#I hope this puts the antis who were convinced they hate each other to cut the bs

[chirpsythismorning]

IM SORRY BUT I JUST REMEMBERED THIS AND

[willowcrowned]

Okay but has anyone considered Obi-wan/Cody/Satien (is that how its spelled?) Regardless, hes got two hands for his two mandalorians, the au where this happend is gotta be top notch ridiculous ye?

Okay thank you so much for giving me a reason to think about this, because this AU contains three things I adore: polyamory, ships where everyone is frighteningly competent, and Obi-Wan

In this AU, Ventress is somehow even less well-adjusted (bear with me). What this means is that, instead of taking a gap year and finding herself after her family is brutally murdered, she decides she needs to get revenge even more now. What does this mean? In the short term, she still becomes a bounty hunter, but in the long run? She’s looking for a Sith lord team up so she can punch Dooku (with a lit lighstaber) in his stupid, elitist, backstabbing face.

So when Maul invades Mandalore, what happens? Ventress comes right along, ready to give her ‘I know we hate each other, but consider teaming up to kill someone we both hate even MORE’ space TED talk. And though Maul may be terribly annoying, a closet theater kid, always in a tits out kind of mood, and denying his gay awakening, he’s not stupid. He knows Sidious is coming for him, sooner rather than later, and he knows he needs more people on his side than his (impressively beefy) brother. He and Savage agree to the team-up.

Cue Obi-Wan showing up, ready to save his sort-of girlfriend, and finding Pre Vizsla, who got REAL sus the second ANOTHER lunatic with a red lightsaber showed up, occupied by capturing Maul, Savage, and Ventress. 

Obi-Wan saves Satie, who convinces him to call Cody for a quick evac, and they’re running away, flirting, and arguing over shooting things (as usual), when they spot Ventress, Maul, and Savage, about to be executed.

Oh, they both think, hell no. And then, because they have a stupid moral code that makes them do stupid moral things, they go save them.

A little background on Obi-Wan at this point: He has been fighting in a war for over two years. He is exhausted, close to a breakdown, and seriously questioning his place as a General. Next to him at all times, supporting him, helping him, and saving him, is Cody, who is clever, kinder than he has any right to be, and is, of course, devastatingly handsome when he does his special, unique-to-Cody half-smirk.

Obi-Wan, to put it mildly, is totally gone on him. Obi-Wan also, to put it less mildly, is his commanding officer in an army that Cody can’t leave on pain of death. To do anything— make any advance beyond the flirting that he engages in with most people— would put Cody in a very uncomfortable position, whether or not he returns Obi-Wan’s feelings. So Obi-Wan watches him from afar, hoping against hope that his affections are returned, and that one day, after the end of the war, there will be a future for both of them.

A little more background on Obi-Wan at this point: He has always respected Satine. Their correspondence fell apart just a few months after the end of his mission with Qui-Gon, but he’s been keeping up with her professional accomplishments for years. Over time, the love he bore for her faded, leaving him with good memories and an enduring appreciation for her courage, her cleverness, and her ability to deliver devastating blows to someone’s confidence with a few well-placed words.

Until he sees her again. And yes, alright, he might be angry that she’s choosing to stay out of the war— he knows what good she could do— but he understands her fears, understands the very real possibility that if Mandalore gets embroiled in yet another war, they may never recover. The thing is... well, she’s still very beautiful, especially when he’s yelling at him, and as slowly as his feelings had faded then, they come back in a rush now.

He has very much fallen in love with Cody, and he is very much still in love with Satine.

Cut back to the present— Obi-Wan and Satine rescue the three most annoying Sith in the galaxy and get the heck out of dodge. Cody, because he’s Cody, comes swooping in with a last-minute rescue.

At this point, two things are occurring.

The first: Obi-Wan is stuck in a room with four people he’s periodically flirted with over the past few years, two of whom he’s desperately in love with, one of whom he had a weird encounter with that he can never tell Anakin about when she and him got trapped in a middle school auditorium, and one of whom is definitely wearing no shirt and all that jewelry for a reason. It is Supremely awkward for him.

The second: Every single person in that room, each of which is (barring Savage) deeply attracted to Obi-Wan, is realizing that Obi-Wan is dressed in Mandalorian armor, and while Obi-Wan in three layers of tunics and a cloak is an absolute knockout, Obi-Wan in Mandalorian armor may very well kill them (and he won’t even have to touch his lightsaber to do it).

For one single moment, everything is absolutely still as they all stare at each other.

...And then Maul starts on the ‘I will rend your flesh from your bones, feel my wrath, Kenobarrgh’ spiel, and Satine stuns him. Oh, and Savage. Ventress agrees to watch the two of them if they don’t stun her, and Obi-Wan agrees.

Which then leaves him, Cody, and Satine in a room alone.

A word on Cody at this point: He has been bred from birth to be the perfect soldier— loyal, clever (but not too clever), and rigourously adherent to protocol. Yet, within three months of knowing Obi-Wan, he’s, well, calling him Obi-Wan in his head. Even just that is a gross breach of protocol, but he’s compromised in more ways than one. He talks to Obi-Wan, now, not just as a subordinate, or secondary advisor, but as a friend, as a councilor. Every time Obi-Wan touches him— never for longer than a brief second— his skin lights up under his armor. One time, Obi-Wan fell asleep on him for half an hour, and Cody’s was sure everyone would hear his heartbeat. 

What he’s doing— how he feels— he knows it’s putting Obi-Wan in danger, knows that if the Kaminoans had wanted to the clones to be equals to the Jedi, they would have told them so. And look, he knows what the natborns would call the way he’s feeling, but he can’t feel that way. He’s a clone— he’s expendable by definition. Even if, on some off-chance, he makes it out of this war alive, there’s nothing for him. Obi-Wan couldn’t care for him like that, couldn’t care for a man with the same face as millions of others, born and bred only for war. So it doesn’t matter how he feels.

A word on Satine at this point: Obi-Wan, when he left, was a gawkish, bumbling thing of red hair and freckles and the sweetest smile. Obi-Wan, when he came back, was graceful, eloquent, and very, very handsome. He is also infuriating. (This does not change how attracted she is to him in the least.)

She’s not a romantic, really, but she is a realist, and she knows she’s loved him in some form or another for over twenty years. She knows she can’t ask him to return it— knows that asking him to leave the order for her wouldn’t just be for her, it would be for Mandalore, and while the politician in her cries for her to claim him, the person in her who loves Obi-Wan could not abide tearing him away from his culture for her own purposes. She still loves him, deeply and irrevocably, and she knows he still loves her. (Maybe, she thinks, after the war... But she can’t afford to be sentimental).

What do Cody and Satine have in common? They’re both extremely competent, both instinctively ruthless, and they both love Obi-Wan. Oh, and they’re also both immediately jealous of their counterpart.

They know they shouldn’t be. They know it’s not fair, not when Obi-Wan isn’t theirs anyways, but it doesn’t change the surge of envy and dislike that happens when they see Obi-Wan use the soft voice he only uses for the people he likes best on the person across from them.

Cody knows he can never compare to the Duchess, who is beautiful and well-spoken and has held Obi-Wan’s heart since they were fifteen. Satine knows she can never compare to Cody, who has been at Obi-Wan’s side every second since the war’s beginning, who is so much closer in ideals to Obi-Wan than she is, however it might appear on the surface.

Fortunately, they don’t have to deal with it for long, because Ventress comes in with Maul and Savage and proposes a team up, at which point Maul reveals the identity of the Sith Master.

Obi-Wan swears a string of words that Cody and Satine are both very impressed by, and agrees to the team up. Cody and Satine, who are both going to Coruscant anyways, agree to it too.

What ensues is a good deal of scheming, during which Cody and Satine avoid each other like the plague, Obi-Wan is repeatedly told to get some sleep, and Ventress cuffs Maul to a door on multiple nonconsecutive occasions. When they get to Coruscant, Satine has already told Padmé, who has in turn told her group of anti-war (and anti-Palpatine) senators, Cody has given Rex a heads up, and Ventress, Maul, and Savage have been metaphorically sharpening their lightsabers for ages.

(It occurs to Obi-Wan, at one point, after he’s woken up from his enforced 25-hour nap, that Palpatine must have created the clone army for a reason— must have a failsafe in place— and he asks Ahsoka to pull all the data the Kaminoans have on the clones. They find out about the chips, and Ahsoka immediately immediately holds the Kaminoans at laser sword point until they reprogram every order into a command that dissolves the chip.)

The thing about organizing a coup together is that it makes it very hard to avoid each other. Cody and Satine are forced to work together, and, what do you know, it turns out that even with seething jealousy at work, they end up respecting each other. (Note: Obi-Wan comes into a room at one point to see them both bent over a commlink, heads together and hands nearly touching. He short circuits.)

In any case, coup, Palps dies, Republic fixed, whatever.

What’s important is that Obi-Wan gets really, really injured— so much so that he might die. Cody and Satine have dealt with him being dead before (Deception arc anyone?), but this? Watching him slowly fade, knowing there’s nothing they can do about it? That’s worse.

One night, when Anakin has fallen asleep, they have a long conversation in low voices about Obi-Wan, darting from fond to furious to devastated over and over again. If he wakes up— if, not when— they agree to say something to Obi-Wan, to let him know that they love him. It’s a meager consolation after all they’ve been through, but this is the end, in one way or another, and they deserve to be honest with him.

(Cody thinks, privately, that he will be— well, not tossed aside, because Obi-Wan isn’t the sort of person who does that, but there won’t be a place for him by Obi-Wan’s side anymore. Obi-Wan is a Jedi, a negotiator, a peacekeeper, and Cody is a soldier for a now-ended war. He is already steeling himself to accept Obi-Wan’s polite rejection with equanimity, to not cause more pain to the man. (It will be easy, he knows, to wish him every peace, every happiness. Cody has only ever wanted to see Obi-Wan happy. This does not mean it will not be painful.) Obi-Wan said once that he would have left the Order for Satine if she’d asked— she will ask, now, and Cody knows Obi-Wan will leave, can see the love written in his face, in his spine, in his hands, whenever he is around her. Satine will ask, and Obi-Wan will leave, and Cody will be left to look for a place in this new galaxy.)

