they were parked along the line of blinking car lights.

Soonyoung didn’t want to be too close to the house, nor did he want to be right at the curb. He just wanted to place enough distance between himself and the party that he could hear his own thoughts. You didn’t start asking questions until Soonyoung pulled you beneath the overhanging leaves of a willow tree near the property’s edge, your eyes glistening in disconcertment against the darkness, fingers wrapped around Soonyoung’s hand so tightly that he could feel his circulation dwindling.

“S-Soonyoung,” He heard the dry gulp between your words, “What are we doing out here?”

He then let go of your hand. Instead, he cupped your cheek, caressing in slow, gentle passes along the heated arch using his thumb. It was like the entire world became shrouded in silence as his touch grazed your skin, burning profoundly, with the strength of a catastrophic supernova.

“I’m in love with you.” He spoke softly. The words sounded vastly different aloud in lieu of in his head.

Your expression marginally twitched.

“I-I… What did you just say?”

“I know that sounds so fucking weird for you to hear,” Soonyoung murmured, his thumb pulling back to rub circles upon the sweet spot just in front of your ear, “And I know I couldn’t have picked a worse time but… I’m just so sick of pretending like I don’t look at you every day, wishing I could be more to you. I need you to hear this. I just—I need you to know how I feel about you.”

Soonyoung couldn’t help himself. He’d never felt this consumed by your beauty. Titling your head back, Soonyoung admired you, allowed himself to mellow in the firm warmth of your cheek beneath his palm, how he could only wish to have you closer and whisper everything about you in which he was infatuated by. Every little secret he’d kept hidden over the years, he wanted to tell you all of them, place kisses on your skin in the places that made you tick between each confession.

A breeze then whispered between the swaying fronds of the willow. It delightfully swept upon Soonyoung’s skin and transiently cooled the raging pulse that was practically electric in his veins.

Perhaps he was entranced, but you were a gigantic question mark. Your lips were parted, yet they made no sound. He could feel your pulse thundering behind your ear, yet you stood so still. Never seeing your expression like this before, Soonyoung could only breathe with the faintest rise in his chest. Evidently you were lost, you were panicking, and your eyes were screaming at him with everything he couldn’t read.

Eventually you budged. Your hand rose up and your fingers wrapped around his wrist. The touch could have been everything Soonyoung wanted most in the world.

“Why are you saying this? It’s because you’re drunk isn’t it? Or you’re just high. You have to be, or else... Or else I don’t understand…”

But instead that touch pulled Soonyoung’s comfortable palm from your face and returned it to his side.

“It’s not because – I mean yes, I am a little drunk and a little high – but I’m being completely one-hundred percent serious right now.”

The sheen of your gaze was noticeably lacquering, “You mean as a friend though, right?”

With every word that pursed at your lips, Soonyoung felt his hopes deflating.

“No, not as a friend. I want to be more than friends,” He found himself being verbose, but he couldn’t help in expressing his heart, every sentiment he’d locked inside it for as long as he could remember. His words, they openly flowed, the heat that inhabited his body mounting. “I want to be with you. I want to take you out on dates, wake up next to you, kiss you at the end of every day. I want to be the only person who’ll ever get to touch you, make you breathless but so, so happy. I’m in love with you.”

Emotions repressed to the deepest whorls of his being were welling up within him like rainwater, “What isn’t clicking?”

“What isn’t clicking?” You were beyond flustered repeating his question, soaked in pure bewilderment that clasped onto you, made you involuntarily rigid and tightly wound. “What do you expect me to say to that, Soonyoung? What are you expecting to happen?”

He tangled a hand through his hair, burying his fingers close to the scalp so that it stung and kept him grounded. “I… I don’t know. But I can’t keep it inside anymore.” A look of pain slotted across his face. “I even tried confessing to you that night we were together in my backyard, with the campfire. But it didn’t work out. Even before then I’ve wanted to say something—anything to you, but it’s just so petrifying and I’d never had anyone make me feel that nervous before.”

You were no longer holding eye contact. Your stare was glossing the grass, the stray tatters of dry leaves that had blown in from old wind, your body frozen from how overwhelmed you were feeling. It was only mere seconds that trickled past, though it felt like agonizing hours before you spoke again. Your voice was as strong as tattered cloth, nothing but wisps struggling to remain together.

“But why wait?... I-It’s just that... That you waited so long— ,”

“It’s really not easy, y’know?” Soonyoung chuckled, though it crumbled away in seconds, in the time it took his hand to collapse back at his side. “Having to pretend that you’re not in love with someone? That fucking eats away at you, [Y/N]. It’s the reason I’m telling you this. I just... I don’t want to be miserable anymore, thinking I’ll stop feeling this way about you when I know how untrue that is, when you’re on my mind twenty-four fucking seven and I can’t even sleep because of it.”

There was this sensation pushing at his tear ducts, incredibly hot, scalding even, but he was able to blink it away. However, perhaps you weren’t as tuned at concealing your emotions. A sniffle suddenly pervaded the silence and Soonyoung saw you wipe your hand beneath your eye, your stature shrinking inward akin to a flower kept hidden from the sun.

“I-I’m sorry, Soonyoung. I didn’t know you felt this way… I didn’t know it was bringing you all this pain and I—,” Your tongue peaked out to wet your lips as your fists clenched, nails burying upon the fragile flesh like crescent daggers, “I don’t know what to say to you. I-I don’t. I’m so fucking sorry. I just don’t have the words right now.”

In an instant his expression earnestly softened.

“Hey, c’mon,” He cooed whilst pulling down his sleeve to dot the first tear that had slipped down your cheek, glistening like a little pearl. He knew in the case of a sober Soonyoung, it would be impossible for him to formulate malice toward you because you couldn’t reciprocate his feelings. As elated as he would be for you to return the sentiment, there was still much for you to process.

However, with the weight of the alcohol and the intoxication of the blunt, he was far from sober. He could feel it dragging him down, could feel disarray teetering at his brain’s forefront like a performer balancing on a tightrope.

“It’s not at all your fault, okay?”

Yet he did his best to soothe you, to flatten the creases of your pain. Soonyoung moved timidly, unsure of whether he should pull you into an embrace, but as you sniffled once more and clutched the sleeves of his hoodie in need, he was gliding his arms around your neck, gently resting your head against his shoulder where he knew you were bound to find solace.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, sweetheart.” Sounded his tender murmur.

It almost felt like a dream, the fact he could stand here with you forever, beneath the slight rustling of willow branches brushed silver and the cool air that ghosted his skin in the gentlest reassurance. Clocks were turning, though the world certainly felt still where you were standing, seconds adding up into minutes as your hair tickled his nose and made Soonyoung smile to himself.

But there persistently remained a shadow prowling at his awareness, the live wires that sparked his senses becoming increasingly dull as the alcohol and marijuana burrowed deeper into his blood. For a fleeting moment he felt like he could be floating, almost as though his body were more weightless than the air sweeping his flushed face. Soonyoung suddenly wobbled. At first you didn’t seem to pay much attention, until his condition then veered toward the inevitable and he swayed slightly before leaning a little too far into you.

Soonyoung felt you shift in his arms.

“Are you okay?” You squeaked, but he couldn’t focus on even a single sector of your body as the rush to his head continued pumping. All Soonyoung registered was that you had stepped away from him.

“M’fine,” Came his slurred response. He stumbled a few misplaced steps toward you before finding his footing. Whatever composure and reason he once possessed, it was slipping, fast.

Your hands gripped his shoulders to steady him. Peaking up at him, watery-eyed and innocent, your mouth then opened. For a split second Soonyoung believed he was truthfully going to hear those three words echo quietly to him and his blood began boiling hot enough to bend metal, the world slightly spinning beyond your frame. Yet instead you were stepping away.

All that remained attached was your hand in his.

“Soonyoung, listen, you need to reunite with Minghao. Those drinks, whatever it was that you smoked, it’s getting to you, alright? We should really go back insid—,”

“Are you in love with me?” He blatantly interrupted, blinking widely and unconsciously speaking louder than beforehand.

Soonyoung watched as your mouth slowly gaped, heard the fluttering of a sentence catch in your throat. It seemed that very meticulously, you were choosing what to say.

“I... I love you but, not in the way that... I mean, I think you’re a really, really phenomenal friend, Soonyoung, and I value what we ha—,”

An impulsive flare whirled to life inside him. The sole thing that seized his body to the same amount as his alcohol and half-smoked joint were his emotions. He couldn’t evade how he cut you off, the words that catapulted from his tongue so distanced from what he would have said in his right mind.

“Don’t do that,” His voice sounded like it was going to split, heart plummeting faster than an anchor to its sand bed beneath the sea, “Y’know I want to be so much fucking more than that. I-I want you, need you, please.”

“I know, Soonyoung, and I wish more than anything that I had the words for you,” You unsteadily warbled, your lips trembling whilst an unprecedented type of hurt cracked between your words, “ I’m so, so sorry, but I just… I-I can’t. I’m with Junhui, and I’m committed—,”

Soonyoung sharply squeezed your hand, an abrupt, indignant pain welting on his tongue, “Y’re with him? When you walked away from getting fucked to be out here with me? With him but y-you’re always staying the night at my place... Fall asleep n’my bed, wear my sweaters in your underwear, kick your legs over my lap so you can have my h-hands on your skin. Say you’re with him but what do you really feel?”

“What are you doing?” A hiss ruptured your voice and the tone drastically flipped. “I’m still out here with you because I genuinely care about your feelings and want to hear you out. You’re the one trying to force this narrative that I don’t actually want to be with Junhui. How do you know what I’m feeling, Soonyoung? How do you expect me to walk back into that fucking party and face my boyfriend knowing my best friend just said he’s in love with me?”

