#I fail to see how he’s the victim of anything other than his own entitlement and violence

[kallamars-spouse]

🐑

Narinder deserves less. 😭😭😭 This fandom is ridiculous. I’ve never seen a so blatantly abusive character be babygirled and defended to this degree. His only traits are being an evil cunt. Y’all, I am SO bored. I am so fucking bored.

[manias-wordcount]

could you write something for claude x reader where he’s his typical grouchy self but has a soft spot for his so🥹

Who Everyone Knows (Claude Faustus x Reader)

𝗔/𝗡: 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗼 !!! 𝗶 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆 :)

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?

The Claude everyone knows holds a permanent grow on his face. 

  He’s the intimidating butler of the Trancy family home. Tall and stiff. Dark and serious. Diligent, but oh-so scary. His manners, his words, and the absolute and utter perfection of his every action are enough to tell you of his supposed upbringing and his grooming. As a butler, he’s ideal. He every single one of his i’s and he crosses every single one of his t’s without fail and without complaint. It was as if he was born and bred for the sole purpose of being able to butter the bread of an entitled child. For the sole purpose of being a doll, a toy, a friend to be pushed around day in and day out by a dreadful charge. For the sole purpose of following orders.

  And he does that. He does just that. With every drop of professionalism and patience in the entire world.

  Because He’s the only man capable of handling the Earl Trancy and all his attitudes and fits. Because he’s a man who never smiles. Because he’s a man who never bends. A man who never breaks. No matter how much the most spoiled of brats try to torment him. No matter how much the most insufferable of men try to best him.

  The Claude everyone knows is a demon. This is the man they see taking utmost care with his duties with the deepest of frowns on his face and sharpest of eyes that have ever been shaped by the creator’s hands. This is the man they see- only occasionally- running errands with a look on his face that told the commonfolk that this man was not to be trifled with. And perhaps when they say demon, they think that he is so in the most literal sense of the word. Perhaps they have no idea of just how accurate they are when they insult him with their hushed whispers and their fearful side eyes. That is the Claude that everyone knows. That is the Claude that the whole world knows. 

  But the Claude you know?

  “Oh…baby…”

  He’s the furthest thing from a demon. The furthest thing.

  At your soft coo, he instantly deflates. The door to your shared bedroom in the servant’s quarter closes behind him as he slumps against the mahogany. His head hangs low and his shoulders sag as he’s finally releasing the weight of the entire world from his aching grip. And from what you’ve come to know of little Alois Trancy, you realized that it's a perfectly valid feeling. Even for an all-powerful being such as Claude himself. 

  But powerful or not, you find yourself raising from your spot on the bed and crossing the room to get to him. Outside your windows, it’s a dark yet moonlight-filled night. The sky is a deep blue and the clouds are few and far between. It’s a perfectly healthy night. Young and free and just a little past the bedtime of the Earl Trancy- though your beloved’s sudden presence is more than indicative of that. But you know that today was an exhausting day. You know it because you lived it. You know it too well.

  You have your own role to play in the Trancy household. Sometimes it’s cooking. Sometimes it’s cleaning. Sometimes it’s organizing and filing and paperwork and entertaining guests and more. Sometimes it’s even being the object of young Alois’ eyes- the latest victim of his terrifying nature. And while you’ve never experienced anything further than a very disruptive prank (that you were left the good honor of cleaning up behind), you were keenly aware of the young master’s sadistic tendencies. The other members of staff had it the worst. You don’t even want to think of the worst of the worst that young boy has done. But there is no one that Earl Trancy has attached himself more to than Claude himself.

  And that boy brings out the Claude that everyone knows. The man who stands stiff and tall. Serious and dark. Scary yet diligent. He’s able to cater to the boy’s every single whim. The only one to really gain a real and genuine semblance of favor. And Claude does this all without complaint. All without any hint of emotion. All without any sort of flaw. 

  But the Claude before you right now? He’s the furthest thing from that reality.

  The furthest thing.

  You stop only mere inches away from him. You stand chest to chest, looking at him while he continues to stare at his shoes and let out one labored breath after another. Your eyes rake his appearance and although he looks as perfect as ever, there are small signs of wear and tear that tell stories of his tiredness. Small. Not at all obvious. But they’re there. And as your eyes travel down even further, your gaze lands on the hand he still has wrapped around the door knob. 

  You observe as his hand grips and squeezes the door. The movement of his fingers- of his skeleton- now freed from a gloved prison as he attempts to use the brass doorknob as a stress reliever. Something to calm him down. Something to slow the approach of the storm. Something to make things all go away. To make things all go right. 

  It barely takes a second of consideration before you’re reaching out and taking his face into your hands. His cheeks rest against your palms, his skin cool to the touch but you don’t back down. Instead, you only opt to push his head up and up and up until exhausted golden eyes behind a pair of glasses are finally within your view. 

  And you’re gentle, as you handle him. You’re sweet as you allow him to all but collapse into your arms. You’re loving as you whisper to him messages of adoration while you guide him further into the bedroom. And you’re kind as you coax him to rely completely and entirely on you despite the title he holds. Because in moments like these, he is not Claude that everyone knows. He is not the Claude that everyone has seen and observed and witnessed. He is not the Claude that anyone could- would- recognize. Anyone. 

  And in moments like these? 

  You don’t want him to be.

[linkspooky]

The Todorokis and the Shimuras...

The Shimura family is the set up for how we are supposed to judge the Todorokis. They were the original broken house that fell apart. Everything in Shigaraki’s flashback, informs Dabi’s flashback later. We see the same abusive dynamics repeating again and again, and yet nobody learning from them. @logicalbookthief wrote almost a week ago and it turned out to be near clairyvoyant to this weak’s chapter. 

Interesting that Dabi, Shigaraki and Toga all internalized the idea they’re “bad” or “not good (enough)” as children. Interesting how rather than discouraging this idea, the adults around them reinforce that they don’t deserve the care a “good” or “perfect” child would be entitled to, by seeing their pain and doing nothing to help.

Shigaraki and Dabi are established as foils precisely because, they ar both children who, literally no matter what in their household, kept trying to be good heroes. However, every adult around them treated them like they were the problem, that they were at fault for what went wrong in the household, no matter how hard they struggled to be good they were labeled as “bad children.” They’re the scapegoats of their household, and as they grow into adults they become the scapegoats of society. “Do you really want to be a hero?” is asked to both Shigaraki and Dabi, they can’t be seen as good

Because it’s easier to divide between good children and bad children, good victims and bad victims, then for the adults to actually try to fix their mistakes. That would mean admitting that they might be the problem too. In order to enforce this, they even lift up other children as “good children” creating golden childs, and because they didn’t react as strongly to the abuse then it puts Tenko and Toya as the ones to blame for not trying to be good enough. It’s Toya’s fault he became a villain, unlike Shoto who tried to be the hero of his family despite all of his abuse. Toya must have never really wanted to be a hero in the first place.

1. Tenko and Toya were good boys

If Tenko and Toya were not forced to carry the blame for how their household went wrong. If one actually looked at them as children, it’s easy to notice what good children they were, actually.

When Kotaro punishes Tenko for playing hero again he assumes he was just not listening to his rule, and trying to cause trouble. However, when Nao asks him why he was doing it, we learn his motivation, Tenko didn’t want two bullied kids to be left out.

Tenko is five, so he doesn’t really have like a developed personality yet, but a lot of the positive qualities Shigaraki displays as an adult are all their. 

Tenko always follows his own dream, no matter how much the adults around him try to discourage him. His desire to be a hero is that strong. He has the same quality that Deku is constantly praised for. 

Tenko is also, extremely emotionally intelligent. He realizes that his father is the one in the wrong for always picking on him, and that his parents are siding with his father and not him by reassuring him of his father’s good intentions. Your father has a reason for always forbidding you to be a hero. Your father means well. Everyone puts, Kotaro’s good intentions, and Kotaro’s well being over Tenko’s. It’s Tenko’s fault for provoking him, it’s Tenkos’s fault for not giving up on his dream of being a hero. 

It’s interesting how Tenko and Toya almost come from seemingly opposite households. Tenko comes from a friendly household where he has an extremely close relationship with his sister, where his grandparents are almost always comforting him and doing fun things with him, and yet he still feels smothered by it all because nobody wants to tell Kotaro off, so his emotional needs are neglected. Tenko spends a lot of his time with his family, Toya spends time mostly isolated from his mother and father and yet, they both feel rejected fundamentally from the household dynamic.

It’s because no matter what at the end of the day they are the scapgoat for their household, it doesn’t matter what Tenko and Toya’s actual emotions and intentions are, because they’re perceived as thebad ones. We as the audience see Tenko’s sensitivity, his care for others, his desire to be a hero, but his family labels him as a troublemaker for... having the same dream every other five year old kid his age as. Tenko and Toya aren’t really allowed to make mistakes, or be wrong about things like normal kisd would because they’re not really normal kids, they’re “the problem child” or the “problem” of the household.

It’s not just that Tenko was abused, it was that he was abused in front of everybody, and not a single person tried to help.

He could have stopped if anybody in his family did anything but watch, but in that moment they didn’t. Of course it’s hard to stand up to an abuser, that’s only human, but not only did they leave Tenko to cry alone afterwards, they also created the atmosphere where Kotaro was constantly apologized for, and Tenko was constnatly blamed, which eventually led up to this.

Tenko is not a bad child, Tenko is five. The story repeats for Toya, I don’t think the adults around him realized what an amazing child Toya was. 

He’s just as hard working as any other kid at UA. Isn’t that the motto? Plus Ultra? Always put the effort in and be willing to break yourself to be the best. That’s what Bakugo is taught, that’s what Shoto is taught later on. They always have to be willing to push themselves to their limits and surpass it.

Yet, for doing what any other kid did, Toya is punished. It’s not his father’s fault, it’s Toya’s, because Toya just can’t give up. Literally nevermind his fact that Enji taught him to think this way, that literally every other kid his age is taught to push themselves to be a hero, no it’s just something wrong with Toya. Toya’s the one who won’t give up, and there’s nothing Enji can do to make him give up.

Let’s ignore the fact that Enji is also. you know, a liar. Having more kids to replace Toya isn’t for Toya’s sake, it’s for the sake of Enji’s dream. Enji doesn’t do what’s best for Toya’s welll being like ever, he gives up on Toya because Toya won’t surpass all might so it’s pointless, he continues making kids until he gets one with the quirk he wants, because, that’s what his goal is. Enji’s goal was never to have a family or be a father, it was to get an heir with an ideal quirk.

Yet, Enji is given the benefit of the doubt that he’s doing this for Toya’s sake, and Toya isn’t. Toya is just the proble child causing disruption in the household. It’s Toya who won’t give up on the training. 

Except once again, by seeing Toya as the bad child they’re missing out on what a good child Toya is. Look how hard he tries, look how he doesn’t give up, even when everyone around him tells him his dream is impossible he keeps on struggling agaist impossible odds. Is it wrong for a disabled person to want to run a marathon? Is it wrong for a person in a wheelchair to want to play basketball? Yes, Toya’s quirk may have gotten in the way of him being a hero, but there were ways Enji could have accomodated his disability, supervised him, taught him how to become a hero without hurting himself.

Except, Enji was never ever interested in any of those things. Enji didn’t care about Toya’s dream. Enji didn’t even care about Toya besides the fact that Toya could be made to carry his own dream.

Toya’s extremely hardworking, dedicated, and also intelligent as well. When he was a kid he was capable of comprehending that it was wrong of him to attack Shoto. He realized that in the household he was being abused. A thirteen year old was even capable of understanding that Enji SHOULDN’T be able to get away with what he’s doing. 

Like everyone goes on and on about what Toya says about his sister and his mother this chapter, but no one mentioned the fact that  Toya was right. Toya had the correct political take. An abuser should not be allowed to keep his job as a hero like this if he’s going to treat his family this way. Just like a hollywood producer who abuses women shouldn’t be allowed to keep their job if they’re using it to take advantage of others.

Toya confronts his mother for the fact that she’s failing him as a parent as well. That’s not Toya being misogynist towards Rei, he’s telling her the truth and holding her accountable. Yes, Rei is also a victim, but Toya is thirteen he doesn’t understand that. All he understands is that he’s being neglected by both parents. I mean, look at how Rei sees Toya. Look at how the scene is framed visually. This is Rei’s flashback of Toya it seems like.

She paints him like an incrediblly disturbed child.  As if Toya is the disturbance in the household. As if he’s the bad one. As if he’s the one causing the problem. As if, if he just gave up his dream of being a hero then everything would be better.

Ignoring the fact that, Toya would still be an abused child even if he didn’t react the way he did. If Toya was quiet. If Toya shut up. He’d still have grown up with zero parenting at all. Enji still would have gone on to abuse Shoto. Look at Toya’s reaction in his eyes. Look at the way his pupils shake. He’s being told that if he just gave up his dream of being a hero, the household will be happier, but he knows that’s not true. Toya knows the problem in the household is Enji. If Toya gave up  his dream of being a hero, he’d still be a deeply unhappy individual, he’d just be suffering more quietly. The household would still be an abusive one. Toya in the end, still won’t be parented properly, because, Rei and Enji don’t see Toya as a kid.

Literally all Enji had to do was lift up a finger. All he had to do was walk up to the mountain and talk to him, and he couldn’t even be bothered to do that. Toya was trying so hard to be good, to meet his parents standards, and yet he never would because his parents standards were impossible to meet in the first place. 

“Well, gosh I didn’t know what to say to him it would have been hard.” Yeah, I bet it was hard when he LITERALLY BURNED ALIVE. 

It’s not just the one incident of this though. Enji and Rei both frame it as an oopsie daisy. If only he had been stopped on that one day. And not like, the five continuous years of ignoring him that built up before that point. The fact that he was never really taught how to handle his emotions in a healthy way, because neither of his parents treated him as a child.

However, the narrative of the scapeogat and the good child still remains. Despite the fact that Toya and Tenko were children trying so hard to be good, and all they needed was someone to tell them that. 

When all they wanted was for people to see the good in their own actions, to see how much they were trying, struggling, to be good, because they are the scapegoat they will always be the villain of the family. 

I think it’s amazing that Toya is trying to be good even now. Toya, unlike Enji who only ever cared about the number one spot, is interested in creating a world where heroes are actually taken to task and treated as heroes. Shigaraki cares about people who were similiarly rejected to him, and offers them a helping hand. 

Shigaraki and Dabi are capable of so much good. They still care about the world. They’re still trying to create a world better to others than it was to them. Shigaraki’s goal even shifts from empty destruction, to just, I want to give a world to my allies where they can be free.

Instead of seeing them as victims, they divide victims into good and bad. Shoto is the hero of the family because look how good he turned out even though he went through the same thing Dabi did. 

Is Rei wrong for focusing first on stopping Dabi rom hurting innocent people rather than focusing on getting him the help he needs.

Well, you think Rei would know. That people who come from abusive households. People who are constantly abused. Can lash out and abuse completely innocent people. I’t almost like that’s exactly what she did to Shoto, blaming him and burning him instead for what Enji did.  And it’s almost like Rei didn’t start to improve until she received outside medical help. 

Heroes pretend to protect society, while turning a blind eye to those who they can’t save, who are most in need of their help. They blame bad victims, and uplift good victims to use an example against the bad victims, well why couldn’t Toya have turned out a good child like Shoto.

Man.

It’s almost like. Shoto didn’t burn to death. Because Enji couldn’t be bothered to walk up to a mountain. It’s like letting a child starve to death and then saying “Well, why didn’t this child learn how to cook?” 

They divide the good and the bad and throw the bad out. Well, isn’t it a tragedy that Toya became Dabi. Isn’t it just a tragedy that that child couldn’t be saved. It’s not the five years of neglect, it’s the one day on the mountain that was the turning point for that.

It looks like on the surface that Toya’s family is admitting what went wrong, but they’re really kind of not. Toya doesn’t need to be fought as a villain. Toya doesn’t ned to be stopped. Labeling bad victims as villains and putting them down with violence literally never helps, because that’s thementality that created them in the first place. It was Toya’s behavior that needed to be stopped, he was the thing in the Todoroki household, that made everything else go wrong. If only Toya had not died, then Enji wouldn’t have abused Shoto so hard EXCEPT WE ALREADY KNOW THAT WAS ENJI’S INTENTIONS ALL ALONG FROM THE START. If Toya had lived Enji would have kept on doing whatever he wanted with Shoto, because no one in that house was going to hold him accountable. 

Even now, Enji gets the unconditional support that Toya deserved as a child, that he needs now, just because he happens to be a hero. Certain people are labeled as heroes, certain people are labeled as villain. Good victims are saved and given the support they need, bad victims are violently put down. 

Even Natsuo says this, that he should have just told Toya to stop complaining about the family. 

But aren’t the things the villains saying you know right? That Enji should not be allowed to keep his job. That Enji abused his whole family. Wht would have been different if Natsuo and Toya had their talks? Toya would still be a severely abused child who carried that abuse into adulthood, but he wouldn’t be making a fuss about it? He wouldn’t be loud about it?

It’s suppression over recognizing the victim’s pain. It’s blaming the victims without looking at the cause. The Todoroki family set up Shoto as the hero responsible for saving the whole family because he is the good victim, and as a indirectly, they imply that Toya is the villain in need of stopping.

Once again I return to both the Todorokis and the Tenkos. By refusing to see the good in their children, to see that Tenko and Toya were just children who wanted and tred their best to be heroes and were unfairly punished for it, they ultimately suffocate both children. By labeling them as deviants who need to be stopped rather than victims who they abused, they just, keep suffocating them.

Which is why no matter how much Toya or Tenko may love their families, no matter how much they may sympathize and love their mothers, they still feel denied, suffocated by the whole family. Because their whole family fails to see their good intentions, fails to see who they are as children. They can’t see how much they genuinely wanted to be a hero, and they can’t see how much they were suffering as well, because they’re not good children they’ve alraedy been labeled as bad ones. 

That’s why they ask over and voer again, do you still want to be a hero?

When all they needed to be told was it was possible for them to be a hero. When that was all they needed to hear, they were rejected instead. That’s why they can’t go back either, because they know after all this time their family still doesn’t understand. They’ll be rejected all over again. 

And the scapegoat will remain a scapegoat forever. 

[iamnmbr3]

Some of the other Loki Series interviews have concerned me but this latest interview was the first one to legitimately upset me because not only did it disappoint me in terms of how they plan to handle the character, but some of what was said had really harmful real world implications. 

1) “Due to the trauma in Loki’s life, I would even [accept a story] in which he is committed to being all bad.”

Regardless of what you think of the show, saying that is not ok. Basically what he’s saying here is trauma makes you evil. Now, trauma absolutely can affect people deeply and can make them act in ways that are destructive to themselves or even to others and can make people lash out or behave in ways that may seem irrational or strange to those who haven’t been through trauma. But that doesn’t mean that trauma makes anyone evil. It just doesn’t. The idea that being a victim somehow “breaks” you or makes you “go bad” is an extremely harmful one that has been perpetuated in media and that Waldron continues to perpetuate here. He’s moved from blaming fictional victims to full-on victim blaming. Ironically, in the real world acts of evil are far more often carried out by people like Mobius, who Waldron is quick to praise. Mobius is not driven to desperation by trauma but is simply a smug bureaucrat who is complicit in furthering the aims of a deeply harmful organization and who seems to enjoy having power over others, feels perfectly entitled to behave in the way he does, and who apparently never questions his own world view. That’s a realistic villain. 

If you look around today or at history, that’s the kind of person and personality that is responsible for most actual villainy. It’s not the Lokis of the world. It’s the Mobiuses. And that’s something Mike Waldron utterly fails to understand. 

