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#ALSO I KEPT COUNTING AND COUNTING LITERALLY COULD NOT FIGURE OUT WHICH SEASON I WAS MISSING
pinkandpurple360 · 1 month
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taking a count of the episodes, Stolas is likely to appear in 8/12 of them - literally two third of the entire season. meanwhile the other members of IMP have been thrown to the wayside to make room (and the show potentially intends to introduce yet more Goetias...)
I've got a theory about the themes of s1 and s2 and tbh I think it's fairly supported by the text. so the theory is basically this:
Season 1 is the Blitzo season. Season 2 is the Stolas season
but when you compare the two, it's...telling
Season 1 - basically a whistle stop tour of most of the people Blitzo has hurt in the past (Fizz, Verosika) and the ways in which he is on track to mess up his current relationships in his new life if he doesn't change (pushing boundaries with his employees by stalking M&M, needing to give Loona some space to grow up, being a liability to his own business through his lack of professionalism and impulsiveness).
In the effectively two part finale of e6&7 (not counting 8, it does little to tell us stuff we don't already know) it is made brutally clear that Blitzo desperately wants love and intimacy but doesn't know how to get there because he doesn't know how to be vulnerable with people. He ends the episode crying on the couch while knowing that despite having people in his new life, he's still alone and will remain so if nothing changes
Season 2 - opens on a flashback to Stolas as a child where it's revealed the woman he cheated on was an evil monster since birth and only he was the victim in the arranged marriage scenario. He was the only victim when he was forced to have a child he didn't want and the only victim when he kept the marriage going despite it not working for anyone involved. He coerced Blitzo into a sexual arrangement in season 1, but Stolas was the real victim there because...um...Blitzo seduced him for the book and took it after a one night stand, even though sex with Blitzo was something Stolas clearly wanted but didn't have the guts to admit (and he was also the first one to make it sexual, claiming Blitzo came to ravish him for no logical reason whatsoever after shutting them in a room together) and anyone with a brain should be able to figure out that if someone robs you after a one night stand then ghosts you, they aren't actually into you. Sings about how what's between them is a 'lie' despite Stolas initiating it and deluding himself the whole time.
From then on nothing is his fault. He refuses to take any responsibility for his daughter running away and him somehow being unable to find her because he didn't memorize his own spells (he gets out half an apology for forgetting Astaroth's tears before the writing forces Via to let him off the hook). Sexualizes Blitzo some more after being told not to, right when Blitzo could have used some genuine support and comfort.
Spends the rest of the season having people come to his defense on his behalf and having his history with Blitzo being rewritten to include sweet offscreen phonecalls. Decides his cheating didn't matter because Stella never loved him - never mind that the family name is all she's got since she isn't royalty like him, and his adultery is making a joke out of her. Doesn't actually apologize for Ozzie's. Goes to Ozzie for a crystal then acts weirdly shy and says 'no, never that!' when Ozzie talks about lust despite lust being the defining feature of his relationship with Blitzo even into s2.
Is likely to spend the rest of the season shaming Blitzo for not loving him, barely doing anything to address Blitzo's problems with him...and then will promptly be rewarded with Blitzo's love, either because Blitzo gets jelaous when the plot hands him a new boyfriend or because Blitzo decides Stella abusing Stolas means he's a good person, actually
like when you lay it all out it's kind of impressive.
Season 1 is a mostly effective deep dive into why the main character is the way he is, why it's hurting him and an indictment on the current way he lives and behaves
Season 2 is non stop coddling of Stolas and hitting the nail of the viewers' memory of season 1 with the constant hammer of Nothing is Ever Stolas' Fault and You're Wrong if You Think Otherwise, We Called Striker a Bigot to Prove It
what's even more galling is that at least part of Blitzo's behavior is due to being raised in poverty by an abusive father who taught him stealing to get ahead was the right thing to do. part of the chip on his shoulder now is due to people underestimating imps (they don't run businesses often, according to Striker, and most other city imps we see are working low paid service jobs) and thinking they can treat them however they want. but the show will still attempt to frame Blitzo as being in the wrong when he acts out and have characters hold him to task, even if the writing is half-assed about it
meanwhile Stolas is a literal prince but he apparently can't bear the minimum amount of pushback from Blitzo. he's had the power to treat imps like objects his whole life but the show circa season 2 won't permit him to do anything but the minimum amount of introspection about it
God it’s enraging the more I read through this, and you can really tell rich people wrote it. Season one was fantastic, season two shat all over it because that one Erin frost fanart was eaten up like crack and made canon. (Sorry frost it’s not your fault)
Don’t act like what we have is anything but you wanting me to F you ok you make that really clear all the time
Is the best line in the show.
Sounds like you just hate him for being a prince
Is the worst. You could replace prince with “rich” “white” “a man”
Like holy shit you have an abrasive but endearing guy with friends in a tense precarious connection, but they fucking love him and he loves them despite his worsening quirks, with him honestly being the second most toxic one after Loona. Someone who’s been sexually objectified his whole life and just needs respect, affection, open communication, and gentle reassurance, but someone who can also keep his ego in check. Not someone who puts their needs over his and hates when he has feelings that aren’t convenient. Hears him out when he breaks down doesn’t shove him away.
Like hmm I dunno I’m just spit ballin here
“Why didn’t you try to tell me any of this?”
“Misunderstanding or no, it’s hard to just forgive you”
“What do you want, a medal?”
“You’re pretty good at this action hero bullshit”
“He earned it (love)”
Sorry I could talk about them for hours…they’re just so good together it hurts. Even as kids they bounced off each other but fizz kept him in check.
What he doesn’t need is mind games, public humiliation, a glorified martyr, somebody who demands constant favours and takes and takes until there’s nothing to give. And only reaffirms to him how much of a nothing he is when he has no right to do so. You aren’t owed a relationship. That’s monstrous. Stolas is literally an incel.
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seyaryminamoto · 6 months
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hello! I really like your meta about Zuko, and I'm so glad that I finally found a person who also thinks that Zuko in book 3 is a much worse person than he was in the book 1. I always thought that something was wrong with me, since literally no one sees this obvious fact for me! But I would like to ask you: What do you think about Katara in book 3? the fact is that she was my favorite character in books 1 and 2, and the way she was written in book 3 upset me a lot. it seems to me that they spoiled her character, but I can't explain why. Please share your thoughts!
Glad you've enjoyed my extensive meta on the fandom's fave, haha. I did write a lot about him, always nice to know my thoughts on the subject are still deemed relevant.
As for Katara... well, I have thoughts on her, too. My experience with her character is quite similar to yours, I'd say, because I too felt a lot better about her character in the first two seasons of the show compared with the third. I don't usually give this a ton of thought, but after your ask, I figured I'd try and figure out what exactly went down with her that made people like us feel so uncomfortable with Katara's portrayal at multiple points of Book 3...
For starters, I'll say I vibed with Katara a lot when I started the show for reasons beyond her being a great character or being written wonderfully: she could very well have been written mediocrely and I would have loved her anyway simply because I ran away from anime to ATLA in an era where anime kept shoehorning incest undertones into every sibling relationship, even in shows that didn't have that as a core subject. It happened at least twice that I can remember, I kept seeing people raving about shows where it WAS the core of it (I still do not understand the Oreimo deal, like, the minute I read that show's title I puked in my mouth and knew I'd never watch it), and I just needed... safety from that concept, I guess?
So when I went into ATLA, and the first sibling relationship you're exposed to is Sokka and Katara, two siblings who very much act like siblings? I was thriving. It was thrilling. I felt so refreshed that I think I didn't care much about the flaws of Book 1, despite my inability to sense direction for most of it, because thank the universe, it was a sibling relationship that made sense to me!
With that as an opening, I'd say that, initially, I thought Katara was fine for most of Book 1. In Book 2? She fell off the radar for me a bit simply because other characters are introduced that just appeal to me so much more than she does. I vibe better with characters like Azula, who tend to be the type of female character I just LOVE, and with characters like Toph, she's a tomboy, I was a tomboy (... was? x'D maybe I shouldn't use past tense...), so I gravitated much more towards those two by no real fault of Katara's core personality traits. Back in Book 1, there aren't as many main characters, so you don't have a lot of variety to choose faves from. It's not that strange, I think, that once the cast broadens, people's interest in certain characters can scatter too.
But then Book 3 happened, and I just couldn't enjoy Katara outside of episodes where she wasn't that important. The Katara-centric episode of Book 3 stand among my least favorite episodes of ATLA altogether, and among the least likely episodes I'd ever want to rewatch. I literally skipped over The Painted Lady in my first rewatches of the show, every bit as much as I skipped The Great Divide or Avatar Day, both of which annoy me a lot in the first two seasons. The Puppetmaster? Not even close to being an episode I could enjoy. Even the Runaway, that's supposed to be Toph-centric, ends up making me count down the minutes for it to end and I'm not even going to get started on The Southern Raiders and the absolute can of worms that episode is...
So, with all this being said, if we peel this particular cabbage open little by little...
After mulling it over, I've grown to suspect that Katara has major inconsistency issues since day one that most people don't particularly like to acknowledge, and that flew over most of our heads from the beginning of the show. She's pretty much portrayed to us as an empath, someone who has so much heart that she can't help but feel everyone's pain and suffer with them all the time. The fandom 100% acts like that's who she is (while also obsessively adultifying her unnecessarily, and forcing her into the mom!friend role, which... we'll talk about that later)
But this is also the same character who, when her brother banished Aang from the Southern Water Tribe as early as in episode 2, protested in a very particular way once Aang was gone. Which one of these statements sound more accurate to Katara's character, and a suitable protest for her to proclaim upon witnessing this injustice against Aang?
"Aang is alone! How could you send him away on his own? He could be in danger, Sokka! He's just a kid!"
"The Air Nomads are gone, Sokka! Where do you think he'll go? He doesn't have a home to go back to and you just sent him away!"
"You happy now? There goes my one chance at becoming a waterbender!"
If you ask the fandom? They'll most likely think that her reaction was either #1 or #2.
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Surprise surprise: it was actually #3
I'm not saying she didn't show empathy towards Aang while Sokka was ranting at him, because she did. I'm not saying she wasn't willing to be banished along with Aang until Sokka asks if she'd choose pretty much a total stranger over their family and tribe, because she was. She absolutely did all those things.
... So why would she focus only on how he represented her one chance at becoming a waterbender once Aang is gone?
This feels off to me. I've never particularly liked that line. And you could absolutely say that Katara has every right to be mad at losing her chance to reclaim an aspect of her culture that she cannot connect to, but the way it was framed here? It absolutely makes Katara look more selfish than she actually was. The wording is not good. The show doesn't emphasize, at this point, that bending is such a core and crucial part of their culture and that Katara feels a major responsibility in being the ONLY person in the South Pole that can keep it alive. So it just comes off as a child's tantrum. Sokka's concerns were 100% valid too, even if he went about them while being a jerk (he is, indeed, an older brother...). He wasn't even wrong in the end about how dangerous Aang was to their tribe, since Aang's mishap with Katara on the ship gives away his position to Zuko, and it results in Zuko ramming a huge ship into their home and nearly killing people in the process. But you DON'T see the show fully framing it as though Katara and Aang did something wrong -- it was an honest mistake. We know it was. Sokka is framed as unreasonable for being so paranoid even though later events in the very episode prove he wasn't.
And that's... the crux of the issue with Katara's writing. If you ask me.
There are far too many instances where Katara makes mistakes that she's not held accountable for, that she doesn't apologize for, that run against the core logic and principles of her character and they either get shrugged off or overlooked. There are far too many situations where she acts out, and is a jerk at her jerk of a brother, even unprompted on occasion, and it's supposed to just be funny. One particularly stood out to me when I revisited it a few years ago, I can't really remember what for (maybe when I was writing Jeong Jeong's arc in Gladiator and I had a look at the fishing village...?), but it's the famous flashback episode in Book 1: The Storm.
The scene in question is... humorous. Supposedly. Katara is trying to buy fruit in the market but then realizes they have no money to pay for it. Not only does Katara piss off the vendor, but the vendor actually takes her rage out on Sokka once she realizes these kids won't give her any business: he gets kicked in the rear, as the transcript's description says. No one protests the woman's violent reaction, not even Sokka. Katara most certainly doesn't do it. But that's not all there is to it: Sokka doesn't hold what happened with the fruit vendor against Katara, they have a conversation on how they have no money and no food... and Katara offers him the golden ticket solution to their problems:
"You could get a job, smart guy."
Am I too feminist for thinking it's insane that Katara expects her brother alone to get the job? That she's not saying the THREE of them should get jobs? She and Aang are BENDERS! That's an asset most people aren't likely to find in any would-be employees in the central Earth Kingdom! So... wouldn't it be logical for all of them to do it? But no, instead, Sokka alone has to get the job?
And yes, I know, Sokka is the provider, Sokka is the protector, Sokka would do ANYTHING for his sister and the people he loves: you ask the fandom, though, and that's Katara instead of him. Moments like these simply do not exist in the fandom's eyes and, if they do, they're just excusable because Sokka is boring/weird/annoying/insert-demeaning-nonsense-here and Katara is a queen who can do whatever she wants.
Then, the consequences arrive once Sokka gets a dangerous job on a fishing boat and nearly gets killed in a storm. Aang is the one who shows concern about the potential storm when the fisherman's wife brings it up: from all I can see in the transcript, there's nothing from Katara. Sokka says they told him to get a job, so that's what he's doing, and there's no manifestation of concern from either of them about maybe joining him on this fishing trip to ensure he's safe. Instead, Aang is haunted by his past and Katara goes with him when he leaves, which, yes, is very important for context on the Air Nomads and Aang's life... and yet we don't really NEED for this scene to be Katara and Aang only. It could've included Sokka too. The plot of the second half of the episode would change? Likely. They could've come up with another idea, and not shown us a Katara who doesn't show concern for her brother's safety or any remorse when her unfair demands or expectations from him could result in catastrophic outcomes :') yes, she worries about Sokka's safety once the storm hits, but there's no sign of her feeling responsible for Sokka being out in the storm at all. No apology. Which is ironic, because Zuko apologizes to Iroh in that very same episode, hence, an apology from Katara to her brother could have mirrored that side of the story well, and they REALLY loved doing Zuko-Gaang parallel scenes like that, so it would have fit perfectly! Didn't happen, though.
Point being... Katara's compassion and empathy are not absolute. It's important to keep in mind is that they don't need to be! But precisely because she falters with them in moments where she REALLY shouldn't, with people as important to her as her own brother? It becomes very difficult to believe that she's the empath the fandom is convinced she is, and that the show's narrative tries to push her as.
The real reason why her failure to show compassion to Sokka in "humorous" situations feels so unnerving isn't because she's a typical little sister who takes her brother for granted (which is a perfectly logical/believable behavior!): it's because there are no consequences for it. Maybe at some point or another there were? But I for one can't remember many instances where Katara failed Sokka and it was framed as her fault and her responsibility. Let's look at other Book 1 instances that exemplify what I mean:
She freezes him to the deck of Zuko's ship, which puts Sokka in MAJOR danger, and she just tells him to hurry up as if it weren't her fault that he's frozen in the first place. We don't even see her making efforts to thaw him out of there when she IS the waterbender so it seems logical that she should be able to help with that (and if she's too inexperienced to do it? The least she can do to help her brother out of a dangerous situation is to TRY???). But apparently it's funny that she doesn't help him when it's her fault! So this is fine!
She endangers the entire group over the waterbending scroll, which, of course, the pirates had no right to have anyway and it's reasonable that she'd want it for herself... but she antagonized a group of fully adult, dangerous, potential murderous pirates, against Sokka's constant warnings that they shouldn't pick that particular fight. As far as I can remember? Her apologies on that episode are exclusively about how she hurt Aang's feelings by being jealous over his greater talents as a bender. Basically, nothing for Sokka, no apology for not listening to him about danger, making it worse when the very final moment features Katara proudly telling her brother that she won't steal things... unless it's from pirates. So lesson not learned because it's funny, again, to never acknowledge that Sokka has a point.
She actually cares about Sokka's fate in Jet! But the thing is... the narrative doesn't frame that as Katara's fault. Because it's not. Jet made his choices and he did awful things and he captured Sokka, lied and gaslit everyone, because he had a goal to fulfill and he used Katara to make that happen. As angry and upset as Katara is, it's not exactly shown that Katara is sorry for having trusted Jet when Sokka could have ended up paying a deadly price for it. She's angry at the betrayal, even in Book 2 it's constantly framed as though Katara is upset at him as an ex-girlfriend would be upset at her ex-boyfriend for lying to her rather than, you know, being pissed at him for nearly killing her brother + an entire village. My point is, the narrative framing never holds her responsible for Jet's choices. Which, again, she's not. But she IS responsible for her own choices... and one of those choices was disregarding Sokka's warnings about Jet. THAT was her fault, and her responsibility. She jumped to conclusions and assumed that Sokka was bitter and jealous that Jet was the charming cool leader Sokka could never be. There were no apologies to Sokka over that, either.
I could go on, and on, and on. The truth is, I bring all this up to show with solid evidence that Katara's writing was always a little... unstable. Weird. Disconnected from logic in many regards, I'd say. It's not logical/compatible to tell us that this character has the BIGGEST heart of the entire cast when she fails to show that heart to none other than her own brother, who is inarguably the person who she knows best and with whom she should share the closest relationship, even as her friendship with Aang grows and thrives. That makes no sense, thematically speaking.
Is it meant to be comedic? Yes, every bit as much as Iroh sexually harassing June was done for comedy's sake. That's not an excuse for characters behaving in ways that are thematically contrary to what they're supposed to be portraying... and along with that? No excuse for them facing zero consequences for that behavior. Which is, in fact, my main issue with these flaws from Katara: I have no issue with the writing choices in the scenes I listed just now! I take issue, however, with the lack of follow-up and consequences that you can BET, 100%, would have befallen Sokka if it had been him instead of Katara acting that way. He faced consequences even for things he didn't do, for comedy's sake: he wouldn't have gotten away with disregarding Katara's safety as often as Katara did with him, no chance at all.
Ultimately, these scenes in Book 1 are kind of ignorable in the larger scheme of things (or at least, that's how the fandom has always acted). Not a lot of people take any of this as major proof of characterization for Katara. You won't see a lot of fic writers showing her acting like this. Canon, though, often would go down this route for funsies, and the comics certainly did it plenty too, that I can remember. Part of the issue here is that, as funny as it is, it also makes Katara feel stale as a character, as does the Sokka-Katara dynamic, at large, because there's no progression for it. That's probably my greatest gripe with the Great Divide, believe it or not: it fakes being an episode where Sokka and Katara are going to be confronted over their conflictive tendencies, and the ONLY potential development in that basically-filler episode SHOULD HAVE BEEN Sokka and Katara learning to be a bit more harmonious and respectful of each other? ... And that's just not what happened at all. The status quo remains exactly the same after that episode, and it continues to be like that until the end of the show.
The real reason why Sokka and Katara are deemed the healthy siblings is because, of course, compared with the other main set of siblings in the show, these two appear to get along wonderfully. But the truth is, their relationship is not as dynamic as it deserved to be. And that's part of why Book 3 ends up failing in ways Book 1 might not have, while having similar flaws: Book 1 is when you're still getting to know these kids, and that's why I find its flaws far more forgivable than anything that comes later. When there's basically no development for that connection at all, Book 3 winds up falling flat with characters like Sokka and Katara and the bond between them.
All this being said... I'm not saying that Katara is terrible in Book 1. I still stand by the fact that I really enjoyed her character in many instances of this season, there absolutely are situations where she sasses Sokka that still make me crack a smile, and genuinely humorous situations that don't paint her in a questionable light over her lack of concern for her brother's safety. Her fight to earn the right to be trained as a waterbender is deeeeeply flawed but it's not her fault, it's more the misogyny of the writers/creators that decided that a betrothal necklace from his past would make Pakku unlearn all his sexism and get over his bullshit right after beating up a girl who was fighting tooth and nail to make him acknowledge her. That he only acknowledges her because he wanted to marry her grandmother is... uh... fuckboi behavior even when he's well over 70 years of age? XD
So, yeah, Book 1 still has my favorite Katara of the entire show even though I REALLY wish she wouldn't get away with things that other characters wouldn't get a pass for (... well... other than Zuko...). I can't enjoy her as much as I enjoy other characters because I really don't like it when characters aren't held accountable for serious mistakes they made.
Moving on to Book 2, though, and leaving behind my greatest gripe with Katara's Book 1 writing (lack of direct consequences/self-reflection on her part), Book 2's biggest sin when it comes to Katara is the beginning of the "mothering" trope. I honestly did not feel motherly vibes from Katara towards anyone in Book 1. Sokka is very often the one playing the responsible role, while Aang and Katara are seeing the world, practicing their bending, doing reckless and fun things. The entire thing about Katara being the mom friend started in Book 2 when she suddenly becomes the epitome of responsibility (well... kinda) when Toph joins the group. She still does sketchy stuff with zero consequences (I'll forever complain about how ice is not cold in this show, the kids she froze to the wall may have been dicks, but freezing someone alive that way should have resulted in serious health repercussions, just as ANY case of freezing someone alive should have, ffs, be it Zuko in Book 1's finale or Azula + Katara in Book 3's...), but once Toph is part of the group, she becomes the cool girl who's "one of the boys", and now Katara is "the mom". This dynamic gets forced into the story pretty much right after Toph joins the group. And after that? It doesn't really change for the better often. There are only a handful of instances where Katara wasn't acting wholesome and comforting and kind and compassionate in Book 2 (... particularly with Sokka, ofc), but the point where her dynamics, even with Aang, start to feel motherly is definitely Book 2.
And this adds to the issue, in the end: Katara's appeal as the main girl in the show is suddenly gone because Toph is here, and she's a way more unique character that the writers definitely were having fun working with, probably more fun than they had with Katara. So they had to find a new niche for her, I'd dare guess. Thus, instead of actually building up an awesome and solid friendship between Katara and Toph, they mostly just clash and collide. Toph is basically the ONLY character who gives Katara grief and isn't framed as in the wrong for it, which is its own set of issues (namely, Toph not being challenged enough by the narrative, which stunts her character growth), but among many things, we suddenly get shown that Katara is a girly girl who likes makeup and she ropes Toph into this when nothing we've seen so far suggests that Toph would be comfortable with that. Katara pushes her into doing things because they're the "girls of the group"... and it doesn't often look like Toph's feelings on anything are important when Katara is pushing her around for whatever purpose. I'm not saying Toph hated the spa day, she certainly had fun eventually, but even when the comics made a "Katara and Toph's day out" story, where Toph got to choose what to do for once, the story devolved into Katara's show anyway, and things concluded with Toph deciding they're better off doing girly things together when they want to hang out because Katara is just too intense for the things Toph would like to do.
This isn't even in the show, but it's basically a response to Tales of Ba Sing Se to try and even out Katara and Toph's one-sided dynamic, where Katara calls the shots of their entertainment... and even then, Toph doesn't really get what she's looking for. But Katara does get that out of Toph because all she wants is a girl to do girly things with and Toph provides that in the end, no matter how much of a tomboy she may be. Toph might just want a friend who loves the things she loves, and who knows, Katara could be that person! But the story never leads her in that direction so we never see that happen. And that's why that particular friendship never really... clicked for me. Their dynamics don't really feel enjoyable to me as they were written in the show, even though they very much could have been.
That's one thing I'll always give ATLA: the character potential and synergy they captured with that cast could be absolutely incredible. Team Avatar is so iconic because they really could work well off each other. A lot of teams in other media just aren't this good (... one of my main reasons to not enjoy Voltron and drop it in season 1 was my absolute failure to find any synergy between those characters, it felt like they all hated each other and I honestly did not enjoy their dynamics in the least), but Aang, Katara and Sokka have great synergy due to their different personalities in Book 1. Same when Toph joins them in Book 2. Zuko ABSOLUTELY could have been better in the group than he was if Book 3 hadn't devolved into the Zuko Woobifying Show by the second half, where the only writing priority was making him friends with everyone, and making them all feel sorry for him and have compassion towards him. But, broken down to his core traits, Zuko's personality would have resulted in solid chemistry with everyone else's if they'd gotten off that agenda anyway! So ultimately, ATLA has a big win in this respect that a lot of TV shows would LOVE to recreate but they simply haven't struck the right kind of balance in character traits.
Hence why the way they wrote Toph and Katara's dynamics kind of feels like a betrayal to me. Those two could have been a lot of fun, they have EVERYTHING it takes to be entertaining characters with not a ton of things in common and yet building a solid friendship that hinges on their differences. I've seen a fair few examples of that kind of dynamic in other media, and it absolutely would be possible with Toph and Katara. It's really unfair that they couldn't capture their dynamics in such a way that both characters would SHINE, rather than constantly resorting to conflicts between them that never seemed to truly be resolved.
So: Toph should not be a problem for Katara. She should enhance her character and doesn't because of writing failures. One of the core failures is "mom friend Katara", of course: there's nothing inherently wrong with Katara stepping up and taking care of people she loves, but there's something very wrong with it when she's suddenly portrayed as this motherly figure when she's doing things that Sokka had been doing just fine in Book 1. Main reason why this is the case? Sokka got dumbed down to full-time class clown for whatever reason in Book 2. While he has good moments, a lot of times they went WAY overboard with making him a source of comedy this season and that, too, contributes to mom friend Katara. Since Sokka is being so meh? We even feel relieved that Katara is there to keep things together because nobody can expect the other three to do it, right? But... Sokka was doing it in Book 1. And there's no real development to explain him NOT doing it anymore once Toph joins in besides "Katara is now the mom friend and Sokka is just here to be funny". It's not organic development: it's forcing tropes that just don't fit. And while Katara's mothering doesn't feel as unpleasant as it could here, it ultimately forces a new interpretation and portrayal of her character that honestly isn't all that interesting, most of all when the other characters are constantly portrayed as "more fun" while she's just here to keep them in line.
It just isn't the same Katara we met in Book 1, and it shows in spades. Book 1 Katara would have been hyped to join Aang and Toph in chaos while Sokka screams at them to behave themselves. Book 2 Katara is the one trying to keep the other three in line, and there's genuinely zero development that led things to that stage. It's not organic storytelling. There's no growth that leads to that, and so, it feels off.
But the core problem of all these flaws in Book 1 and Book 2 is that they roll together and snowball into something far greater that then proceeds to just... disrupt everything we thought we knew or understood about Katara. We've been told she's a kind person above all else, someone who cares about people close to her, someone who embodies hope and strength and love...!