Fingers sheathing tightly into the skin of your hand, he pulled you back into him, looking you square in the eyes. He saw how they pooled with constellations of emotion and turmoil, and they might have looked strikingly similar to his own if it weren’t for the alcohol masking the dark ore of his gaze, the lingering potency still settling from his joint.

“How do I know what you’re feeling? I know because I’m your best friend. I know you better than Junhui ever will.”

With your chin pointed up at him, leaning in so close Soonyoung could see the slight bruising on your lips from Junhui’s kisses, he had to fend off the overwhelming urge to cup your face in his hands – to do exactly what Junhui had done when your body was flush against that wall. Soonyoung wouldn’t care if Junhui walked outside and saw either, if the entire party rushed from within the house to watch his lips connect with yours beneath the willow tree.

Still, he knew there was no way he’d won your heart. In fact, through the thickening of his daze, he knew he’d made everything ten times worse. Instead you huffed at him, snapped your hand free, and whipped around with word that Minghao would be sent to fetch him. You abandoned him beneath the moonlight’s solemn rays, the canopy of drooping branches that enclosed him akin to a metal cage.

The most agonizing part of it all – Soonyoung having to accept the fact that maybe he didn’t know you as well as he thought he did, that all his wishes seemed to crumble when he needed their magic most.

“It’s almost ten o’clock. Did Junhui forget to roll out of bed or something?”

Chan was lying on the shiny hardwood, his arms stretched out behind him whilst he stared into the ticking clock above the mirrors. There had never been a time where Junhui was late to practice at the studio. He didn’t exactly prefer waking up at nine in the morning, which he made very apparent in his texts to the group chat, sending bathroom pictures of himself angrily brushing his teeth with his hair still spiked up on one side from his pillow.

No one really knew how to respond to the pictures. Soonyoung used to say he only sent them despite just having flopped out of bed because he thought he looked good.

“I don’t know,” Soonyoung replied from his sitting position against the wall, using the outlet next to the coatrack to charge his phone, “Maybe he forgot to turn on his alarm.”

Chan sighed heavily and got to his feet, “Well, I don’t feel like waiting around. We can start the warmup without him.” He then mumbled something about getting his iPod set up, along with listing more reasons as to why Junhui could be late.

Soonyoung wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t really listening either. He hadn’t gotten a message from you in the past couple days, therefore drawing out this strange obsession that included him ceremoniously checking his phone for something that wasn’t even there. Before his confession at the party last month, you messaged Soonyoung quite frequently.

Before you started a serious relationship with Junhui, you had texted him every day.

The bond between you undoubtedly shifted, and Soonyoung believed that the world hadn’t felt like a real place since he poured his heart out to you beneath the weeping willow. When you whipped around and thundered back inside, Soonyoung remained outdoors, staring at the soil your presence had occupied mere seconds ago, unable to feel the cool breeze feather at his cheeks or hear Minghao’s shouts of his name when you had approached him spitting fury.

Word spilt before it even had the chance to be trapped.

Like sand grains slipping through a tight fist, it appeared that everyone and their dog was cognizant of Soonyoung’s confession, his little crush that actually wasn’t a crush at all, but a deep, profound love that he couldn’t ever seem to make tangible. You couldn’t even stand next to each other outside the entrance to the lecture hall or sit next to the other on the bus without the knowing gazes splaying across your skin. A few times you’d both gotten unbearable jokes. “Just kiss her already!” or, “I hope you’re being loyal, huh?”

They would always smile ear-to-ear afterward; crinkle their noses before swinging their hand like it was no big deal, saying, “Oh, I’m just kidding!,” As if the air between you wasn’t already thick enough to slice through like butter.

Of course, this concluded that Junhui caught wind of the details concerning that party and its events, in which Soonyoung had indeed unabashedly confessed to his girlfriend beneath crisp moonlight, surrounded by the shimmering locks of an almost fairy tale-looking tree, hands holding hands and breaths so close they mingled. It sounded quite romantic and definitely something to be alarmed about.

However, Soonyoung made the decision to pull Junhui aside before their first practice after the party to explain that he shouldn’t worry, that you were completely infatuated by Junhui and that his presence in your life was a far greater focus than Soonyoung’s own presence. It was inexplicably awkward, especially as Junhui only looked at Soonyoung with impassive, blinking brown eyes and a parted mouth.

“It’s okay,” Junhui told him, “I’m not scared that she would run off with you or anything.”

“Yeah,” Soonyoung responded, firmly slapping him on his broad shoulder, “Definitely not. You guys are great. I just want to put this behind us.”

But Soonyoung never really truthfully, “put it behind him.” He was still in love with you to an extent that couldn’t fit within the universe. It was indescribable. His confession merely scratched the surface of what he truly felt, yet love could be such a complexity that it was best demonstrated through actions rather than words. Well, that’s what Soonyoung learned at least – his words had certainly not been enough. He could only continue to support you as a friend, even if it felt akin to a knife twisting through his heart at times.

Spiraling back to the present, Soonyoung finally looked elsewhere rather than his phone as Minghao returned from the washroom, stretching his arms high above his head. He paused at the corridor, taking in the brightness of the studio as sunlight shone through the windows.

“So, he’s really not coming, huh?” Minghao rasped as he continued his stretching.

Chan was still focusing on the doc station, scrolling through the playlists on his iPod. “Are you talking about Junhui?”

“Yeah,” Minghao sighed, speaking presumably, like Chan and Soonyoung were already supposed to know the reason for Junhui’s absence.

“Did he text on the group chat?” Chan asked.

Minghao’s brow suddenly pinched together, his face hollowing, “Uh… No, he sent it to me only. But—Oh my god! That means you don’t know what happened!”

Soonyoung then felt his phone buzz in his hand.

“What?!” Chan exclaimed after tearing his attention away from his music, entranced like a little child witnessing a magic trick, except the magic was replaced with modern day drama, “Tell me! What happened?”

Peering down at the white light of his phone screen, Soonyoung nearly choked, his eyes opening wide and gleaming almost skeptically as he repetitively read the message, scanned the ID of the person who had sent it to him. Minghao begun speaking quietly, his voice shushed, as though the information he possessed was extremely confidential and ears all over the nation were intently listening.

However, Soonyoung knew he couldn’t stay; in fact he was already leaping to his feet whilst Minghao beckoned Chan over and said,

“Well, Junhui and [Y/N]… They broke up last night. And to make matters worse, Junhui was planning on saying the L word too.”

Chan gulped, “Love?”

“Yeah,” Minghao solemnly nodded, “But, I don’t know, she broke it right off in the middle of his confession. He’s devastated and that’s as much as I know. I figured he wouldn’t show up to practice.”

“Wow…” Chan touched his fingers to his lips, wearing a highly perplexed expression as he seemed to entre a personal musing. But then he was calling for Soonyoung who was in the midst of hastily wriggling on his pullover, grabbing for his duffle bag at the same time.

“Soonyoung, did [Y/N] say anything to you about—Hey! Where are you going?”

His head suddenly popped free from the collar, a hand ruffling out the black fibres of his hair as Soonyoung quickly glanced down at his phone.

“Something came up,” He coughed into his fist, “I probably won’t be back. I’ll explain everything later!”

Minghao hardly grasped the chance to bark out, “What the hell are you talking about?” Before his friend had shot straight like a bullet toward the door, practically toppling onto the sidewalk and grunting an impetuous apology to some lady he ran into. Soonyoung felt the burning singe of his friends’ eyes (not to mention the lady herself) at the back of his neck, watching him dart away from studio without a clue as to what provoked this unprecedented urgency.

All they had to understand was that he would explain himself in the future.

All that Soonyoung had to understand was one simple thing.

[Y/N | 9:58am]: can you come over? please. i need you.

He knew he was a bit late the second he arrived at your porch, the wooden, faded blue steps creaking beneath his weight and his heart ferociously pumping. Soonyoung brushed a hand against his sore ribcage as he knocked on the door, waiting in an anxious coalescence of overwrought nerves and a budding hopefulness. On his way over he’d passed by his own house, which prompted Soonyoung’s decision to shove his duffle bag through his bedroom window to discard the troublesome weight.

However, he then had a small epiphany, found himself climbing and squirming through to grab something that he was unable to leave without.

The doorknob jiggled.

Soonyoung stood in the sweetened, morning air, the birdsong turning into blurred background noise as his breath hitched and the moisture in his throat dried up, waiting for you to appear. Though when the door at last swung open and the sunlight twinkled in the wet depths of your eyes, the sight reminded him of why he charged here in utmost determination. A mess stood before him to put it kindly, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes – so distraught that your lips quivered, bitten bright like rubies, so emotionally drained that once glossy tear tracks turned to matte patterns on your cheeks.

Defeat had spun you around its orbit for far too long. You couldn’t even speak, just glanced at Soonyoung and hiccuped in the preluding fashion of a sob.

Immediately he’d stepped past the doorframe – every bittersweet word of his confession, every aching memory of your relationship with Junhui, every argument you’d ever had completely erased from his mind. Soonyoung solely focused on your comfort, planting his gentle hands against your cheeks, massaging away the damp film that slowly reformed beneath the sore skin of your eyes. His thumbs picked up the tiny, glistering beads and swept each one away.

Your fingers shakily kneaded into his waist, twisting the thick fabric of his pullover as though it would absorb and alleviate your pain.

“You’re okay,” Soonyoung lilted softly, “I promise you’re okay. I’ve got you now, and everything’s gonna be alright.”

Despite your strength being quite meek at the moment, Soonyoung could feel the loop your arms formed around his waist had infinitesimally tightened. Your body surged with the faintest flicker of energy as he rubbed his thumbs upon the warm skin of your temples, pressing a kiss to the space between your brows. As you breathed in tatters, the unstable warmth ghosting at his neck, Soonyoung kissed the space again, this time his touch lasting a bit longer, the tautness of your frame that was like a crossbow slowly loosening.