2) “He is on his own, so, he is forced to reflect in a way he hasn’t. He can no longer blame everything on Thor or Odin [Loki’s father]."

This quote is completely bizarre. Because Loki has had to fend for himself during most of his screen time. It’s an especially odd thing to say since this show picks up before TDW and whether or not you think Loki is a villain he is most definitely the main antagonist of Thor 2011 and Avengers, the movies this show is supposed to follow, and as the antagonist he is very much on his own since he’s in opposition to the other characters. Was he not on his own in Thor 2011 when he plotted in secret to delay Thor’s coronation and then discovered the truth of his heritage and told no one and then fought Thor in the end on the Bifrost? Was he not on his own when he fell and was captured and tortured by Thanos? Was he not on his own in Avengers 2012 when he had the Other’s claws in his mind and also battled the Avengers and Thor???

As for the second part of this quote. I don’t even know where to begin. Talk about victim blaming. Basically Waldron’s take on Loki’s character seems to be that he’s a whiny, spoiled crybaby who just unfairly blames all his problems on his father and brother and now for the first time he has to man up and take responsibility. This is utterly unreflective of canon, promotes harmful attitudes irl, and also is just plain boring. It’s not new. We’ve already had that story. Thor 2011 was supposed to be about Thor being irresponsible and rash and then learning to take responsibility for his actions. We’ve the same sort of trope many times before. We don’t need it here.

3) “Tom’s soulfulness, charm and honesty is evident in the character. So, even when Loki is being mean or deceitful, people see the goodness of Tom in the character.”

Huh??? Yes. Tom seems like a lovely person although of course I don’t know him, but that’s not why I like Loki. Waldron seems to be saying here that people who like Loki can’t distinguish between the actor and the character, and yet ironically he seems to be the one who has that problem. He’s saying that Loki’s only charm or goodness comes from the actor playing him, rather than anything about the character. It’s not because Tom and the writing portrayed Loki with vulnerability and sympathy. It’s not because Loki’s motivations were understandable or complex. It’s not because wanting to prevent a war or being devastated that your family lied to you are sympathetic. It’s not because Loki has ever done anything good. No. It’s just because Tom is nice. That’s a huge disservice to Tom’s acting by implying that his portrayal of Loki as sympathetic was not a conscious acting choice but rather his real personality showing through. It’s also a huge disservice to Loki’s character and to his fans. 

4) “Loki is an ass, and that makes my life as a writer, easy.”

*Sigh* Really? That’s all you have to say about this character? He’s an ass? No fanfic writer would dismiss him that way or describe him as easy to write. Maybe he seemed easy to write because you weren’t giving him any nuance or complexity. Loki has reasons for doing what he does. Often his actions are the product of many conflicting and contradictory impulses. If you reduce it to just “he’s being an ass” then not only is it out of character. It’s also boring. What a flat and uninteresting motivation. 

5) “Just like the shape-shifting character that Loki is, we wanted the show to be [unpredictable] as well”

I mean. Surprising plot twists are fine. But this sounds like Loki’s characterization will be all over the place and they’re trying to pass it off as a good thing. Also surprising the audience isn’t everything. I’d rather have a good plot and compelling character arcs than just something unpredictable. Otherwise you just get Rian Johnson’s Star Wars.... 

6) “Owen is amazing. His character is opposite to that of Loki. He calls him out, and knows when he’s lying. That enforces Loki to be more honest.”

Really?! Seriously??? Mobius literally works for an organization that murders and enslaves people and that specifically chose to create a timeline in which Nazism and the Snap happened. Also he has not said a single correct thing about Loki in the trailers thus far. This better be the show being “unpredictable” by presenting Mobius as a friend only for him to turn out to be a villain. Bc otherwise. WTF?!?! Also why does he say that Loki needs to be more honest. He’s not a habitual liar. When he tricks people it’s for a specific reason. That’s why his lies work. Because they’re unexpected. It’s like this show completely disregards the movie canon it’s supposed to follow on from. 

[hellsbellschime]

Why Jaime Lannister's GoT Ending Was Actually Bad

Nearly every aspect of the end of Game of Thrones earned ire from the majority of the show and book fandom, but one aspect of the show's conclusion that seems to have frustrated fans across the board was the ending for Jaime Lannister. More specifically, that after a seemingly solid and nearly complete redemption arc, he returned to Cersei and King's Landing to die in a manner that somewhat works as a metaphor but didn't resonate well with the audience at all. And, while Jaime's ending was a flop, it didn't fail for the reasons that many viewers seem to think that it did.

The Lannisters are obviously some of the most complex and important characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, but one of the most interesting aspects of their family dynamic is that it was established far before the contemporary storyline actually began. And, while Game of Thrones seemed to paint it as if Cersei was a source of toxicity that Tyrion and Jaime couldn't get out from under the thumb of, the truth is that the bad apple that spoiled the bunch was never Cersei, it was always Tywin.

One of the most meaningful and important themes of George RR Martin's work is the long-term effects that abuse has on children, and there isn't really any example that is more present and potent than the horrific effects that Tywin's abuse had on all of his children, and how it affected them in different ways.

Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion all have some of the most intriguing points of view in the entire story. And one aspect that all of their POVs seem to share in common is that while nearly everyone in their world perceives them as a villain, they all see themselves as victims. And the truth is, both sides of this coin are correct.

Yes, the Lannister children have done many horrific, irredeemable things in their lives, but they have also been the victims of extremely traumatic abuse that understandably altered their outlook on the world and on themselves in general. There is a balance between victim and perpetrator that needs to be struck with their characters, but one of Game of Thrones' bigger flaws was its inability to do that.

Unsurprisingly, nearly every character's book point of view grants themselves more sympathy than they should. Almost everyone sees themselves as a better person than they are or is capable of rationalizing away their bad deeds and focusing on their more positive decisions and personality traits. But this is of course one of the many ways in which George RR Martin utilizes his POV traps.

Translating a story that is told through the eyes of the characters themselves and filming it from a more objective third-person perspective means that plenty of important information is going to be lost in that translation. But one of the fatal flaws when it comes to the Lannisters is that, while Game of Thrones does still present Cersei as pretty forthrightly villainous, the narrative pretty drastically whitewashes Tyrion and Jaime. Essentially, it seems to take Tyrion and Jaime at their point-of-view word and treats them like they're much better people than they truly are. Thus, Jaime's ignominious end with the supposed biggest baddie of them all feels like a betrayal of his character development when it really shouldn't be.

Every character needs to be held responsible for their own choices, but the downfall of House Lannister really does rest in the hands of Tywin, and Game of Thrones ignoring that fact did a disservice to every one of the Lannister children in one way or another.

Yes, out of all of the Lannisters, Jaime was as close as Tywin could get to the golden child of his dreams, but it's easy to overlook that while Jaime may have been the favorite on the surface, every single one of Tywin's children was disgustingly mistreated, and the effects of his abuse all showed themselves in different malignant ways.

While Jaime may have gotten preferential treatment over his siblings, Tywin was never anything other than a terrible parent, and more importantly, Jaime's superior treatment only told him exactly how he could expect to be treated if he ever failed to live up to his father's high ideals. And of course, in many big and small ways, he did ultimately fail to live up to Tywin Lannister's exacting standards.

Tywin was a terrible parent because he was an abuser, but he also raised his children with his own values of pride, entitlement, and superiority. Obviously, the notion that they were simultaneously failures who had earned their own mistreatment but were also Lannisters who deserved to be above everyone else is opposing perspectives that are in constant conflict with one another, but it also seems to be how Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion see themselves as constant victims while still perennially victimizing others.

George RR Martin has repeatedly discussed that one of the strongest themes of his work is the idea of the human heart in conflict with itself. Game of Thrones lost the plot with this in nearly every character adaptation, but Jaime's was one of the worst, largely because he is a character who has done some of the most monstrous and most heroic things in the story. He is both the man who doesn't hesitate to murder a child and the man who stopped a king from slaughtering thousands, and therefore his inner conflict is extremely vital.

Jaime's character arc in Game of Thrones follows a classic redemption arc almost perfectly, but that clearly doesn't seem to be the intent behind the character in the books. Yes, there is a part of Jaime that wants to be redeemed, but he does often revert back to his more brutal and nihilistic side, and his desire for so-called redemption seems to be driven more by how he wants the world to see him rather than how he wants to be.

And in that sense, the show did him a great disservice. Because there are many ways in which Jaime hasn't healed from Tywin's abuse, but the fact that he still seeks the approval of others in a rather superficial manner rather than developing a deeper understanding of true honor and justice is one of the clearest indications that, while Jaime does want to get out of the path that his father laid out for him, he is still crippled by what Tywin told him being a Lannister meant. And ironically, Tywin's belief about what being a Lannister means has essentially trapped all of his children into trying and failing to live up to that example simply because they can't survive unless they do.

Because ultimately, it's not necessarily just about what Jaime, or Cersei, or Tyrion wants. At some point, every single one of them has made obvious indications that they don't want to be a part of the legacy that Tywin Lannister laid out for them. But, when Game of Thrones presented Tywin as a super-intelligent master strategist instead of a completely unnecessarily violent and aggressive asshole, it made all of the Lannister children's choices harder to understand.

Both in the A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones fandoms, Tywin is typically put up on a pedestal, and that's completely baffling. Many viewers and readers perceive him to be brilliant and badass, but everything that Tywin is famous for actually makes him seem like a complete moron upon further contemplation. Winning battles by absolutely obliterating your enemies is a terrible precedent to set for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that it essentially requires all of the Lannister children to maintain this scorched earth policy because Tywin's hyper-aggressive superiority complex has put them in a position where they almost always have to choose to kill or be killed.

And, his cruel and dishonorable behavior as well as Jaime's reputation as the Kingslayer essentially guarantees that even if Jaime completely changes as a person and becomes the hero he wants to be, he really can't ever become that in the society that he lives in simply because the stigma around the Lannisters is something he can't escape.

That is one of the great tragedies that Game of Thrones failed to articulate, and that is one of the biggest reasons why Jaime's character conclusion was so off-putting to the audience. Because the audience saw the result of where this character arc would naturally go, but the story never actually took the steps to get there. In fact, the show went out of its way to erase a lot of the obvious building blocks that are leading up to both Cersei and Jaime's demise that makes it clear that, while they're obviously responsible for their own choices and actions, the groundwork that Tywin's abuse and cruelty laid and set in stone was something that they couldn't control, prevent, or undo.

Game of Thrones largely presented Jaime's characterization with the implication that if he could only escape Cersei, he would be a good man. But the reality was, if only Tywin hadn't been his father, then all of his siblings would have been better people. They may not have been good, but they almost certainly wouldn't be the kingdom-destroying villains that they became.

I also think the TV series likely bungled his character in that his story is meant to be a subversion of the classic redemption arc rather than the straightforward bad guy to good guy story that Game of Thrones told. George RR Martin obviously doesn't like flawless characters, and nearly every person in A Song of Ice and Fire does good things and bad things all the time, they never go in a straight line from point A to point B. So, of course it was going to be incredibly jarring when the show did move Jaime in a straight line from point A to point B and then abruptly gave him an ending that is probably somewhat similar to his end in the books.

But with that in mind, for all of the faults in Game of Thrones and the way they handled Jaime's character arc, I don't really understand the idea that his character was ruined by his ending either. These characters are clearly designed to never be just one thing, and if Jaime killing King Aerys or trying to kill Bran doesn't singularly define his character, then going back to Cersei in the very end shouldn't either.

[palmett-hoes]

We Need To Talk About Kevin

excuse the silly title, but it’s time for another long character analysis, this time on a character who holds a complicated place in the fandom consciousness: kevin

like every other character in aftg, i have a lot of criticisms for the way that the fandom tends to characterize kevin, because i feel like it tends to reduce a very complicated character down into very binary terms, that of either anal-retentive comic relief or a perfect, underappreciated innocent, both of which ignore his important flaws and the nuance of his character arc throughout the trilogy

now this meta is probably going to sound very, very critical of kevin, as i am focusing on his flaws. but i want to be clear that i don’t hate kevin, i don’t even dislike him. in fact i far prefer the deeply “problematic” kevin from canon to the highly sanitized version in the fandom, just like i prefer my andrew violent and unethical, my neil rude and messy, and my upperclassmen ableist and permissibly homophobic

one thing i really LOVE about aftg is how hypocritical every character is, because it’s honest. they all stand for something but fall a little flat of it in practice. they all hold the people around them to standards they don’t hold themselves to

they’re not simple characters. they reflect their trauma in ways that are not pretty or harmless, and they even reflect wider societal flaws that may not be logical or justifiable.

just like i do.

just like you do.

just like real people do.

---

so with that all squared away: kevin

let’s start with this: what is the essence of kevin’s character? what does he stand for? what is he about? when you simplify him out into a single idea, what is he?

answers will vary, but for me, kevin is an analysis of the idea that you can have everything, you can be rich and famous and talented and immensely lucky on top of it all, and you can still be abused

neil repeats this idea over and over. how he’s jealous of kevin. how he resents kevin. how he wishes he were kevin. because kevin had everything and neil had nothing

remember this?

and this?

and this?

kevin the star. kevin the sensation. kevin the media darling.

lucky kevin, talented kevin, beloved kevin

and then neil gets a little bit closer and learns that that’s not the whole story. kevin was isolated, his worth tied to his performance, his whole personhood tied to exy. the perfect boy who was forbidden from being too perfect, who had to walk on eggshells so as not to incur the wrath of his brother and guardian

but at the same time that doesn’t totally erase everything he did have

i think the fandom focuses a lot on kevin’s inferiority complex from being assigned second best, and not nearly as much on the idea that kevin was SECOND BEST, above everyone else

the fact that kevin had power and sway in the nest makes us deeply uncomfortable, because it complicates kevin’s status as a victim, but it’s the truth. kevin was the third most powerful person in the nest, above dozens of ravens, and not even an owned person like jean

we should attempt to reckon with the fact that kevin was not a passive player in the ravens’ power structure, but someone who was actively involved and benefited from it. the ravens were his pawns, too. his subordinates, there to critique and punish as he saw fit. they weren’t his equals and he didn’t have to view them as fellow people

even if you choose not to believe that kevin took advantage of this power in the way riko did, you still have to accept that it very much shaped his perception and way of connecting with others, which is obvious in how he interacts with the foxes

so let’s talk about kevin and his superiority complex

kevin is arrogant, self-centered, and entitled

it’s not all he is. he has other, better qualities. he’s dedicated, passionate, and - in his own way - caring. that doesn’t ERASE his flaws however

kevin believes himself to be correct 100% of the time. he thinks that his methods and his opinions should work for everyone simply because they work for him, and he tries heavily to push them onto other people. andrew remarks that neil will drive himself crazy trying to do things the way kevin tells him to, because he is simply a different kind of player than kevin. kevin’s methodology will never work for neil no matter how hard he tries and will just end up holding himself back if he keeps trying

andrew notices this, not kevin, because kevin believes that neil is simply not trying hard enough to do things the “right” way.

neil.

who tries harder than anyone to live up to kevin’s standards

he’s worse with the rest of the foxes, who unlike neil do not accept his methods unquestionably and don’t do backflips to make him happy.

the foxes recognize that kevin is talented and could have valuable things to teach them. kevin however thinks that he should have absolute authority over their training because his methods are “superior.” he thinks the foxes fail because they don’t listen to him and conform their playing styles to him

kevin also only approaches the upperclassmen on the court, and even there only with criticism and derision. he has never made any attempt to befriend them or get to know them in any way. he doesn’t need a rapport with them, he’s entitled to their obedience simply because he’s Kevin Day, The Son of Exy, The Best And Most Talented Of Them All

i’ve also written meta before about the assumptions kevin makes in his relationship with andrew. they have a deal that kevin will give andrew something to live for after he graduates. kevin, being who he is, decides that this thing MUST and WILL be exy, no matter how directly or indirectly andrew tells him this isn’t what he wants.

yet kevin never considers an alternative. he never asks andrew what he might want or never attempts to find anything else for him. they spend nearly every second of every day within arms reach of each other, yet kevin has never taken a moment to pay attention to andrew’s interests or preferences, anything that makes him tick. they know almost nothing personal about each other because kevin doesn’t believe any of that matters in giving andrew a future that makes him want to live. no. if it works for kevin it must work for everyone else. if kevin wants it everyone else must want it too

kevin’s relationships often become exclusionary. first with andrew, which i’ve just discussed. then with neil, kevin continually vies for more and more of his time, without regard for his health or concern for any other part of his life. he leaves neil with minimal time for school, pushes their practices late into the night depriving him of sleep, and discourages his efforts to spend time and make connections with the upperclassmen

now if at any point while reading this you, reader, wanted to argue that these things are because of the nest and kevin’s raven indoctrination, yes, you’re absolutely right, they are. it’s abundantly clear where and how each of these qualities developed, but once again, that doesn’t mean they’re not present. in fact, the clear connection between kevin’s flaws and his trauma is a sign of good character writing, showing the multiple dimensions of how our environments and experiences shape us

kevin’s anxiety, his obsessiveness, and his fear all come from the nest, but so does his condescension, his self-involvement, and his overbearing nature.

kevin was raised in a cult, but he was also from the very highest level of it. he comes from immense privilege in terms of his wealth, his influence, his fame, and his access to resources. materially, kevin has wanted for very little in his life, and his entitlement is very prominent in his character. none of this cancels out the abuse he suffered, but it’s also something i very rarely see addressed outside of being hinted at vaguely in a jokingly dismissive manner.

in fact, i often see takes on kevin that fully deny he has these traits at all, and that annoys me. i don’t like to see these wonderfully round characters flattened out, and there’s a particular irritating irony out of changing or misinterpreting a character’s personality in order to make them more palatable or more sympathetic in a series about how even people traumatized in unsympathetic ways are still deserving of help and decency

so

kevin can be a little morally gray,, as a treat

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

Hallucination

Prompts: i love your fics insanity and real or not real!! can i request another fic where a side is struggling to tell what's real and what's a hallucination? can be in the same like universe (carrying on with one of the stories) or a completely different universe/person, idm - anon

 *crashes into ur asks*

Hey if you’re still taking requests could you do just Janus comforting someone on the verge of a meltdown? Like lots of soft words and caring Janus? He’s my comfort character and I love him - anon

Thanks for the prompt!

Read on Ao3 Part 1 (ish) 

Warnings: talk of hallucinations, uncertainty

Pairings: focus on creativitwins, intrulogical, dukeceit, background LAMP, DLAMP, DLAMPR, can be platonic or romantic, you decide

Word Count: 3864

Sometimes Thomas watches things and it isn’t Remus’s fault.

Sometimes Thomas decides to watch something late at night, when it’s dark outside, even though Virgil tells him it’s a bad idea, and it isn’t Remus’s fault.

 Sometimes when Virgil has gone to his room and he’s fine, but Thomas’s mind can’t stop playing it over and over and over and over, he starts to expand on it and it isn’t Remus’s fault.

 He can’t remember the name of the video. Something to do with being stuck on a misty island in the middle of nowhere with a monster and villagers that wait to sacrifice tourists to the monster to sate its hunger. Something about a daring rescue or an escape plan doomed to fail.

 Something like…

 “Do not go outside. Do not turn on the lights. Don’t make sounds.” The old man draws the curtains sharply across the window. “And whatever you do, do not look out the window.”

 It’s late now. Patton’s asleep. Virgil’s in his room, probably asleep. The rest of them are still awake in the Imagination. It’s slumber party night for the twins, having created a big sprawling mansion in the Imagination for them to run around in. Logan is here, Janus is here, Roman is here.

