#[ she would absolutely ride that to it’s absurd conclusion too ]

[feretra]

@soiasan and i are on a server together where they write several characters, including blackwall. and there is something so funny to me that salome and him basically met and got trapped in a horror of hormak situation of their own… and salome’s reaction? like several hours later, over a fire, contemplating her life choices? was literally, “crazy that you lied about being a warden, dude.”

girl, y’all just almost got murdered by ghilan’nain’s eldritch monstrosities, i think you got other priorities

[steddiealltheway]

Steve can see it in Max. That same loneliness and ache that he finds in himself. For him, it’s result of his parents leaving with no intent to return to him unless absolutely necessary.

He knows he was an accident. Or rather a mistake as his father used to call him when he was particularly angry. But it made sense to him. Steve's the reason his father had to marry his mother. He left him "trapped." And maybe no one says it out loud, but he can tell his mother feels the same way too.

But they must keep up appearances, right?

Which is what Max has been trying to do since Billy died, El moved away, and it's been just her and her mom. But she's been going about it through a different route - pushing people away all while pretending things are fine. But Steve sees the way she picks up the broken pieces of her mom and tries to put them back together - Steve's had to do the same thing before.

So, he starts sticking around a little longer. Offering her more rides to the arcade and around town to pick up groceries when she needs to. Sometimes he'll tell her about a new recipe he's been trying for a casserole and pick up the ingredients, pretending like the milk and butter he bought will spoil by the time he drives home from her trailer.

Of course, they both know it's a lie, but Max humors him and plays along. She'll let him cook dinner while she picks up the bottles her mom left on the floor, dumps out the overflowing ashtray, and feeds the dog. Usually, Steve will ask her what she's learning in school and linger a little longer than usual in hopes that she'll say more than the usual, "I don't know. A bunch of boring stuff."

But lingering has gotten a lot of things out of Max such as her love for Kate Bush, a story about El and how much she misses her, and short quips about Lucas before she gets a sad smile on her face. Steve doesn't really know what to say most of the time, but he hopes that just being there will help.

Unfortunately, lingering and just being there has led him to his current predicament of none other than Eddie "The Freak" Munson sitting on the hood of his car glaring at him as he walks out of Max's place. Steve jumps a little, startled by the figure on his car and becoming more hostile as he sees the expression on his face. He shoves his hands in his pockets and slows his pace. "Is there a problem?"

Eddie snorts humorlessly. "Christ. You're really going to pretend like there's nothing wrong with what's happening?"

Steve's brows furrow, entirely missing whatever point he's trying to make.

Eddie stands up and stalks toward him. "I see you, you know. Always lurking around when her mom isn't home. Coming out of her trailer late at night."

Steve laughs, finally understanding the absurd conclusion he's come to. "Jesus, man. You're delusional."

Steve doesn't expect it, but Eddie sharply shoves his chest and grits, "I don't fucking lie to me, Harrington."

Steve holds his hands up. "I'm not," he firmly states. "Nothing like that is happening here. I'm glad you're looking out for her, but it isn't like that."

"Do you expect me to believe that? Maybe this is why you're always hanging around Henderson and the other kids."

Steve crosses his arms and his jaw tenses. "I'm not a fucking pervert or a pedophile if that's what you're trying to say. I'm just looking after them."

"Why?" Eddie asks, dramatically opening his arms, "Why would King Steve adopt a group of misfits to take under his wing? See, the math isn't adding up."

Usually, Steve would just brush it off and tell the person to fuck off and mind their own business. But his parents have just left town again without leaving a note and Max had snapped when Steve tried to help her clean the place because it looked worse than usual, and he was just generally feeling like shit and angry at his parents and Max's parents for not being there. So he broke, "Because I don't want Max to end up like me! I don't want any of those kids to grow up without a role model. And god forbid if any of those other kids' parents fuck up, and they’re left with only me. I need them to know that I'm there for them! Because sometimes it feels like whenever the world goes to shit, I'm the only one who is there, and I plan to stay there, okay?!"

He finishes his rant breathing a little heavier than usual and noticing that a few of the lights in the trailers have turned on around them. He looks around and awkwardly nods to the people glaring out their windows. God, he needs to get a grip.

When he turns back to Eddie, he notices the conflicted expression, jaw dropped, eyebrows knitted together, eyes searching him as if he's still wondering if he's lying.

A door creaks open behind them and Steve curses under his breath as he hears Max say, "Eddie, leave him alone. Do you really think I would hook up with my damn babysitter? Jeez."

"Language," Steve quietly lectures as the door swings shut. He runs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath. It's been a long fucking day.

A hand lands on his arm and tugs him away from Max's trailer. Steve glances up at Eddie, leading him across the way. "Where are we going?"

"My place," Eddie says.

"Why?"

"So we can talk."

God, the last thing he wants to do is talk to Eddie of all people, the guy he's been actively avoiding since Dustin started worshipping the ground - or rather tables - he walks on. But he lets himself be pulled away in the trailer and practically deposited on the couch in the living room.

He glances up and comments, "That's a lot of mugs."

"My uncle's, but that's not what I wanted to... Christ," Eddie says, pacing in front of Steve and tugging his hair in front of his face. The anxious display makes Steve feel even more tired, but he lets him pace. God, what is he even doing here?

"I'm sorry," Eddie blurts out. "I'm just..." he trails off and rushes over to grab a stool a few feet away before dragging it in front of the couch. He sits on it but his leg still holds that nervous energy as it rapidly bounces up and down. "I jumped to conclusions, and it was really shitty of me, man. I just... didn't believe what Henderson was saying about you and thought 'Oh, this makes way more sense than Steve Harrington being a good dude.' And I'm sorry to accuse you of that. And I... I didn't know about your... parents and stuff. Like I knew they were away a lot because of your parties but... I just never connected the dots. And I'm sorry. No one deserves that shit, man."

Steve doesn't know what to do this whole interaction, especially with it coming from Eddie Munson who he doesn't think he's ever talked to before this moment, but... he needs to hear it. God, he needs to hear it.

Of course, he can't let him know this, so he does what he's best at and brushes it off. "It's fine. You were just looking out for the kids. And really just ignore what I said back there, it isn't that big of a deal."

Eddie worries his bottom lip before he blurts out, "I know what it's like." He pauses and takes a deep breath. "I mean, I know what it's like to have... absent parents. But in my case, eventually, my uncle Wayne took me in, and I can only imagine if he didn't." He gives him a pointed look and lowers his voice, "Do you have someone like that?"

A big part of Steve wants to leave right now, and he knows there's nothing stopping him. But a bigger part of him needs to stay. Needs to talk about the emptiness in his house that he can never truly escape at the end of the day that he can’t talk to anyone about. Because he's not supposed to be weak. He's supposed to take care of the others. So he admits, "No, I don't have... anyone like that. Except Robin but..."

"That's different," Eddie finishes the thought for him.

Steve nods. He loves Robin, but he loves her as a platonic soulmate and not as a parent figure in his life. "You know, I once had this basketball coach in middle school - Mr. Weston. And I remember looking up to him so much. I wanted to be just like him, and I would go to his office during lunch and ask him for advice or talk about dumb shit that my father would never talk about. But he never shamed me for my questions. And sometimes he even packed an extra dessert for me." Steve smiles at the memories and runs a hand through his hair, remembering the day he got the news. "But one time, when I went to his office, he had this look on his face. And I just knew it was bad news. And really, it wasn't bad news to him because his wife was pregnant. But she wanted to move a few states away to raise the kid closer to her family. And it wasn't his fault, you know? It wasn't like he purposely chose to move away from me, but I felt like I was abandoned again."

Steve wipes a tear from his eye and puts his head in his hands. "God, I don't know why I'm even telling you this story. Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Eddie says quickly. He pauses and shifts on the stool, his gaze being far away. "I remember him. He was one of the only gym teachers that defended me against all the shitty middle school bullies. He was a good person.”

Steve nods. God, he was a good person.

Eddie continues, “I'm sorry that he left. And I bet he still regrets leaving you behind."

Steve leans back against the couch and looks away, shaking his head. "I bet he forgot about me."

"You're kind of hard to forget."

Steve looks at Eddie and sees a slight blush on his cheeks as he shakes his head and waves his hands as if trying to make the comment go away. "What I mean is that there's no way he's forgotten about you. Someone who you used to have lunch with all the time to the point of giving you free food... Nah, man. He remembers you. I think you may have been as important to him as he was to you."

The thought breaks away at a wall Steve had built up long ago. "Thanks," he practically whispers.

Eddie just smiles at him, small dimples appearing on his cheeks.

"You didn't deserve it either, you know," Steve says. "The absent parent stuff. Even with Wayne, they should've been here too."

Eddie's smile falters a bit as he swallows and looks at the ground. "Thanks," he mumbles. He looks up at Steve and comments, "Getting sappy with Steve Harrington. Who knew."

"Yeah, getting sappy with Eddie Munson," Steve echoes back at him.

Eddie laughs, "I'm surprised you even know my name."

"You're kind of hard to forget," Steve says easily.

That same blush comes back to Eddie who shifts in his chair a bit as if he needs to process the information with his whole body.

They sit in the moment for a bit before Eddie gets a somewhat serious look on his face and offers, "You know, I'm definitely not a parent figure or anything, but I'm always here and around to talk about that whole thing if you need to."

Steve's heart beats a little faster at the sheer genuineness. "Same here," he can't help but offer in return. He glances down at his watch and sighs, "It's getting late, so I better..."

"Right," Eddie says, standing up and leading him to the door. "Do you need water for the road or anything?"

Steve smiles and pats him on the back without thinking too hard about it. "I'm good, man. But thank you. For everything really."

"Sorry for being an asshole," Eddie apologizes again.

"Usually that's my line," Steve accidentally voices before cringing a bit, wondering further why Eddie's been so kind to him.

But as he opens the door, Eddie comments, "I don't know. It seems like Dustin was right about the whole reformed jock thing. Maybe your crown really has fallen - which is a good thing by the way."

Steve slightly smiles at him before he turns to leave. But he can't help but say, "I wonder what the neighbors will think about me leaving your trailer so late."

Eddie groans then laughs. "Sorry to ruin your image."

"I wouldn't mind," Steve replies, honestly unsure what he means by that. "Goodnight, Eddie."

"Goodnight, Steve," Eddie says, that same blush on his cheeks, only this time Steve isn't sure if it's something he said or a result of the cold night air.

In bed that night, Steve feels a slight weight lifted from him and can't help but feel like he’s a little less alone.

[ill-skillsgard]

Not Perfect - Henry Deaver x Mistress

Warning: 18+ smut/mentions of cheating/mature themes/strong language/spousal conflict. **mentions of impregnation and fertility issues in this part**

Note: Hello wonderful people! This will be the second-last chapter of HxM :O This one is written from Henry’s POV, as requested! I have enjoyed all the prompts and discussion and theories surrounding this series and thank everyone who joined in from the bottom of my heart. It’s been SO much fun. I’ll make sure the finale is long and jam-packed full of smut and fluff, since the last few chapters have been rather sad and angsty. So much love to you all. Enjoy!

Read past Henry x Mistress imagines here > Masterpost

I tried to keep myself from bothering her while she was in the shower, but my impatience won. To be fair to her, I let twenty minutes go by before I knocked on the door. When she didn't answer, I cracked the door open and smelled her vanilla sugar body wash suffusing the vapour.

"Sweetheart?"

She took a few seconds to answer, "Yes?"

"Just wanted to check on you. Will you be much longer?"

"Why?"

"I have a surprise for you."

Another long pause before, "I'll be out when I'm finished, Henry." 

Fuck, fuck, fuck, I thought. She's pissed. Back at the office, she seemed fine, but I assumed, after a few hours rolling around with the sour news, she'd come to a different conclusion. I had something prepared to soften the blow, as I suspected she might take it harshly.

When she came out with her hair still wet, wrapped in a thick robe, her eyes avoided mine. Instead of waiting for her to come to me, I got up and cornered her in the kitchen, but when I touched her shoulder, she shrank away.

"Honey... Is everything okay?" I asked.

She looked up at me like I was a stranger. I touched her cheek, and her eyes dropped. This was something new. I'd never seen her react with anything but joy when I grazed her skin. She must have been angrier than I thought.

"Hey, what's the matter?" I asked her.

She took in a sharp breath through her nose and shrugged. "Nothing. Why?"

"Well... I don't mean to poke, but... It seems like you're upset with me."

She shook her head and turned from me to open the cupboard. The bottom cabinet was empty, and I watched her stretch up on the tips of her toes to grab a glass from the second shelf where she couldn't reach. I chuckled and took down a cup for her, but she didn't look at me with her customary smile or even a glance.

"Baby... I'm sorry, okay? I know you're mad at me about the job thing, but... I mean, I warned you something like this might come around. And I promise I'll find you something just as good, maybe even better."

She filled her glass with ice from the freezer, nodding, lips sealed in a line. I frowned and tried for her hand, but she evaded my grasp by ducking into the fridge for the water pitcher.

"Please, sweetheart. I can't stand it when you're cross with me," I groaned.

"Sorry," her voice came out stunted. She drained half the ice water and cleared her throat, still unwilling to lock eyes with me.

The stale way she addressed me filled my chest with a sensation I'd long forgotten. I hated to say it, even if it was only in my head, but the way she stood off reminded me of how Mary would greet me at the beginning and end of each day. This brought on a wave of nausea I could not shake. My stomach twisted into knots too complicated to untangle without her bright smile and words of assurance. 

"So, what's the surprise?" She asked. 

I blinked from my anxious state. "I'm glad you asked, beautiful. You up for a car ride?" 

"Hmm, not really, but I guess I have no choice." 

"Aw, don't be like that. It'll be fun! I promise. Can you be ready to go in half an hour?" 

"Sure," she said, turning from me to get dressed. 

The closer we got to the hotel, the more curious the look on her face grew. She'd travelled to this place a hundred times before, and the familiar surroundings brought on a lot of questioning glances. I answered each of them with a smile, trying to get her hand to hold or touching her leg when I could. We pulled into the lot and went inside to check-in. 

"What are we doing here?" She asked in the elevator. 

"You'll see." 

I unlocked the door to our room and ushered her inside, where I had champagne waiting on ice and rose petals sprinkled over the bed and floor. 

"Why did you bring me here, Henry?" 

"It's the room where we first... You know. This is where it started."

She'd already had a look around and decided she wasn't impressed. Crossing her arms, she turned to me with heat in her eyes. "You mean to tell me you took me back to the room where you first cheated on your wife? Is this supposed to be some big romantic gesture? Because it's a little obtuse."

"Sweetheart, no!" I scoffed. "Don't look at it like that. This is where I fell in love with you! Right here, in this hotel, I saw you and wanted you in my life. Just looking at your face made me want to fix myself. And, maybe I didn't go about it smartly, but can you blame me? A beautiful, intelligent, caring person like you... I couldn't let you get away or risk you meeting someone else and losing my chance."

It started in her eyes. The inevitable wave of tears shrouded her irises, bleeding onto her cheeks. Then her whole face crumbled like a wall of sand washed away by the tide. I watched, horrified, as she dropped onto the love seat and hid her face behind her hands, shoulders convulsing.

"Henry! What's wrong with you?" She sniffled.

I sat next to her but she pulled away. "Hey, hey! What did I do? Honey, I thought we had an agreement about the job?"

"It's not the job!" She sobbed. "It's everything else. It's you. You're... A fake."

Then it was my turn to act shocked. "Excuse me? What on Earth are you talking about? I'm not... I'm not fake. This is exactly how I feel. I've wanted to do this for ages."

"You're a cheater," she whispered.

"It's a little more nuanced than that. You know what I was going through!"

"No. You've cheated on me. Mary told me what you did when you went to speak to her. She said you slept with her to get out of the suit... So she would drop the negotiation. You fucked her."

My blood turned cold in my veins. "I absolutely did not do that! What do you mean Mary told you I fucked her? That's positively absurd. When did you speak to her?"

"She tracked me down after work today. She waited for me in the parking garage... Said she wanted to warn me about you. The real you. Then I called the lawyer's office to verify if she'd dropped the negotiation, and she did... Just like she said."

I slid off the love seat and crawled before her, grabbed her knees, hands, forearms... Anything she'd let me touch. "No. No, no, no. That did not happen! She just said that to piss you off. To turn you against me because she has no other moves. Don't you see? She's throwing every stone she has, hoping to break something. Baby... I'd never do that. Never!"

"But you cheated on her. On your wife. Someone you gave a ring to and made all the same promises as you're making to me."

Heat and water stung my eyes. I blinked away my fiery tears and tried to make her look at me, but she wouldn't pull her gaze from the wall.

"Mary despises me. She made my life hell after I tried for years to make her happy. With everything I had, honey... Everything I fucking had in me, I gave to her, and nothing was good enough. Can you blame me for straying? For falling in love with somebody else? Yes, I'll admit a hundred times I didn't approach it right. I should have ended things before pursuing you. I should have called her that same night and told her I wanted a divorce, but I didn't. I made a mistake. A huge mistake. It's the worst thing I've ever done, but it led me to you, and I don't regret it for a second. I'm sorry. I can't rightly sit here and say I wish I didn't drink with you in this hotel that night."

"She told me you cheated on her before then."

I produced a scoff from my gaping jaw. "Of course she did! Anything to disparage me... Sweetheart, I never cheated on her before then. I'm sure she thinks so, but nothing could be further from the truth."

"Why would she make that up? She said you and your colleagues are all known for it."

"I don't know. Fuck, I don't know! Don't you see what she's trying to do? She wants to drive us apart! I never touched her that day when I went to talk with her. How could you possibly believe her?" 

"That's not all Mary told me." 

I'd had enough of the misinformation and let her eyes follow me to the other side of the room where the champagne bottle sweated, and so did I. There was no reason for me to be nervous. I knew the truth—it was only a matter of making her believe me. But what if she didn't? What if she bought Mary's pack of lies and I lost her? 

I'd undone my marriage with a lie. There was no reason another well-placed deception couldn't shatter us too. I understood what she meant about the room being an obtuse decision. There I was, standing where I'd first kissed her, on the brink of her telling me goodbye. Full circle. I deserved this. 

"What else did she say? That I have a porn addiction? That I fuck hookers? You know... Just because some men I've worked with are involved in sex scandals doesn't mean I am, or was, or support them! I've been clean and straight-laced my whole life. You know this, sweetheart. You know me. I'm not the type!"

"It's hard for me to know what's true. On the one hand, you're sweet and shy and an amazing boyfriend, but on the other... You're a cheater. No matter how you break it down, you have the capacity for deceit. And if you cheated on her, who is to say you won't cheat on me?"

To hear her doubts pouring from her lips and eyes brought me to my knees before her once again. I swallowed my galloping breath, choking down the acrid taste of desperation. She had to believe me.

"If that's what you believe, then what do I do next?" My voice teetered on the question. "Do I help you pack your things and let you go back to your place? Should I give up? Is there a point to me begging? If you say there is, I won't stop until you believe me. I'll do anything."

She sat quietly while I sat back on my haunches, imploring her to look at me. Another tear rolled down her cheek, and she sighed, shaking her head and pressing her fingers against her forehead.

"So you're saying that everything she told me is a lie? You didn't fuck her to get out of the suit? Even though she rescinded? You never cheated on her before you met me?"

While she laid out her questions like instruments of torture, I waggled my head in denial.

"There was no incident in Thailand with your colleagues? You never once betrayed her trust even in the slightest way?"

"No. No, no, no, no, no. Never. You gotta believe me."

"Then you're not sterile like she said?"