“S-Soonyoung,” He heard you breathlessly croak whilst blinking at him wetly, “W-What’s w-wrong with me?”

Soonyoung gave your face tender squeeze, his thumb brushing away a stray tear that soaked from between your lashes, “What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong with you, baby.”

But you immediately shook your head, a hiccup sounding at the back of your throat as you grabbed onto his waist harder. “No, no, no,” You chanted, “Please don’t lie, Soonyoung. I hurt you a-and then I h-hurt J-Junhui. That’s all I do a-and I don’t know why. Why do I do this?”

He sighed, the strained cadence and desperation in your voice newly pronounced to his ears. This state of agony you’d wilted into was uncharted territory for Soonyoung – he had to be careful and delicate with his choice of wording. After sticking his arm out to close the door, he took a light grip on your chin using his index finger and thumb, pointing your face upward where he could examine your expression in clarity. You had inflicted pain into his life, yet he could never get angry at you for it.

“Try not to be so rough with yourself. You’re a gorgeous, strong girl, and people are going to fall for that, okay?” Soonyoung humoured slightly, knowing that was merely a sliver of the reasons he’d fallen for you. Still, there remained a serious nuance in his tone. “People are going to come into your life, they’re going to evoke feelings from you, and you’ll evoke feelings from them. Just because those feelings don’t always match up, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you.”

His thumb stretched out to stroke your jaw, his gaze warm, flaring in amber hues reminiscent of honey.

“You have so much time to discover what you want in your partner. They’re gonna come along one day and sweep you right off your feet, all these things you worry about will turn to dust. I know that for a fact, trust me. But for now, please just focus on yourself, sweetheart. You need some time to heal, alright?”

A cast of sunlight shafted through the glass on the door, pooling in a melted, golden stroke across your face. Audibly you gulped and sniffled, blinking at Soonyoung against the heat of the sun’s ray before returning back to his shoulder, your nose softly pressed to his neck where he could feel that your breaths had exponentially calmed. He smiled, his palm rubbing up and down along your spine, gently easing whatever small sobs you had left into open air. It wasn’t until your arms loosened around his waist and your voice quietly rustled by his cheek that he stopped.

“S-Soonyoung,” You feebly squeaked his name.

“Yeah?”

“Do you… Do you have something in your, um, pocket?”

That’s when it came to him. His face lit up as he dug his hand into the pocket of his pullover, your expression incredibly perplexed as Soonyoung pulled out his Rubik’s cube.

“I do actually,” He chuckled, “This thing! I had to run by my house to come here, and I had my dance bag with me. So I just shoved it through my bedroom window. But then I saw my Rubik’s cube and thought… Well… I dunno really. Maybe it would like, relax you or something since you’ve always liked playing with it. It doesn’t make a lot of sense when I say it out loud.”

He spilt into a wide smile at hearing your laughter. Maybe it trembled slightly and foretold the start of a deep exhaustion, but it allowed Soonyoung’s heart to feel less heavy.

“No, it makes sense,” You giggled, pawing beneath your nose, “I just— I can’t believe you would think to bring that.”

Soonyoung shrugged, speaking with such casualness as he said, “Well, I’m always thinking of you, so.”

Your mouth opened slightly for a transient moment, revealing nothing but a black diamond gap until you seemed to shake away whatever thought plagued your mind. You took the Rubik’s cube from Soonyoung and then looked back into the corridor, sniffling whilst you touched the wall with your hand before sinking down to sit on the floor. Without having to think, Soonyoung slouched down snug beside you, shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg.

Already you were working the different panels with a dexterous speed. Leaning his head against the wall, Soonyoung watched silently, though enjoyed thoroughly. The silence was tranquil and continued as the sun began etching higher and higher into the eggshell blue of the sky, a dusty sea illuminated in warm, caressing light as floating particles shone through the glass door.

He felt a faint weight on his shoulder, peeked down to see you resting against him.

Swallowing as discreetly as he could, Soonyoung harnessed the courage to set his hand on your bare knee, his lips curling when you didn’t protest, just continued to fiddle and experiment with the cube. However, his lungs were teetering on the edge of shriveled leather as you momentarily paused your game to grab his wrist, move his hand higher up your soft, smooth skin until you placed his touch at the inside of your thigh. White speckles tingled in his peripheral vision. He wanted to pinch himself just to ensure he wasn’t dreaming.

“Is there anything else I can do to make you feel better?” Soonyoung asked whilst peeping at the game from above your head, squeezing the warm skin of your thigh reassuringly.

There was a pause the scope of a heartbeat.

“Stay.” You then replied.

So he did exactly that.

It was a somewhat late night at the studio, a couple rotations past nine o’clock, the streets slowly but surely beginning to teem as most prepared to embark on a Friday night escapade. Minghao had gotten out of the shower fairly quickly, but Chan must have aimed to dawdle or maybe take a nap beneath the soaking hot water and webs of steam. There was hardly any heat left, even when Soonyoung cranked the handle all the way to the right, into the red section.

Still, it felt rejuvenating to peel the sticky clothes from his skin that had once adhered like paper-mâché and stand beneath the water, his eyes closed, hair swept back from his face, hands gliding and scrubbing the ache from his muscles. Minghao had come up with the idea to go out and dine, so whilst Soonyoung would usually be at home at this point, snuggling into bed, probably thinking about he could fall asleep so much easier with you in his arms, he was instead getting ready to stuff his face.

Not that he would ever complain about such a thing.

Roughly two weeks had passed since Soonyoung cradled you in his arms, your tears absorbing into the fabric of his pullover, a hand soothing down your spine in an attempt to crease out your self-loathing. Two weeks had passed since you sat together in the corridor, his gaze trained to how you maneuvered his Rubik’s cube, almost on the brink of solving its puzzle until there was a single panel that didn’t match and you huffed in sheer frustration. The cube was still sitting on your dresser.

Soonyoung never bothered asking for it back. He figured you could make much better use of it than he ever would. Little by little, it felt like your friendship was padding its way back to its golden era, where life wasn’t so serious and there wasn’t this attribute of stiltedness whenever you were alone together. Junhui seemed to be feeling better too. He started arriving at practices a week after the break up, though it was impossible to truly read the writing on his heart. He was an actor after all. Maybe he was just immaculate at hiding his truths.

Unsurprisingly so, Soonyoung’s utter affections for you remained unyielding. When he believed you had attained remarkable stability back into your life, he made sure you were aware of this, in which his emotions were quite possibly never going to change. He wanted to make sure you were okay with everything – that you were okay with his thoughts about you, what he felt when he looked at you, that his desire to have you wasn’t something that imbued discomfort.

Soonyoung remembered telling you this by his campfire as you stargazed together, except there had been no interruptions.

Once he’d gotten out from the shower with a towel rubbing his hair dry, he could faintly hear the muffled conversation shared between Minghao and Chan.

They were speaking quietly, which Soonyoung found rather peculiar considering there was no one else occupying the studio apart from the three of them. He swore that your name as well as Junhui’s had popped up multiple times in the same sentence. Soonyoung was completely aware both you and Junhui were going to be at the dinner. Sure, it was off-putting and questionable, but you were mature and would know not to start anything to create an awkward atmosphere.

Hell – Soonyoung thought that even Wonwoo was invited.

However, Soonyoung’s curiosity was far too puissant. He couldn’t evade pressing his ear against the door, a smirk prancing up his lips as he strained to hear the conversation. It couldn’t be that fucking terrible, probably something about how it would be a little unsettling to have you and Junhui in such proximity.

But then—Oh no, Soonyoung’s jaw had bloomed with rust, nearly unhinging from its bone and clattering to the floor.

“Why are we whispering again?”

“Shh! Chan if you don’t lower your fuh— I mean fabulous voice, I said I was going to explain!”

“Sorry.”

“I-I have some news, but don’t start yelling, okay? Anyways, [Y/N] isn’t meeting us here and walking to dinner with us anymore.”

“What? Why?”

“Well… She’s going to Junhui’s apartment before instea—would you pick your mouth up off the floor? She’s going over to Junhui’s apartment beforehand.”

“How did you find that out?”

“Junhui told me. She texted him and said she wanted to come over.”

“Do you think she wants to get back together? Maybe she changed her mind and does love him. ”

“I have no clue, Channie. I really have no clue. But Junhui’s had some stuff he’s really wanted to say to her. Maybe they’ll come to the dinner as a couple, maybe not.”

“Damn, this is going to destroy Soonyoung. I… I—,”

“I know, and that’s exactly why we’re not going to say anything to him. We shouldn’t assume. We’re not going to assume. He doesn’t deserve this.”

Soonyoung wasn’t sure what the pain felt like exactly. There was nothing physical that could come close to its depth, its unbeknownst strength that abruptly flared within him so potently he could feel even his blood vessels concaving. He just knew it hurt. He knew that sensitive wounds recently set to heal had been torn up without warning, and they poured open, pouring and pouring as Soonyoung’s head thumped against the door, wanting to rail his fist through the wood if there had been no one there to witness him.

Actions weren’t solely reserved for testaments of love. They were just as representative of anger and heartbreak as they were anything else.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

Minghao posed as set his handbag around his shoulder, Chan standing next to him and shyly tugging at his fingers. They both gazed worrisomely at Soonyoung who sat on the table with the doc station, dressed in a fresh t-shirt and black sweatpants, not exactly the primmest attire for dining at a somewhat sumptuous restaurant.

“I never said I wasn’t coming, but I feel kinda sick right now. I might join you guys later.” He heartlessly defended, his arms lying like cement blocks in his lap.

Chan gulped nervously, “Y-You don’t have to make something up if you don’t want to g—,”

“I’m not making it up!” Soonyoung unabashedly snapped, leaning forward slightly and fists harshly balled to collect the energy in his outburst.