(Satine thinks, privately, that Obi-Wan’s feelings for her must be long faded, replaced by his obvious ones for Cody. Obi-Wan is a warrior, a Knight, and Satine is a diplomat who foreswore violence long ago. She is already steeling herself to accept his rejection with grace. (It will be easy, she knows, to wish him well. She has only ever wanted good things for him. This does not mean it will not be painful.) He said once that he would have left the Order for her if she’d asked, and whatever he’d felt then for her pales to what he feels now for Cody. Cody will ask, and Obi-Wan will leave, and Satine will rule as she always has.)

And then Obi-Wan wakes up.

Cody and Satine let him have his long talk with Anakin first, partially because they know how important it is to him, partially because Anakin wouldn’t let them if they wanted to, and partially because they are dreading their own coming conversation. When Anakin has finished, and Obi-Wan is asleep again, they go in, hand-in-hand, and wait for him to wake up.

When he does wake up, he sees them holding hands and immediately comes to several wrong conclusions. Wrong Conclusion A: Cody and Satine are in love. Wrong Conclusion B: Cody and Satine are going to try to break the news that they’re in love to him gently. Wrong Conclusion C: This conversation is about to break his heart.

Then they speak.

At the end of it, Obi-Wan has some Thoughts. Thought One: alkdfjhskhsgjljlbhkgkjbjvnab,gkjvn;qlerghjsv?????!!!!fwbfwlkrehwogwhuwrijvhfdbhkf!!!! Thought Two: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! Thought Three: Oh, we’re all idiots. Fantastic. 

He then passes out, because being on the edge of death for days and then having a shock to your system this big tends to do that to you.

When he wakes up, he is mildly more coherent. Then he sees that Satine and Cody are asleep on each other, and the coherence is lost, but he does manage to wake them up and get across three things:

Thing One: He is desperately in love with them both.

Thing Two: He’s leaving the Order for a multitude of reasons, but they are a Significant Bonus.

Thing Three: He would very much like if they both held his hand while he falls back asleep.

Cody takes Obi-Wan’s right hand, Satine takes Obi-Wan’s left hand, and the three of them stay like that, fingers intertwined, for a long, long, while.

[softer-ua]

i can't be the only one who wants izuku to get fucking pissed at his situation, at all might, start questioning what the fuck is going on with OFA.

because if you're going to trust a fifteen year old with something like OFA and bind them to the life of a symbol, you do not get to withhold information. deku was not told he'd be dealing with an enemy like AFO when he got the quirk, nor was he told that basically its whole point was not fighting some vague concept of evil, but fighting a very tangible very dangerous villain. he wasn't told that up until all might, inheriting this power was guaranteed suicide, and even after all might you only have a vague chance of survival. to be offered such a life altering "gift", Izuku should have been warned of everything. from the start. and if not then then from the very moment izuku started seeing vestiges, or at least when AFO resurfaced. WHY IN GOD'S NAME WOULD YOU HIDE ANY, ANY BIT OF INFORMATION ON A QUIRK THAT IMPORTANT?????

no because, if you look at it cynically, All Might took this kid who had nothing and who looked up to him as effective god. He took this kid who he knew had no sense of no self-care or self-preservation. This extremely reckless kid who he saw putting his life at risk three times (sludge v1, hanging on to AM as he jumped, sludge v Katsuki) within 24 hours. He picked this kid who he knew would give everything (because Izuku had "nothing", and therefore nothing to lose) and "gifted" him with a ticking time bomb. Of course Izuku is willing to break himself if it means using OFA to max potential. So much of his self-worth is based on OFA. He's said time and time again he isn't sure if he deserves it, that it's a borrowed power. If you've taken this kid and given him everything practically overnight, of course he'll go to self-destructive lengths to prove himself worthy of it. Who'd want to go back to being nothing after all?

And this is a logical conclusion. Someone like Izuku, someone like All Might probably used to be in his youth and still kind of is, they're perfect to be put on this kind suicide mission. They're a perfect vessel. Sure they're heroic and brave and selfless, but most importantly they're willing to die for the cause. OFA the quirk knows this. Literally two seconds after Katsuki sacrifices himself telling Deku not to do shit alone, Deku renders said sacrifice useless by doing exactly what Katsuki warned him not to😭 And the quirk and vestiges encourage him. They don't give a shit about repercussions and Deku's chronic pain or possible arm paralysis. They just want to beat AFO. You go son you break those arms 🤠

Doesn't it all feel a little bit exploitative?

Look at it like this. A kid is born with no power. This kid wants to be great, but the world says he can't. He meets his hero, and the hero says he can't either. Then the kid acts heroic, but reckless. The hero sees an opening. This kid is good and doesn't care one bit about his well-being? Jackpot! He offers the kid a deal. Great power, an extraordinary gift at surface layer. But one with so many more hidden strings attached that hurt and break and haunt the kid, that he was never warned about or taught how to deal with. But he can always give it to someone else! Can he, really? Can he go back to being nothing? With a personality like his, well nope. And that's why you pick the overly selfless reckless ones. The ones that will feel indebted to you to a ridiculous degree.

Isn't it like dare I say... like a deal with the devil?

As we progress more and more into the lore of AFO and OFA, I can really see why Katsuki's started to view it as a cursed power. And with how wildly different from expectations (at least mine) + far more nuanced the Todofam drama has revealed itself to be compared to what it seemed upon first intro, I'm inclined to believe there's more to the OFA story than clean cut, young bro good guy vs mean big bro oppression.

TL;DR - All Might is the metaphorical devil jr who gave Izuku a passed down deal, and neither he nor broccoli boy read the fine print.

Bakugo’s ghost sent me this ask 💀

Lol but seriously, these are all excellent points and I’ve been sitting on this ask until I had time to answer it because you’re absolutely goddamn right

This shit is explotive af, and I’ve got a suspicion as to why

I don’t think Deku was a random choice, there’s a layer of fate/mystic woven into the bnha world that gets over looked.

Sir had insane fortune telling abilities that were never once wrong about anything except when it came to the 2 OFA users fates. Deku even specifically says he’ll smash any fate in his way, and I think on some level he knows he can because he has a different destiny.

The vestiges break him from Shinsos hold, meaning the can have some level of control over Dekus body. You think AM noticed every time something like that happened? AM didn’t even notice Bakugo internalizing all the blame for his retirement even after watching his mom force him to apologize for it??

“I keep forgetting that your still a child” AM, sir, this is the third time you’ve admitted out loud that you were just gonna let Bakugo suffer his own fate 💀 please stop indicting yourself and at least pretend you care about Bakugo outside his relationship to Deku jfc

Also what are the chances you get nine random holders and none of them turn out to be corrupt or at least too self serving to die for the cause??? Slimmer than the pages bnha is printed on.

There’s something pulling some strings here, and I think it’s the true power of First users quirk.

What would be the point of transferring a quirk if that’s it’s only power?

What would be the point of this quirk being essentially password locked?

What would be the point of this quirk being able to forced on to someone?

There’ wouldn’t be any.

But what if that’s not what the quirk is?

What if the quirk is actually passing something along, and that’s why it’s dna based, it’s the transfer of an integral part of them.

Something that would change a person if forced on them but would possibly eradicate someone if stolen. Something like a souls desire? That could be a dangerous thing to give to someone else especially if it’s something they didn’t want, now they suddenly have to?

Then you give this quirk a strength enhancing quirk?

Now it’s got some juice, how much stronger did it get? Can it sense others with a similar goal, can it make its host gravitate towards those people?

Is the firsts quirk purposely finding exploitable heros, like Nana AM and Deku. All people who were/are willing to give up everything for the cause. How much of the first is in there, how much sentient power does this quirk have?

We know that Nana gave up her family, her child, for the cause. AM never bothered cultivating a family and pushed away Sir and anyone else who is anti him dying, and now we’re seeing Deku do the same.

Deku who had no friends to begin with, a dad who’s out of the picture, and an already slightly strained relationship with his mom?

Is this quirk capable of learning? Does it know that having people you care about slows you down from sacrificing yourself?

Does this quirk compound with the other users goals make the drive stronger each time?

Idk but there’s a glimmer of hope that Deku isn’t doomed to be a glorified meat puppet, and it exists in the form of Kacchan.

No one else had someone so deeply rooted to them, who could fight right along side them. Bakugo is an outlier in this story, almost the exact opposite kind of hero OFA wants, his connection to Deku breaks the cycle.

Deku would never give up on Katsuki, and even if he tried Endeavor will start coughing up ice cubes before Bakugo lets him. He couldn’t leave Deku alone when he was convinced he hated him, there’s no way he’d do it now.

Dekus story will be different from the other users that’s for sure.

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep15 [FINALE]

For better or worse I think Ryukishi achieved exactly what he set out to do with this series, and I guess everyone’s just gonna be forced to reckon with how they feel about his own perspective on this franchise versus how they feel about it, lol.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I’m not entirely sure where to even start with this, but I guess the TL;DR is that I honestly think Gou/Sotsu was ultimately just fine despite it’s issues, and part me of can’t help but be like ‘I told you so, lol’ about how this really did end with this episode, and also committed pretty hard to the Umineko prequel elements.

It’s not like all of my theories were correct in the end, but I at least think I was pretty spot on in my prediction last week that this would end with the miracle of them side-stepping the sword issue entirely and choosing the third option of forgiveness and reconciliation. And also them ending it with an epilogue where we go back to the Matsuribayashi timeline and get a happy ending for Rika and Satoko that provides a ‘non-magical interpretation’ for the story while also giving us an idea of how Bern and Lambda formally split off into their own entities and start the relationship we see in Umineko.

I didn’t quite expect them to go down the route of having them agree to just spend a few years apart and accept that they don’t need to literally always be together, but I think that was a really good way to wrap things up between them. It’s pretty much the healthiest compromise to their conflict that doesn’t come across like it completely invalidates one of their dreams. I get why it feels too anti-climactic and convenient for people, but when you pull at that thread you get into wider topics of what the entire story is about, since this was always going to end with Satoko being redeemed and forgiven. People might not have taken him seriously, but Ryukishi was 100% genuine about his regrets about Matsuribayashi’s ending, and how part of why he came up with this new story was to create a better ending, while also doing more with Satoko as a character.