... And then Book 3 starts, and we're actually facing a Katara who shifts into a wholly different person with the speed of a whiplash that we're left not knowing who tf this is anymore.
"Mom friend Katara" absolutely comes back in Book 3, why lie? She takes care of people, she tries to provide, she tries to be nice and sweet and then also enforces discipline on Toph (particularly) when she's being irresponsible!
But the reason why The Runaway is such an unpleasant episode is because Katara's behavior is dialed up to a thousand, and the conflict between her and Toph feels WAY too similar to what it was when they were barely getting to know each other in The Chase. Why are they STILL clashing over such things? There are occasional glimpses of friendliness there in The Runaway, sure! But they're not so strong that you actually feel like that friendship supersedes their conflicts and their propensity to bicker and argue and hurt each other. Toph blatantly calls her out on her mothering and fully canonically confirms that Katara is The Mom Friend™. Where Toph is annoyed but eventually complies with doing what Katara wants to do in Tales of Ba Sing Se, this time Katara makes a huuuuuge fuss over Toph's misbehavior and her scamming Fire Nation people. And you could argue that Toph has every right to do it, or that Katara is right to be worried, just like Sokka used to worry about such things in Book 1...
But what we get is a stale dynamic that repeats the same problems we saw in Book 2, as well as Katara coming off as rather hypocritical because she, too, did dangerous shit and picked dangerous fights where she shouldn't have, and ignored everyone who told her not to do it: she gave Toph that kind of grief over things Katara was willing to do back when Toph wasn't in the group (see the pirates thing), and she will try to stop Toph from having fun on her own terms when nobody has ever tried to stop Katara from doing that in hers. Of course, any Katara advocate would read this and go "you're missing the point: Katara was sad and upset that she was being LEFT OUT! That's why she was so mad about this!" Then the irony of the matter is that this argument STILL reflects poorly on Katara. She gave her friend a tough time, called her a wild child and a crazy person, went through her personal belongings because "she could tell Toph was hiding something from her", so she fully disregarded Toph's privacy... all because she couldn't say "Wait, you guys went scamming Fire Nation people? Damn, why didn't you wait for me! I would've gone too!", and there you go, problem solved! Katara's not left out anymore!
Yes, of course, that's not how it WORKS, people can struggle to identify what they feel...!
... And now it's my turn to say that that's not the point.
The point is that Katara said and did hurtful things to her friend. Things she eventually regrets, yes, but that she didn't have to do at all. This is the same person who fed Appa a bunch of food that made it look like he was sick, all be it to keep the group from leaving the Jang Hui river village so she could go out of her way to heal the injured and sick without telling anyone what she was doing. That, too, was a choice she made with no concern regarding how the rest of her team might feel about it: was she doing something nice? Sure! But it's not fundamentally different from Toph doing whatever she wants with zero regard as to Katara's feelings on the matter. Katara KNEW she was stalling their journey and that Sokka wanted them to move on: she didn't care about his feelings or priorities, and the story eventually frames Katara as being in the right for feeling that way. Here, she's in the inverse scenario, only it's with Toph rather than Sokka, and instead of realizing that she, too, has made choices that were irresponsible/dangerous/risky and STILL went all out with them, down to fighting whoever opposed her choices? Katara just doubles down until she, again, breaches boundaries and overhears Toph and Sokka's conversation, WHICH IS ANOTHER CAN OF WORMS DUE TO THE SOUTHERN RAIDERS FOLLOW-UP...
The thing is, Katara as a mom friend is not even a good thing. It's not conducive to fun or interesting storytelling, not in Book 2, not now. It doesn't make Katara a more interesting and dynamic character. The way she's portrayed isn't so she looks tragic for taking this role, it's all about forcing these kids into tropes that don't necessarily add up to who they have been so far. Katara's mom friend status is NOT treated with any compassion. It's not handled as a sore, difficult subject outside of the ONE conversation Sokka has with Toph that Katara overhears. And it's not centered on Katara's tragedy, on how she overcompensates for her mother's absence, it's centered on Sokka accepting her as a motherly person and encouraging Toph to do the same thing. The people who saw further depth in it probably haven't looked at the script itself in a long time: you CAN see more to it, but that's not the point of the scene. That's not where it's going. And the fact that such a tragic situation is what conduces Katara to take up the mom friend role actively makes it look like... she shouldn't have it. Why would she be the mom friend if she's just overcompensating for Kya's death? If she's taking up responsibility by thinking that no one else will (a blatant lie because, again, in Book 1 there's NO SIGN of this behavior and it's Sokka who's in a role of responsibility compared to her), it suggests that EVERYONE ELSE ought to step up and stop "relying" (and Sokka very much uses that word) on Katara being the mom friend. It's not a healthy thing. It's a coping mechanism that seems to be actively damaging Katara: and the story doesn't acknowledge it that way.
So... "mom friend Katara", dialed up to a thousand in Book 3, absolutely has a connection with why her character loses its sheen by this point in the story. There's no attempt to deconstruct this coping mechanism by Katara. No indication from the rest of the team that maybe Katara should get to be a kid just like them and stop being so uptight (even though VERY often she's not that uptight but the show very much tries to pretend she is). It's Katara's initiative to do a scam, it's not Toph or Sokka or Aang who think she needs to join in on the fun, she basically inserts herself in it. So basically, those three take the route of saying "that's what she's like, we just gotta bear with it", instead of actually helping her. If we'd seen that? Mom friend Katara would actually be a fun element to witness deconstructed by the story. And I'm not blaming either Katara or the other three for this:
This is EMINENTLY a writing problem.
Mom friend Katara is not a good trope. It could be if the point was to help her break free from it. It's not. It's simply weak writing that can't handle two girls with proactive, aggressive personalities and a ton of agency, a lack of creativity in realizing how much potential there could be in making Toph and Katara the absolute best of friends. It's seriously a disservice to the two of them that this trope literally blooms over Toph joining the show and then NEVER gets resolved or chased away. And when you have characters like Sokka or Aang kind of joining the bandwagon of "yeah, Katara's a mom!" when the two of them traveled with her in Book 1 and she WASN'T that at all? It makes matters infinitely worse.
So, if you ask me? This is the first thing that makes Katara feel more unpleasant than ever before in Book 3.
The second thing is even worse.
We return to accountability, as well as to illogical flow of thought when it comes to the writing of Katara: in Book 1, we see a hopeful girl who never speaks ill of her father or betrays any manner of displeasure or distrust towards him. No sign of her being conflicted by what Hakoda is doing: the focus is entirely on Sokka's feelings on the matter once it finally comes up in Bato of the Water Tribe, and Katara is a secondary matter, if even that.
This would be fine if Hakoda hadn't come up at all as a subject throughout Books 1 and 2. If Katara had never had the potential opportunity to see her father in any of these instances and had backed out from them for bigger reasons than... plot reasons.
For reference: she's excited, just as Sokka is, when Bato says he can bring the kids to meet their dad again. They're HYPED. We see no sign of Katara being upset at Hakoda for leaving at this point. The only portrayed reason why she and Sokka decide not to go see Hakoda is because they think Aang needs them more and they decide to forgive him for hiding the map. Katara, from the get-go, is not as angry at Aang for hiding the map as Sokka is. Clearly, Sokka wants to see Hakoda far more intensely than Katara does: even so, there's no sign anywhere here that implies that Katara harbors resentment or dissatisfaction towards Hakoda.
Book 2 gives us a similar situation: Katara declines going to see Hakoda and offers to be the one who stays in Ba Sing Se so Sokka can go see Hakoda himself. Sokka is soooo thrilled and thanks her and calls her the best sister ever and Katara very much says she is, indeed, the best. Which she's allowed to, worth noting, I'm not saying her reaction to Sokka's praises was bad, it's actually funny: but what I AM saying is that she knows how much this matters to Sokka and that's why she makes the offer she does. It's also VERY convenient! Because logic dictates that, if Sokka stays behind, he realizes the Kyoshi Warriors aren't themselves far faster than Katara does (even though, to be fair, Katara didn't really have much time to realize it at all), and we wouldn't have Aang suffering over Katara's imprisonment because the one in chains would be Sokka and then Aang might just go "oh okay it's just Sokka, I can go cosmic if it's not Katara"
... yeah I'm being sarcastic I actually don't think Aang wouldn't have saved Sokka, but they very clearly had Katara stay behind first and foremost for this specific purpose...
But Katara's acknowledgement that this is a good thing for her brother makes you REALLY wonder how much of a secret grudge she was supposed to feel towards her father at this stage of the story. The truth, in my opinion? She wasn't actually supposed to resent Hakoda as she did, let alone quite so harshly.
My sister personally told me that she thought Katara's anger at Hakoda was a fine storytelling choice when I told her I didn't like it. She told me Katara herself most likely didn't realize how hurt she had been by her father's leaving, that it wasn't until she was around Hakoda again that she understood she resented him at all, and that she had a lot more pent-up rage and frustrations than she had EVER acknowledged, and they burst out frequently in Book 3. Which, you know, is one possible explanation that tries to make this whole thing more palatable. From a human standpoint? This is valid.
... From a writing point? Not so much.
A Katara who struggles to understand her heart (which... is odd, tbh. As far as they portray her, Katara tends to know exactly what she's feeling, why she's feeling it, and she acts on her emotions rather than brains more often than not) would be portrayed as confused over her own rage at Hakoda. She would not have been written as a snappy teenager who hates her dad. She would have snapped at him and then apologized by reflex, unsure of what's come over her. We would see Sokka trying to mediate between them too, probably asking Katara what's her deal, and she would have no idea how to explain it. Katara would be avoiding Hakoda, knowing she loves him, not knowing why she seems to hate him now, afraid of saying things she shouldn't. Every time she snaps at him, she should worry about what she did, she should fear for Hakoda's feelings, she should reflect on what's going on inside her heart...!
... But that doesn't happen. And that knocks SO HARD on the concept of empath/compassionate Katara that it basically turns her into a whole different person.
As I've said countless times so far: it's not about Katara being perfect. I don't WANT her to be perfect. But I DO want the show to acknowledge that she's not. I want the flaws to REALLY read as flaws. I want other characters to react to those mishaps on Katara's part, and I want HER to reflect on what she's doing and realize she's messing up, just as she does when she hurts Aang's feelings in the Waterbending Scroll, which is most likely the best situation where Katara actually owns up to the exact mistake she made and feels genuine, palpable, obvious remorse for it. But when you feature Katara lashing out at Hakoda, and everyone just staying quiet because "uuuuh, awkwaaaard...", it feels off. Aang asks Katara, outright, what's her problem with her dad! And Katara goes "What? What problem?" She's acting like she's not even aware of the fact that her behavior is out of place, basically gaslighting Aang into pretending that she didn't do anything rude or mean to Hakoda. Aang literally saw it with his own eyes and is the ONLY person to bring it up.
To make matters worse? Katara has been with Hakoda for WEEKS. It's not like they just crossed paths two seconds before Aang opened his eyes. The implication is that she's been behaving like this, or her behavior has been deteriorating towards Hakoda with no one worrying about it or trying to make her reason with it. for that long. Sokka didn't do anything. Hakoda just took the teenage rants and left her alone because that's what she wants. And when the one person brings up that she's not acting like herself? Katara pretends nothing's wrong and acts like everything's fine and she's not acting any differently from herself. Whether she actually is just lying to Aang or ALSO lying to herself is a matter of debate... but what it suggests is she's unwilling to confront the gravity of her choices and how she can be hurting her father with them.
This is NOT to say that Katara has no right to be angry about Hakoda abandoning her in the Tribe. She has every right to be upset and feel forsaken. Their mother died, and Hakoda left with all the men of the tribe, and Sokka was left behind, tasked to protect everyone, and Katara apparently felt responsible for the whole village too: as valid as Hakoda's quest to fight in the war might be, it's not out of this world for Katara to harbor frustrations and resentment over what happened.
What IS out of this world, and particularly, not appropriate to her character, is that her way to convey those feelings was something she gave herself to, completely, only to reason with it once Aang was missing so that the episode would conflagrate her problems with Aang and Hakoda into the same thing.
This is basically a dark expansion of what we've seen in Katara's treatment of Sokka since Book 1: where it was typically "humorous" when she was a jerk to him and paid no price for it, this time it's not humorous. This time, you're supposed to see her being a jerk and then go "aaaaw, poor dear," even if you're not supposed to get mad at Hakoda because he is very much a decent dad. The show was trying to have its cake and eat it too with this situation, because Katara DOESN'T apologize to Hakoda for being unfair to him: HAKODA APOLOGIZES TO HER. Hakoda acknowledges the pain he caused Katara and the damage his leaving has wrought upon his children by apologizing and explaining how much he missed them... but Katara does not acknowledge the pain she inflicted on her father by acting out when he wasn't doing anything wrong. Is this teenager behavior? You could chalk it down to that, but that's precisely why teenagers can be a pain in the ass! And that's very much how Katara is being portrayed if she's unwilling to acknowledge she acted out and hurt someone she loves!
Her problems and resentment towards Hakoda magically go away after that single conversation. After this? She loves him. No hard feelings left. If her problems with Hakoda were this deep and difficult to navigate and work through, either she bottled them up in the rest of the show and stopped them from affecting her father... or she just got over it that quickly. Which would be very unrealistic because Hakoda apologizing for leaving doesn't change the damage Katara suffered through because he was gone. A single apology doesn't fix everything that people read into Katara's deep anguish in this scene and episode. And yet that's very much how the show portrays it: Katara is 100% fine in every single other interaction with Hakoda she gets past the first episode of Book 3. Does that make sense? Is that good writing? No, actually: it's literally digging up a problem, making it up last minute with zero lead-up to it, where the ONLY way to read "lead-up" is to pretend that Katara always had ulterior motives to avoid going to see Hakoda, even though we NEVER were shown that she was hiding anything, something that could be VERY easily shown in the story if they'd always had this in mind. The truth is that they didn't. They made it up for this episode, forced it in there, didn't even write it right because nobody reacts to Katara's behavior reasonably except Aang, and she gets away with it without even having to apologize. That's... not good form for any character, let alone Miss Responsibility and Empathy, is it?
This is why it's such a problem that Katara acted as she did towards her father. It's not because this is an unthinkable flaw: it's because there's very much no lead-up to it, kind of like there's none with Korrasami's big reveal in LOK's finale. It's because there's no follow-up to it either. It's because we don't see Katara living up to her supposed core character traits, where she should have a realization that her choices and actions and behavior have hurt someone else, someone she cares about. None of that happens.
And I will say: it's different when it comes to her clashes with Zuko and her reactions to him in the second half of Book 3. This is basically the MAIN thing the fandom gives her grief for and I hate them for it: she has every right and reason and justification to show no empathy or compassion towards a person who, as far as she could tell, took advantage of her compassion in Ba Sing Se, of Aang's compassion frequently across Book 1, and paid them back for all of it by joining forces with Azula and showing no concern to help Aang when Azula almost killed him. I am no fan of Iroh's... but Iroh jumped in to help Katara and Aang escape, at risk of being captured. Zuko stood beside Azula and did NOTHING to help those two leave. He showed zero concern for Aang's survival. He saw his sister potentially murder someone and had ZERO REACTION. So, no offense but full offense: Katara's unwillingness to trust Zuko is JUSTIFIED. Not only is it justified? It's CORRECT. It's the only writing choice that makes sense. Sokka getting over it relatively quickly feels off to me, no matter if the Boiling Rock adventure isn't as bad as others might be. Aang not holding a grudge for too long kind of fits because it is Aang... but Katara being that mad at Zuko? That's 100% fine. It fits. It works. And anyone pretending that what I said about Hakoda applies to how she treated Zuko is just completely biased in Zuko's favor.
Katara and Zuko do not have a secret magical powerful soulmates bond in canon. Their one instance of bonding comes after multiple instances of the exact opposite thing. Katara and Sokka were 100% down for leaving Zuko to freeze to death in the North Pole, and the ONLY reason why Zuko survives is because Aang can't let that happen to him. It's AANG'S compassion that saved Zuko. Katara felt none, AND SHE DIDN'T HAVE TO FEEL ANY. Let's not forget that!
Moving on to Book 2, Katara actually makes her first offer of kindness to Zuko and Iroh in the Chase when she offers to heal Iroh after Azula's attack. Zuko's reaction is to lash out violently and yell at her to leave: who, exactly, would feel inclined to think this poor beautiful sad boy just needs love when you OFFER HIM kindness and his reaction is, in a manner of speaking "go fuck yourself I'll handle this on my own"? And it's worth bringing it up because it feels like the fandom is hilariously misled into thinking the Gaang magically knows what Zuko is up to and how he's growing and evolving, as if they were part of the audience: they're not. The last time Katara saw Zuko before Ba Sing Se is literally when Zuko refuses her help. We're also talking about Fire Nation people: Katara has every right and every reason to believe that Zuko is refusing her help, not out of personal, internal strife he's dealing with and has no idea how to handle... she very much can read this as "inferior Water Tribe peasant, you will not heal my uncle with your wretched waterbending!" Because... let's be real, that's what Zuko looked like to Katara across Book 1. She has no real reason to think he's any better or different from that until their catacombs scene...
... And he stabs her in the back and joins Azula there. Right after "bonding" with her.
So let's be VERY clear on that respect: Katara has no real reason to forgive Zuko. She has no real reason to feel empathy outside of the show constantly trying to push that she's kind and compassionate with no boundaries, even if she forsakes that kindness and compassion at random whenever the plot requires it. But her death threats to Zuko? They're completely fine by me. I'd be pissed if she had acted any differently, and if anything I hate how easy Zuko had it to befriend everyone but Katara.
... Not to say I'm happy with how he befriended Katara either, but anyway...
As this isn't Zuko meta, we're not going to get into the true core glaring issues in The Southern Raiders, because ultimately, that episode paints Zuko in a disgusting light that his fans are constantly gaslighting themselves about. He was not beinga heroic good dude helping someone he connected profoundly with. His behavior leaves so much to be desired and proves he hasn't unlearned a lot of toxic things he had internalized. He didn't unlearn them in this episode, either. But the GREATEST sin Zuko commits in this episode, without a doubt, is bringing Katara on a journey that ultimately did NOTHING for her. The only person benefitting from it was Zuko himself. I've seen people pretend that Katara finally found closure: she did not do such thing. She learned what kind of scum killed her mother, but she did not forgive him nor did she kill him. Closure would mean peace. Katara did not find peace with the situation. She's shown troubled, sitting at that pier, miserable, when Aang talks with her, she's STILL angry. That's not closure. It never was.
What it was, however, was the journey where Katara thanked Zuko and forgave him because..! Uh... because...
... Why, exactly, did Katara forgive Zuko here?
He brought her to her mother's killer: she found no closure from it. In fact, she learned the VERY disturbing truth that she hadn't realized so far: HER MOTHER DIED SPECIFICALLY TO SAVE HER. Her mother sacrificed herself for Katara's sake. She CANNOT find peace with this reality in a single afternoon because holy shit, who would? Katara KNEW her mother had died. It's not until Yon Rha tells her what happened that she understands what happened in the igloo. Katara herself, her waterbending skills, and the target she painted on her own back because of something 100% out of her control, something that is NOT evil and that the Fire Nation was hellbent on destroying, are the reasons why Kya was murdered. This is DISTURBING SHIT to deal with. And the show completely sidelines this revelation and the dark impact it could have on Katara, which, seriously, is HUGE, way worse than what happened with Hakoda, because it very much could have triggered a profound self-hatred by Katara towards her own skills because how tf could her bending cause her mother's death?! Not to mention the obvious: who was that source? Who told the Southern Raiders that there was a waterbender? Who the hell is responsible, beyond the Fire Nation, for her mother's death?
There's A LOT to unpack here.
And none of it matters because Katara is just supposed to forgive Zuko for exacerbating and worsening her trauma regarding her mother's death :') funny how that works.
This IS the point where Katara should make a display of darker sides of herself that she didn't know or understand. THIS is where Katara turning dark like Aang did after Appa vanished would make PERFECT sense. With this revelation about Kya that's beyond disturbing: not with Hakoda... and certainly not with Sokka.
The cusp of Katara's worst is, by far, her behavior with her brother in the Southern Raiders. I know a million excuses have been made for this moment: my problem is NOT the fact that she lashed out at him as she did and said something DEEPLY hurtful. It's the fact that KNOWING, SEEING HE'S IN PAIN...
... does not matter to her one bit.
Instead of a trite scene with Zuko spouting shit he does NOT mean (aka "violence wasn't the answer... but lol go kill my father okay??"), we deserved a scene with Katara and Sokka talking this out. People pretend it's fine as it is: it's not. Katara has spent the ENTIRE show disregarding her brother's feelings in a myriad of ways: this time, it was way more painful and way more hurtful and SHE KNOWS IT. It's not funny. She's not amused. She's not being a shithead little sister. She's ANGRY. She's UPSET. She has every right to be! What she DOESN'T have a right to do is hurt her brother DELIBERATELY and then escape every consequence from doing that.
There's very much no way to spin that moment into making Katara a decent sister. There's no way she remains true to her core values of being empathetic, kind and wholesome when she will insidiously, vindictively hurt her brother this way. And what I said earlier about her overhearing Toph and Sokka in the Runaway? It actually gets a follow-up in this scene: Katara telling Sokka that he didn't love Kya as she did is basically her WEAPONIZING the information that was NOT meant for her as her alleged evidence that Sokka didn't care about Kya as much as she did. As if his inability to retrieve Kya's memory was NOT a manifestation of trauma, as if it were something he's FINE with! He's not! How guilty must he feel for that? Does that matter to Katara at all? Why... nope. Because all that matters at that point is her own rage, her own feelings, her own fury. Which is, then, entirely against the character we've been told she is.
The lack of apology or follow-up to this horrible moment will never stop being one of the absolute biggest misfires in one of the WORST written episodes of this show. Yes, I said it. The more I ponder The Southern Raiders, the more I realize it's an immensely flawed speedrun to establish a friendship that simply doesn't add up. Katara and Zuko becoming friends after this journey requires some wild, absurd leaps of imagination that, boiled down to basics, don't make any sense. There's no reason for Katara to decide she'll forgive Zuko after she regains enough clarity. Why does she forgive him? Because he proved he'd rather make her happy than defend his nation anymore? Ironically, at no point does Katara show any appreciation of the fact that Zuko is setting aside his firebending supremacist attitude completely for her sake. So maybe that's not it.
Ah... is it because of how he, and he alone, was ready to help her go on this journey of revenge...?! Why, ironically, the only reason why ONLY Zuko goes on this journey is incredibly artificial and fake: this IS intended as Katara's "field trip" with Zuko. None of the field trips make sense, from a logical standpoint, as duo journeys. I've mentioned it to a few people: Sokka and Zuko could have brought Toph with them to the Boiling Rock, a metal location where her abilities would be VERY useful, used her as a false prisoner and turned her in as a captured ally of the Avatar's, who 100% will bait him into coming here to rescue her so that the Fire Nation can get him next! A cover as strong as that one might actually get them further along on that rescue attempt than what they did in canon. But this CANNOT BE... because it was Sokka's field trip with Zuko so nobody else is invited, even if they're very much not doing anything else (as is the case with Toph). Aang? Why didn't everyone join the firebending discovery with Zuko and Aang? They weren't doing ANYTHING in the Western Air Temple at the time. They very much could have gone with them too. But they don't. And that's exactly why Katara's trip works exactly as it does: it's the solo journey with Katara and Zuko, and the ONLY way to make it work is to show Sokka and Aang completely opposed to the concept of finding Yon Rha. I'm not saying I think Sokka and Aang would have been on board if they're allowed to remain IC... but they could have wanted to go on this trip with Katara regardless of not agreeing with what she wanted to do. Hell, as is OBVIOUS: Kya is Sokka's mom too. His opinions, his feelings on this subject, should matter just as much as Katara's do, and fuck anyone who pretends otherwise. These two are NOT supposed to be the well-known unhealthy siblings Zuko and Azula, who each got one parent in their corner and therefore the other parent treated them like they were worthless or a monster. Hakoda and Kya were parents to BOTH their children, and any narrative or interpretation that attempts to say that ONLY Katara's opinion on Kya matters is immediately ruled out, for me, as absolute bullshit spouted by someone not worth listening to. Point blank.
Also, the fact that Zuko USES Sokka to gain this information about the southern raiders, and then doesn't even extend the chance to Sokka to join them? When Sokka is basically his new best buddy? That... does not make sense. It basically portrays Zuko as a disloyal asshole who takes advantage of his friends for his purposes and tosses them aside, disregarding their feelings whenever it suits him.
So Sokka's treatment at the hands of this episode is just deplorable. Both Zuko and Katara are HORRIBLE to him... but Katara is our focus here, she's actively hurts Sokka and then proceeds to not care. Because that's how she has operated so far, and that's how she always will.
Hence: we have a long, long tradition of Katara not treating Sokka fairly all across the show. The reasons why it's not a fair or balanced relationship at all is because Sokka typically pays the price for being a dick to Katara: either she inflicts the punishment herself, such as when he's disrespectful in the Drill and she smacks him with the slurry, or the narrative inflicts some magical punishment instead that CONSTANTLY proves that Sokka is not allowed to be a dick without facing consequences for it. Does he ALWAYS learn the lesson? Sure he doesn't! But the consequences for it NEVER stop. He doesn't get away with being a jerk to his sister. That's forbidden. But Katara? She's allowed to get away with it every single time! And the reason why it gets worse and worse is because we went from relatively silly/comedic things, in which Katara did not apologize because "it's funny that she didn't apologize", to NOT funny things at all, such as this scene in Southern Raiders. Even just a troubled glance at Sokka, or a slight hesitation after seeing how hurt he is, would be enough for me: there's NOTHING. She doubles down and keeps charging ahead. Zero thoughts or concerns given to her brother.
If this isn't why you have issues with Katara, well, I don't know why it might be the case in your case x'D But I absolutely attest that the combination of "mom friend", "selective compassion particularly when it comes to her brother" and "absolute imperviousness to consequences for her mistakes" are the things that fully caused my initial appreciation of her character to shift into ambivalence and then into full blown dislike once I reached Book 3.