 Villagers?

 They’re talking about what Thomas watched.

 Logan straightens his legs out. “It’s not a bad practice, staying quiet.”

 Janus rolls his eyes. “Come on, what is this, some haunted island?”

 “You saw the people in the video.” Logan rests his weight on his elbows. “Something was amiss.”

 “The only thing amiss was how awfully boring you lot are being.” Janus sighs and stands, stretching. “Well, I think a night of entertainment sounds wonderful.”

 “The old man said to be quiet,” Roman points out. Wait, is the old man real?

 “Do you know how prone to flights of fancy old people are?” Janus smiles. “Incredibly.”

 “Hmm.”

 “Oh don’t start that.” Janus rolls his eyes and his gaze lands on Remus. A smirk crawls across his face. “Well,” he drawls, sauntering across the room, “someone’s being awfully quiet.”

 Remus just shrugs. Janus crouches down.

 “What do you think about this monster,” he asks, tapping his fingers on his chin, “about the thing that sneaks around this island, peering into windows, through the keyholes of locked doors?”

 “Janus,” Logan warns.

 “What? I just want to hear what our other little scientist thinks about this.” He raises his eyebrows when Remus won’t hold his gaze. “No? Nothing? Need more data? Well, I’m sure you could ask around if you wanted to.”

 “We’re not supposed to leave,” he says softly.

 “I know you’re a goody-two-shoes, Remus, but you’ll never get anything done that way.”

 “Leave him alone, Janus,” Roman says with a wink, “he’s just mad at how pathetic the monster design was.”

 Long limbs. Dark eyes. Moved like shadow.

 “And the Boy Scout, coming to the rescue.” Janus rolls his eyes as he stands. “Aren’t you tired of being so boring?”

 Roman holds his hands up. “Hey, I’m all for exploring!”

 Janus sighs. “Ever the dashing prince, are we?”

 “Ask nicely and I may sweep you off your feet too.”

 The banter continues. Logan just sighs and pulls out a journal, the pen emerging from god-knows-where as he writes. Remus swallows and glances toward the window.

 In. Out. In. Out.

 Roman and Janus are still tossing barbs and jests back and forth. Remus cannot help but notice how loud they are being.

 The old man said to be quiet.

 Logan looks up when he begins to crouch down and shuffle behind the bed.

 “What are you doing?”

 “Changing.” He gives a half-hearted smile. “Texture spoons ran out.”

 He nods and goes back to his writing. Remus glances at the nightstand. Only 8:00. The conversation gets progressively louder. Logan joins in eventually, rolling his eyes at Roman’s increasingly elaborate proposals to bring in jukeboxes, disco lights, and speakers.

 “Let’s think about this logically. If the ghosts or whatever the hell the monster is sensitive to sound, why not pump everything to like, 300 decibels and blast their eardrums out?”

 “Or it could be that they just hear things like we hear things,” Logan remarks.

 “Mm.”

 “Why do I have to be quiet?” Roman spreads his arms. “I should not have to deal with that!”

 “Actually, you know what,” Janus says gleefully, “I agree. We shouldn’t have to be quiet. If this place doesn’t have adequate monster protection, that’s on them.”

 This place…didn’t they make it safe? Roman said they made it safe. Is it not safe anymore? Are the shadows—is the monster here?

 “Always the entitlement,” Logan sighs, seemingly resigning himself to the voice of reason as he settles his journal to the side, “assuming that everyone should cater to your needs.”

 “Oh come on, Logan. You have to admit that having a hotel that isn’t secure makes little to no sense.”

 Hotel? Isn’t this still the mansion?

 The low buzz of an LED sign comes from outside. Remus blinks. Has…has that always been there?

 “Not respecting the rules of wherever you choose to go makes little to no sense.”

 “That’s gotta hold up in court though.” Roman glances at Janus. “You get me?”

 “Yes, Your Honor,” Janus says, drawing himself up like a lawyer, “I would like to sue on the grounds that my intestines were devoured horrifically by a terrifying, savage beast that the hotel owners neglected to inform me of. How am I standing here, you ask, if my intestines have been devoured? Simple. Spite.”

 Roman’s off, cackling to his heart’s content. Logan bites back his own smile.

 “And how, may I ask, is this not the fault of yourself?”

 “May I say, Your Honor, that victim-blaming is not cute—“

 “Here here,” comes Roman’s voice.

 “—and also, the information about aforementioned monster came from someone who was not an employee of the hotel,” Janus finishes grandly, “therefore they can suck my—“

 Logan hits his hand against the nightstand, still fighting down laughter. “Defendant is charged with contempt of court.”

 “Do not pass go,” Roman chortles as Janus swoons dramatically, “do not collect 200 dollars.”

 “Remus,” Janus cries out, “avenge me!”

 Remus does not respond. He is too busy trying to figure out when the mansion became the hotel.

 “Remus,” Janus cries again, crawling dramatically across the floor, “save me from this indignity.”

 “No, thank you,” he mumbles instead.

 Janus huffs, pushing himself off the floor. “Then by all means, please tell us your ingenious solution to this monster problem that we find ourselves in.”

 Remus looks up, his face carefully blank except for a small smile. “I’m going to hide underneath the sheets,” he says in a soft, small voice, “because everybody knows monsters can’t get you when you’re under your sheets.”

 “That is adorable,” Roman chuckles.

 Janus’s eyebrows raise slowly until another fiendish smirk crawls across his face. “Are you scared?”

 “Yes.”

 “Aww,” he coos, “hiding under the sheets to get away from the monsters, how adorable.”

 Remus doesn’t respond.

 “If only the others could see you now,” Janus crows, “they’d know how intimidating you really are.”

 Logan takes his glasses off, polishing them with the handkerchief from his pocket. “As if you’re any better, crying over a torn seam in your cape.”

 “That bastard took two weeks to get right!”

 Remus ignores them once more, glancing at the clock. 9:45. An acceptable time to try and go to sleep. He moves slowly and quietly as he tries to get into the bed. The monster could be here. The banter continues behind him as he pulls the sheets tight around him.

 He does not see Logan glance over. He does not see that Logan frowns and glances at the clock, thinking perhaps Remus is more tired than he appeared, but…still. He does not see Logan look back at the others still talking, they’re probably not going to go to sleep for a long while.

 He does not see Logan look over at him as Janus leaves the room, claiming he’s going to go find somewhere more fun to sleep. He does not see Logan frown, looking to see Remus still on his side, huddled under the sheets. He does not see when Logan starts to count.

 One, two, three, four.

 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

 He does not see Logan beckon Roman closer.

 He does not see Roman frown as he comes closer, sighing at the notebook in Logan’s hands.

 “Logan, why the hell can’t you take a break for…” he trails off when he sees Logan’s face. “What?”

 “Perhaps I like to keep myself occupied,” Logan says smoothly, even as he nods insistently to the notebook, “even in times where the circumstances might be less than ideal.”

 Roman raises an eyebrow. Subtle, Logan.

 “You are chronically incapable of taking a break, aren’t you?”

 “Perhaps.”

 “Do you know any words other than ‘perhaps?’”

 “Perhaps.”

 Roman hides a smirk as squints at the text.

 I think Remus is actually afraid. Don’t tease. - L

 Remus does hear Roman exhale sharply. He does not see him glance up at the bed before he looks back at Logan and nods.

 “Well,” he sighs, stretching and yawning exaggeratedly, “on that note, it’s probably a good idea to try and sleep.”

 Logan snorts. “And here I thought you were supposed to be an actor.”

 He swats at him halfheartedly as he starts getting ready to go to sleep. What that means is just a matter of snapping his fingers to change out of the prince costume. He packs his other clothes away and crosses the room, keeping his footsteps loud but not too loud.

 Now that he’s paying attention, he can see how scared poor Remus is. He’s frozen under the sheets, barely moving. As Logan starts talking quietly to himself, he sets his bag down next to Remus’s and sighs, moving around to make a bit more noise.

 Remus still doesn’t move.

 When he’s made all the noise he can reasonably make, he walks a little closer to the bed and reaches to fix the curtains, unable to stop the soft noise when his shadow falls over the bed.

 “Hey, Re,” he whispers, leaning down and brushing the sheet a little further from his face, “it’s just me, it’s just Roman. Can you open your eyes for me?”

 It takes him a moment but his eyes do open. He smiles down at him and cups his face for a moment.

 “Hey, there, Re,” he murmurs, “can I come join you?”

 He barely nods.

 “Thank you.” He frowns when he doesn’t move over. “You gonna let me in?”

 He can tell by the way his eyes glass over that’s not a good idea unless he can convince him otherwise.

 “Come on,” he whispers again, “scoot to the other side for me.” He nudges his shoulder gently. “Logan misses you.”

 Loren doesn’t let his mumuring falter but he does reach across the small space between their beds to lightly pat the side closest to him.

 Remus moves, as skittish as the new dragon pups, clutching the blanket tightly to his chest, his pillow gripped in his other hand. Roman swiftly takes the warm spot he’s vacated, wincing in sympathy as he shivers on the cold sheets.

 “Thank you,” he sighs, making a show of getting comfortable before reaching out for him, smacking his lips together in sleep, “now come here.”

 At his quickly stifled questioning noise, he drops the act and opens his arm wide.

 “It’s okay, Re,” he whispers, far too quiet for Logan to hear, “I’m not gonna hurt you, it’s okay.”

 He stares at him a moment longer before he realizes that shit, he’s not going to be able to move on his own right now.

 “Can I come get you, Re?” Roman smiles when he gives him another one of those jerky nods. “Thank you, I’m gonna pull you over to me, okay?”

 He takes him into his arms slowly and carefully, wrapping him up in the sheets until just the very tops of their heads poke out. He relaxes just enough so that he can maneuver him to where he likes, but he’s far from the sleepy pile he expected.

 “Hey,” he whispers, tucking his hair behind his ear, “you want to stay here with me, Re?”

 He blinks sluggishly. Roman bites back a curse and leans down to rub his nose against his.

 “Hey, hey, Re, you just focus on me, okay? Stay with me here—“ he tightens his grip— “right here…I’ve got you.”

 He frowns when he makes a small little noise that sounds like it could be his name.

 “Yeah, Re? You calling for me?”

 He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. He kisses Remus’s forehead.

 “Nonverbal,” he whispers, “or just scared? Or both?”

 A moment passes.

 “Both it is then.” Roman tucks his head under his chin. “Why don’t you go ahead and close your eyes, Re, I’m right here.”

 They stay there, wrapped in the blankets, Remus warm and snug up against Roman’s chest. He plays with his hair, one of his legs slung over his to hold him close, working to lull him out of his frozen state. After a while, Logan stands from the other side of the room and pats Roman’s shoulder.

 “Your turn, Roman.”

 Roman rolls over. “Huh?”

 Logan nods his head toward the bathroom. “Shower.”

 Roman sighs dramatically and presses another kiss to Remus’s forehead, leaving his brother dazed, blinking up at Logan. Logan watches Roman leave before he turns his gaze downwards. Remus tries to pretend the shiver that goes through him at the way Logan softens his gaze is just the cold.

 “Remus,” he calls softly, voice barely louder than a whisper, “Remus, may I join you?”

 A pause.

 “Tap the bed twice if yes, once if no.”

 A pause, then Remus hesitantly reaches out to make two little taps.

 “Thank you.”

 He slides smoothly into the bed, reaching out to carefully slip an arm under his and pull him off of the sweat-soaked sheets—when did that happen?—and into his arms. Remus moves pliantly, tucking his chin into the space left between his chin and the pillow.

 “Hey,” he whispers, gentling his voice as he tucks his head closer to Remus’s, “hey.”

 Logan is warm. Is Logan—Logan said it made sense to be quiet. Logan knows. Logan understands. Logan always understands.

 “What’s the matter,” Logan calls gently, “can I help?”

 Remus swallows. “Monster.”

 “Are you afraid of the monster, Remus?”

 Remus nods. “Black eyes. Shadow. Kill you and Roman and Janus and then go find Patton and Virgil and Thomas. Bad.”

 “The monster isn’t real, Remus,” Logan says softly, running his hand through his hair, “it doesn’t exist.”

 Remus shakes his head. “We’re in the hotel on the island. It’s real. Roman left and the monster will kill him.”

 “Roman is just in the bathroom,” Logan corrects, moving his head to indicate the running water sound, “he’s alright. We’re not in a hotel, we’re in the mansion you two created.”

 “But the LED sign is buzzing outside.”

 “Would you like to look and see?”

 “No!” Remus wraps his arms tightly around Logan’s waist. “We’re not supposed to look out the window, the old man said not to.”

 “The old man isn’t here,” Logan says patiently, “I’m here. I have you. I’ll keep you safe.”

 “He said—he—he’s not real?”

 “No, Remus, he’s not real.” Logan gives him a gentle squeeze. “This is real. This is real, Remus, I’ve got you.”

 “You’re real.”

 “I am.”

 “You said it’s safe to look out the window?”

 “It is.” Logan squeezes again. “Would you like me to show you?”

 Remus nods. Logan leans up and pulls back the curtain, peeking outside. There’s no bright red light from the hotel LED sign. Just soft moonlight.

 “There’s no sign, Remus,” he murmurs, “you’re not in a hotel.”

 Oh.

 “The scar,” he blurts, his hand flying to his chest, “from the stab, what if it’s already got us?”

 “I don’t have a scar,” Logan says, lying back down and taking Remus’s hand, “here…feel.”

 Logan presses his palm to his bare chest, pulling his shirt out of the way so Remus can see. There’s no scar.

 “You don’t have one either…may I?”

 When he presses his palms against Remus’s chest, there’s no scar.

 “We’re…not there?”

 “No, Remus, we’re not there,” Logan says gently, “we’re here, in the mansion, safe, there’s no monster.”

 The water stops. A moment later and Roman emerges, tossing a towel over his shoulder. He sees the two of them in the bed and pouts.

 “You stole my spot!”

 “I had Remus to comfort,” Logan says smoothly, waving him over, “though you are welcome to help.”

 Roman ruffles Remus’s hair. Remus leans into it.

 “Ro, are you real?”

 “Yes, of course, I’m real, Re, what…” Roman trails off and his eyes go wide. “Oh, Re, did we—did I push you into hallucination territory? I’m so sorry, yes, we’re real, we’re here, we’re in our mansion, we’re safe, Re.”

 “Safe?”

 “Yeah, Re,” Roman murmurs, getting in to cuddle his brother properly, “we’re safe.”

 “Real?”

 “This is real.”

 Remus buries his nose in his brother’s real neck and holds him close. Logan stays by his side, stroking his hair and murmuring that Remus is here, they’re real, they’re safe.

 After a moment, Remus takes a deep breath and pulls apart.

 “You know the rules, Ro-Bro.”

 Roman grimaces, his head dropping to rest against Remus’s sternum for a moment before he nods. Logan looks back and forth between the two of them.

 “What are the rules?”

 “When Remus gets pushed into hallucination territory,” Roman says softly, “he sleeps alone.”

 Logan frowns. “But surely it would help to have us reassure you and help ground you?”

 “Wouldn’t help for the intrusive thoughts and hallucinations to include you too.”

 Logan winces. “I suppose not, but—“

 “Lolo we’ve tried,” Remus mumbles, “we—this works. It sucks and I hate it and so does Ro but this is what works.”

 “I trust you,” Logan says, squeezing Remus’s hand, “and I trust you to know what works for you.”

 “We’re just overprotective.”

 “I’ll say.”

 Roman gives him one last hug before standing and pulling Logan to his feet. “You know we’ll come as soon as you call.”

 Remus nods. “I know.”

 The room feels empty when they leave.

 The night passes.

 During the witching hour, he startles awake.

 The sheets are soaked in sweat directly under him. His eyes are wide. His breathing is too controlled.

 The monster is not here but the shadows are.

 Somewhere in this house, he knows, something is here. He can hear the voice in the movement of the curtains, hear the step in the way the floorboard settles. Hands never meet his tender flesh, a mouth never bites his fragile throat, but something is here.

 Step. Step. Step.

 The fear clouds his eyes as it drips into his ears. The light flickers. Something brushes a knuckle up and over his cheek. Something pauses outside his doorway.

 Through the depths of the fear filling his ears, something knocks.

 The chill rips its fingers out of his mouth and smears them over his throat. Something knocks again. There’s something outside. There’s something outside.

 “Sweetie,” he calls as he opens the door, “Sweetie?”

 Janus steps inside.

 “You’re awake,” he says, shutting the door and sitting on the edge of the bed, “it’s quite late.”

 “I know,” Remus says as he sits up, wary, “sorry.”

 Janus hums, reaching out to idly brush his hair off his forehead. The chill curls and lingers around his fingers, the shadows diving to hide in the lea of him, greedily drinking the fear from Remus. Janus goes to pull his hand away only to notice the prickles on Remus’s skin.

 “Are you cold, my dear?” He frowns and lightly dusts his forearm with his fingertips. “You look it.”

 Remus shakes his head. Janus raises an eyebrow, pressing his thumb hard against his arm to reveal a white imprint. It takes long seconds for the chill to let blood color the flesh again.

 “Let’s not lie,” he murmurs, his gaze flicking back up to catch Remus’s, “shall we, sweetie?”

 Janus reaches up to trace the air around the curve of his cheek, one finger lightly tracing his jaw. The electrifying tingle clenches his hands in the sheet. He tilts his head and hums softly.

 “What’s keeping you awake, sweetie?”

 The chill snarls, refusing to let go of his throat.

 “You can speak,” he encourages, lightly knuckling the underside of his chin, “it’s alright.”

 “I’m sorry.” He shakes his head a little.

 “None of that, now, you’ve done nothing wrong.” He closes his hand around his. “To be afraid is nothing to be ashamed of, sweetie, you know that.”

 The shadows move slowly, wary of him, eager to taste his fear. The chill huddles around it, icing it in place, refusing to let him breathe without reaching its fingers into the pit of his throat.

 “Oh, my dear,” Janus murmurs, running his fingers along the side of Remus’s neck, “can I do anything for you?”

 He shakes his head quickly. Too quickly.

 “Sweetie…”

 “You’ll be annoyed.”

 “I’m concerned,” Janus corrects gently, “that’s all.”

 Remus risks a glance at the shadows.

 “And you know, Remus,” he continues, lifting his hand to press a chaste kiss to its back, “taking care of you is never annoying.”

 A different type of fear tingles along his fingers as they brush the curve of his jaw. This one reaches deep, deep along his fingers, up his arm, down to the curve of his shoulder, wriggling in between the cold knots to pulse against him. The shadows bloom in the corners of the room, shying away from the light flickering over his face, his shirt, his hand.

 Through the mouthful of fear, his tongue wets his lips. “You’ll find it stupid.”

 “Never, sweetie.”

 “The dark,” blurts shamefully from his mouth, “I’m afraid of the dark.”

 “The dark, sweetie? Is this about…”

 “I got pushed into hallucination territory earlier.”

 Janus makes a noise of sympathy, murmuring an apology for teasing earlier.

 “I can’t see anything but the shadows,” Remus whispers, squeezing his eyes shut, “and the noises, and how empty it is because I know it’s not empty.”

 “And what helps this go away,” he asks, still cupping his hand, “what makes the shadows leave my sweetie alone?”

 “S-stay? Please, with—with me?” Remus’s breath starts to catch again. “Don’t—don’t let them hurt me.”

 “Oh, sweetie, of course,” Janus murmurs, “of course I’ll stay.”