Basically I think a lot of the fandom negativity towards this boils down to people fundamentally disagreeing with the idea that Matsuribayashi was even ‘flawed’ in this sort of way to begin with, or that Satoko was badly written. It’s valid to disagree on this stuff, but at the very least we all have to grapple with how Ryukishi has his own specific relationship with this series.

People like to focus on how he’s a troll who likes to mess with people, but I feel like this is a bit of a wake-up call for people about how he’s actually extremely sincere, almost to a fault, and he likes to use his stories as a vehicle for expressing his personal philosophies and ideals. 

This whole story is also a good example of how he just sees this as ultimately being a fictional story about fictional characters, and not literally a matter of real people who need to be sentenced for their crimes or whatever. As early as the original VN he was almost being outright preachy about the message that nobody is irredeemable, and that philosophy carries through to this. But to be more specific, nobody *in this story* is irredeemable. He’s pretty open about the fact that in practice you can’t apply this sort of ideal to real life, but fictional stories are their own separate matter.

I think this whole issue of how he views this as a story first and foremost is also the central reason why this ended in a way that comes across as Satoko being let off too easy for her crimes. One way or another, Ryukishi’s made it clear that he sees this as being no different to how other characters had arcs where they committed crimes but still got forgiven, or how Takano is basically a straight up war criminal who also got forgiven for her crimes.

Anyway, this episode at least committed to the Umineko stuff, so that was satisfying. Sure there’s people that still want to deny it, but at this point I think a lot of people are just being stubborn, so it’s not like anything would have really convinced them, lol. I’m also genuinely not sure what people even would have expected them to do beyond what we saw her, aside from having the two of them literally put on their gothic lolita outfits and turn to the camera and go ‘we are literally Bernkastel and Lambdadelta from the video game series Umineko When They Cry’. I almost feel like there’s some kind of misunderstanding from people who aren’t familiar with Umineko when it comes to the idea of what it even means for this to be ‘an Umineko prequel’, or ‘a Bern/Lambda origin story’. I mean, this is quite literally exactly what I expected and hoped for in that regard. It’s not like I was expecting them to incorporate anything related to, like, Beatrice or the Ushiromiya family.

I think this is also one of those things where you just have to decide for yourself whether or not you want to earnestly engage with the story that’s being told, or if you want to assume that there’s some level of malice or trickery going on.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting them to literally have Rika and Satoko recite part of Bern and Lambda’s final conversation with each other word for word, lmao. Combined with the scene at the end where ‘Witch Satoko’ talks to herself about how she’s going to give her body back to Satoko while she goes chasing after Rika, it was literally just the exact origin story of their relationship as it’s depicted in Umineko.

I still feel like this would all only really be ‘worth it’ if we actually get something like a full on anime remake for Umineko, but at this point I can’t help but feel satisfied with this part of it all.

It’s not like I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is perfect or anything, though. I don’t hate it as much as basically everyone else does, but I think Ryukishi’s the sort of VN writer who really struggles with the shift to writing for an anime. I think a big part of the frustration people have is just from how this is formatted as a weekly anime series spread across basically an entire year, instead of being something like a stand-alone VN chapter that you can read at whatever pace you want, even if it ultimately takes the same amount of time to read as it would to watch all of Gou/Sotsu.

There’s also the whole issue of this being a sort-of-remake, which snowballed into a whole list of structural problems. They absolutely tried too hard to have their cake and eat it too, and they should have just committed to it being made for old fans only, instead of trying to sincerely incorporate elements from the VN that old fans don’t care about anymore because they’ve gone over it already.

And as I’ve said several times before, it was a major issue for them to decide to put Nekodamashi in the middle of Gou and then spend like 20 episodes on flashback answer arcs until finally getting back to that cliffhanger. I’ve been waiting until this all ended to decide exactly how I feel about that, and now that it’s all over I still think it was a really bad idea. I don’t think it was an issue for them to reveal that Satoko’s the culprit that early, but having the gun cliffhanger specifically happen that early just gave people misguided expectations and tainted the answer arcs because people were just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. And then the cliffhanger itself ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, which is what I’d been fearing would happen. It would have worked fine if they shuffled it around so that the cliffhanger happened right before Kagurashi and was followed up in the very next episode, or if this was a VN where you could binge your way through the flashback stuff, but spending like half of an entire real-life year to get back to that point only to have the resolution be ‘Satoko just shoots Rika and the death loops keep going’ just didn’t really work properly.

I’m a lot more generous towards the Akashi arcs than most people are, since I think they really over-estimate how much re-used content there is there, but they still suffer from the central issue of the show trying to be accessible for new fans. It could have been heavily condensed otherwise, without losing anything in terms of Satoko’s whole character arc.

On the other hand I think the first half of Kagurashi was awful specifically because it highlighted how bad of an idea it was to put Nekodamashi so early in the story. They still ended up having to go back to that arc and repeat it anyway, in the most 1:1 recap-y way in the whole show, but that wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place if that was instead the first time that arc happened in the show.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would rearrange the story to make it flow better while still following Ryukishi’s intentions, and I think they could have condensed it into a 2-cour season with this sort of structure if they did something like this:

-First arc where Rika gets thrown back into the loop and quickly figures out that somebody intentionally caused this to happen, and it’s not Takano because at least in this idea of mine she’d try and investigate her only to find out that this version of Takano regrets everything and is planning to flee the village with Tomitake.

Basically I think this could tie into the idea of Satoko initially wanting to just concoct an idea world for Rika so that she won’t want to leave this time, but sort of like what I think happens in Saikoroshi, Rika would still reject it, and this time around there’d be the additional layer of her knowing that somebody did this to her for an unknown reason. Maybe they could even initially market it as a new adaptation or a remake of Saikoroshi, and then reveal that it’s a sequel, to keep that whole element to the series. Either way I think this would end with everything going to shit when Rika rejects that fragment and wants to go back to St. Lucia’s, and Satoko basically snaps and kills her, and that way the audience can find out about her being the culprit without Rika finding out about it yet.

Maybe there could even be some dramatic irony where Rika’s attempts to meddle with certain ‘trigger events’, and her displaying her looper side, inadvertently triggers people around her to get paranoid, and the whole fragment would start to spiral into tragedy from there. I think they could at least use the whole conflict in Tatariakashi about Teppei actually being good this time as a starting point for that sorta thing.

-Second arc, rounding out the first cour, which is basically just Satokowashi. I don’t think there’s much that you’d need to change here, but like I said above I like the idea of her initially trying to just invent a perfect world for Rika and her to live in, instead of jumping straight to murder. But maybe instead of her literally just watching Rika’s loops, she could instead just be stuck using her looping powers to try and figure out how to create that ‘perfect world’ in the first place, by personally investigating all of the different tragedies and how to prevent them.

-Staring the second cour, a third arc where we basically just get to see those loops Satoko goes through, and her whole process of solving the tragedies and ‘purifying’ characters like Teppei and Takano, until we eventually see her perspective on the first arc, and how she reacts to Rika ultimately rejecting the world she tried to make for her.

-A fourth and final arc which is basically just Nekodamashi + Kagurashi, where she just totally snaps and tries to just torture Rika into never wanting to leave the village again, and eventually Satoko gets exposed and they have their direct confrontation with each other.

With that sorta story structure, you’d keep all the relevant bits of Gou/Sotsu as it is now, while being more focused on Rika and Satoko instead of doing kinda half-assed reruns of the Rena and Shion arcs. It’d also push the big cliffhanger between them until near the end of the show, while still revealing to the audience relatively early on that Satoko’s the culprit.

I’d also like them to do more with Satoshi and Shion, so maybe like with how Teppei gets redeemed and Satoko almost gets to have a happy life with him in Tatariakashi, the central question arc of this hypothetical story could also involve Satoko making sure that Satoshi wakes up from his coma, and Shion also gets to have a good relationship with all of them. You could probably do something interesting with the idea of Satoshi and Shion being in the camp of not trusting Teppei and his whole redemption arc.

Honestly I could spend a long time talking about how I would have done things differently, lol. For one thing, I think the Akashi arcs would have been much better if they just changed it so that Satoko used psychological tactics to make people paranoid, and we completely cut out the whole syringe plot device. I get how it fits with Satoko’s whole certainty gimmick, but it made those arcs way too predictable. Even if we knew the outcome, it’d at least be entertaining to see exactly how Satoko might go out of her way to set up the different tragedies. We kinda got glimpses of that sorta plot point in Wataakashi when things seemed to go outside of her control, but they didn’t really do much with it.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of words to say that I think that in spite of the serious structural issues going on, I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is fine, and was at least working with a lot of perfectly good ideas that could have been executed much better.

Also, on a side note, that one scene during their fist-fight at the start where the art-style changes a bit was kinda weird, but I really liked how it looked, and part of me almost wishes the whole show looked like that, lol. I like Akio Watanabe’s character designs, but I feel like that sort of stylized, almost TWEWY-ish art style would have been really fitting for this series, especially in the horror/action parts.

Oh, and the new rendition of You was so good it almost felt emotionally manipulative, lol.

[davidmann95]

How about those JL storyboards?

In case you haven’t heard, Zack Snyder is putting on display the ‘storyboards’ - i.e. a rough plot summary accompanied by some Jim Lee sketches - for what would have been Justice League 2 and 3, or as this puts it 2 and ‘2A’. You can see them here (I imagine better-quality versions will soon be released), and read a transcript here. This is evidently a very early version: this was apparently pitched prior to the release of BvS and Justice League being rewritten in the wake of it, with numerous plot details that now don’t line up with what we know about the Snyder Cut, plus it outright mentions it builds on the originally planned versions of the Batman and Flash movies. But it’s a broad outline of what was gonna go down, and while I initially thought it was Snyder throwing in the towel, the timing - paired with the ambiguity left by the necessity for changes, including that this doesn’t factor whatever that “massive cliffhanger” at the end of the Cut is - says to me he’s hoping this’ll be a force multiplier behind efforts to will sequel/s into existence. He’s probably right.