"No, no—" My tongue turned to stone in my mouth. A great chill came over me, cascading down my spine, spreading along my ribs like needles of hoarfrost. I couldn't feel my hands, though they shone with sweat. Suddenly, I couldn't hear. A piercing tone muffled her voice, unable to penetrate my punching-bag head filled with wet cotton. My legs buzzed like static, asleep under my weight, and immovable. Top-heavy, I clutched the arm of the love seat and tried not to pass out. Deep breaths. Deep, shaking, useless breaths.

"Henry?" She asked, gripping my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

She spoke through a film, voice echoing distantly as I tried to recover, but I only sunk deeper into catatonia. A gun had fired, deafening me to everything but the pain sizzling in my ears, spreading through my limbs. For an excruciating minute, I thought I was in the grips of a heart attack.

"Henry!" Her voice came back with point-blank clarity. I looked up at her reddened face, and she gasped.

"You're white as snow, Henry! Are you all right?"

"I..."

"Don't move. I'll get you some water."

She filled a glass in the kitchenette and brought it to me, but my lips pasted shut. I couldn't move my hand to take the cup.

Then I broke.

Tears like drops of sun bled from my eyes, blinding me. My throat opened, shuddering first from the groan building in the bottom of my stomach. I shook once, my whole body whipping, and then I was on the floor. I don't remember her lifting my head nor weeping in her lap as she hushed me and combed my hair. There was only pain. Deep, years-old pain I never knew existed.

Somehow she moved me to the bed and stripped me of my jacket. The ring box must have slipped out of the pocket in the process. I saw it on the bedside table once when I managed to open my eyes between bouts of tears. She stroked me like an injured dog, panting and convulsing in agony, and continued pushing air from between her teeth.

"Henry, you're okay. You're fine. Just breathe. Breathe for me, please."

By the time I recovered enough to speak, the ice in the bucket melted into a pool and the champagne bottle's label peeled off, sodden bits orbiting the glass. Crushed rose petals stuck to our clothes. The sun was long gone. She shifted me gently off her lap and went to turn on the light. I winced, eyes still bright red from crying. When she returned, she stood at the foot of the bed. I'd curled up, helpless and exhausted, but finally unfurled my limbs and sat up.

"Henry... Are you all right?"

I wished to forget, to start the day over from sunrise when we'd nuzzled each other in bed, but if I could rewind time, I wouldn't stop there.

I took in a long breath and sighed. My stomach grumbled emptily as she watched me like I was a baby bird who'd fallen from its nest and didn't know what else to do with me besides watch me squirm.

"It... It all makes sense now."

"What makes sense?"

"What you said... What she told you."

"But you said it was all lies. Do you mean—?"

"No. Those were lies. And I'll spend the rest of my life trying to prove it, but..." My throat closed up again. I fought off the emotional tide with a series of deep breaths, and she was patient. "I remember that day so clearly."

She angled her head in question, and I continued. "We failed. Over and over. We tried to have kids for a long time. At some point, we went to get some tests done to see if it was us. I had an important trip around the same time, and she assured me I could go, and she would phone me with the results. So, I left and never got her call. I thought nothing of it, chalked it up to difficulty reaching me."

She came around the bed, sat down and took my hand. "What did Mary tell you?"

"Nothing," I murmured. "She told me the results were inconclusive... That we'd had a major bad luck streak, and it could have something to do with her cycle—she wasn't always regular—but they didn't know for certain. There were other tests they could run to determine why we weren't conceiving. Mary told me not to worry, to focus on work because we were about to land a deal that bought us our current building and that we could keep trying until..."

"What if it's not you? What if it's her?"

"It's me. I know it is."

"But if everything she told me is a lie, why wouldn't she lie about that too?"

I shook my head. "It just makes too much sense. Mary's qualms were never with herself. It's always me. I'm the useless one—the sackless one. She knew she had an atom bomb in her arsenal, and she waited for the precise moment to drop it. That's what she does. She knew how badly it'd hurt me if you were the one to tell me I can't..." My voice tapered off.

"Hush now. Let's not think about this anymore."

I buckled again, this time on her shoulder. My eyes stung with salt again, running thin down my beating cheeks. Her hand crossed her body and carded through my hair as she soothed me with gentle assurances. I wiped my face dry and remembered the ring on the table. 

"I was supposed to ask you to marry me tonight," I admitted. 

"I thought you were going to wait until the divorce was finalized." 

"Yes, that's right. But I couldn't wait. All I can think about is making you my wife."

"I don't think anyone on the planet has ever been fired by and proposed to on the same day, by the same guy," she giggled. "That has to be one for the record books." 

"It's been a rollercoaster for both of us." 

"So?" She gave me an expectant look. 

"So what?" 

"Are you going to propose to me, Mr. Deaver?" 

"Right here? In this room? You said it yourself, this was a poor choice of setting. I should have taken you elsewhere. Cairo, Las Vegas, Vancouver... I should have booked us a beautiful room somewhere in the mountains and made love to you first. Not brought you back to the old job you hated and cried all over your blouse."

Suddenly, she swung off the bed, snatched up the ring box and circled. I followed her, fearing the fate of what lay inside the royal purple velvet. 

"Fine, Henry Deaver. If you don't propose to me, I guess I'll just have to propose to you." 

"Oh, no, you don't. No, no. You can't deprive me of this! I've wanted this for a long time," I said. 

"Well, you blew it. So, now it's my turn," she knelt next to the bed and opened the box without looking inside. The diamonds twinkled along the band, catching every remnant of light left in the room. My emotions got the better of me again, and I had to crush another tear before it burned a trail down my face. 

"Henry," she began. "I know you've made mistakes, and you've paid for them. And I apologize for letting someone's vengeance blur the way I see you—"

"Sweetheart,"

"Quiet, please. Let me finish," she said, brows drawing together. I curled my lips around my teeth and clamped down to keep from flapping. "Look, I don't want you to think you're not worthy of forgiveness. You are. Even if you acted out of desperation, out of hurt and loneliness and perhaps a bit of spite, you are a good man, and everyone knows it. I knew that before we ever spoke more than you ordering coffee. I mean, who the hell tips twenty on a two-dollar cup of coffee? Who feeds a whole row of parking meters, so people don't get ticketed? Who refuses a blowjob because they don't want to be an inconvenience?"

We shared a laugh.

"Please, get off your knee at least," I offered my hand.

She climbed onto the bed and sat next to me, finally taking a look at the ring inside and closing her eyes to keep from welling up. "I won't ask how much you spent on this."

"It's best not to," I supplied.

With a sigh, she leaned her head on my shoulder and passed me the box. "I don't believe what Mary said, and I was foolish to even entertain her lies. I know you truly loved her and wanted a family. I'm still just having an issue understanding why she threw that away. Because you can't have children? In this day, there are ways."

"She was never quite right for me. Her religion is her biggest determiner, but... It's not all her fault. She had a rather stringent upbringing. Lots of scripture, and even more punishment. I knew that about her before we got together. I thought I could show her what happiness was like."

"I hate to say it, but I'm glad she drove you out because now you're with me, and I can show you what happiness is like."

I clutched her close and notched her head under my chin, stroking her hair and breathing in her fresh scent as she circled my waist in her arms.

"You already have. More than I ever knew was possible. Every moment with you is like I'm winning the lottery over and over. When I wake up and see you next to me, it's like I never opened my eyes, and you're just an angel in my best dreams."

"I love you, Henry," she whispered.

"I love you too," I replied, snapping the ring box shut behind her.

She sat up and looked at the purple velvet containing her engagement ring, then up at me with big, curious eyes. I set it aside and took her hands.

"Let me have a do-over. I can't propose to you today, in this room, after all this crying. It's not perfect."

"What if I propose to you first?" She asked, snickering.

"It won't count if you don't have a ring," I replied.

"Who needs one to ask the person they love to marry them?"

"As a pre-engagement gift to me, I'd like nothing more than for you to let me propose to you properly. When the time is right."

"Somewhere in the mountains?"

I smiled softly and caressed her knuckles. "Yes, somewhere like that. Maybe under some palm trees, or out in the middle of the ocean under the stars. Or we can go sky-diving, and I'll propose to you at ten thousand feet."

"I'll go up in a plane with you, but I am not jumping out of it!"

"Fair enough. Bad idea," I laughed. "However I do it, I want it to be perfect."

"I know, Henry."

"Not on the day I fire you or in the room where we first kissed."

She squeezed my leg. "I understand the sentimentality you were going for and I appreciate it."

"Thank you, but you're right. It was a terrible idea. Can you forgive this colossal misstep, my love?"

"Consider it forgotten. And Henry—?"

"Yes?"

"We'll have our family. One way or another. You will be a father to several wonderful children," she said.

"Several?" I feigned an exasperated breath.

"At least two. A boy and a girl. Maybe three, if we can handle it."

"Oh, and what's the third one? Another boy?"

"We'll see... But probably another girl. Just saying!"

"I'll take whatever I can get."

[midnightactual]

Yoruichi’s Character Arc

I’ve alluded to it before with things like Yoruichi’s Versions, but I’ve never really directly spelled out my conception of Yoruichi’s post-exile development and character arc from a more emotional point of view, so I guess I might as well do that. I’ve talked about Yoruichi’s character flaws and deficiencies before in The Duality of Yoruichi, and I’ve talked about impressions other people have of her in Yoruichi and Loneliness. A lot of the former issues stem from her childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, which is detailed (if dispassionately) in History, and a lot of the latter has to do with the image she presents to others as a form of distancing herself from them.

Something which serves as a good emotional guide to Yoruichi in this timeframe is The Glitch Mob’s remix of Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. I’ll be intercutting lyrics from it to illustrate that point more as I go.

Upon her arrival on Earth, Yoruichi (Yoruichi-4) was essentially extremely Tired and Done as a result of the things which had happened to Yoruichi-1 through Yoruichi-3. Although getting away from things wasn’t her primary motivation during the Hollowfication Incident, it did nonetheless inform her complete willingness to leave her life behind. Simply doing that, however, didn’t really free her mentally from the ramifications.

And I’m talking to myself at night Because I can’t forget Back and forth through my mind Behind a cigarette

And the message coming from my eyes Says “Leave it alone”

Engaging in avoidant behavior, she quickly departed from reminders of her past life and promptly threw herself into worldly human concerns as a way of getting away from her past and herself. This sort of worked for a time, although she would accordingly encounter new traumas due to the horrors of the early 20th century, resulting in Yoruichi-5 and Yoruichi-6.

While she would properly reconnect with Kisuke and the Shōten following the conclusion World War II, it was the death of Kaien that really altered her trajectory substantively. The subsequent Yoruichi-7 was more aware of the fact that she couldn’t escape who she was and where she’d come from, but chose to contextualize it within her recent experiences: she chose to uphold Kaien’s ideals in trying to guide and save humanity through direct action. (As a full nuclear exchange World War III would crash the reincarnation system just as hard as any subsequent threat.)

And if I catch it coming back my way I’m gonna serve it to you And that ain’t what you want to hear But that’s what I’ll do

And the feeling coming from my bones Says “Find a home”

Yeah

I’m going to Wichita Far from this opera forevermore I’m gonna work the straw Make the sweat drip out of every pore

While this agenda was ultimately successful (even if her final relevance to the outcome was questionable) it really boiled down to just keeping things ticking over so that (metaphorically) the sun would still rise the next day. Yoruichi also kind of lost herself in the process and became even more Tired, which even the comparative respite of the ‘90s did relatively little to alleviate.

Being summoned back to Karakura to deal with Aizen finally making moves again, she sort of framed it as one last ride before retirement, only for the fights with Soifon and especially with Yammy to make it clear to her that nothing was really over. Yoruichi-8 thus came about, resolved to return to to her peak performance (at the level of Yoruichi-3 and more) and to put an end to everything once and for all.

The return to dealing with matters involving Soul Society and the organization of the universe at large reawakened feelings of inadequacy and failure within Yoruichi, and Kisuke’s proposition of a grand plan to put things right using Ichigo and Rukia resonated with her: she could either finally atone and receive absolution for her past, or at least receive judgment and oblivion.

All that came crashing down when that plan failed in a spectacularly ignominious fashion. “Judgment Day” came and went with the Wandenreich War, and the world as it was known trundled on past the apocalypse rather substantively unchanged. They failed. She failed. The resulting Yoruichi-9 was thus mostly defined by her rage and resentment at having her satisfactory conclusion snatched away from her by forces beyond her control, and being forced to live with herself just like before only without much hope for some sort of resolution.

But she did have to live with herself. Eventually, as she lived day to day and her anger cooled, she became Yoruichi-10, who was nonetheless still rather more latently irritable and aggressive than most past iterations. This Yoruichi was left looking for purpose in life, and more besides.

And I’m bleeding, and I’m bleeding, and I’m bleeding Right before the Lord All the words are gonna bleed from me And I will think no more

Eventually, she found it in the idea of protecting humanity, just like Yoruichi-7... if differently. Yoruichi-11 was, as a result of recent experiences with Yoruichi-9 and Yoruichi-10, rather more presumptive, assertive, and—to not put too fine of a point on it—quite capable of being a bitch toward others. Unfortunately for her, just having the resolve to live and a purpose in doing so wasn’t really sufficient to lead a meaningful and fulfilling life, and she knew it (as seen in Provocateur).

The real crux at the heart of her interpersonal discontent was, “Don’t you all know you’d be so much better off without me?”

And the stains coming from my blood Tell me “Go back home”

The Void and Hale event was Yoruichi’s attempt to find real personal meaning in life rather than just some sort of impersonal mission statement, and so she decided to fashion her own little idea of “Judgment Day”: she quite literally threw herself away, again and again, searching for deeper meaning in the process of doing so.

There was no divine revelation at the bottom. All that was down there, in the deepest and darkest abyss, was a single spark of indignation: a rage against the dying of the light. What she decided to do upon finding it, was to cradle it within her hands and to make it her purpose to fill the entire universe with it: “Let there be light.”

Yoruichi-12 finally really gets that she can’t do that by herself, and that the way of achieving it is to indeed “Go back home”. Of course, home to her isn’t something so simple as the Shihōin Manor or even the Urahara Shōten. She’s a creature of two worlds at this point—of Earth and Soul Society—and knows that home is as much other people as it is some place. It’s Yūno, and Yūshirō, and Kūkaku, and Kisuke, and Tessai, and Soifon, and so on. (Yes, even her parents.)

This Yoruichi is probably the closest which she has ever actually been to the image which many others have of her (see Yoruichi and Loneliness) and is (increasingly with time) likely the most well-adjusted she’s been too. However it’s important to keep in mind that despite this, Yoruichi is fundamentally a rather Absurdist figure, capital-A.

What she’s truly wanted for more than a century—redemption—has been, in essence, ridiculous. Her latest conception of herself, as filling the human universe with “light” through her own personal example—of rebelling against the status quo and improving things for their own sake right now, and damn the consequences, because that’s what it means to be human—is preposterous. What she ultimately resolves to do in Peace and subsequent threads (set approximately a year after Void and Hale?) could really be seen as her at her most absurd, like Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

Nonetheless, there she is, and there she goes, living on and by her own terms.

[allofthefeelings]

Hi. I forgot that sad endings exist, and now, I'm scared stupid after your last BW movie post. She's dead already! I want something close to happy! (Oh god, I hope the fanfics come through 😭😭😭)

(Before I begin, I would also like you to know that, while this is over 4000 words long, I did cut a several-paragraphs-long digression comparing the BW movie to Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. You’re welcome.)

I know I’m once again outing myself as an optimist here, and I’m sure I’ll also end up getting smug asks in four months when much of my speculation is wrong, but what the hell. If I was on this tumblr to be right I would have made a LOT of different decisions.

So.

I really, truly don’t think we’re going to get a sad ending.

But the question is, how does it achieve a not-sad ending? Or, to completely re-frame and re-structure: for a character like Natasha, what exactly is a happy ending?

Buckle in, because this gets long.

I think we can all agree that, by definition, we’re starting the movie from a point of melancholy at best, just because we know that in 2023 Natasha will be dead. She doesn’t get to ride into the sunset in any way, shape, or form. Every other solo movie- even the ones with tragic endings, like Thor Ragnarok’s destruction of Asgard and a large portion of its people- have given characters a path forward and the odds that even if this won’t give them a happy ending, it gives them a way towards one. It ends with hope. There isn’t room for that here, for obvious reasons. But what there is room for- and this is, ironically, achievable because of one of the major flaws of IW- is the idea that she did achieve growth, and then had six years to live the life she wanted.

Or, not the life she WANTED, which probably would not have been one part on the run/five parts half of society obliterated by Thanos. Let’s say she had the chance to live a terrible life self-actualized.

IW’s complete and utter lack of meaningful characterization for 90% of the cast means that we don’t really have a sense of where Natasha was in that movie. That gives a lot of room to play with, to put Natasha at the end of the BW movie in a place that she wants to be in. In other words, they can retroactively argue that the reason Natasha isn’t given room to grow in IW is that she had achieved her growth in between CW and IW.

Which, look. Doylistically this is beyond bullshit. Doylistically this is actually offensive, and if they’re looking to retroactively placate us about how Natasha’s arc went, it really doesn’t work. I’m not talking about what was intended, or what was achieved; I don’t think this is either of those. I’m talking about what we can choose to read into it.

And, frankly, as a Natasha fan, that’s pretty much all we do anyway. I can argue (and clearly have argued) her arc for ages, but that’s all the work I’ve done, and you (collective, Natasha fans) have done- not the work the text has done.

None of this is remotely answering the question. But I think it’s necessary groundwork to begin to answer the question.

Because what the BW movie can give us is that growth arc that takes place in the negative spaces of canon.

Well, first of all, the BW movie gives us the fact that things happen at all in the negative spaces of canon. I know I’ve discussed this already, but it’s worth mentioning again: the way audiences are supposed to read texts is that everything pertinent happens on screen. Even supplemental texts that are considered canonical (cut scenes, novelizations, official tie-in comics, movie scripts) are deemed inherently less valuable because they aren’t on the screen. This movie affirms that important events are happening off-screen, to everyone- or at least everyone who isn’t front and center.

This is, again, infuriating, and I feel like when I say this I’m inadveretently contributing to justification. That is not my intention. Natasha’s growth should have been on screen and should have been seen as important. I hate that it’s reduced to a single movie after ten years and the character’s death. I don’t think this justifies it. AT THE SAME TIME, I think this opens space for us to look at lots of characters who haven’t gotten the screen time they deserved.

(Like, they may never give Rhodey the movie he deserves, but at least no one can tell us that if he did something worth seeing it would have been on screen. This movie’s existence is a rebuttal of that. This is a digression but one I’m gonna keep making until everyone starts casually referring to awesome shit Rhodey did off-screen because WHY THE FUCK NOT, YOU CAN’T PROVE IT DIDN’T HAPPEN, “IT DIDN’T HAPPEN ON SCREEN” IS NO LONGER PROOF OF ANYTHING EXCEPT THEY HAVEN’T DONE THE SET-IN-THE-PAST MOVIE YET. Y E T.)

But we also get the possibility of growth, and to analyze what growth means for Natasha’s character.

So here is an issue: I can tell you, with a frankly absurd amount of confidence, what I read Natasha’s arc as. I can lay it out from film to film, I can point to key growth moments, I can read a lot into every scrap that made it into the final cut and I can tell you exactly why, and I feel like if you dig into my history you’re going to find a lot of me citing specific scenes to make my point so I’m not going to go too in-depth on an already-long post that is getting exponentially longer. I think that Natasha’s key arc is in figuring out who she is and what she needs, and how to be a person rather than a reflection of what is asked of her. I think that the mirror imagery in the trailer and in the SDCC/D23 BW footage lends credence to this being a key theme of the movie.