 The poor thing chokes out a sob. Janus reaches forward to lie him back down when his hand brushes the edge of the sheet. He frowns. Picking the sheet up between two fingers, he winces. He can feel his fingertips rubbing together, it’s barely warm enough.

 Remus’s breath still hasn’t caught when he returns with a thick quilt, spreading it over him to banish the last of the chill.

 “Hush now,” he soothes, smoothing the corners of the quilt, “hush, sweetie, it’s over, you did so well, shh…”

 Janus climbs into bed, pulling the shaking Remus to his chest, his arms wrapping tightly, tightly around the poor thing as he cradles Remus protectively.

 “Come here, my sweet,” he whispers, “come here, now, shh, shh, you’re alright now, sweetie, shh, shh…”

 His cries soften, gentled into mewls against his chest as he warms him against his skin. The poor thing is still clenched tighter than a fist. He croons, taking his wrist in his hand and pulling him flush against him.

 “It’s alright, sweetie, you did so well, it’s gone now, you did it, there you are, here you are, right here, sweetie.”

 The poor thing whines.

 “Oh, sweet one, shh, shh, shh, my dear, you’re alright…” He makes a noise of sympathy when he doesn’t stop. “What’s the matter, sweetie, tell me, say it, come now…”

 He brings his hand up to stroke gently under Remus’s chin.

 “Say it, sweetie, tell me what’s troubling you so, let me help, I’m right here, I’m right here.”

 “The shadows,” he whimpers, “the shadows, I can—I can hear them, they—they’re everywhere—I—they’re looking at me, they’re touching me, I can—I can feel them—I—“

 “I’ve got you, sweetie,” Janus murmurs, pressing a kiss to Remus’s cheek, “I’m right here, nothing can touch you, here—“

 He pulls the blankets up and over their heads, creating a little bubble of intimacy in the dark room.

 “I’m here, sweetie, it’s just me, I won’t hurt you, you know I won’t. Shh, shh, hush now, sweetie, it’s alright.”

 They stay like that for a little longer, Remus sobbing out the rest of the fear as Janus hushes him softly, pulls him close, soothes away the last of the tremors with gentle hands and tender words.

 After a while, Remus pulls away.

 “…thanks, Jan.”

 “I promised,” Janus murmurs, “I promised that I’d do it when you need me to.”

 “I know.” Remus sniffles. “I just…wish you didn’t have to.”

 “Don’t ever feel bad about needing something,” Janus chides softly, chucking him lightly under the chin, “especially not when you really need it.”

 “Already sent Lolo and Ro away for hallucinations, you—“

 “They’re fine, sweetie, a little worried, but they came and told me what was happening.” Janus kisses his forehead again. “They’re not angry, they don’t begrudge you needing things, and they’ll be here for you. They always are.”

 “I know.”

 Exhaustion begins to seep into his eyes. He blinks sluggishly.

 “This is real, right?”

 Janus gives him a squeeze. “It’s real.”

 “Can I sleep now?”

 “Oh, of course, sweetie,” he murmurs, leaning back up to rest his head on the pillow next to Remus, “you go right ahead. I’ll be right here. I’ll keep the shadows away.”

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[bring-it-all-down]

I’d like to talk about something that I think is central to Black Sails but often gets glossed over in discussions of Silver: his relationship with the systemic violence of empire.

One thing the show does particularly well is demonstrating the ways in which the violence of empire manifests itself both within England and in England’s colonies. We see this with just about all of the main characters, and this encounter with violence informs their subsequent relationships with imperial England. While Silver’s disability would surely result in his marginalization, his encounter with marginalization differs to that of every other character.

James encounters this violence in England in the form of Alfred imprisoning Thomas and the combination of Alfred and Admiral Hennessy banishing him from the country, in light of which he chooses to become a pirate. Jack falls victim to capitalism when his family’s tailoring business is forced to close, plunging his father into alcoholism and death, and holding Jack, a child, responsible for his father’s debts. Jack then becomes a pirate as a means of escaping indentured servitude. Billy, too, becomes a pirate as a means of escaping indentured servitude (and the violence he commits as a result––killing his enslaver––that would have seen him punished had he returned to England). Likewise, Vane turns to piracy after escaping from his enslavers (though it’s unclear how Vane became enslaved to begin with). Finally, we learn that Anne becomes a pirate after Jack murdered her abusive husband to whom she was married at the age of 13. For all of these people, piracy offered freedom from violence and oppression meted out by England.

We rather deliberately never learn about SIlver’s backstory, and for purposes of this post, I’m going to avoid theorizing about it and stick to what the show tells us about him. We first meet him when he’s aboard a merchant ship that Flint’s crew attacks. Out of self-preservation to avoid being killed by the crew, he fashions a lie, killing the cook and assuming his place, in order to join the Walrus. Thus, the first act of violence he encounters and commits is a result of pirates, not England. He becomes disabled as a result of Vane’s crew, not England. His only encounter with somebody mocking his disability is when Dufresne calls him “half a man” and an “invalid” (3.07). Finally, he tells Madi that he must look strong, not for England, but because he cannot allow his fellow pirates to see him as weak. All of Silver’s encounters with violence and marginalization occur with his fellow pirates, not with any stand-in for English colonialism/empire.

At this point, I’d like to compare Silver to Miranda, as they were the two people depicted to know James the best (as Thomas never knew Captain Flint) and were the two to try and convince him to give up his fight against England. When we first meet Miranda, she is desperate to return to civilization, telling James, “there is no life here” in Nassau, but they could have “a life in Boston...There is joy there and music and peace” (1.07). Her conception of civilization differs from James’ because she was never its direct target. Though she was a woman and was aware of the danger James and Thomas were in, her class privilege insulated her from experiencing England’s violence.

This all changes for her when she and James finally make it to Charlestown and she learns of Peter Ashe’s betrayal. This realization finally spurs her to understand the systemic nature of England’s colonial violence and the reality that she and James could never re-assimilate. Her final conversation with Peter here is crucial to understanding her newfound conception of colonialism: 

Miranda: All these years it never sat right with me how Alfred was able to turn the navy against James. He was far too admired by his superiors for his career to be dashed solely on hearsay. Alfred would have known that. He wouldn't have gone to them armed only with unfounded suspicions. He would have needed a witness, someone who knew Thomas and James well enough to give the accusation credibility. Alfred came to you, didn't he? Asked you to betray Thomas in exchange for which he'd see you made a king in the New World.

Peter: Perhaps this is an opportunity for us all to find a little forgiveness.

Miranda: Forgiveness? What forgiveness are you entitled to while you stand back in the shadows pushing James out in front of the world to be laid bear for the sake of the truth? Tell me, sir, when does the truth about your sins come to light?

Peter: You know nothing of my sins. Were you there when Alfred Hamilton threatened my family's standing, my daughter's future if I failed to cooperate? Were you there when I visited Thomas at the hospital to confess my sins and heard him offer his full and true forgiveness? He knew I had no choice in the matter.

Miranda: No choice?

Peter: A hard choice. Made under great duress, but with the intent to achieve the least awful outcome. You wish to return to civilization. That is what civilization is. I am so very sorry for what you have suffered and for any part I may have played in it. Please believe that. But at this point, the most important thing is what comes next, what we make of this.

Miranda: You destroyed our lives!

Peter: Miranda.

Miranda: You caused our exile!

Peter: I am sorry for what I did.

Miranda: Thomas died in a cold, dark place...

Peter: I am trying to help you. What more do you want from me?

Miranda: What do I want? I want to see this whole goddamn city, this city that you purchased with our misery, burn. I want to see you hanged on the very gallows you've used to hang men for crimes far slighter than this. I want to see that noose around your neck and I want to pull the fucking lever with my own two hands! (2.09)

Through this conversation, Miranda receives confirmation of Peter’s betrayal, and more importantly, that this betrayal is central to the existence of civilization. It’s how people like Alfred Hamilton retain power in England and how people like Peter Ashe obtain power over England’s colonies. In other words, the entire colonial project is one of betrayal, of exchanging lives for power, of the oppressor doing anything and everything to retain that power. When Miranda finally realizes how deeply personal and all-encompassing colonial violence is and reacts with righteous anger, she is murdered. Even voicing the desire to execute some aspect of justice is enough for the empire to silence her forever.

Silver, on the other hand, has no such encounter. All he knows of England’s systemic cruelty is what James and Madi describe to him second-hand. Thus, the war for liberation from empire is never his war, only Flint’s war and Madi’s war that Flint draws her into. In his final conversation with James, he tells him, “this isn’t about England,” calling the war “a fucking nightmare”, “your nightmare” (4.10). The “darkness” which he continuously ascribes to James is one born of a desire to do violence for the sake of violence. Because he has no personal experience with systemic violence, he doesn’t conceive of the war as a means to an end, but rather an end in itself; for Silver, the violence––specifically the violence of Flint, of pirates, of himself––is the point. 

The show’s thesis that the fight for liberation is a deeply personal fight is one that Silver dodges. Unlike James, Vane, Jack, Billy, Anne, Max, and Madi, violence enters Silver’s life as a result of piracy, specifically as a result of meeting Flint, and thus he believes that separating himself from Flint will end that violence. At the end of it all, every other character understands that the “freedom” they won is temporary and can be potentially revoked at any time, but Silver understands it to be more permanent. He tells Madi that in ending the war, he returned James “to the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes”, ensuring her that he is “not the villain you fear I am. I’m not him” and that he will wait “forever” for her to come to this realization (4.10). His experiences with violence prevent him from understanding something that every other main character understands: that Flint was a reaction to violence and not the sole cause of it.

[keister-meister]

What annoys me the most about the "sNaPe wAs an iNcEL hOw dAre yOu sTaN an iNcEL" kind of posts is the assumption that the "Snape is an incel" is the correct, and the only correct, reading of the text. That the conclusion everybody should come to after reading the books is that Severus Snape is nothing more than a gross, creepy misogynist who sees women as objects to possess and control and whose bitterness and negative outlook on life stems from the inability to "get" a woman for himself. (And this is not even taking into account the fact that the issues of real-life incels are much more complicated than this.)

You're obviously entitled to your personal feelings of a character, but I'm encouraging you to consider how much of your reading of a character is influenced by personal bias and experiences, which are not universal – and how much of it is based on what is explicitly written in the text.

Before going on another "I don't get how everyone doesn't hate Snape, he's just a disgusting incel" -tirade, maybe consider that many people have read the books just like you, yet somehow... they do not see Snape as an incel.

It's not that they are ignorant and uninformed about incels and toxic masculinity and in need of being lectured and educated by a more enlightened individual such as yourself.

It's most definitely not that they are incel apologists who condone and support misogyny, or god forbid sympathize with the idea that poor little unfuckable men like Snape deserve to be supplied with sex slaves by the government in order to feel good about themselves.

No.

It's simply because the evidence of Snape being an incel does not exist in the books.

I recently read a book that had the first character I've ever come across who can be read as a contemporary incel based on what is expressed in the text. I'm bringing this up because this character was in many ways very similar to Snape (even up to the physical characteristics) and initially reminded me of him a lot, but what stood out to me was that he was actually, genuinely written as a misogynist and a misanthrope, consumed by the self-pitying, society-blaming victim complex that is the incel calling card. He is practically an unemployable man and a chronic moocher, abandoned by his family for his absolute refusal to take responsibility for himself. He regularly goes on blackpill-esque rants about the Strong Men™ in the Stone Age and what he (or society/nature, according to him) considers to be the rightful "place" of each sex, despite himself being the antithesis to those very ideals. He thinks himself above everything and everyone, rejects seemingly all opportunities for even just a bit of normal engagement in society because he feels entitled to better things than he is offered, and then he blames society for ostracizing him. He has love for nobody, the least of all himself. He is genuinely an abhorrent person who unashamedly and openly expresses sexist and defeatist views of the world and humanity – an unresolvable self-loathing mess beyond all help, yet I can't help pitying him for this reason.

And thinking back at this book, it becomes even more starkly obvious to me how none of this is present in Snape's story. How Snape absolutely fails to compare when measured against an actual incel-type character – in a good way.

Snape exhibits many characteristics that are common in members of the incel community – social isolation, a negative outlook on the world, depression, self-loathing, a victim complex or a feeling of being persecuted, a tendency to blame others, feelings of helplessness, bitterness, spitefulness, lack of self-care, obsessiveness, idealization of loved ones, poor social skills, revenge fantasies... the list goes on and on.

Yet there are many other people and even groups of people, who exhibit those same characteristics but are not incels. If anything, these traits are pretty common in different kinds of social outcasts and people with adverse life experiences – and in no way enough to identify someone as an incel.

Looking strictly at what is actually written in the books, do you see Snape express even one single view that is specific to the incel ideology?

Do you ever see Snape supporting male supremacy, or enforcing strict, oppressive gender roles? Do you ever see him express sexist bias that is not in line with the author's own? Do you see him expressing entitlement for what he does not have (and it's important to differentiate desire and entitlement – entitlement implies the feeling of being owed)? Do you see any proof of him believing that a woman's place is to service him? That women should not be allowed to have their own thoughts, feelings and ambitions but be forced to solely live for the pleasure and affirmation of men? For all you accuse him of moaning and whining about being single and not getting to have sex with Lily, do you actually ever see him do that in the text?

Or could it possibly be that you are simply imagining things that aren't there?

For once, I feel like urging everyone to put Harry Potter down for a moment and read another book – and preferably seek out those with an actual portrayal of an incel/misogynist. Might give you some new perspective – and if not, then at least a new fictional scapegoat to vent about.

[autisticandroids]

hi<33 i was just having a conversation with my mom about this djdjdj but do you think guilt is more of a dean, cas, or sam thing? or at least..hm like how does jt differ with them?

i know guilt is a significant aspect of sam's character but it's not the aspect that i'm interested in because i don't really like how it's handled, so like. i won't speak on sam much. essentially i think there's a point in the show where sam kind of gives up, and part of that includes like freeing himself from guilt. which is actually like... kind of healthy? even if it's also a problem because it frees him up to keep doing horrible things. like after season seven he just gives up in a lot of aspects of his life. and like part of the reason he CAN give up is because he feels purified by being tortured in hell. and obviously there are times when he's brought back from having given up and feels guilty again (dean spends all of s8 manipulating sam into feeling guilty; after amara is freed sam channels his guilt into pacifism for a hot minute before immediately giving up again). but he usually gives up again rather quickly.

i think guilt is a controlling influence in both dean and cas' lives, but in different ways. in both cases i think that most of the guilt they feel is undeserved, though this is more true with dean than with cas. i think dean frequently does awful things, but the worst things he does are often things he feels completely justified in doing and sees no problem with. however, he is plagued by obsessive guilt and self-blame about things that are unreasonable and beyond his control. like, whenever anything bad happens to anyone around him, dean will blame himself because he holds himself responsible as like. shepherd of those he loves. like he feels responsible both for their safety and for keeping them on the straight and narrow. and if he fails to take care of them in those ways then that's his fault, that was him slipping, and he feels guilty about it. whereas if he harms someone for what he sees as their own good, or hurts/kills someone he sees as a monster, then he either feels no guilt or like. sometimes he feels it but kind of represses it. the other thing about dean is that when he feels guilt, he tends to turn it into self-hatred. like, he sees himself as unchangeably rotten, so when he does something that he feels guilty about, instead of inducing him to try to atone or change his behavior, it induces him to hate himself more. like he doesn't see these things as like. bad actions with victims. he only sees them as actions which reveal the fundamental flaws of his character. that's why "wearing gay little socks" and "hurting someone" are the same kind of crime to him: he is failing to Act As A Man Would, or failing to Act As A Good Person Would, but like. for dean it's all virtue ethics. and it's also like. it's indications of his unchangeable rotten nature, rather than something he could work on.

and then cas like. okay the sources of his Bad Actions, like, the things he feels guilty about, are threefold: genuine mistakes because of poor decision making, good decisions which had unforeseeable bad consequences, and divided loyalties. (early in his time on the show, he also frequently does bad things because he is emotional, but he never really seems to feel guilty about that, and he also just becomes less hotheaded because he becomes less entitled after godstiel arc, and anger is an emotion that you must have some level of entitlement to feel. he still does bad things because he's angry in the later seasons, but that is always in service to the winchesters, and he is never asked to feel guilty about it). anyway. i think guilt is a controlling influence in cas' life. and i think that the three sources are like. the guilt they cause is different and has different levels of appropriateness. the guilt he feels because of his actions that spring from divided loyalties is like. it's there, but it's more like sadness. he is saddened every time he has to betray other angels in favor of dean, every time he has to kill an angel who is trying to kill him, every time he has to choose between obeying dean and protecting jack. but that's fundamentally not his fault and i think he recognizes that. cas is in the end just frequently caught between a rock and a hard place because those he loves are often at each other's throats and he has to choose. i think it probably keeps him up at night but i don't think it haunts his every moment. i don't think he regrets the way he swung on any of those decisions and i think he'd make them again in a heartbeat. but it's different with his mistakes and his "mistakes" (he doesn't really differentiate between the two). cas is kind of... he's not good at decision making. this doesn't even necessarily mean he makes bad decisions (though he certainly does sometimes; he's fairly gullible, impulsive, and easy to manipulate), it means that he has like. no framework for evaluating why decisions are "good" and "bad." like he kind of doesn't know how making decisions works, and he's also used to like. having his every move totally controlled with the threat of extreme punishment constantly present if he steps outside the lines. so any negative consequence always feels like punishment to him, and any punishment must be deserved, so if bad things happen because of his actions, then they must be his fault, regardless of whether or not this makes sense. (post that is somewhat related but not entirely.)

and then he's like. he has three reactions to feeling guilt for the negative consequences of his actions. the first is, he tries to give up power. like, if he made huge mistakes, then perhaps he can't be trusted to make decisions. this is actually imo a reasonably healthy reaction. like it makes sense to try and abdicate power if you don't think you can be trusted with it. like, this is part of why he eschews violence as honey cas: he thinks that he cannot be trusted to use it well. and this is also why he subordinates himself more and more to dean in the later seasons: he comes more and more to define himself by his mistakes, and finds himself less and less trustworthy as time goes on. the second thing is, he tries to avoid thinking about the consequences of his actions. he's an extremely avoidant person, and he has no idea how to predict the consequences of his actions because, as i said, he's kind of bad at evaluating his own decisions. like cas lives in a world where everything is an act of god, and also acts of god are always just and deserved, so he frequently just tries not to look at the consequences of his actions because he has no idea whether they'll be bad or not, so he's scared they'll be really bad. but then the third thing is, he obsessively tries to make up for and undo his mistakes. this is often like, the primary driver of his actions, trying to become better. it's also the worst-for-the-world aspect of his guilt. while dean does nothing with his guilt, just letting it eat at him without acting on it, cas is extremely proactive: he is always trying to act on his guilt. the problem is, because cas doesn't really understand decision making, he doesn't know how to identify the problems in his own decisions, and his attempts to rectify mistakes frequently make things worse instead of better. like, a lot of people would be better off if cas had just like. decided to stay honey cas, taking care of bees and doing no harm and not involving himself in things, after godstiel arc: his attempts to rectify his mistakes made a lot of things worse in heaven and on earth.

[aristidetwain]

The Shared Dalek Universe of the 1960s: A Case Study

In 2011 (a little over ten years ago!), El Sandifer cited my dearly-beloved 1960s Who Annuals as examples of stories which ended up influencing the TV series many years down the line despite making an unrepentant hash of continuity. 

Her first example is that the Doctor is called Dr. Who, and that he alternates between being from Earth on one page, and not being from Earth three pages later. I would point out that TV was doing much the same thing in those days, and went on flip-flopping basically until Jon Pertwee, so it’s not a terribly good argument to begin with.