I’ll be discussing spoilers below, but in short: with this Zack Snyder has finally lived up to Alan Moore, in that like Twilight of the Superheroes I wouldn’t believe this was real as opposed to a shockingly on-point parody if not for direct, irrefutable evidence.

Doing some rapid-fire bullet points for this baby to kick us off:

* Folks who know the subject say a lot of this is a yet further continuation of Snyder doing Arthuriana fanfic with the League reskinned over those major players, and I’ll take their word for it.

* I don’t know whether I love or hate that in Justice League 2 the Justice League are only an extant thing for the first scene, and then it’s Snyder giving everybody their own mini-movies. It’s compressing the entire MCU “loosely interconnected solo stories leading to a single big movie later” strategy into a single movie!

*  Funniest line in the whole thing: "Even Lantern has heard of the Kryptonian, worried that he's under the control of Darkseid. He heard his spirit was unbreakable." Hal what fuckin' Superman movie did YOU watch? Second funniest being “IT WILL GIVE HIM POWER OVER ALL LIVING LIFE”

* 90% of the plot I have nothing to say about, it’s generic stage-setting crap. That to be clear is the ‘shocked it’s Snyder’ element, it feels so crassly commercial in a way I can’t believe is coming from the BvS guy.

* Most of what I have to say is unsurprisingly gonna be about a handful of characters but Cyborg’s happy ending being “he isn’t visibly disabled anymore!” is not great!

* The Goddess of War battle with Superman...never pays off? No clue why it’s there.

* What I’d originally heard was that the Codex in Superman’s blood was the last key to the Anti-Life Equation and that’s why Darkseid was coming to Earth. It’s not like all of this wouldn’t have already been averted by Kal-El’s pod smacking into an asteroid on the way to Earth so it’s not as if this makes it any more Superman’s fault, and it would have at least tied all this back to the beginning of the movies, but I suppose that was either fake or from a later draft.

* I have NO idea how this was reimagined without the ‘love triangle’, it’s the central character thing and the entire climax flows directly out of it!

* Darkseid’s kinda a chump in this, huh

Anonymous said: So: Does Zack Snyder hate Superman?

Look: the hilarity of this when Cuck Kent has been a go-to Snyder cult insult towards ‘inferior’ takes on Superman for years cannot be understated, yet at the same time I can almost wrap my brain around where Snyder’s coming from with that as the end for his take on the character. He talked in that Variety piece on how his interest in Superman is informed by having adopted children himself, and Deborah Snyder is the stepmother to his kids by previous relationships, so I can see where he’d be coming from, and I can even imagine how he’d see this as ‘rhyming’ in the sense of “the series begins with Kal-El being adopted by Earth, it ends with him adopting a child of Earth!” In the same way as MARTHA, I can envision how he would put these pieces together in his head thematically without registering or caring what the end result would actually look like. In this case, Superman raising the kid of the man who beat the shit out of him who Batman had with Clark’s wife, who earlier told Bruce she was staying with Clark because he ‘needed her’, suggesting if inadvertently that this really honest to god was a “she’s only staying with Superman out of pity, she really loved Batman more” thing.

But Clark is nothing in this. He’s sad and existential because of coming back from the dead I guess, then he’s corrupted, then time’s undone and he woo-rah rallies the collective armies of the world (interesting angle for the ‘anti-military/anti-establishment’ Superman he’s talked up as) as his big heroic moment in the finale, and then he stops being sad because he’s adopting a kid. So his big much-ballyhooed, extremely necessary five-movie character arc towards truly becoming Superman was:

Sad weird kid -> sad weird kid learns he’s an alien, is still weird and sad, maybe he shouldn’t save people because things could go really wrong? -> his dad is so convinced it could go wrong he lets himself die -> ????? -> Clark is saving people anyway -> learns his origin, gets an inspiring speech about being a bridge between worlds and a costume -> becomes superman (not Superman, that’s later) to save the world, albeit a very property-damagey version, rejects his heritage he just learned about and space dad’s bridge idea -> folks hate him being superman and that sucks though at least he’s got a girlfriend now -> things go so wrong he considers not being superman but his ghost dad reminds him shit always goes wrong so he should be good anyway, which sorta feels like it contradicts his previous advice -> immediate renewed goodness is out the window as he’s blackmailed into having to try and kill a dude but the dude happens to coincidentally have some things in common so they don’t kill each other after all -> big monster now but superman keeps supermaning at it because he loves his girlfriend and he dies -> he’s brought back, wears black which apparently means now he likes Krypton again? -> he has work friends now but he’s still sad because he was dead -> evil now! -> wait nevermind time travel -> rallies the troops -> his wife’s having a kid so he’s not sad anymore -> Superman! Who gives way to more Batman.

Do I think Zack Snyder is lying when he says he likes Superman? No. I think he sincerely finds much of the basic conceits and imagery engaging. But I don’t think he meaningfully gives shit about Clark as a character, just a vessel for Big Iconic Beats he wants to hit. Whereas while for instance he’s critical of Batman as an idea (at least up to a point), he’s much more passionately, directly enamored with him as a presence and personality. So while Superman may be the character whose ostensible myth cycle or arc or however it’s spun might be propelling a lot of events here, it’s a distant appreciation - of course the other guy takes over and subsumes him into his own narrative. Of course Batman is the savior, the past and the future (though if he’s supposed to be Batman’s kid raised by Superman there’s no excuse for him not to be Nightwing), the tragic martyr to our potential. Admittedly the implication here is also that Batman can apparently only REALLY with his whole heart be willing to sacrifice his life to save an innocent, for that matter apparently his great love, once said innocent is a receptacle for his Bat-brood, but he and Clark are both already irredeemable pieces of shit by the end of BvS so it’s not like this even registers by comparison.

Anonymous said: That “plan” Snyder had was utter dogshit. Picture proof that DC & WB hate Superman. Also I love how you’re like Jor-El: Every single idealistic take you had about Snyder, his fandom, and BvS was wrong. Snyder’s an edgy hack, his fanbase just wants to jerk off to their edgy self-insert Batgod as he screams FUCK while mowing people down with machine guns, and the idea that BvS said Superman was better than Bats was completely wrong. You know what comes next SuperMann: Either you die or I do.

In the final analysis, beyond that mother of god is there sure no conceivable excuse for the treatment of Lois in this? The temptation is to join that anon and say as I originally tweeted that these were “built entirely to disabuse every single redemptive reading of the previous work and any notion of these movies as nuanced, artistic, self-reflective, or meaningful”.

...

...

...yeah, okay, that’s mostly right. Zack Snyder’s vision really was the vision of an edgelord idiot with bad ideas who was never going to build up to anything that would reframe it all as a sensible whole. He’s a sincere edgelord genuinely trying really hard with his bad ideas who put some of them together quite cleverly! But they’re fucking bad and the endgame was never anything more than ramping up into smashing the action figures together as big as he could, the political overtones and moral sketchiness of BvS while trying to say something in that movie reverberated through the grand scheme of his pentalogy in no way beyond giving his boys a big sad pit to rise out of so when they kicked ass later it’d rule harder, and all the gods among men questions and horror and trappings were only that: trappings. Apparently he’s really pleasant and well-meaning in person, but at his core his art as embodied in a couple weeks in his 4-hour R-rated Justice League movie meant to be seen in black-and-white all comes down to that time he yelled at someone on Twitter that he couldn’t appreciate Snyder’s work because it’s for grown-ups. He made half-clever, occasionally exciting shit cape movies for a bunch of corny pseudo-intellectual douchebags, folks latching onto and justifying blockbusters that at least acknowledge how horrifying the world is right now even if the superheroes are basically useless in the face of it if not outright part of the problem until a convenient alien invasion shows up to justify them, and a handful of non-asshole smart people who vibe with it but...well. ‘Suckered’ is a harsh word, and definitely doesn’t apply to all of them re: what they’ve gotten out of it up to this point and would (somehow) get out of this. But it doesn’t apply to none of them, either.

[firelxdykatara]

Reader anon here with a thought!

Do you like love triangles? I personally don't, there is something about them that is incredibly frustrating lol. Same thing for harems, though there are some that do it tastefully 😌 so I can't be too upset by them.

It honestly depends on the love triangle and the way the author writes all three relationships (and, for any genuine love triangle, there should be three relationships--they don't all need to be romantic, but there needs to be an existing and strong relationship between all three points on the triangle, otherwise I'm almost certain not to be at all invested), how they are presented, and what the narrative purpose of the love triangle is.

Ironically, one of the best examples of a love triangle done well (at least... to a certain point in the story, which I'll explain in a bit) happened in a television show that is fairly notorious for turning to utter shit in the latter four seasons and alienating pretty much the entire fanbase, to the point where most of us dipped well before the end and everyone celebrated news of the show's cancellation.

I'm talking about The Vampire Diaries.

(under a cut because i went on a LOOOONG ramble about tvd and why that love triangle worked initially and then why it failed, and then i talked a bit about another love triangle that was pretty weak and failed almost from the outset in OUAT but was ultimately axed in favor of the stronger relationship and character being given focus, and what all of this means for how i feel about love triangles in general)

While this is still very much a case where I only shipped one side of the triangle, hated the other, and couldn't wait for it to be resolved so that I wouldn't have to deal with the side I disliked any longer (the writing was on the wall as far back as season 1, no matter how in denial a certain portion of the fandom remained right up until the series finale) the development of the triangle itself and how it affected all three characters and their relationships with one another was done very well for most of the first four seasons. Damon and Stefan were brothers, with a bloody and complicated history and relationship, and they both fell in love with this human girl--Stefan almost instantly, because she looked just like Katherine and he found himself... (and here I'm going to be as fair as I possibly can to him, but if you want my full anti stelena rant I have many of them prepped and ready to go) following her, at first to make sure she wasn't Katherine, and then inserting himself into her life to protect her. Damon, on the other hand, took much longer, because he was still in love with (and trying to rescue) Katherine, and so when he did fall in love with Elena, it was because of who she was, not because of some idealized 'Not Katherine' pedestal he placed her on the instant he met her.

(I swear, I swear I'm trying to be fair to Stefan, it's just very hard.)