But I have absolutely no idea if I’m right, because the MCU has never considered Natasha to be important enough to be the focus, and as a result I read her arc mostly through the ways she mirrors other characters’ stories, usually to show their strengths by comparison. I do my best to make arguments that are textually supported, but at the same time, it’s like describing the sun entirely from the way that its light reflects off the moon.

So I can say that for the BW movie to be satisfying, it needs to offer completion to her arc, which is then capped in IW/Endgame but would have reached its climax in the BW movie. But since I cannot confidently tell you what her arc has been so far, I can’t figure out exactly how that arc could be satisfactorily completed. Which means, after SEEING the movie, I will have to retroactively figure out how they saw her arc, and then figure out if this was a satisfactory way to end it.

But an argument done in hindsight is colored by what I’ve already seen, and that’s a cheat. So let’s start over.

Here is what we know:

Natasha was taken from her family very young (Endgame: didn’t know her father’s name). As a child, she was abused and manipulated by the Red Room (Agent Carter; Age of Ultron). She was trained to be a Black Widow, did terrible shit for them for a while, defected, became a mercenary, did terrible shit for the highest bidder (Avengers). Clint was sent to kill her but made a different call and brought her in to SHIELD (Avengers). Natasha quickly rose in the ranks and became one half of a STRIKE team watched over by Fury’s right-hand man, Coulson (Avengers). Natasha also became very close with Nick Fury, the head of SHIELD (IM2, Cap2). At some point in there she was shot by the Winter Soldier (Cap2). She was one of the people behind putting together the Avengers Initiative, identifying Tony Stark as not qualified (IM2), and recruited into the team herself (Avengers). She did not leave the Avengers teams for the next 11 years; she was on the first iteration (lasting through Age of Ultron), the second (Age of Ultron through Civil War), and then the Secret Avengers (which we can now assume starts post-BW through Infinity War) and Avengers 3.0 (five-year gap team), as well as the Quantum Realm Team-Up Team right up til she got yeeted off Vormir.

We’ll set Secret Avengers and Team 3.0 aside for the moment, as they’re things that will exist post-BW movie canon.

Natasha’s narrative role has often been to be so amazing that when she’s bested, we know the other person is really good. The best way for me to pull this together into a coherent throughline is that Natasha tends to be bested by people with passion and emotional stakes. When Natasha is just doing her job, but Pepper cares about Tony or the Dora Milaje care about T’Challa, she is outmatched. In Cap2, when Natasha cares deeply about SHIELD and who she’s loyal to, she is able to outmatch everyone she faces, but since she’s a secondary character and her act isn’t as highly visible on screen, her heroism isn’t as spotlighted.

(That said, make no mistake, WE WILL BE COMING BACK TO HER HEROIC MOVE IN THIS MOVIE.)

Her role has also been, as I mentioned earlier, to be a mirror to the white male heroes. She mirrors Tony in IM2, Clint in Avengers, Steve in Cap2, and Bruce in Ultron. I can make a strong argument, that I feel is supported by each text, that each of these mirrors is about moderation, and both the white man of choice and Natasha finding that the ideal is somewhere between both points: the space between how and why Tony and Natasha handle secrecy; between how Clint and Natasha handle guilt; between how Steve and Natasha handle trust; between how Bruce and Natasha handle self-hatred. That the writers and directors often disagree with my read of this does not, in any way, dissuade me from believing it, but it does mean that this may not be the arc we’re looking at in the movie.

By the arcs that I’ve traced, though, they have a fair amount of leeway to give a satisfying conclusion no matter what the plot is. By having other characters mirroring Natasha, she is centered in a way she never had been, and simply being the protagonist of her own story is part of Natasha’s journey we haven’t seen. We know that this is going to in some way revisit the Red Room, and that means that we’ll get to see a story where Natasha is passionate about and personally connected to what she’s fighting. We also know that whatever the story is, it will not be Natasha mediating someone else’s approach to the world, but Natasha’s approach to the world with someone else (I’m guessing Yelena?) mediating her worldview, in a way that gives Natasha growth but does not undercut her as someone who had so much to learn from the REAL hero.

All plot to the side, simply because Natasha is the protagonist, there is an element of satisfaction inherent, both textually and metatextually, because Natasha’s role of being sidelined is both within the text and within the media landscape a struggle she’s finally able to overcome. There is also a metatextual satisfaction just in cleaning up the bits and pieces of canon that we’ve gotten that were left hanging. For example, in her heroic climax in Winter Soldier, Natasha- who was so focused on being able to transform into whatever was necessary- released a fuck-ton of national security information on the internet, including her own history, that made her both immutable and knowable. (Do you ever think about how this means that people living within the MCU know more about Natasha’s background than we, the audience, does? Because I do, c o n s t a n t l y.) Natasha went from working undercover and in the shadows to being an Avenger and releasing not just her own and not just SHIELD’s but also the Red Room’s dirty laundry in public, and that has never had narrative consequences; this is a great opportunity to use that, closing a loop that most people probably forgot even existed.

Speaking of closure.

I think this movie HAD to be designed with that specifically in mind. I don’t think they necessarily expected the backlash they got from Natasha’s death (I’m going to be honest here; I didn’t expect it from anyone but Natasha fans), but at least they had to know that people who had been promised Natasha would get her due in canon would be frustrated and want some sign that the complexity of the character that had been talked up for a decade was actually part of the story they put on film. Marvel wants to placate fans, yes, but they wouldn’t waste millions upon millions of dollars on a movie to get us to shut up; their job is to bring in money, and it’s not like they haven’t gotten ten years’ worth from us. They’re also savvy enough to know that for a character who’s no longer alive in canon, they need to do things that make their story relevant even without them having future appearances- and I think we’ll see that in Yelena and Taskmaster- but also to make this story have stakes.

Yeah, we never spend a Marvel movie saying “Oh geez, what if the hero dies?” (well, aside from Civil War, because comics oontext), but right now we’re going in knowing (or, bare minimum, thinking we know) exactly what happens to Natasha. Where she’ll end up just under two years from when the story starts is set in stone (NO PUN INTENDED). So we need another way to give the story stakes. Natasha’s life and her future aren’t up in the air. Her past is, I guess, but they’ve been clear this movie isn’t about her past. And where that leaves us is the emotional journey. I outlined above what I think that is, but it doesn’t have to be that to be satisfying- it just has to be some way to leave Natasha changed in a way that surprises us as audience.

And, sure, that could be loss- that could be betrayal from everyone in this movie, leaving her alone and with no one to turn to but the Avengers- but I don’t think that is. I think that’s looking at Natasha’s story like she’s still a secondary character, rather than the protagonist. The basic structure of a superhero movie (and specifically a Marvel movie) is that the protagonist suffers defeat but ultimately triumphs, internally if not externally, having learned something that takes them farther on their emotional journey. Since (as far as we )know this is the only movie Nat’s getting- she’s not getting a trilogy or a Dis+ show- this needs to take her farther than most single-protagonist movies have.

In terms of another kind of closure: If the movie doesn’t offer at least a hint of a way Nat could come back (and I’m still hoping for that no matter how unlikely it is, and if it doesn’t happen I’m hoping for it in the Dr Strange sequel, and after that I’m sure I’ll find another path), I think there’s an excellent chance the post-credits scene will be a funeral for her. Given that they have SebStan and Mackie and Emily Van Camp shooting together right now, it would be very easy to at the VERY least get us a scene of them mourning her. It’s not the same as Tony’s giant lakehouse memorial, but it’s about half the characters who were close to her when she was alive (the others being Clint, Maria, and Fury, and I’m pretty sure they could have put an hour of time on the FFH set to the latter two having five seconds of looking solemn). I think that, given the backlash to Endgame, they need something like this: we need to see, on screen, conclusive proof that Natasha’s life mattered, not just for the audience, but for the world she lived in.

My dream would be for the entire movie to use a frame story OF her funeral- people talking about her, different memories and different understandings, that combine in different ways to collectively show a whole. Fucking Rashomon that shit. But we all know they’re not going to do that.

I recognize I am still talking satisfying and not happy.

But what exactly is happy? What exactly is the happy ending Natasha might want?

She’s not a character who wants to retire or settle down somewhere. As much as we in the audience talk about wanting her to get a break, we’ve never seen that from her, and we also don’t see a world that could really offer that to her; especially post-Cap2, Natasha does not have the luxury of escaping her past even if she did want to.

We don’t know her goals. We don’t know what she wanted outside of making amends for her past. We’ve gotten that from almost every other character- say what you want about Steve’s Endgame ending (god knows I have), or about Bruce being a public figure that kids love, but at least there was groundwork laid for it.

i think the best argument we have for what makes Natasha happy is in Civil War, when it’s taken away. Natasha is willing to give up things that are important to her (her autonomy) in favor of not losing her team; being together is the priority for her. By the end of Civil War, she’s lost even that; she’s seen to have betrayed her entire team and has no one. By IW we know that she re-finds her group, that she and Steve and Sam and Wanda are a tightly-knit unit, but we have to piece it together ourselves, and we have no way to know that it’s by choice rather than necessity. (The BW trailer is really the first time we get evidence that Natasha has more resources than just the Avengers or SHIELD; even fic has tended to just posit she has empty safehouses, not living people she can go to.) The BW movie could give her that team, and retroactively make her appearance in IW a reward for her- having found the team she wanted- rather than just the natural place for her to end up.

But I can’t see how that would even work without at least some of Chris Evans, Anthony Mackie, and Elizabeth Olsen appearing in this movie and showing on screen that Natasha has her people. We haven’t seen evidence they aren’t, but at least I haven’t heard any rumors they are, the way we’ve heard rumors about RDJ.

And there’s something awful, to me, in Natasha constantly being supporting in other people’s movies, which exist to seem self-contained even if they’re not, but then in her movie her emotional fulfillment relying on things that happen elsewhere- the implication that her emotional arc can’t even support a single movie.

In terms of what we’ve seen achieved, Natasha seems happiest when she’s solving a problem, when she’s fighting and winning and being the hero she doesn’t quite believe she is. But that’s not something that can be an end to an arc, of a decade or even of two hours. No matter how great that is, it’s a momentary thing, and it’s fleeting. That’s happiness but not narratively satisfying

This remains not an answer to the original questions.

I think part of the issue is, it’s not necessarily that we need Natasha to be happy, for her to have a happy ending. It’s that we, the audience, wants to be happy- and frankly, I don’t think that’s unreasonable; we’re not going to blockbusters to have our hearts torn out (and I think that after Endgame especially, Natasha fans are not ready or willing to do that again). And so we’re looking less at how Natasha can be happy, but how we can be happy. Selfishly, I’d even add: how we can be happy without doing the work. How we can be happy without conspiracy-theorizing our way to a satisfying narrative, but rather, a narrative that’s already on the screen, that we can just roll around in and enjoy.

I realize how bizarre this is to say after 3000+ words, but: I want the opportunity to be a lazy viewer. I want the chance to take things in without having to take responsibility for making them into something I want to see. I don’t want to have to reverse-engineer her story; I want to dig into the minutiae that is maybe actually intended.

On some level, that’s going to be the happy ending for me. Just having a whole text to dive into is a gift. (I am probably monkey-pawing myself just by saying this, which is the same kind of bullshit I argued for Age of Ultron- but then, I still can rewatch Ultron and find a lot that I like.) And Natasha getting a narrative win- which, as protagonist, she kind of has to- will be a happy ending for me.

But I’m a Natasha fan. This is expected.

What I think is the real question under all of this- what I’ve been struggling to tease out from my own feelings, and maybe now I’m finally getting to it- is a different question entirely: how can Marvel craft a story that sticks with their formula of giving a protagonist a win and something like a happy ending, while telling a story about a character who has been sidelined for ten years until they killed her off? Setting aside those of us who are overly invested in Natasha’s arc, what is the path to telling a story that the majority of the audience- most of whom haven’t traced her history, many of whom are casual fans, some of whom probably didn’t even see Endgame- finds fulfilling and happy?

The hero has to win, obviously. The hero has to triumph. Natasha has to come away having saved the world (stopping a villain from destruction), her world (protecting those close to her), and her internal world (some kind of emotional progress/catharsis). There will be moments intended for the audience to cheer. That’s a formula that you can find in nearly every superhero movie, and with good reason; I can’t think of why it wouldn’t apply here.

So looping back around, the question about the sad ending really is just for those of us who are deeply engaged. It’s not “will Natasha triumph?” because yes, she will- of course she will. We are going to get a movie where the world will be saved by Natasha (which has happened before) and the text will acknowledge that (which it really has not). The real question at hand is “will Natasha’s triumph be enough to mitigate the substantial losses she’s had in the other movies, or will it be bittersweet, her success here just underscoring the way that her biggest narrative win was to kill herself for no recognition?”

Which, of course, on some level, will vary from audience member to audience member. But I think that, with the awareness of how Endgame worked, and the knowledge of exactly when this movie is coming out, they have to at least try to give her- and us- this.

It’s now 5:15 AM and this is over 4000 words long and if you’ve read all this you deserve a medal. I’m happy to clarify or expand on anything in a few hours when I get up; I know that I circled a few points rather than clearly making them, but I’m no longer even completely sure what is common knowledge and what is me projecting. Hopefully this can at least start a conversation?

ETA: And anon, I am sure no matter what happens, fanfic will have our backs.

[you-get-to-exhale-now-cyrus]

45 reasons why

summary: cyrus tries to think of all the possible reasons that tj hates him following the events of costume day. (inspired by this post)

ship: tyrus

word count: 9235 (she’s a hefty one)

notes: happy late birthday amanda! @swingsetboys i hope you like this! 1. I’m annoying

That one was a given, Cyrus thought. He always asked one too many questions, laughed a little too loud, and complained a little too often for people’s likings. It only made sense that this was probably one of the main reasons that TJ probably hates him.

Hate. He doesn’t like that word; it’s so strong, it has so much power. Yet, it almost seems to fit the mood. After all, the costume was TJ’s idea, not his. TJ was the one who looked so excited to do the costume based on an inside joke. And yet, TJ was the one who bailed on it. TJ was the one who did a costume with a girl he, supposedly, barely even knew.

He sighed, putting down his pen and leaning back in his chair. Maybe this didn't just start right around costume day. Maybe it went further back, but how far back? A week? A month? Cyrus shook his head, breathing out forcefully. Might as well start from the very beginning, he thought to himself.

The whole thing started with that damn muffin. The muffin, he pointedly thought, that he couldn’t get for himself because he was too much of a coward to cut in line and get it for himself.

2. I’m weak

3. I’m helpless Just like Jonah said, he thought, but left that unwritten. He already knew that; he didn’t want it written down. That day with the stupid muffin seemed almost like a far away dream to him. He was almost certain that TJ. . .smiled at him? It was kind of fuzzy; if you’d asked him a week ago, he’d be able to tell you how many steps TJ took towards him before saying ‘he’s with me’. But now, he doubted that the whole exchange even happened. All he remembered was that he looked at TJ like this monster, like someone who could and would crush him underneath his sneaker. But. . .he didn’t. He was surprisingly friendly.

4. I jump to conclusions

5. I get scared too easily

6. I’m a bad judge of character

For days after that, Cyrus had found himself lingering over their interaction, if you could even call it that. He’d absentmindedly draw a muffin on his biology notes. At lunch, he’d stare at his mashed potatoes so long that Buffy had to physically prod him to make him eat. And when his parents drove him home from school, the car ride was remarkably quiet.

He really thought that that would have been the first and last time that him and TJ interacted. He was fairly certain that was the taller boy’s name; Buffy had mentioned her disgust for him several times before. But their conversation had only just begun.

A little while later, Cyrus had found himself drenched in sweat from head to toe because oh his goodness, he couldn’t stop himself from getting tongue-tied in front of the camera. And it certainly didn’t help that he was with his, now-ex, crush. That only made him want to do well more, which of course led to a disastrous outcome. He’d ended up running towards the swings to try and calm down. He’d even sung that stupid song he made up in elementary school.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, TJ popped behind him, with a compliment for his song. And Cyrus. . .well, Cyrus just looked scared. He probably looked like a deer in the headlights from TJ’s perspective. And then of course, TJ had made some joke about what he sang on the slide. Probably in a pitiful attempt to make conversation

7. I’m pitiful

Somehow he’d managed to convince TJ to sit and swing with him. With him. It felt almost natural, them sitting together on the swings. Well, not together per se, but they were on the same swing set. Separately.

‘You don’t know me. I got stuff.’

He’d never forgotten those words, because in that moment, he felt almost comfortable around TJ. Like he just wanted to spill everything and get everything off his chest.

8. I get too comfortable with people I barely know

They’d barely even talked that day. All that Cyrus had learned was that, apparently, TJ had things that he needed to feel better about, which to Cyrus, sounded absolutely absurd. He was the captain of the basketball team, people were borderline terrified of him, and let’s be honest, he wasn’t ugly. Far from it, actually, save for the insane amount of hair gel he used to wear.

And when he gave him an underdog, he barely remembered feeling so light and so effortless all at once. It felt like he was on top of the world, and that nothing could touch him. And the smile on TJ’s face when he was squealing like mad. . .it was nice to see. Even then, Cyrus could tell he didn’t smile like that, or maybe even at all, much.

9. I’m scared of stupid things

And then Buffy had shown up and TJ instantly put up his walls again and wanted to hurry off. And for some weird reason, Cyrus didn’t want him to leave. He wanted his new. . .friend? (if he could call him that) to make sure that he knew that Buffy was cool, and understanding when she wanted to be.

10. I want things that I can’t have

‘Thanks for reminding me about swinging. That helped.’

For once that day, he felt useful, like he’d been successful in making someone just a little bit happier. He’d gone home that day feeling pretty good about himself. Even his parents seemed to notice his good mood, but when they asked him about it, he just shrugged it off, saying that he’d found a few dollars on his way in to school. He was fairly certain they didn’t believe him, but they didn’t pry anymore, simply letting them eat his dinner in peace.

11. I get happy at dumb things

A few days after their encounter at the swings, TJ somehow managed to find Cyrus again in the hallway. He looked oddly stressed, and he didn’t have the same easygoing ‘shrug it off’ demeanor that he’d sported just a few days ago. He looked like he wanted to say something, Cyrus could tell by the way he’d carried himself. He hadn’t forgotten their conversation from that day.

“Something on your mind?” Cyrus had asked, rocking back on his heels.

TJ had just shrugged, tugging on his hoodie straps. “Just. . .stuff,” he’d said lamely, but Cyrus could see behind his indifferent demeanor.

“You don’t have to tell me now, or ever,” Cyrus had assured him, and was ready to walk off when TJ started pulling something out of his back pocket.

“Here,” he mumbled, handing Cyrus his phone, “put your number in and I’ll. . .tell you about it sometime, I guess,”

Cyrus had nearly dropped the boy’s phone from pure shock. TJ was asking for his number? Well, no. More like TJ didn’t want to talk right now and instead wanted a second method of communication.

“O-Okay,” Cyrus had stammered out, putting his phone number in, all the while thinking about what he would write for his contact name. He wanted to make it something a little creative, but not something so stupid that it was embarrassing.

‘Cyrus (Underdog)’ he typed out, before handing it back to TJ. He had glanced down at his phone, and Cyrus had sworn he saw the ghost of a smile.

“Cool, I’ll text you,” he’d said, before running up to catch up with his basketball friends.

He’d waited all weekend for TJ to text him, but he never had. He’d even sent him a text himself.

[Cyrus: hey it’s cyrus! but you probably know that, anyways i’m here to listen if you ever want to talk :)]

He regretted it the moment he’d sent it.