Worth noting: THIS IS A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE SHOW'S WRITING. Boiled down to basics, written by any more competent hands, I don't think Katara would have acted the way she did often, ESPECIALLY in episodes like The Awakening or The Southern Raiders. I categorically refuse to write Katara in my stories as someone who gets free passes for EVERYTHING she does. I also refuse to portray her as the mom friend, particularly in Gladiator. There's a lot of depth you can give this character! So much you can do, so much worth exploring... and canon just settled for stunting her and then only bringing her out to play in ways that make her unpleasant, not particularly bright and extremely resistant to character development even after allegedly learning lessons (see how her initial behavior around Hama, who shows red flags often, isn't all that different from how it was with Jet? There's only a handful of moments where it looks like Katara MIGHT be wary, and yet they're quickly overcome by her excitement, which Hama manipulates in her favor until she does the bloodbending reveal). So I'm NOT saying Katara had no potential... but I am saying the show itself failed her, big time, because of how she was written. A quick glance through the transcript of the Puppetmaster to confirm my memories that Katara shows no sign of concern over Hama when Sokka finds her suspicious reveals that, after Hama shows them her comb and that she's from the Southern Water Tribe, Sokka, and Sokka alone, apologizes for suspecting her of being sketchy. Nothing from Aang, even though he was part of it too. Nothing from Toph, either. And certainly nothing from Katara. Only Sokka apologizes. As usual.
So... what does this tell you? What does this tell any of us? That Katara's development is... erratic, at best. That it's not linear isn't a bad thing, but that it contradicts itself non-stop, that her core traits come and go willy-nilly as the plot demands it, that her motivations to do things (like forgiving Zuko) don't add up to her experiences or to any lead-up we've witnessed, is most certainly not good.
If I were to rewrite ATLA, the main characters I'd want to rewrite into making a lot more sense than they do, and making their arcs actually logical, are Zuko and Katara. I'd definitely add a few rewrites for Iroh, particularly to make him WAY more accountable for shit than he ever was, and to show he's not universally loved and shouldn't be, since people would have very reasonable grievances with him. I'd also rewrite a handful of things with Aang, too. Toph, full-stop, deserves a growth arc of her own beyond getting stronger and getting used to having friends. Girl has the range. They just never let her explore it. And of course, I'd change a fair few elements of Azula's writing as well. But I feel like no characters would warrant a deeper intervention than Zuko and Katara, precisely because they constantly fail to live up to all the stuff people keep pretending they're flawless exhibits of.
And this is one more issue we've got going on with Katara:
The fandom ABSOLUTELY has been unfair to Katara. A lot of people hate her for no reason. A lot of people who potentially have unexamined racism making their hearts' choices for them and they despise her just because she dared not have fully-white skin. A lot of people pick completely ridiculous things to get angry at her, such as people who HATE HER because she's "rude to Zuko". Just, fuck off. That's about the stupidest reason to hate this character and stupid reasons for that have been heard plenty.
But Katara's fans have become... reactionary. They appear think that any criticism to her character NEEDS to be fought off with "she was right tho" or "she has every reason to act this way" or "she's HUMAN she's allowed to make mistakes you heathen!! That's what a flawed character is like!"
Here's the kicker, though: if you have justifications and excuses for every little unpleasant thing Katara EVER does? You're basically taking a dump on her character yourself and saying she IS flawless.
Flaws in characters are bad things that cannot be justified. They can be funny! They can be annoying. They can be infuriating. But they're things that inconvenience other characters, that hurt them, that show they're not above or beyond doing harmful things! All of what I listed in this crazy long post are Katara's flaws. The reason why I don't like the way these flaws were handled are all the things I already have talked about: no accountability for flaws is basically saying that these flaws don't matter. No follow-up, no lead-up, means Katara is allowed to be as much of an ass as she wants to be and nobody cares: THIS IS NOT FAIR. This is not how ANY character should be written. This is the core reason why I've spent years feuding with Zuko and Iroh: they get away with shit they should NOT get away with, EVER. They're not held accountable for so much they should be. This happens to Katara too. particularly in her dynamcis with her brother. And when people see those flaws and just start listing reasons why it's actually okay? All you're doing is dehumanizing these characters to pretend everything they EVER do is fine.
Also worth noting... character flaws are the way characters grow. If a character is DEEPLY flawed, you know what kind of work you have cut out for you as a writer. If you're writing a story heavily steeped on character development? Then those flaws are VITAL to the work you have to do in order to develop these characters!
But when Zuko is unnecessarily violent and you're told "it's because his culture and family are!", you rightfully assume that as he drifts away from Fire Nation ideology, Zuko WILL grow less violent. Then, you watch how he picks an unnecessary fight with Aang in the finale because everyone's being lazy, an EXTREMELY violent fight at that, and you contrast his earlier behavior with it and... where's the difference, exactly? How did he grow or learn better if violence is STILL his immediate reaction to anything he doesn't like?
Thus, when Katara's flaws get overlooked, ignored, disregarded? What kind of development does Katara get, if none of her flaws are addressed in a way that makes it look like she's genuinely learned any lessons? At least, none of the worst, biggest, glaring flaws were addressed. None of the things that she SHOULD be troubled by and that she shouldn't be happy with herself over, especially after seeing how she hurts people with her actions. This isn't cool. This isn't a fun way to write a character. And it's so glaringly unpleasant when you can so very easily contrast this with the well-known terrible flaw Sokka displays early on: sexism! And then he gets his ass kicked by Suki and he learns to respect the Kyoshi Warriors... and we never see him displaying that particular flaw again. THAT is what growth looks like! What can we point to with Katara that remotely compares to this? That she accepted Zuko? Yeah, no, that sincerely could not count any less. Her personal arc CANNOT be about Zuko. That she got over her mom's death? She didn't. So that's not it either. That she helped Aang save the world? So her personal arc was about Aang and not herself? Was her whole role in the story to play Aang's cheerleader, then? Because if that's it... she was doing that just fine at it since day one. She's the only person who faithfully believed the Avatar would return well before Aang turned up in her life, if the first episode's introduction is to be believed.
So... what, exactly, was Katara's arc? If it's just her waterbending skills, then she's as stunted as Toph, unexplored and underdeveloped and left to just strengthen her fighting skills while Aang and Zuko and Sokka are getting full character arcs, even if very lowkey but very much effective in Sokka's case, where they develop and grow (or they should) into the men they're supposed to be to end the war! Why don't Katara and Toph get similar arcs? Why aren't they challenged on a level that actually provides them with lasting, solid, provable growth, where you can look at them where they started out and see how they ended up and conclude their journey was beautiful?
I insist... writing. Weak writing. Failures to understand/develop characters properly. And of course, lack of accountability in storytelling. I wrote that one focusing mostly on Zuko... but it's very much applicable to every character who fails to own up to the things they should and deserve to face consequences for.
Anyway... this is what I'd say about Katara atm. I'm not 100% sure this is everything because I might have overlooked some stuff that also made Katara's character kind of backfire (while I'm no Kataang hater, I 100% agree that the ship should have been written better too, and after writing them whenever I have, it's honestly kind of ridiculous how such an easy ship could get fucked over so badly by weird writing choices...). Whether you agree with these assessments or not, ultimately, there are valid reasons to feel offput by Katara and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Most of all when you DID appreciate and cherish the character once before, but her fans just jump to the conclusion that you must be a mindless hater to think she's anything but flawless (this, while claiming they love that she's flawed, then they proceed to reveal they have no idea what a flaw is...).
(final note: SORRY IT TOOK ME FOREVER TO ANSWER! Super lengthy answer to make up for it, I hope :((( sorry)
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thesoulspulse · 2 years
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Regarding The Ancients (Part 2)
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I think this screenshot says it all. In the last post I talked about the Ancients in general and there are a lot of great candidates for who they were in the Danny Phantom cast. After all, villains could count among them too because all Skulker said was that “...a group of powerful ancient ghosts banded together in a last ditch effort to defeat the King” which when you think about it doesn’t necessarily mean they were all ‘good’ ghosts. They probably had no choice but to become allies to take down someone who threatened the balance of both worlds...
Part 1: https://thesoulspulse.tumblr.com/post/698786699553177600/regarding-the-ancients-part-1
Still, I like to think of most of them as the good guys so we’ll start with them.
Clockwork is obviously the most logical choice because not only is he already wearing a purple cloak that’s extremely similar to the Ancients in the flashback, but he also has statues of the Grim Reaper, aka Death, all over his tower along with lots of scythes. But it makes sense given how he’s probably old enough to have known Death personally. Bonus points if they were brothers since time and death go hand in hand.
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Sorjourn is another mysterious figure we know very little about but it would make sense for him to be one of the Ancients too, perhaps even their leader. In fact, before they defeated Pariah he probably had to make himself scarce since he didn’t want his vast knowledge of the Ghost Zone to be abused. Especially since he’s the only ghost rumored to have found a path to the Elsewhereness, aka their version of paradise or heaven. My personal headcanon is that he CREATED the Infimap and then entrusted it to Frostbite who we’ll get to in a second.
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Frostbite is definitely up there too just like @ecto-stone​ pointed out since he’s implied to be old enough to have been around with his tribe during Pariah Dark’s original reign of terror. His cloak may be tattered, but he’s wearing one too which is a good sign in my book.
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Nocturne is definitely another prime candidate and ironically, I wrote in one of my fanfics that he DID help trap Pariah Dark in an eternal but dreamless sleep so he couldn’t plot anything while imprisoned. Obviously he’s not wearing a cloak but since Nocturne is literally shrouded in shadows its pretty much the same thing. I like to think he didn’t used to be all that evil, he just got tired of having to live off of the ‘scraps’ of human dreams and later on decided to take matters into his own hands and put them to sleep by force to harvest a lot more energy at once.
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As much as I like Undergrowth, personally I can’t see him as an Ancient only because from what I can tell he’s been dormant on Earth for a long time and even Frostbite is wary of him when he mentioned him to Danny, implying that he’s never met him but knows how dangerous an enemy he is. I can’t see him working with anyone since his priorities seem to lie with protecting plant life from foolish humans which are mostly found on Earth anyway so I doubt the political affairs of the Ghost Zone back then concerned him much.
That, or as a plot twist maybe he could have been one of Pariah’s allies.
“I have heard tell of this Undergrowth. A powerful ghost he is. Capable of regenerating himself and producing numerous killer offspring. Nearly impossible to defeat.”
~ Frostbite, Danny Phantom Season 3, Urban Jungle.
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In exchange for Undergrowth, I think Pandora is a great fit since she already created Pandora’s Box to contain the greatest evil so wouldn’t it stand to reason she could use her skills to build the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep too? Plus, there’s more skeleton symbolism at the altar her box is kept. Greeks had Sarcophagus’s too, but theirs were literally more like ornate coffins or ironically boxes.
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Then again, the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep looks more Egyptian than Greek. So maybe an unknown Egyptian ghost was one of the Ancients instead?
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The Observants obviously care a lot about maintaining balance but they even say all they can do is watch so I kinda doubt they had an active role in defeating Pariah apart from giving council. Honestly, that’s probably why Clockwork detests them so much because they're all talk while HE and the other Ancients actually did something proactive to stop Pariah.
So anyways, long story short I think Clockwork, Sorjourn, Frostbite, and Nocturne are pretty much locked in as Ancients in my eyes which only leaves the remaining three. Pandora might be one along with an Egyptian spirit like Anubis which I would absolutely love since he’s a god of the dead. I only say A god because I think a lot of different religious figures are real in the world of Danny Phantom and are more likely to be ancient god-like spirits.
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Lastly, to go along with Anubis, it’s possible that Death takes on many different forms so they could be the same entity or entirely separate ones. If it’s the latter, then it makes perfect sense that the classic Grim Reaper would be one of the Ancients.
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And that makes seven.
In the end though, these are just my personal thoughts and there is no right answer since there’s just not enough information to go off of. It’s all pure guess work which is both a blessing and a curse in the phandom. Still, I hope you enjoyed hearing my thoughts and I’d love to hear more of yours too!
Ah, and before I forget, here’s a bonus idea. I have a personal headcanon that some of Aragon and Dora’s ancestors fought against Pariah and lost, hence why he has skeleton dragons in his army.
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richardsphere · 1 year
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Some Unconnected Ramblings on RWBY V9E6
So i bit the bullet and watched the Bees episode, Im still not entirely certain i'll watch the seasons I missed or watch future episodes as im not certain it'd be good for my mental health, but I needed to see the bees at least. I dont have much of an opinion on the bees tbh, the scene was good in execution if clunky in its inclusion. Yangs little wiggle-skip on the first step was absolutely adorable, The pairing works and its nice to see RT have the balls to go for it, even if i dont actually believe the people claiming it was "planned for certain" from the start. (i believe it was planned in potentia, but kept with deliberate deniability in case of backlash with Blacksun and YangXSomeoneElse as emergency fallback options)
You know, i kind of like how Jaune treats the cat. Like i dont agree with any of it, but it makes sense for the character and narative. Like, its clear that he's projecting more then just his own insecurities. He's projecting his experiences with every other authorityfigure in the known universe onto them.
From Ironwood's sociopathic sacrifice of the innocent. Lionhearts treacherous sacrficice of hundreds of hunters Ozpins manipulation and willing sacrifice of Pyrrha.
Jaune has literally no reason to believe that anyone in any position of authority or power could ever choose NOT to sacrifice the innocent for their own dubious, nebulous goals. and i sort of respect it as a narrative direction. (I acknowledge its not a healthy worldview to have, skepticism is healthy and good, cynicism is toxic and kills the soul). I just hope that JRWBY can dig him out of the cynicism before the story turns him into fallen hero territory.
I also dont think that Jaunes story is the "truth", but unlike most comments people make about it. About how he's working with incomplete data, making wrong assumptions about which twin lived, assuming malice in acts that might be different within context, and the clear show of how a decade of hindsight has tainted his view of Alix's childish naivete into an image of horrid sociopathy. Everyones talked about all of these.
but the thing i find most interesting is how he's seemingly slandering himself in his retelling.
As he retells the story, he makes it sound like he was less a guide and protector painted in the fairytale then a particularly railroad-heavy DungeonMaster, as if he was overly controlling and downright manipulative in his handling of the kids. Meanwhile we the audience know for a fact that Jaune is a good person at heart, and Jaune is demonstrably great with kids (as long as said kids arent possessed by a thousand-year old sociopath, Liches' Georg is an outlier and should not be counted). And we know Jaune was verry well aware of the dangers of the Everafter, just one misstep, one wrong tree touched and he lost decades of his life. Clearly we can reconstruct that he wasn't this shady figure he was painting himself as, he was a worried adult trying to protect two naive children from an inherintly hostile ecosystem where any whimsy the children acted on could verry well have seen them shrunk, aged, otherwise altered or possibly killed outright.
But decades of grief have tainted his own selfimage to such a degree he now believes himself to have been this malicious parasite on the kids adventure.
Also i like how he has a point about the Reincarnation-amnesia=death of personality thing. Like yeah, even if the soul continues to exist, without the memories its not really the same person.
I dont think Alice "poisoned" jaune, i think Alice cooked them all dinner using EverAfter ingredients, served Jaune first while having a talk over dinner and just played with her food long enough to see Jaune faint from poison. (before a Punderstorm/Jabberwalker/Other threat forced them to move on without him).
I dont believe him for one second when he says the cat is some sort of psychopomp, and i definitly think the cat returned to him after the twins went missing because the cat was legitimately worried about the nice and helpfull guy who'd just ate poison.
I do believe the cat is weird though, like its ability to subjegate free will is shady and creepy, its design screams "I am definitly the crown reforged into a new sentient entity by the blacksmith". I think the cat used the smith and/or tree to free itself from its godly prison, and is in essence the only "free genie" amongst the four.
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8 & 10 for the spn ask game💛
(also i LOVE your new icon, garth girls really do stay winning!!)
(thank youuuu i love that sweet man so much) this probably should be under a cut because good lord is it long, but ah well. i am certain people will unfollow me for this lmao.
8. Season rankings and ratings
YIKES. okay. god. okay. here we go. from worst to best. (answering these is bound to create Discourse but. ah well.)
s11: -10000000000/10. i hate the baby amara storyline with a fiery burning passion. i was doing a rewatch several months ago and got s11 and could not. could NOT keep going. booooo hiss i hate u (sorry casifer, even you cannot fix s11)
s7: -9999999999/10 (exactly one point higher than s11). the s7 bits without cas are SO BORING. dick jokes are terrible 99.9% of the time. i have to bring up specifically season 7 time for a wedding. on one hand, horrendous. an abomination. on the other hand, garth’s introduction and special guest star leslie odom jr. ?/10 i do not understand. (s7 is redeemed by kevin, charlie, garth, godstiel, and honey cas, but the vast majority of the season is unwatchable)
s13: -100/10. OKAY I. look. this is so hard because apocalypse world IS stupid, but. jack. at least it was mostly watchable? have only seen all the way through one time. redeemed slightly by jack, widower arc, and wayward sisters.
s14: 0/10. can’t remember what happens. literally i. literally every single time i think about the overarching plot of 14 it takes me a second to remember, oh yeah, michael. at least michael was more interesting than general apocalypse world.
s10: 4/10. uhhhh. moc is mostly fun and you know, thee biblical cain and his oc wife and all that jazz.
s12: 6.5/10. individual bangers, overall plot uhhhhhhhhh. not for me. points for first blood, lily sunder has some regrets, regarding dean, stuck in the middle (with you), ladies drink free (but specifically the claire moments. half point), the future, and twigs & twine & tasha banes.
s9: 7/10. the immortal conflict of loving human cas and hating what they did to human cas. however! winner for sexiest title card!
s15: 7.5/10. look an entire season unfortunately cannot be redeemed by one scene. the good: the scene! dadstiel and jack episode! most of the last holiday! (especially when i pretend cas is there!). the bad: vilifying billie, not killing chuck, absorbing amara, carr c the finale that does not exist, one million unaccounted for plot lines. the birth of s16.....
s3: 8/10. good ! points mostly for bela, some taken away for bad dean hair.
s6: 65/10. 60 points JUST for the man who would be king. overall messy!!!
TIED: s5 and s2: 80/10. simply can’t pick omg.
s1: 100/10. lots of bangers! actually scary episodes! original brothers content that makes me emosh! something something grime and grit and color grading ohh yeah.
s4: 100000/10. cas thee iel full stop.
s8: infinity/10. perfect. no complaints. mwah, that’s me blowing a kiss to my friend jeremy carver. (okay ONE complaint. ... okay TWO complaints. samelia is boring and also taxi driver caused me irreparable harm)
10. Best TFW scenes?
must say the original team free will scene when they get their name even though mr. comatose over there is. comatose. <3 and any time they actually get to work together AS a team and be friends :)
spn asks
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mercy-burning · 3 years
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Good Little Helper
Pairing: Season 5! Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Summary: Reader gets assigned to be Spencer’s personal assistant of sorts after he gets shot in the knee. Category: SMUT(18+) Content Warnings: fingering (female receiving), blowjob, praise kink, dirty talk, blink and you’ll miss it cumplay Word Count: 4.7k
MASTERLIST
NOTE: So, remember yesterday when I posted about how I wished new ideas would stop distracting me from everything I’m currently working on? Yeah. This wouldn’t leave me alone, and I couldn’t work on anything until I got it out of my head, so here! Have a fic! (It was supposed to be a blurb, but I got a little long-winded so now it’s too long to be a blurb oops 😙✌) Also, I apologize for any editing mistakes, I just wrote this out in one go, so hopefully it’s alright!
***
Being assigned to assist Dr. Reid with practically his every need after he was shot in the knee wasn't exactly how I expected to spend the past few months.
And that's, like... a huge understatement.
In fact, when Agent Hotchner came up to me in the break room and said he'd like me to do the job, I dropped my coffee and shattered a mug. I could tell he was a little impatient with me, even through his kind reassurances that it was quite all right as he helped me clean it up and waited for an answer.
In the end I'd said yes to the job, though the more I thought about it the more I wondered how much lust and naivete had clouded my judgement when I did.
Because there was absolutely no way I was going to be able to survive weeks, possibly months, as Spencer Reid's assistant. Not only because he was intimidatingly intelligent and there was almost nothing I could offer him in decent conversation, but also—and more prominently—the fact that I was pretty sure I was in love with him.
Maybe that was a stretch. I definitely had a stupid major crush on him that felt more like we were in middle school, but I could barely look at him without going warm all over. In fact, I think we had only ever made eye contact once and I averted my gaze immediately, afraid I'd give myself away. If I'd have held it any longer, I was positive I'd have burst into flames.
He'd tried talking to me once, a few months after I started working at the Bureau, and it was only to ask if I'd send some files over to their tech analyst, Penelope Garcia, but when I tried answering, I stumbled over my words and ended up only getting out a squeaked, "Uh huh," before taking the files from him and scurrying off.
I almost cried that day.
Basically every time I was in his presence, I was a total wreck. Even more so than I was on any other given day.
Being his assistant did get fairly easy pretty early on, though. I mostly just stayed out of his way while he worked, and if he need anything that he could've gotten himself if not for the injury, it was my job to get it for him. I worked on my own paperwork most of the time, and he was always busy working on geographical profiles and whatever else, we only ever really had to talk when he asked for something. And that only required a, "Sure," on my end, so I could just get up, get what he needed, and then go back to work.
Still, it didn't help that sometimes I'd get distracted.
He was very distracting.
I usually waited until I was sure he was so busy in work that I wouldn't get caught. And that's when I'd peek over my computer or hide behind a book and stare at him. I know that sounds creepier than it is, but if you had to spend almost every hour of the day with him, you'd have done the same. Even though for months he was put on rest from the field, he always showed up looking more like a college professor than an FBI agent. Which, I suppose suited him more anyway. Regardless, it was a damn fine look. His hair was decently long and extremely pretty, and when he got the cane?
I was a goner.
It was at that point, though, when I started to realize that he probably wouldn't need my help anymore. He'd been allowed back into the filed by then, and even when I went with them on cases it still felt like I was more out of place than usual. Sure, I'd picked up on some minor skills that aided in profiling and otherwise, but at the end of the day I was still only a desk clerk. Sooner or later, I knew there would be a time where Agent Hotchner would inevitably tell me that I'd done a good job and could return to my menial day job.
So, even though Dr. Reid and I had gotten into a pretty regular, non-awkward rhythm, I was being a little more squirrely than usual.
And of course, he noticed.
"Y/N, are you doing alright?" he asked, looking up from his stack of paperwork. That was another thing we'd ended up doing— late into the night after everyone had gone home, we stayed late in the conference room and quietly filled out paperwork.
I barely looked him in the eye when I answered. "O—Oh, mhm. I'm fine."
"Oh... You just seem... a little different today."
On any other day I would have freaked out on the inside like a teenager, excited that he'd noticed me at all enough to notice a difference in my behavior. But that was his job after all.
"Actually, you seem rather... sad."
I did look up at him this time, and the soft glow of the table lamp lit up his features— features that looked me over with concern. I could feel my face grow warmer with every second I looked at him, until I quickly looked back down at my paper and shook my head.
"N—No, I'm okay. Promise. Just a little tired, that's all."
Usually he would have left it at that, given we didn't ever really have longer conversations than that that didn't pertain to whatever case the BAU was working on. But he pushed further, and I swallowed.
"Are you sure? Because... You can tell me if there's something wrong. I'm a good listener..."
Did I dare tell him what was really plaguing me? That I was scared I wasn't going to be able to spend time with him every day, thus most likely giving away my crush? That is, if he hadn't already figured it out by this point... Truthfully it wouldn't have surprised me.
The thought made me go warm again, and still, I kept my head down.
"I'm sure..."
And then I did something I probably shouldn't have. I looked back up at him, just a quick glance, but under his intense gaze I crumbled, flitting my eyes back down and playing with my hands.
"Is it... because of me?"
Afraid suddenly that I'd made him feel bad, I straightened a little. "No! No, not at all I... Um... I—I guess I'm just... A little sad that I'm probably... not going to be of any help to you anymore. You know, now that you're healing up."
A small smile flashed over his face, and I inwardly melted.
"Oh... In that case I... I guess I'm sad, too."
"Really?" I asked softly, my heart jumping.
"Mhm," he answered back in earnest. His features were softer than they'd ever been, eyes wide and kind, smile inviting... "You've been a great help. And you're fun to be around."
I couldn't help but smile shyly at his confession, completely bewildered that he'd think of me as someone he'd enjoyed being around, though I'd offered just about nothing interesting to any conversation we'd had. "Y—You don't mean that..."
"I do."
"C'mon, really? I... I—mean... coming from you that's... that's too generous."
He laughed a little. "How do you mean?"
"I... Well, y—you're you... I mean, you're... smart, and nice, and cu— uh,... n—nice..." I stumbled hard on that last one, squeezing my eyes shut at the thought of almost calling him cute to his face... And then I realized I'd called him nice two times... in a row.
I hadn't even realized he'd gotten up and walked over to me until I felt his cane gently tap my leg. I jumped, looking up at him and almost crumbled again right then and there. He stood over me, tall and clearly amused, and I wanted to just curl up and hide where no one would ever find me.
I also didn't want to be craning my neck so far up to see him, so I stood up, sending my chair rolling back a foot or two. The added height was better, but he was still fiarly taller than me, and with the way were standing so close to each other?
Maybe I'd made a mistake...
"I—I'm sorry," I stammered.
Still amused, Spencer tilted his head a small amount. "What for?"
"I... I don't know, m—making this awkward?"
"It's not awkward."
"It... It's not?"
He shook his head, quiet for a few beats before he nearly whispered. "What were you going to say?"
I paused. "I... What?"
"Before... You said I was smart. And nice... And... What else?"
It sounded like he was trying to get me to confess something, and quite honestly I couldn't tell if it was for humiliation or amusement or clarification purposes. I mean, it was probably safe to assume he wouldn't go out of his way to humiliate me, but... it still made me nervous.
"I—I didn't... I..."
"Y/N... Tell me?"
I'd been cornered. Quite literally, too, as my lower back hit the edge of the table. My hands shook anxiously at my sides as I contemplated what to say. The truth? Embarrassing for me. A lie? I was no good at telling lies, and I'd still end up embarrassed, because he'd be able to tell.
So, after a very long silence in which he waited on me to answer, I blurted out, as quietly as possible, "Cute."
The word sounded juvenile coming from my mouth. Right now, standing under Dr. Reid's intense scrutiny, it didn't even feel like the right word to describe him. Not that it wasn't true... But it just wasn't an elegant enough descriptor for him.
And that alone probably proved just how different we were. How out of my league he was...
"That's what I thought you were going to say," he mused, slightly breaking me out of my self-deprecation.
I would have asked him something then, anything to keep myself from looking like even more of a fool with a childish schoolgirl crush, but all words escaped me entirely. All I could do was look up at him, slowly growing warm under the intensity of his eyes and praying he wouldn't think of me as silly.
Though, it wouldn't have mattered, because he kept talking anyway, his body taking up even more space around me as his arms came around to well and truly trap me against the table.