The thing is, Elena was in love with Stefan almost from the jump. (And one of the reasons I never really shipped stelena is because that kind of insta-love with very little conflict that isn't manufactured by the plot just isn't compelling for me, and I fully jumped ship about halfway through s1 when Damon and Elena took a road trip together. It's a long story, but that remains one of my favorite episodes in the entire show and it marks the beginning of their actual journey together.) Stefan showed up at a time when she desperately needed someone, and to his credit he did help her through her early depressive spiral--in large part because Elena's recent trauma (survivor's guilt due to her parents dying in a car crash from which she was the only survivor) meant that finding out Stefan was immortal and could not die and would not leave her resulted in her getting fiercely attached.

He was safe, he was stable, she could rely on him. But she could not grow with him, because for him, she was essentially a morality pet/the anchor to his humanity, and that meant that he could not accept when she began to grow out of her need for him. The fact that this coincided with her becoming a vampire only made things worse--because she settled into being a vampire much more easily with far less strife than he'd ever managed, and an Elena who enjoyed being a vampire in ways Stefan simply couldn't could no longer function as the idealized reminder of humanity he was desperate to cling to.

Damon, on the other hand, was the one who fell in love with Elena--not Not Katherine. He never put her on a pedestal, he never asked more of her than she could give him--when he realized how deep his feelings for her ran, he made her forget his confession because he knew he did not deserve her and he didn't want her burdened with his feelings when she was still in love with his brother and was always going to be. Elena's growing feelings for Damon coincided with her growth from a depressed and suicidal teenage girl into a young woman who began to realize that it was ok to want things for herself--to be a little selfish, to take what she wanted, to admit what she wanted. And, again, the fact that this coincided with her transformation into a vampire (although her growth within her relationship with Damon began well before that), meant that Damon's reaction to Elena-as-a-vampire was thrown into sharp relief against Stefan's--because he accepted her where his brother couldn't.

Ultimately, this led to Elena fully outgrowing her feelings for Stefan, and accepting, nurturing, and reveling in her feelings for Damon. The triangle was resolved, all three characters had growth separately and in their different relationships, and they could then move on from there along their different paths. Stefan could have had some truly excellent character growth involving moving on and finally living for himself rather than trying so hard to be this perfect brooding tortured vampire because he was the Good Brother, since there was no longer any need for that Good Brother/Bad Brother dichotomy. They'd both grown past it, as characters individually and as brothers together.

Unfortunately, where TVD ultimately failed (and this coincided with the way the show utterly lost the plot in terms of storylines, character arcs and cohesiveness and became an unsalvageable mess) is in refusing to let the love triangle die.

What should have happened is that once the love triangle was resolved--Elena growing as a character and moving on from her immature first love and fully embracing her feelings, as an adult, for her much more adult relationship with Damon--they abandoned the love triangle premise and let all three characters continue to grow outside of it. Damon and Elena should have been allowed to grow together and explore their relationship, Stefan to figure out where he still fit in their lives--as Damon’s brother, and one of Elena’s closest friends who she still loved dearly even though she was no longer in love with him--and then explore relationships of his own outside their family unit as he finally began to fully move on and grow out of his own overly idealized feelings for Elena.

Instead, what wound up happening is that the stelena side of the love triangle kept being teased--probably to keep the avid stelena shipping contingent invested in the story, hoping for ‘another brother swap’ as was lampshaded in one of Nina’s final episodes before she left the show (and, indeed, many of them remained utterly convinced that stelena would be endgame, right up until the series finale)--and rather than growing together, delena fans were constantly hit over the head with how ‘toxic’ Damon and Elena were for each other (even though this ran contrary to everything we’d seen in the show to that point, including having Damon regress repeatedly for, presumably, no reason other than to never let fans forget he was the Bad Brother and always would be, and Elena just couldn’t help but love him anyway), and all three characters and their relationships wound up suffering horribly for it.

That is an example of a love triangle that had a very promising foundation and development, right up through what should have been a resolution, and the reason it is generally looked on so unfavorably in fandom circles is because the show refused to move on from the triangle organically when the story needed it to, because it had already served its purpose.

For an example of a love triangle that, in my mind, simply didn’t work from the very beginning, I’d say my go-to example is from Once Upon a Time--the short-lived love triangle between Emma, Killian, and Neal. I think the first stumbling block there was that there weren’t really three relationships that mattered. Technically, Killian did have a connection to Neal--because they’d met in Neverland, prior to Neal remaining in the Land Without magic--but it functioned more as a backdrop to explain why Killian knew him when they got to Neverland again in the story, and why Neal didn’t trust him. It wasn’t actually developed as anything outside of that brief flashback, and they didn’t have any connection in the present outside of one episode where they essentially fought over Emma and she (rightly) got angry at them for it. There was no real exploration of who they were to each other outside of the fact that both of them had feelings for Emma, so it really was just one woman torn between her feelings for two different men, and with no real stakes attached to her choice.

The other problem with this particular triangle is that one side of it was... conspicuously weak. While Emma’d had a full season and a half worth of interactions and development with Killian--where they went from enemies, to grudging allies, to Killian openly acknowledging that he hadn’t ever believed he would be able to love again until he met Emma--she had... very little to support her potential relationship with Neal outside of their history. History which consisted of then-young-adult Neal knocking up underage Emma (she was 17 at the oldest because she was still in Juvie when Henry was born, and he was already ten years old the day she turned 28; so she was either 16 or very newly 17 when she got pregnant) and ensuring that she got sent to prison for his own crime, at which point he didn’t see her again until she was nearly 30. When he did see her again, he treated her incredibly poorly, up to and including getting angry at her about the fact that she didn’t tell him that Henry was his son--even though he had no right to that information, because Emma was in prison because of him at the time she found out, and she had no clue that he was in any way connected to the Fairy Tale world until she was helping Mr. Gold track down his son and it turned out to be Neal.

A big point is made, throughout the early seasons especially, about Emma’s walls and how much difficulty she has trusting people--and a great deal of that stemmed from Neal’s betrayal. This could have been the foundation for a story of healing and growth and two people coming back together--however, with the way Neal treats Emma in the present and how little closure she actually gets for what he did to her in the past, it comes across more as ‘well, she never did get over her feelings for him, so maybe he still has a shot even though she has no real reason to want to be with him now’.

Killian, on the other hand, never doubted Emma’s abilities and always had the utmost trust in and respect for her (after they became allies), and it was obvious that this is something Emma experienced very little of in her life. It’s notable that the first episode where they really interacted is the one in which Emma’s history with Neal is revealed, and it very deliberately paralleled and contrasted with her interactions with Killian. This already presented him with a leg up on the love triangle once Neal did show up, because Neal was the reason for a lot of the walls Emma had built around her heart, and it wasn’t until meeting Killian that she finally began to let some of them down.

I think that the show recognized this, and it pulled something that is actually a very frustrating pet peeve of mine--rather than write out the story that makes sense and have the main point of the love triangle make a choice and stick to it, the third point of the triad was simply written out. In this case, Neal essentially killed himself via his own stupidity, allowing Emma to angst about losing him without actually having to tell him she wasn’t in love with him and wasn’t going to choose him. (Veronica Mars pulled something very similar with the Logan/Veronica/Duncian triangle in season 2--rather than admit within the narrative that her relationship with Duncan was built on flimsy feelings of infatuation bc of their history, and a ‘stability’ that didn’t really work for who Veronica was at her core, he simply got written out of the story, running away for Plot Reasons and never forcing Veronica to confront the fact that she wasn’t actually in love with him and hadn’t been for quite some time.)

I think that in OUaT, the love triangle could have worked if a relationship between Killian and Neal was not only established in the past but developed in the present--Killian was in love with Neal’s mother centuries earlier, and something I’m actually really upset we never got is the two of them talking about Milah and maybe Neal getting some closure for his mother’s abandonment and someone apologizing to him for what they put Baelfire through as a child--giving stakes to Emma’s choice beyond ‘one of them will be all uwu sad that he wasn’t picked’. It also would have worked much better if we were given any reason for Emma to still have feelings for Neal in the present beyond the history they shared, which caused Emma nothing but pain for the last decade and change. If Neal had treated her more fairly--if he’d treated her like someone he actually cared about and even still loved, rather than blaming her for things that were his own fault and undermining her belief in her own abilities, among other things--then their relationship might have been strong enough to stand on its own opposite Emma’s relationship with Killian. I don’t think it ever would’ve been a relationship that appealed to me, personally, but then I could have at least enjoyed watching the three of them grow together and seeing all of their relationships grow and change.

So, ultimately, TL;DR: I do like love triangles, conceptually, but there are a few requirements they must meet for me to feel anything other than irritated at the inclusion. One: there must be at least three equally important relationships between the three characters. If it’s just one character torn between her (or his, but it’s usually a woman) feelings for two unrelated people, that can be compelling for a short time but ultimately I’m going to be left feeling frustrated by her refusal to just make a damn choice and put me out of my misery. Two: there should be some sort of development in each relationship which makes the presence of the triangle narratively significant. Why is it important for one character to have conflicting romantic feelings for these two other people at the same time? What purpose does it serve either their character arcs or the story as a whole? While I am both a Bangel and a Spuffy shipper, I’ve never considered Angel/Buffy/Spike to be a love triangle--they are very different relationships that she had at very different points in her life, and while her feelings for Angel never really went away (and do cause some angst for Spike near the end of btvs) they are never really competing for her affections in any meaningful sense. If that competition does exist, there needs to be a compelling reason why. And, as a further addendum to this point, I need to at least understand why the main point of the triangle is invested in each relationship, even if I don’t ship it and actively dislike or even outright hate one side of the triangle. (I loathe stelena, but I’ve always understood why Elena was in love with him in the beginning of the show, for example. And before s5/s6, I was really pleased with how the show handled her feelings for him and finally allowed her to grow and move on from them.)