12. I’m a dork

13. I’m clingy

When it had come time to invite people to his bar mitzvah, the last invitation was almost shaking in his hand. Why he was so nervous to hand it to TJ was beyond him, but looking back, a crush was definitely forming. Hindsight truly was a savior. He really, really wanted TJ to come, so much that he probably sounded desperate when he asked.

14. I’m desperate

15. I’m a geek

Luckily for him, TJ had accepted; heck, he’d even smiled at him. And then, he launched into a conversation about Buffy. Something about needing her to do something for him. And there it was, he thought, the reason that TJ had even talked to him at all. He need a favor. What? A date? Her number? TJ had ended up being pretty vague about the whole ordeal.

“Just use her two favorite words,” Cyrus had said confidently.

“I’m sorry?”

He’d paled, eyes bugging out of his head. “No, she hates those words,”

“Then what?”

Cyrus had hesitated. On the one hand, he did want to keep talking to TJ. On the other hand, he didn’t want to say something he shouldn’t. But one look up to him, seeing him almost smiling, he nodding up the sidewalk.

“Come with me. You might not like saying this, but Buffy will love hearing it.” The two of them had walked out towards the bus stop at the front of the school. After checking to see if the coast was clear, no Buffy in sight, Cyrus had stepped in front of TJ.

“You’re right,” he’d said.

TJ furrowed his brows in confusion. “About what?”

Cyrus shook his head. “No, those are her favorite words. ‘You’re right’. I don’t know what it is about them, but she just...seems to cave at whatever when you say them. It’s how I got her to sell me Tokyo,”

TJ looked at him, even more confused than before, but there was an air of fondness in his gaze.

Cyrus waved him off. “Monopoly. Long story.”

TJ nodded curtly, upon hearing the bus beep. “Maybe you could tell me sometime,” he offered, shaking his phone, “you can use emojis and everything,” he’d joked, before waving and heading onto the bus.

Cyrus couldn’t wipe that stupid smile off of his face no matter how hard he tried.

Sure enough, when he got home that night, he sent TJ a long text explaining how he just needed Tokyo to complete his collection, but Buffy wouldn’t sell it to him. He didn’t really remember what had happened, other than the fact that he’d said ‘you’re right’ so many times it started to sound like a foreign language.

And this time, TJ did send him a text back

[TJ 🏀: lol that’s funny. i’ll remember that. thanks for today]

Cyrus almost smiled as he added new things to the list. Memories of his bar mitzvah were fond, and he wishes times could be as simple as they were back then. He hadn’t seen TJ that much, save for the time that he couldn’t open a damn bottle.

“Hey, Underdog!” TJ had said above the music, approaching him.

Cyrus had just groaned in response, his shoulders slumping, He set the bottle back down on the table and swiped at his hairline. “Hey, TJ,”

TJ had looked between Cyrus and the bottle. “Need some help?”

Cyrus shook his head. “No, I’m supposed to do this myself, you know. Be a man and all that jazz,” he chuckles, cringing inwardly.

16. I’m cringy

17. I have no physical strength

TJ nodded, putting his hands in his pocket, before he’d stepped forward and grabbed the bottle. Cyrus had started to panic a little, but TJ assured him things would be fine. He’d started to open the bottle, just a little, and then had quickly handed it over to Cyrus to finish it off.

“All yours, dude,” he whispered, discreetly shuffling back towards the dance floor. Cyrus had stood stunned for a few moments, before he came to his senses and opened the bottle the rest of the way. It made a satisfying ‘pop!’ and the foam spilled over the neck. All of his family and friends were clapping, and if he squinted, he could see TJ, clapping his hands and smiling.

Things seemed near perfect that day. He hadn’t seen TJ for the rest of the party, but he assumed that he was enjoying himself. At the end of the day, when he was all dressed up in his dino pajamas, he heard his phone ding.

[TJ 🏀: hey that fortune teller at your party, is she for real?]

He had swore he was having some weird form of deja vu; what he said sounded just like what Buffy had said back at the party.

[Cyrus: no, she’s fake, she just likes to pretend she can see the future. why?]

[TJ 🏀: oh, she just said some pretty freaky stuff, like she was for real]

[Cyrus: rest assured, she cannot see the future]

[TJ 🏀: thank god]

[Cyrus: i, however, can. and i see you and me tomorrow at the spoon for taters]

[TJ 🏀: can you now? i’d love to but i have practice, sorry, maybe another time]

[Cyrus: yeah totally!!]

Cyrus had really hoped those exclamation points could mask his disappointment.

18. I get disappointed easily

19. I’m a burden

Had he already written that? He didn’t know, and he frankly didn’t care. If he wrote it twice, maybe it was really true.

After his bar mitzvah, things seemed to be pretty at bay. Buffy was playing well on the basketball team. Life with Andi seemed less dramatic than usual, and everyone seemed to be getting alone pretty well. That was, until he went to one of the basketball games and found TJ glaring at the court, not dressed in his uniform. He’d went over to check on him, but TJ had just brushed him off.

20. I’m a bother

21. I’m nosy

“Eating your feelings? I do that,” he’d tried to lighten the mood with a joke, but TJ’s face was a palette of annoyed and frustrated. The two of them had sat down at the table in the room adjacent to the court.

“Think they’ll win without me?” TJ had asked, his mind seeming to be anywhere else but in this conversation. It was weird not seeing him on the court, Cyrus agreed.

“I don’t even know who they’re playing,” he’d admitted with a shrug.

“The Raptors,” TJ had sighed, “I should be in that game.”

“Why aren’t you?” Cyrus had asked. Way to be direct, kid.

TJ grumbled. “‘Cause. . .I’m failing math. They won’t let me play basketball because I can’t do some stupid equations. How are those things even related?”

Cyrus had started putting pieces together, but he didn’t want to pry. He didn’t want to ruin the delicate friendship between him and TJ. “Maybe you should get a different tutor,” he’d suggested.

TJ had just brushed him off. “What I need is a different. . .brain.”

Cyrus had frowned, his brows knitting into confusion. “What’s wrong with yours?”

For the first time that day, TJ looked almost hesitant. “It doesn’t work. There’s a malfunction.”

That was one way to put it, Cyrus had thought.

“I might have this. . .math dyslexia,”

“Dyscalculia,” Cyrus had said, not missing a beat.

“Buffy’s the one who figured it out. She’s been bugging me to talk to Coleman. Constantly on my back about it,” TJ had sounded exasperated.

“It’s pretty common. Not worth replacing your brain over,” Cyrus had assured him, the beginnings of a smile starting to form.

TJ rolled his eyes. “Dude, it’s a-” he was cut off by a few people entering the room, and he clammed up immediately, waiting for them to leave. When he was certain they were out of earshot, he’d continued.

“. . .learning disability. I don’t wanna go around announcing that,”

Cyrus had felt awful; TJ didn’t deserve to feel like this. “Dude, that’s an overused buzzword. There is nothing wrong with you.”

TJ seemed to almost stop frowning at that. Cyrus couldn’t back it up with evidence, he had just said it.

“And, your teacher can’t fail you for having it.” Of course he couldn’t. He just regurgitated facts.

22. I’m not helpful

“Coleman can’t fail me,” TJ had repeated, the words tasting almost strange in his mouth.

“You could be playing basketball. Right now.”

TJ had groaned, leaning back in his chair. “And Buffy’s been right all along,” he’d mumbled, almost chuckling to himself, “At least this time I’ll mean it when I tell her she’s right. That really is her favorite thing to hear.”

Cyrus had cringed internally. “I shouldn’t have told you about that. She’d kill me if she ever found out.”

TJ had scoffed at that, shaking his head. “Ah, don’t worry. She won’t find out,” he had paused for a moment, “and she may have been right, but you’re the one who really helped me.”

Cyrus hadn’t known what to say at that. He felt oddly proud of himself, and seeing TJ smile a little just made the whole moment better.

“Cheese puff?” TJ had offered.

Cyrus shrugged. “Sure.”

That day had been a good one, Cyrus had concluded. TJ had found him helpful, which almost made him want to erase the previous thing he’d written. But, he figured, he’d end up rewriting it anyways later, so why change it now.

Besides, what had happened later with Buffy only made him wince. How could he have been so careless as to tell TJ his best friend’s weakness?

23. I’m a bad friend

24. I’m not trustworthy

25. I’m a backstabber

26. I can’t keep a secret

27. I’m a liar

‘He wants to be friends with me. Who knows why?’

He still thought about that sometimes. Why did TJ want to be friends with him? Not for his terrible humor, or for his nerdy jokes, that was for sure. TJ did seem to take pity on him after Buffy left.

“Cyrus, hey!” TJ had called out, jogging up to Cyrus’ locker, only to find him staring into the void.  He had waved his hand in front of his face. “Earth to Cyrus?”

Cyrus had flinched, nearly hitting his head on his own locker. “Huh? Oh, hey TJ.”

“Something on your mind?”

Pity. Pity was all that his mind could chant at him, but somehow, he still ended up talking. “I miss Buffy,” he muttered, closing his eyes. It was only his first day back at school, and he was already miserable.

TJ had slung his arm across his shoulder, tugging him down the hallway towards the cafeteria. “I know you do. But hey, she’s just a call or a text away right?”

Cyrus just shrugged, keeping his gaze down. “I guess so,”

“Do you wanna sit with me and my friends at lunch?” TJ had offered.

Cyrus shook his head. “No, I’m okay. Thank you though, really. I’ll see you around.”

28. I push people away when they just want to help

Cyrus seemed to be pretty good at pushing people away. No matter how much he’d isolated himself from people, especially when Buffy was away, they still managed to make an effort to sneak back into his life. Well, less people and more TJ. He’d even apologized to a piece of metal in order to sit down with him and Andi. And then of course, in typical Cyrus fashion, he just let his emotions flow and texted him his list of things he couldn’t do.

29. I’m pathetic

He’d even taken time out of his day to, first of all, drag him out of the drama between Andi and Jonah, and second of all, to teach him how to do a somersault. He didn’t forget how his heart fluttered after they chest bumped. It felt like it did around Jonah. . .well, used to feel around Jonah.

Even when Buffy had said that his disappeared, he had lied slightly. At this point, he didn’t want to admit that his crush didn’t “disappear”, but it. . .moved, almost. It was like all his feelings transferred to TJ; the sweaty palms, the fluttering heart, and the indescribable desire to spend more time around him, preferably alone. Time spent alone with TJ was some of the best time of his life.

“Okay, so go over this one more time?” TJ had sighed, swirling his straw in his milkshake.

“So,” Cyrus started, clearing his throat, “I’ll find a way to get Buffy to the basketball courts, and then you show up, I’ll disappear, then you two can talk for a little, I’ll come back and then you guys will play some one on one,”

TJ had chuckled, leaning back in the booth. “Wow, you’ve really thought about this, huh?”

Cyrus was probably blushing now, and he tried to hide it by shrugging and sipping his milkshake. “Just a little bit,”

“Well, it’s a pretty good idea. You’re full of them.”

Cyrus was now for sure blushing. “Eh, I try.”

“You succeed.”

Why did he have to say these things? It only made Cyrus more and more and more flustered.

That day was one of his fondest memories with TJ. It was also probably when he realized how intense his crush really was. And when the day came for the basketball game, it was a little shaky, but it had worked out. Heck, TJ had even performed an apology rap for Buffy.

‘I’m so confused.’

So was Cyrus that day. He didn’t know why TJ had even agreed to go through all this effort just to apologize for Buffy. Maybe it’d be nice to befriend someone he liked, Cyrus thought. After all, that’s how it went for him and Jonah, but at least that crush was in the past.

30. I’m stupid

After Buffy had decided to start her basketball team, she had enlisted in Cyrus, and Andi a little, to help put up posters. Andi made them, Cyrus had to hang them. TJ had even offered to help him do that.

“Need some help down there?” TJ’s voice had floated down the hallway, a stupid grin on his face.

Cyrus had jumped one last time to try and pin the poster up, but to no avail. “Is it that obvious?”

TJ had chuckled at that, plucking the poster from his hands. “Huh. ‘Girls Basketball Tryouts This Week’. You trying out for the team, Underdog?”

Cyrus huffed at that, crossing his arms. “No. I’m just on poster-hanging duty. Which I seem to be failing at.”

“Here, I’ll help you,” he’d offered, handing the poster back to Cyrus.

Cyrus scowled, looking between the poster and TJ. “I told you that I couldn’t reach the-hey!”

And before Cyrus knew it his feet weren’t on the ground anymore. TJ had a firm grip on him, and Cyrus was just squirming.

“I could do it for you but, teach a man to fish?” he had repeated his mantra from when they first met each other.

“TJ, put me down!” Cyrus giggled, his legs kicking in the air.

TJ eventually gave in, putting him down, smiling widely. “Fine, fine, I’ll help put them up. The normal way.”

It had taken them way longer than expected to put up the posters, probably because they were just a chaotic duo, but Cyrus wouldn’t have had it any other way. It was way more fun than expected, even if it took a long time.

31. I waste people’s time

TJ was always one to push him out of his comfort zone, literally and figuratively. The day they went dirt biking was probably the epitome of that fact. The day was supposed to be a great one, seeing as he finally was getting around to meeting TJ’s friends. But things turned sour once Reed had shown him the gun. And when he confronted TJ about it, he barely said anything. Worse, he didn’t leave either. He was so concerned with his safety, as well as TJ’s, but still managed to walk off without him.

32. I’m careless

And then worse, he thought, was when he went to talk to Metcalf and the police about the gun. He felt so panicked the whole day after that encounter that he couldn’t even eat lunch. And considering he wasn’t allowed to talk to TJ all day, thanks to his friends, it felt worse. Don’t get him wrong, he appreciated what Buffy and Andi did for him, but he really wanted to clear things up with TJ. When they talked it out on the swings, he had no idea why he said the things he did.

“You can be a little annoying, you know that?” TJ had said, taking a step towards him.

33. I’m annoying

“Well, you can be oblivious,” Cyrus had countered weakly. He didn’t even know where the word oblivious came from. Oblivious to what? To the fact that sitting there with Reed was putting him in obvious danger? Or to the fact that Cyrus had an undeniable crush on him?

“Well you can be very judgy,” TJ had remarked, taking another step forward.

34. I’m judgy

“Well you can be intimidating,” Cyrus had replied, and was surprised his voice wasn’t wobbling.

“You know what else you are?”

That sounded like a threat. TJ could fill it in with any word in the world. Nosy. Irritating. Not my friend. He had told himself to keep his composure.

“What?” How he had managed to say that without his voice breaking was beyond him.

“The only person I can talk to like this,” he had said softer. Cyrus thought he was going to faint; he said what? He couldn’t help but smile at that.

That day seemed like light years away now, so far that it was nothing but a mere memory. He almost wishes he was back on the swingset with TJ, just swinging mindlessly. Or maybe he wants to go back to playing ping-pong with him and Jonah after they’d resolved their issues. It had been a bit of a stressful day for the most part, but seeing Jonah and TJ make up made it all worth it. Although, when they were talking about ‘stuff’ they had to do with, Cyrus had chickened out and said something about flamingos. He barely remembered, but he knew it was a lie. They’d played a few more round until Jonah decided to head over to the Red Rooster with Andi, leaving him and TJ.

“So, flamingos, huh?” TJ had chuckled, picking up the ping-pong balls that remained on the floor.

Cyrus had just shrugged, trying to ignore the fact that his heart was hammering in his chest: a clear sign that he was lying. Couple that with feeling like he couldn’t swallow, and you had a recipe for disaster.

“Yup,” he squeaked, putting the paddles on top of each other, “real and plastic,”

TJ had just hummed in response, leaning against the table. “So when we went to the zoo that time and you were spitting out facts about why flamingos are pink, while you pointed at them. . .your fear just happened to disappear then?”

Cyrus gulped, trailing his finger around the rim of the paddles. “That. . .that’s the day it started?” he’s said, but it sounded like a question.

TJ’s expression had softened, and he’d come up to Cyrus, putting his hand on his shoulder. “Stuff?”

Cyrus nodded weakly in response. “Yeah, stuff,”

“Swings?” TJ had offered.

Cyrus shook his head, nodding over to the stairs. “Stairs,” he’d mumbled, going and taking a seat on the second to the last stair. TJ had sat down beside him, and he didn’t push him to talk. He knew Cyrus would talk when he was good and ready.

“Look,” he started, “this. . .this is something that I think about a lot, you know? It’s not. . .something I’m ashamed of, I just don’t tell people that I don’t trust,” he admitted.

“Unless you killed someone I swear I’ll keep whatever you tell me a secret,” TJ had promised, crossing his heart, “and even then, I’d help you hide the body.”

Cyrus breathed out a laugh at that. “No, it’s not that it’s. . .I don’t like girls,” he said lamely, waving his hands in the air a little, “I mean, I-I like guys. Like, in a romantic way,”

TJ had remained quiet for a moment, waiting to see if Cyrus had anything else to say, but when he didn’t he just nudged him lightly. “I’m glad you told me. It was brave,” he paused, looking up to face him, “you’re brave, Cyrus. Braver than you give yourself credit for,”

Cyrus had smiled softly, breathing out and feeling like the oxygen was actually getting to his lungs. “So. . .we’re still cool? You and me?”

TJ had scoffed, nudging him once more. “Of course we are! It’ll take a lot more than this for things to be not cool between us.”

He kept thinking about that day; what if it wasn’t the best time to come out to TJ? What if he actually did think it was weird and was just trying to keep the situation as light as possible? All these what ifs, Cyrus concluded, could be boiled down.

35. I’m gay

He sighed, staring at that statement for a while. It was true, but the idea that TJ could hate him for something he couldn’t control. . .it hurt a lot. Almost too much, but he had to write down every possibility, every possible thing.

36. I’m weird

That one was a little more general, he supposed. Weird could cover a lot of things, not just being who he was, but all his nerdy hyperfixations, the way he acted around people, and his choice to never really go out with friends to parties. Too many reasons to list, so it was all boiled down to one word.

One word. That seemed to be all TJ could say after his dance recital that one weekend.

He’d finished the routine and was in the locker room wrapping up and putting his things into his duffel bag when they door swung open. TJ was walking his way, a hand behind his back.

“Wow,” he’d said, a gentle smile on his face.

Cyrus waited for him to say more, even along the lines of how ridiculous he’d looked on stage, flopping around like boiled pasta, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Wow? That’s it?”

“Wow, wow,” he repeated, pulling out a small dandelion from behind his back and handing it to Cyrus with a sheepish smile on his face, “. . .wow,”

Cyrus had accepted the flower graciously, and TJ had said something about catching up with his sister before he left for practice.

37. I’m a bad dancer

TJ somehow knew that dandelions were Cyrus’ favorite, probably from the numerous times he’d said that. He always knew just what to bring to every event, even to his Bubbe Rose’ shiva. How did he know to bring challah bread?

“Hey, Cyrus,” TJ had caught him alone, after the others had left and his family was cleaning dishes up and packing away food.

“TJ, hi,” he’d returned with a small smile, stacking one plate on top of another, “you know we’re wrapping up and all, you can go home,”

“I know,” he’d said, putting his hands in his pockets, “I just wanted to say that. . .I’m sorry for your loss. I know that she was really important to you, and I don’t know how much it’s going to mean coming from me, but. . .she cares about you a lot. We all do,” he’d gestured vaguely to the people around the room.

Cyrus had felt like crying right then and there, but he didn’t, somehow. He just smiled wider than before. “That does mean a lot, thank you, really. I know she does, I just. . .I miss her a lot already,”

“I know, and. . .if you ever want to talk about anything, tell me stories about her, or you just want me to distract you from this with a basketball story, I’m there.”