"You're right, you know... I'm almost completely healed, and pretty soon I think I won't need an assistant anymore."
I was scared that maybe I was wrong before, and he'd actually humiliate me now, though the look in his eyes suggested otherwise. I wasn't sure what to make of all of it. SO I just stood there, trying to breath steadily as Spencer studied my face.
"And I meant it... That makes me sad. You know why?"
I shook my head, afraid to make a sound.
His head dipped lower, close enough that I could feel his breath on my mouth as he spoke. "I probably won't get to see you every day."
"Y—you want to see me?" I couldn't help but ask.
He scanned my eyes, amusement and something else lingering there as he did. "Yes."
And then he kissed me.
It was a short distance, but it felt like we went far. And I hadn't even registered that I whimpered into his mouth until he returned it with a low groan that boiled my insides and absolutely melted me. I was helpless against him as he pressed himself further against me and used his hands to keep my back steady.
The whole time my mind was swimming with dizziness. It felt like my body was covered in butterflies from head to toe, particularly strong where his hands pressed into me and his cane rested firmly along the inside of my thigh.
I leaned forward when he pulled away, because I was afraid that he was saying goodbye. But one of his hands came up to my face and my eyes fluttered open, immediately taking notice of how messy his hair was now that I'd had my fingers in it.
I must have looked scared, because suddenly his eyes changed, and he removed his hands away from me altogether, putting distance in between us. "I—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kissed you without asking..."
The relief that rushed through my body must have gotten to my head, because I breathed out a demand I'd never have had the courage to get out before.
"Do it again."
One second I was staring at him, admittedly afraid that he'd regretted all of it, and the next I was seeing stars as he came forward and kissed me again. His hands cradled my face as he did so, coming on to me with gentle care while still maintaining that hunger that surprised and excited me.
I hadn't realized how much I missed his touch until he'd given it back to me, my body once again melting into him and allowing him to do whatever it is that pleased him.
Apparently that was lifting my leg off the ground and making me sit on the table.
My body went along with it easily, and I was glad for it because my brain was nothing but mush, unable to process fully how he'd decided that I was worth kissing. All I really knew was that I wanted him. Anything he wanted from me, I was willing to give. And that must have come across very clearly, because when he pulled away and spoke to me, I whimpered at his words.
"Y/N... You've been such a good girl, helping me with whatever I needed these past few months..." Meanwhile his hand danced along the hem of my skirt, the tiny brushes of his skin against mine sending me into a mess of shivers.
"I think it's about time I've thanked you for all your help, don't you think?"
The implications in his tone made me whine again, and I pressed my forehead into his, our noses brushing as I answered. "Please."
I was so taken by the way he groaned as his lips connected with mine once more that I almost didn't realize that his hand was now fully up my skirt, his fingers drawing gentle lines over my panties and practically making me melt again. His hungry kisses contradicted the softness he took to my clothed cunt, a fact that warmed me to my core and made me want him more than ever.
When he slipped the fabric aside and ran the pad of his finger through me, I whined hard against his mouth, something that must have excited him— He nipped at my bottom lip and took a deep breath.
"How long have you wanted this, Princess?"
If not for the kissing and the finger slowly sliding up through my arousal, the nickname would have done me in. By now I was an utter wreck, but I somehow still managed to answer, even through a little stammering. "F—Forever."
It was the best I could come up with.
He breathed a laugh as his finger circled my clit. "That's a long time..."
"Uh huh," was all I could manage in response. My body and my brain were too focused on the things his finger was doing to my body, involuntarily rolling my hips forward for more. I needed more.
Thankfully he picked up on my urgency and reciprocated with slipping his middle finger inside me, one knuckle, then two...
I cried out as my head lurched forward, connecting our mouths once again. My hands clutched around his neck and my fingers tugged at his hair to keep myself from falling, because the slow, searing pace at which he fingered me made me wonder how I'd still been able to breathe.
He added another finger soon enough, picking up the pace and rendering me practically useless in his embrace. Meanwhile I registered the sound of his own little whines, still deeper than mine but little enough to tip me off that he was enjoying this just as much as I was, and that alone helped get me further along in pleasure.
I pulled my mouth from his reluctantly, squeezing my eyes shut as I allowed my forehead to rest against his. "D—Doctor, I'm c... I'm so close."
"His honorific falling breathlessly from my mouth seemed to do something sinister to him, because his fingers sped up and his breathing got heavier.
"Yeah? You gonna come for me, Princess?"
My stomach tightened and I nodded as best as I could, relishing in the sounds coming from below us, wet and downright filthy.
"Go ahead...Be a good girl and come for me... You deserve it..."
Each little sentence was punctuated with a slightly faster pace, each one bringing me closer and closer until I squeaked into his mouth and shook violently around his fingers, my vision going white. My legs had been open wide since he'd started teasing under my skirt, but now they threatened to clamp shut from the intensity. But I wanted nothing more than to be good for him, to make this as easy as possible, so I held out and kept them open as wide as I could stand as my orgasm rocked through me.
Spencer whispered praises into my skin as his hand slowed and his mouth trailed down to my neck. And even though it was more than nice feeling him lick and bite over my skin, I felt rather sad when he removed his fingers from me.
That sadness didn't last long though, not when he pulled back and studied me for a moment, eyes lust-blown and purely ravenous before he brought his glistening fingers up to my mouth.
I didn't even have to think. I brought my tongue out and let him slip his fingers over it, closing my mouth around them and sighing as I sucked them clean. This only seemed to excite him more, his features displaying all sorts of desperation until he couldn't take it anymore.
He kissed me again, bringing both his hands to rest at my waist. And with his hands so low I wondered if maybe he'd take to ridding himself of his own pants, but it never happened. Rather, he pulled away after minutes of more kissing, and sighed quite sadly as his upper body pressed firmly into mine.
Something else pressed firmly against me as well—right along the inside of my thigh—and I gasped, mind running wild through all the possible outcomes of the night.
But Spencer only stood there, occasionally nudging his nose against mine while his hands gently kneaded my sides.
"D—Do you want to stop?" I asked softly, afraid he'd regret what we did.
He proved me wrong. "God, no... It's... It's just that I'm still not cleared enough for any... strenuous activity on my leg, and I don't..."
I didn't want to push him, obviously, but I thought I could make the mood a little lighter. "O—Oh, well on the bright side... I could stay your assistant for a while longer."
The laugh that rumbled in his throat made me smile, though from the way he stood there, I knew he wouldn't risk it.
"Um... Raincheck?" he whispered.
On the one hand, that meant he definitely wanted to see me again, and I was more than happy with that. But also, that meant our fun for the night was done...
Yet... Maybe not...
"Sure," I answered, pecking his lips once more. Then I brought my hand to his chest and slid it down until I reached his belt, and I leaned back to look him in the eye, a boldness I never imagined coming from me in a million years.
"But I can still help you..."
I watched the desperation and disappointment in his features slowly dissolve into a newfound hunger—and an amusement—that grew my confidence tenfold.
"Oh?" Spencer mused. "How do you suppose you can help me this time?"
He wanted me to say it. So, without second guessing myself anymore, I grazed my finger over his erection. "I'm very good with my mouth, Dr. Reid."
He grabbed me by the hand then, dragging me along to the chair I'd kicked back before and sat himself down, one of his hands still gripping the cane. Matched with the desire in his eyes and the swollenness of his lips and the tousled strands of his hair, the sight was truly something to behold. It was something that only ever existed in my dreams, nd now it was real.
Not wanting to waste any time, I sunk to my knees and nestled myself in between his legs. He reached out and caressed my cheek before lifting my chin with his middle finger.
"You like being my good little helper?" he drawled.
I tried to nod, but he clicked his tongue and held my chin in place. "Words, Princess."
"Yes. I—I'd do anything you asked. Anything you want, it's yours..."
He hummed then, removing his hand from my face and moving to undo his belt swiftly with only one hand. The action, the sound, everything... it was enough to make me wet again, and I subtly ground down onto the heel of my foot as I watched him pull himself free from the confines of his pants.
I didn't have time to marvel at him before I was drawn forward like a magnet, my hands crawling up his legs and my eyes batting up at him, ready and eager to please him however he wanted.
"Eager, are we?" he mused once more, gently stroking himself with his hand.
"Yes, Doctor," I breathed, inching closer and kissing the outside of his hand.
His movement stopped then, and it didn't take longer than a second for him to decide to let me work on my own.
"Then have at it, Princess..."
I started by kissing my way up the length of him, taking my time to gauge his reactions as I did so, occasionally darting my tongue out to taste him. Once I reached the tip, I sucked on it gently, using my tongue to swirl around it until I could taste the saltiness of his precum.
And then I started taking him slowly into my mouth, watching above me as Spencer's eyes started to shut, obviously debating whether or not to lay back and enjoy this or watch me intently.
Either way, I was more than happy to keep it up, finally getting him to the back of my throat. I flexed my tongue and held him there as long as I could, promptly gagging over him and blinking tears from my eyes as he let out a loudest sound I'd heard from him yet. His head flew back and his tongue quivered along his bottom lip as he cursed my name.
The act made me proud, so I retreated for air, sucked at his tip again for a few seconds, and then repeated it, taking him down my throat again and watching through teary eyes as he visibly swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut.
"Fuck, Y/N, you're so... Such a good fucking girl..."
The praise caused my insides to burn hot, and I ground down onto my heel again, lifting my mouth to start bobbing up and down.
His eyes opened then, and he looked down at me, using his hand to brush stray hair from my face and the other to grip onto his cane for dear life. I looked up at him the whole time, making sure to convey through not only my actions but also my eyes that I loved this. I thrived off of his praise, I enjoyed the feel of his dick gliding over my tongue and hitting the back of my throat, and I longed to feel him coat the inside of my mouth with his release.
I was so entirely into him in every capacity, it wasn't even funny.
I was so glad he could tell, a smile grazing his features as his hand gently gripped some of my hair. "So eager to please, Princess... And so fucking good at delivering..."
I whined onto his dick as he held me down, rendering me immobile. The only thing I could do was look up at him and choke, and of course, I was more than happy to do it. In turn, I was met with a deep groan and a tug of the hair.
"Hold it, hold it... Atta girl..."
My cunt throbbed at his words, and my throat continued to burn, tears falling down my face at ten-speed until finally, he let up and pulled me off of him.
I coughed a little and blinked away tears as I caught my breath, Spencer's fingers combing hair from my face as he smiled proudly.
He didn't even need to say anything then. I wanted to give him more. So I leaned down again and took him in my mouth, quickly making work of his tip while my hand came up and stroked the rest of him.
"Fuck, Princess, just like that... Make me come just like that..."
Rather than just continuing, I offered him a high whine and a wide gaze, hoping to exceed expectations.
I guess it worked, because he came right then, his dick pulsing over my tongue and in my hand as his warm release shot down my throat and over my tongue. I hummed around him, fluttering my eyes closed at the taste and the feeling, probably enjoying the fact that I'd done this to him more than I should have.
It was worth it to see the look on his face, though, after he'd given me all he had and I purposely spit some of it out onto the tip of his dick so I could lick it up and give him just a little more stimulation after the fact. His mouth hung open, eyes heavy and unwilling to leave me, even as I finished and sat back to wipe the tears and saliva from my face with a satisfied smile.
Though, the longer he looked at me, the more shy I became. Funny when I'd just had his dick down my throat, but I'd never been good with people staring at me for long periods of time.
"Was that... Was that okay?" I asked, suddenly worried I hadn't done something to his standards. "I know I don't do this a lot, so I'm sorry if it wasn't that g—"
"Y/N..."
I blinked up at him, still on my knees and unwilling to move. Not that I wanted to, but I couldn't even if I had.
"That was fucking perfect... I meant it, you're... so good."
I knew he was capable of better words, but after having the life sucked out of you, I could imagine 'better words' were hard to come by. Still, I laughed a little, playing with the hem of my skirt. "Good. I'm... glad I could help."
He smiled at me, readjusting his pants and then moving to help me off the ground.
"Hey, uh... Even when you go back to your regular job after I get better, I... I hope you know you're always welcome to come visit me if we're not busy."
The words warmed me in a different way, my heart swelling as well. "You... You mean that?"
Spencer nodded, grabbing my hand and dragging his thumb over my wrist. "Of course. I mean, you're more than just a good helper, you know. You're also kind, and smart, and cute..."
I laughed at his emphasis on cute, heat warming my face. "Ha-ha..."
"I really mean it, though," he said softly, removing his hand from mind and bringing it up to lift my chin, so I'd meet his eyes. They were swimming with sincerity, the epitome of warmth and comfort and kindness— the kind that always drew me to him in the first place. "And... If you'd want to maybe ditch the paperwork one day and grab a coffee or something, maybe—"
"Yes," I interrupted without thinking. My heartbeat picked up upon seeing the look in his eyes when I agreed, a mixture of amusement and relief. "Y—Yes, I'd love to."
"Good. Then it's a date?"
"Definitely."
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Text
Met Him Last Night
I literally speed wrote this in an hour so I'm sorry if this is a mess lmaooo but hopefully this will be continued, we'll see :D If anyone wants to be tagged in upcoming updates to this, please let me know! Just be warned, this first chapter does have (not very specific) details of a panic attack!
Title is from Demi Lovato's Met Him Last Night
Word Count: 2181 Read on AO3 Rowaelin Month Masterlist
Day 17 of Rowaelin Month Prompt: Bodyguard AU
~~~~~
Aelin was just about ready to murder someone, and that someone would most definitely be her cousin.
“Aelin, I’m serious, you need protection.”
She growled as she slammed her palms down on the dining table, loudly, as she stood up. “And I’m serious when I say that I need sleep. This stupid bodyguard business can wait two days for me to hibernate.”
Aedion also stood up, mirroring her stance as he leaned in closer to her. “Your life is in literal danger, Aelin. I hope you understand what that means.”
“It was one instance!” she insisted, pushing herself away from the table and moving to the kitchen to put her empty dinner plate into the sink. She was so exhausted from all the travel she’d done in the last few days that all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep — dishes be damned.
“One instance of the guy mailing you pictures of you from the hotel and on the sidewalk,” he responded, moving beside her. He was following her on purpose to make sure she couldn’t escape him, and Aelin was pissed off that he knew her so well to do that. “He’s been sending you those weird as hell letters for years.”
“It’s not exactly a trade secret which hotels I stay in when I’m going on book tours, Aedion. You know that.”
“If you stopped posting Instagram pictures with the hotel in the background, then it would be more of a secret considering that you are a public figure now. Besides, it’s only going to get worse now that Crescent City season 1 press shoots start soon. Your face will be more famous than just in the book world, Aelin. People will see articles of the author behind the next biggest fantasy show on television. Things are already bad, and we shouldn’t let it get past that.”
“Okay, fine, but why can’t we talk about this later? My body clock thinks it’s the middle of the freaking night, and I haven’t slept in fifteen hours. Please get out of my face so I can sleep.”
“Aelin, if you don’t take this seriously, I’m going to do it for you.”
“Oh dear cousin, owner of a security company, please do. I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with it, especially now that I’m going to be much busier.”
“You’re so annoying,” he grumbled as he stalked towards the door.
“Love you too!” she called after him, finally, finally, heading towards her bedroom. Fleetfoot trotted after her happily, and Aelin snorted as her dog’s wet snout kept bumping into her bare calves. The dog was way too excited to see her after two long months away from home with Aelin travelling all over the world for the release of her latest book. It wasn’t like she could deny the fact that she had missed her dear, sweet dog so much as well, so when Aelin flopped down onto her soft bed for the first time in months, she let Fleetfoot join her.
Fleetfoot circled the same spot three times before curling up against Aelin, her tail slowly thumping against the mattress as Aelin got comfortable as well. The feeling of warmth from her dog and the happiness from being in her own bed after so long had Aelin falling asleep faster than she normally did, and she was just about entirely asleep when she barely heard the click of her front door opening.
Figuring it was Aedion, she just tried to drown out the sound, not having the willpower nor the strength to move. He could let himself out after taking whatever he had probably forgotten at her place, and Aelin would be happily dozing for the next several hours.
Until a crash broke the haze Aelin was in, and her eyes shot open. Heart pounding in her chest, she looked at Fleetfoot who was staring at the closed door with alarm as well.
Aelin was confused. Aedion was careful to not drop ceramic or glass objects within the house, knowing how much her mother would always be on the two of them growing up to be careful with such things, and it didn’t help that she was still half asleep. Nothing made sense to her.
Slowly getting out of bed, she winced as she stood up entirely, her feet aching after days of standing in heels. Aelin walked over to the bedroom door and creaked it open, and she scanned the immediate vicinity for Aedion, trying to see if he was anywhere near the living room or corridor. When she didn’t see him, she creeped out of her room, trying to be quiet but the sluggishness had already taken over body as she stumbled into the wall a few times. Fleetfoot was at her tail, but Aelin forced her to stay before turning the corner into the living room. If there was glass on the ground, she didn’t want it getting in her dog’s paws.
Once Aelin turned the corner, she immediately stopped, finding the scene in front of her unwelcome and incredibly jarring.
There was a man standing in her room, one that didn’t have the same blond hair she did, and the broken object was a picture frame, the shards of glass littered about on the ground as he gripped a photo of her and Fleetfoot.
Aelin swallowed slowly, the saliva getting stuck in her throat as her mouth went dry, as she realized that a man had broken into her home.
As quietly as she could, she placed a hand over her mouth, trying not to breathe too loudly as she quickly made her way back into her bedroom, herding Fleetfoot with her, and she locked the door to the bedroom. Wildly glancing around, she took the chair from her vanity and jammed it under the door knob so the door wouldn’t open.
“What do I do,” she whispered, scared of her mind as she sat down on her bed. She was shaking, that much was sure as Fleetfoot tried to lick her hands and face in an attempt to calm her down. How was Aelin supposed to calm down when there was someone in her house?
Realizing that Aedion must’ve not gotten far, she lunged for her phone on the bed and dialed Aedion’s number.
“Weren’t you supposed to be asleep?” was his greeting, but all she could get out at first was a shuddering gasp.
“Aedion,” she whispered.
“Aelin? Are you okay?” he asked, his voice immediately alert.
“There’s someone in my apartment.”
“What?!”
“Hurry, please,” she cried, trying to muffle her voice to make it seem that she wasn’t at home. She didn’t know if the man had known that she was in the apartment, but she didn’t want him to find out.
“Aelin, listen to me, you’ll be fine. I’m almost there. Are you still in your room?”
“I, uh, I’m in my bedroom with Fleetfoot. I went out when there was a crash, and then ran back to my room,” she managed to get out. “I locked the door and jammed a chair underneath.”
“Go into the bathroom and lock that door too,” he urged, and she got up to move to the bathroom. “If he manages to get your room door unlocked, then at least you have some more time. I’m almost there, but you need to call 911, too.”
“Aedion, I can’t—” Aelin gasped out, leaning against the bathroom counter after locking the door behind her and her dog. Her breaths were coming in faster, and there wasn’t anything she could do to control the way her eyesight was beginning to blur. “I can’t let him know I’m in here.”
“He won’t find out,” he urged.
“But Aedion,” she cried, “the plates in the sink. He’ll see them, and he’ll know I was home. He’ll know I’m here.” The pounding in her chest had gotten louder than what Aedion was saying, and all she could do was sob into her hands. She wasn’t safe anymore outside, but now she wasn’t safe in her own room.
“Aelin! Aelin, it’s okay, I’m here.”
The next thing Aelin heard were shouts and yells before it got all quiet. She clambered up to her feet, throwing the door to the bathroom open before trying to get the chair back out, but it wouldn’t budge. It was stuck, and her limbs weren’t cooperating. There wasn’t anything she could do, and she tugged at the chair with a cry.
“Come on,” she cried, tugging at it more before it finally came free, clattering to the ground. Unlocking the door, she took a few unsteady steps before Aedion came into view, the man lying on the ground unconscious. Aelin lost all control of her body, and she fell into Aedion’s arm as he ran for her, and that was the last thing she saw before blackness encompassed her.
~~~
When Aelin awoke several hours later, it was to the commotion coming from downstairs. At first, she blinked a few times, trying to readjust to where she was because it wasn’t the drab hotel room view she’d gotten accustomed to, and once her brain was awake enough to process that she was in Aedion and Lysandra’s spare bedroom, she got out of bed and padded over to the bathroom to brush her teeth and her hair. If she was going to show her face after a major panic attack that caused her to faint for a few minutes, she should at least look decent.
Fleetfoot was, thankfully, also with her in the room, and Aelin sat on the ground for a few minutes just to hug her dog before getting up and going to the living room.
As soon as she made her entrance, everyone went silent, the only sound was Fleetfoot’s paws as she went straight for Lysandra to nose at her for treats.
“Okay,” Aelin swallowed. “I get it. I need a bodyguard, but at least that guy was arrested,” she continued, hopefully. Aedion beckoned her to sit next to him, and it was then that she realized that besides her cousin and his wife, Elide was also there and a man that she’d never met before. He was striking, to say the least. Silver hair with a sharp jawline and beautifully green eyes. His short-sleeved shirt also showed off swirls of tattoo creeping up his bicep, and Aelin had to say that she was intrigued by who this man was.
“Look,” her cousin started, directing her attention back to him. His face showed concern, and she was suddenly worried that this entire ordeal might not be over. “That man wasn’t the same one who stalked you. He was just a burglar trying to score after noticing that no one had been going in or out of the apartment for a while. It just helped that the security guard downstairs is of no use, so he broke in.”
Aelin was having a hard time processing all this information being thrown at her. “So you’re telling me that it was just...unlucky?”
“I have been telling you to move,” he unhelpfully added, and she let him know exactly that.
“Anyway, we’ve come up with a solution,” Elide butt in. “Aelin, meet Rowan Whitethorn. He works in Aedion’s company. He was working for a different client for a few years, but they switched companies, so he’s now free to protect you.”
“Hey,” she greeted without any of her previous enthusiasm.
“Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Galanthynius,” Rowan responded, and she noticed the slight accent to his words.
“Doranelle?” she asked, and he nodded.
“I will be protecting you from now on, uh, in a close manner.”
Aelin slightly jerked in her spot at his shy demeanor over his words, and the way he said it caught her attention.
“What do you mean?” No one answered her at first, peaking her anxiety again. “Aedion?” she asked, looking to him for an explanation.
“Since it’s also not safe for you to be at home alone, we’re going to have Rowan pretend to be your boyfriend.”
~~~
Aelin stepped out of the car, hand placed in Rowan’s as he led her into the paparazzi filled lot that led to the building where the final press shoots and poster shoots would be taking place for her show. It was still absolutely insane that someone she had written was actually going to be a TV show for the whole world to see, but another absolutely insane thing was the fact that she was pressed up against Rowan’s hard body, trying to pretend to be absolutely in love with him.
“Who is this man?” she heard one of the journalists ask, and she wanted to say that she didn’t exactly know either considering she had just met him last night, but this was the perfect opportunity for the world to know that she had a boyfriend.
Technically.
Smiling, she pulled Rowan to a stop as she turned to the vague direction from where she heard the voice. “This is my boyfriend.”
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obeiii-mee · 3 years
Note
Could I request the brothers (and maybe Diavolo, if you're comfortable) reacting to a knightly/chivalrous m/c, please?
———————————————————
I haven’t written Diavolo in a hot minute, I’m glad he’s being requested again. I’m guessing you mean an MC with the attributes of a knight? The same sort of mannerisms and traits and not an actual knight! MC? Lemme know if I did this ask wrong because I was low key confused lmao.
———————————————————
The Brothers + Diavolo with a knightly/chivalrous MC:
Lucifer:
-He really didn’t like you upon first meeting
-He hated how he couldn’t intimidate you into not being a nuisance the way he could with most of his brothers
-But, to be honest, you had gained his respect rather early on
-I think, even though it may have annoyed him to no end, Lucifer was very fond of your bravery a lot of the times
-The way you would stand up for Mammon or that time you protected Beel and Luke from his outburst
-Courage is not a trait one would usually associate with humans, especially when more superior beings like demons are involved
-Your humility was also a characteristic of yours that he, surprisingly, was really fond of
-And your overall mercifulness was something to be congratulated as well
-I mean, him and his brothers put you through so much shit and for you to forgive and move on without an angry word at any of them kinda speaks on its own
-I think he understands, to an extent, the reason you’re so loyal to the people you care about too
-He has a certain devotion for Lord Diavolo and his brothers, more than he lets on
-To him, having someone like you around is something to be appreciated
-Because you are similar but also completely different and nothing like he deemed you to be at the beginning
-yo i think you remind him of himself back when he was angel tbh
-He’s sort of tired of saving your ass tho because you are very just, so you feel the need to help people all the time which leads to you getting involved in fights
-Bring him his 20th cup of coffee for the day please, it’s hard being a single father of 8 children (yes I’ve added Lord Diavolo he counts as one of the kids)
-He’s the definition of this incorrect quote I stumbled across a while back
- MC: “FIGHT ME RIGHT NOW!”
-Lucifer, from behind them “ Do not.”
Mammon:
-Ok so this random human comes to DevilDom and has the audacity to slap his hand away while he’s trying to steal from Diavolo’s castle????????
-“MC ya’re forgetting I’m a demon, my moral scale is wayyy different than yours-“
-“Put it back.”
-“......ok.”
-You’re coming at him with rightfulness and honor and your presence is gonna hit him like a truck
-Cuz he ain’t stealing anything when you’re around (lucifer uses this to his advantage ofc.)
-That was basically the only thing he disliked about you
-Other than that, after your first week in DevilDom, he thinks you’re a goddamn S A I N T
-Everytime you stand up for him when his brothers are being assholes-pls he melts into a puddle of goo from your perfection
-OOFFS AND ALL THOSE TIMES YOU GAVE HIM GIFTS BECAUSE GENEROSITY BBY
-Good thing he was wearing sunglasses, because holy fuck was he weeping under those Gucci shades
-He’s gonna give ya props for having the courage to stand up to him and his brothers
-Lucifer especially because big bro scary
-Think about it like this: literally every single one of them could have you seasoned and roasted for lunch, love
-And yet you still have the bravery to look them in the eye and tell them: “Ya’ll are dysfunctional as fuck and need family therapy.”
-Again, he doesn’t understand your morale, he’s the Avatar of Greed, if he sees something he likes or seems worthy of his presence, he takes it
-But with that look you’re giving him, he honestly feels so guilty he can’t help but put it back
-He also appreciates your patience with him when it comes to anything that involves him talking about his emotions and thought process
-Because at this point he is widely known as scum so-
-Ahhhh, in the end, he thinks you’re pretty badass for a human and would low key want to see you in an armour of sorts agajwhisebhwjwwhehgdhdh
-And he really likes it when you make the effort to open doors for him too but he’ll never have the nerve to admit it
Levi:
-Believe it or not, he warms up to you in less than a day...?