And finally, three: the triangle needs to be resolved at some point--and, when it is, it needs to stay that way. Where TVD ultimately lost me (aside from the ridiculous plot contrivances and rampant character assassination) was the refusal to let the love triangle die a natural death when it is what the story called for, and all three of their characters, their relationships, and the show as a whole suffered massively for it. So, when the primary point of the triangle makes a choice--particularly if she had made one choice in the beginning of the story, but it was clear that she was ultimately moving towards choosing the other side as she grew and her feelings and relationships grew and changed with her--let that be the end of it. Move on to exploring what that choice means for the main pair and the party not chosen, sure--maybe explore their feelings about not being chosen and how that affects their relationships with both of the others afterwards--but don’t constantly tease the possibility of the ‘losing side’ getting back together just to keep shippers invested. It’s only going to hurt your show and make everyone look callous and stupid.

Alternately, a final possibility: make it an ot3 instead. But again, if the other three conditions aren’t met (particularly number two, and its addendum; if I don’t understand why the main point of the triangle is in love with both other points, an ot3 is unlikely to resolve that issue and I’m only going to wind up resenting it), then this won’t work, because it’s just going to wind up a lopsided and stilted mess of a relationship that leaves me wishing the offending point of the triangle had been killed off just so I wouldn’t have to keep hearing about them.

[hanniiesuckle17]

Reaction to S/o Comforting Them

They Get Hate and Their S/o Comforts them.

A/n: Not requested and I really did not expect this to be so long but I just really wanted to go with this idea especially since its a serious topic

Bangchan:

The takeout bags were starting to become heavy in your hands. They were quite light at the bottom of the apartment building’s stairs but now almost ten steps away from your door on the fifth floor, they felt like ten-ton cement bricks. Thankfully you had remembered not to lock your door since you were going far and your boyfriend, Chan, was still home. “Chris! Chris, I’m back! I got you spicy chicken!” You called into your apartment. 

When you left Chan was doing a Vlive, but he should have ended by now. There was no answer. The two of you had converted the guest room into an office for Chan, but when you opened the door he was nowhere to be found. “Chris?” Nothing. He wasn’t in the living room or in the kitchen. Maybe he went to change? So, you ventured into your shared bedroom. He was nowhere to be seen. 

The door to your bedroom patio was open, however. Walking out, you saw Chan sitting on the loveseat you had outside. He was staring at his hands, his hair blowing in the breeze. “Baby, it’s cold. Why don’t you come in? I’ve got food from-” It was then you noticed the look on his face.

“Chan, love, what’s wrong?”

Exhausted, Chan ran a hand over his tired face and through his curly hair. “Nothing. I’m just- I’m in my own head. I saw this comment on Vlive and...I’m fine. Just tired.” You shook your head and sat next to him. “No. It’s not fine. You are obviously not okay.” Chris shrugged before looking up at the sky. “It’s really not a big deal.” He tried to shrug it off and give me a small smile, but we both knew it was fake. “Okay...You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, love.” Instead, you wrapped and arm around his shoulder pulling him down so his head rested in your lap. He didn’t fight your motion, relaxing as your fingers raked through his hair.

You knew Chan would tell you eventually. You just closed your eyes and focused on taking care of Chan and making him feel better. An hour had maybe passed and Chan still lay in your lap. 

“It was just one comment. It was so stupid that it got to me,” Chan said breaking the silence. Chan looked like he was about to cry. He held back the tears and instead reached for your other hand that was resting on his chest. “Go kill yourself and your team members. Your shitty music isn’t worth anything anyway.” Your movements froze.

Looking down you saw Chan fully focused on your fingers. You had dealt with hate. You were very familiar with it ever since you had begun dating Chan almost a year and a half ago. You knew he had anti-fans. It was no secret that out of all the members, Chan got some of the most and worst hate. But, this was cruel on a different level.

“Chan, I don’t know what to say...” He sighed, playing with your fingers. “If you did know what to say I’d be surprised.” You settled for playing with his hair once more, hoping that it would help. “This is more than enough. You just being here. You always seem to show up when I need you the most, Y/n.” He sighed and closed his eyes, further relaxing in your company. “Well, I love you, Chan. I’m always going to show up.”

Minho:

Your boyfriend was feeling really upset lately. The boys were prepping for a huge stage and Minho was going to do a solo performance as a transition. He had been spending all his time in the practice room rehearsing. You knew JYP was putting a lot of pressure on him and Minho was also stressed because BTS was confirmed to attend the award show. He didn’t want to fail in front of his old sunbaenims. 

Jisung gave you a hug as you walked down the hall. He had called you earlier and asked you to come to bring Minho some food. Apparently, he hadn’t eaten anything all day. As usual, Minho was blasting music in the practice room. He was alone and dancing in the middle of the room. Patiently you waited for him to finish before setting down the food and approaching him.

“Hey, baby! I brought you dinner.” Minho gave you a half-assed smile. “Thanks.” He was dripping in sweat so you walked over to his bag and grabbed the towel he kept in there. “Why don’t you take a break? Have something to eat.” He shook his head and wiped his face and neck. “I can’t- I’ve got to keep working.” 

Your boyfriend walked back over to the stereo turning on the music. This wasn’t like him. There was a fire in his eyes. A dangerous drive. He looked angry. You watched as Minho danced. Every once in awhile, he would mess up and almost scream in frustration. “Minho, stop. This isn’t healthy.”

“I’m fine!” Minho turned off the music and continued working on a specific section. 

Anger and frustration radiated off of him. You couldn’t help but stand frozen half in worry and half in fear. Heavy sounds of his footsteps bounced around the room. A screech was heard as his shoe slid across the wood floor. “ARGHHH!” Minho screamed, collapsing against the mirror. His forehead rested against the cool glass, his fists on either side of his head. “Why can’t I get it!?” The sound of shattering glass filled the wrong making you double back. 

When you looked you saw dark blood dripping off of Minho’s hand and splattering the cracked mirror. 

Slowly, you approached him, reaching out a comforting hand. Silence filled the room except for the sound of his shallow breaths. He flinched away from your touch at first but didn’t push you away when your hand rested on his shoulder. “I can’t make another mistake.” He said, his brows furrowing. “Minho, who said you were making mistakes?” 

No matter what you did, Minho wouldn’t look at you. “I know you told me not to look at them...It’s just hard not to. You don’t know when one of those is going to be mixed in with a good comment and-” You could tell he was starting to get angry again so you took his hand gently and pulled him into you. Like it was his second nature Minho’s arms wrapped around you. “Are you mad at me?” 

His question broke your heart. He sighed when he felt your head shake. “No, Never.” “I didn’t mean to scare you earlier.”  You could practically feel the frustration and tension leaving his body as you rubbed his back. “It’s not your fault.” After awhile Minho pulled away from rubbed his tired face. “Oh god. The mirror.” One of the dance mirrors was severely cracked from when Minho punched it. “I’m gonna have to pay for it. Chan’s gonna be pissed.” 

“Hey! Hey! Look at me,” You turned your boyfriend back around to face you. 

“I’ll take care of it. I’ll cover the cost of the mirror. You just need to come home with me, have some dinner and relax. Sound good?” An airy chuckle led this chest and he nodded. It was nice to see his smile again. He smiled even more when you pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before the two of you gathered your things and left the practice room. 

Changbin:

Four straight hours. Four straight hours of studying. Convinced you deserved a break you checked your phone and scrolled through Instagram. Then you noticed you had received a notification about thirty minutes ago that Stray Kids were live. Opening Vlive the video came into focus. It looked like your boyfriend and the rest of 3RACHA were live answering questions. Your eyes immediately went to your boyfriend. 

Changbin was wearing your favorite black beanie on him and a loose sweatshirt. One second he was smiling at something Han said and the next he was frowning at his phone. He took off his beanie and ran a hand through his blonde hair. Changbin was oddly quiet for the rest of the live stream. At one point he even turned his phone over and pushed it away. 

Something was not right. Changbin did not look okay. He avoided eye contact with the boys and kept his answers short. He had that look on his face. The same look when he found you still awake studying for an exam at three a.m. Changbin hated seeing you struggle. It hurt him seeing you push yourself.

Not being able to take it you opened the live stream on your laptop and called him. Normally hearing his special ringtone for you would make you smile, but he looked at his phone like it was a weapon aimed at him. The call went to voicemail. Jisung and Chan both looked at him when he ignored the call. “Yah! You know who that is! Pick up!” Jisung said, half laughing through his words. The comments began to ask who it was and why their ringtone was a special song. 

“Changbin only has one special ringtone set. It’s for the person who he sees the most.” Chan said laughing. You called once more. “Come on, pick up.” You muttered under your breath. Sighing, Changbin picked up the phone. You watched as he put on a strained fake smile for you, knowing you would be able to hear it in his voice. 

“Hey, sweetie! What’s up?” 

“Seo Changbin don’t you pull this bullshit with me.” 

You watched as his eyes went wide, clearly not expecting your answer. “What do you mean?” He said pulling that fake smile again. Jisung and Chan poked and laughed with each other while Changbin spoke to you. “Binnie, I know you are putting on a fake smile pretending that you are okay when you are actually not so cut the shit.” Had you not been worried about your boyfriend you would have found it funny to watch his eyes grow even wider and look around the conference room they were in like you were hiding somewhere. “How did you know?” Changbin asked bewildered.

“I’m watching the live, babe.” “Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck and motioned for the other boys to keep talking. You watched as Changbin walked off screen still on the phone. “Binnie, what’s wrong?” He sighed over the phone. “Nothing. I just saw this comment. It’s fine.” You would have given anything to be able to hug him right at that moment. “No. Fine is not acceptable. Changbin whatever that comment said is wrong.” He scoffed over the phone.

“You don’t even know what it said, babe.” “Okay, what did it say?” Changbin let out another sigh. “Something about me stealing everything BTS are writing and that our music wasn’t good. They said that there was no use in me writing for Stray Kids if all I was going to write was crap.” It was your turn to scoff. “Well. Both you and I know that is far from the truth. Seo Lewis Changbin you are one of the most talented producers and men that I have ever known and will ever know.” 

There was silence on the other side of the line for a moment. “I love you, Y/n.” “Yeah, I know. I love you too. Why don’t we go get boba after I finish up studying?” He quickly agreed and ended the call. It made you smile to see Changbin reappear on screen, a huge grin from ear to ear.