“Thank you, TJ. That means a lot.”

How had things managed to go from almost perfect, to the disastrous state that they were in now? He wanted to say that he didn’t understand, but he did. He knew that it had to do with himself, because that always seemed to be the problem. He always seemed to be the problem. The things he wrote just started to spill out of him.

38. I’m not worthy

39. I’m always the problem

40. I’m there when I’m not wanted

41. I’m a second-best person

42. I’m not attractive

43. I isolate myself from people

44. I’m a disaster

45. I’m annoying

He stopped writing for a second; the last words he’d written looked familiar. He scanned over the list and found that he’d written ‘I’m annoying’ three times. Sighing, he set the pen down and closed his eyes. Annoying. He’d written it so many times, that was probably the main reason, he deducted. With a shaky hand, he folded up the paper and shoved it into a backpack pocket of his. He didn’t feel particularly upset, he just felt numb, and a little tired. He managed to trudge down the stairs, where his mom was sitting and cutting up some vegetables for tonight’s dinner.

“Cyrus, sweetie, how are you feeling?” she asked sweetly, wiping her hands on the towel.

He just shrugged, unable to maintain eye contact for longer than a second. “Not. . .great. Is it okay if I stay home from school tomorrow?”

She softened at that, coming over to him and giving his shoulder a light squeeze. “I know you’re upset, but avoiding-”

“-just one day, please mom. I swear I’ll go back the day after. I promise. I just need tomorrow,” he pleaded, looking up at her, eyes filled with a layer of unshed tears.

She looked over his facial features for a few seconds before her shoulders relaxed, and she nodded weakly. “Okay, you have tomorrow, okay? Do whatever you need to do and if you want to be alone, that’s fine. If you need someone to talk to-”

“-I can call another therapist,” Cyrus half-joked, offering a tiny smile, “thanks, mom. I’ll be in my room for a little while. Think I’ll just take a nap.”

She nodded, watching him worriedly as he walked up the stairs and quietly shut the door to his room with a gentle click. He collapsed onto his bed, and he lied there forever until he felt like he couldn’t breathe through his nose. When did he start crying? Cyrus didn’t even know the answer to that simple question, and he was too weary to think about it. He pulled the covers over his head, closed his eyes, and waited for all the thoughts swirling around his head to settle down, before he finally fell asleep.

The next time Cyrus woke up, it was pretty dark outside, and he squinted at his alarm clock. It was close to eleven thirty, and he just sighed, grabbing his phone off of his stand and opened it to check through his notifications.. A few texts from Andi and Buffy in their group chat, one from Amber about dance, and none from TJ.

[buffy: hey cy are you okay?]

[andi: yeah, we’re worried. but we’ll talk to you tomorrow]

[cyrus: i’m not going tomorrow, i don’t feel well]

[andi: are you okay? do you need soup or something?]

[buffy: yeah do you need us to come over?]

[cyrus: no that’s fine, it’s not that bad, but i did manage to convince my mom to let me stay home]

[buffy: the talented actor mr cyrus goodman]

[cyrus: i’m not lying, it’s the truth, it’s just not the worst pain i could be in]

[andi: well if you need anything, just text us]

[cyrus: i will, i love you guys]

[buffy: we love you too!]

[andi: <3]

Cyrus felt drained just from that short conversation, and he put his phone aside, staring up at the ceiling. It irked him that TJ hadn’t sent him a text, especially after what had happened. If he wanted to apologize, which maybe he didn’t, a text would have been a start, because on Costume Day, there was nothing more than a few ‘I’m sorrys’ and ‘I should have called’. It wasn’t enough, not in the slightest, but as the days went on, desperation started to seep in, and Cyrus tried to convince himself that it was enough of an apology for him to just forget all of this happened. But no matter how many times he said that to himself in the mirror, he never could actually, genuinely believe himself. After a little more thinking about the matter, he pulled the covers back over his head, and fell asleep again.

“C’mon, c’mon,” TJ muttered under his breath, scanning through the hallway to try and find a certain brown-eyed boy walking through the hallways. But the more time that passed, the more his hope drained, and he retreated to his locker. Thankfully, he saw Buffy and Andi walking together, and nearly pushed people over to talk to them.

“Have you guys seen Cyrus today?” He asked, nearly out of breath, and looking mildly disheveled.

The two girls exchanged looks, not really wanting to talk to TJ at the moment, but they just gave him cold gazes. “He’s sick,” Buffy said simply.

“Wait, what? It’s, like, basically summer,” TJ sputtered, rubbing the back of his neck.

Andi shrugged. “All I know is that he said he felt too tired and too weak to come to school today. Should be back tomorrow,” she said curtly, pivoting on her foot and heading to her next class, Buffy following close behind.

TJ just stood in the middle of the hallway, dumbfounded. Cyrus wasn’t in school today, and he couldn’t help but feel like it was his fault. Tired and weak, they’d said. That didn’t sound like a typical cold, and he tried not to jump to the worst possible conclusion, but his mind didn’t allow him to do that. Cyrus was home because he wanted to avoid him. He couldn’t come to school because of TJ.

The whole day, TJ had been distracted. He couldn’t shake this vague nausea, because it was his fault. It was always his fault, it seemed. Everything was. He couldn’t concentrate in school, he missed almost all of his shots in basketball practice, and he didn’t get any of his homework done. All he did was stare at the words on the page and let them turn to mush as he shut the book angrily, rubbing his eyes harshly. He turned off the lamp and just scrolled through his phone. He wanted to send Cyrus a text, but he was too afraid. Too much of a coward. He’d typed out so many messages in his notes, but never sent any of them.

Overwhelmed by emotions, he shut his phone off and tried to sleep. It was a fitful attempt to sleep, and he was tossing and turning all night long, it felt like. He was sure that he had fallen asleep at some point, because after what felt like a longer blink, his alarm went off, and he just knocked it over to the ground with a groan.

Cyrus wished that he felt better after a day of just sleeping and watching YouTube videos, but he didn’t. He still felt just as drained and upset, if not moreso. When his mom served him breakfast, he told her that he wasn’t hungry, but that he was alright.

Having not done his homework due yesterday, he just circled random answers on the worksheets, and shoved papers into his backpack with a weak sense of urgency. He didn’t know how he was going to make it through the day without Andi and Buffy asking him a ton of questions. Don’t get him wrong, he loved them to death, but today was a day where he really couldn’t deal with talking to people, even them.

“Have a good day at school, Cyrus,” his mom called after him as he opened the door.

“I’ll try,” he mumbled, heading on his way. Sometimes TJ would wait for him in the morning, running from his hand and then the two of them would make their way to school, nearly hand in hand. The space around him felt almost too big as he walked, and he felt so small.

The bell was too loud, there were too many students, and Cyrus felt like a stranger in the school, only having been gone for a day, though. He almost forgot his locker combination, because his brain only wanted to focus on how weak his knees felt.

“Cyrus!”

All his thoughts came to a screeching halt at that sound. He knew damn well who it was, but all his brain seemed to chant was ‘danger, danger, pain, pain, pain, sadness’. He didn’t turn around, he didn’t even zip up his bag all the way, he just ran, who knows to what class. If his gym teacher could see him now, he would be beyond proud. Fortunately for him, he was running in the right direction, and ended up in his math class, nearly out of breath. He picked a seat near the back and tried to make sure that his teacher wouldn’t call on him. Unzipping his bag, he pulled out his notebook from his big pocket, and then a pencil from his small one.

Huh, he thought, zipping up the smaller pocket, it was kind of open. He tried not to linger on that for too long, as his teacher was about to start another lesson.

TJ could only watch him run off as he stood there. He felt his heart sinking deeper and deeper into his stomach, and was about to turn and walk off a small piece of paper fluttered near the corner of the pod of lockers. Moving with utmost casualty, he walked over and picked it up before walking to his next class. While TJ usually loved history, the piece of paper burning in his pocket demanded attention. He took his usual seat near the back of the classroom, and as his teacher started talking about the Civil War, he quietly pulled out the paper and smoothed it out under his desk.

He was a little confused at first; it was a list of insults someone had written about themselves. A quick glance over revealed that they had written ‘I’m annoying’ three times before they stopped. He squinted at the writing, and more he looked at it, the more worried he got. It looked an awful lot like Cyrus’ handwriting. His y’s were always curled at the bottom just so, his a’s were never fully closed, and the way he drew his 2’s were just like the ones on the page.

TJ felt his whole chest seize up. If Cyrus really did write this, which was becoming a much more real possibility with each passing moment, he couldn’t help but feel like this was his fault. Did he really make Cyrus feel like this? Like he was basically worth nothing? Putting aside his worries, he ignored whatever his history teacher was saying, and pulled out another sheet of paper, keeping Cyrus’ in his lap for reference. At least it looked like he was taking notes, since his teacher seemed to pay him no mind. And when the bell rang, he shoved both pieces of paper into his pocket and bolted out the door, looking for a certain boy.

Last period didn’t end fast enough, so when the bell finally did ring, Cyrus was the most excited that he’d been all day. He still had homework he needed to catch up on, along with today’s work, but all he wanted to do when he got home was to sleep more. He was almost out the door and ready to walk home, when he felt an urgent tapping on his shoulder. Turning around, he drew in a sharp breath. TJ.

“Hey,” TJ mumbled, tapping his fingers nervously against his jeans.

“What do you want, TJ?” Cyrus said. And it didn’t come out mean, or cruel, or cold. It was just tired, like he was on his way to something.

“This is only going to take a few minutes, please,” he practically begged, the urgency in his tone only growing. Being too tired to resist, Cyrus just shrugged, and TJ, wasting no more time, grabbed his wrist and dragged him towards an empty classroom, shutting the door behind him.

“Hurry up, I have things to do,” Cyrus mumbled, taking a seat on the top of a desk.

TJ nodded, and shakily pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he quickly handed it to Cyrus. When the other boy saw the paper, he immediately folded it back up, holding it close to his chest.

“Wh-where did you find this?” Cyrus squeaked, his voice on the edge of cracking.

“It was on the floor by some of the lockers,” he said softly, taking one of the chairs from under a desk and sitting in it, “when?”

Cyrus glanced up from his hands. “When what?”

“When did you write it?”

He toyed with the idea of lying to him. How would he know? But after a few moments of thought, he felt like there was nothing left to lose.

“The other day,” he admitted softly.

“Do you actually believe all the things you wrote? Cyrus, those are all lies,” TJ said firmly, scooting a little bit closer.

Cyrus shook his head, willing himself not to start crying, not here, and certainly not now. “Of course they’re true,” he grumbled, “why would you hate me if they’re not?”

TJ froze; if the rest of Cyrus’ words were a slap to the face, this was a stab right through his heart. He literally could not speak for several moments after he’d said that.

“I. . .you. . .you think I hate you?” He finally managed to say, his tongue feeling oddly dry.

Cyrus just shrugged again. “I mean, you bailed that day,” he said under his breath, kicking his legs underneath the desk.

TJ swore that if he wasn’t sitting down he would have fainted. “I. . .I mean, I’m really sorry for doing that, it was a crap move on my part, and there’s a sort of reason why I did but. . .I could never hate you, Cyrus, never.”

When Cyrus didn’t say anything, TJ pulled out the other piece of paper from his pocket, smoothing it out in front of him. “I swear this won’t take long, I’m just asking you to hear me out,” he looked up at Cyrus, who just motioned for him to hurry up.

TJ cleared his throat, tightly holding the piece of paper in his hand. “You’re not annoying, not at all,” he started, which barely garnered Cyrus’ attention.

“You are strong,” he continued.

“What the heck is going on?”

TJ put a hand up. “Just listen. You’re not helpless, if anything you’re an independent person. You don’t jump to conclusions too fast, if anything, you’re good at reading people from a first glance,”

Cyrus just furrowed his brows, listening to TJ talk. He glanced down at his list in his own hand, and it took him a few moments to realize that TJ was trying to counteract all the things that he’d written on his own list.

“But I do get scared too easily,” Cyrus mumbled, tracing his writing on the paper.

“That’s not a reason for anyone to hate you, Cyrus,” TJ assured him, “and. . .you’re not a bad judge of character, you’re actually pretty good at it. Great, even.”

“Pitiful,” Cyrus countered, crossing his arms in defense.

“Lies,” TJ cut him off before he could say more, “you’re not pitiful. And getting too comfortable with people you barely know? More like you can make friends really easily.”

“Yes, but,” Cyrus squints down at his own list, “I’m scared of stupid things.”

TJ shook his head. “No, you’re rational. You have rational fears,” he says, looking at the next thing, “and ‘wanting things that you can’t have’? You have goals and dreams that you want to achieve. I have no idea how you thought that anyone could hate you because of that. Getting happy at dumb things? Seeing you smile is one of the best part of my days, and I don’t even care what you smile about. It really doesn’t matter.”

If Cyrus didn’t know any better, he would have thought that he and TJ were back into their normal routine. He just looked at his list, and mumbled “dork.”

TJ’s face grew harder by the moment, and he gripped the side of the chair with his free hand to try and keep his emotions at bay. “You are not a dork, Cyrus. And, for that matter, you’re not clingy, you’re not desperate, or a geek, or cringy. Not in the slightest.”

Cyrus sighed. “Look TJ, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, but you don’t need to pity me like this.”

His eyes widened, and for a second, nothing came out of his mouth except for a squeak. “You think this is pity? This isn’t pity, I’m just telling you the truth about yourself, because your mind seems to only think you’re the worst. Which you’re not, you’re my favorite person.”

TJ took a deep breath before continuing. “Physical strength? What’s that got to do with someone hating you? You don’t get disappointed easily, I know that for a fact, and,” he pauses, hesitantly reaching up and placing a hand on Cyrus’ shoulder, “you are not a burden. Please don’t say that about yourself.”

“But,” he pauses, looking down at his paper, “I am a bother, and nosy.”

“You’re not, not at all. And also, you are extremely helpful, Cyrus. You haven’t helped just me, but so many people. You’re a great friend, and all this nonsense of not being trustworthy or anything like that? It’s a complete lie.”

“Even if I do try to help people, when they try and help me, I push them away,” Cyrus said, glancing at TJ’s hand, which was still on his shoulder. He didn’t do anything to push him off, because honestly, the contact felt nice after a period of the cold shoulder.

“And people should hate you for that? It’s a coping mechanism, you should know that better than anyone,” TJ informed him, “and you are one of the smartest people I know, Cyrus. You’re not stupid, or pathetic, where did you even get that idea?”

“But I do waste people’s time,” he countered weakly, looking down at his lap.

TJ was so upset that Cyrus actually believed the things that he’d written about him, that it just made him want to crumple right then and there. “You don’t. You care so much about people, and you are always there when they need it. And you have annoying on here again, but that’s not true.”

Cyrus glances up at him when he says that. “But you said that I was.”

TJ raised his brows. “I’d never say that. When did I say that?”

“That day at the swings, after the whole Reed thing. You said that I was annoying. And judgy for that matter,” he muttered.

TJ sighed, bowing his head. “It. . .look, I’m sorry for saying that, but in the heat of the moment, I was upset because. . .I thought I was going to lose you. And I couldn’t bear that.”

The two of them were quiet for a little while, the only sound being the ticking clock up on the wall. Finally, TJ looked at the next things on the list, and felt like he was going to cry.

“Cyrus, look at me,” he said firmly, meeting the other boy’s gaze, “I will never, and have never, hated you because of who you are. You being gay is just part of who you are, and is not a reason for me, or anyone else for that matter, to hate you,” he pauses for a moment, “especially me. It’d be pretty hypocritical.”

Cyrus almost smiles at that. Almost. He instead just seems to relax, a breath passing through his lips. “I’m still weird though.”

TJ just shrugged. “Weird is good though. Why would anyone want to be normal?”

Cyrus gave a weak smile at that, feeling a little lighter with each of TJ’s words. “That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a bad dancer.”

TJ crossed his arms. “I’ve seen you in the studio, Cyrus. You’re not a bad dancer. You’re always smiling, and you get this little smirk on your face when you’re concentrating really hard. It’s cute.”

Cyrus ducked his head at that, and tried to tell his mind that he was still supposed to be mad at TJ, not fall for all his compliments. Before he could even say anything else, TJ beat him to it.

“You are worthy of everything, okay? You deserve the world. If anyone’s a problem, it’s me, not you. And you are certainly not a second best person. You’re my first choice, always have been. The fact that you isolate people is, again, a coping mechanism for when you’re upset. You’re not a disaster, and never have been. And I hope this time you believe me when I say you’re not annoying.”

Cyrus nodded weakly; it felt really nice to hear someone tell him that he was their first choice. It was like he was wanted.

“And. . .don’t say you’re not attractive. You’re. . .” he hesitates a little, barely able to look him in the eye, “you’re beautiful, Cy, okay? All of you. Your smile, your laugh, your personality especially.”

Cyrus opened his mouth to say something, but again, TJ beat him to it.

“Kira was going to out me if I didn’t do the costume with her. I’m sorry that I bailed and I’m sorry that I didn’t let you know, I was just so scared that she was going to tell people and I didn’t-”

“-TJ, slow down,” Cyrus cut him off, reaching out for his hand and giving it a soft squeeze, “I forgive you, okay? And. . .thank you for this. I feel a lot better now. And for the record,” he laughs a little, “I think you’re pretty handsome yourself.”

Now it was TJ’s turn to try and hide his blush. He looked down at their hands, and couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks,” he mumbled bashfully, “I try.”

Cyrus smiled, hopping off of his desk and standing. “I’ve missed talking to you. What do you say we go get some ice cream and catch up?”

TJ stood up with him. “I’d love that.”

And after two rounds of ice cream and way more laughing and talking, they fell back into their normal rhythm, with a little more hand holding and hugging. But after today, their relationship was all the more stronger. When he went home that day, Cyrus through his list in the garbage, and pinned up TJ’s list to the board in his room. Even when he was having a bad day, he could always look at that list and smile.

[mrvelesbian]

Ineffable

(Maria Hill x Natasha Romanoff x Reader)

Trigger warnings: mentions of suicide (not graphic and they’re also marked in the story), grief(?), people being very sad, death 

Authors Note: This is my first time writing for any marvel character so I apologize if they’re ooc! This fic does deal with some heavy topics but I tried to keep it manageable? Feedback is always appreciated❤

word count: 4.601

in·ef·fa·ble

/inˈefəb(ə)l/

adjective

too great to be expressed or described in words.

You remember the day of the snap. You were rushing around your offices in DC frantically trying to get in touch with other diplomats to do anything- absolutely anything- to curb the chaos erupting across the globe.

"Richards!" You yelled, waving the stout man into your office. Richards was by far your favorite intern in the office, and the most competent. "I need the delegation from France on the phone as soon as humanly possible they're the last European country we need to talk to." Your colleague furiously scribbled on his notepad and nodded.

"What do you want me to relay to-" he began to ask.

"Finish your damn sentence Richards I'm on a tight schedule here" you said, exasperation obvious in your tone. When he didn't reply you peered up to see what had interrupted him.

Whatever you expected to see, nothing would have prepared you for the reality of what you saw. Richards face was beginning to crumble away like dust. The right side of his face was gone and his left eye was moving frantically as he shook his disintegrating hands like he was trying to get a bug off.

"Jesus Christ!" You exclaimed. You rushed over to him from behind your desk only to turn your attention to screams from outside your door. In the second you tore your eyes away from Richards he had completely disintegrated. Only a his notebook and pen remained. You threw the door open with the intention of getting help.

The hallway was in disarray, miscellaneous items strewn across the floor and people crying loudly. Not finding anyone in their right mind to help you, you moved towards the end of the hallway. You pushed your way through the crowd gathered around the small television and to your horror you saw two reporters scrambling to hold up a third who was dissolving just as Richards had minutes ago.