Chan didn’t flinch, but he most definitely looked drained, his face paling to that of morning frost. Minghao clearly read the situation much better than Chan, suspicions dangling at his mind’s forefront, however he wasn’t about to voice them and further collapse the situation when what he’d been craving all week was a relaxing dinner, some smooth music, a glass of wine to swallow his stresses to. Instead of interrogation, he decided to give Soonyoung the quietness and air he evidently needed, simply nodding his head with a tight lip.

“I hope you feel better,” Minghao said whilst patting Chan on his shoulder, “We should really get going though. There’s no pressure for you to show up. Do what you feel is best.”

Soonyoung leaned back against the wall, his legs bobbing as they hung over the edge of the table.

“Thanks.” Was all he muttered before Minghao and Chan left the studio, the enticing bustle of nightlife sounding for a mere fraction, until the door clicked shut and Soonyoung was left to kick his feet as cars sped past beyond the studio’s glass window.

Soonyoung was unsure of how long he sat in silence, his head titled to gaze upon the luminescent families of stars that gathered in the black sky. He couldn’t see the moon from his position, but he knew it shone brightly, a silver-bluish glow bathing the polished floor like an ocean light. If there happened to be a thing or two on his mind, it was a question rather than a sentiment.

How could you do this? You seemed to allow yourself to slip so effortlessly back into Junhui’s reigns, as though you were a tiny leaf on the pond, simply following the current that tugged you downstream.

Even when Soonyoung thought he could read you, it only took mere seconds for that confidence to be erased, yet there always remained a lifetime of pain that jabbed him wherever it hurt most.

Getting lost in his head, Soonyoung failed to recognize the figure that approached the studio in haste, which walked up the staircase and gently tried the handle to see the door push open. He failed to recognize the swift patter of its steps, the light citrus of its scent, even the melodic lilt that weaved into its voice as it ventured into the studio. Soonyoung felt like he’d been plunged underwater, his lungs withering to scream yet were unimaginably full of something dreadful.

He caught the figure’s eyes—your eyes, how they timidly sparkled.

You swallowed, arms unnaturally crossed against your chest. “Minghao said you would be here,” sounded your soft-spoken introduction.

There was no barrier separating you from Soonyoung, yet you hovered in the middle of the studio like there was a vast gorge that kept you apart.

Soonyoung nodded, “Yeah.”

You licked your lips, rubbing your arms up and down, “He said you were feeling sick. Is that true? Do you feel any better?”

“Dunno.” Soonyoung answered.

Despite his curt replies, emptiness echoed so loudly in between every pause that he suspected even you could feel a part of it. Very cautiously, you stepped further toward him. He wasn’t some feral animal that was going to burst from its chains and attack you, but you approached him as such.

“It didn’t really feel the same without you there,” You made the effort to potentially ignite some warmth into the air, “Not without your jokes and stuff.”

But Soonyoung indolently blew out the warmth with a cold reply of his own. “What are you doing?” He said. His tone wasn’t sharp, but flat, and he could see how you uneasily shifted at his complete flip of attitude.

Your arms fell from your chest, perhaps a foreshadowing of how you were willing to confront the obvious weight in the room, the dark shadow that prowled directly where Soonyoung sat, staring you down with ice in his eyes, but your gentle words suggested opposite.

“I want to talk to you.” You replied whilst stepping closer and closer.

Soonyoung remained mute, though continued to follow your movement, how you fluttered in step by step until you were standing right in front of him, right at his legs that dangled off the table.

He sat up straight and looked nowhere else but directly into your eyes. It had always been him that shuddered with nervousness, and now the coin had been tossed so that you were seeking trouble in finding composure, a method to ground yourself whilst his gaze prickled you like an intense fever. Soonyoung didn’t split the connection for even a second; he steadfastly maintained eye contact, your faces only inches apart as you momentarily looked to your fumbling hands before shaky laughter filled the studio.

“I-I, um, I have something to tell you, alright? But it’s really, really not easy. I don’t know how you’ll react or what you’ll say or what you’ll think of me but, I don’t want to keep this a secret. I guess there’s no sense in rambling though.”

You took a deep breath, your eyelashes feathering and hands pushing down past your stomach, almost as though your fear was palpable and you were attempting to subdue it.

Soonyoung’s eyes fell to the shape of your lips, how they pursed with the breath you exhaled. Your scent had encompassed him, mild and sweet like the fresh fruit of summer, and moonlight splashed along half your face, illuminating your skin like a glinting crystal. Perhaps he could have possessed more self-control, but this may be the last time he could ever act before what he suspected you were going to say became reality.

“Soonyoung, I need to tell you that I’m—,”

He didn’t resist. A squeak erupted from your mouth as Soonyoung slid off the table, his hands gripping with modicum force at your waist and pushing your back against the mirror. The second your skin seemed to hit the cool glass, a gasp burst from deep within your chest, Soonyoung then seizing the sliver of time to press his lips against your own. For a fleeting moment your body was rigid, though it fell ultimately weak, melted like cream into his touch as his fingertips tightened the silk of your dress into your skin.

Your mouth was soft, corresponding eagerly to his movement, and your teeth were gentle in their quick, teasing bites against the plush of Soonyoung’s lips. This specific moment what was played most commonly in his head, from restless sleep that could never grace his eyelids soon enough to long, morning bus rides where his head had yet to leave the clouds and the sunrise ignited embers in his vision.

But at last, he was kissing you; he was drawing heavy, hot breaths from your chest as he collected your taste on his tongue.

Briefly Soonyoung pictured the party, how he’d sat watching Junhui’s large hands roam your body, dig crescents upon your skin that was softer than a peach with his nails, turn the colour of your mouth a vibrant, cherry red, the sheen of saliva on your lips glossy and bright. But at long last it was Soonyoung’s turn to ruin you – to elicit the sharp, breathy mewl from your chest.

The mere realization further emboldened him, caused him to lick into your mouth whilst your hands trembled, threaded into his hair in tight, concupiscent fistfuls.

Inch by inch his kisses strayed from your lips. Your back was pressed with a more solidified firmness into the mirror as Soonyoung’s hand crept down your waist and tucked beneath your thigh, hauling it over his hip. His fingertips curved fire upon your skin, inducing a sting that overweighed in pleasure than in pain. You titled your head back, heat coursing through his veins when he heard a beautiful moan flutter from your mouth. His lips then reached the sensitive crook of your neck where the sweet scent was most concentrated.

His teeth delicately bit down upon the warm, velvet flesh, the manner in which you arched toward his touch encouraging Soonyoung.

His world was tuned to nothing but your hedonism, the tiny noises you were unable to supress beneath the wet pressure of his tongue against the new, glistening bruise. And it continued like that, blossom after blossom being suckled, nipped and licked into the column of your neck, your chest, fingers knotted into Soonyoung’s hair not to guide him, but to express the euphoria he masterfully summoned at your core.

However, as Soonyoung’s palms cupped your ribcage, and as his kisses adapted a much more sentimental, slower rhythm once they pressed upon the soft swell of your chest, there was a gaping feeling that howled inside him. He couldn’t have you. He shouldn’t even be doing this with you. Where you should have been was at dinner with your friends, enjoying the music, the food, the conversation. Despite Soonyoung’s intimate wishes to continue with your fingers tugging at his scalp in a dull sting, your breathless mewls, your swollen lips gasping his name, he believed you were not in love with him.

A splash rolled onto your chest, tiny and wet, and then another and another. Soonyoung had stopped kissing you, his grasp on your ribcage fading in strength.

“W-What’s wrong?” You questioned whilst he heard that your heart still beat like a metal pendulum. “Why did you stop? It felt so good, really good.”

Undoubtedly the damp trails were leaking from his eyes. They were no longer tinted with a thick lust, but a vacantness that left his irises hollowed and indiscernible. Soonyoung’s vision of his marks on your chest blurred. He heard you gulp, your fingers winding down from their tangled clasp in his black hair to gently cup his face; raise it into the meagre light of the studio.

“Soonyoung? You okay?” However, the very second you peered into the clear lacquer that lined his eyes; he assumed that you understood his answer before he even spoke it.

“N-No.” His voice cracked.

The soft pad of your thumb brushed beneath his eye. “Tell me what’s wrong,” You were notably pleading rather than politely asking, “What’s hurting you?”

He didn’t care anymore. His face plunged straight into the junction between your shoulder and neck, his hands uselessly clutching at the back of your dress, compressing the silk in his hands. Your heartbeat thrummed throughout your entire body, and Soonyoung could easily detect its sporadic pulse with his ear pressed tightly to your neck. He hiccupped and the dam suddenly broke loose, your fingers coaxing down the back of his head in a lambent hope it would soothe him even marginally.

“Y-You don’t love me, you don’t love me, you don’t love me but I’m so fucking in love with you that it’s all I can ever think about. Nothing has ever hurt this bad but I can’t keep myself away from you. I-I don’t know what to do. You’re with Junhui again and I want to be angry at you because how could you fucking do this to me when you know how I feel about you, how badly I want you, how I’d drop everything for you. B-But it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault and—,”

“Soonyoung, Soonyoung,” You’d gotten a hold of his face, fingers gripping into the teary trails that soaked from his eyes, from his gaze that had broken like a glass sheet. “I need you to listen to me, baby, okay? Calm down.” Soonyoung wetly blinked at you, never having experienced such a heartfelt reflection glaze in your eyes.

Sweeping the black hairs that had masked to his flushed, tan skin, you gave his head a small shake, staring at Soonyoung with moonlight slanting across your features.

“You beautiful, beautiful boy who I adore so much I can’t even describe it. I’m not with Junhui, I don’t know where you got that idea from, but I’m not with him. I came here specifically to tell you that—,” Your thumb brushed beneath the plump curl of his bottom lip, “For fuck’s sake, that I’m in love with you! I’m in love with you, and I am being one-hundred percent serious.”

Your hands drifted from his cheeks to the sides of his face, where Soonyoung could feel their slight pressure and their solacing heat.