However, she spends more time pondering the Daleks of the comics. These Daleks, she notes, are very different from those on television at the time. There are hordes of them, they travel in fleets of saucers, and they’re ruled by the Emperor. This contradiction, she argues, later fed back into the TV series in the RTD era, when huge fleets of Daleks became the norm and, earlier but still well after the first burst of Annuals, in the form of Patrick Troughton facing a very different Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks.

In no way do I wish to undermine Sandifer’s ultimate conclusion that “canon” in the sense of diegetic consistency is a red herring of little importance, and what matters for any sane definition of ‘canon’ is whether a story is referenced at all, not whether it’s contradicted. 

However.

Having gone back to 1966′s The Dalek Outer Space Book, I have made a very startling discovery, in the story entitled The Secret of the Emperor. The rest is after the cut; I will leave you with a delightful panel from this story, showing the “bewildered” Dalek Emperor being bullied by knights at the Battle of Agincourt. (This is one of my favourite Doctor Who images ever, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face I am not sure I want to take you seriously.)

So, famously, when he debuted in the comics, the Dalek Emperor was not the giant, static Dalek later shown on television in The Evil of the Daleks and The Bad Wolf of the Ways; instead, he was golden, squat, and had a bulbous head; to house all the ego, one expects. 

Thus, most people will point at the fact that when the Doctor met “the Emperor” in The Evil of the Daleks, he resided in a huge tower-like casing in the Dalek City, as evidence that although ideas received a first treatment in the comics which later made it to screens, no direct continuity was intended; the comics’ Emperor was an alternate, a first draft, to be discarded once a more definitive TV portrayal emerged. 

And yet, of course, it is somehow appealing to think of the two as the same Dalek, isn’t it? John Peel (Dalek writer voted most likely to be a 19th century Victorian man who stumbled into a time eddy; it’s mostly the remarkable sideburns) spent a lot of time in his Dalek novels establishing the life story of the Dalek Prime, the First Dalek Ever, who transitioned from the globe-headed casing to the towery Evil one and then deeply regretted it, what with the “getting killed by his own infighting troops with no way to escape”.

But this is usually viewed as a retcon. A cute retcon, an admirable retcon even, but a retcon. My good friend and esteemed fellow canon-welder, @rassilon-imprimatur​, espoused such a view four years ago:

Well, all of this is, if you’ll pardon my French, bollocks. John Peel didn’t make anything up, except for the snappy name of “the Dalek Prime” as a designation for the individual. The Dalek Emperor in Evil of the Daleks was always the Emperor of the 1960s comics, and there is a very good reason for his seemingly-contradictory change of appearance. What’s more, I am not talking about murky authorial intent: these are things that the discerning Dalek fan in 1967 was meant to have known.

Let me wind back the clock to 1966. A Dalek master-plan is unfurling, a multi-media agenda spanning several years, more ambitious perhaps than even Time Lord Victorious in its scope; for the ultimate aim of a small cabal of men including David Whitaker, Terry Nation and Brad Ashton is nothing less than spinning the Daleks out of Doctor Who and into their own non-BBC TV show — to be made in America, and in colour, if you please! 

For over a year now, a Dalek story arc has been running in the pages of TV Century 21, tracking the early rise of the Dalek Empire and its early interactions with 2060s humanity. Though the Daleks encroach over other parts of the book, including the headline stories, the bulk of this story arc comes in the form of weekly one-page comics making up one long serialised history of the Daleks, under the minimalist title of The Daleks.

Also under the solo brand of “The Daleks”: Annuals, an exclusive audio story, and, of course, toys. Time for Phase Two. It is time to end the Daleks’ endless confrontations with Dr Who on television, and set the stage for a new status quo able to support the TV series Nation dreams about. 

Important background: Terry Nation, famously, does not like the Dalek Emperor. Whitaker made him up without consulting Nation, who maintains that the highest rank in the Dalek hierarchy should be the Dalek Supreme. The Emperor was hard to do away with in the comics, since he was basically the protagonist of the TV21 strip, but one imagines Nation was keen to jettison him from the world of the planned TV series. 

I am speculating, of course, but I picture Nation sitting in his office, pondering the two great thorns in the side of the Independant Daleks Masterplan. 

Thorn one: the Daleks are entangled with the Doctor both diegetically and symbolically; unless something can be done, the Daleks will remain “the Doctor’s enemies”, and a show where they commit evil and the Doctor fails to show up would ring false with the kids watching. The Daleks must be removed from Doctor Who in a sensational and definitive manner, or the whole enterprise is a nonstarter.

Thorn two: I, Terry Nation, have foolishly allowed David Whitaker to shape the lore of the Daleks, and he has made this Dalek Emperor guy very central to early Dalek history, leading up to the 22nd century Dalek Invasion of Earth that most of the Doctor’s subsequent conflicts with the Daleks have stemmed from. But I do not like the Dalek Emperor. I wish I could get rid of him in my new status quo. 

…………Aha.

A triumphant Terry Nation adds a post-it note to the ever-widening corkboard representing the multimedia Dalek Masterplan setting up the TV series, which must already include things like “convince Jean Marsh to come back as Sara Kingdom”. Notes distilled from this corkboard will form the backbone of The Dalek Outer Space Book, this year’s Dalek annual, which exists principally to set up the prospective main characters of the new TV series: Sara Kingdom and Agent Mark Seven, of the Space Security Service. 

The new post-it note reads:

Construe the Daleks’ enmity with the Doctor as a personal enmity between the Doctor and the Emperor, a la Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. Have the Doctor triumph over the Emperor on TV in a big ‘event’ story. 

Result: the Doctor-vs-Daleks storyline is over; the Emperor is dead; I get everything I ever wanted. 

(Except maybe a pony.)

Then he phones David Whitaker, smirking all the while like an evil genie preparing to grant a badly-worded wish. 

“Good news, old chap, I’ve decided you can write a new Dalek story for the BBC, all by yourself. I promise I won’t interfere.”

*confused and delighted David Whitaker noises*

“ And you can even bring in that Dalek Emperor of yours. Yes, you heard me!”

*Whitaker enthusiasm intensifies*

“Ahhh, but there’s a catch. The Dalek Emperor must DIE.”

Of course, like all good Faustian bargains, this is irresistible even though it is ruinous and the victim knows it to be ruinous. Whitaker agrees to the scheme. He and Nation begin planning out the events of the great finale of the Dalek-Doctor confrontation, which will hit the screens in 1967 as the mildly racist, but otherwise quite well-loved, ‘The Evil of the Daleks’. 

Quickly enough, it is decided that Patrick Troughton crouching to berate the short and bubble-headed Golden Emperor would look silly. If the Emperor appears on TV, alongside human performers, then it should tower over them. Besides, this is to be the archvillainous Dalek Emperor’s last stand, and certain traditions must be followed.

Hence another task is added to the bucketlist of the Dalek Outer Space Book: tell the story of how the Emperor transformed from the globe-headed dwarf to some huge and terrible towering form under the Dalek City, for the Doctor to stumble onto later. This rebuilt Emperor may be teased, but must not be truly seen or truly defeated in the book; that would defeat the whole idea. 

Hence, The Secret of the Emperor, a story which sees the Emperor becoming self-conscious about his own efficiency and letting the Scientist Daleks rebuild his casing from scratch. The final page is a splash panel, a delightfully nonsensical diagram of the mechanical components of the new casing. 

The almost surreal array of colours and shapes is so arresting as to obscure an important detai. Many have seen this page over and over, and yet still missed it. The recent(ish) ‘Anatomy of the New Dalek Emperor’ artwork from Time Lord Victorious clearly looked at this page for reference, in spite of the fact that the TLV Emperor is much more inspired by the old Emperor than the rebuilt one.

Let me spell it out for you: look at the Scientist Daleks in the top right and centre-left. Look at them.

The new Emperor is huge.

And what else? 

That Scientist on the left is plugging huge wires snaking from the wall into the tower-casing. 

He now resides in the Great Hall of the Dalek City.

The background wall is a weird checkered pattern.

In addition, the following facts are seeded throughout the earlier pages of The Secret of the Emperor.

The point of moving to the new casing was to grant the Emperor increased brain capacity (suitable for concocting masterplans).

He acquired said increased brain capacity to help the Daleks attempt to overcome humanity once and for all. 

The Emperor has recently had a trautmatic but eye-opening experience with time travel. 

Ignore the fact that the Emperor was here depicted with what appears to be a still fairly bulbous, and golden, head, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is very, very direct setup for how the Doctor finds the Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks — tower-like, in an imperial throneroom in the Dalek City, with a checkered wall pattern, planning out a complicated scheme to harness time travel as a means of defeating humanity once and for all!

Yes, the designs don’t quite match — but how could the artist behind the visuals of Secret of the Emperor have known precisely what Shawcraft would build, a year later, based on the same basic description by Nation & Whitaker? The parallels far outweigh the minor differences in execution. (It’s worth noting that elsewhere in the Outer Space Book a different artist drew what was clearly intended to be the Golden Emperor as a large, golden, but normally-proportioned Dalek, so it’s not like the visual descriptions of these scripts were exceedingly precise…)

The rebuilt Emperor is never seen in the Outer Space Book outside of this ‘dissection’: he is heard throughout The Brain Tappers but kept carefully off-panel, and his new and dangerous new casing is pointedly not destroyed in the story’s conclusion. Well, of course not. That’s what Dr Who is for.

tl;dr: it is not a post hoc retcon, or even a secret, that the round-headed Emperor of the comics became the Dalek Emperor of Evil of the Daleks. A holistic view of the state of Dalek media in 1966-1967 shows that, in fact, it was the whole point that this be the Emperor of the comics; and that the comics had begun setting this up long before Patrick Troughton encountered Edward Waterfield on TV.

And thus, to circle back to Sandifer’s 2011 post, it is not enough to simply say that the “seemingly non-canon” comics inspired the show down the line. In fact in this instance, what appeared on Doctor Who existed for the benefit of the Daleks spin-off — not vice-versa!

[hotchley]

For your 500 thing: 4 from the angst list with Hotch and anyone else, platonically? I like the prompts you've chosen too. Very angsty haha

Hehe thank you! I chose Reid, because it worked so... yeah. This is not to be seen as me infantilising Reid or as H Crit because it's not. People say things they don't mean when they're hurting. There will come a time when Reid doesn't hesitate and Hotch forgives himself. It's just not written here.

It went over 1.5k... let's just ignore that. Umm... Set sometime between Nameless, Faceless and Haunted. There's no real comfort.

4: "shut up! please. just shut up."

Trigger Warnings: past child abuse, intrusive thoughts, references to canon-typical events and violence

read on ao3!

With hindsight, moving Spencer to the same hospital as Aaron was not the smartest idea the BAU had ever had. Not when traumatic and painful events caused them to react in opposite ways. When Spencer was hurt, he didn't stop talking, so terrified that if there was even the slightest indication that he was weak, everyone would leave. And when Aaron was hurt, he completely shut down, still scared that making his existence known would lead to hurt.

But at the time, they had only been thinking of Derek. He had been running himself ragged, trying to manage the BAU in Aaron's absence, and caring for both his teammates who were in different hospitals, because he was coincidentally, the only person that either of them would listen to.

Perhaps they were more alike than anyone gave them credit for.

So Spencer was moved into the same room as Aaron, because when the team came, they came to see both of them, and it was apparently good for the two patients to socialise with each other and try to maintain their bond. At least, that was what everyone said to them. In reality, it was just easier to only have to have certain conversations once. Especially the ones about Foyet.

Because even though both of them would be out of the field for a while, and had lost so much of the independence they prided themselves on, the situations were not the same and they never would be. Spencer had been shot in the leg trying and succeeding in saving a man, and the perpetrator had been arrested. He had gotten justice.

Aaron had been stabbed nine times in his home, the place he had a right to feel safe in, by a man so evil that there was no chance of ever reasoning with him. Foyet had gotten away, and he'd taken Haley and Jack with him. The only people Aaron seemed to live for, were gone. He hadn't gotten any sort of closure. Nobody seemed to understand that, because everyone kept saying him and Spencer could relate to each other. But they couldn't. And he was sick of hearing it.

But he tried to hide that bitterness. Spencer wouldn't have been shot if he had been there. He would have been the extra set of eyes needed to finish the letters, and they would've worked it out sooner. They would've all been fine, if he had done anything other than frozen when the bullet wedged itself in the wall beside his hair, close enough to make his ear ring painfully. His anger was irrational, and the result of trauma. Everyone else understood his emotions were all-consuming and overpowering, but he didn't. To him, the anger and resentment were just another sign he was becoming his father.

He wasn't. But he would never allow himself to believe that.

Spencer knew that his and Hotch's situations were different. That Hotch blamed himself for what had happened to Haley and to him. That Hotch was hiding how he truly felt, probably to protect him. That things were going to explode sooner rather than later. He just didn't know how much sooner than expected it would end up being.

Rossi had swung by in the morning, and that visit had set Aaron on edge. Rossi was trying to help, he was, but his method of doing it wasn't helpful. It never had been. Not for someone like Aaron, who needed something that was not his best friend telling him how the BAU had been fine without him. Or how the children seemed to be fine. Or how victims could recover.

When Rossi left, Reid took the crutches beside his bed and hobbled over to sit in the chair that he'd vacated. They had both been encouraged to try and be mobile without going beyond their limit. Only Spencer had listened.

"If you want him to stop talking, you can always tell him," he said gently.

Aaron turned away. "He's just trying to help."

"But he's not. I think we can all see it."

"Spencer, I don't know what you're trying to do but-"

"I don't care if you resent me. I care that you're lying."

"I'm not lying."

"Really? So if I asked you whether or not you resent me, you could look me in the eye and say you don't? If I asked you whether you blame yourself for my injury, you would say no, and mean it? If I asked you who was responsible for Haley and Jack going into WitSec, you would say Foyet? If I asked you how you feel, would you say hopeless and angry? Would you?" He snaps.

Aaron stares, and Spencer feels the heat rise to his cheeks. Hotch is still his superior.

"I'm sorry, that was out of line."

"No, it's- you're right. I am lying. But-" he swallows, unused to being so vulnerable, especially with someone like Spencer, "I have to. Lie that is. I can't be honest. Not about this. Not with these feelings."

"Why? You've been put through horrific trauma. I think you're entitled to feel like shit. I feel like crap."

Aaron looks at Spencer, in all his hopeful innocence, and understands the subtle invitation to be honest for once in his life. To let someone else save him. To have a normal conversation, with no ulterior motives or secret conditions. To have someone just care for him because they love him, not because they want anything in return. It's that final realisation that makes him take a leap of faith.

"Because if I let myself feel the anger, I will never stop, and then I will never be any better than my father." The words taste like failure, and he hates himself for saying them as soon as they leave his mouth. Who is he, to do this to a subordinate? To make someone else take responsibility for his issues? He wants to take the words back as soon as realisation dawns on Spencer, but he can't.

All he can do is close his eyes, and pretend he is somewhere else where whatever comes next cannot touch him.

"You know those thoughts don't determine who you are," Spencer says, and nothing about his tone has changed. He still cares about Aaron. Aaron, who has to blink back tears because he always forgets how many terrible things this boy has seen.

He tries to tell Spencer to stop, that he doesn't deserve to be called a good person, but the words won't come.

"I can tell you don't believe me. Well let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a FBI agent that panicked so much during their gun qualification that they failed. And the man that had been practicing them, who had every right to lash out, just nodded and asked if it was his fault. If there was anything he could do to help. And then he trusted that agent with his life. Without hesitating," Spencer said. It felt like he was talking to Henry.

Aaron needs him to shut up. He cannot hear this story. It is his life, so he knows how it ends, but he cannot hear that ending right now. Not when the loss of his family is still so raw and painful. Not when it consumes his every waking moment.

"And after the case was over, he raced to the hospital, and he stayed in the waiting room until his son was born because he refused to leave his wife for a second longer than necessary, even though she had given her blessing multiple times for him to go save people. She said that he changed more nappies during his paternity leave than most men do in their lives."

"Spencer-" Aaron manages to say.

"Abused children can break the cycle. They have broken the cycle. They continue to do so. You said that once. Do you remember? You told Vincent Perotta that not every victim goes on to become a killer. Because some grow up to catch them and you are one of them, you just-"

"Shut up! Please. Just shut up." He doesn't mean to shout. He doesn't mean to make Spencer flinch. He doesn't mean to sound angry. He doesn't mean to say the words. He doesn't mean to do any of those things, but he does, and he won't ever forget how terrified Spencer looks.

He did that. He did that, with nothing more than his words, and he cannot believe what he has done, but he has, and it's a terrible thing. And everything Spencer just said has been disproved. Everything.

"I'm sorry," Spencer whispers, turning away.

"No. No, please don't be sorry. You've not done anything wrong. Spencer, look at me. Please. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean-"

"Yes you did. Don't lie to me."

And Aaron has lied about enough. He won't lie anymore.

"I am sorry," he says, even though it won't ever be enough.

Spencer smiles slightly, but then he goes over to his own bed. He closes his eyes, and pretends to sleep. He carries on pretending when Aaron walks over for the first time in three days, and kisses his forehead, much like he always does for Jack. He carries on pretending as Aaron sighs, and whispers an explanation too honest for repetition.

Aaron truly is sorry. Spencer truly does forgive him. The words are never said again, not to him, but that's the worst part. No matter what either of them do, Spencer will always remember and hesitate, and Aaron will never forget or forgive himself.

[eldrai]

Not Worth It

Whumptober 2021 - day 3 - prompt: insult

Character: Reid

Warnings: ableism, r-slur, brief/mild homophobia

Words: 2.2k

Summary: Spencer isn’t naïve. He is young and he looks young but he isn’t stupid. He hadn’t graduated with the expectation that because he was older, had qualifications to back him up, the world would collectively mature in kind. After all, he’d gained his relative immunity to insults because it hurt less to let them taunt him than it had to confront them and end up shoved in a locker or tied up on the football field.

He had hoped things might be different. Not expected. Not assumed.

Just hoped.

ao3 / masterlist

“—were actually invented in the early fifteenth century, though the first versions were, uh, significantly more spherical and made of a wood like beech. It’s also highly likely they used cows’ hair inside leather—”

The cop – Maciewicz – nudges the officer beside him. “Does he ever stop talking?”

Spencer is fairly sure the jab is intended to be audible. It’s an interesting social convention, that sort of insult, where everyone including the target hears it but the person who said it can’t be called out on it because they supposedly directed it at nobody in particular. Interesting, and very high-school of them: Maciewicz is closer to forty than thirty and beginning to bald, and the stale remnants of cigarette smoke follows his colleague wherever he goes.

It doesn’t offend Reid these days. Attending a public LA high school is its own distinct circle of hell but doing so at nine? University at twelve? He’s been called most names under the sun and petty insults don’t get under his skin like they used to.

Which isn’t to say they aren’t annoying.

What he hates the most is the variety of people who insult him: they all have different reactions, different sore spots, and getting them to go away isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. Reid has dealt with enough bullies to understand that ‘ignore them and they’ll go away’ is useless, if not downright dangerous advice, but there is a whole spectrum of solutions which may or may not work. Get it wrong, and they just grow more persistent.

Spencer isn’t naïve. He is young and he looks young but he isn’t stupid. He hadn’t graduated with the expectation that because he was older, had qualifications to back him up, the world would collectively mature in kind. After all, he’d gained his relative immunity to insults because it hurt less to let them taunt him than it had to confront them and end up shoved in a locker or tied up on the football field.