Suddenly you realized what was happening. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck" you rushed towards the stairs, pulling out your cellphone at the same time.

The snap.

It was a hypothetical situation brought up to you by Tony Stark in a debriefing with him a few weeks ago. An apocalyptic scenario. The worst possible outcome of whatever showdown was happening between Thanos and the avengers right now.

"Come on come on come on Maria pick up please" you pleaded to nobody. Your girlfriend's phone rang once, twice, three times before it went to voice mail. It's okay. Don't jump to conclusions. You told yourself. Instead of breaking down like you wanted to, you ran down into the main lobby and went out to the front of the building.

"Take me to the avengers headquarters" you barked at the driver in the car parked at the doors. "Ma'am that area is off lim-" he tried to reason with you. You knew you were being a bit of an asshole but you couldn't bring yourself to care. "I don't give a damn sir. You will take me there now or I swear to god-" you didn't get to finish the sentence before an agent came up behind you and put their hand on your shoulder. You shook his hand off and whipped around, a scowl already painted on your face.

"Excuse me miss? I've been sent by Ms.Carter, you're needed at headquarters immediately"

The ride to the avengers headquarters was a blur. The agents had tried to make small talk with you at first but the pitying look in their eyes told you everything you needed to know. She was gone. Maria Hill was dead.

I didn't even get to say goodbye.

°°°

Later that day Natasha and the rest of the avengers along with a few Wakandans stumbled into the conference room occupied by yourself, Sharon Carter, and two other agents you didn't bother to remember the names of. The second she was in the door she rushed over to embrace you. Her hair was caked with blood and she smelled of dirt but you clung onto her all the same. A sob broke from your chest, the first since you had found out the news.

"Oh baby it's okay I'm okay I'm safe we're gonna be okay" Natasha tried to reassure you. You shook your head into her chest, unable to articulate what you wanted to say. She put her hand under your chin and lifted your head so she could meet your eyes. Finally the words fell from your lips. "Maria Hill is dead."

Natasha stopped cold. Any hint of a smile disappeared from her face and her hands dropped to her sides. A chill had set over the entire room.

°°°

Nothing was ever the same. Sure you and Natasha still came home to the same apartment every night, still cooked in the same kitchen, still sat on the same couch, still fell into the same bed, but nothing was the same.

You had forgotten how to cook for two people. An extra serving of dinner always sat in the bottom of pan, mocking you and making you lose all appetite. Maria's keys sat in the same spot that they always had, her favorite jacket hung on the coat rack. Her bright orange toothbrush sat on the counter gathering dust.

You and Natasha clung together at night as if you were trying to keep each other from falling apart. Some nights the two of you just cried until all the water was gone from your bodies. Everything in your life seemed to be cracking at the seams, because how the hell could it not when only half of your heart was home.

Things at the avengers headquarters were hectic as they always had been, except this time the responsibility of keeping the universe afloat fell onto Natasha. Tony had immediately retreated upstate, Steve was across the country raising morale as best as he could, Clint was an international criminal, and Bruce refused to step foot in the facility. Every night Natasha came home with a folder bursting with paperwork to add to her stack on the dining table.

At your job things weren't much better. The secretary of state along with half of your department was gone and with the current state of affairs you needed every person available. The international community was in shambles, England had to elect a new PM, several oil crisises had begun in the middle east and in Asia the lack of labor forces had caused economies to plummet. Begrudgingly, you had accepted more influence in the government and by now you were unofficially running the state department.

Somehow you and Natasha had managed to find the time to establish an orphanage in the city for kids effected by the snap. The organization was a sliver of humanity in the consuming depression the world was in. The kids there made you feel like maybe things would turn out okay somehow.

You had named it the Hill house after her. Natasha had chuckled when you suggested it, obviously understanding the historical irony. "Maria would've been so embarrassed to have something named after her, she was too humble for her own good." She smiled briefly at the thought of the brunettes inevitable bashfulness.

°°°

Years had passed and things hadn't gotten any easier. You and Natasha had made it through, both for each other and for Maria's sake. Every fight between the two of you had ended with tears and apologies and thoughts of how angry Maria would be if you two drove the other away.

You'd officially been named secretary of state despite your numerous protests. The government had attempted to name Nat head of the avengers initiative, but she had immediately refused the title of director. "That's fury's job he'll be so pissed when he comes back and I'm in it" she said. Nobody refuted her assumption that there was even a way to bring Fury, to bring anyone, back.

As the days passed you and Natasha worked, came home, and slept. Things had fallen into a sort of sick routine.

Then Scott Lang showed up outside the avengers complex and everything changed. Suddenly Natasha was talking about time travel and something called the "quantum realm." She had tried to explain, the infinity stones were dust in our time line so they had to go into others to retrieve them. But in all honestly the theories seemed absurd at best to you.

You had gotten into an argument with her about it. How were you supposed to let her leave you as well? When there was a more than real possibility she wouldn't come back.

Vormir. Thats where her mission was. It was supposed to take something like a second in your time until she was back. She promised she'd be back. She'd held your face in her hands and vowed not to leave you all alone in the world.

But promises cant always be kept.

"Where's Nat?" Was the only thing that came out of your mouth when the avengers reappeared. You counted them quickly, hoping you'd just missed her. When she still wasn't there, you looked to Clint. "Where is she?"

Clint stared back at you with sad eyes. He looked like a man who had seen too much, experienced too much to ever live normally again.

"One of us had to die and she-" the rest of Clint's words turned to white noise. Dead. One of them had to die. Natasha had to die.

The world became a blur. Everything was too suffocating and nothing at the same time. You must have been screaming but you couldn't hear a sound. You felt strong arms wrap around you seconds later and hold you tight even as you thrashed about. You felt sorry for whoever was hugging you because you were sure you'd punched them in the chest more than once.

Natasha Romanoff is dead.

°°°

Coping is not the correct word for how you lived. You did not cope. How could you have? First you had lost Maria, nearly five years ago, without a goodbye. Now you'd lost Nat.

They were the things that brought light into your life. Maria's terrible dad jokes and Natasha's loud laugh rung in your ears when you laid in bed at night. If you concentrated hard enough you could nearly remember how it felt to be sandwiched between the two of them. Maria's arm around your waist and Natasha's head in the crook of your neck. Or your legs wrapped around Maria's waist and Natasha's hands running along your back. You could almost smell their perfumes when you walked in the bathroom. But everything was just out of reach. Your memories haunted you more than any ghost could have.

They were dead. Natasha Romanoff was dead. Maria Hill was dead.

You barely ate, you barely slept, your house looked unlived in because you spent as long as possible in the office every day. It was only when your interns shoved you into a company car at 2 am that you finally went home.

The woman who you saw in the mirror looked nothing like yourself. She had your nose and your lips but her eyes were dead and her cheeks were hollow.

Steve tried to come around and get you to talk, as did Tony and Pepper but nobody made any progress. Even Sharon, your best friend, couldn't break through to you. She got further than everyone else by getting you to eat, but getting you to talk was impossible.

°°°

"Get some fucking sleep for the love of god" Sharon sighed as she pushed you into the apartment at 2 am yet again. You mumbled a weak "okay" and closed the door. The picture hanging in the hallway mocked you. It was of you, Maria and Natasha on the couch. You were spread across both of their laps and Natasha's head was laying on Maria's shoulder, all of you asleep. You remembered Natasha punching Tony in the arm when she found out he took it, but she had hung it up all the same.

Without shedding so much as your belt you walked into your room fell onto your king size bed. The room was absolutely silent. You hated it.

"If we're all going to be sleeping in one bed there's no way in hell it's gonna be a queen" Maria insisted, pointing at the mattress next to her. "Natasha spreads out so much she could probably take up a queen by herself." Natasha shoved Maria's shoulder at her comment but the large grin threatened to break onto her face gave her true emotions away.

You curled up in the middle of the mattress, refusing to push into what would be Maria's spot on the right of you, or Nat's on your left. The bed felt suffocatingly large now.

When you awoke from your third nightmare that night nobody was there to hold you to their chest. You bolted from the bed into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. Tears sprung up in your eyes and you collapsed on the floor, utterly defeated.

"Wake up honey come on everything is okay you're safe don't worry" Natasha's smooth voice washed over you as you were pulled out of your sleep. You were drenched in sweat and your heart was beating a mile a minute. "I was in Baghdad again" you mumbled out. Maria hummed understandingly and rubbed your back. "Nobody is going to hurt you again baby not while we're here"

You no longer dreamt of bombings at embassies and guns pointed in your face. Instead you saw Richards drift away before your eyes. Heard Maria's voice calling out to you desperately. Felt Natasha's hand slip from yours as she fell off the cliff.

You couldn't take it anymore. You were exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally. You didn't want to do anything, you didn't want to talk to anyone, you didn't want to be alive anymore.

°°°

TRIGGER WARNING**

The wind whipped through your hair as you stared down the side of the 27 story building. Cars looked like little toys from this height and it was almost humorous to hear the honks and yells from tiny cab drivers. You faced upwards for a moment, letting the morning sun soak into your skin.

"What the hell are you doing up there?" Sharon Carter threw open the door to the roof entrance. How did she get up here? How did she even find you.

"Do not do this. Please don't." She repeated, trying to keep her voice steady.

Something inside you snapped at her words.

"Don't even try to talk me down Sharon. Don't say people need me. I know that people need me Sharon I know that. I know that practically the entire state department is riding on my shoulders. I know that there are 150 million people left in the US who are looking for something, anything to show them that its gonna be okay but Sharon, and I know this is selfish, but what about me! Sharon what about me. I am so tired, so fucking tired of being selfless. Maria is gone. Natasha is gone. And I know there's something worth living for I know that you love me and Tony loves me and Pepper but god fucking damn it Sharon it's not enough." Your voice cracked several times through your tears.

"I hate myself because I don't care that half the world is dead, I care that they're dead. I watched people fall apart right in front of me why the hell didn't I go with them" you let all the rage, the sadness, the despair in your body explode through your chest.

You could see Sharon's eyes threatening to let the tears in them spill over onto her cheeks. It was obvious she felt utterly helpless in this situation.

"What if she comes back and you're not here." Sharon said, just loud enough for you to hear her.

"Don't. Say that" you tried to breathe somewhat regularly.

"There's a chance. Even if it's the smallest one, this would take away your chance of seeing them again."

Images flashed through your mind of Maria and Natasha huddled together in your bed, trying not to say anything about the hole in the middle of them; Maria and Nat placing white and blue flowers on your grave; Maria and Nat rushing into your apartment to greet you only to see Sharon, ready to deliver the worst news they could receive. Even if there was a .0001% chance they would come back you couldn't force them to grieve for you as well.

An even louder sob spilled from your lips. You screamed out into the sky like you were being torn apart, but when Sharon pulled on your waist you let yourself fall back into her arms and cling onto her neck. You could feel her body shaking with sobs as well. She slowly sat down in the middle of the roof, rocking you back and forth.

"Sharon" you mumbled into her jacket.

"Sharon it hurts" you cried. "It hurts so bad" Sharon only nodded and pressed her lips to your head, your hair muffling her sobs.

"I know"

°°°

The final battle was worse than you could have ever imagined. Footage from the city showed the destruction that leveled large portions of the harbor and financial district. Blood was splattered on the concrete, painting it red and bodies littered the streets. Thankfully you had heeded Steve's warning and ordered an emergency evacuation nearly a week ago.

You watched nervously as the battle raged on, seeing some of your closest friends fall to their knees.

Then the first portal opened.

The battlefield was suddenly bathed in yellow light and a figure walked out. Slowly you recognized them: the Wakandan king and his sister. More appeared. Scarlet witch, Quill, Mantis, Steven Strange, Peter, and Valkyrie all appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

The snap was being reversed.

"Giles!" You barked at the intern sitting next to you. "You are to monitor this screen and nothing else until the battle ends. I want updates every 10 minutes and a call if anything significant happens. Now I must go"

You rushed down the stairs and into the parking lot. A quick call was made and within minutes you were in a helicopter headed to New York.

°°°

As soon as you landed on the Avengers' building's helipad you were scrambling to get off and into the head quarters. You sprinted down the stairs to the 17th floor labeled 'special forces and directors office.' It seemed the most likely place that Maria would be. If she was alive.

You pushed open the double doors to the main hallway and there she was, exactly how she'd been 5 years ago. "Maria!" You yelled, flinging yourself on her the second she turned around. You sobbed into her shoulder and gripped her coat like a life line.

"Maria I can't believe you're here. You're really here right? This isn't some sick joke?"

"It's really me" Maria smiled. "You look like shit what happened" she brushed a piece of your hair behind your ear. "Maria I- you left me" you said between tears. "What?" She whispered.

"You've been gone for five years Maria"

°°°

The battle was over. Tony was dead. He died a hero, the man he always had been deep down. Your heart broke for Pepper, who had lost the love of her life, and for Morgan who would grow up without him.

The first thing Maria asked when the avengers began to gather back at shield was where Natasha was. You nearly started crying again. "Oh Maria.... I" you couldn't bare to say it. "I am so sorry I am so so sorry she-"

Steve finished your sentence for you, his voice colder than you’d ever heard it, "Natasha is dead."

°°°

Maria grieved almost exactly as Natasha had. She threw herself into work, focusing most of her time on catching up on the 5 years she missed. She moved back into your apartment, a place you hadn't slept in in almost 2 months. Ever since your incident Sharon had essentially held you hostage in her house, only letting you leave by yourself for work.

The universe really was fucked up. You thought to yourself. The thing you'd been wishing for since the snap had come true. Maria Hill was home, the other half of your heart. Her muscular arms wrapped around you at night and her brunette hair tickled your nose when you hugged her. But Natasha left to make sure Maria could return. Your heart was still broken. Still incomplete.

Now it was Maria that needed to be held together. You knew how to hold her carefully so she wouldn't break because by now you were somewhat of an expert on grieving the deaths of your lovers.

That doesn't mean it didn't hurt like hell to see Natasha's leather jacket sit unused on her hook. To see her red toothbrush on the corner of the counter. To feel her side of the bed cold and empty. But somehow you were going to have to live with that.

°°°

It was a Monday morning when Maria got the call.

"Hill speaking" she said in her stern tone. "Hi Bruce." She spoke curtly, but with a warmer tone at the man's voice.

"Why do I need to get down there on a Monday morning, my day off my I remind you" Maria sounded slightly annoyed at whatever the doctor had suggested.

"I-" she sat up suddenly. "I'll be right there. Yes I'm bringing her. Okay goodbye" Maria hung up and swung her legs out of the bed.

"We need to go to Avengers headquarters now. There's something going on with the mission" Maria said as she tugged on a pair of jeans and a tshirt.

°°°

You sat anxiously next to Maria at the edge of the forest. Steve was due to come back 2 minutes ago but apparently an unannounced change had been made in the plans.

"Someone's coming through Scott throw the breaker quickly!" Bruce shouted.

A loud buzzing filled the clearing before a small figure appeared on the platform before them. But it was not Steve. No this person was much shorter, and her long red hair faded into blonde-

"Natasha?" You said, incredulously. The redhead turned around. She immediately sprinted towards the two of you and pulled you both into a tight embrace. "I thought I'd never see you again" she mumbled into your shoulder. "Either of you."

°°°

All three spots in the king bed were full again. No toothbrushes were left on the counter, no jackets hung limply on hooks. The house had life breathed into it again, but something was off.

Of course it would take time to heal from the trauma you went through. It was not easy by any means. You wanted to be happy and back to normal the second your home was alive again but a terrible voice in the back of your head reminded you that they could leave again. You could end up alone again.

You had nightmares nearly every night. Images of your girlfriends dead or dying plagued your unconscious mind. Maria and Natasha held you close and comforted you after every single one; They let you cry silently into their chests, not saying a word about your dreams, but silently they worried about you.

°°°

"Hey Maria?" Sharon stuck her head in the assistant director's office "can I talk to you?" Maria nodded and gestured towards the chair across from her. It was clear that Sharon was nervous by the way that she picked at the leather chair's arm.

"Listen Maria.... I don't know how to say this but when you and Nat were gone some things happened with y/n" Maria's brow immediately furrowed. You hadn't mentioned anything happening in the few months you were alone. "What kinds of things?" She questioned further.

"I'm not at liberty to say, especially not without y/n's permission....you have to ask her yourself." Sharon let out a deep breath. "But please tread carefully, she might seem okay but you and Natasha know just as well as I do that she's not." Sharon pulled herself up from her chair and patted Maria's hand before leaving the office.

°°°

TRIGGER WARNING**

"Y/n? Are you home yet?" Maria called into the apartment. "Yep I'm in the living room!" You replied.

"Hey babe" you smiled at Maria when she walked in. Natasha smiled from her spot next to you where she was sitting, a book in hand.

"Can I ask you something? About when Nat and I were gone." Maria made her way to the spot on your other side and sat down.

"Oh..." You stiffened. Shit. "Yeah of course" Natasha set her book down and turned to look at you as well.

"Sharon mentioned today that something happened in the few months that you were alone... What was it?" Maria continued.

You drew a shaky breath. It was better to just tell them than to lie. "FRIDAY can you pull up my medical records please?" You asked the robot. "Of course miss" they replied, opening the files on your tablet.

"You remember how I told you tony had installed FRIDAY in here when I was alone to check on me?" Your girlfriends nodded. "There's more to the story than just that" you whispered.

You set the tablet down on the table. "He was worried about me after I....." You gestured at the tablet.

Natasha and Maria both leaned closer to read the information on the device. "Checked into GWU hospital on April 3rd for...suicide watch?" Natasha turned to you, clearly shocked.

You hung your head in shame. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry." A tear fell from your eyes. "After you both left... I didn't cope. I fell into a hole and I didn't want to get out. I was so depressed and alone." You drew in a shaky breath. "I know it's stupid and I'm not proud to admit it but-"

Natasha pulled you into her chest. "I love you so much and I am so sorry you had to go through that. All of that"

Maria stared dumbly at the tablet. Tears were beginning to pool in her blue eyes. You turned to look at her "Maria I-"

She cut you off with a kiss. Her hands came up to stroke your cheek. "You are so strong. So unbelievably strong y/n. There is nothing in the whole fucking universe that could tear us away from you again."

°°°

Slowly things returned to normal. All three of your jackets were strewn across the house, the smell of home cooked dinner hung in the air every night, and you, Natasha and Maria fell into bed together as if no time at all had passed. Laughter rang through the halls and naps on the couch became a common place as they always had been. Some nights were spent cuddled in bed while others were spent with your legs around Maria's waist with Natasha's lips on your sensitive neck.

Life was still hectic and it always would be. Maria was still fury's second in command, Natasha was still an avenger (even if she had been taken off the front lines of duty) and you were secretary of state. But none of that mattered because everyone was home.

[beyondthedreamline]

You reblogged a post from my side blog about Thor! It made me happy because I’ve been following you for 2 years and I really respect your opinions. I was starting to doubt my righteous anger because I saw people say that those who didn’t like EG!Thor were fake fatphobic Ragnarok!Thor fans, no matter their reasons. I am glad to see we share the feeling of disappointment, even though I’m satisfied with Thor’s final development as a big bearded warrior and looking forward to the rest of his story.

Thankyou for that! I appreciated your post very much because itarticulated a couple of points that had bothered me a lot. ApparentlyI still have feelings on this subject, so be warned, you’re in fora bit of an essay now.