Hyunjin:

You were running late. Very late. This was one of the biggest concerts in your boyfriend’s career and you were late. Usually, you would have met him at the fan meet before the concert, but your meeting ran over an hour longer than it was supposed to. Rushing home you changed and threw on some nicer makeup before driving slightly over the speed limit to reach the stadium on time.

You arrived just on time and moved to your seat in the second row. A few STAYs recognized you and were very kind and polite. They asked about how your studies were going and if Hyunjin was taking care of himself. You really loved how much they cared about him. Soon the show started and you were screaming the boys’ names with the other fans. The concert was going well. Except for the fact that Hyunjin was really out of it. 

He seemed to be completely avoiding the right side of the stage and when he glanced over in that direction he got this look on his face. You could tell something was wrong. After Hyunjin almost tripped and fell during District 9, you knew something was up. “Hey, where are you going?” A fan beside you asked while they were finishing up a song. “I’m just going to go to the restroom.” You said giving her a smile. She nodded and promised to keep your seat. 

You moved to the right side of the stadium and showed your ID to the staff who led you down a hall to the backstage. Their manager greeted you with a smile and quickly gave you a pass so no one would bother you. “Is everything okay?” He asked over the music. “Hyunjin seemed a little off to me. Is he alright?” You questioned as he leaned over to hear you. He nodded. “He seemed a little upset after the fansign, but he told me it was nothing.” You trusted their manager. He always took good care of the boys. However, you knew Hyunjin. He would say anything for the staff to let him perform. 

“They have a ten minute break before the next set. Hyunjin has fifteen since the dance unit is second.” “Thank you.” Not a moment later the boys started exiting the stage, stylists and staff rushed to them giving them water and wiping them down. Quickly they ushered the boys to the dressing room and you followed. 

“Y/n!” Minho cheered when he saw you. Several of the boys were shirtless, changing for the show, but they didn’t really care if you saw, neither did you. Minho gave you a hug and then passed you onto Felix and Jisung who in turn wanted hugs as well. “Go get dressed guys. You are doing great!” Your eyes found your boyfriend slipping off the first shirt and picking up one a stylist handed to him. “Hyunjin,” He turned at the sound of your voice. 

He dropped the shirt on the couch and ran to hug you. “It is so good to see you.” He whispered into your neck. Hyunjin still had cold sweat dripping down his neck. “Hyunjin, darling, what’s wrong?” You said cupping his face. You could see it in his gorgeous dark eyes. There was no light behind them today. Hyunjin sighed, shaking his head. “Why don’t you change, and then we will talk?” Slowly he nodded taking the shirt from his stylist again. They touched up his makeup and then he sat down on the couch, his head in his heads. 

“Jinnie, tell me what’s wrong.” He shrugged as you took his hands in your yours. “Did something happen at the fansign? A flash of hurt passed through his eyes as he looked at you. “Something did happen. Didn’t it?” He nodded glancing over at the other boys who were busy getting water and prepping for the next number. “There was a girl. She was one of the last ones. She gave me a signed petition of people wanting to kick me out of Stray Kids.” A hand went to your mouth in shock. You couldn’t imagine how Hyunjin must be feeling right now.

“She said that the boys only need me for the promotion visuals. She called me a useless pretty face.” The look on Hyunjin’s face made you want to cry. “She’s right there. On the front row in the right section.” Hyunjin buried his face in his hands. Wrapping your fingers around his wrists you pulled his hands away from his face. Slow tears were running down it. “Hyunjin, you are not just a pretty face. You are so much more than that. I love you because you are kind, and funny, and you dance with me in the living room, and you clean the dished when I don’t want to, and you have the biggest heart.” He chuckled and wiped away his tears.

“Really?” “Really.” He felt reassured when you kissed him. “I was talking to some of the girls around me before the concert and do you know what they said?” He shook his head and looked me in the eyes, curious. “They said: ‘Is Hyunjin resting well?’ ‘Please make sure he eats.’ ‘How is Hyunjin oppa? Please take care of our Hyunjin.’“ Hyunjin let out a small laugh, his eyes turning into cute crescent moons. “Real STAY love you. They want you to be well. So do the boys and I.” You placed kisses all across his knuckles, making him smile again. 

“You don’t have to go back out if you don’t want to. The boys wouldn’t mind. You come first.” “No, no. It’s okay. I want to go back out.” Hyunjin said taking your hands in his. “I want to go for STAY.” You nodded, pushing a stray hair away from his face. “I’ll be backstage if you need me.” After kissing your cheek the two of you got up and went backstage to wait for Hyunjin’s next number. He felt better knowing you were only a few feet away if he needed you.

Jisung:

Your phone read almost four in the morning. You looked up at the building you knew your boyfriend was still in, JYP Entertainment. It wasn’t unusual for him to come home late or even stay at the dorm every once in a while, but he would always call you or at the very least send you a text. This was different. Jisung hadn’t been home for almost a week. Worried for his health Chan had sent you a message a couple hours ago saying Ji hadn’t come home the past two nights. 

You heard someone playing the piano in one of the boy’s studios as you made your way down the hall. They were playing the same chord over and over again, adding different endings to it, occasionally hitting a sour note. It didn’t surprise you when the sound was coming from Han’s studio. Carefully you opened the door and looked inside. 

Jisung sat the piano, notebooks, and sheet music strewn across almost every surface. He looked terrible. His brown hair was a mess and his clothes were wrinkled. Jisung slammed his fist down, making you jump at the sound of the keys. Defeated he held his head in his hands, soft cries shaking his shoulders. The sight broke your heart. You knew more than half of what the public saw was a confident front that Jisung put up to keep up with the other guys.

He jumped when your hand came to his shoulder. Quickly he wiped his eyes and sat up straight again, looking back at the keyboard and lyrics. “Y/n! What are you doing here? Don’t you have work?” It was clear he didn’t want you to see him at the moment. “Ji, baby, it’s four in the morning,” He paused before checking his watch.

“You should be asleep, you have a class at eight.” His words tugged at your heartstrings. Even through all this pain he was pushing down, he still kept up with your life and made sure you were taking care of yourself. 

“Jisung,” Letting out a shaky breath he glanced at you, but soon resorted to shuffling the papers around, trying to clean up his mess. “Jisung, it’s Saturday.” He stopped and you could see the gears turning in his head. His gorgeous brown eyes looked dull and had heavy bags underneath them. “When was the last time you slept?” You asked cupping his jaw, trying to get the man to look at you. 

“I can’t sleep. Not when I keep thinking about everything. I need to finish this anyway. I have a deadline.” You knelt down beside his chair looking up at him. “Thinking about what?” Jisung looked away, the soundproofing on the walls becoming very interesting to him. “Ji, you can tell me anything. I’m with you now, okay? It’s okay.” He broke, letting the tears stream down his cheeks. “Oh, Jisung.” Immediately, you wrapped him up in your arms. He held onto you like you were the only thing tying him onto this earth, this life. 

“Hyung told me not to read them anymore. But it’s just so hard not to.” You knew exactly what he was talking about. It made you cry as well to think that those terrible comments and anti-fans were affecting your boyfriend this much that he felt he couldn’t talk about it. “They just keep getting in my head. They were even at the fansign yesterday.” You threaded your fingers through his soft hair as he cried into your neck. At some point, Ji had pulled you up to sit on his lap so he could hold you even tighter. “This girl-she wouldn’t even let me touch her album. She told me that I didn’t deserve to be with the boys and that I was just dragging them down. She told me to-” 

He just cried harder held you tighter. “She’s wrong, Jisung.” You tried to think of a way to comfort the man you loved in your arms as you ran your fingers through his hair, in hopes of calming him down. “The boys love you. Real STAY love you so much. I love you more than you could ever imagine. Look at me,” Slowly he pulled away from my neck, eyes red and breath short from crying. 

Jisung stared into my eyes waiting as I looked at him. “You are not alone. I’m going to be here. With you. Always. You understand?” Another slow tear ran down his cheek but he gave me a small smile and nodded. “Please come home, Jisung.” He nodded once again and wiped his eyes before giving me a soft kiss, letting me feel his gratitude and love.

Felix:

You rolled over in bed, expecting for Felix’s warm arms to wrap around you sleepily. Cracking open your eyes, you saw his side of the bed was empty. “Felix,” You called out, thinking maybe he got up to go to the bathroom or something. The clock on his nightstand blared almost two in the morning in bright red numbers.

Throwing on a big shirt from your closet, your bare feet padded across the cold wooden floor of your apartment. After knocking on the bathroom door you entered to see an empty room. “Lix?” You knew he came home last night. You distinctly remember going to bed early with him next to you. Maybe he went to get a glass of water?

Opening your bedroom door you saw a light in the kitchen was on. Your boyfriend was sitting in front of his laptop at the counter his head in his hands. Even from a distance, you could see that Felix was looking at Twitter.  Without hesitation, you wrapped your arms around Felix’s waist making him jump.

“Y/n, what are you doing up? It’s late; go back to bed.”

You could just barely make out the tiny sniffles he was trying to hide from you as he stroked your arm, still around his waist. “Darling, what’s wrong?” You asked quietly, kissing his shoulder. “Nothing! I’m fine! Don’t worry, y/n. Go back to bed.” You sighed. Felix almost never called you by name. Especially when you were alone. Glancing over you read a couple of the tweets on screen.

omg Felix is so obviously gay it makes me want to puke

I’d honestly rather eat shit than have Felix get more lines this comeback

Lee Felix more like Lee FAILURE. Can’t you guys see he is bringing the rest of the boys down? #fuckoff  

JYP should have gotten rid of Felix in the survival show. His gay untalented ass didn’t deserve to come back

Turning you finally saw Felix’s face. He had slow silent tears running down his cheeks. He wiped them away when he saw you looking. “Felix-” “I’m fine!” He said quickly closing the laptop. All you could do was wipe away the still flowing tears. “You are obviously not.” Felix just dropped his head onto your shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?” Dejectedly he shook his head.

“Felix, do I need to call Chan?” 

“No! No! I’m fine. Really. Don’t wake up hyung.”

His eyes went wide and he gripped your arm, keeping you in front of him. “Okay, I won’t.” Your hand went up to his cheek again, wiping away some drying tears. “By the way everything they said was false and you know it.” Your boyfriend nodded but still didn’t look convinced. He let out a sigh when you kissed him gently. Felix’s tears had finally come to a stop when you pulled away, but he still looked beaten down.