He had hoped things might be different. Not expected. Not assumed.

Just hoped.

Of course they aren’t.

He pays them no mind and continues to explain the significance of the golf balls their unsub keeps leaving behind. If they didn’t want him to talk, they shouldn’t have asked for his opinion.

This seems like a fairly straightforward case and with any luck, they’ll only have to tolerate the local police department for a couple of days more.

He may have jinxed it.

(Once when they had come to take his Mom to inpatient, Spencer had overheard someone at the front desk talking lowly to someone else, and her words had stuck with him: see, that’s what you get for saying it’s quiet today!

That was always the gist of what was said on TV hospital dramas too. Police chaos isn’t all that different from hospital chaos, he thinks. There’s always too much of it and it’s unpredictable in its unpredictability.)

The curveball this time is their unsub is not a lone male but a male-female duo – he carries out the kills but under her direction. Classic submissive-dominant dynamic. The thing with pairs is they crack. Bend under the pressure until they break and lives are lost in the collateral damage.

Case in point: Marcy Edgeworth, aged twenty-four, Caucasian female, death by blunt force trauma. She is the first female victim and the first to have been left to lie where she’d died. That isn’t a good sign. No indication of sexual assault pre- or post-mortem but there is an incomplete ring of bite marks just beneath her right collarbone, exposed due to her torn shirt.

“What, never seen a naked girl before?” Jamison – Maciewicz’s colleague – mutters. Just low enough for Spencer to hear as he is trying to get on with his job, unlike a certain pair of officers.

“Woman,” he corrects, for her age, “and yes, I have.”

He hopes the lightness in his tone offsets the brusqueness. Spencer shifts his crouching into kneeling and leans forwards to examine her hair. It’s an artificial red – her roots and her eyebrows are blonde – and their previous victims have all had brown hair.

“Only counts if it’s outside a morgue,” Maciewicz chimes in.

He ignores them but their gaze burns the back of his head, and their presence has his guard raised. They stand behind him and their shadows stretch out over the grass either side of him. They’re going for a reaction, Spencer assumes.

Biting is an interesting thing without an accompanying sexual assault. If nothing else it gives them a good estimation of their male unsub’s teeth. The impression he’s getting from the scene is one of interruption, an impulse kill whose victim he had to leave too soon. It is a public park and it was an early-morning dog walker who found her – likely a jogger or someone on a night shift.

Jamison clears his throat once, twice, then taps him on the shoulder. Spencer rears away from his touch. People never ask, they just do.

“Yes?” he asks.

“Oh, nothing,” Jamison says. “I – we – we were wondering why you do that… thing.”

“What thing?” Spencer asks.

Jamison gestures. “You know, the – you know.”

Is that some sort of punchline he’s missing? Spencer glances over at Maciewicz and finds a mild amusement. Nothing to indicate he should be laughing, nor should he know what they do mean.

Maybe he’s missing the cue. He’s better at it these days, but not perfect.

“No, I don’t.”

With a furtive glance at the precinct’s captain, deep in conversation with one of the forensic technicians, Jamison sighs. “The thing with your hands, the—” He shakes his hands in an exaggerated manner.

Spencer’s hands still. He hadn’t thought it was very noticeable and more to the point, Jamison is definitely overexaggerating it like kids in middle school used to do. Only back then they had his unusual gait and meltdowns to mock too. “I don’t do that,” he says firmly.

(He’d answer it if it was a genuine question. Respectful. He loves people who ask out of genuine good intent. They are few and far between.)

Maciewicz snickers.

“Yeah, you do,” Jamison says. “I want to know why, that’s all.”

“Makes you look like a retard,” Maciewicz adds.

…and there it is.

He goes cold from head to toe. It never fails to make him feel as if someone has just dumped a bucket of water right over him, washing away his enthusiasm and excitement and everything else he values. Leaves the bare bones, the weirdness, each of the hundred ways he never quite fits in.

Spencer hates the word.

Because they don’t care about his IQ or eidetic memory or reading skill when they say that, and they don’t care after he tells them.

Nobody calls him that because they think he is. They say it to hurt him.

He wishes it wouldn’t.

Despite how often he’s heard it, he never has a response. His mind goes blank and all he can pull from it is the roots – re,from Latin: back, and tardus, from Latin: slow – as if they give a damn about etymology. As if that’s a normal person’s response. Today is no exception so it’s a blessing when Morgan wanders over.

“You got anything, pretty boy?” he asks. Maciewicz and Jamison snort. If Morgan hears it, he pays it no mind. “They found a guy’s baseball cap over there. No hair but it looks like it’s our man’s.”

And once again, his mind goes blank. Makes you look like a retard. He’d been thinking about – the bite mark, yes, what does that indicate? Spencer catches his hands moving and shoves them in his pockets before they can. “He was interrupted,” he says. “It explains why the bite isn’t complete and why he didn’t notice he’d left his hat.”

Morgan nods. “The person who found the body didn’t recall seeing anyone else around, so you think he’d just left before they got there?”

“Probably,” Spencer says. “I think the woman might be blonde. If they got into a fight, he’d be stressed, he’d be thinking about her. Maybe she reminded him of her.”

“Could be the hair, could be something else,” Morgan says. “He won’t have talked to her, not if he hit her from behind.”

“What if they did? She could have walked away—”

“Maybe,” Morgan says. “But if her hair was dyed, he wouldn’t see that unless they were up close, right? He’d initially go for her because she’s got red hair, not blonde. And if they did talk, Prentiss says no woman’s gonna just turn her back on a strange man. Especially in the middle of the night with no-one around.”

It’s a valid point, and it isn’t condescending. Nonetheless it hurts. Spencer studies the ground for a long moment and tries to forget (retard) Maciewicz and Jamison. “The unsub isn’t going to be someone he’s sexually attracted to,” he says. “He didn’t assault her, and if the victim reminds him of the other unsub, he’d probably have tried to even if someone interrupted him before he really could.”

A burst of laughter from Maciewicz and Jamison. His cheeks go hot with embarrassment—they must be talking about him, what else is there to laugh about? Morgan follows his gaze. “There a problem?” he asks.

Maciewicz holds up his hands in mock surrender. “No, no. Just… the hell is that about, ‘pretty boy’?”

Morgan shrugs. Spencer isn’t sure if it’s as casual as it looks.

“Well, makes sense,” Jamison says. “Course he’s gonna freak out over a naked girl if he doesn’t swing that way.”

…oh, great.

Spencer doesn’t mind exactly what they say as much as the implication—that they know, that they’re entitled to know his sexuality. How they say it as if gay is equivalent to bad. Once again, how utterly high school it all is. And he knows Morgan isn’t going to appreciate it either, probably more insulted on his behalf than Spencer himself.

“And you care, because...?” Morgan says, looking back and forth between them.

“I don’t,” Jamison says.

“He’s…” Maciewicz stammers, “…you know.”

“Smarter than you?” Morgan suggests. “Better at his job than you? A better person than you?”

“You don’t have to stick up for him,” Jamison says. “Must get annoying to deal with a re—”

“It’s fine,” Spencer interrupts. It isn’t. It really isn’t but it isn’t worth the conversation. How tiring it gets to deal with it, how much easier it is to walk away. These officers aren’t going to change their worldview on disabilities all of a sudden. “Morgan.”

Morgan takes in his posture, the unnatural stillness as he forces himself not to fidget, though the look in his eyes doesn’t fade. “The only people I don’t want to ‘deal with’ are both of you.”

The men share a look – not so much chastened as disappointed their fun was interrupted – but they do back off.

“They already seem to think I’m incapable,” Spencer says irritably. “I said it was fine, I didn’t need you to say anything.”

He crouches down to examine the bite again.

“It didn’t matter,” Spencer says. His hands itch and despite needing to, he can’t bring himself to move. Makes you look like a retard.

“Does if it bothers you,” Morgan insists. “And it did, don’t look at me like that.”

He sighs. They’re not even there any more, the two cops out on patrol and them revisiting the penultimate crime scene. “I’m used to it.”

“And?” Morgan says. “Just because you are doesn’t mean you have to put up with it—”

“It was five minutes at most,” Spencer points out. “Everyone else was fine.”

“Yeah, and they were dicks.”

He shrugs.

“What else did they say?”

Spencer rolls the fabric of his sweater between his fingers and feigns ignorance. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what else did they say when I wasn’t there, ‘cause they said something.”

“Makes you look like a retard.”

He doesn’t mean to say it – wasn’t sure what he had planned to say, but it certainly wasn’t that – but he says it nonetheless, his tone mimicking the disdain and irritation. And now Morgan definitely isn’t going to believe him if he says he’s fine and it’s going to make the situation worse to explain that he mostly is, he just hasn’t heard it for a while, he’s used to it.

Stupid echolalia.

“Like I said,” Morgan says, “they were dicks.”

Spencer doesn’t point out being rude doesn’t automatically mean lying. “I’ve heard worse.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t give them the right to say stuff like that.”

He rocks back on the balls of his feet. His hands aren’t co-operating but the swaying motion is a good substitute. “I’m okay.”

“You know,” Morgan says casually, “whenever you lie, you stand exactly the same way.”

Spencer looks up. The expression on Morgan’s face falls somewhere between sadness and sympathy but, he thinks, not pity. It’s a nice change.

“Kid, the only thing you’re gonna get from pretending you’re OK is worse,” Morgan says. “It’s not worth it. Not for anyone but especially not morons like that.”

“It’s not worth it,” Spencer repeats. The words catch in his thoughts and he murmurs it again and again and Morgan isn’t even slightly annoyed at him.

(It isn’t worth it—he knows this—but maybe it is. Just a tiny bit. Just for the part where he has friends who tell him things like this, who don’t mind when he’s awkward. Who don’t mind him.

Friends who say nothing about it but when they get back to the station, the pair are getting chewed out by a pissed off captain.)

A/N: I had trouble getting this to flow as well as my other ones, there's something about it I just can't figure out. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it.

[ilikekidsshows]

I edited the ask slightly to make it clear this is about apologists making excuses for Chloé's behavior and not fans who just feel frustrated over not getting an arc they wished to see.

Anon said: I think what really annoys me is Chloe apologists that cry she’s, “just a kid she can learn to be better and outgrow her abusive tendencies” seem to gloss over or ignore that Chloe has been given MULTIPLE chances to do better for 3 seasons and at every turn she always returns to her spoiled bratty bullying ways. Especially in season 3 where she didn’t listen to Ladybug about never getting the miraculous and felt entitled to the power.

It’s just so annoying how chloe apologists act like she’s the real victim just cause her mommy doesn’t love her, news flash she’s not the only character in the show who has a bad relationship with a parent. It doesn’t give Chloe the right to degrade and abuse people. Im not sure if Chloe needs to hit rock bottom before she turn things around or this is heading towards a corruption arc. However im also annoyed when parts of her fandom claim it’s misogynistic that she doesn’t get better.

Because sometimes bad people stay bad and never get better, it would be a very powerful lesson to teach kids who are in toxic abusive relationships especially with childhood friends that sometimes you have to let them go and cut them off because they’re causing you harm. It was very powerful of Adrien to stand up to Chloe multiple times as an abuse victim and not let her drag him down to her level. All the people mad at him for queen banana don’t realize that Adrien can’t make chloe a kinder person. No one can make someone mean good.

Plus the show is chock full of actual good and kind girls with positive supportive friendships so having one or even two female characters turn out bad isn’t sexist to me. Same with people who claim Zoe is a Mary Sue and it’s wrong that she’s replacing Chloe. Which is weird because Zoe can’t replace what Chloe never was, a friend to the main cast. Chloe was never close with the class or their friend even if she tried to be involved in their projects he never tried to get along with the others.

Plus Zoe made a mistake by trying to emulate her family and be a bully but eventually realized being awful like them wasn’t worth their approval. Whether she’s a better hero or deserves the miraculous is another discussion but we’re talking about Chloe here. If she continues down the path of selfishness and hate becoming like her mother and her sister Zoe, who also comes from an abusive family, doesn’t that just means one overcame their trauma and the other didn’t.

Sorry for the rant just I’m so tired of seeing the tag be cluttered up by Chloe apologists who won’t stop crying or complaining about her character.

With what the canon actually gave us, Chloé's arc could have gone, and could still go, either way on the redemption/corruption scale. Yes, Chloé messed up royally in the season three finale, but she was under duress to a degree. While Chloé showed few signs of becoming a selfless hero, since most of the people she helped as a hero were people she put in bad situations to begin with or she helped out to get to hang out with Ladybug, she's also showed no signs of becoming a true villain the same way Lila has. We can clearly see Lila developing into a supervillain, but Chloé is very much stuck in the middle and could go either way if she suddenly got superpowers with no strings attached.

The real issue here is Chloé's civilian life. She's never been kind to her classmates and goes out of her way to make sure they have a bad time. This has never been influenced by whether or not she had a Miraculous, so obviously something not-superpowers-related needs to happen for her to see anything wrong with what she's doing.

And there's a real chance Zoé is meant to be that thing that makes Chloé see. Chloé could see how her sister was forgiven and welcomed by her classmates and realize how easy it is to stop being awful and get validation and friendship from the class that way. This realization might make her look down on the class as gullible fools, like Lila, or it might make Chloé want to belong and try to adjust her behavior, having her follow Zoé's lead.

Of course there's still a chance that Chloé will just keep swinging between sitcom arch nemesis and not-quite-a-supervillain, that she'll still be used as a civilian life obstacle for the heroes to overcome and she's not meant to be redeemed or corrupted. In this case I can see this fandom discourse continuing for years to come, since it's the uncertainty of Chloé's role that's fuelling it so much.

Crying misogyny every time your favorite female character is treated in a way you don't like, when it’s used in a way that’s clearly just a buzzword meant to manipulate people, is something I'm just so done with. In the case of Miraculous, though, it's especially misguided, with how much the creators clearly try to be feminist. It's one thing to say something they did fails at that goal and leans into sexist attitudes and another to say they're being purposefully misogynistic because the show isn’t to your tastes. Because, let’s face it, a lot of the show’s attempts at being progressive have been tone deaf, but it usually seems to happen by accident and sometimes, at least with Fei’s design, they seem to be willing to amend a mistake when it gets pointed out.

Also, because sexism and feminism are about gender politics, the thing with discussing sexism is not actually comparing a female character with other female characters, it's about comparing a female character with male characters. If a show aims for gender equality, a character's gender can't influence how they are treated. This means we need to see if we can compare Chloé's character to a male character and find equality.

And we can. Miraculous Ladybug has a male character who causes others pain on purpose. This same character has several chances to stop being awful with "not being awful" costing him nothing. He even shows a softer side in 'Style Queen', just like Chloé in that same episode, but ultimately tosses that change aside when he finds something he thinks can help him gain his goals, like Chloé does in 'Miracle Queen'.

I am of course talking about Gabriel Agreste. I have repeatedly said that Marinette and Chloé are mirrors, what the other could be if they changed how they view other people and themselves. Gabriel is a foil to Marinette, so he naturally mirrors Chloé as well. However, Gabriel's arc has a similar forwards-and-backwards beat as Chloé's does. Even Chloé Apologists recognize the similarities between the two, since I've seen them voicing concerns that Gabriel might get redeemed while Chloé doesn't, because they think Gabriel having sympathetic aspects is a sign of a redemption arc for him like it supposedly was for Chloé. Instead, they are still both firmly in the area of antagonists and villains.

Although I will concede one key difference: Chloé is still way more likely to get redeemed than Gabriel.

I also think that, even if Chloé does get redeemed eventually, it’s still important that Adrien didn’t just hang on waiting for it when she spent so long proving again and again that she didn’t want to change. Because the other characters couldn’t know for sure if Chloé would change. Just like in the real world you won’t know for sure if your toxic friend will ever change, so you might have to let them go for your own sake. Even if they might get better one day, even if you’re not their target, it’s not on you to stand by them when they do things that are against your personal ethics.

[sweetestlamb]

No Tears Left To Cry

Summary: The hormones rage on as our favorite angsty couple tries to navigate this new layer of their relationship. 

Author's note: It’s been a while but there hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought of these twos and their mishaps. Summer break is getting closer for me and I truly want to continue this story for as long as possible, into their college years and adulthood and maybe even babies and all that jazz. Anyway thank you soooo much for my fighters in that sacred chat who give me nothing but positive energy and support, but special thanks to @serxeins​ who is always the first to comment and shower me with support. It means a lot, I can’t believe people are still reading this honestly, it feels like True Beauty ended forever ago but y’all are still here rocking with me. Now, without further ado I give you Junjin in lust and pain. 

"You're in a good mood today." He tries very hard to stop the spread of the smile on his face from growing wider but it's futile completely useless, as soon as that pretty smile and those hypnotic eyes flash in his mind he's a goner. Love drunk on the mere memory of Sujin. Her lips on his own still swimming in his thoughts and shoving all other inklings to the side, there is nothing but her and her body pressed tightly against his as they devour each other. It was messy and uncoordinated but it was without a doubt the best kiss he had ever received.

He was probably her first and he can’t stop the pride that surges at that thought. 

I’ll be the first and the last. 

"I had a good day." He answers the new worker simply sharing none of the thoughts flooding his head, the owner of the café had finally given in and hired someone to replace Jukyeong after she had quit to pursue makeup full time. It was weird to have someone new there, but at the same time he was extremely proud of her for going after what she wanted. It was about time, he was tired of catching her watching videos on YouTube in the break room and even more tired of her trying to practice the perfect cat eye winged liner on him. Her cries of his eyes being the perfect shape falling on deaf ears. There was no way he was allowing that, he still had a reputation to uphold. 

"Girlfriend?" He glances over at the younger boy, they had spoken cordially here and there since he started working here but this was deeper than they had ever gone and he wasn't sure if he was ready to share that much with someone he barely knew. Knew firsthand how damaging gossip could be. 

This is between him and Sujin and nobody else.

And this thought makes him start to think critically about their relationship- how complicated and confusing it is and then he realizes with terrifying clarity that he's never officially asked her out. He's hers and he desperately wants her to be his, but beyond the kiss there has been nothing concrete, no words to turn this dream into a reality.

Will you go out with me?

Do people still ask that question or is that considered old fashioned? Does their kiss mean that they're together now? He has no idea how to bring this topic up without painfully embarrassing himself in front of Sujin and it takes a long minute for him to shake from his reprieve and notice that Dosan is still waiting for his reply.

"There's someone special." He leaves it at that and gratefully the other boy doesn't pry, humming as if he understands and cheerfully greeting a customer leaving him to zone out before he hears a familiar voice, a sneer turns the corner of his lip down completely eradicating the smile that was once there.

"I don't need coffee. I'm here to talk to him."

Without pause he tugs the apron over his head, shaking his hair back into place before folding the thick cotton and shoving it in a cubby.

He nods to Dosan briskly, "I'm taking lunch I'll be back in 20," the other boy watches him with wide curious eyes but nods in reply and he walks out of the café certain that he's being followed. He walks further turning a corner until the café is no longer in sight, then he spins around and his teeth clench from the greasy smirk he sees on that scumbag's face.

He shoves his fists in his pocket to prevent himself from driving them into that smeary face.

"You don't look happy to see me. That hurts." Baekyung tuts mockingly, his smile growing wider until he’s looking almost overjoyed and he has to hold on the thin reigns of his control.

"Why are you here?" He has an idea but he wants to confirm his suspicions, Sujin's rejection and another failed attempt to push him away fresh in his mind. The sting still bruising his heart.

"To see this. Your face after losing the thing you want most. It was only a matter of time, she's min-"

He feels when it snaps and he's brutally shoving the other boy into a wall in the alley, his arm tight across the other boys chest. 