-It’s probably because he’s a navy commander and he’s used to having soldiers around and you sort of remind him of that
-Out of everyone, he reacts the least when he sees how you carry yourself because to him it’s second nature
-Even if he does tend to slouch most of the time
-Almost dropped to his knees and started worshiping you when you yelled at Mammon to give Levi his money back on your first day
-And then a friendship started to blossom (im not friendzoning y’all, relax)
-Levi has a tendency to just walk into your room with his laptop, point at the screen which is paused in the middle of an anime and go “Look, the protagonist is a knight. You’re also...really knightly. I like the protagonist. I, uh I like you too, I guess.”
-He loves how honest you are because he knows that no matter what you wouldn’t lie to him
-“MC, do you think I’m a yucky otaku?”
-“No.”
-“But-“
-“No.”
-“Oh ok.”
-But on the inside he’s like 🥰🥰💞💞💞💞
-I just think that a knightly MC would connect on an emotional level with Levi for a lot of reasons, idk
-He’s gonna be a sputtering mess when he realises how much effort you put into this relationship (platonic or romantic) and how loyal you are to it
-Like how you actually bother learning all of his stupid passwords because you are just as serious about them as he is
-He just crashed, give him a moment to reboot please
Satan:
-He takes a while to warm up to you because for some reason your overall demeanour reminded him of Lucifer lol
-He thought you might be just as stuck up as him
-It didn’t take him longer than a week or so to come to the sudden realisation that you are way more pleasant than his brother
-Like his daddy, you manage to earn his respect pretty quickly after that
-He just thought the way you handled everything that was thrown at you in DevilDom was very sophisticated but firm nonetheless, if that makes sense?
-Like, you weren’t itching to escalate fights or anything but your tone of voice could easily end a whole conversation if need be
-You were still a human of course, it would be real easy for some low rank demon to kidnap you or something
-But for some reason, your confidence seemed to intimidate a few of the weaker ones into leaving you alone
-Obviously, that didn’t mean you were completely safe or anything
-There were still others that could effortlessly overpower you
-Even so, Satan found it sort of reassuring that unlike some humans, you weren’t one to back down without a confrontation
-Don’t get me started on all those times you rebelled against Lucifer, because that’s what truly got him to get to know you better
-He found you pretty interesting and then that interest sort of evolved into actual fondness
-Another thing that caught his eye was that even though you have very strong feelings about justice and fairness, you are completely level headed most of the time
-And patience, while it’s something he can manage, is the one that he has been trying to control for centuries
-He learned a lot from you about behaviour, whether you intentionally taught it to him or not
-And if there is one thing Satan thinks highly of; it would be knowledge
-Therefore, from that point onward, your existence was so much more precious to him than your soul could ever be
Asmo:
-What can I say about our sweet Asmo?
-You could have the personality of a trashcan and he’d still love you
-You were so polite and honourable from the beginning to the point you managed to get the attention of the Avata of Lust himself????
-He thought you were pretty hot basically
-hoWEVER
-Your righteousness always sort of nagged him because he low-key believed Diavolo snuck in another angel into the program, I-
-And for some reason, your loyalty to everyone in general ticked him off immensely at the beginning
-Mainly because he recognised that’s one of the traits he lacks entirely and he came to the conclusion that he needs to revaluate himself on that one
-He is so desperate for your attention, he will tattle on his brothers just to get you to yell at them and then comfort him
-“MCCCCC, MAMMON STOLE MY NEWEST MAKE UP KIT AND IS ABOUT TO SELL IT ON AKUZON!”
-he is so petty istg
-Your nobility still catches him off guard every now and then
-Because you’ve been living with demons for so long and yet you’re still, theoretically speaking, pure?? get your head out of the gutter people
-He probably applauds you on the fact that you can even scare Lucifer on some occasions because imagine having a scarier death glare than the eldest prince of hell
-Asmo will personally buy you clothes that he thinks suit your “aesthetic” (wtf Asmo)
-Might’ve bought you a sword and then got shouted at by Lucifer because oops turns out it was cursed
-Again, supportive mom vibes
-“MC, do you know how stunning you look strutting around with that confidence of yours? Don’t get me started on your posTURE!”
-You pulled a chair for him once and he practically swooned lmao
Beel:
-He figures you’re really nice from the start
-Mostly because you kept running errands and opening doors for him even though he let it slip that he might lose control and eat you
-Like most brothers, he finds you comforting in a way
-Beel appreciates your honesty to him too because he can count on you to tell him when he’s doing something wrong
-And he sort of needs the validation that even though he blames himself for a lot of things that took place in the past, his brothers and you are more than ready to forgive him (even if they didn’t blame him to begin with)
-Rather than respect, Beel puts a lot of trust into you, which I would believe to be more intimate
-If it’s just the two of you hanging out, he has an easier time opening up about Lilith because he knows you would never judge him and respect his feelings enough to let him get it out of his system
-You always share your food with him and give him a bigger portion and he goes so soft-
-Like who allowed you to be this generous?
-Tbh, he thinks it’s sort of refreshing having someone like you around
-Beel has been surrounded by demons for millenniums now and he’s gotten used to their...uh ‘evilness’
-Ever since you got dropped off in DevilDom, you really stood out with your nobility and morals
-It was like a breath of fresh air in a way
-He may or may not believe you’re a good influence on his siblings-if you can even influence demons of all things
-I’m not saying he invites you to work out with him and give him honest criticism, but he definitely invites you to work out with him and give him honest criticism
Belphie:
-“Out of all the humans they could’ve chosen, they picked the most annoying one, oH MY FUCKING GO-I MEAN DAD-“
-You go up to the attic that one night after tricking Lucifer into vibing to some classical TSL tunes
-He spotted you and was immediately irritated
-Like, he KNEW you were going to be a pain in the ass just by judging your posture and how you carried yourself (very knightly)
-At the start, he’s even hesitant to lie to you because he had a suspicion you wouldn’t buy his bs
-(Spoiler alert: you didn’t but you went with it either way)
-It takes a while for you to forgive him when he literally fucking kills you because that was rude af but you got over it in time
-AFTER of the whole ‘Sorry-for-choking-you-can-we-be-friends-now’ incident, you still get on his nerves a lot but at this point, he believes that’s his punishment for being a murderous dickhead
-You don’t really piss him off tho, you just confuse him a lot
-Why are you so polite? You keep pulling chairs and opening doors for him??? Why are you treating him like royalty?? Stop it, he doesn’t want to be like Lord Diavolo (he def likes it when you do that)
-Pls stop dragging the poor man to breakfast, he just wants to sleep in-
-He doesn’t understand how you’re always one time for everything
-My dude tries to wake up 20 minutes early to get somewhere in time and he is still 2 hours late
-sTOP TRYING TO FORCE YOUR IDEALS ONTO HIM, HE’S A LITTLE SHIT WHO ENJOYS WATCHING PEOPLE SUFFER
-All the same, you’re a very forgiving person so he’s just grateful you don’t hate him or anything
-And in the end, it doesn’t really matter how much your chivalry and righteousness and all of that pisses him off every now and then
-Because he can’t deny the fact that you brought him and his brothers the peace they needed
-And he so loves it when you and Lucifer go head to head mhmm
Diavolo:
-This big tittied man right here takes a liking to you immediately
-A couple of days in DevilDom and he’s already inviting you for tea at his castle
-You managed to befriend the prince of hell faster than the demons you live with, huh
-He’s lonely ok? He loves having people over and having cozy chitchats
-Not to mention he thinks you’re such pleasant company!
-Most demons would be afraid to even say anything in his presence but you always speak your mind while continuing to be respectful and he’s so happy, you don’t understand-
-Only demons in close relations to Diavolo like Babrbatos and Lucifer actually know how much it takes for someone to anger him
-He doesn’t take offence to much lol
-And he’s really content that you acknowledged that
-He sometimes visits you in his spare time just to talk and hang out since Lucifer is a big meanie who doesn’t want to indulge him and Barbatos is busy making him dinner >:(
-SPEAKING OF- if you and Barbatos don’t bond then i don’t know what to tell you
-I mean, you would both have so many things in common (strong sense of loyalty, honesty, just in a way etc.)
-You’re his favourite guest to have over at the palace, sorry Luci you’ve been replaced
-He genuinely finds you interesting as well so please tell him stories from the human realm!! He’s dying to learn more!
-Diavolo notices you demeanour sort of gives off warrior vibes so-
-He really considered making you into a knight bc it’s Diavolo-what he says; goes
-“I know they’re human but they’ll be fine. Look how tough they are! They managed to survive a year with you and your brothers didn’t they?”
-“My Lord, that doesn’t amount to anything, please don’t get our human killed-“
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Treat People With Kindness (The BAU)
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Summary: Garcia gets Reid into Harry Styles and everyone subsequently loses their minds over it.
Content: Honestly just funny I’m not sure what to call it
MC’s name/pronouns: No alternate main character, just Spencer.
Word Count: 1706
A/N: This whole fic was inspired by the fact that a fan gave Matthew Gray Gubler a Treat People With Kindness pin, which then sparked my friend Emily and I to theorize that Spencer Reid would absolutely be a Harry Styles stan. So yeah, this is literally just the product of one fan interaction lmao
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“I got a good feelin’.”
“... What’s he doing?” Emily leaned over and whispered to JJ, who just shook her head.
“I’m just takin’ it all in.”
“Ok, what happened to Reid?” Morgan joined them, and they both shrugged, watching Spencer walk through the doors of the office. 
“Floatin’ up and dreamin’.”
“You know, maybe I need to add him to my drug test list too.” Hotch had stepped out of his office, trying to hide his grin as they saw Spencer making his way to his desk, headphones in and practically dancing over to his seat, mouthing every word of the song he was listening to. He plopped down in it with a little spin, opening a file on his desk without ever taking his headphones out. 
“Try ‘Dancing with the Stars,’” Emily laughed, and JJ broke away from their group, heading over to his desk. 
“Hey Spence,” She rested her arms on the divide between his desk and Emily’s, tapping on it to get his attention. 
“Maybe we can find a place to feel good.”
“Spence!” She tapped his arm this time, and he practically jumped out of his skin, turning to face her.
“And we can treat -”
He quickly tore the headphones out of his ears, setting them down on his desk and looking up at her, clearing his throat.
“Sorry. I was listening to something.” He gestured to the headphones still connected to his phone, as if that wasn’t already obvious. 
“Yeah, I noticed,” JJ laughed.
“Do we have a case?” 
“Nothing yet, you’re good.” She tried fruitlessly to hide her grin, and he gave her a strange look.
“Ok…”
“So,” She plopped down in Emily’s chair, rolling it over to sit near him, “What were you listening to?”
“Oh!” His face lit up, and he grabbed his phone, holding it out for her to see. She put the headphones in her ears, hearing the final moments of the song he’d been jamming to.
“And we can treat people with kindness, find a place to feel good.”
“Harry Styles?” JJ laughed incredulously, handing him back his phone. 
“You’ve heard of him?” He asked, taking the phone and sitting it back on his desk and turning back to her.
“I’m pretty sure most people have heard of him, Spence.”
“Ok, well, I hadn’t. But on Saturday I was speaking at the University of Mary Washington with Rossi, and one of the girls gave me this, after the lecture,” He grabbed his bag off the back of the chair, pointing to a round pin clipped on the strap. It was enamel, with light pink on the inside and a red rose in the center, encircled by the phrase “Treat People With Kindness” in black lettering. “And you know, naturally I thought it was a good message so I put it on my bag and I thought that was all it was. But then I ran into Garcia.”
“Oh god.”
“I was walking in yesterday and she saw it and kind of freaked out a little bit, and pulled me into her office and played me the song - the one you just listened to - and it was amazing and so I told her I thought it was amazing, which made her freak out even more and then you called with a case so I left, only to receive a a YouTube playlist a few hours later that she told me I had to watch every video on or she’d stop printing the case files for me.”
“You know she loves you too much to actually do that, right?”
“I mean, the odds were low, but I wasn’t going to risk it. Either way, I sort of listened to every single song on Fine Line and Self-Titled in one night and also a whole bunch of interviews that she sent me and he’s really funny and his music is great and the moral of the story is I kind of love him.”
JJ sent back in her chair, dumbfounded. “Dude… you mean to tell me Garcia made you a Harry Styles fan?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“I - Penelope!” JJ left without another word, making her way into Garcia’s office. Spencer just shrugged, returning to the file he was looking at - and his music - as Garcia spun to face JJ.
“Jennifer, my love, to what do I owe the pleasure? New case?” She asked. JJ just shook her head.
“You broke Reid.”
“I did not break Reid!” She defended with a grin. “I merely helped him reach his true form.”
“He willingly used technology, and he came into the office today practically dancing to Treat People With Kindness. So yes, you did break Reid.”
“JJ, dear,” Garcia got up from her chair, taking JJ’s hands in the doorway, “Do you remember when Reid got that adorable little shaggy haircut?”
“Despite the fact that he changes his hair like every month, yes, I do.”
“And do you remember what Hotch said?”
She thought for a moment, then her eyes widened in shock. “You did all of this… because of the boyband joke?”
“Like I said: true form.” Garcia returned to her chair, spinning around with a laugh. “In my defense, I didn’t know he was going to get a Harry Styles pin. I just took advantage of the opportunity when it presented itself. I already failed at teaching him to worship Lady Gaga, I could not miss another chance to try and pull him out of the dark ages.”
“You are ridiculous, you know that?”
“That’s why you love me!” 
JJ laughed, leaving Garcia’s office and heading up to hers, ruffling Spencer’s hair on her way by.
“You should grow your hair out again.”
“You think so?” He reached up and fussed with his hair, just as Garcia emerged into the main room. 
“Spencer Reid, my beautiful boy genius, did you do what I asked?”
“Garcia, I figured out how to download music to my phone because of you. So yes, I did what you asked.”
“You are officially my new favorite person.”
“Hang on, what is this all about?” Emily asked. Garcia grinned, hardly able to contain her excitement. 
“I’m finally bringing the lovely Dr. Reid here into the 21st Century.”
“Penelope,” Emily raised an eyebrow at her, “What did you do?”
“Garcia thinks she did something revolutionary by getting me into Harry Styles’ music,” Spencer clarified. Emily immediately clapped her hand over her mouth, about to respond before Derek piped up from his desk.
“Oh, she converted you too?”
“‘Too’ - you mean to tell me that you, Derek Morgan, are a Harry Styles fan?” Emily was looking between the three of them now, practically in shock. Derek just laughed, holding up his hands.
“What can I say, the guy’s got an incredible voice.”
“And the make up of his songs is so interesting as well; I mean, when you look at the music he’s produced in the last few years in comparison to what he performed while he was a part of One Direction -”
“Oh my god please tell me you’ve also listened to One Direction,” Emily said, laughing when Spencer nodded. 
“I don’t understand why you guys are making such a big deal out of this. He’s a singer, it’s not like he doesn’t have fans,” He defended. 
“Reid, two months ago you didn’t even know who Lady Gaga was. This is kind of a big deal.”
“Conference room in five,” JJ walked through the group, heading upstairs as everyone else got up to follow her. 
“Do not think I am dropping this,” Emily pointed at Derek and Spencer before jogging to catch up with JJ. Derek laughed, falling in step with Reid. 
“So, what all did Garcia make you watch?”
“Oh, just a bunch of interviews. I did some of my own reading though -”
“Of course you did.”
“- and what I found really interesting was One Direction’s actual rise to fame. Because the thing is, they didn’t even win X-Factor. They came in third, and yet they became the most famous group to come from that season of the show. In Forever Young - their book - they talked about their time on X-Factor, but it was so strange to me because their first album - Up All Night, that came out not even a full year after they finished the X-Factor live tour - sold 4.5 million copies within the first year. And they just kept growing… Morgan why are you laughing?”
“I’m sorry,” They’d walked into the conference room by now, sitting down next to each other at the table while Derek tried to stop himself from laughing, looking at Reid in disbelief, “You read their book?”
“And their Wikipedia page - I told you I did my own reading!”
“You said you did some of your own reading, you didn’t say you’d memorized everything about their career!”
“Eidetic memory, remember?” He tapped his forehead, and Derek rolled his eyes.
“You never let me forget. I’m assuming you know everything about their solo careers as well?”
“Well I got into Harry’s stuff first, but I ended up reading all of theirs since I didn’t have anything else to do last night. It’s just so interesting to think about what One Direction’s situation reveals about human nature and celebrity culture. I mean, a lot of their fans are dictionary definition erotomaniacs, and yet -”
“I shouldn’t even be surprised that you read this all in one night.”
“Like I said: didn’t have anything else to do.”
“As much as I’m glad you boys are bonding, we have more important things to worry about than Reid’s newfound love for a British boy band,” JJ interrupted.
“Niall Horan’s actually Irish -”
“Spence. The case.” She pulled up the photos on the screen, and Spencer nodded, opening the case file in front of him as JJ began to review everything they needed to know. She finally closed out, and Hotch grabbed his tablet and rose from the table. 
“Alright, wheels up in thirty.”
Everyone nodded, gathering up their things and vacating the room. Spencer and Derek trailed out after everyone, Spencer picking up the conversation as soon as JJ finished. 
“You know, I’m considering learning how to knit - there’s this cardigan that Harry wore...”
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delu-jean · 3 years
Note
hi! so I just wanted to send in an Erwin x reader ask where basically Erwin survive shiganshina and they basically end up becoming parental figures for historia and guide her. thanks!
𝐄𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐚 (𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚)
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(Erwin x fem!/reader) -> Mentions of Historia! -> Fluff -> 1.6k 
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Request: hi! so I just wanted to send in an Erwin x reader ask where basically Erwin survive shiganshina and they basically end up becoming parental figures for historia and guide her. thanks!
Notes: After the interaction the two had (somewhere in season three), I literally head cannoned him being her father! The chemistry between the two would be so sweet if they were!! The concept for this request was so adorable!! Thanks for the request, and enjoy! ^^
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“We did it...we have the colossal now,” you’d say, knees shaking after all of the casualties. Erwin then caught you. Seeing how shocked you were, he tried to calm you down the best he could. 
“Yes Y/n...we did...but at a great cost.”
“Was it really one worth all of this trouble?” You said being unsure with such a loss. 
“Of course it was. For the sake of humanity.” 
“Right...for the sake of Humanity.” 
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---
Many had died during the mission to Shiganshina. A lot of your comrades lost, along with your dearest friends. You mourned over such a thing, but ultimately, were glad for the ones who had survived. Levi, Hange, your dearest and most closest friends, still breathing as you spoke. And Erwin, your lover for gosh knows how long. Even after the stunt that was pulled, he still managed to survive. You were relieved that such a chaotic man...had escaped such a brutal mess. 
You were also glad that he saw what he had eagerly wanted to see. The basement that Eren had the key to. After hearing about some vague details from the commander, along with the other four who had entered, it gave you a mix of emotions. Both ecstatic to know there was more out there, yet terrified that such things were most likely forgein obstacles. Ones that would be hard to get rid of. 
Regardless, you were now heading back. Delivering both the books, along with yourselves, and whatever else you had left. At the entrance of wall Sina, there you see Historia waiting. She seemed ecstatic yet composed when greeting you all. And when seeing both you and Erwin, she seemed even more pleased. 
You see, even though Historia had her own birth parents, they never felt like her actual ones (based on the tragedies they caused). She’d been neglected...never feeling like she had someone to look up to. But when entering the Survey Corps, though it took a while to warm up to you, she ultimately did. It wasn’t that she couldn’t talk to you, rather, it took some time for her to see you as a mother figure. 
You were maybe 15 years older than her, but even that being the case, you saw her as your own. Though she wasn’t calling you “mom,” nor were you calling her “your daughter,” you both had the relationship. Labels weren’t needed to understand such a thing. 
Since she grew up without the affection of her mom, she took your affection very seriously. She was thankful to say the least. Thankful for the nights you would console her, give her advice, and hear her out. Though Ymir had done the same, the difference was that you spoke the words of a mother. Erwin had also come around to this concept, and tried getting to know Historia on a more personal level. 
He saw how attached you were to such an extraordinary girl. That being the case, he too wanted to experience the joy you two shared. You of course encouraged such a thing, and therefore, he did his best when getting to know her. It was a good practice for him since for most (if not all of ) his soldiers, he considered them pawns. So that being the case, you took this as an opportunity for him to think otherwise. 
Another reason as to why Erwin was doing this, was because of his own personal experience. Though he did have his father, he was (eventually) taken away from him at a young age. He didn’t want Historia to go astray like he did in his teenage years. So, he tried building a connection. Hoping his input could help her in the best way. 
Though it wasn’t as easy going compared to the both of you, he did his best, and she appreciated the effort put in. He’d usually have conversations with her about life. The most simple, yet complicated philosophy out there. Maybe he would even pop in his childhood memories, and theories he had. Truly making the most of their time. And she enjoyed their interactions. You adored how close the two were. Though one was more tense than the other, the affection was clearly there. Just seeing them together, made you wonder as to how Erwin would be with his own children. Possibly yours if we’re being specific. 
Erwin then approached the girl on his steed. Bowing to the queen to be, along with the rest of you. 
“Princess Historia, we made many discoveries during our mission. Ones that we can discuss privately whenever it is to your liking,” Erwin said, composed with a respectful tone. 
“Of course Commander. Before we do, I think you could all rest. It’ll be best if you do, after all...it seems as if you could use it,” she took note of the lack of numbers, but decided not to bring it up. 
“Of course,” Erwin agreed and everyone left. Well...except the both of you. Hirstoria then invited you both into the castle. The three of you sat in a room, the two of you on one couch, while she sat on the other. Face to face as she took a sip of tea. 
“Forget about formalities, I’m glad you’re both alive,” she smiled and you did the same. 
“I don’t think it’s appropriate if we do...after all, you will be the Queen soon.” 
“Nonsense. Even when that does happen, nothing will change between the three of us.” 
“I guess not,” Erwin chuckled as she sighed in relief. 
“Now that that’s over with, let’s discuss the details over your findings.” 
“Sounds good, Queen Historia.” 
“Oh stop it Y/n,” she pestered as you giggled. 
“So, Historia…”
Erwin then went on about their findings. How there was an entire civilization across from them, how you all were subjects of Ymir, about the nine titans, and whatever else they had left to say. He seemed stern during his conversation, not only that, but you could sound the passion which rang through his words. He looked somewhat relieved that he saw such an extraordinary finding. Not only was it one step closer to saving humanity, but one step closer to fulfilling both his wants, and needs. 
You didn’t know what you would have done if he hadn’t made it out alive. The guilt of him not being able to see such a sight, nor Historia...would’ve crushed you if anything. You know that the both of you would have missed him dearly...and if anything, she would have felt responsible for his death. Something that was never predicted, yet under the control of the Scout regiment. A power that she had ruled over. 
Though this thought lingered, it was one that had not come true. And hopefully, things would stay that way. He was here with you. Safe and sound. Maybe a little bruised but hey, handsome either way. You then put your head on his shoulder, caressing his thumb. Though he tried keeping composure, he eventually gave in. Relaxing his body while in the warmth of your touch. 
“I see, interesting…” she nod to then say:
“Erwin, Y/n, you know how much I love the both of you. Because of that...when I do become queen...please don’t let our dynamic change. I find comfort in it, and hope that we can continue to have the relations set.” 
To your surprise, Erwin spoke first. His eyes soft, and his speech gentle. Staring at the young girl before him, who was now becoming an adult. 
“Of course. If that is what the Queen allows, I’ll be sure to do my part. For both humanity, but importantly, you Historia,” you then placed your own cup down, accompanying Erwin: 
“I agree. Of course, our manners will have to prosper when needed...but if we’re alone, or even if we’re not, feel free to come to either of us. We’ll care for you no matter what, okay?” she teared up a bit and then walked to the both of you. You both stood up, and grasped her. The mood felt both joyful, yet teary. 
“I’m glad you both made it. Please be careful out there,” Erwin, though reluctant, then placed a hand (A/n: the only one-) on her head. 
“Don’t worry, you can count on us, your majesty.” 
‘Ah my little girl...so grown and mature,’ she tightened her grip on your torso, as your arms were still wrapped around her.
“Yes...don’t worry. You can most definitely count on us.” 
---
As time progressed Historia got crowned. That being the case, she had more responsibilities on hand. Constantly working her hardest to help her people. You were glad to see such a young person blossom into such a strong woman. Though she did most things on her own, you and Erwin guided her when possible. Even when it came to the little things like if her drapes should be red, or green. 
There would also be moments where it was just the three of you, or you two alone. Now that she was queen, her time was of value. So you tried to spend it in the wisest way possible. Talking about politics could wait, those were the times where you all could express things heart to heart. Being honest about how she felt, versus how things ran. Expressing her love for the people she rules, and even the deep thoughts that kept her up at night. 
Both Erwin and you did your best to guide her through these emotions. Wanting to teach her both politically, and most importantly, emotionally. Prepping her for the duties she would have as both Queen, and herself. Raising her to be the person she wanted to be, and supporting her to the utmost of your abilities. 
“I think I understand now, what we have to do against Marely. Though it is just one step, it’s one step closer to saving the people of Ymir.” 
“Yes, yes it is...Historia,” Erwin said as he held your hand. 
“It definitely is...Historia.” 
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thoughts-on-bangtan · 3 years
Text
JK Day 2021
...and what a day it was. I know we’re a bit late with this when looking at KST but in our time zone it’s still September 1st so it counts, right? Besides I wanted to wait until the day was over for them so I could have everything the members would post for JK so I could put it in this post as memory for us to look back on in the future.
Furthermore, as extension for the celebrations, I want to finally sit down, write and post our post about JK and his bonds with the hyung line since it’s been so long since two anons asked us about that so what better time than the weekend after JK day, right?
Anyway, let’s get into it, shall we?
The day before JKs birthday he came onto Weverse and posted three different things, including a cute selca:
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Everyone of course turned up their creativity to post something for JK and also wondered among themselves what he planned on using those lyric comments for, and if he would use them for anything at all.
Sometime later before the new RUN episode aired, Seokjin appeared on Weverse and, for whatever reason, commented birthday wishes for JK under the Weverse post about the upcoming RUN episode. Because of course he did.
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More than an hour before midnight KST everyone got a notification from vlive that JK had gone live:
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And truly, considering it was about to be his birthday, I love how it felt more like it was ours with the gift that kept on giving that this vlive turned out to be. 