He wasn’t able to pinpoint that last time he’d allowed his emotions run so rampantly before you, completely abducting control of his body until he felt like a vessel running on autopilot. His face was still damp and there were watered pearls clinging to his eyelashes, though Soonyoung wasn’t as concerned with a little blotchiness marring his vision when you looked at him like you needed him, like you couldn’t live without him.

The tender, grazing movement of your fingertips along his jaw pulled with a feather’s daintiness, Soonyoung sniffing a bit raggedly as your arms then wrapped around his neck.

“If you’re wondering about why I drove to the dinner with Jun, it was just because I left a lot of things at his apartment I wanted to pick up. I was finally feeling well enough to face him on my own… When I broke up with him, I knew exactly why I did it, Soonyoung.” You chewed your bottom lip and huffed in slight amusement, adapting to how it felt to ultimately speak these realizations, these thoughts, aloud.

“I did it because I finally understood this feeling I’ve always had for you, but could never put my fingertip on. I know that I’m in love with you. And, like you said, one day someone is gonna come along and sweep me right off my feet, make me forget about all my worries as though they’re nothing but dust. You’ve always been that person; I guess I just didn’t understand myself well enough at the time to see that.”

Fragile laughter rumbled in your throat, “You really took all my years of blissful ignorance like a solider, huh? I’m not really sure how I’ll ever make up for that.”

Soonyoung hands returned to your waist, clutching with a notable pressure, as if your body was fabricated from the swirling soot of a star that could ghost between his fingertips in a mere second. He straightened his posture, rested his forehead against your own, and peered directly into your eyes that blinked at him with a sentiment he could at long last read.

Without another wasted heartbeat, Soonyoung whispered right at your cupid’s bow, “You can be with me.”

To which a smile blossomed at your bitten, bright mouth.

“I’d love that more than anything.” Your voice slipped into a gentle hush just before the tips of your fingers swept down his neck, guiding Soonyoung forward the tiniest amount to kiss his pink mouth so sweetly.

The night ended on quite an interesting note. Minghao ended up hopping from the dinner table early because he was reunited with the sudden urge to photograph their memorable night; however, he’d forgotten his camera in his dance bag which he left at the studio. The air was chilly and misted, but felt ever so refreshing against his skin heated from many glasses of wine. As he quickly paced down the street, nose buried in his coat and hands in his pockets, he found himself coming to an abrupt stop outside the studio.

With a hammering heartbeat clogging his throat, he vigilantly did his best to peek into the dance studio’s front window, his jaw hanging on by a mere thread as he gauged the sight that had been beautifully framed by a shower of moonlight. Soonyoung’s hands were pressed against your back, holding you close to him whilst your arms cradled his head at your shoulder, fingers just barely combing his hair. Together you swayed, tangled in the other’s company, to a much muffled melody Minghao had to absolutely strain to hear.

Once he saw Soonyoung’s iPod glowing from the doc station, Minghao nodded to himself, a smile crossing his lips at a relationship he never thought possible.

Yet, now that he witnessed Soonyoung raise his head from your shoulder and softly capture your mouth in a slow and gentle kiss, Minghao could see that it was a relationship that made the most sense. As much as he yearned to fetch his camera, Minghao decided to place his own needs aside. Besides, he would most likely return to the restaurant to find Wonwoo offering the server a blunt and Chan shoveling handfuls of mints into his pocket whilst Junhui distracted the front-of-house manager.

Minghao left the two of you to your moment.

Soonyoung had finally attained his wish.

✧✎ a/n: lol starting this i inferred it would only be abt 6-7K... obviously that DID NOT happen! i dont know why my brain is solely programmed to make such long stories. i mean... i have written shorter things... but not very many. hopefully you can see why it takes me eons to respond to requests!! i havent posted smth this lengthy in a while so i hope those who read it had fun!!! comments r welcomed!!

it felt very nice writing a one-shot for soons bc i only have ONE other one-shot for him... and it’s like done in a second. Tragic!!!! anyways, i envisioned this story listening to allie x’s song, catch!! i would have linked the song, however adding links seems to prevent work from showing up in the tags :( if youre interested in listening tho, i guess youtube exists lol. this author’s note is going to become as long as the fic if i dont stfu, sooo... BYE!!!!

#seventeen scenarios #hoshi scenarios #soonyoung scenarios #hoshi #soonyoung #seventeen angst #hoshi angst #seventeen fluff #hoshi fluff #kwon soonyoung #svt fanfic #friends to lovers

2K notes · View notes

nothingofnotereally · 6 years ago

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Unpacking Rebirth!Talia’s Upbringing

Okay so…. Can we talk about Rebirth Talia al Ghul? People who aren’t familiar with her history, her almost 50 year history at this point, and more importantly aren’t familiar with it in depth often have no idea why it is that Talia fans think that her treatment post Morrison, but even moreso post-Rebirth, is a radical rebranding of the character they’ve known for so long. And I could talk about that, and maybe one day I will, but today I’m going to talk about something different, but related.

I’m going to talk about Talia’s background in Rebirth, how it accounts for her being a dramatically different character than she was in her classic form and whether she’s still salvageable as anything other than a mustache-twirler.

I. The Demon’s Daughter

Let’s be clear: the little we know of Talia’s rebirth childhood is absolutely horrific. Pure nightmare fuel. While their traditional dynamic was troubling and problematic, it was also loving in its way, and Ra’s was controlling of her, while also protective of her. Now, instead, we have this:

This issue has been out for a while, but I haven’t seen anyone really unpack what it is Talia is saying here, because we’re all focused on the stupid swordfight with Selina. But look at what it is Talia is saying and what it means about her upbringing.

Talia is saying that, basically since she was a toddler, she has been physically abused, and forced to fight, by her centuries old swordmaster father. In fact, her very first memory is bleeding from wounds caused by her father. From then on, her life is a fight to survive against her own father, which I’m guessing was pretty damn difficult especially when she was an actual child. And often, when she loses?

She dies. Or rather, she is murdered. Repeatedly. By her father.

And then he resurrects her and starts over.

And about those resurrections? It’s not like he just picks her newly killed body and immediately brings her back - check out that first panel on the second row. Not only is she killed and revived countless times, he lets her corpse at least partially rot before resurrecting her, so that when she returns to life, she is treated to the sight of her skin regrowing over her rotted flesh. And as soon as Ra’s notices she’s alive again… they start again.

How long did that go on? Unclear, but she’s still fighting him as a grown woman in the equivalent of this time period in The Gift...

...so I’m guessing the answer is “it didn’t stop until she left him.”

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the Rebirth version of Ra’s and Talia’s dynamic even was. The classic relationship doesn’t work at all with this backstory, and we’ve never really seen a lot of what the new paradigm might be since they’ve been out of contact since well before Rebirth. But what we do know is, she was an active assassin from a young age.

Unlike Classic Talia who was actually never an active assassin at all:

We can also glean bits and pieces of information regarding her Rebirth upbringing from other appearances. Over in Silencer, we find out that despite her brilliance, the fact that she was carrying out assassinations for him, and the fact that she could defeat her ancient swordmaster father even as a child, she was never good enough for him:

He was dissatisfied with her, and so he created metahumans using his genes to replace her. Ultimately, this drives her to plot against Ra’s because... who wouldn’t?

It’s not entirely clear what her ambitions were, specifically but judging from this bit of Batman and Robin (New52, but seemingly still canon for Damian’s backstory):

It involved winning Batman over to her side and ruling the world through Damian. This is further confirmed by her comment to Honor in Silencer Annual #1 here:

Where she indicates that Bruce is family to her, and still features in her future plans. What’s strange here is that she also says later that she intends to kill him personally, which is. Weird and out of nowhere, but what else is new. As a sidenote, Silencer is just strange because it ignores everything about Talia’s history not just in terms of changing her personality but in terms of ignoring the timeline of events, but... moving along...

Talia intends to form Leviathan to break free of him and pursue her own agenda. But, while apparently finding her insufficient, Ra’s cannot let her go. Not only that, he actively works to destroy everything she is trying to accomplish, including trying to kill Batman just because she desires him. In fact, he also tries to have Talia herself assassinated:

Another thing is, Rebirth Talia is rather older than she looks, as evidenced by her having been an adult when she met Honor.

Which means, in the end, we have a woman who was abused and repeatedly killed by her father, then thrown in a Lazarus Pit (but only after her body has lain around long enough to partially decompose!) and forced to repeat the cycle for who knows how long, but apparently quite a long time - decades, maybe centuries. Who even knows. She’s been working as an assassin since her teens. Despite her excelling and even surpassing him in various ways, he considers her inferior, and begins seeking to replace her with artificially created metahuman heirs. Eventually, Talia decides she wants to break with him, and he responds by first trying to destroy everything she cares about and then trying to have her killed.

OKAY, SO. Nightmare fuel. I genuinely can’t begin to imagine what it would be like growing up in that environment, and under the circumstances it’s certainly no shock that Rebirth Talia is warped.

Even so, what stands out to me in the B&R issue is that, initially, even her wildest ambitions required her to exercise power through a man – it’s just her son instead of her father or her potential husband. This says a good deal about how her upbringing, as well as her father’s fixation on marrying her off, has affected her self-image. And for those who say Talia evidences arrogance and self-importance… yes she does. Which is often a symptom of low self-esteem. In fact even Narcissistic Personality Disorder typically stems from overcompensation for a feeling of worthlessness.

The traditional/original Ra’s/Talia dynamic had some elements of this story, but not all and not nearly to the same extent. Furthermore, Classic Talia had something else - someone else - to love and look to for hope. Rebirth Talia does not. Because as far as I can tell, in Rebirth, Talia and Batman’s relationship has very little in common with the conflicted romance they shared in their original stories. And that’s how we transition to...