Firstoff, I care a lot about Thor as a character. I love Norse mythology,I love Douglas Adams’ The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Ilove nearly every iteration of Thor as a character that I have everencountered and I love him as a superhero. I enjoyed all of thestandalone Thor movies very much. I have more mixed feelings aboutthe Avengers ensemble movies, but there was no member of the team Iactively did not like and I kept up with most of their solo moviestoo, because I enjoy superhero films as a genre and because theMarvel universe is a very rich playing ground for a whole range ofstories.

Therewas a lot of emotional investment in these last two films –Infinity War and Endgame are the conclusion to years ofworld-building and character development, weaving in dozens ofbackstories and in jokes, all the hellos and goodbyes and moments ofcatharsis that we have been waiting on for years. That is a massive askof any storyteller and there were always going to be disappointments,because with the best will in the world there is no chance ofpleasing every viewer. And this is fandom; perfection is unachievable and disagreement isinevitable. The best we can do is handle disagreements with grace and respect one another’s perspectives.

All.That. Said.

Forme, Infinity War andEndgame failed pretty much everycharacter, one way or another. Other people have written eloquent posts on theway these storylines failed the female characters of the franchise,whose motivations are mostly subsumed by the wants and needs of themen around them. Gamora ismurdered by the man who abducted and abused her, but her death isframed as hissacrifice, a way to advance hisjourney. ClintBarton becomes a grief-driven vigilante serial killer in otherpeople’s countries, but he gets absolution and Natasha ‘red in myledger’ Romanoff dies the martyr’s death in his place. PeggyCarter, furious brave Peggy Carter, becomes a literal trophywife in a goddamn Gordion knot of time-travel nonsense. SteveRogers brought war onto thesoil of a peaceful and well-defended African nation and a whole armywas sent out to fight because he couldn’t face losing a friend, butat the very end he ditches every single friend he’s got in the 21stcentury in order to experience a white picket fence of a happy endingthat erases all of his character development since TheFirst Avenger.

Andthen there’s Thor. Over the course of his three solo movies, he’slost his mother, his father, his brother (multipletimes), his girlfriend (thankgoodness she’s still alive, but it looks like she got Darcy andEric in the break-up), his planet,most of his peopleand all peace of mind.Throughout that litany of suffering, he is kind. He is patient. Hegrows as a man and as a leader, listening to the knowledge of thepeople around him in order to make decisions that benefit everyone,not just himself. He isintelligent, though often underestimated even by those closest tohim. He is capableand resourceful and a friendto anyone who needs him, the very definition of what a superheroought to be.

I’mgoing to talk about schema here for a second. A schema is a cognitiveframework. It’s a psychology term referring to how we organiseinformation based on preconceived ideas. Stories shape perception,telling us what is good and what is bad, what can happen and whatcannot. There is a very narrow pre-existing framework defining what asuperhero can look likeand it’s a shock to the system when that gets challenged. I wasshocked by seeing a fat Thor, and I’m glad of it – it means I hadto think more criticallyabout my personal preconceptions. Thiscould have been a wonderful storyline,dealing with PTSD, bodyimage and negotiating self-perception in the wake of grief andregret. It could have been apositive portrayal of a fat superhero, which outside of maybe comics– which I don’t read and can’t speak for – is absolutely anew and needed thing. It could have offered a vital reminder that howa person’s worth and strength and skill is not bound to theirphysical appearance.

Itdid not do that.

Asyou pointed out in your post, Thor was turned into a sidekick. Morethan that, he was turned into ajoke that revolved around his weight and his trauma, like he was notentitled be anything other than brawn.While Tony Stark gotan emotionally charged reunion with his long-dead father, Thor’sdialogue with Frigga soundedlike a badfirst draft, a scene rushed through with no respect for eithercharacter. He calls her ‘mom’; she tells him to ‘eat a salad’.He walks straight past Loki, the brother he wept over time and again,who died under absurd narrative contrivance about five minutes ago byAsgardian standards. Steve Rogers wasallowed the time to starewistfully at a woman he once lovedbut Thor wasrushed through his own reunion like he waswasting everyone’s time by being sad.

Thoris not permitted to contribute to the narrative in any meaningfulway; where every other lead Avenger hits a beat, however dubious orminor, that establishes theirpurpose in the story, Thoraccomplishes nothing of significance in strategy, battleor reconstruction. The powerdisplayed in Ragnarok and,in a more hit-and-miss style, in Infinity War, isabsent in Endgame. Hissignature weapon is actually handed off to another Avenger. He’snot even allowed to remain a leader of his people. And, look, I loveValkyrie as a character, but she spent centuries as a boozed-upmercenary enslaving gladiators for a glam-rock despot and it took theactual apocalypse to get her to give a damn about the fate of Asgardagain, so the idea that Thor taking a few years off to grieve in away that only harmed himself somehow makes him unfit to rule is atruly staggering double standard. Instead of continuing his growth as a king, he gets shoehorned intosomeone else’s franchise to bicker pointlessly over who gets tomake any decisions at all. I don’t know if Chris Hemsworth is upfor making more movies with Marvel, but I do not trust them to give Thor ameaningful arc any more. Where can he go from here?

Thiswas not an ensemble movie – this was the last Iron Man movie, withCaptain America taking second billing and every other characterscrambling for scraps of narrative significance. Endgamemademe resent characters I usedto like. Italienated me from a series that used to be a source of comfort.It hurts. Not as muchas it did, because I’ve emotionally checked out of the MCU for now,but apart from any other consideration, that level of storytellingfailure offends me.

Iwill acknowledge that Thor’s hair was very good in the big battlesequence. That’s one of the few positive things I have to say aboutEndgame. Great braids.

Youknow what I’d have loved? I’d have loved Wakanda to offer asylumto Asgardian refugees and for a miniseries to revolve around theircross-cultural community building. Two advanced civilisations reelingin the wake of recent upheaval but working together to build a sharedfuture, and Wakanda actually getting something out of it for onceinstead of taking a hit on behalf of the Earth. Shuri would adoreAsgardian tech and she might get to ride a flying horse, whichshe deserves; T’challa andThor would have a lot of common ground what with the disappointingfather figures and modern warrior king lifestyle. Thorwould get heavily involved in agriculture and have fun playing crashdummy for Shuri’s wilder experiments. He’d arrange a travel visaso that Jane Foster could come and play with all that beautiful shinytechnology and they wouldn’t get back together but they would befriends, like they always were underneath the first glow ofattraction. Loki would be there, because to pretend he’ll stay deadat this point is just an insult to our collective intelligence, and he wouldimmediately imprint on Queen Ramonda like an extremely defensive,resentful and heavily-armed duckling.Valkyriemight get to talk through her complicated feelings about duty andbetrayal with the Dora Milaje, particularly Okoye, who couldempathiseafter the Wakandan royal family’s disastrous power struggle.Wakanda could send outintergalactic ambassadors, headed by Nakia, to start playing a rolein the wider universe. The other Avengers could visit sometimes, ifthey behaved themselves.

Soif you’re wondering where Thor goes next for me personally, that’sthe answer.

[keithxhappiness]

Voltron S8 Review (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR VOLTRON SEASON 8 PEOPLE!

OK, so I just finished Voltron Season 8. I had to watch it a day late because I went to see Into the Spiderverse (which was REVOLUTIONARY btw, I highly recommend seeing and supporting it!)

One of my biggest fears about watching it late was that something would be spoiled for me by twitter/tumblr/youtube, and although I got through it without any spoilers, I did see some general negativity surrounding the finale, without really knowing why though.

But after finishing it, I took a look at some of the comments to try to decipher what it was that made people think it was so terrible! So, here are my thoughts on the finale itself, and on peoples’ thoughts about the finale:

First, I would just like to say thank you to Voltron.

I have never been one for shipping battles, and I was never concerned with all of the controversy surrounding the political statements that could be made through the show.

My main focus was the story, and my connection to the characters, particularly Keith. No, not just because I think he’s insanely attractive.

Because, he reminds me of myself…I also struggle with trusting other people, and I often think I can do everything myself or that it would be easier if I took control of the situation. I’m not patient enough to give others a chance, which is something I recognize and am working to change.

So, Keith’s development embodies my own objectives. Which is part of the reason why I love him (the other being how HOT he is).

Keith aside, everything in this season was meant to display the core idea of this story: strength through unity. It is something I hope to truly experience one day, and I think it has been demonstrated beautifully throughout the show.

It is obvious to me that a lot of effort, thought, and work has been put into animating and producing this series, something that I am angered to see not appreciated enough.

Even when you don’t enjoy certain aspects of the story, there is NO DOUBT that the creators deserve respect. Respect needs to accompany criticism of the series, or else how can you possibly expect the creators to respect your criticisms?

So, to everyone who worked on Voltron, from the seeds of its creation to its conclusion, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, and I wish you the best in all your future endeavours.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with next :)

I guess I shall split this next part of the review into things I didn’t particularly like, and things that I liked.

Starting with the things I personally didn’t enjoy (and some other commentary):

a) Allura and Lance:

Ah yes, the dreaded Allurance. Although I said that I wasn’t heavily involved in shipping in this show, I was unfortunately all too aware of the war waged within the fandom, which frankly, was more chaotic than the war in the show itself :’)

Other than Lotura, I didn’t ship anyone with anyone else, personally. And I understood the resistance to Allura and Lance becoming a couple. I didn’t feel any chemistry between the two of them, and particularly for Allura, I only felt that she saw Lance as her family, just as she saw all the others.

Like, when he confessed to loving her in Episode 1, I felt that her reaction was something akin to “UM, cool, cool. Same here." However, there is no denying that the seeds for this union were planted from the start of the show. It would be foolish to think that this wasn’t their plan all along, really.

But somehow, it just didn’t click. I can’t wrap my head around why, though! For me, I think that I prefer the idea of two characters coming together as friends, and then romantically, if they’ve been helping one another overcome some emotional trauma. You could argue that Lance was doing that for Allura, but it didn’t really happen until this specific season, and so, it didn’t quite establish the strength of their bond in time for their romance to feel like anything but just something that happened.

ALL THAT SAID, their scenes together were still very cute…and the Altean markings she left behind on his face BROKE ME. If only the strength of their union, and their mutual love for eachother, was established a little earlier - season 6, maybe - it may have felt more right.

And when she left him behind, I expected MORE from him, resistance-wise. I didn’t like that he just…let her go, after a few tears and a kiss. I wanted him to pull her back, to offer himself instead, or to see him destroyed when they were returned to their reality.

But, I’ve never experienced this type of loss before. And, maybe, deep-down, he knew that he could do nothing to stop her. I just…wanted to see more from him.

Even when she had absorbed the entity. His role was too, too passive. A few times, he’d go “Allura, um, I don’t think this is safe…maybe we should think about this…” and Allura would respond with “No, shut up I know what im doing”, and Lance would just shut up. I wanted him to pull her and shake her and force her to come to her senses!

b) Allura’s death:

I am really sad to say that I knew this was coming.

I can’t believe the leaks were real. I guess they didn’t technically spoil anything because there was also doubt surrounding their authenticity.

And even knowing that it would happen, I AM NOT OKAY WITH IT.

I am happy that they established very early in this season the lengths to which Allura would go to stop Honerva. It was always clear that she was ready to sacrifice herself. Even when she was saying her goodbyes, she seemed to already have come to terms with the fact that her path was ending.

But, that doesn’t mean I’m happy with it.

You know, it’s interesting, I always say that I hate “happy” endings. I prefer my endings to be bitter sweet - like green tea lemonade. So, for everyone to get what they want — that to me is just too good to be true, and bothers me, because real life does not have a neat little ending like that.

So, I knew the ending had to be enveloped in some amount of loss. But for Allura to lose her life, after all that she’s lost, I had hoped she would get to keep her future.

Even without her past, that she could move forward and forge a new world for her people, and get to see that world with her own eyes. IF ANYONE deserved this, it would be Allura.

And like other people, I was really mad that she never had an opportunity to say goodbye to Coran, who was essentially her father figure, or to her own father’s soul.

So, in short, I didn’t want the “death” of the show to be Allura’s….but we don’t always get what we want…

c) Honerva:

I hated her, and not just because she was the antagonist.

The hilarious thing was that Season 8 had the exact same plot as Into the Spider-verse :’) And I still don’t understand why anyONE, crazy, evil, or otherwise, thinks that it’ll be a good idea to travel between REALITIES to find another version of your lost family.

I guess IT’S TRUE that people would do anything for their family, but it seems ridiculous to me that they wouldn’t consider the possible consequences for themselves as well their own world. It’s like time-travel. You just don’t mess with that shit.

But I also hated her as the antagonist. Her objective to me was just not compelling enough…I didn’t really feel her love for Lotor or for Zarkon. I just felt that she was cray cray.

For example, consider Castlevania: a show that excellently protrays the antagonist (Dracula’s) loss. You see why Dracula loved his family, the kind of (immortal) life he could have had.

But other than a few scenes when they were in her consciousness, I just didn’t really believe in her love.

I didn’t want to see her reunited with anyone. I just wanted her to chill out and leave my babies alone.

I also didn’t like how easy it was for Allura to sway her at the end. She seemed so weak-minded and stupid, despite having all the power that she did.

WHY DID ORIANDE EVEN CONSIDER HER WORTHY?!?!?!?!

d) Some other things:

I wasn’t a huge fan of the amount of action comprising this season. I mean, not that it’s the show’s fault - this is a space opera about giant mechs, so obviously, there are going to be space and mech battles.

But I guess I prefer ground/hand-to-hand combat. It’s hard for me to follow mech fights, and I just like sword fights. This is a matter of personal preference, though.

BUT, I will say that because there were SO MANY Robeast/mech fights, there wasn’t as much time for character-character interaction.

So, that made me sad.

So many opportunities gone - opportunities for James/Acxa and Keith to interact (esp after the Ezor/Zethrid conflict), etc.

This season was really flashy, and while I like flashy, as I said before, I also value the emotional connections between the characters a lot and wish that a greater emphasis could have been placed on them.

Things I liked:

Keith being a fearless leader

Krolia NOT dying - thank goodness for that, that was really worrying me

When Keith made his speech in EP1, and Krolia and Kolivan were smiling proudly :))

Matt (sad to see his ponytail go, but he still cayuuuute)

Lotor, all of the little Lotor scenes (AH, I JUST WANT TO ADOPT HIM AND RAISE HIM WITH LOVE) - saddened not to have seen him returned :((

The pictures at the end - happy to see everyone happy and thriving!

AND EVERYTHING ELSE NOT MENTIONED!  

All in all, I think it is absolutely absurd (in the Snape voice) not to watch the season just because you heard some negative things. Don’t be as easily swayed as the Alteans were. Watch it yourself, think for yourself, and form your own opinion. Regardless of what you didn’t like, you can’t deny that this show has been a wild, beautiful ride. PEACE.

[turtle-paced]

(1/2) Hey, I've been scrolling through your tumblr (really love your content!), but there's one point of divergence I wanted to address: I think you're far too sympathetic with Daenerys's actions in Slaver's Bay... She didn't really want to free the slaves, she wanted her army and so freeing them was a convenient move. Her whole conquest is about deceiving others and there's a lot of arbitrariness in how she ruled Meereen. Those three metas talk about this better than I ever could:

I’m familiar with the meta. I think I need to break this down a bit, and my reply will be long. It boils down to damn skippy I’m sympathetic to Dany - but that doesn’t mean I think she’s an angel.

First, the argument that Dany only wanted an army and freed the Unsullied out of convenience is a flat and absurd misread. It’s true that she set out wanting an army and an army alone, and willing to look past the human cost.

Slaves, Dany thought. Khal Drogo would drive them downriver to one of the towns on Slaver’sBay. She wanted to cry, but she told herself that she must be strong. This is war, this is what itlooks like, this is the price of the Iron Throne.

- Dany VII, AGoT

“What use are wealthy friends if they will not put their wealth at your disposal, my queen? If Magister Illyrio would deny you, he is only Xaro Xhoan Daxos with four chins. And if he issincere in his devotion to your cause, he will not begrudge you three shiploads of trade goods.What better use for his tiger skins than to buy you the beginnings of an army?”

That’s true. Dany felt a rising excitement.

- Dany I, ASoS

But then character development strikes. She can’t look past what she sees in Astapor, no matter how much she needs an army. Ser Barristan points out another path for her to take.

“Ser Jorah was a slaver himself, Your Grace,” the old man reminded her. “There are sellswordsin Pentos and Myr and Tyrosh you can hire. A man who kills for coin has no honor, but at leastthey are no slaves. Find your army there, I beg you.”

- Dany II, ASoS

She does not believe this is a viable option, as she tells Ser Barristan, and this does have a lot to do with her pride…but still, she can’t ignore what is done to the slaves of Astapor. When faced with the intolerable option of buying the Unsullied in good faith (more on that in a bit) and the intolerable option of giving up on Westeros, Dany chooses to free Astapor’s captives and call for their service as she would the service of free men.

And Astapor’s former slaves respond.

“Missandei is no longer a slave. I free you, from this instant. Come ride with me in the litter, I wish to talk.” Rakharo helped them in, and Dany drew the curtains shut against the dust and heat.“If you stay with me you will serve as one of my handmaids,” she said as they set off. “I shallkeep you by my side to speak for me as you spoke for Kraznys. But you may leave my servicewhenever you choose, if you have father or mother you would sooner return to.”

“This one will stay,” the girl said. “This one… I… there is no place for me to go. This… I willserve you, gladly.”

- Dany III, ASoS

“Spears!” Dany heard one Astapori shout. It was Grazdan, old Grazdan in his tokar heavy withpearls.” Unsullied! Defend us, stop them, defend your masters! Spears! Swords!”

When Rakharo put an arrow through his mouth, the slaves holding his sedan chair broke andran, dumping him unceremoniously on the ground. The old man crawled to the first rank ofeunuchs, his blood pooling on the bricks. The Unsullied did not so much as look down to watchhim die. Rank on rank on rank, they stood.

And did not move. The gods have heard my prayer.

“Unsullied!” Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bellchiming with every stride. “Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wearsa tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave yousee.” She raised the harpy’s fingers in the air… and then she flung the scourge aside. “Freedom!”she sang out. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

“Dracarys!” they shouted back, the sweetest word she’d ever heard. “Dracarys! Dracarys!”

- Dany III, ASoS

She was utterly vulnerable if the Unsullied did not take up her call. Dany went in knowing that if the Unsullied did not rebel on the spot, she and everyone with her was dead. She chose to risk her life and the lives of her followers for the freedom of the Unsullied - and keep in mind that she still had the option of leaving and trying to recruit in the Free Cities, which would have been safer for her person. The money she took from Illyrio to buy slaves could have bought mercenaries just as easily.

There is no reasonable way to read that chapter without concluding that Dany picked the path she did because she empathised with the enslaved of Astapor.

Now, she absolutely did not realise ahead of time, or even immediately following, what this action committed her to. She still thinks she’s going to Westeros, since she hasn’t realised that in successfully leading a slave revolt and sacking all of Astapor, she’s dealt a massive blow to the slave economy that no slave city in the region can allow to go unchecked.

But it’s also here that we see that her objectives are changing to encompass more than “go to Westeros, reclaim Iron Throne.” She refuses to leave behind the Astapori who chose to follow her, even though they are an outright hindrance to that “taking Westeros” objective.

They ate the land bare as they passed, like locusts in sandals. Yet Dany could not bring herself toabandon them as Ser Jorah and her bloodriders urged. I told them they were free. I cannot tellthem now they are not free to join me. She gazed at the smoke rising from their cookfires andswallowed a sigh. She might have the best footsoldiers in the world, but she also had the worst.

- Dany IV, ASoS

No, she takes personal responsibility for her actions in this regard. Even though they are against her self-interest. It comes to matter less to her over the course of the chapter.