Lots more below the cut:
Remember those posts that JK made in the morning on Weverse? As many, including myself, had guessed, JK gathered some of the lyric comments he liked most, or thought would work best, and proceeded to turn them into an actual song right before our eyes. The instrumental was gorgeous with a acoustic guitar and ballad like melody and it was truly fascinating watching him figuring out how to sing the lines, record them, redo them whenever he felt he could do it better, add adlibs in some places, and slowly but surely a song was created with lyrics in both English and Korean.
This really was the content I’ve always craved and I’m so, so happy we got to watch JK do this instead of him just showing us the final thing. You could see him having fun, even when he got a little frustrated at times or he wasn’t quite sure how he wanted to continue or how he wanted the words to sound like, and that he really knows what he’s doing. So many claim that Bangtan have no idea about producing and recording songs, which truly is such a stupid argument to make considering Yoongi is literally Producer SUGA and we know that, if the members want to make mixtapes they have to do them themselves, which we know Namjoon, Yoongi and Hobi have done. So JK doing all of that in the vlive? Checkmate against those idiots. Especially since it also isn’t the first time we’ve seen members work on tracks, like the behind the scenes of rap line working on DDAENG or Hobi working on songs, or even JK with Stay, even if we didn’t know it’s Stay at the time.
Once the song was finished JK went on to show us several more instrumentals he could’ve worked with, each one with a different vibe, before switching to singing a song by Justin Bieber saying he really loves his songs a lot. And then it was nearing midnight so he unpacked the cake he got, white icing/fondant with purple lettering spelling out STILL WITH YOU JK, very cute.
Right as midnight hit someone started to bang on the door so JK got up to see who’d come and, surprise, it was a very excited Hobi wishing him a happy birthday including singing the birthday song for him upon JKs request while JK lit up his golden heart shaped candle.
Hobi again returned two minutes after he’d left (between when at 1:18h JK mentioned that, for the first time that night, he’d do one more song to finish off the vlive, ha) to give him an ice cream cake he’d prepared, but also to get his phone which he’d accidentally forgotten in the room JK was in.
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Once Hobi really left and JK got a taste of his ice cream cake, as well as the white cake which turned out to be chocolate flavored, the vlive concert began and, at the time, none of us knew what we were in for since we all thought he’d really do one or two more songs and that would be it. And yet that very much is not what happened, at all, and I’m so grateful for it.
This might just be the funniest screenshot in existence (please take note of the time stamps):
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No wonder that, eventually, Seokjin decided to come onto Weverse to post wishes for JK a second time while also saying this (the picture is from their unit photoshoot for Winter Package):
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The imagine of Seokjin just sitting in bed or whatever watching JKs vlive and hearing him say last song every like ten minutes and every time he just kept going...and going...and going while Seokjin is just waiting...and waiting...and waiting? Hilarious. But it’s also really cute how he’d wanted to wait until JK was done to not interrupt him or pull ARMYs attention away from the vlive. Truly I adore their bond, it’s adorable and chaotic and so wonderfully them.
Yoongi also posted his wishes for JK while the vlive was still going.
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The one who waited until it was over was actually Namjoon who, with what he said in his tweet, actually revealed that he’d watched JKs vlive as well. In his vlive JK said that at the end of their concerts Namjoon used to always give his speech like a (school) principal, as in his long ending ment speeches, and that’s why Namjoon ‘signed’ his tweet with principal as well.
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Truly I love how JK was just having fun singing their songs, taking requests from ARMY, rediscovering songs, like him wondering if they really have a song called Paradise (since the Korean title is different) and finally fulfilling ARMYs wish of hearing BTS sing it live, as well as being surprised and confused by requests for Heartbeat asking himself if them really have a song like that. But since ARMY kept asking for it, he finally looked it up and his reaction to realizing that, yes, it is a real song of theirs and also that that’s the song we were talking about which he’d completely forgotten about? Hilarious but also kind of heartbreaking for all the Heartbeat enthusiasts.
Here is the full list of all the songs he sang, some for longer, some shorter:
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One thing that this vlive showed really well was just how amazing of a singer JK really is. It’s easy for people to dismiss his talent during concerts or performances, since they could always argue that him and the others get help due to the backing track etc., but here we had his raw voice singing along to their songs much the way any of us do. And he sounded stunning beginning to end. He’s such a talented singer and he’s worked so hard on his technique and voice and it’s really showing. Thinking back to what he said in his BE comeback Weverse interview about how he’d like to one day he brave enough to do a three hour concert on his own, I’d say this vlive shows that really shouldn’t be any kind of problem at all. If ARMY can listen to him essentially do karaoke for one and a half hours, then attending and enjoying a full on JK concert would be no issue whatsoever. It’d actually be amazing, I’m certain, and I’d totally be down to seeing that potentially become a reality one day in the future.
After two and a half hours, the vlive ultimately came to a close and JK said his goodbyes.
Hours later Hobi appeared on Weverse wondering what pictures of JK he could/should post for his traditional picture “spam” and everyone was immediately super excited. Hobi’s gallery holds some wonderful treasures so we all looked forward to what he would end up posting, though it would take a few hours until it would happen.
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The funny thing is that he posted the first twt twice since the picture with Namjoon in it had Hobi’s iPhone in it which, as good Samsung representative, was a no, no, so he deleted the twt and posted it again with some stickers covering the phone. So cute. And his picture choices are wonderful. I particularly love that picture of JK in the white room dressed in black from back in 2019 when they performed Boy with Luv. And also their picture from a dinner the two of them went on together back in 2018.
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In the meantime before Hobi posted his pictures, as requested in the picture that BH had posted for JKs birthday on the staff BTS account at midnight, one of the members posted his meal though it’s unclear which one of them it might’ve been. Looks super yummy though, wow.
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And eventually the final member to come and wish JK a happy birthday was Jimin (and yes, I know Jimin’s twt came before Hobi’s but considering Hobi already wished him a happy birthday at midnight, that makes Jimin the last one):
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Trans (cr. haruharu_w_bts):
our maknae happy birthday  i wish <you a happy birthday> a lot and a lot #KkookieHappyBirthday #JIMIN #HAPPYJKDAY
Taehyung didn’t post anything but considering his track record of doing something for the members off social media for their birthday, like giving Namjoon a forehead kiss, sending birthday wish videos to Seokjin (including roping others into doing it as well), or wishing Jimin a happy birthday as part of the MOTS ON:E exhibition, I wasn’t all that surprised by this.
And with that JK day 2021 came to a close. It started with a surprise (as in both the song based on ARMY comments and also the concert afterward) and ended with one as well, as in the In The SOOP Season Two announcement.
I hope JK had a wonderful day, celebrated happily with his members, friends and family however much that’s possible in these times, as well as with their busy schedule, and that this new year will be a happy one for him full of success, personal but also career wise. I’m curious and excited to see what will happen.
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cobaincreates · 3 years
Text
touch pt. 2
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warnings: smut (surprise), oral (female receiving), 18+, language, literally no plot & i’m not sorry
count: 3k+
part two part two part two baby! thanks for all the love on the first! ✨taglist is open✨ i’m smoochin’ all your faces
— — —
sarah bustled around her room like it was on fire. her clothes were thrown messily on her floor and she had half of her hair up in a crazy-looking bun. you laughed from where you snuggled into her pillow. you were still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, having woken up to the closet doors groaning open.
“oh my god, where the hell did i put them?” sarah said, but you knew she wasn’t asking you in particular. her hands dug through a basket in her closet.
sitting up, you figured now was as good a time as any to get moving. with sarah leaving soon, you didn’t feel comfortable just lying in her bed like she insisted. given that you were best friends, and her house was your house, and vice versa, you jumped at the opportunity of leaving. she always offered the possibility of you staying longer than you wanted because she was a good friend.
which was why when you cleared your throat and tasted her brother, your cheeks lit up with a steady burning fire. you were glad her back was to you as she switched bikini tops, replacing the blue for the yellow. were you ashamed or reminiscing? there wasn’t time to think about it as she finished getting ready.
“you’re more than welcome to stay, you know. i feel bad running out on you.” sarah repeated once more.
“it’s fine. go have fun with john b and fill me in later.” you wiggled your eyebrows at her as you gathered your things and threw on your sweatshirt.
“how about we order some takeout and binge watch how to get away with murder next weekend?”
“that would be great.”
sarah beamed at you before leading you out of her room and down the stairs. you kept your eyes straight but noted the ajar door to rafe’s room. maybe he had already left for the day.
“morning!” rose chirped happily as you followed sarah into the kitchen. it all seemed very familiar as you walked in, even though you’d been in the cameron’s kitchen more times than you could count, but also because the last time had been less than six hours ago.
everybody was awake and doing something. wheezie was eating freezer waffles, ward had a few manila folders splayed in front of him on the table, and rose was cutting up oranges. sarah gave her a hug from behind as she passed and then turned to smack rafe’s back lightly as he cooked something on the stove.
you breathed in sharply at the sight of him. you blinked last night’s events away given that his entire family was right in front of you and now was not the time to think about it. you reminded yourself not to give anything away with your best friend in the same room. but you also wondered if rafe thought the same thing. would he try to hide it?
“you two sleep okay? i turned the air off since it was so nice out last night.” rose said.
you caught rafe’s eye when he looked over, that tiny jolt going up your arms. your feet melted into the floor and rose looked over at you with a sweet smile as sarah leaned on her other side.
“i was pretty comfortable,” sarah shrugged and took a slice of orange.
“you girls hungry? i’m sure rafe could make something up.”
“i’m going out with john b. he should be here in a few minutes.”
“y/n?” rose lifted her perfect brows as you stood at the end of the island, holding all of your things tightly.
“i’m actually going to head out,” you said. “thank you for the offer though.”
“aw, are you sure?” rose set down the knife on the cutting board. rafe glanced over his shoulder as the contents of the pan sizzled.
“yes. thank you though. i’ll see you guys again soon.” you hugged rose when she came toward you and you waved to sarah and the rest of the family at the table. you and rafe looked at each other once more before you walked out.
“oooh, look at these! i love these! how much?”
“12 dollars. they would go great with your top actually.”
“you’re so right! i’ll take them.”
the customer beamed at you as they handed over the set of sea glass earrings. you rang them up and returned some change before wrapping the jewelry in tissue paper and sealing it with the boutique’s sticker. you placed the wrapped gift carefully into a tiny reusable bag and handed it over.
“have a good day,” you smiled your noteworthy customer service smile and relaxed once they left, the front doorbell going off.
it wasn’t that you hated your job. but you hated your job. the main reason was that it was part time, and the second main reason was because you hated working in retail. it was exhausting having to put on a fake smile and answer stupid questions like whether or not you sold earrings when you literally worked in a jewelry store. it was tiring really, if only for four hours a day.
thankfully, you were due to clock out in about fifteen minutes and you couldn’t wait. you busied yourself with cleaning a few displays then restocking some with new styles your boss, the owner, had batched out the week before. 
“hey, y/n,” you looked up at your co-worker coming through the front door. your shoulders tensed as the cheery doorbell went off, but the arrival of your co-worker was always a relief.
“did you dye your hair again?” you eyed their bright locks as they went behind the counter and situated themselves for the rest of the day.
“yup and i think i’ll stick with it for a while. you like?”
“it’s bright.” you tried to say it as politely as you could. “maybe you’ll bring in more customers.”
they laughed at your comment and disappeared into the back. you turned to the display and set a few necklaces down.
once you gathered your things and said goodbye to your boss in the back office, you waved to your co-worker and toned out the bell above your head as you left.
the main street where the boutique was was swarming like a beehive. it was tourist season after all and there was nothing better to do on the island than shop or laze around at the beach. the island was perfect since both activities didn’t require much travel.
you glanced into a few windows as you walked down the sidewalk, dodging a couple kids with heaping amounts of ice cream on a tiny cone. the sun beat down from above and it was a wonder that the ice cream hadn’t already melted down their wrists.
your ears perked up at the sound of a car horn and a second later a truck was pulling up right beside you. looking over curiously, you recognized the gray truck and the person behind the wheel. your stomach leaped.
“hey.” rafe called from his seat as you both came to a stop.
“hi.” you said, feeling frozen momentarily.
“do you want a ride?” he asked in a hopeful tone that you couldn’t stop thinking about once it left his mouth.
you hadn’t seen or heard from him in a couple days since your sleepover with sarah and a part of you didn’t think you’d talk to him again until you went back to his house. you thought it was weird that he didn’t text you or even call, but then you reminded yourself that he was your best friend’s brother, and she didn’t know about what had happened between you two. you wondered if she would be angry with you.
you thought about accepting his offer, seeing no real harm in it. it was only a fifteen-minute walk otherwise. but something drove you to say yes and before you knew it, you were grabbing ahold of the door handle.
“thanks.” you said as you settled into the passenger’s seat. he pulled away from the curb easily as you put your seatbelt on, listening for the satisfying click of the lock.
“you just get out of work?” he asked, making small talk.
“yeah.” you nodded and glanced at his arm. the vein taunted you as he reached out to fiddle with the radio. you shifted in your seat. “what were you doing?”
“i had to drop some stuff off at the post office for my dad and work. i saw you walking and figured i could offer you a ride. even though you don’t live far.” he said with a soft shrug.
“i appreciate it.” you said and looked out the rolled down window.
you watched the cement walkway disappear and turn into the fine sand along the shoulder of the road. houses started to litter the street instead of the businesses and storefronts. you could hear the sand under rafe’s tires and you closed your eyes for a moment to focus on the breeze. you opened them back up when you felt the ghost of rafe’s fingers in your hair.
looking away from the dusty shoulder, you set your gaze on the road stretched before you. rafe kept a lose hand on the very top of the wheel, his other resting in his lap. you swallowed and licked your lips. 
“rafe?”
“yeah?”
willing yourself to look up at him, trying to act quickly before he reached your house, you stared at the side of his face. he glanced over quickly then back to the road.
“don’t bring me home.” you said in a small voice, hoping the question didn’t lead to rejection.
his eyes flicked to your face, his jaw flexing. “okay. where do you want to go?”
you let your gaze waver, wandering down his chin to his neck where he visibly swallowed. did you make him nervous?
“just somewhere private,” you said.
you wet your lips when he looked at you again, your eyes trailing from his neck to his face. your hands were itching to reach across and touch him, but they settled on fidgeting in your lap. when you looked out the windshield again, you saw your yellow front door pass by as rafe continued to drive. you took a deep breath in.
after a couple turns and the road turning into more sand, rafe pulled to a dead end in front of the marsh. the engine cut off with a turn of the ignition key and fizzled out to let the lapping water fill the car. you kept your eyes on the small bay ahead, spotting a dragonfly whizzing by over the water. letting the marsh sounds fill your ears, it seemed to calm your nerves.
you nervously glanced at rafe in the quiet cab of the truck. you wondered what was going through his head. he turned his eyes to you, letting them linger around your face. you swallowed.
giving a mental swift kick to your own rear, you looked over your shoulder into the back seat and unbuckled yourself. you slipped the strap of your bag off your shoulder and left it in the seat as you twisted and crawled over the console. rafe watched you, a dumbfounded smile making its way onto his lips.
you laughed when you saw it. “come on,” you patted to the seat beside you and scooted to the right so he’d have enough room.
rafe looked gigantic when he turned in his seat, bumping into the wheel and nearly pushing on the horn. you grinned as you watched him, the simple journey into the backseat seeming so wild. it felt like you were somewhere you shouldn’t be with someone your parents had warned you about. your parents loved rafe actually.
his knee bumped into yours once he was settled and situated. the space was too small for the two of you but you liked feeling his skin against yours. it also felt much more private than the open windows in the front.
looking over at rafe, you let your hand fall easily to his knee. he shifted his top half and closed most of the space between you, bringing an arm to rest atop the seat behind you. you breathed softly, trying not to show how fast your heart had started to thrum.
your eyes flicked down to rafe’s lips and you thought about how you didn’t know what they felt like.
“what are you thinking?” you asked as you licked your own lips.
rafe reached a hand up to your cheek, finally touching you and nearly drawing a moan from your throat as you leaned into his touch. when had you become so touch-starved? well, you could probably answer that.
“how badly i want to kiss you right now.”
you let out a breath as he looked down at your open and ready mouth. you both leaned in and finally kissed, rafe’s lips capturing yours and yours capturing his. your hand moved to his neck. his fingers on your cheek traveled into your hair again. you didn’t mean to make a noise but come on! you loved feeling his fingers in your hair.
“how i have you in my truck, in my backseat.” he pulled away to say, in a near whisper, then kissed you again. he licked into your mouth and it was difficult to find the words to portray just how amazing it felt. needless to say, your underwear was going to be soaked any second now.
you opened for him and moved closer to eliminate any space between you. he parted from your lips to travel downward. you leaned your head back, happily giving him the access he craved. your breath was coming out heavier now, but you didn’t have that panic of losing your breath like drowning. it was a good situation to lose your breath.
“how it’s been two days and i haven’t stopped thinking about the other night.” he admitted into the thin skin under your jaw. he switched hands, one holding your head in place and the other skimming over your chest. he nipped at your flesh.
“rafe,” you moaned and grabbed a fistful of his shirt.
“what do you want?” he asked, his hot breath blowing across your cheeks. you peeked your eyes open and saw tiny flakes of brown in his eyes. his hand traveled further until it landed on your thigh, squeezing and triggering the sweetest of shivers.
“i want your mouth on me.”
pressing a kiss to your lips, rafe pulled away again to look over your face. “are you sure?”
you nodded and let go of his shirt to touch his cheek. you just wanted to feel his mouth everywhere on you.
“please,” you said. you shuffled away from him reluctantly so you could situate yourself on the seat. your head and shoulders rested against the back door and you brought your legs up over his lap, already having slipped your shoes off. he watched you intriguingly. your stomach sank a little, hoping he wasn’t going to turn you down.
when his hands reached toward your bottoms, you couldn’t help the smile that took over your face. he undid the button and tugged them down. lifting your legs so you could open them for him, he leaned forward and pressed a sweet kiss to the inside of your knee. his fingers traced your calf as he shuffled and bent down as awkwardly as possible in the cramped space. you felt bad for a moment until you saw the way he looked up at you. he wanted this just as much as you did.
keeping eye contact with you as he placed his mouth right over your pubic bone, you moaned faintly. it was so delicate and soft that you didn’t expect it to feel that way. he caressed your calf as he pressed another kiss over your underwear, moving lower and lower to where you had soaked them through. your face went a little red, anticipating his reaction to it.
he looked godly as he stared up the expanse of your torso and to your eyes, all the while his lips pressed against your clothed entrance. his groan at the state of your underwear sent ripples out from the exact spot he kissed, like the vibrations of him sent shockwaves through you.
“you’re soaked,” he breathed against you and had you wanting to close your legs. instead, you slipped from his grasp and took your underwear off.
pressing your left leg into the back of the seat, you opened for rafe again. he looked down at you in front of him and licked his lips hungrily.
“god, you’re fucking pretty.”
you bit your lip at the way he looked at you, like he wanted to go to town. you were all for it really, but with the way he’d been touching you so far you had a feeling he’d be super gentle.
taking your leg and guiding it over his shoulder, he pressed a kiss to your thigh. then he finally tasted you with a savoring lick between your folds. it felt so good that he even hummed against you. you moaned in return and slipped your eyes closed. you needed something to hold on to. searching for the seat, you reached up to that tiny metal pole of the headrest and curled your fingers around it. it was cool and grounded you to where you were.
rafe licked another stripe, making a delicious noise with his tongue. you were sure if you weren’t so aroused that you’d gag at the sound.
one of his hands moved to your hip now, his skin rough and warm against yours. a gasp left your lips as you flinched without much thought, your leg over his shoulder tightening. they were all caused by rafe’s tongue brushing over your clit, something you hadn’t expected yet. you surely welcomed it when he did it again after feeling your reaction. he did it softly the second time around and you felt him shift below you before one of his fingers appeared at your entrance.
“fuck,” you whispered mostly to yourself. rafe pulled away a second later and you gasped as his finger coated in your arousal before pushing into you at the same time he reconnected with your clit.
you moaned lowly from the back of your throat. “rafe, that feels so good.”
he spent a few seconds sucking on you until he disappeared again. “look at me,” he said with a squeeze to your hip. his finger continued to move.
you breathed through your mouth as you opened your eyes and looked down at him. his seemed a smidge darker, but he held a sweet and fascinated smile on his lips.
“do you want another?”
“y-yes, please.”
you reached down and grabbed ahold of his wrist on your hip. your fingers tightened around the headrest at the same time. rafe pushed in another and returned to your clit, his tongue moving. you moaned as you watched him, wondering why you had even closed your eyes in the first place. he looked heavenly between your legs, and it felt even better.
pulling his fingers out, he brought them to his lips and licked them clean. “fuck, you taste so good, baby.”
you whimpered the next moment when he wrapped his hand around your thigh and licked up your folds. both of your hands let go to attach to his hair, your fingers spreading and pulling.
rafe’s mouth worked over you a bit quicker this time and you could tell he was losing himself in it, but you were enjoying it. it was startling when his tongue dipped into you and he pulled away only to spit, but it blew your mind. he licked widely up to your clit then, mixing everything in to one as he closed his mouth over the sensitive mound.
“oh my god.”
you felt your muscles tightening in your abdomen and the familiar feeling of wanting to move, of wanting to release. your feet tensed, a white-hot fervor starting in your toes.
“fuck, rafe, i’m going to come.” you gasped. “make me come, please, please.”
rafe obliged, his tongue flicking over you and causing your muscles to tighten even more. your eyes pricked with tears; your legs tightened on either side of him. he held them open and you wanted to curse him out for not letting you close them, to trap him in place and never have him stop.
your hips lifted off the seat, bucking against his face as you grew closer. you thought you were ripping his hair out when you came undone, moaning loudly out into the truck, to the marsh. seconds later, your grip loosened on his scalp as he licked you clean, catching everything on his tongue.
pressing a kiss to your thigh, rafe pulled away slowly and sat up. you lay there for a moment, collecting yourself and catching your breath. the muscles in your legs felt like they liquified, but you could feel them harden again to help you move. the fire in your toes died out, a pulse still existent from your release. 
“thank you.” you said to rafe as you sat up and pulled your underwear back on tiredly. you looked over to find him watching you with a soft smile and a subtle dent in his shorts. “can i do something for you?” you asked, nodding toward his lap.
rafe glanced down then shook his head at you. “no, that’s okay. i liked just tasting you.”
he didn’t say anything else as he brushed your hair over your shoulder and pressed a kiss there. his hand ran down your back. you grinned at your lap, holding your shorts and wondering where to go from there. rafe’s hand felt nice, his thumb rubbing gently. when you looked over at him, he leaned in and kissed you slowly. his hand moved up to the back of your neck while one of yours reached to touch his jaw.
“i should get home,” you said when you broke apart. you found those brown specks again and wanted nothing more than to analyze them further, but if you didn’t show your face at home soon, your phone would be interjecting in your time with rafe.
he nodded in understanding and moved apart from you so you could pull your shorts back on. “when can i see you again?” 
it was such a stupid thing to make your heart leap in your chest. it even made your body flush as if it already wasn’t.
you grinned at him. “you have my number.”
he nodded again and moved in for another kiss. you reciprocated and gave it your all, hoping that if he hadn’t already decided, that he’d call you or text you tonight. it was thrilling to think about the next time you’d see him.
⭐️taglist of beauties & babes!⭐️
@tovvaa​ @fttayla @dontjinx-it @moniamaybank @drewstarkeygf @cheshirecat107​ @jjmaybankzz​ @obxcunt @honeyyhemmings @dvakat @macey730 @twinklelilstarkey @disrecpectful @prettylilwolf-blog @jjcanloveme @ityagirljay @igotmajordaddyissues​
318 notes · View notes
noona-clock · 3 years
Text
What’s Your Sign?: Capricorn
Genre: Dance Studio!AU
Pairing: Jaebum x You (Female!Reader)
Warnings: None
Words: 5,693
Author’s Note: Since I’m so fascinated by astrology, I decided to do a Zodiac series! I will be writing a one-shot fic for each sign featuring different members from different groups (and even an actor!). Each story will be posted on the 5th of the month during that sign’s season. Please reblog, comment, or send in an ask with your feedback! Thank you for your support 💜
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It was clear he didn’t want to be here.
And by ‘he’ you meant the dark-haired guy in your dance lesson whose facial expression betrayed that he would rather be anywhere else and doing anything else right now.
But you were a dance instructor. You’d been teaching for almost five years by now, so you had seen your fair share of begrudging students.
(Though, if you were being completely honest with yourself, none of the begrudging students you’d had so far had been quite this handsome... but that is absolutely besides the point.)
As you introduced yourself to your new class and began to go over the basics, you mentally prepared yourself to spend a little extra time with him -- the handsome, begrudging student. You’d discovered that some one-on-one time with the dancers who didn’t actually want to be dancers went a long way in helping them get more comfortable and enjoy themselves.
Usually, people who had no desire to take your class were being forced by a third party -- for some reason or another -- and it was pretty clear why they had no desire to take your class: their dancing skills left a lot to be desired.
But, only a few minutes into your instructions, you were more than surprised and shocked to see that this guy actually had some natural talent.
A lot of it.
But he also didn’t have a partner, so that one-on-one time you’d prepared for was incredibly easy to manage.
After you’d told everyone to pair off and start practicing the basic waltz square you’d just shown them, you weaved your way through the parquet floor to him with a somewhat cautious smile on your face.
If he wasn’t thrilled to be in your class in the first place, it was safe to assume he wouldn’t be thrilled for you to be his partner, but... there wasn’t much you could do about it now!
“Hi,” you greeted softly when you approached. “I noticed there wasn’t a partner for you, so I’m happy to --”
“Sure,” he muttered.
Of course, his terse interruption made you pause, but you recovered quickly and simply smiled at him. You then stepped closer to him, resting one hand on his shoulder and extending your other arm out to the side so the two of you could get into a waltzing stance.
As soon as he’d slid one hand around your waist and took the other one, grasping your fingers firmly, you waited for him to lead into the four-step box formation.
...And you almost yelped with surprise when he did.
His hold on your waist and fingers quickly became even more firm, and he pushed you subtly but confidently backward, dancing with you smoothly.
You’re not sure why this surprised you so much.
But it did.
And that made you a little uneasy.
“So,” you breathed, clearing your throat quietly. “What’s your name?”
His gaze had been inconspicuously aimed at the floor, most likely watching his feet, but it shifted to look at you when you asked your question.
“Jaebum,” he answered without hesitation, though his voice was still very brusque.