II. Beloved of the Bat?

So, Bruce Wayne.

Again, the extent of their relationship in Rebirth is unclear, but it definitely isn’t what it was pre-Rebirth.

The original Bruce/Talia story is basically as such: Talia meets him when she’s kidnapped by Dr. Daark, and falls in love with him. Bruce is also drawn and attracted to her. This results in Ra’s deciding to test Bruce for suitability as Talia’s husband and his own heir. Bruce passes, but unsurprisingly has no interest in running a criminal empire, though he does fall in love with Talia. This leads to a rather intense on/off romance that ultimately results in Damian Wayne, and continues until Tower of Babylon when Talia finally tires of being stuck between her father and her lover and breaks away from both of them. With Bruce and Talia’s relationship having been called to an end (by her, mind you – one day I may do a writeup on Bruce/Talia and how often what happened between them is misremembered by writers and readers alike), Bruce becomes involved with Catwoman in Hush. Even so, we see in Death and the Maidens that Bruce does still love Talia.

Meanwhile, Talia’s previously unknown sister Nyssa kidnaps and repeatedly murders and resurrects her (sound familiar?) until she more or less goes mad. By the end of the ordeal, she can barely speak, and she willing to do anything for Nyssa to avoid being killed again. This results in Talia disavowing her love for Bruce, which seems to be the catalyst for him to finally move on from her, though not without considerable pain.

Okay this is important to run down, because the Rebirth story has changed everything about their relationship.

Gotta love those evil expressions. It helps us remember that she’s a heartless monster.

Anyway so, In Silencer Annual #1, Silencer does note that Talia had previously said she was in love with Batman, so we know that she loved him, okay. But what does love mean to Rebirth Talia? We can find the answer to that if we go back to Roles of Engagement:

She “loved” him because she considered him a potential equal. That’s not really a bad basis for loving someone initially – and even Classic Talia’s love for Bruce was initially sparked from a place of admiration. But while Classic Talia eventually grew into a more complete love for him, it seems like Rebirth Talia is still stuck on objective: seek worthy mate. In fact, once it’s clear that she and Bruce are not coming back together, she just goes ahead and propositions Slade Wilson because she figures he can give her strong children, too:

Notably, this obsession with strong offspring sort of comes out of nowhere when Morrison takes over, but anyway, from that perspective it’s not hard to understand why Bruce’s feelings for her would also be somewhat muted in Rebirth:

Because while Classic Bruce/Talia was a love story that stretched for over 30 years in our time, and most of their adult lives in canon… Rebirth Bruce/Talia is repeatedly presented as a short infatuation on his end, and a dangerous obsession with genetics on hers. The above panel is from Batman #66, and is part of the Knightmares arc, which is important because while it appears to be Selina saying it… it’s actually Bruce’s thoughts about the women in his life coming out through his imagined version of Selina. And to him, those women amount to nothing much – none of them even warrant a direct callout. Everyone besides Selina is a “whoever.”

Interlude and Sum I

So... Classic Ra’s was controlling, possessive and dismissive of her at times, but he was also devoted, protective and genuinely loving. The relationship was complicated and problematic but affectionate.

Rebirth Ra’s is an abusive tyrant who repeatedly murders and belittles his daughter and, when she decides to break from him, attempts to systematically destroy everything she cares about and then have her killed.

Classic Bruce/Talia was a complicated romance between two people who genuinely loved each other, but were always separated by circumstances. He loved her for years, and she loved him unconditionally, and they struggled over that from the day they met until they permanently separated as a result of her being brainwashed.

Rebirth!Talia went in search of someone she considered worthy of her so they could have a genetically perfect child to conquer the world with. Bruce briefly had feelings for her in a moment between romantic rounds with Catwoman.

My point is this: Rebirth Talia has never experienced genuine love or support from anyone in her life, or for anyone in her life. Her relationship with the two men she traditionally loved, and whose love for her has imprisoned, empowered and defined her for much of her existence as a character, was utterly gutted in Rebirth, leaving Rebirth Talia’s life as a prolonged emotional void. Which makes what comes next remarkable in some ways… and predictable in others.

Because this is where we talk about Damian.

III. Olympias to his Alexander

Now, I’m not going to get into the circumstances behind Damian’s conception because what the whole hell, there is absolutely no consistency there. Various people are very invested in one or another of the myriad versions of his conception that DC has repeatedly retconned and revised, generally leaning to whichever one fits their preferred personal narrative, and that’s fine but objectively? Absolutely no consistency, situation unclear. So let’s just go with “Damian resulted from this mess.”

In Batman and Robin #0 we see that Talia basically raised him the way Ra’s raised her… with some major deviations. She used his desire to know his heritage and know his father’s name as the carrot to motivate him to succeed, rather than the fear of death and pain as a stick to punish him for failure.

Talia does not kill her son, whom she duels with wooden blades rather than steel. And she is not shown to physically abuse him… aside from the swordfights, which of course is already bad.

Mind you, I’m not denying that his upbringing is still brutal. What I’m saying is, placed in the context of her own upbringing we can see that she was trying to raise him with more kindness and greater love than her father had her – an improved parental style, but still reflective of the only style she, herself, has ever known.

So it’s predictable that he’s essentially mistreated… because she literally has never encountered an emotionally healthy relationship and wouldn’t know how to raise him any differently even if she wanted to.

But it’s also remarkable because despite that, you can see she is trying to be a better mother than Ra’s was a father, and not let Damian grow up feeling unwanted and unworthy the way she did, herself.

Unlike Ra’s, she never tells Damian he is insufficient – on the contrary, she holds him up as the chosen, a conqueror, and dreams of a future when he will lead with both parents at his back. Remember, this is a woman who was never seen as worthy of inheriting Ra’s al Ghul’s organization, and she wants to make sure Damian knows the world is his to hold. The bit about having both parents is important, too, because per Batman Inc, Talia felt deprived of her mother, whom Ra’s had discarded as soon as she was no longer useful to him.

In short, she does for Damian everything she wished Ra’s had done for her.

But, in so doing, she falls into many of the same traps that Ra’s had fallen into: she doesn’t provide what Damian wants, or even what he actually needs. Instead, she gives him what he asks for, and what she thinks he needs. But for someone who grew up without love, trying to understand how to provide it is complicated, and difficult.

Anyway, when Damian finally defeats her, she fulfills her promise and brings him to meet Bruce. This involves a last ditch effort to unite their family: she offers to reform.

But not only does Bruce reject her, ultimately Damian does, as well. This is, from Damian’s perspective, completely understandable. Who wants to live that kind of life? But from Talia’s perspective she has now been rejected by her own child, in addition to her father and the man she hoped to spend her life with. You can see the raw hurt this causes her clearly, as a woman who had always yearned for family starts having exchanges like this:

And while we’re at it, count Honor as another person who left her.

And to be clear here, I’m not saying they were wrong to leave her. Rebirth Talia is not a good person, not a kind person, not really anyone I’d want to willingly hang around. And yes, she’s clearly manipulating Honor with her affectionate words, although I’d argue this is largely because manipulation is all she's ever experienced and all she knows how to do.

So, what am I saying?

Interlude and Sum II - Why Is She Like That?

Just to catch it all up, we have a woman who was abused by her father, including being repeatedly murdered and resurrected, treated as inferior and insufficient despite being Ra’s’ equal or superior in many ways, who spent her young life performing assassinations and otherwise conforming her behavior to her father’s demands only to discover he was creating alternate heirs because she’s somehow still not enough for him. She has never experienced love, seemingly has no real understanding of what it is.

When she settles on someone she believes that she loves, she is ultimately nothing to him but a “whoever” - a temporary respite from the yo-yo relationship he has with another woman.

Then Damian happens and, from her perspective, she raises him with all the love, pride and approval that she herself never had. In an effort to unite the family, she also attempts to do what would please Ra’s - conform her behavior to Bruce’s preferences - but he still rejects her.

Meanwhile, she has “adopted” Honor Guest, whom she also shows favor to, but who also wants to leave her, and ultimately does just that, without even saying goodbye.

And then we have some. Quirks in her story - some specifics that really bear looking at in greater detail.

Repeated murder and resurrection: So how bad is that? It’s bad. The first time Talia experiences this kind of thing is in Death and the Maidens, which is probably no longer canon. But okay this was Classic Talia and for comparison, this breaks Talia’s spirit so completely that she essentially becomes Nyssa’s puppet.

She is literally never the same again, even after Nyssa is killed. In fact, it’s this that turned her into the monstrous Talia that we meet in Morrison’s run to begin with, so we already know she can be broken by this kind of treatment… but let’s use another example.

Let’s use… Batman.

He’s got one of the strongest wills in DC, right? Well, lets rewind to a story called Emperor Joker, where the Joker attained Mr. Mxyzpltck’s omnipotent powers which he uses to repeatedly torture and murder Batman and resurrect him every day.

This completely destroys Bruce to the point where the Spectre has to erase his memory of it in order to make Bruce functional as a person again.

So imagine that happening to Talia, as a child, at her own father’s hands. And not for days, for years. And that’s without even considering the method of resurrection, which brings us to…

Lazarus Madness: Let’s talk about the Lazarus Pit. It’s a magical mystical ley line-powered bath that resurrects and heals. We all know that. But the thing is, that’s not all it does: it also drives the one bathed or healed mad. For a short time, they become superhumanly strong, and also overtaken with violent bloodlust. The first Lazarus pit was used to resurrect a sultan’s son, who promptly murdered Ra’s al Ghul’s wife Sora. Since then, Ra’s himself has been the primary beneficiary of its benefits, with interesting results… namely that Ra’s has been slowly going mad for centuries.

Because even though the intensity of the bloodlust and madness fades, it never completely disappears, and cumulative effect eventually twists a person’s nature beyond recognition. In his first life, Ra’s was a good-natured doctor, but over the many exposures he has found himself becoming progressively worse.