Thing. 

That was what he used to refer to Sujin, as she was just a toy for them to fight over and it makes him reel with pure unaltered hatred for the boy in front of him. 

After recovering from having the wind knocked out of him, Baekyung is all smiles again. He desperately wants to knock it off his face. 

"Are you going to hit me?" There it is. The tone of the other boy's voice sends a chill down his back. It's enough to force him to let go, retreating far from the other boy. Baekyung sounds elated at the prospect, even rising his chin in a move that's too eager and accepting. He stares at the other boy in unbridled shock finally understanding what's going on.

He had suspected all along, that there was more to the other boy’s story. 

His unexplained anger, his entitlement and almost obsessively claim on Sujin. All the times he claimed that Seojun would never understand them, the puzzle unblurs and he knows what he’s looking at now. It looked like a monster, acted like one and hurt others like one, but he can finally see clearly now. The other boy was just another victim, who had decided to hurt others instead of hurt himself. It makes the anger inside him simmer away into a vapid nothingness. 

"You want me to hit you. That's why you're here." The smile finally slides off Baekyung's face, but he doesn't stop there raising his voice, "You feel bad don't you? Sujin's she's different from you and you hated that. She's ready to fight and it makes you sick because you're not that strong. You wanted her to stay complacent because it would make you feel better. She told me everything. Your words did nothing but bring us closer, she trusts me and knows she's not alone. Ever. I'm not going to hit you. This is what you deserve, I won't give you an easy way out."

The taller boy flinches at his carefully chosen words, and he nods in confirmation knowing everything he said was true.

He starts to walk away. This isn't worth his time, he already knows where Sujin wants to be and has seen that she's willing to fight for what she wants. This is beneath their bond, what they have is stronger than all obstacles they might encounter.

He's unprepared for the loud cracking cry behind him, it momentarily stops him in his tracks.

"You'll never understand! You're not like us at all you have everything, your life is perfect! You'll never understand Sujin like I do! You have a mom that loves you. What do we have?"

He can't help the rush of sympathy that swells up at the other boy's inadvertent confession. Sujin hadn't told him that, not so plainly but he had figured it out on his own. Noting all the different things the other teen had cried that he would never understand Sujin.

It's another reason why he was unable to strike the other boy. He couldn't bring himself to be anything like those cowards who bullied and tormented others.

He turns back with a sigh, "I know I'll never understand Sujin completely, I don't need that she is her own person. But have you ever asked yourself why you're trying so hard to keep her caged when you know exactly what she's going through? Why does her wanting more make you so angry? Do you even care about her happiness or do you just want someone to suffer with?"

Cold droplets drop on his forehead and by the time he's peering up a heavy sheet of rain is pouring down on them without any warning.

When he looks back Baekyung's face is wet. He chooses to believe it's from the rain but the agony on his face makes it hard to pretend. It feels wrong to be witnessing this, so without another word he turns around, walking away for good.

The café is empty when he gets back but he's not surprised, they only get a few regulars on a good day and rain is known to keep people inside.

Dosan doesn't ask any prying questions but he does shoot him a inquisitive look, he pretends not to see him once again not in the mood to bare his inner thoughts to a stranger.

Instead it drives him to do something stupid.

He sends it before he can second guess himself and then hides his phone from himself and gets back to work, wiping down takes no one will use and wondering what Sujin of doing right now and if she'll smile that cute shy smile when she gets his message.

I miss you babe.

"Mom! I'm home!" Gowoon yells out tugging her wet boots off and tumbling into her house, the smell of bean paste stew wafting through the air and making her stomach grumble in anticipation.

She makes a beeline for the kitchen, looking left and right before sneakily getting a spoon and quietly opening the steaming pot. But just as she's about to bring the spoon to her eagerly waiting lips she hears a voice, "No wonder your mom told me to watch the soup."

She almost jumps before turning around to see who is behind her.

"Unnie!" She cries flying across the kitchen to hug the other girl, smiling when her embrace is readily accepted. She only remembers after that she's wet afterwards and pulls away with apologies on her tongue, but Sujin waves them off smiling gently at her.

Sujin-unnie is so pretty, breathtakingly so. There are countless boys who like her but she never sees the girl around any of her admirers, seemingly oblivious to all the attention she's garnering. She would be jealous of the other girl's effortless beauty if she wasn't beautiful inside too. Always willing to stand up for someone and fearlessly charging into danger to protect those she seemed worthy. For some reason she was lucky enough to be on that list of people although she was a nobody. It still feels surreal that she's allowed to call the other girl by such a familiar name.

"Gowoon ah? You look a million miles away, what are you thinking about?"

Without hesitation she responds honestly, "How beautiful you are."

It's the first time she's ever seen Sujin blush and it's so cute she can't contain her squeal, smiling brightly at the older girl.

"Unnie, what are you doing here though?"

Sujin looks like a deer caught in the headlights at her innocuous question and immediately she regrets it but it's her mother's voice that answers her question in the end.

"I dragged her here after finding her in the rain. Bean paste stew tastes better when you eat it with a lot of people. Enough questions now, go wash up so we can all eat when your brother gets home." It's only then that she realizes that Sujin is wearing one her brother's old sweaters, one from the donation box that they hadn't yet got around to delivering to the local shelter. The huge sweater is paired with her skirt from school, forming an outfit that only Kang Sujin could make fashionable. 

Her unnie really is the coolest. 

She nods at her mom's order, bouncing off to her bedroom to change into comfortable clothes. Minutes later when she hears the front door open, she knows that it has to be Seojun, so she races out to greet him first.

"Oppa! You're finally home!" He looks taken back by her greeting, lifting an eyebrow at her in question.

"Why are you being so nice? What do you want?"

She cries in fake offense, pouting and hitting him in the chest.

He recoils in pain screaming in a most unmanly fashion, "Hey! Watch the goods, this is what keeps the girls coming back you know."

She grimaces in disgust, sticking out her tongue ready to make a rebuttal but Seojun is no longer looking at her, eyes locked over her shoulder and his face contorting through a slideshow of emotions from shock to regret all in a blink of an eye. She looks over her shoulder in confusion, catching Sujin's eyes narrowed in an unreadable emotion before it washes away.

"Your mom said to tell you both to come eat."

She expects her brother to react similarly to her, and ask the other girl what she's doing here. That question never comes  thought instead he throws up his arms and starts stuttering out, "I-I was just joking! There are no girls, there are definitely no girls!"

"What?" She replies having no idea what's wrong with him but he's paying no attention to her now, trailing after Sujin who's walking back to the kitchen looking like she belongs here, with them.

Watching their retreating back she wonders if she's missing something.

Something huge.

With a nonchalant shrug she follows them into the kitchen, too hungry to play detective.

She blacked out.

That's the only way she can describe it, after running out of Suho's place her mind went blank and when she resurfaced she was outside of his apartment. With no memory of going there, her body operating on autopilot.

She hadn't even realized it was raining until suddenly the drops weren't hitting her anymore.

"You're getting wet. Come inside dear."

It was Seojun's mom. 

Instantly her body was warmed at the voice and once again her body was moving without her permission, up the elevator, through the door, into a change of clothes and now sitting at the table and eating dinner with them. 

She's too numb to feel the full brunt of her embarrassment.

So she slurps at the delicious soup instead, not ready to face the swirling whirlpool of her emotions at least not yet. 

His eyes are heavy on her skin, had been since he followed her into the room. Her annoyance at his earlier statement had already faded away, it was hard to be jealous of some imaginary girls when she was the one here in his sweater eating with his family, with his eyes burning through her skin.

With the memory of his text message making her insides squirm. 

Another nickname and she had none for him, was too awkward to get the affectionate names to even wrap around her tongue. What would she even sound like calling him baby or honey? She was too embarrassed to find out so she hadn’t replied, just took the butterflies that fluttered in her belly at his brazen message. 

Then more memories assault her. 

It was only hours ago that they were outside tangled and panting against the wall, his hands hot on her waist and her neck, his tongue hot in her mouth. 

Stop it.

She screams at herself, scared of her own thoughts. The shock and anger of seeing her mother hasn't worn off, not the slightest. But seeing him lights a different flame and she has no clue how to deal with the warring emotions in her body.

So she drinks more soup.

Absently listening to their conversation, it's sweet and domestic and makes her ache like there's a gaping hole in her chest.

"Do you like the soup?"

She waits for someone to answer, but it's silent and only then does she lift her head and realize that the inquiry was directed at her.

Oh.

She always forgot that she was allowed to be a part of this. She wasn't just an outsider looking in.

"It's delicious." She answers, voice small. 

The older woman smiles appreciatively at her before turning to her daughter and she's off the hook, or so she thinks but then she feels a hand on her naked leg and it's only years of repressing herself that stop her from jumping out of her chair.

"What are you doing?" She hisses at him, too quiet to be overhead and continuing to eat to dissuade further suspicion.

"You were trembling. I wanted to warm you up." He whispers back just as discreetly and her whole body heats up at his words, wordless at his bold declaration.

She has no reply. Nothing besides beating fire with fire.

Finding courage she wasn't aware she had, she places her own hand on his thigh higher than he dared to explore. Preening when he actually does jump and pushes away from the table, admitting defeat earlier than she had expected.

She had barely even touched him, why was he so jumpy? 

Both his mother and sister look at him with large eyes and she has to stifle a giggle when he lies about forgetting to do his homework and disappears into his room.

She sips innocently at her soup. Enjoying the warmth and the savory broth.

Before she knows it, the meal is done and Gowoon is traipsing to the living room most likely to watch whatever drama has captured her attention this time.

"It's time for The Noona Next Door Who Buys Me Grilled Steak!” The girl answers her accidentally happily skipping off. 

She doesn't follow the other girl, shaking her head at yet another ridiculously specific title that tells her everything she needs to know about the show.

Wordlessly she starts to clean up the table, but almost instantly a small hand halts her action.

"Don't worry about that dear, you're the guest. Junnie will take care of that when he's done ‘doing his homework.’ " She says the last part with air quotes and she tries her hardest not to react, but a bubble of laughter escapes.

The older woman smiles easily back, suddenly looking tired and reminding her that the woman was just in a hospital bed only weeks ago. Feeling selfish she implores, "Are you feeling better now?"

"I'm doing great. Thank you for asking, you don't need to worry about me."

It's already too late, she can't turn off the worrying she has for this entire family.

"I'm happy you're okay." She stills at the warm hand on her cold fingers and suddenly the day comes crushing back.

She feels exhausted.

And she has nowhere to go.

"Of course you'll stay here. It's a storm outside. You'll stay in Seojun's room."

She freezes at the offer, had she said those words out loud? She hadn't meant to.

Then she crystallizes further at the scandalous offer, heat rising under her collar until she's certain that her face is as red as a tomato.

Stay in Seojun's room.

The war rages on and suddenly images of them on his bed fill her head and she can feel his pillow beneath her head as he peers down at her, bracketing her in and slowly leaning down to kiss her, pushing his tongue into her--

"And he will sleep here on the couch."

She feels as if she's going to burst from the torrential emotional hurricane ravaging her body and instead of declining she feels her head nodding in agreement.

I'm such an idiot.

The apartment is eerily quiet, Gowoon had hugged her good night easily accepting that she was sleeping over, and then her mother had patted her on the back making her eyes water when she pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. She'd barely heard the goodnight that followed.

She doesn't know what to do now. Seojun never came back after their moment at the table, she has no clue what that means and if she should be worried. Had she done something wrong? 

Leaning down onto to couch she rolls herself into a ball, tugging off the throw that hung over the back of the couch and using it to cover her, thankful that it’s big enough to sufficiently cover her body.

Fatigue finds her as soon as her head hits the cushion and this is the reason that she misses the creaking of a door opening and soft footsteps crossing the room. She almost jumps out of her skin when she feels a sudden weight on the couch right beside her feet.

"Are you staying over?" Her skin pebbles at the deep timber of his voice, the lowing sound cutting through the splatter of rain landing on the window outside.

"I can't go back to Suho's." Her mother's pathetic face stains her eyelids and force her to open her eyes. She isn't expecting him to be so close, sitting on the floor with his face right beside her own.

She wants to kiss him.

The idea is so immediate that she doesn't even know how to deal with it.

So she just decides to accept it. She needs a distraction, an escape from her reality. 

She starts to lean forward, eyes locked on his lips inching closer and closer and when they're only centimeters apart she closes her eyes again.

Expecting to feel electricity shooting up and down her body. To feel the current when his lips touch hers and everything in the universe finally makes sense. 

But she feels nothing. Just air. Peeling her eyes open, this time she's eye level with his knee and before she can ask him what he's doing, beg him to kiss her until her mind shuts off he's bending over, slipping his hands under her body and lifting. She's too stunned to do anything but let herself be lifted and then carried, her arms instinctively curling around his neck.

His beautiful tempting neck that's dangerously close.

She presses one hot kiss against it, inhaling deeply when he groans at the peck.

"Stop." He sounds breathless and she's tempted to do it again but she reigns herself in, feeling weightless in his strong arms as he carries her to his room, the door clicking resolutely behind them.

He hadn't meant to stay in his room for that long. Her touching him back took him to their kiss in the hallway and if he stayed any longer everybody would know that he was having impure thoughts, thus he had run like a dog with it’s tail between its legs. Once alone he'd taken a cold shower but it did nothing to stop his thoughts, images of her in his sweater and her hand on his thigh gripping him as he stood naked under the onslaught on the water pouring from the shower head.

The urge coiling in his blood. An urge he had been finding it harder and harder to resist lately. 

He wanted to. So damn badly it made his head spin but he couldn't, not with her right outside.

There was no way he would be able to look her in the eyes after doing that so close to her, so he forced himself to only shower ignoring his bodily desires..

But after the shower he'd been too scared to go back out. He didn't have control of himself yet, it was too soon. Everything she did egged him on and fueled his fantasies so he decided to stay hidden, she would be gone soon enough. She had never slept over before.

Then Suho's messages shocked him into action.

Is Sujin with you?

Is she okay?

Tell her I'm sorry. I didn't think she would react that way. It's my fault. I wasn't thinking.

He didn't bother to text back instead calling the other boy to hear exactly what he'd done and what he was sorry for.

Suho was as frantic as he'd ever heard him but eventually he got the truth out of him and suddenly he felt like the biggest piece of shit on the planet. While he'd been perving on her and hiding away like a coward she'd been suffering all night and he had no idea.

He didn't even deserve to be her boyfriend.

So he goes to her and he knows what she's trying to do when she tries to kiss him and he's so tempted to just let her, maybe they both need this...

But in the end he stands up, he can't let his hormones take control. This isn't what she needs, and he refuses to be a distraction, not now when he knows he wants to be her everything.

Carrying her to his bedroom is a spur of the moment decision and he expects more of a fight, it's Sujin after all. But he's shocked when she folds into him like she's starved for his touch and is further flabbergasted when she presses a mind numbing kiss to his throat.

It takes Herculean strength to tell her to stop when his body especially one particular organ is screaming, go go go.

He eases her down onto his bed and groans because he knows he'll never get that torturous image of of his mind. Her hair spills across his pillow and he wants desperately to bury his face in it and breathe her in,  he draws away before he succumbs and does just that.

"Kiss me."

She looks like sin, squirming on his sheets in his sweater her bare legs peeking out from the short skirt and he retreats quickly, but not fast enough because she's latching onto his shoulders and dragging him back to her. He tries to fight it but she's so strong and he can feel his own strength melting under her seductive stare. She tugs him down powerfully and he feels his arms collapsing but at the last moment he juts his head to the side, her lips landing on his cheeks instead.

She lets out a long suffering and impatient sigh before hissing out, "Why won't you kiss me? Why are you fighting this?"

He can detect the frustration in her voice but deeper down he can hear her fear too, the fear that he doesn't want her. Irrational and stupid. He twists out of her hold, laying beside her eyes pinned to the side of her face.

"Because I know this isn't about me. Or us. I want you. So badly. All the time."

She blushes prettily. He wants to taste it. 

"Then why are you--"

"But not like this. Not when you're hurting and you just want a distraction. You know how I feel about you. Don't use that as a weapon against me okay?"

With a gasp she's turning to face him, he hides nothing and he watches as the frustration that was once there fades away and only hurt is left in its abandon.

When she opens her mouth and he can see the apologies in her eyes, he places a single digit against her lips.

"Don't say sorry. If you want to apologize let me hold you." 

She stares at him like she's never seen him before, eyes wide and moist and for the first time he doesn't wait for her consent. He can't stand that lonely devastated look on her face, not when she's not alone because he will always be here beside her if she needs him. 

Gentle as the wind, he wraps his arms around her pushing himself into her in lieu of dragging her to him.

I'm yours.

The move says and he hopes she can hear it too.

He starts to pat her back and lightly stroke her head, pressing his neck into her face and wrapping an arm around her waist and that's all it takes for her to start shaking in his arms. There are no tears but he can feel her sorrow in every harrowing inhale and exhale, in her fingers tightly gripping his night shirt. He rocks them back and forth, wishing he could drain all the pain from her body and absorb it into his own.

"Why can't she just disappear? Why appear in front of me when I've accepted that I don't have a mother. I have no one, I'm an orphan." Her voice is crushed ice and he wants to kiss her all over and tell her that she has him, will always have him and he loves her, loves her much that it frightens him because he's never loved anyone this much except his mother and sister but he doesn't say any of this. He can't.

This isn't about him. Or them.

This is about a girl who needs a mother and doesn't know if she'll ever have one.

He can't fix this and he won't try.

He simply holds her tight and lets her grieve.

Holding her until she falls asleep in his arms, her head on his chest. So close to that heart that already belongs to her. That is beating for her. 

That is broken for her. 

[lesbianlotties]

Journeys end in lovers meeting - Sam/Deena - Bly Manor AU

Chapters: 4/? Fandom: Fear Street Trilogy (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Fraser/Deena Johnson, Sarah Fier/Hannah Miller (Fear Street), Christine "Ziggy" Berman/Nick Goode, Samantha "Sam" Fraser & Deena Johnson Characters: Samantha "Sam" Fraser (Fear Street), Deena Johnson, Kate Schmidt (Fear Street), Simon Kalivoda, Josh Johnson (Fear Street), Constance (Fear Street Part 3: 1666), Christine "Ziggy" Berman, Nick Goode (Fear Street), Alice (Fear Street Part 2: 1978), Sarah Fier (Fear Street), Hannah Miller (Fear Street), Solomon Goode (Fear Street) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, The Haunting of Bly Manor AU, Not Canon Compliant, Haunted Houses, Ghosts, Character Death, Minor Character Death, Canon Lesbian Relationship, First Meetings, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Smut, Happy Ending, Au Pair Sam, Gardener Deena, Housekeeper Kate, Cook Simon, Josh and Constance as troubled kids, Ziggy and Nick in an unhealthy relationship, minor Cindy/Alice, Martin cameos, special appearances of all the Shadyside killers as ghosts, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, The Rest Is Confetti Summary: The year is 1994. Samantha Fraser recently moved to Shadyside, and she desperately needs a job that will help her leave her troubled past behind. She starts working as au pair at Shadyside Manor, where she is not the only one tortured by ghosts. Grief, regrets, guilt, innocent victims, and an ancient curse. At the center of all of it... love.

Chapter 4:

Sam really didn’t want to eavesdrop, but it was a hectic day for everyone but here. It was an accident, really. She just wanted a glass of water, but when she heard Deena and Kate arguing in the kitchen, she stopped before reaching the doorway, and couldn’t help but listen.

“Are you seriously not going?” Deena was saying.