“Nice to meet you,” you replied with a slight dip of your chin. “I’m Y/N.”
“Yes, I know,” he murmured. “You introduced yourself about five minutes ago.”
You raised your eyebrows, unsure if you were bewildered or offended by his incredibly impolite response.
Probably a bit of both.
“...Right,” you said. But you had to maintain your composure and civility, so you added, “What brings you here?”
Rather than answering quickly and succinctly like he had previously, Jaebum simply furrowed his brow at you.
“You just seem less than enthusiastic, so I was curious as to why you’re here in the first place,” you explained, figuring you could at least be honest to counteract his almost-rudeness.
His forehead smoothed out, and he tilted his head to signal that you did have a point.
“One of my best friends is getting married in a few months, and he wants the wedding party to do this... dance routine.”
“And you’re not too excited about it?”
Jaebum shook his head.
“Well, if it helps, you’re a really good dancer.”
Again, Jaebum furrowed his brow at you, shooting you a confused, sidelong glance. “I am?”
He sounded genuinely perplexed which made you genuinely perplexed. He really didn’t know? Had he never taken one single dance class before?
“Yeah,” you chuckled. “You’re a natural.”
And naturally gorgeous, you thought.
Oh my god, why did you think that?
Besides the fact that it was true, of course.
To distract yourself from that thought, you added, “You haven’t taken any sort of class before?”
“No, never.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” you replied with the tiniest smirk you could muster. “You’ve barely even looked at your feet this whole time, and you haven’t tripped me once.”
Of course, Jaebum instinctively looked down at his feet and almost immediately stumbled.
“See? Once you looked down and thought too much about it, you messed up. You’ve got instinct.”
An expression of clear discomfort flashed across his face, and rather than insisting that you knew what you were talking about, you simply kept silent. You were only planning on continuing this exercise for another minute or so, and you would rather not make him any more uncomfortable than he already clearly was.
But when that minute was up... you realized... that you didn’t want to stop dancing with him.
Oh, boy. 
A student who had made you feel uneasy twice in the first half-hour of class.
That was quite unprecedented.
And... very disturbing.
When the two of you got to a good stopping point, you murmured under your breath that it was time to move on.
Jaebum responded immediately, pausing his movements and loosening his hold on your hand and waist to allow you to step away.
“All right, great job,” you said, turning away to face the rest of the class and doing your best to avoid any sort of eye contact with Jaebum. “I know it may seem repetitive, but this is the foundation of a waltz. You need to be really familiar with these steps, know how to do them in your sleep, before you can move on.”
You had everyone go through the steps on their own while you played different music tracks, helping them find the four-count beat in each song and showing they could waltz to really any style of music.
All in all, it was a pretty typical class.
Except for Jaebum.
You had tried to get him -- and the way he’d briefly made you feel -- out of your mind, and while you had been mostly successful when you hadn’t been looking at him... you had been the opposite of successful when you had.
And once the hour was up, you found yourself doing something you truly hadn’t ever expected to do. The thought had never crossed your mind, yet you couldn’t stop your body from walking toward Jaebum, an anxious grin plastered on your lips.
“I was just --” you began, though you were quickly interrupted by a departing student who thanked you for a great class. “Oh, sure, you’re welcome.”
You pressed your lips together then, your gaze following the student and waiting for her to vanish through the studio door.
When she did, you looked back to Jaebum and saw that he was already looking at you, his gaze expectant. You jumped a little -- though, you weren’t quite sure why you were surprised that he was looking at you. You had been just about to say something to him.
After letting out a breathless chuckle, you inhaled sharply and continued on from earlier. “I was just wondering -- you said your friend is wanting to do some sort of routine? For his wedding?”
Jaebum nodded. “During the reception. The bridal party is all going to do a... ballroom dance... thing.”
“Do you know if the choreography is finished?”
“I believe so,” he answered, slightly lowering his brows.
You gulped.
“I -- I mean, I would be happy to help you learn it if you want to -- have the time. You could stay after class or come in whenever you’re free. I can shift things around if I need to, this job is pretty flexib --”
“Okay.”
And you were surprised yet again.
He had actually said yes? Even though you definitely sounded a bit like a bumbling idiot right now?
“Oh, good!” you said with a relieved sigh, your lips spreading into a grin.
“I can’t stay much longer today, but if you have time tomorrow?”
For some reason your instinct was to reply immediately -- in the positive, of course -- but you forced yourself to actually pull up your schedule in your head to look and make sure.
“I’m very free in the afternoon,” you told him after a few moments. “From after lunch until about four.”
Jaebum nodded tersely and said, “I can be here at two” before murmuring his thanks and heading toward the exit.
You stood there, in the same exact spot, for about five minutes after he left, mainly because you were dumbstruck. You had no idea why you’d done that, and you had no idea why you were so relieved (and excited) that he had accepted your offer.
You had literally never offered private lessons -- private free lessons! -- to a student before. Many students had requested them, absolutely, but you had never offered.
The only reason you could think of as to why you’d done this was because Jaebum was so... intriguing. He fit the stereotype almost exactly for the “Perfect Man.” Tall, dark, and handsome. Strong and silent.
...And did you mention handsome?
Very handsome.
But that was actually more of a reason not to give him private lessons. You wanted to spend more time with him, of course. But you shouldn’t.
You really, really, really shouldn’t.
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Rather than wait in jittery anticipation for Jaebum to show up, you spent the first part of your day keeping as busy as you could.
You had two classes basically back-to-back in the morning, which definitely helped keep your mind off the perfectly handsome man arriving at the studio in the early afternoon. And once those classes finished, you took a lunch break and headed to a nearby deli for one of your favorite sandwiches.
Between lunch and Jaebum’s arrival time, you decided to clean the entire studio from top to bottom because that was just what you did when you were stressed or nervous: you cleaned.
A small cleaning crew visited the studio once a week to keep the floors and mirrors gleaming, of course, but it had been a little while since you’d wiped down your office and deep cleaned the reception area.
You dusted and vacuumed and scrubbed and decluttered and even rearranged some furniture just to change things up -- for almost two hours.
And it wasn’t until a quarter to two that you realized you’d made a rather large mistake.
Cleaning and rearranging furniture for two hours was hard work, and now -- fifteen minutes before Jaebum was set to arrive -- you found yourself exhausted and sweaty.
I mean, you were exhausted and sweaty a lot. Obviously. You were a dance teacher. 
But the exhausted and sweaty parts of your day were always at the end of class, after you’d done all the work, not at the beginning.
...And your classes typically did not involve an incredibly good-looking man whom you were nervous about spending time with.
After putting away the cleaning supplies in the closet, you quickly ran into the bathroom to splash some water on your face. You then headed into your office and dug around in your bag for the emergency vial of perfume you kept in there -- just in case.
Thank goodness you did because it really came in handy in this moment.
Just as you stepped out of your office and back into the studio, closing the door behind you, you heard the clack of footsteps on the dance floor.
“Hello?” a soft but deep voice called out.
You jumped a little, your gaze snapping over to the studio entrance and landing on Jaebum.
A quick glance to the clock above the mirrors showed you that he was almost ten minutes early -- and that only heightened your intrigue.
You loved a man who was early.
“Hi!” you blurted out suddenly, realizing you hadn’t yet answered him. “Hi, come on in. Welcome.”
Jaebum reached into his pocket as he walked over to you, retrieving his phone and tapping on the screen with a wrinkled forehead. “My friend sent me the video of the choreography,” he muttered, his eyes flashing up at you briefly over his phone screen.
“Oh, perfect,” you grinned. You came to a stop in front of him, resting your hands on your hips as you waited for him to find the video and show you.
“Here,” he mumbled before doing just that -- turning his phone around and showing you the video.
You leaned in, and only then did you realize this was a bad idea.
Obviously, watching something on a person’s phone meant you had to be standing rather close to that person, leaning in until your heads were almost touching.
And that’s exactly what was happening right now.
You were standing rather close to Jaebum, your heads almost touching.
And, boy, did he smell amazing.
It took almost every ounce of willpower in you to concentrate on the video and not on how amazing he smelled.
When the video finished, you took a step back, hoping you hadn’t backed away from him too obviously. If you were going to be learning this choreography together, you certainly didn’t want him to think you couldn’t stand being close to him. Because that wasn’t even true! 
It was just... difficult. In a good way. Kind of.
“That seems fairly straightforward,” you said, pushing all these thoughts out of your mind as best as you could.
“Yeah?” Jaebum asked, turning to look at you, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
“Absolutely. You want to give it a shot?”
He nodded and took off his jacket, hanging it up on the rack by the door before joining you in the middle of the dancefloor. He set up his phone against the mirror, and you began guiding him through the choreography, step-by-step.
Only a few minutes in, and Jaebum stopped you. “How... how do you know the routine already? We watched it once, and you’re not even referring back to the video.”
A frown curved your lips, and you lifted your shoulders into a shrug. “I... don’t know? I just remember it.”
“Seriously?” he asked with a soft chuckle of disbelief. “How?”
“I don’t know,” you repeated. “I’ve always been this way, with dance especially. I can just picture it in my mind.”
“So, you have a photographic memory.”
...How had you never realized that before?
“I guess so?” you chuckled. “I just never thought it was different than what anyone else could do.”
A half-smile tugged at Jaebum’s lips as he got back into the dancing position, and he murmured, “No. I absolutely cannot do that.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing I’m the dance teacher,” you retorted, trying to suppress a smirk.
He laughed softly, and you ignored the fluttering in your heart.
You spent the next hour and a half going through the first part of the routine, and even though Jaebum claimed he wasn’t able to learn choreography like you did, he still caught on quickly.
“No, you’re honestly doing a great job,” you assured him after deciding to stop for the day. “I told you, you’re a natural dancer. You have instinct!”
Jaebum simply shook his head, but you saw the smile he was trying to hold back.
As he went back toward the door to retrieve his jacket, he glanced over his shoulder at you and said, “Are you free to keep going? Go over the rest of the routine?”
“Absolutely! I wouldn’t leave you hanging like that for a wedding.”
“What if it was a birthday party?”
“Yes, maybe.”
You heard Jaebum’s deep, low chuckle, and even though you’d just spent over an hour touching him and dancing with him and being extremely close to him, the sound of his laugh still sent a shiver down your spine.
What was this guy doing to you?
“What does your schedule look like?” he asked as he slipped his jacket back on.
“Oh, here -- let me write it down for you,” you said, taking a step toward your office.
“Or --” Jaebum blurted out.
You paused, raising your eyebrows and shifting your gaze to him.
“Or you could... just text it to me.” He still had his phone handy from playing the dance video on repeat during the lesson, and he held it up as to emphasize his suggestion.
“Oh!” you chirped. “Well -- I mean, yeah, sure. That -- that works.”
Jaebum opened his mouth to say something, but then he stopped himself. He narrowed his eyes slightly at you and said, “If I just tell it to you, will you remember it without having to write it down?”
Your eyes widened with minor panic. “...Yes?” you replied uncertainly even though you were absolutely certain you could do that.
He let out a soft, breathy chuckle and shook his head.
After he told you his phone number, he murmured his thanks for the lesson and then headed through the door without another word.
You waited approximately ten seconds before scrambling to your office, fishing your phone out of your bag, and quickly entering the number into your contacts.
You wouldn’t have forgotten it, but... still. You didn’t want to take any chances. It wasn’t every day that an incredibly attractive and fascinating guy gave you his phone number.
Not that you would use it for anything other than sending him your schedule.
But. Yeah.
Jaebum was absolutely incredibly attractive and fascinating.
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Either Jaebum was not a busy man or he...
Well, you weren’t actually sure what the other most viable option was.
Because the only things you could think were that he just really wanted to learn this dance routine for the wedding reception... or he just really wanted to spend time with you.
And that was definitely just wishful thinking.
Either way, Jaebum was -- apparently -- able to fit in a private lesson whenever your schedule allowed.
Did he not work? Or was he taking a lot of time off for this? Or maybe his job allowed him to be flexible like yours did.
There were so many questions you wanted to ask him and so little courage you had to actually ask them.
When he came back two days after your first private lesson, you began the lesson with those questions still occupying your thoughts but ended it with another question on your mind entirely.
And, for some reason (seemingly everything about Jaebum was a mystery, I guess, including your reactions to him), you found the question tumbling from your lips as he was putting his jacket back on to leave.
You had just spent another hour and a half teaching him the second half of the choreography; another hour and a half touching and dancing with him. Maybe that had bolstered your courage enough?
“Why do you not want to do this?” you asked, tilting your head curiously. “The dance at the wedding.”
Jaebum paused for a moment before turning to face you. “I just... What -- what do you mean?”
You felt your cheeks warms, but you continued on. “You were just so... not happy to be in that first class, and... I don’t know. Whenever I bring it up, you get this look on your face.”
His eyebrows flew halfway up his forehead. “I do?”
“Yeah,” you chuckled.
He stood there just for a second before letting out a sigh and taking a few steps toward you. “To be honest, I’m not thrilled about having to dance in front of a room full of people I don’t really know.”
While you couldn’t exactly relate to the sentiment, you still understood what it was like to be scared to do something. Or, at the very least, be uncomfortable about it.
“You’re going to do a great job,” you assured him, your heart starting to skip a beat here and there as he got closer to you.
Seriously? You had just been dancing with him. Touching him. 
“I’m not saying I don’t trust you,” he said, shaking his head. “But... I’m just not... confident about it. And I don’t like that.”
Jaebum was such the epitome of the Strong and Silent type -- so far, at least -- that you couldn’t even imagine him not being fully confident in himself. And the way he danced definitely wasn’t something to be insecure about it!
“I don’t know,” he added with a roll of his eyes. “I just don’t see the point in doing a choreographed dance at a wedding.”
Okay, now that made you laugh.
“Because it’s fun,” you chuckled. “Receptions are basically just a big party, and most parties involve dancing, right?”
“Well, yeah,” he shrugged. “But they don’t have to. And you can dance without doing some full-fledged routine.”
“This is true,” you agreed, though it was mainly just to appease him.
“In my opinion, weddings should be about the marriage. The relationship. The vows you make. Not cutting a cake or a DJ playing viral songs no one really wants to hear.”
...Well. You couldn’t argue with him there.
“So, when it’s your turn to get married, you don’t even need to have a reception.”
And your heart was acting funny again. Thinking about Jaebum getting married both made you hopeful that it would be your wedding, as well, and upset that -- realistically -- it would not be. You were just his dance teacher, and he was only taking lessons until the wedding. It was highly unlikely he would come back to continue his education, and even though you had his phone number now... why would you ever have a reason to use it?
“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I absolutely plan on eloping. Or only inviting my family and having just a small ceremony.”
“Ah, good. Now I know not to be offended when I don’t receive an invitation.”
Um... okay? Why? Had you just said that?
Thankfully, Jaebum simply smiled that tiny half-smile of his and let out a soft chuckle.
Was it weird that after spending time with Jaebum only three times you already knew his signature smile?
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Despite the fact you had taught Jaebum the entire dance backwards and forwards and there was literally nothing else you could do to help him, he continued to request private lessons. He continued to show up whenever you had a free hour or two, no matter the time or day.
And while this behavior would usually suggest some sort of romantic feelings on his part, he also continued to be Strong and Silent.
He talked to you during your lessons, of course, but he was never talkative. He was always polite, but he wasn’t super... friendly.
So, in conclusion, you were still as mystified and confused by Jaebum as ever.
He didn’t like dancing but he was amazing at it.
He didn’t need you to teach him anymore but he still showed up at your studio.
You just wished you could peek into that brain of his -- just for a minute! -- to see what he was thinking.
And, because you were his teacher, you never felt comfortable asking why. Why was he still asking for lessons when he didn’t need them? Why was he always so guarded around you? Why did he never ask about your personal life?
I swear, if Jaebum ever asked if you had a boyfriend, your heart would absolutely combust.
Maybe one day you would ask him all those questions, but by then, he wouldn’t be coming to your classes any longer, and what would be the point?
Apparently, you were thinking too much about all of this because, all of a sudden, Jaebum’s voice broke through the haze in your mind.
“Y/N,” he said, his voice forceful enough to make it obvious it wasn’t the first time he’d said it.
“Sorry,” you replied hastily with a shake of your head. “Zoned out.”
“Did you hear what I said?” he asked as he stood by the coat rack, getting ready to put his jacket back on before he left with hardly a word.
That had become his routine after every class, and you had come to expect nothing different.
“Hmm? Oh -- no, sorry. What did you say?”
“I said the wedding is this weekend, so I won’t need to come back any more.”
...Oh.
That was not what you wanted to hear.
“Oh,” you replied, doing your best to sound... well, not upset about it. “Well, I know you’re going to do an amazing job --”
“I’m more nervous than I thought I would be,” he interrupted.
You froze, your mouth slightly hanging open and your unspoken words hanging from your lips.
But then you quickly pulled yourself together and said, “You are?”
He nodded tersely.
But he didn’t elaborate.
So, you bit. “...Why?”
“Because I know how to dance it with you, and what if it’s different with someone else as my partner?”
“I mean, yeah, it’ll be different,” you confirmed. “But you know the steps through and through. Even if the bridesmaid is a terrible dancer, you’ll be able to carry her through it, I promise.”
Jaebum let out a sigh and his head tilted forward, his chin practically touching his chest.
“You’ll be fi --”
“What I really wanted to say is that I wish it could be you and not someone else,” he said, interrupting you again in a quiet but strong voice.
...You stared at him.
And blinked.
“...Excuse me?”
Without hesitating, Jaebum strode over to you, only stopping when he was as close to you as he was while you’d danced.
You tilted your head to look up into his eyes, though yours were still too wide with shock to say anything.
“I... I feel more comfortable dancing with you than doing... anything else. And the reason I kept asking to come back even after you taught me the whole dance is because... I just wanted to be with you.”
Okay, you were fairly certain you were no longer breathing.
You certainly couldn’t speak at the moment, so it was very possible that your heart and lungs had just stopped working.
“You are... incredible,” he continued. “Confident and talented and kind and beautiful.”
You repeated the word ‘beautiful’, though you couldn’t even hear your own voice so you must have simply mouthed it.
...Was he really saying all this to you?
To you?
And since it was obvious you weren’t going to actually say anything yet, Jaebum continued.
“You’re why I haven’t stopped coming back. I only joined your class because my friend practically forced me; he’s one of my closest friends, and I would do anything for him, but I truly could not care less about this dumb wedding dance. I would have happily fumbled my way through it if you hadn’t been so... wonderful.”
Okay, at this point, you kind of felt like you were more shocked to hear this many words coming out of his mouth at once. You’d been teaching Jaebum for almost three months, and you were fairly certain he hadn’t said more than two sentences back-to-back.
And you, who normally had no trouble speaking, could only reply with a whispered, “...Really?”
Jaebum simply nodded, and you felt more at ease. A simple nod was much more in character.
But you had no idea what else to say because there was too much you wanted to say.
Apparently, your racing thoughts showed through on your face because Jaebum stopped waiting for you to say something. “I... don’t really want to invite you to be my date to the wedding since... I’m a groomsman and all. You would have to sit by yourself, and I don’t want to make you do that.”
Ah, so, he was thoughtful, too.
“So... maybe you’d like to meet up after the wedding? I mean, like, go out. Not meet up. Go out. On a... date.”
“Yes,” you replied, finally able to force some actual words out of your mouth. “Yes, I would love to. Please.”
And then, Jaebum’s lips curved into a smile.
A real smile.
A full-on, teeth-showing smile -- not the half-smile you’d gotten used to.
Your heart stopped.
I mean, it felt like it stopped.
And you were immensely glad he hadn’t smiled like this before because oh my god. You wouldn’t have been able to go on teaching him. You would’ve fainted.
Even now, you had to reach out and grab a hold of his arms to steady yourself.
But Jaebum must have thought you were going in for the hug, so took another step closer to you and slid his arms around your waist, pressing his fingers into the small of your back and enveloping you in his embrace.
It took you approximately .0001 seconds to melt into him, feeling the strong wall of his chest and the secure cage of his arms around you.
You’d danced with him countless times by now. His hands had held your waist for hours, and yet... You had never experienced this sensation before.
And you knew right then and there that you never wanted to live another day without experiencing it again.
OTHER SIGNS: ARIES, TAURUS, GEMINI, CANCER, LEO, VIRGO, LIBRA, SCORPIO, SAGITTARIUS, AQUARIUS, PISCES
243 notes · View notes
imagines-r-s · 3 years
Text
sticking it - j. farabee
prologue 
a/n: this prologue just has a lot of information needed to continue the series, but i hope you enjoy!! (also the gif is a visual of what the dismount mentioned is, in the gif it’s only a triple)
taglist: @butgilinsky @barbienoturbby @sunsetholland @lovenhlboys​ @sortagaysortahigh​ @hockey-racing-fubol​
warnings: mention and description of injury (very brief), sadness, pretty angsty ngl, but there’s happiness in here too 
sticking it masterlist
wc: 2.6k
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(gif not mine)
From the first time you stepped into a gym at the age of 3 to now, standing in this arena, you knew this was the place you were intended to be. You quickly leveled up in the sport of gymnastics and quickly excelled in the sport. Although there were many hardships - both mentally and physically - along the way, you never wanted to stop. Your one and only love was this sport, always has been. Always will be. 
As you progressed in your gymnastics career, your first coach, Michelle Watson, saw great promise in you and wanted to help you move up to where she knew you could go. Her brother had an elite gym in Philadelphia and he was willing to train you, so you and Michelle moved to Philadelphia to get you the best training possible. Your family was close enough with Michelle to know that you were in good hands.
 Working with the duo of Michelle and Marcus proved to be one of the best decisions of your life as you quickly became one of the top athletes in your sport. Eventually, you moved up to elite, which meant that you were in the division that would go to the biggest types of competitions in this sport. The biggest competitions with the toughest competition.
With the Olympics fastly approaching, it was the only thing on people’s minds. Even with there still being 15 months until Trials actually started, every meet from now on counted. Having to get a certain all-around score to qualify for the next meet, every skill counted. Even the smallest of deductions could set you apart from the group that qualifies and the group that doesn’t. 
Your family supported all your decisions, but especially your cousin, Kevin. He was undeniably marked as your top supporter, he never once doubted that you would be able to make it to the Olympics one day and he knew that you would go through hell to get there if you needed to. When Kevin went to the Flyers, he happened to get an apartment in the same building that you did, which was also close to your gym and his rink. 
Kevin was able to support you and be there for you just when you needed someone. Whenever you had the time from the season, you were able to go watch some of his games and meet his teammates, who were just as supportive of you as he was. There were more times than none that you would end a showcase or meet and have at least five hockey players waiting for you with a bouquet of roses and a good job. 
Kevin was always there with a good job hug and your favorite kind of fruit snacks, TK and Karly with a simple bouquet of roses, and then Nolan with his pep and smack talk on the other girls competing. 
Your teammates were always there right beside you. You made some of the best friends from gymnastics (and some of the worst enemies), Nicole Carter was the teammate that you were closest with. Always making jokes about both of you would have an equal amount of silver and gold medals to add to your collection. 
Now here you were at the American Cup, which wasn’t the most important meet of the lineup to Tokyo, but you had to keep a watch out for competitors and make sure that you caught people’s eye when competing. During warm-up you did make sure to talk to some of the girls, not everyone was able to have a close teammate, so you wanted them to know that someone there was rooting for them. You were always a team player, even in such an individual sport like this, except for Kathryn Davis. 
Kathryn Davis had always been one of your closest competitors, you weren’t going to say you were the best out there - you weren’t - but at least you kept a good attitude about how well others were doing. Kathryn was not like that, if you were her competition in any way, she would drag you as quick as she could. Starting rumors, talking bad about you during interviews, or distracting you before your routines were her go-to ways of getting to you and there were many occasions where you had to calm down one of the other athletes because of something she did.
Today you weren’t letting anyone get in your way. Although it was a minor meet, there was still a lot on the line. The plan for your beam routine was to bring out a new skill that had never been landed in major competition, a wack plan? Maybe. But since it was a smaller meet if you didn’t land it, the score wouldn’t affect you as much. Your plan was to go through your routine and do a 3.5 twisting dismount, the highest competed had only been a triple twisting dismount, so if you did land it today the skill would be named after you. 
With the event lineup for the meet going vault, bars, beam, then floor, you were starting on floor and ending on beam. Going into auto-pilot for the first three events, you didn’t take note of your scores and you hardly even realized that you were getting ready to salute the judges on beam. Taking a deep breath before you mounted the beam, you started your routine. 
The core parts of a beam routine were flight series - where you got at least some air time in whatever skill you were doing, jumps, turns, dance, and the dismount. When all three of your flight series were landed and you finished your jumps and turns, you were ready for the dismount. 
Taking a few steps to do the round-off, you were now at the end of the beam and could do the twisting part of the dismount. Taking off you started twisting, keeping an eye out for the mat (even if it is a blind landing), you started opening up from the twist to make the landing. The only issue was it was obvious you didn’t get enough height, so the mat was closer than it had been whenever you had practiced many times before, and because of that you landed a triple twist while still turning. 
You knew immediately something was wrong, the popping noise that you weren’t supposed to hear was kind of a dead giveaway, but you turned and saluted the judges like usual, and as you took a step, all the pain from whatever you had just done came to your leg causing you to curl up into a ball holding your knee. 
You could hear Marcus and Michelle becoming louder, but the pain in your knee somehow drowned out everything around you. There was commotion all around you and you felt Marcus reach under your leg to carry you back down, away from the beam. Eventually medical got to you and you were ushered away in a wheelchair towards the ambulance. 
“y/n, look at me, okay? It’s going to be alright, we’re getting you to the hospital and then we’ll get everything figured out,” Michelle said, holding your hand as you were taken towards the Emergency Room. 
“I need you to call Kev, please,” you assumed Kevin had heard what had happened and you didn’t want to stress him even more since you knew he had been at a game and probably heard while he was there. 
“I will, hun, I will,” the doctors got you in a hospital room where they would do what they could right now. With the pain meds, you were able to ignore the pain for a while. Your mom had called you from back home to check in while you waited on Kevin to show up to the hospital. 
“Hey, short stack, you doing alright?” Kevin said as he walked into the hospital room, you took note of TK and Nolan behind him. 
“You only call me short stack because you’re literally a giant,” you giggled, “hey, Tiki Bar. Hi, Patti Lapone.”