A quote from Denny O’Neil, Ra’s’s creator:

“...we gave Ra’s a benevolent motivation. You can certainly quarrel with his methods ... But Ra's is a loony bird. He’s been alive for 400 years and he’s become a maniacal sociopath.”

Dick Grayson concurs, and acknowledges its cause:

Even Ra’s himself is aware of it – this is why he didn’t want Jason bathed in the Lazarus Pit, because he is all too aware of the demons it stirs in a person.

So, what is the impact on Talia, who is quickly and repeatedly tortured and killed, and then resurrected using a method that is known to drive people insane? I’m going with “not the best.” It’s frankly astounding that she still resembles a human, psychologically.

Assassin work at a young age: While there has been a long-standing debate about the effects of exposure to violence on all people and children in particular, in general the consensus is, yes, exposure does cause desensitization. Obviously this doesn’t mean people are going to generally become serial killers because they played a violent video game, but it does have a numbing effect – just think about how people who watch enough horror films are harder to scare with horror films.

Now imagine that, instead of watching people murder and commit violent acts on television or on film, a child is instead expected to perform said acts themselves. How desensitizing would that be?

Frankly, to see all we need to do is look at Damian, who grew up under similar circumstances and, as a result, initially exhibits what I can only call red flag behavior.

The thing is, Damian isn’t so dissimilar from his mother in this regard. Like Talia, he becomes morally twisted, emotionally empty and ultimately tethered not to his own sense of morality or self but to other people’s perceptions and demands of him and who he should be. Before he meets Bruce, he adheres to the League’s expectations, and when he meets Bruce, he instead aligns himself with Bruce’s code of behavior, even though he does not actually believe in it. It takes a good deal of time and work for him to begin developing his own beliefs and boundaries. The difference between Damian and Talia is that he had Bruce and Bruce, despite his flaws, loved Damian enough to try for his sake.

Arguably, this is a defining difference between Classic and Rebirth Talia, as well. Classic Talia also viewed Bruce as her beacon and her path to salvation and hope.

But if, in Rebirth, Bruce never really loved her, and in fact she barely loved him, then there is no catalyst for her to begin seeking another path. Rebirth Talia didn’t have anything but the League, and even Ra’s barely cared for her. As a result, she was boxed into her role by fate, which she acknowledges in Teen Titans, as she wishes better for her son than she had herself.

Anyway, obviously, there are no studies on the effect of taking assassin work as a child, but my general guess here is that she has a twisted understanding of the value of life and the significance of death. Which brings me to another massive issue that permeates the character and may even help explain her choice to put a hit on Damian at one point.

Death as Optional: Death is an inevitability, right? Like taxes. Nothing you do can prevent it, or reverse it, so all you can do is live with it, and make the most of what you have. It’s said that the existence of death is what lends meaning to life, and while I’m not sure I’m quite on board with that, the fact that death is permanent certainly does lend a certain gravitas to it. It’s also the reason we fear death and what lies beyond it.

Unless you’re an al Ghul.

For an al Ghul, death is opt in. Because Ra’s is essentially immortal (which is also a new thing, by the way) and because Talia herself has been repeatedly resurrected, as has her brother Dusan (assuming he’s still in continuity post-Rebirth), to Talia death has no weight to it. No gravitas. It is easily doled out, and just as easily forced into retreat.

Given that, it becomes exceptionally easy to threaten death, even to those she loves, because there’s nothing to say she can’t change her mind and take it back.

Now to be clear, my argument is not that she had the intention of taking it back – she didn’t really intend for Damian to die to begin with for one thing. It’s just that, because of who she is and what she has experienced, Talia would always act with the knowledge that she can choose to endanger someone’s life and think about whether she’s comfortable with the result (their being dead) later.

This is evident in both Ra’s and Talia, each of whom are willing to use death and resurrection as a tool to restructure people they don’t even want dead, as Ra’s attempts to do with Damian and Talia, and as Talia does with Honor Guest.

…as a sidenote can I just say that the Lazarus Pit’s effects are so weird. In some stories it can’t resurrect at all, and in others it can resurrect after decades without a problem. In some it just reduces age, and in some it also heals memories. Here it’s being used to erase memories, which makes no sense since a Pit his how Jason Todd got his memories back. Also, this is the first I’ve ever heard of al Ghuls having especially strong resistance to the Pit’s corrosive effects on personality. Considering it’s just a bunch of chemicals on a ley line, I’m not sure how that would work, but now I’m just imagining Ra’s with a book of Lazarus recipes like, Well, I’m needing one that restores memories today so Ima add an extra pinch of ginko.

ANYWAY.

V. “R” Stands for Redemption

There was a time, a few years back, when Damian had his own series, Robin: Son of Batman. And therein, you see one of the few efforts to explain and redeem Talia’s character. There, while she was still presented as colder and more aggressive than her Classic counterpart, she was still capable of compassion, protectiveness and love.

It was essentially explained as a result of her being cleansed of the toxin that was Ra’s al Ghul’s influence, via having darkness physically removed from her body.

Now, to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that particular route – I feel like it would have been more honest to have her resurrection heal the Lazarus damage, for example, but it’s a start. And, in the end, Damian left her with the chance to redeem herself and earn back his and Bruce’s trust.

Aaaand she has failed. Or more precisely, writers have failed to follow up on this thread, and have instead doubled down on her as the evil Dragon Mother. I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what’s going on with DC’s fixation on evil Asian ninja moms but I’m just going to… pretend that isn’t a thing in order to suggest some paths that could salvage her character.

I’ve seen it said that she’s been too evil for too long to be redeemed, but honestly that’s pretty silly. First of all these are comic books, anyone can be redeemed. The same writer who wreaked havoc on Talia also had Magneto, a Holocaust survivor, going full Nazi on humans, which was incredibly out of character, and Marvel basically fixed it by saying “guess who that wasn’t? Magneto. It wasn’t Magneto.” Technically DC could just Hal Jordan her, or let the rumored upcoming continuity shuffle bring her previous history back. As for the “been this way too long” argument, I mean she was Original Flavor Talia for more than twice as long and that wasn’t too long for DC to flip her entire motivation and personality. Catwoman was a villain for decades, and yet here she is, protecting people, making out with Batman on rooftops and leaving him at the alter for altruistic reasons. Same with Ivy, except for the parts about Batman, soooo… you know….

Anyway. I’m going to work with the assumption that we have to use what we have, and that we’re trying to get her to something like her pre-Morrison personality.

The first thing she would need is the experience of love. Someone to anchor her, who won’t judge her or abandon her even when she’s in a dark mood. Even when she’s showing her pain and her anger. Someone who recognizes how broken she is, but decides to try to help her rather than rejecting her. Someone who, in essence, will do for her what Bruce did for Classic Talia, and what he does for Damian in his flawed way.

Now, I’m a massive Bruce/Talia shipper, no lie. However, I do not think Rebirth Bruce and Talia have the kind of connection that could provide her this essential first need. Someone like Superman or Wonder Woman would probably be a better choice, simply because they have greater warmth of character and a drive toward helping lost souls.

After that, she would need some good old fashioned redemption time. Maybe a miniseries where she goes Xena on the world: a redemption quest. Maybe joining a team like the Outsiders or the Suicide Squad where she can earn her way back from the brink. The Outsiders would be cool, especially, because it would allow Bruce and Damian to monitor her and judge her as she progresses.

…and I mean, from a character perspective that’s all she really needs. From a writing perspective, she needs a writer who will nail down things like where Damian came from without going back to the drug-and-rape well, which was a retcon to begin with and has been retconned out and then back in over and over again. And most importantly, she needs a writer who has the interest in exploring her internal world to the point where they can actually draw these things out of her instead of just ignoring the fridge-horror implications of things like… the way she was raised.

If we could get these things to coincide, then Talia, too, can be saved!

Or we could just reboot the timeline again, whatever.

Anyway, that’s all folks, thanks for reading this far, I have no idea how you did. If you’re interested in this kind of thing, feel free to drop me a line and ask me… whatever, because God knows I have plenty to say about Talia and about comics in general.

In closing, something to remind us of the character we’ve lost.

Until next time!

#talia al ghul #meta #dc comics #dc rebirth #batman #damian wayne

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comicteaparty · 5 years ago

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December 25th-December 31st, 2019 Reader Favorites Archive

The archive for the Reader Favorites chat that occurred from December 25th, 2019 to December 31st, 2019. The chat focused on the following question:

While being respectful, what’s a comic you think is objectively great but is just not to your subjective tastes?

carcarchu

the first one that comes to mind is purple hyacinth https://www.webtoons.com/en/drama/purple-hyacinth/list?title_no=1621&page=1 by all means i should love this series. i think the art and premise are great but for some intangible reason it just doesn't jive with me for some reason. i still recommend it to others and it's not like i don't read it but personally it just didn't make it feel anything

snuffysam

Honestly? Most of the comics I've read as part of #week_long_bookclub and #comment_storm fall under that umbrella. The vast majority of comics I've been introduced to through the CTP activities are really quite good (there's been exactly one in the book club that I couldn't stomach, and it was because of content/writing i personally found overly edgy & distasteful) - but for one reason or another, they're just not the type of comic I want to keep up with regularly. Too slice-of-life-y, too sad, i couldn't visually distinguish the characters that well, a super-sporadic update schedule/is on hiatus/is getting rebooted, the parts of the story I liked are clearly not things the author wants to focus on moving forward, a non-functional/poorly organized website, etc. All very good in their own right, but for one reason or another is not something I'd want to read one page at a time.