“No, Deena,” Kate replied, in a tone that made it obvious it wasn’t the first time she said so. “I’ll only go to a funeral when I’m dead, thank you very much.”

“Maybe I should kill you then,” Deena grumbled. In the hallway, Sam fought back a smile at the grumpiness of the gardener. “He’s your platonic husband and you’re letting him down in the most fucking tragic day of his life, Kate.”

“He understands,” Kate snapped back at her. “Besides, we’ve let each other down before.”

--

Eavesdropping on teenagers feels even worse. But Sam can’t help herself, again. She just seems to be at the right place at the right time, and nobody hears her coming. She was just looking for Constance and Josh when she found them talking in the classroom in whispers. She worried they might have been planning something unwise, so she listened in for a moment.

“Do you think they can follow us?” Constance asked in a whisper.

“No, I don’t think it works like that,” Josh replied.

The girl hummed thoughtfully and then added, in a considerably more distressed tone, “Do you think they’ll try to stop us?”

“Shh! Constance!” Josh stopped her. “Let’s just… see what happens, okay? We’re in this together, right? All of us.”

Sam considered intervening, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. She could barely keep track of their changing moods or Constance’s name. In the end, she walked away, deciding to keep an eye out and studying them more closely when she had the chance.

--

Sam had tried her best, but she really had nothing else to do at the moment. It was strange, having a day mostly free from her responsibilities as au pair. Deena would be taking Josh and Constance with her to Simon’s mom’s funeral. A little lost in her thoughts without anything else to do while they all got ready, Sam took a seat near the bottom of the stairs, looking out at the gardens she could see through the open door. It started out as a particularly sunny day, not at all something you’d expect for a funeral.

The au pair was leaning against the railing of the stairs. A little behind her, under the safety and familiarity of the manor’s shadows, Harry Rooker stood perfectly still. His clothes hadn’t changed at all in all the decades he had been wandering those halls, even his bowtie was in still place. The same couldn’t be said about his face though. The passing of the years, one after another, had slowly washed away his features. His eyes were no longer there, his mouth was barely noticeable and his nose wouldn’t likely last long. The burn on the side of his face, which had hurt him so much during the war and cost him so much even after his return, was still there, stubbornly, almost mocking him. As well as his knife, always in his hand, always sharp. Never being useful anymore.

The sound of a heavy pair of boots coming down the stairs, as often, disturbed the peace of the foyer. Sam tried not to look too excited as she turned her head to look at Deena descend the stairs, but when she saw the gardener’s outfit she probably failed to hide her pleased reaction.

“Hi,” Sam gasped a little and stood up, “You look…”

“Like I remembered how to take a shower?” Deena smirked. She reached the bottom of the stairs and showed off her clothes, consisting of all black pants, shirt, and blazer that fit her perfectly, made her look a little too good for a funeral, if Sam had to give her honest opinion.

“Like a waiter,” Sam said, biting her lip to keep that honest opinion from spilling out.

“Hey! Didn’t know that side of you, Sunnyvale. Rude,” Deena replied, smiling the entire time. When her expression softened a little, she asked, “Are you sure you’re okay staying here by yourself?”

“Yes, t’s okay. Besides, Kate’s here too.”

Deena made an unamused sound. “Sometimes it feels like she isn’t,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed quietly. Before the silence could stretch for too long, she spoke up again. “Anyway, I, um, had to… be present in a funeral, not too long ago. It’s… I can’t, again. Not yet.”

As she spoke, Sam couldn’t look Deena in the eyes. Not when the only thing in her mind was Sunnyvale. Peter. Her mother. Peter. Twentyfive entitled children in a classroom. Peter. A heavy engagement ring and suffocating wedding dress. Peter.

But it didn’t start like that. It started with her father getting sick, her mother being cruel enough to divorce him on the spot to save herself from taking care of him, and Sam being already in Sunnyvale, thirty minutes away, when he finally died. It started with her mother wrapping her in her best dress, too old for her already, and dragging her to the neighbors house, because they were rich, and look at that handsome young boy, he already has his eyes on you! They were only eight. But then they were twelve, and Peter got in a fight for her and felt entitled to her attention ever since, and nobody ever told her she didn’t have to give him anything she didn’t want to. So when he demanded it, she gave him a kiss, a second date, the color of her prom dress so he could get a matching tie. She gave and she gave until she didn’t know what else he could take from her, but everyone made her feel like she still owed him. So she gave hiim a second chance when he first hit her, and she gave him her bags when he told her to move in with him, she gave him a third and fourth chance, and she gave him the answer he wanted when he offered her a wedding ring.

“Sam? Are you okay?”

In the blink of an eye, Sam was back in Shadyside Manor, with Deena’s gentle hands on her elbows, anchoring her to reality, and those warm brown eyes worriedly searching her face, not knowing what horrors they could find behind the walls Sam spent a lifetime building.

“Yes,” Sam blurted out. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Right,” Deena nodded and slowly stepped away from the au pair. “Well, I’m leaving now. Try to come up with something real to tell me when I return, okay?”

Sam suddenly couldn’t come up with any words so she nodded, smiled, and watched holding her breath as Deena walked away from her, not without glancing over her shoulder by the door.

--

Sam stood awkwardly in the middle of the chapel. She had made it too far to turn around now, but she didn’t dare move closer and interrupt Kate who appeared to be praying. Except, before Sam made up her mind about her next move, Kate spoke up without turning around.

“Are you just going to stand there like a ghost?”

“Sorry,” Sam blushed. “Uh, how did you know I was-”

“I have eyes on the back of my head, darling,” Kate replied with a smile and finally turned around.

“Am I interrupting you?”

“No, it’s okay,” Kate softened. “I’m not a funeral type of person. I deal with loss in my own way.” 

“I get it,” Sam nodded. She found the courage to continue walking closer to the other woman.

“If you ask me,” Kate continued, somewhat unprompted, “This is more for our own comfort.” She nodded her head to the side, indicating the five red little candles burning. “You have to be there for people while they’re still alive. Simon gave his entire life for his mother. I’ve been there with him for most of the journey, in ways that I know count so much more than missing out on one tragic goodbye party.”

Again, Sam nodded. She took a seat down on one of the pews close to Kate. She really didn’t want to think about the funerals in her own life. Her mother made sure they arrived late and left early for Sam's father’s funeral. And then a few months ago…

“You two are very close,” she blurted out. It was a statement, a question, and mostly just a way to get Kate to keep talking.

“Best friends since childhood,” Kate said and she wore one of the most genuine smiles Sam had seen on her. “We kissed once, and afterward I punched him in the face. We’ve been inseparable ever since. Which might be the best and worst part about our friendship.”

“What do you mean?”

This time Kate took her time before replying. Her smile was gone.

“Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to leave Shadyside and see the world. But there was nothing that could have convinced Simon to leave his mom. He missed a chance to work at a restaurant in Paris, I missed my chance to see the world, but we have each other. We have each other and ninety-nine percent of the time it feels like the right choice.”

The remaining one percent of the time hung in the air of the chapel so heavily it was almost palpable.

“What about now?” Sam asked, not without a good amount of hesitation.

The meaning of her question was obvious. Simon wasn’t tethered to Shadyside anymore. However, there was no answer from the housekeeper. Kate chuckled sadly, completely dismissing the idea of grabbing a bag of her best clothes and her best friend’s hand and moving away to Paris any day now. Instead, she stood up and threw the little box of matches for Sam to catch.

“What?” Why?” The au pair looked back and forth between the matches and Kate.

“Light a candle,” Kate replied. She noticed the confusion in Sam’s face, but the au pair, unknowingly, carried her heart, broken and hopeful at once, on her sleeve. “Dead people, regrets, protection, good luck,” Kate said while methodically fixing the wrinkles on her red skirt, checking her ponytail, and mindlessly passing her hand over the back of her neck. “Everything counts.”

Sam stayed silent. She watched Kate walk out of the chapel and then she moved toward the candles. She moved almost automatically, lighting up the first match, but then she couldn’t bring herself to actually light the candle. The small flame burned bright for a second, highlighting the sadness in Sam’s blue eyes, but she let it die before reaching for a candle. }

Eventually, Sam decided to light up a new match and light up a single candle at random. Not for dead people, and not for her attempts at forgetting about them, but for the time she had wasted trying to please people that did nothing but hurt her for so long.

On the way out of the chapel, Sam made the mistake of glancing at the windows. Of course he was still there. He would never leave her, would he? She had seen him angry at her more times than she could count, but never like that. That expression of outstanding disgust and fury was forever etched in Sam’s memory of him. He was just a shadow, he was pure darkness in the shape of a man she once knew. But Sam had to look away and walk as fast as she could away from him, fearing that any day now his image would definitely leave the restrained space of reflective surfaces and finally kill her, like she had killed him.

--

“Dinner… is served!” Simon announced with a flourish.

Simon and Deena dropped several bags on the kitchen table and they chuckled when everyone else eagerly jumped forward to look at the contents spilling on the table. 

“There’s nothing like an absurd amount of junk food to fix all your problems,” he smiled proudly at the scene in front of him. All the people closest to him with smiles on their faces, exchanging a warm meal and easy conversation. His smile turned just nostalgic enough, thinking about his mother, the woman who taught him that lesson. She used to fix all problems with food. She had special meals for every sickness, mended broken hearts with each person’s favorite food, and she celebrated every occasion with big feasts. So far, Simon couldn’t say she had ever failed.

Simon, Deena, Kate, Sam, Josh, and Constance, sat down at the table. They got started with their junk food feast. Everything was still hot, smelled amazing, and tasted even better. Behind Simon and the teenagers, stood Ruby Lane. She tilted her head one side and the other, observing the scene in front of her. Her slightly blurred expression showed confusion, then a hint of sadness, and finally settled in something surprisingly close to affection. Eating. Food. Good company. Friends. She distantly could remember the feeling of it all. The details had left her a while ago. But if she focused hard enough on the smiles of these strangers, she almost felt right at home, almost felt like she belonged with them, almost let herself believe that if she wanted to she could reach out, take a seat, enjoy a meal with them… Almost, almost but not quite.

At the table, conversation flowed easily. Everyone was enjoying the food, and the adults all had one or two beers with the meals, perhaps a little more. Despite the emotionally heavy day, the group was in a surprisingly good mood. A consequence of growing up in Shadyside, maybe. They were either the best or the worst at coping with loss. The trick was not knowing how to tell the difference between both extremes. 

Sam was a little concerned about the fact that the pair of teenagers looked so refreshed and so much like themselves after attending a funeral. Maybe they just needed the time away from the manor. She just hoped it would last.

While all of them discussed favorite meals and comfort food, Simon finally explained his choice of food for the day. “This is actually from the first place where I worked,” he confessed.

“Really?” Sam asked, leaning forward with a kind smile.

“Yeah. My mom got me the job,” he added. “She was the sweetest woman, but she could be scary as shit if she wanted to. She convinced them to give a part-time job to little old me. I was barely fifteen.”

“Tell her why you got fired,” Kate said, raising a playful eyebrow in his direction.

Simon rolled his eyes and picked up a couple of fries to throw in her direction. “For giving you free food you asshole!”

While all the others laughed, Kate gasped loudly and wore a nearly comically offended expression for a moment. It was her turn to roll her eyes and lean across Deena to look at Sam and explain, “This bitch throwing me food like a toddler? He got fired for being too talented for a food truck, basically.”

“Ah, whatever,” Simon laughed. He ran a hand through his messy blonde hair and pushed through his unexpected shyness to explain. “The food was good, but it was also too slow and expensive. Got me fired but got me noticed.” He stopped then, and tried to make it seem natural and not at all like he was holding back information. Which made Sam think about the missed opportunity across the ocean that Kate had mentioned earlier that day. “But!” Simon went on, with extra cheerfulness on his voice to hide who knows how many things anymore, “now I get to happily cook for all of you, ungrateful little shits that you are.”

“Hey!” Deena protested, stopped a second to swallow her food and continued. “I am grateful. Dude, I love your food. I survived eating this cheap shit almost exclusively for like a decade. I’m in heaven when you cook actual food.”

“Do you just love me for my food?” Simon pouted dramatically. 

Sam watched them banter with a smile. Before she could stop herself, she was joining the conversation. “This actually reminds me of my childhood in Shadyside,” she said, holding up a burger in her hand.

“What?” Kate smirked, “You don’t have these bad boys in Sunnyvale?”

Sam laughed along with everyone else, she was starting to feel just the slightest bit tipsy, and this time decided not to mention the fact that Kate hadn’t even taken a bite of her burger yet. However, she hadn’t managed to shake herself from the weird, nostalgic mood that had had a hold of her the entire day. One moment she was there, seated at the kitchen table in Shadyside Manor, and with the blink of an eye, she was back at an expensive Sunnyvale restaurant.

She had been more than a little tipsy back then, she had needed the courage in any way she could find it. During the meal, a hundred different memories of her mother’s cruel comments on her weight and eating habits passed through her mind. She didn’t push them away though, she focused on them, because it hadn’t been just her mother, and she needed to focus on that pain and resentment. Because seated across from her was Peter. Peter, who had joined her mother in criticizing her. Peter, who never once defended her from his own mother. Peter, who had hurt her emotionally and physically more than anybody else.

Peter, who refused to lose an argument, who didn’t know when to let it go, and would never let her go. They didn’t get to the altar, but since their first kiss, he had assumed only death would take her away from him. He didn’t consider he’d go first, he might have even dreamed of a second or third wife, and one or two times he had been close to being responsible for that sudden end. Instead, it was their anniversary, they were both drunk, Sam admitted more than she had meant to, he was yelling at her in the middle of the street, threatening to kill her, taking a step backward when she reached for him, and then there were the truck’s headlights…

“Oh, yeah,” Sam blurted out, and hoped they wouldn’t notice the way her voice was trembling. “But in Sunnyvale, we add a little caviar on top of the burgers.”

Sam was surprised to see everyone laugh at what she had considered a pretty lame joke. It was a beautiful sound. She didn’t think she’d ever been surrounded by the incredible number of five people that genuinely liked her for who she really was. Josh even choked a little on the food he had been chewing, and Simon slapped his back, maybe a little harder than necessary. It made Kate and Constance laugh even harder. Those were things that Sam noticed, but her focus was actually on the woman beside her. Deena had laughed with all of them, of course. But the soft smile she was directing at Sam was something completely different, something she couldn’t even compare to anything else she had ever experienced. 

When the conversation hit an inevitable lull, Constance was the first one to notice the way Simon’s mood dimmed, his shoulders slumped and he stopped eating, just fumbling with the papers on the table. There was a lot a person could say to a friend that just lost their mother, then there was what a moody teenager with an exceptionally tragic life could offer.

“My aunt was a shit cook,” Constance blurted out. “These burgers were all she got for me when my parents died. But I couldn’t eat it… I thought I would never eat again, which would be okay because that would kill me and I’d be reunited with…” She shrugged, and everyone else at the table listened to her intently, rendered speechless not just by the unexpected confession, but because of her expression, neutral without being insensitive, sincere without being very emotional. “But then,” Constance continued, adding the smallest smiles here and there. “It was like I could hear my mom yelling at me for not eating. Cindy Berman could be a pain in the ass in case you didn’t know. But that feeling… it was like she was right there with me, beautiful and annoying and never gone entirely.”

For a moment, nobody knew what to say. Simon, although his eyes were glassy, smiled brightly at her. “You do not act as if you’re listening to your mom,” he said.

“Hey! I ignored her when she was alive too, she gets it,” Constance rolled her eyes playfully. “But the point is I know that we have to keep eating, and keep living… for them. Don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do,” Simon agreed.

He took a deep breath to get a hold of his emotions and raised his beer bottle to the center of the table, where Kate, Deena, and Sam joined him in a toast for the living. Constance joined in enthusiastically with a can of soda, but Josh didn’t move a muscle.

“Hey, do we have some more beer?” Josh asked a moment later. “I could really use one.”

“Uh, no. Not at fifteen you can’t,” Deena replied immediately. She tensed on her seat.

The teenage boy rolled his eyes and focused on the au pair across the table from him. “Miss Fraser, do you think I could have a beer?” He asked with a sharp, charming smile that looked just a little off on the edges.

“I… agree with your sister, Josh,” Sam replied carefully. She didn’t want to cross any boundaries, but she was also responsible for the teenagers.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve gone without a real drink?!”

“I remember my first beer,” Kate interrupted him, reminiscing with an easy smile on her face. “It was my first time babysitting Constance, and then Christine thought it would be a good idea to give me a beer.”

“My mom hated beer,” Sam said. “She used to say one sip could mean I’ll end up in hell.” Then she took a hearty sip, thinking of her mother and the thousand suffocating rules she’d pressed upon Sam’s shoulders her entire life.

“Well,” Deena smirked, “You did end up in Shadyside so…”

While most of them laughed, Josh’s face contorted into an expression of deep frustration and rage until he didn’t look like himself anymore. “Why the hell am I being controlled by a bunch of dykes?!” He slammed his hand on the table furiously. 

But just as soon as the words left his mouth, Sam and Deena jumped out of their chairs. Deena was his sister, and maybe Sam was just the au pair, but while Deena was so angry that she couldn’t even get any words out, Sam got ahead of her.

“That language, and that attitude, and beyond unacceptable, Josh. You are going to your room right now. No discussion. Did you hear me?” Sam said, her voice firm, unwavering, and her stance perfectly commanding.

All eyes were on her, but she was staring straight at Josh. He didn’t budge, he was stronger than most teenagers Sam had ever worked with, but she was even stronger. She didn’t hesitate at all. She glanced quickly at Constance, and the girl, despite intensely rolling her eyes, stood up and walked toward Josh. She not-so-gently grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the chair. Slowly, and with Josh throwing threatening looks at Sam over his shoulder, they walked out of the kitchen. After excusing herself, Sam followed them. She didn’t look back to see the impressed looks her friends were exchanging, pleasantly surprised by that side of her.

--

“Hey, Sunnyvale,” Deena said as soon as she caught sight of Sam walking down the stairs of the manor to the foyer where she was waiting for her.

Sam reached the end of the stairs and noticed that Deena was wearing a jacket, and holding Sam’s own jacket in her hands. But when the au pair reached out to grab it, Deena pulled back.

“Ah, ah. Not yet,” Deena said. She was smiling, but there was a hint of worry in her eyes. “You only get warmth in exchange for information.” Her words made the au pair chuckle, and Deena instantly felt herself relax a little. “How did it go with my asshole brother?” She finally asked.

“Um, it was fine, I think,” Sam replied. “He… Well, I think he’s embarrassed. He probably regrets it a lot. He’s acting almost as if he doesn’t even remember what he said.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Deena frowned. She felt pretty embarrassed about the entire incident, and she was so not looking forward to having that conversation with Josh, who apparently had turned into some kind of monster in the place of her sweet younger brother. “I’m sorry about it.”

Sam shrugged and attempted a smile. “If it helps, I think he really listened when I explained that we all just want what’s best for him, and having that makes him luckier than most of us.”

The gardener nodded thoughtfully. “I agree with you there,” she said as she held open Sam’s jacket to help her put it on. Deena was careful, and her hands were confident, but at the same time, she barely touched Sam’s body as she helped her. The only thing she couldn’t help herself from doing was standing perhaps a little closer than necessary. Enough to feel her heart skip a beat when Sam’s blonde hair brushed her cheek, and the smell of some sweet-scented shampoo filled her senses. “But also, how depressing is that for us?” Deena said, stepping back from Sam. The au pair laughed and turned around to stare a Deena, who offered her a hand and said, “Come on, let’s go be depressing outside for a change.”