“Can I get whatever she’s having?” Nolan interrupted. The three of them stayed in your room as you waited for the doctor to come back with more information about the scans and tests that they ran. The boys were mostly enjoying the fact that you were giggling the whole time, but they were just glad that you weren’t in pain about what was going on. When some of your giggling died down, they realized that eventually you would have to terms with what happened. Kevin knew that you might not come back from this one as easily as you hope to, he had seen so many peoples careers end this way. He didn’t want you to have to go through that. 
“y/n y/l/n, hi, I’m Dr. Brady and we needed to consult you about the results from the scans. Are you sure you want everyone in here when you hear?” Dr. Brady asked cautiously, knowing this was not easy news to break. 
“Yeah, they’re fine in here,” you nodded taking note of how Kevin had walked over to the side of your bed, anxiously waiting to see your reaction rather than whatever the results were. 
“Ok, well with the injury you got today, you will need surgery as soon as possible, which will be in about three weeks. From there it will be 6-9 months of recovery, which includes physical therapy and mobility work, the time will depend on what your physical therapist decides is best-”
“Wait, so I’ll be out for like 10 months?” you asked.
“Yes, could be more, could be less. It really depends.”
“So, when do you think I could consider going back to training?” the air in the room felt tense, you were the one out of the loop here. Everyone around you already knew what was going to happen and that you coming back might not be an option. 
“It would all depend on what your trainer thinks is best right now and there is no guarantee you will be back to your old self after the surgery,” the doctor said with a solemn look on his face, as he was the one who had to break the news. 
“Um, ok. Yeah. When would I be able to go home?” you quickly jumped to the next topic of discussion, which Kevin was shocked about, as were Nolan and Travis. 
“Well, we have to get you pain meds, crutches, and a brace, but once we do that we’ll be able to discharge you. Okay?” you simply nodded. The room went silent as you Dr. Brady walked out. 
“y/n/n? You okay, hun?” Michelle said quietly, getting more nervous when you simply nodded. 
“Yeah, I just want to go home.” 
Kevin, TK, and Nolan knew that you weren’t okay, so they all decided to take you home and make sure you got everything situated while having to deal with this. Finally making it to your apartment after being discharged, you decided to try and take a shower, which proved to be difficult, so you just left the issue for tomorrow. Changing out of your competition leo and into comfortable pajamas, you made your way back out to the kitchen where the guys were talking. 
“Kevin said he plans on staying here just in case you need anything, but if you want us all to stay we definitely can,” Travis said when he saw you walk into the room. 
“Oh, if you guys want to, it's cool with me, I’m fine either way. I just plan on going to bed right now. So goodnight, I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow,” giving them a soft smile before making your way back towards your room. 
Going into your bedroom was already bound to be a difficult task. Although the room was simple, a lot of the things that you had on your wall were from gymnastics, pictures from gymnastics meets, medals and trophies littered your room in a way that usually lifted your spirits up. But walking into your room using crutches and the knee brace keeping your knee secure made you hate everything in the room at that moment. 
Knocking over your crutches, you ripped down a poster that had your schedule for the next season leading up to Trials, the picture of you and your teammates was next, finally the goal board you made when you were 10 came tumbling down to the ground, the trophies that you had spent such a long time working for were in the process of being thrown across the room when a pair of arms quickly pulled you into their chest. 
You didn’t notice that the guys had rushed into your room or that your vision was now clouded from the tears, but everything hit you at once. As Kevin held you, you simply sobbed into his chest. The dreams that you had worked so hard for were now crumbling down. You realized that all the time and hard work you had invested would have nothing to show for it. 
Eventually Kevin realized you had stopped crying and he looked down to realize that you had fallen asleep. He gently picked you up and put you in your bed, leaving your crutches right by your bed, so if you needed them you could get them. 
“Do you guys mind helping me pick up everything? She’ll regret it if we don’t,” Kevin asked the two boys in front of him who were very happy to help. All of them were glad that they had the day off and planned on staying here and doing what they could to help you out later. 
You anxiously waited the few weeks before you had to get the surgery, you hardly left your room and when you did, you went right back to your room. Everyone wanted to give you time to grieve and accept the possibility that you might not have a comeback. But once you had your surgery, you actually had to go to physical therapy.
Physical therapy was awful the first month. You genuinely felt bad for Adrian, your PT, for having to deal with you. He obviously had to put up with a lot of negative energy and you just added it to it. “You know, I am aware that you were an athlete. I’m going to assume every doctor has said you won’t make a comeback?” he paused waiting for your response, and once you nodded he continued. “Ok, well I can’t promise anything, but once you actually start working, this won’t necessarily get easier, but you accept it. Now if you’re constantly dwelling on how ‘your dreams are crushed and you’ll never be the gymnast you once were’ then that is exactly what will happen.” 
“Yeah, but-”
“Nope, no buts. You got hurt. It happens. But you already accepting that as the loss of a sport you love so much will not cut it in my book. That energy is not needed, especially if you ever want to go back. Now either accept the worst and get this over with as soon as possible, or actually start working towards your dream again. Those doctors try not to give people false hope, but y/n, you have to realize I know you have it in you to go back there and prove them all wrong. And if you’re doing this just to spite them, then so be it. Let’s get to work now.”
And you did get back to work. 
You were able to start light conditioning about 5 months after and were able to start doing basics 2 months later. “Ok, y/n, I’m going to be straightforward with you, your knee is looking better. But don’t do anything too crazy to where that changes. So the plan now is to start easing back into training, no big skills, no big landings. But you can start working. And I know about a certain meet in March that will be your comeback meet, I’m telling you now.” 
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2-cute-4-school · 4 years
Text
NCT Dream reaction : you give them a handmade gift
M.list
Genre : fluff fluff fluff
Word count : 2.5K words
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Mark Lee
*sigh* my overworked baby, SM pls let him rest
he probably forgets to eat from time to time or just doesn’t time to
which breaks your poor little heart :<
so when Mark stays in the recording room until late in the night once again, you don’t go to him empty handed
you go to him with a handful of homemade cookies!!! ヽ(^◇^*)/
when you enter the studio, Mark’s slumped figure immediately straightens up, tired eyes lighting up at the sight of you
he turns in his chair and stretched out his arms to you with a puppy face and your heart :((( just :((((( melts :(((((((((( wow mark no need to kill us all with your babie culture
but who are you to say no to this angel with somewhat less appropriate thoughts but you didn’t hear this from me so you don’t hesitate to walk into his open arms
he lays his head on your stomach, nuzzling into you and cuddling up to you like a clingy koala bear as you run your fingers comfortingly through his hair, lightly massaging his head 
with the serene atmosphere you almost forgot why you came so you pulled away from Mark, your heart clenching at his whine and bring the bag with the cookies out of your backpack and thrust it in his hands
he looks from you to the bag and back with eyes so wide and innocent your brain almost short circuited at the utter cuteness
he digs into it once you prompt him to, a soft ‘woah’ coming out from him once he was hit with the sight of freshly baked cookies
“daaamn these are so good, babe” your eyes shine with pride
as he sticks one in his mouth, munching delighted at it (◠‿◠✿) , he grabs you with an arm, sitting you on his lap like a baby that you are and prodding your lips with another cookie he grabbed out of the bag
“oh no, I made these for you, I don’t-”
he doesn’t let you finish your sentence as he pushes the cookie in your mouth, watching you fondly as you start munching on it and patting your head with a gentle hand
“you’re so much cuter when you’re not nagging”
*GASP*
the Disrespect
Huang Renjun
this baby probably also showers you in his own gifts such as paintings or drawing of you sooo
it’s only proper that you also gist him something made by you (°∀°)
you work your cute ass off to perfect the most adorable Moomin key-chain you can come up with *huff* 
the day you finally deem it good enough to be shown to the top artist Huang Renjun you sweat buckets as you approach him
Renjun is busy on his iPad as you paddle over to him and stick the key-chain in his face with a dumb but proud smile “here”
Renjun turns to you with a blank face “what is this?”
●‿●
when I tell you the blood drained from your face and you died 50 times internally, your soul just left your body and you saw your life flash before your eyes ‘well life was good, time to say goodbye eyy’
you manage a loud and definitely not artificial laugh
“HAHAHA JUST AN UGLY THING I made I MEAN FOUND HAha ʰᵃ!!! Hey doesn’t it look like you in the morning?!” 
that’s when you knew you gotta bolt the scene
but Renjun of course couldn’t let your embarrassment end there the grumpy little gremlin
he snatched the keychain from you and curled his other hand around you, gluing you to his side and you froze as you looked into his sparkly wide eyes ( Renjun’s eyes are galaxies fite me )
“you made this for me?”
“uh yeah” 
warning : you were strangled to death by Renjun who deemed that a simple ‘thank you’ just couldn’t suffice, you had to die asphyxiated by his bear hug
“thank u thank u thank it’s so cute, I love it so much! I love you so much!!!”
“do you love me more than Moomin?”
warning 2 : he threw you away faster than he captured you in his deathly cute hug
“know your place, no. 2″
(¤﹏¤)
Lee Jeno
so Jeno is just a biiiiit upset at you maybe
okay maybe a bit more than just a bit
because you might or might have not broken his favorite cup which, mind you, was also a gift from you, when you were at the dorms
so now this overgrown baby gives you THE stinky eye and makes sarcastic and grumpy remarks with any chance he gets
and honesty as much as you love him, you’re ABSOLUTELY DONE with his pettiness :’)
that’s how you find yourself seated at your desk with a blank cup, acrylic watercolors and brushes spread everywhere as you squeeze every ounce of willpower to finish what you started
so after 2 mental breakdown, painted fingers and a veryyy dirty desk, you finished painting a cute design on Jeno’s new cup
you let it dry and didn’t waste another second to bring it to Jeno who still sulked at the dorms
once you were let inside, you trudged over to Jeno who was sat at the couch, refusing to get up and greet you with kisses as he usually did and slammed the cup on the coffee table in front of him
his frown turned into a confused puppy face so fast his duality amazed you once again, he lifted the cup gently, running the tips of his fingers gently over the paintings you worked so hard to complete for him
“are you still mad, nono?”
his silence was quite unnerving as you started to tire yourself out, your voice weakened by worry, but he lifted his head, looking at you with eyes so soft your heart fluttered wildly in your chest
“mad? you-you did this for me and you think I’m mad?”
he put the cup down much gentler than you and stood up from his seat, engulfing you in his arms, one of his hands squeezing you impossibly close to him and the other one cradling your head to his chest
“I think I just fell in love with you once again”
“if you fall in love just from a painted cup I should be more careful when I leave you alone”
he chuckled at your witty remark, kissing the side of his neck
once you broke apart, he placed his new favorite cup on the highest shelf and turned to you with a shit-eating grin
“i’ll put this here so maybe you won’t break this one too”
“sleep with an eye open tonight, lee” (☉‿☉✿)
Lee Donghyuck
so another overworked baby of mine bless his soul
his schedule is so packed so even though he’d cuddle with you until the end of times you actually didn’t get to do that as often as you’d like
and we all know how whiny lil cutie baby Haechanie can get when he doesn’t get what he wants :’))))
and since unfortunately you can’t be beside him all of the time like he wants you to, you decide the next best thing : you knit him a scarf !! you even stuck a tag made out of a soft material with a drawing of a smiley sun to one end of the scarf
he looks so shocked when you skip into his room and lovingly strangle him with the scarf
and you swear you could see his eyes glisten when you tell him you made it yourself and he remembers the bandaids that seemed to grow in number every day which you always shrugged of when he asked
although the tears may be from the lack of air  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
n e way, he looks so thankful as he wordlessly cradles your hands in his, bringing them up to his lips and taking the time to litter kisses over every single one of your small injuries, whispering a soft ‘i love you’ at the end
you swear your heart runs leaps through your rib cage
he just loves you so so much and would appreciate anything you give him 
you bring his face back up and press a huge *smooch* on his lips and you both giggle in between your kisses
why so cute you lovebirds?!?
he brings the scarf everywhere he goes, to the dorms, to every show, concert, whenever he travels somewhere, no matter the season
it becomes his lucky charm
once, Renjun sends you a picture of your Hyuckie sleeping cuddled up to the scarf, his nose nuzzled into it
“you know I won’t let him forget about this. EVER” you smirk at Renjun’s text, typing back a reply
“pls do” ( ಠ◡ಠ )
Na Jaemin
this sweet boi hold close to his heart anything you give him
so there’s literally no reason to stress over the bracelet you decided to craft for him
but you being you of course you want to rip your hair out every time something doesn’t go your way ah the levels of patience are definitely soaring through the roof
you even swallowed your pride and asked Jeno for help (read as used him as a puppet) so you were sure you’d get the right size
so after doubting the colors, patterns, material, your entire life choices, you asked Jaemin to close his eyes the next time you met up
with extra shaky fingers, you wrapped the bracelet around his wrist and fumbled to tie it properly
“I’m not getting any younger over here, y/n”
“shut up, mommy jaemie”
he managed to slap the back of your head even with his eyes closed (>‘o’)>
so when you finally tied a sturdy knot with your chicken fingers, you let him open his eyes and beach let me tell you the way his entire face broke into a smile at the sight of the pretty bracelet around your wrist
the sun seemed to pale in comparison with his precious smile, jaemin lights up the world no question, there’s no way you can convince me otherwise
“oh my God, my baby spent time making me such a pretty gift, I must have saved a country in my previous life, come here, let me smooch you into next week (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ “
so that’s how you ended up trapped in Jaemin’s embrace FOREVER
he kept on complimenting you the entire day and made it his mission to boast to every member he could get is hands on about his pretty gift made by his even prettier baby, he’s such a sucker for you no joke whipped culture right here m’am
“Jaemin, the the threads are getting dirty, don’t you think it’s time to take it off-?”
“I’ll die wearing this ʘ‿ʘ“
Zhong Chenle
among all of his ultra expensive things he has, he is dead sure that you’re the most precious in his life
he often told you he’d give up every penny in his bank and all his fame as long as he got to keep you by his side
he regarded you as a ray of warm light when the world left him cold and he swore he’d fight off anything and anyone who dared to hurt you
so this is how he found himself a bit confused and extremely guilty over how he is supposed to fight himself, watch and learn baby
he never meant to upset you, especially over something you poured your blood, sweat and tears into perfecting it just for him
sure, you were aware the Chinese patters you sewed carefully into a pristine white material weren’t perfect, but the way he laughed in you face once you offered it to him toppled your negative emotions over
he wasn’t aware that you sewed it yourself when he made fun of it
“jeez, where did you get this from, Y/N, the clownery fair? even though you should report them for to costumer protection for its ugliness”
“maybe I should report you for being a bitchy prick” ʕ ಡ ﹏ ಡ ʔ
you glare at him and storm away, slamming the door
chenle, the most oblivious and babiest boyfriend : (Θ︹Θ)ს well shit
but of course you couldn’t stay mad at him for long when he sweet talked his way back into your good side basically every minute of the day after finding out from Renjun (this angry angel helped you bless his soul) how hard you worked to sew that
so even though you’re still sulking a lil bit
you accept to come over at his house and as soon as you enter his room you’re shook
where one of his posters once hung above his bed now stood your sewing project proudly
you stared in awe like (’◎’)
“but I though you said it’s ugly”
“that’s before I knew it’s made by you. Anything you did is directly promoted to gorgeous, admirable, incomparable-”
ヾ(@⌒▽⌒@)ノ
3 weeks later while cuddling 
you : *GASP* “I’m so sorry for calling you a bitchy prick, baby”
Park Jisung
he is a giant as much as he is a baby and you agree with me even if you don’t 
babies are fascinated by almost anything, especially colorful things
which means Jisung is also fascinated by colorful things ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ
so when you met and you pulled out a few origami figures of different, lively colors, Jisung : (✪㉨✪)
“woah, how did you do these?”
“they’re like basic origami figurines”
if he wasn’t amazed enough already
when you picked up a purple frog and pressed on its bottom and it jumped, Jisung jumped up with it
“WOAH, how did you do THAT?”
you didn’t have the heart to break his innocent awe and tell him it didn’t take longer than 5 minutes to make that frog
so you just settled for a shrug and a simple
“magic, Jisung, magic”
at that, he straightens up in his seat, his awestruck expression fading into a serious one as he grips your shoulders tightly (´_`)
“you’ve been lying to me, haven’t you?” ~(。☉︵ ಠ@)>
“what do you mean, sungie?”
“you’re a wizard!!!!!!!!!”
*facepalm* *internal sigh* *whale noises because cuteness levels are just too high* 
“uh, yeah sure, baby, whatever floats your boat”
you try to turn away to hide your growing smile, but jisung isn’t having it
“no, you can’t leave me like this!! teach me!!!1!”
he grips your sleeve and looks at you with such wide innocent eyes as if you’re another wonder of the world and you swear you melt on the spot
“well, you know, my services aren’t free” (¬‿¬)
“what do you want?”
“kisses?” ( jisung shutting down )
“k-kisses? kisses??!? i mean *clears throat and buffs up* yeah sure, that’s all? i can do kisses” ( this baby blushed after only mentioning it but okay boss baby go off I guess ) (*~▽~)
he could’t even be disappointed when he found out origami was nowhere near to magic when you spoiled him with kithes all evening *cue a red Jisungie*
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ghost-wonder · 3 years
Text
Why Oliver March is My Current Top Suspect for the Leader (Even though I love him)
Buckle your seatbelts kids and get ready for my hot mess of a PH theory. I wasn’t sure where to put this and I just wanted to get my thoughts out. I’m in the last year of my media studies and production degree so I’m putting my 3 years of tears to use and have been brewing this theory since reading 85. Now let me clarify: I adore March, but the more we see, the more suspicious I become (especially with ep. 82 & 85), and while many think this may mean death or something tragic, I’ve been thinking of the possibility it’s something much bigger (Note: lots of speculation here so prepare for a lot of what if’s and I’m only using content up to ep. 85).
My thought process regarding the leader:
The leader is a rather dehumanized villainous entity. With them being anonymous and the reader not having a face to place with the actions, it’s easier for us to take the leader’s actions at face value. We are provided no means of sympathizing or empathizing with their actions and instead, our story follows characters who have been traumatized by said actions.
Therefore, to provide readers with the greatest impact, the leader would likely be a character who up until the discovery of them being the leader, the reader viewed them positively. A character already humanized. Already trusted. And this would be both in terms of how the reader views that character, as well as other characters in the story. It would leave the reader reeling, trying to figure out why such a character would be the leader.
And keep in mind: PH has used this approach with Harvey; the audience liked him for the short time he appeared before being caprisunned and we were shocked to discover his involvement in the PS. Additionally, we’ve had characters dehumanizing and humanizing with Kieran. He’s introduced as this deadly assassin who kills brutally, with the greatest death toll in the PS. But he becomes humanized through his interactions with Lauren, so much so that both the reader and Lauren forget his occupation and are provided a chilling reminder in ep. 43. However, even after those horrible events, as we learn more regarding his character in season 2, we begin to empathize with his actions and reactions (though we don’t condone them). It demonstrates a duality, a mix of light and dark, seemingly contradicting one another. Because people are complicated.
This is also why I can’t buy into the idea that Tristan or Stefan is the leader, in fact, I don’t think either one is even involved with the PS. For Tristan I think he comes off suspicious because A) he’s meant to be a red herring but B) LAUREN’S PARENTS WERE APOSTLES AND YOU CANNOT TELL ME HE DID NOT KNOW. THEY LEFT AT ODD HOURS OF THE NIGHT ALL THE TIME AND LIKELY GAVE LAUREN TO TRISTAN TO PROTECT HER FROM THAT LIFE. HE PROBABLY THINKS LAUREN IS PS. But anywho. As for Stefan, he’s already been villainized through his treatment of William. The audience doesn’t like him for this reason and is then inherently suspicious of him because they dislike him. So for me, it feels too obvious. (I have an additional theory that he was involved with the print shop shooting, assisting Lizbeth (from what’s alluded in 64 with Lauren’s parents and 68) as chief of police but that’s for another place another time.)
What we know about the leader:
- It’s a he
- Has to be part of the older generation (would have needed to be an adult about 15 years ago)
- Was a member of SD
- Knew Lauren’s parents
- According to Hecate, he is closer and more similar to Lauren than she thinks
So why March? (It’s not just the villain scar)
- His speech to Kym and Will in 60 had me SUS. It felt very contradicting (he acknowledges the flaws in the system while saying they must continue their jobs, which is valid, but his phrasing was still off to me) and generally in any mystery drama if I see a character go on a moral rant of sorts, my sus radar is dialed up to 11. Unfortunately, we don’t know how much of it was true and lies because Lauren wasn’t around but if he is the leader I’d find it so fascinating if everything he said is the truth. The idea that this terrorist does have sound morals would be SO INTERESTING and kind of fitting? The leader having a strong sense of justice or strong morals would make him more similar to Lauren as Hecate said. But more on Hecate later.
- As confirmed by 85, he knew Lauren’s parents. He even says they worked together on cases. Through their work together, did they start to realize the flaws in their system? Was there a case that was just too much? SD formed?
- The death of his daughter does kind of fit the SD timeline. (She died in xx11 the pamphlets are dated xx14 but SD was likely formed slightly before the release of the pamphlets but that's not yet really confirmed). We don’t know how her illness killed her (could be class-related. Like because of their class status perhaps they didn’t have access to the resources that could have saved his daughter? Who knows. He said they did all they could. March is likely middle class similar to Kym but we don’t know for sure. And even if he is middle class we don’t know if this was always the case, like if he was middle class at the time of his daughter’s death.)
- Additionally the death of his wife. The date is blocked and as others have theorized I find it very possible it could have been SD related. But this sentence is chilling: “She fell into the bloody hands of criminals that have been plaguing Ardhalis for too long.” March doesn’t specify these criminals as the PS. So could he mean the royals? (Literally everything he says to Lauren in ep. 85 could have a double meaning and it bugs me so much like he never specifies the criminals he’s referring to. And everything he says sounds like the monologue of a villain who sees themselves as a hero because they haven’t realized how far gone they are. But that’s just me. ) If she died in the print shop shooting could this have been the catalyst to drive March to become the leader and start the PS? Losing your daughter and wife is a lot to take and could drive anyone over the edge. Point is: if any of this speculation is true, it would give March motive for becoming the leader.
- Also March mentioned how Lauren reminds him of his daughter which could then explain why Lauren hasn’t been touched by the PS cause at this point the girl should have been caprisunned a while ago if she wasn’t being protected from the inside.
- To build on that as well, if March is the leader then he has kept an eye on Lauren since she joined the force aka since she would have become problematic for the PS (cause you can argue being the daughter of apostles may not automatically make her a threat since she was a child at the time. But being the daughter of apostles and joining the police force to take down the PS? Now that’s an issue). March says in ep. 60 that Lauren was one of his recruits meaning the leader could have had his eye on her the entirety of her time in the APD. Just something to consider.
- And going back to Hecate's words, he’s more similar to you than you think. March and Lauren share (seemingly) similar morals and additionally he is close to her just as Hecate claimed. Also if any of my speculation regarding the deaths of his wife and daughter are correct it would have put him in a similar position to Lauren, the difference being her enemy is PS and his being the royals (but also as we’re starting to see with Lauren learning more information, I think the royals are starting to become an enemy in her eyes the same way PS is. Again if any of this is correct it just furthers similarities between the two).
- This could then also be the betrayal alluded to in the cards; one of Lauren's mentors has been the leader this whole time. The betrayal is either past or future but March being the leader could count as both. He betrayed her in the past by ordering the death of her parents and may betray her again in the future as he continues to play the role of leader
- Plus this would also mean the leader has been present in the story FROM THE VERY BEGINNING MARCH WAS IN EP 2 HOW WILD WOULD IT BE IF WE’VE KNOWN THE LEADER THIS WHOLE TIME
- AND IMPORTANT NOTE: WHY IS MARCH NOT ONE OF THE PEOPLE LAUREN SUSPECTS DURING EP. 82 YET HE HAS HER BACK SIMILAR TO WILL AND KYM. "LAUREN OPEN YOUR EYES" BLINDEST OF THEM ALL TYPE STUFF. (Also with Lauren being the blindest of all, it led me to believe anyone Lauren is suspicious of, is not the one to betray her. I feel like it would have to be someone so unsuspicious, Lauren doesn’t even think of them. Which can be said of March; we literally have a whole scene in ep. 82 demonstrating how close they are and how a level of trust exists. Yet panels later, it doesn’t even cross her mind that he could betray her).
Now possible flaws in this theory (there are more I’m sure but here’s a few):
-Why voice support for lune and their actions: Lune’s actions have yet to affect the leader (at least to our knowledge) and have technically been helping the leader. The leader views Apostle 7 as an issue so obviously whoever the leader is, they won’t take issue with Lune taking down this problem for them. When first telling Lauren about McTrevor, Kieran said he was surprised he hadn’t been sent by the leader to kill him off yet. And when the 11th precinct received that first Lune letter about him, March was the one to voice that they should follow Lune’s orders. If he’s the leader, this could explain why he wanted to follow Lune’s orders and dispose of McTrevor without PS means. This is a possible explanation anyway.
- Why send moles into the 11th precinct if the leader himself is already there: I boil this down to a matter of seeming less suspicious. Like why possibly risk the exposure of your identity if your organization consists of hundreds of potential puppets who are easily disposable?
-Why place the PH in the 11th precinct if the leader is there: Okay this plays into another theory I have regarding Kieran. We know there are boatloads of parallels between Lauren and Kieran which left me thinking Kieran has had a similar Tim Sake type incident. What I mean by this is that Lauren’s whole deal with Tim Sake was heavily guided by her personal anger and resulted in distrust from her superior, Hermann. I think Kieran had a similar incident with killing that one person without orders, in which his actions were guided by his personal anger and resulted in distrust from his superior, the Leader. So we know from 83 Kierans been overseas for a while (Why? Was there a mission or did the leader need Kieran out of Ardhalis? Both?) and his comment in 64 (“I wonder how much longer his patience will last”), as well as the comments made by Bella and the messenger at various points regarding Kieran following and not following orders (ep 5 and 72-73?), further my thinking that the leader may be SUS of his best player. So what do you do with someone you’re suspicious of: you keep them right where you can see them.
- The one flaw I have yet to work out an explanation for is why order the death of lune? Regardless of who the leader is, this is a question I’ve mulled over since the end of season 1. J’en sais rien mes amis mais on verra.
Closing Thoughts:
Hopefully, this didn’t sound like the ramblings of a sleep-deprived senior (even though that’s exactly what this is haha) and hopefully, it gave you some stuff to consider. Up until this point, I never spent much time contemplating the leader, partly because I didn’t feel like we were far enough in the story to have enough evidence against one person. While much of this is speculation, I still think it’s the soundest case I have for any PH character we’ve met thus far being the leader.
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