Eightfish

@snuffysam I feel similarly that most of the comics in the book club are not my cup of tea (haha). I wonder if it would be different if some of the comics there were reader suggested instead of author suggested?

keii4ii

I think CTP should remain author-submitted. Readers could suggest to the authors to submit their comic, though.

the majority of comics I encounter everywhere aren't my bag of tea, TBH. And that's probably a big part of the reason why I'm making my own. Gotta feed my inner reader's needs, one way or another

A lot of Western-written comedy, specifically, are lost on me for cultural reasons. Often they seem to be referencing something that I'm not aware of. Or they have to be read in a specific tone that's lost on me, and probably would make a bit more sense to me if voice-acted. Things like that.

Cronaj

For me it's usually art style. I'm pretty picky about art style, and I know for a fact that I'm missing out on a lot of good comics simply because the art styles are not to my tastes. Any style that's too cutesy, simplistic, or "generic" anime just doesn't call to me. There have been outliers that have managed to draw me in anyway, despite the art style, but not a lot. I also just tend to not like gag-a-day comics or slice-of-life. If there isn't a larger story, I get kind of bored. That being said, I also don't tend to enjoy most superhero/ strictly action comics, simply because I can recognize the tropes from a mile away. Not that they're bad, just... outdated? In fact, I LOVE superhero movies, but most superhero movies have adapted the tropes into a new form for the big screen. Here's an example of a comic that I've seen around, laughed at a few of the jokes, and then never felt the desire to consistently read it, just because it's not my style. Brutally Honest: (https://tapas.io/series/Brutally-Honest)

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

I find myself having the same problem with webcomics that I do with other media - I like to feel like I’m escaping reality. Stories set in our world are hard for me to sit through comfortably. That automatically makes general slice-of-life and romance stories hard for me to get into, unless there’s a strong fantasy/supernatural/sci-fi element to them. That already puts a lot of webcomics out of my range. Because there are SO MANY high school slice of life romance drama webcomics out there. Some of which I know are very highly rated and probably great. They’re just not what my brain craves

Tuyetnhi

strangely enough anything with western high fantasy elements I usually don't read as much compared to romance or slice of life comics lmao

kinda in the same spot to what keii said: a lot of western themes get lost for me and I feel like I need to put my own spin on things if that make sense

Nutty (Court of Roses)

To be fair and honest... I don't really have comics I don't enjoy, or I guess fall too far outside my tastes? Out of the ones I've read, anyways! My reasoning is that I just don't have TIME to read too many comics out there, so when I decide for myself that yes, I'm going to sit down and commit myself to this comic, I look for and find things to enjoy about it, even if it's not normally my cup of tea. The story, the art, the style, the jokes... I try to keep an open mind and enjoy whatever I have the chance to get into, because as an artist I think about the person behind the comic and what kind of story they're trying to tell. I just... really like comics ahahah I wish I had more time to read more!!!!(edited)

FeatherNotes

I agree with @LadyLazuli (Phantomarine) on the 'set in our world ' bit! I find it difficult as well to immerse myself im stories that are in our world with exceptions of an alternate reality or large enough twist that would really differ from what the setting is. Slice of life doesn't really appeal to me, mainly because many comics don't have very stand out designs/personalities for characters that i would gravitate to. To be more specific to the question however, there are certainly quite a few amazing looking comics that don't really float my boat simply bc of style or execution of story or whatnot! Ive been reading one recently that hasn't really stuck to me or left any impact character/story wise, but.....im still reading it! so there def must be something!

Octoflamingo

There are a lot of comics I like but I find myself not reading them after I get to where they last update. I just rarely check in afterwards and usually by the time I do I’ve forgot the plot. I feel that every time I go back to a comic I have to read it all over again to get back to where I was. That can be really time consuming the longer the series is. I also try not to pick up long story oriented series if they aren’t finished because I know I’ll never get to the end of them.

Bear

I say this as a person in the LGBT+ community: I’ve become very tired of comics that centre around a person coming out. Which sucks because they’re super important! But I’ve lived the struggle, everyone close to me has lived the struggle. It’s tiring. What I want is genre stories where the characters are LGBT+, but that’s not necessarily the focus. Luckily in webcomics that’s easier to find. I still have to dig through coming out stories to find them though.

Deo101

Gotta say, super agree with that one Bear.

Eightfish

Same. I like stories where characters are just casually LGBT. Even to the point where they won't even mention that they're gay or lesbian and instead just show up in a gay relationship or naturally bring up their attraction to the same sex. Steven Universe does this really well, I think.

Oh and speaking of suggesting authors to sign up their comics, I think I could have a lot to say about @LadyLazuli (Phantomarine) 's Phantomarine (: Maybe in a few months when the comic gets a little more ahead in the plot?

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

@Eightfish I may submit it after this chapter is done around the beginning of February! I do wish I were further ahead, but there will still be plenty to say after this one wraps up. Thank you for the encouragement!

RebelVampire

If I'm just speaking in general, usually comedy and slice-of-life comics will fall into this category for me even if they're fantastic. I am very, very particular about comedy and slice-of-life. Especially comedy, as I'm usually very specific about the sort of stuff that actually makes me laugh and entertains me. So honestly, a lot of comedy in comics is just not my jam. In a more specific comic sense, Kamikaze to name just one of many: https://kamikazeanimated.com/comic/ The art in the comic is fantastic, the characters really fleshed out and interesting, and even some of the comedy I like. Objectively, I think this is a fantastic comic with a ton of effort put behind it and one everyone should give a chance. That being said, for me personally, I just can't get into the pacing. It's a bit too slow for me even if I think objectively it works fine. So while it's a comic I might enjoy in bulk reads, as a page-by-page thing I just can't do it.

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

To be honest, I can’t really name any comics? I tend to like just about any comic that’s really well done. Obviously I have my preferred genres, but I simply don’t seek out comics that aren’t my thing. If I do read past the first few pages of an objectively well-made comic, chances are I’m going to stick around snd keep reading.

Eightfish

Maybe my own comic? Not that I think it's objectively great, but it is of course more completely to my own taste than any other comic out there. Yet if I try to read my own comic I can't glean any enjoyment out of it over the overwhelming feeling of hearing my own recorded voice played back to me. Anyone else?

keii4ii

That's an interesting answer! I can't say I feel 100% the same, but I can relate to perhaps a facet or two of it.

I don't really read my comic either, after all, even though it's an honest reflection of what I want to read.

Eightfish

Thing is I have another short comic from about 6 years ago that I am now far removed from enough to read objectively. And I notice things I think are well done that I didn't notice before and big flaws that I haven't considered 6 years ago. So I'm worried since I can't read my current comic objectively I don't know what I need to improve on

keii4ii

That's definitely a struggle for me as well. It's what constructive critiques are for, BUT it's not easy finding someone willing, able and well suited to critique your work.

I used to actively solicit concrit on my comic. While I appreciate that every critic spent their time and effort genuinely trying to be helpful, the actual critiques weren't always helpful. You have to be a good critic (it takes skills), and you have to be the right critic for that specific story.

🌈ERROR404 🌈

I totally agree on that keii, a lot of people see concrit as the solution for every issue, but that's just bound for trouble. There are a lot more bad and mediocre critiques than well stated and usable ones

keii4ii

Yeah. There's a reason why the services of a good editor are so highly valued!

Cronaj

I think the problem is that most people who offer critiques are trying to shape the story in a way that they themselves would enjoy more, and not necessarily an objective improvement to the existing story. Offering a critique that also preserves the essence and heart of a story is extremely difficult.(edited)

Eightfish

Also when critique is contradictory- " I love how your comic gets right into the interesting part" vs. " I was really confused by the intro " But I don't know what side I would be on if I was a reader because as the author I would never be confused by my own story.(edited)

keii4ii

Yeah, and even when you get two crits on the same "side" it's possible that it's just skewed data due to small sample size. Like, maybe both of the critics are simply not your target audience. I've found that it helps a LOT if you ask specific questions, instead of just asking for a concrit. Coming up with good questions can be very difficult, though! One I've asked in the past is "did you lose interest while reading the comic? If so, at what point(s)?" and I got helpful answers from that, even from people who weren't the target audience.

Kelsey (Kurio)

I admit, I’m not the best at critiquing, like trying to bring to mind things other than “art looks nice” or “I like that joke” or whatnot

Though I guess it gets easier the more I read and mull over something

🌈ERROR404 🌈

it's sometimes hard to find something good and worthwhile to critique LOL

Kelsey (Kurio)

And of course, how does one define “objective improvement” with works of art/media? Outside of things like improving grammar, but what about in cases where it’s like that on purpose? It’s real hard to be totally objective with criticism when you think about it, even when you try to be objective

keii4ii

This might be getting off topic for the channel, but I think it's better to think of it as "effective for the goals of this work" rather than "objective." If you do X in your work on purpose, but X is not appealing to your target demographic, that's not effective. You need to either not do X, or re-define your target demographic. (Not necessarily the only options in that situation, but you get the point.)

Cronaj

I definitely think that "effective" is a better word for what I meant. It's all about intent. For example, most people generally agree that art style should be consistent in a comic, BUT in some cases (especially in comedy) switching up the art style for a scene or a panel to emphasize a point or subvert expectations (thus making the scene potentially funnier) is a very "effective" inconsistency. Basically, if something is effective for telling the story or instilling a mood, the objective view basically becomes null.

DanitheCarutor

I can get into almost anything, there are very few stories I have trouble with, even if it's a genre I wouldn't normally like. Although there are a couple that I'm really picky with, and that's gag-a-day comics or general comedy. The only ones I can think I've actively read off the top of my head are Oglaf, Perry Bible Fellowship and more recently, Woman World. Other than those few the genres never catch my interest, I'm more for story/character driven comics, with plot and stuff like that. Sometimes a comic doesn't click regardless of genre, for example: Homestuck I tried sooo hard to read this one to see what the hype was about, but the farthest I've ever gotten was maybe 50 pages after several attempts, and that's not because it's bad! The comic just didn't click, and regardless of my taste I probably would recommend it to someone who likes those types of comics.

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #reader favorites

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