Dany looked at Missandei. “What are they shouting?”

“It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means ‘Mother.’’

Dany felt a lightness in her chest. I will never bear a living child, she remembered. Her hand trembled as she raised it. Perhaps she smiled. She must have, because the man grinned andshouted again, and others took up the cry. “Mhysa!” they called. “Mhysa! MHYSA!”

- Dany IV, ASoS

It is quite explicitly the conclusion of her ASoS arc that she rejects Westeros, temporarily, in favour of consolidating what she has done for the former slaves of Slaver’s Bay. Their interests over hers, since she can’t take them all to Westeros with her.

“Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros,but afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I have brought to Slaver’s Bayis death and ruin. I have been more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving on.”

“There is nothing to stay for,” said Brown Ben Plumm.

“Your Grace, the slavers brought their doom on themselves,” said Daario Naharis.

“You have brought freedom as well,” Missandei pointed out.

“Freedom to starve?” asked Dany sharply. “Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?” Am I mad? Do I have the taint?”

“A dragon,” Ser Barristan said with certainty. “Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace.”

“But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?” He had no answer to that.

Dany turned away from them, to gaze out over the city once again. “My children need time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same. I willnot let this city go the way of Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those I’ve freedall over again.” She turned back to look at their faces. “I will not march.”

- Dany VI, ASoS

It’s character development. Dany did not set out to end slavery in Slaver’s Bay, any more than Jon Snow started out ASoS intending to let the Free Folk through the Wall in ADWD. But nevertheless, ending slavery in Slaver’s Bay is what she commits herself to, eyes open, at the end of ASoS.

Second, the idea of good faith. The metas you link, especially here and here, do an excellent job of showing how Dany’s bad faith with the Masters makes it impossible for her to achieve peace. I have no problems with how the narrative depicts those actions coming back to bite her in negotiations. Seems like sound analysis of the situation to me, and a reasonable thing for GRRM to write.

Good faith is for dealing with people who sell lumber and wool and grain, not other people. Good faith in these transactions normalises and legitimises the trade of human beings. The appropriate response to slavers is to refuse to play their game, and treat them as the tyrants, kidnappers, and thieves they are. 

There is no way to deal with slavers in good faith without becoming complicit. Dany herself understands this on a gut level.

“The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter. Eightthousand Unsullied they would offer me. Eight thousand dead babes. Eight thousand strangleddogs.”

- Dany II, ASoS

She knows exactly what she’d be buying here.

Anyway. Transactions in human lives, which are illegitimate by their very nature, should and must be stopped. Stopping it means using force. Likewise, the slavers cannot afford for someone to come along and say that slavery illegitimate by its nature, much less start implementing the idea.

Dany’s dream of peace and freedom in Slaver’s Bay, which she spends most of ADWD trying to achieve, was impossible from the outset, due to her radical de facto classification of slavery as a crime (and measures to stop it, just war) rather than trade (and measures to stop it, theft). Her failure to realise this is what she’s done and the threat it poses to the status quo in the region in a timely fashion is a massive mistake.

What this doesn’t mean is “all’s fair” and “the ends justify the means.” I’ve always been critical of Dany’s decision to crucify the 163 Meereenese Masters, precisely because it’s indiscriminate violence that serves no purpose but Dany’s gratification. Likewise, 

Mercy, thought Dany. They will have the dragon’s mercy.“Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply.”

“I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst thefather looks on. That will wring some names from him.”

“Do as you think best, but bring me names.”

- Dany II, ADWD

is no positive character trait. That’s not punishing enemies, but inflicting pain on innocents in the name of other innocents. Dany at her worst.

Throughout ADWD we see her struggling with that impulse, to say “screw it all” and make with the indiscriminate violence. Heads on spikes. Burn everything. This is how we’ve left her for the moment.

You are a queen, her bear said. In Westeros. “It is such a longway,” she complained. “I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. Iwanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only ayoung girl.”

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering wasgrowing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragonsplant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what youwere made to be. Remember your words.

“Fire and Blood,” Daenerys told the swaying grass.

- Dany X, ADWD

To go forward you must go back, indeed. The shape of her arc is going to give her some easy victories with this attitude, and then bite her again when she accidentally blows up King’s Landing. I’m not looking forward to Fire-and-Blood  Daenerys, even if her aims are good, because the ends do not justify the means. She’s not going to be using care and precision in her violence (care and precision being key aspects of justified violence, to avoid/minimise collateral), she’s just going to get in there and start burning things, and people, down. It’s going to be Dany at her ends-justify-means worst.

But the Dany I’m sympathetic to, and the one who I most definitely think is a worthy heroine with worthy character progression (which again, doesn’t mean I don’t think she’s got some serious character flaws, nor that all her actions are above board), is the one Tyrion described in ADWD.

“Iknow she is proud. How not? What else was left her but pride? I knowshe is strong. How not? The Dothraki despise weakness. If Daeneryshad been weak, she would have perished with Viserys. I know she isfierce. Astapor, Yunkai, and Meereen are proof enough of that.”

[…]

“…this Mother of Dragons, this Breaker ofChains, is above all a rescuer. The girl who drowned the slaver citiesin blood rather than leave strangers to their chains…”

- Tyrion V, ADWD

[davidmann95]

Agree or disagree: the Court of Owls was more interesting back when it was called the Black Glove, and those guys were more interesting back when they were called the League of Assassins.

Agreed on your first point, not certain I could possibly disagree harder on the second.

Certainly, it’s pointless at this stage to argue that Snyder’s Batman work wasn’t…inspired by Morrison’s tenure, and that the first thing he does is have a group of ultra-rich sadists with ties to Batman’s past try to snuff him out once and for all is very much in line with that, but the Court is ultimately something different than the Black Glove. The Glove, as I’ll get to in a minute, is all about the pain they can inflict, whereas with the Court, while they certainly revel in the suffering that comes with their rituals, at the end of the day they’re all about the business. They’re not out to conquer Gotham in order to summon Barbatos and drink deep of the starry black venom of eternity, they’re in it for money and power. They’re Gotham’s weird gangster class - your Penguins, your Black Masks - ascendant, tied into the power structures of the city on every level and supplied with their own labyrinthine cave, their own molded circus orphans. Even their own vengeful Wayne child, deliberately poisoned and armed by crime as a weapon against the Batman by convincing him to see Bruce as his very own Joe Chill.

With all that you’d sure think they’d have a lot on the ball, but in practice they’ve been chumped out hard. Batman can go to screw with them anytime he likes these days, while the Talons don’t even qualify as minibosses anymore. The issue is that they’re this massive, inevitable threat in Batman’s world, and they’re enticingly easy to bring back - especially with the running start Snyder and Capullo and company gave them - but their mystique is shattered once they’re just another bunch of punks for Batman to Batman all over. It’d help if there was some kind of thematic underpinning to them that could be explored, but all they really are is Spooky Rich Bastards, excellent for the one story but essentially redundant afterwards. Tim Seeley seemed to have realized that, letting Nightwing take them down in his own book and killing off Lincoln March, but Snyder’s bringing them back in with Metal, so we’ll just have to see where it goes. As is, they’re a respectable gimmick that’s already being stretched well past its conceptual breaking point unless and until someone finds something meaningfully new to do with them, or just lets them fall into the background as a single aspect among many of Gotham’s larger underworld.

Taking a step back however we return to Dr. Simon Hurt and the Black Glove, who are basically perfect. For one, Morrison’s concepts rarely get brought back, so they’re not at risk of overexposure - when Hurt properly reemerged recently it was framed as a huge deal, and I very much doubt it’ll meaningfully extend in the long term past two or three books - and R.I.P. isn’t the kind of crowdpleasing blockbuster Court of Owls was, so you can go a hell of a lot weirder with them. The product being that these people aren’t just Spooky Rich Bastards, they’re Spooky Rich MAD Bastards, which makes all the difference. They already rule the world, so they gamble on human life for the simple sake of spreading cruelty and hate because they’re above the law, the concept of capital-c Crime Batman has devoted his life to battling blown up to as platonically grandiose and absurd a scale as Batman himself. Moreover, Hurt himself is plain and simple The Batman Of Crime - not in terms of the role he casts for himself as with Bane, but as a Wayne scion who devoted himself to a bat-shaped ideal and uses his wealth to wage an unrelenting crusade defined by symbolism and warped psychology, who takes the young who have suffered tragedy under his wing, albeit in each case in the most monstrous forms possible. Far more than the likes of Joker or even Two-Face, Hurt and his Black Glove are formed around the distressing thought of what would happen if Batman really was just the sadistic madman so many like to paint him as, reflecting the undercurrent of decadence and unwellness of his world back at him. They’re not reusable in the same way as the Court potentially could be: the Black Glove itself is secondary, and while Hurt’s amazing, he rides a fine line between intimidating and pathetic that would be easily tipped over if he showed up all the time. But for their intended purposes, no one does it better.

The League…not really sure what you’re getting at with them. Ninjas are always well and good, yes, but the League themselves are just jobbers for Ra’s. As for him, heretical as it feels to say I’m starting to get why Grant Morrison said he isn’t actually a fan. His scope is impressive, his motivations are reasonable and reflect Batman’s own, but his actual narrative potential is limited at best. You always know his plan and roughly how he’s going to enact it because his motives and psychology aren’t particularly complicated nor his resources all that outlandish by Gotham standards, you know he and Batman are going to cordially snarl at each other because Batman’s never going to consider his offer and Ra’s is too normal compared to the likes of the Joker or Riddler to really surprise him, there’ll probably be a swordfight, Ra’s will escape justice yet again - the only time I recall anyone putting a notable spin on that formula was Mark Waid with Tower of Babel (stealing the Wayne corpses being a twist he mentioned waking up for years praying no one else would use first). Ra’s, in relation to Batman, is there for 3 stories of any real substance:

1. The initial confrontation and offer of joining forces, followed by the rejection and swordfight, preferably concluding with Ra’s flipping right the fuck out and asking/screaming if Batman is man or fiend from hell.

2. Some kind of final showdown, because the material and emotional stakes are so high with Ra’s and the usual means of detaining Gotham’s villains so insufficient that there has to be an ultimate confrontation to resolve it. We’ve gotten that at least twice: Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen gave us a defacto last Batman Vs. Ra’s Al Ghul story in Detective Comics #840, while Greg Rucka and Klaus Janson gave us a conclusion focused more on the Al Ghul’s themselves with Death and the Maidens.

3. Ra’s as an immortal eventually lives to see the end of the only man he ever respected, as Pete Tomasi and Don Kramer handed us pretty excellently in Nightwing #152.

And that’s pretty much it. Granted those are three absolutely wonderful stories, but past that, when he’s treated as a regular recurring threat in the same way as your Scarecrows and Mr. Freezes Ra’s is just another stock Batman villain, even if he brings a handful of interesting aesthetic twists with the ninjas and globetrotting and doomsday weapons. That’s not really a flaw either: it’s Talia who’s the real center of the average Al Ghul story, the great lost love who Batman never really could have made it work with even though they both so desperately wanted to fool themselves into believing otherwise, eventually turning on him but with complications that make her a far more unpredictable and versatile and emotionally charged foe, and she in turn begets Damian who brings all kinds of narrative territory onto the table and depends on the context of being from an operation like the League (honestly, Ra’s would be a more consistently potent villain for Damian than he ever was for Bruce). But with Ra’s himself, while he has very specific and powerful uses, by and large he’s almost always existed mainly to facilitate other, more interesting characters.

EDIT: So as it turns out the Court of Owls are out to conquer Gotham in order to summon Barbatos and drink deep of the starry black venom of eternity. The idea of them as an inversion of the iconography of Batman’s family in the same way as Batbatos is of Batman himself has some punch too. Still, they’re ultimately in it for the money and power rather than a sheer belief in Evil as a guiding force unto itself, so they’re a markedly different manifestation from the Black Glove, at heart the same small-minded, high-rolling bastards they always were. Still, them leveraging their symbolism entirely calculatedly and cynically in serve of base goals might be the key to their long-term potential.

[cherry-valentine]

Winter 2018 Anime Season

What I’m watching:

Hakata Tonkatsu Ramens is easily my favorite new show of the season. I can’t think of anything else that even comes close. The show has very attractive character designs, cool music (that ending theme gives me Cowboy Bebop vibes), and an overall stylish, frenetic feel that puts me in mind of a less crazy Durarara!!. The show touches on some surprisingly dark topics but so far has never been exploitative and keeps a mostly lighthearted tone. The characters are a lot of fun, especially in the way they all connect and interact. It should also be noted that there is very obvious sexual tension between the two male leads, yet it doesn’t feel at all like fanservice or yaoi bait. Instead it feels like a natural part of their growing friendship. The whole cast is interesting. This has to be the nicest group of assassins, information brokers, and torturers I’ve ever seen. This is hands down the show I look forward to the most every week. At the top of my watch list.

Dagashi Kashi Season Two was a bit of a surprise. I didn’t realize season two was coming out now until it popped up on Crunchyroll. I was pretty excited too, because I really enjoyed season one and adored the heroine, Hotaru. I even have a figure of her. I was drawn to Hotaru because she was so entertaining. She’s beautiful, yes (easily one of the top five most beautiful anime ladies, in my opinion), but she’s funny, persistent, and big hearted. Okay, gushing about Hotaru aside, season two is a bit different. For one, the episodes are now half the length of regular anime episodes. This works okay, since season one typically had two self-contained stories per episode. Another difference is that the animation quality seems to have dropped a little. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s noticeable. The third thing is that the Hotaru fanservice has become a lot more overt, which is particularly disappointing for me as a fan of her character. Season one had some fanservice, yes (Hotaru has fairly large breasts), but it was more subtle and a lot funnier. Season two, inspired by the heaps and heaps of pervy Hotaru merchandise that’s come out since season one, has decided to focus a lot more attention on how bouncy her boobs can be. It’s annoying, but it doesn’t make the show unwatchable, so it still has a solid spot on my watch list.

Sanrio Boys is one of two cute, feel-good shows this season (I’ll get to the other one later). It’s basically a “cute boys doing cute things” show with BL undertones that is apparently sponsored by Sanrio, as each boy has a favorite Sanrio character that they’re associated with. The show could have gotten by on being cute and fluffy and I probably would have watched it that way just because I like cute things and have a fondness for Sanrio myself. Thankfully, the show puts in the extra effort to have likable, relatable characters with interesting back stories explaining their connections to their favorite Sanrio characters. A couple of these stories literally made me cry. The friendship between the five main characters is very sweet and comforting. I also have to wonder if some of the stuff in this show is meant to be one big metaphor for being a gay youth. The main character lives in shame and denial about his love of Sanrio because “boys shouldn’t like stuff like that”. He fears being rejected by his classmates, because he was made fun of and bullied in the past over his interests. He even tries to help another character avoid being “outed” as a Sanrio fan before realizing the other boy is open and unashamed about his hobbies. A big part of the series is about him growing to accept himself and the things he likes and gradually opening up to others about it. The theme of the show seems to be, “don’t try to deny who you are, be true to yourself even if that means some people will judge you and reject you”. That’s a very positive message cloaked in Sanrio product placement.

Darling in the Frankxx is this season’s garbage guilty pleasure show. It has attractive art, nice animation, excellent music (that ending theme is so. freaking, good.), an interesting setting, and some truly awesome mecha battle scenes. Which would all come together to make one of the top shows of the season, if the show didn’t have some seriously ridiculous and laughable fanservice that very badly distracts from all the cool stuff. Let me just describe the cockpit situation in these mechs. Each mech must be piloted by a pair of one boy and one girl (typical of shows like this, homosexuality doesn’t seem to exist in this world). The boy sits in the seat. The girl is positioned in front of him, facing forward, on her knees, with her ass in the air, practically shoved in the boy’s face. But it gets better! Weird metal handlebar-looking things are attached to the girl’s skin-tight outfit and spring up on either side of her ass for the boy to hold onto. All together, it literally creates the image of the boy riding the girl like a freaking motorcycle. Without even getting into how ridiculously impractical this setup is (wouldn’t the girl get extremely sore and uncomfortable while trying to stay on her knees on the hard metal cockpit floor during longer battles? Wouldn’t a hot girl’s barely-clothed ass in a teenage boy’s face be extremely distracting when he’s trying to fight monsters?), just the image alone is completely absurd. I could be extremely generous here and say the writers/animators were trying to create some sort of metaphor for how these kids are being exploited by the adults and how their budding sexuality relates to the mysterious process of becoming adults (the show strongly hints that they don’t simply grow naturally into adults). But... it looks like the boys are riding the girls like motorcycles, so nah, I’m not gonna be that generous. The show tries and fails to come across as a serious, thoughtful sci-fi story, which is a shame because it might have had more success in that area if not for the stupidity I’ve outlined above. For now, I’m still watching because it does actually have some good qualities that I enjoy. But it’s pretty much at the bottom of the list.

Killing Bites is another show with fanservice, but it does fanservice right. The chicks are badass (and none of them have the bodies of eleven year old girls, thank God) and, so far, all of them are totally okay with their skimpy clothes and actually seem to feel empowered by them. These ladies enjoy being sexy, and use it to their advantage. There was a problematic scene in episode five but it did reach a satisfying conclusion. The show is action-packed, with fun battles between (generally attractive) people who can transform into animal-human hybrids. The show has plenty of humor as well. It’s nothing too deep or tightly plotted, but it’s good brainless fun.

Dame X Prince Anime Caravan is a super cute and fun otome series, one of the most entertaining ones I’ve seen in a few years. This is primarily because the heroine is refreshingly practical and proactive. She’s not a simple audience-insert who gets passed around between the guys. Instead she’s a spunky, no-nonsense rural princess who is well aware of how absurd her situation is. The guys are such over-the-top caricatures that it’s hard to root for any of them to win her heart. What results is a rare otome series in which you’ll be much more interested in the heroine than any of her suitors. That’s not to say the guys are boring. They’re actually pretty fun characters, and their interactions with the princess are hilarious. The art is very pretty and the music is cute, making this a very watchable show.

School Babysitters is the other sweet, feel-good series I mentioned above. How you feel about this show will depend entirely on how you feel about children (or at least children in anime). The bulk of the series is about an orphaned teenage boy and his little brother, and the school where the older brother is allowed to attend for free if he works after school in the on-campus daycare room to help babysit the teachers’ children. It’s absolutely adorable and heartwarming and is designed to make you say, “Awww!” as often as possible. The show can be really funny at times, and can get surprisingly deep as well. One short scene was absolutely devastating to watch if you’ve ever lost a loved one (and probably even if you haven’t). It was just a quick, simple scene and yet it instantly had me crying my eyes out. Despite this, the general tone of the show is lighthearted and positive. A couple of the kids can get a little annoying (just like real kids...) but never to the point that you’ll want to turn it off. High on my watch list.

Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru Season Two is more enjoyable for me personally than season one. When writing about the first season, I mentioned that I wished the show had focused more on the sword battles and the action than on the cute slice of life stuff. Well, last year’s Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu must have quenched my thirst, because the sweet, funny antics of the sword boys in Hanamaru seem much more entertaining to me now. The art is of course very nice, as per usual. The backgrounds and outfits are still gorgeous. There’s still a healthy dose of poignant melancholy mixed in with the fluff (mostly dealing with the sword boys’ lingering loyalties to their former masters and their inability to change those masters’ fates despite being able to travel back in time). My favorite is Kiyomitsu, who paints his nails every day in an attempt to be cute, which would sound funny and a bit superficial if you didn’t know he was doing this because of his deep-seated fear of being rejected and abandoned by his new master. Despite these sad little moments, the show is by and large a sweet, comforting experience.