“Stay right here,” Lix did as you asked, rubbing his tired eyes. Exhausted from schedules that day and from crying, your boyfriend watched as you made tea for the both of you. Felix trudged his way behind you as you walked back to your shared bedroom. The two of you sipped on tea and whispered to each other about random thoughts that came to mind. Soon the two of you fell asleep in each other's arms. Felix fell asleep first listening to you whisper how much you loved him. You felt comforted in the fact that he was alright now and could finally sleep peacefully, his heart and mind at rest.

Seungmin:

Your last class had ended maybe an hour ago. Now you couldn’t wait to go and see your boyfriend. The two of you had made plans earlier in the week to hang out at the dorms tonight. The bus ride over was uneventful, you listened to Stray Kids’ new song and marveled in Seungmin’s vocals. How did you get so lucky? Not wanting to get caught, you went through the back entrance of the boys’ dorm and climbed the stairs.

The sound of your knuckles on the wooden door echoed in the empty hall. The door opened to reveal Hyunjin. “Y/n?” The shock on his face surprised you. Seungmin always let the boys know when you were coming over. Not that they minded. “Hi, Hyunjin! Seungmin and I were going to hang out tonight.” He nodded and glanced behind him into the apartment. There was a hesitant look on Hyunjin’s handsome face. “Just warning you. He had a bad day. Like really bad.” 

You nodded, completely understanding the meaning behind his words. “I thought he stopped reading those comments.” Hyunjin shook his head, letting me into the boys’ apartment. “We were going through fan mail earlier today. I think he got a couple of bad ones.” A couple of the boys greeted you while you listened to Hyunjin and set your bag down near the counter. “Where’s Han?”

“We were giving him some space. He’s in our room.” The boy pointed down the hall to their shared room. As you approached you heard soft music playing behind the door. Softly you knocked. “Chan hyung, go away.” Again you knocked hearing a sigh and footsteps coming towards the door. “Chan I’m fine! You don’t have to-”

Seungmin’s eyes widened as he saw you standing before him. “Y/n...I totally forgot you were coming I’m so sorry.” Without saying a word you gently moved past him and into the room. You heard the soft click of Seungmin closing the door. “How was class?” “Don’t pretend, Min. Not with me.” His smile fell and his shoulders drooped. Soft music filled the heavy air between you. “Who told you?” Seungmin sighed, collapsing onto his bed. 

“Hyunjin.” Seungmin stared up at the ceiling, his arm behind his head. Taking off your coat, you crawled over to lay next to him. “You want to talk about it?” Seungmin was silent for a moment, instead choosing to wrap an arm around you. “I guess,” You nodded and traced patterns across his chest. “There were just a whole bunch of letters today. They were all saying how untalented I am and how I could never replace Woojin.” You could tell he was angry just by his voice.

“I know they’re just anti-fans and I shouldn’t listen to what they say, but it just hit really hard. We only lost Woojin a month ago and that was already hard enough. Han and I have been struggling to keep up with the new lines and parts. When they said that I was replacing him...it just...”

“It was the last straw?” Seungmin sighed nodding his head. “Yeah. I’m not trying to replace Woojin. I just want to keep making music with the boys. We just work so hard- I work so hard to make good music for STAY and to hear people say things like that really hurts.” 

Seungmin let out another sigh, but this one felt like he was letting go of all the tension and anger he felt. “Thank you for listening. I should have just talked to someone in the first place.” He reached over and kissed the top of your head, making you smile. “You were angry. It’s understandable. I’m always here to listen if you need me.” The two of you laid in the small bed, listening to the soft music still playing in the room, enjoying the newfound calm.

Jeongin:

“Y/n, can you come down to JYPE?” Changbin said over the phone. Thankfully you were seated in the very back of your university class so you could sneakily answer. “Changbin, I’m in class right now.” You heard him sigh over the phone. “Look it ends in like thirty minutes. I can be ther-”

“No, Y/n. You don’t understand. We need you here now.” There was something about the tone of Changbin’s voice. “Okay, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Everyone’s head turned as you slammed open the classroom door and ran out. “MS. L/N!” The professor called. You sprinted out to your car and hoped you had enough gas to get you across town to JYP Entertainment. You cursed the amount of traffic as your car came to a standstill in the middle of Seoul. You were about five minutes away from the boys’ building. 

Ding

Picking up your phone you saw a message from Changbin. He had sent you a link to a video. Traffic wasn’t about to start moving anytime soon so you opened it and put your phone in the stand on your dashboard. The link sent you to a press conference with the boys about their upcoming comeback. It looked like it was an open conference so fans were there too. However, instead of talking about the comeback reporters kept on asking Jeongin about our relationship. Some fans were also screaming at him and the boys.

A car horn brought you out of your trance. You hadn’t realized that you were crying while watching the video. Wiping your tears you drove the rest of the way to the building. Jeongin was doing his best to answer the questions politely while still giving us the privacy we wanted. You could tell he was obviously bothered and upset. Chan had tried directing the focus on him but it didn’t work. 

When you arrived Changbin and Chan ushered you inside, pushing past several reporters and photographers. “Where is he?” Chan motioned you towards a room near the dance studio. When you opened the door you were greeted with a dark room. “Innie?” Soft cries could be heard from the other side of the room. Seeing your silhouette before you closed the door, Jeongin rushed over to you and wrapped you in a tight hug. “Are you okay?” He asked cupping your face.

“Jeongin what’s wrong?” He shook his head, looking into my eyes. “It’s just...so hard.” You couldn’t see well in the dark, but from the sound of his voice, you knew he was crying. “Jeongin, talk to me, darling.” He held both your hands in his. “I hate that you are getting all this hate because of me. People are saying all this stuff about us.” You knew he was hiding the fact that ever since your relationship went public he was getting way more hate than usual.

“Hey, Yang Jeongin,” He looked up at you with sad eyes. You could see he had been holding this in for a long time. “You don’t have to be strong for the both of us. I’m here to do this with you because I love you.” Leaning up you placed a kiss on his forehead. “We can get through this together.” 

“Thank you for being here for me, Y/n.” “Always, Innie.”

Requests are open my lovelies! Just send an ask!

Masterlist

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 5x03-- And the court had a clerk...

Hello again! It’s nice to have this show back. This episode was a bit less of a standout than the previous two, but I’m still happy with the overall direction for this season. More under the cut (or here, because tumblr sucks). 

When Robert King tweeted the episode title, I asked him if all the titles this season were adding up to one long sentence/story, hoping he’d confirm it and give a little more information. He did! He said it’s “in the Farmer in the Dell mode” and while I think I get what he’s saying, I’m very curious to see how it plays out. Haven’t been able to track down 5x04′s title yet, but the promo is out. (As of this morning! It’s interesting they’re not putting them after the episode this year; I kind of like it.) 

Kurt’s job is up in the air given the new administration. I think this scene exists mostly just to remind us where Kurt works and the stakes.

What month is this supposed to be in? The transition seems recent but no one is wearing masks.  

Kurt spots a poster asking for help ID’ing people at the Capitol on January 6th. He thinks he recognizes someone...

And now we’re in case of the week land. This case is about a small business owner whose business went under after someone created fake news articles accusing him of pedophilia.  

I think the whole point of this (kind of long) scene is to show that this case is a pretty small deal. Low stakes, inexperienced opposing lawyer. (Not even sure why Liz would be arguing this in court, but whatever.)

Tbh I thought this was going to wind up in 9 ¾ court.

Now that we have junior level characters, we get scenes showing that there are, in fact, people at RBL who are mid-level. Liz asks an associate to work on something, he asks another associate to work on it, she delegates to other associates, and they delegate to Marissa and Carmen. This work seems terrible.  

It’s so funny to me how this is probably more realistic than most of the lawyering on the show and yet it only shows up selectively. We only see the hierarchy here to make it clear that Marissa and Carmen are at the bottom.  

David Lee interrupts and asks for Carmen. He’s very rude to her. Interestingly, she’s hesitant to leave her grunt work and follow David, even though she must know he outranks the associate who gave her the grunt work.

“Why am I supposed to know you?” David asks her as they walk through the halls. “I don’t know if you are,” Carmen responds. “Why does Benjamin Dafoe know you?” he asks. She doesn’t know who he is.  

“Who are you?” Dafoe asks when Carmen enters. She states her name, again. “Why are you important?” he asks. “I don’t think that I am,” Carmen responds.  

Then Dafoe says his top client, and it’s a name that the characters all know. I’m glad this scene is free of any “he’s the white OJ” expository lines (that’s from Sweeney’s introduction) -- it’s clear from the reactions and the discussion of police and rape that the top client is a bad guy, probably a rapist. The rapist wants Carmen to represent him.

Putting 2 and 2 together, Carmen asks if the rapist knows Rivi. He’s not, but he’s at the same prison. As soon as Carmen says she’s representing Rivi, David Lee switches gears, understanding the situation and trying to sign the new business. He’s so shameless!  

Marissa sorts ALL the papers. There are a LOT of papers. I’m swamped. Look at all this paper.

She catches the associate who assigned her the task leaving for the night just as she finishes up, and cheerfully notes she’s finished the task. Then the associate mentions this was only half of the bills. Marissa does not like that. Since her goal in wanting to be a lawyer is mostly just to give her something exciting to do and earn respect... this hierarchy thing is not going so well.

Marissa decides that after her rough day, she’s going to stop by Wackner’s court. He’s in the middle of a case about Emily in Paris fanfiction and he’s very happy to see Marissa.  

Wackner’s night court has a program—it notes the sponsor is Copy Co-op (I thought it was Copy Coop?) and the paper products were also provided by them. And “there will be regular intermissions at the discretion of Judge Wackner.” It’s very theatrical.  

Wackner takes a recess and calls Marissa to his “chambers.” He asks for her thoughts on the case. “All they want is attention and to feel like they’ve won,” Marissa notes. Wackner’s on the same wave length and compares it to the Scarecrow’s diploma at the end of The Wizard of Oz. So, he makes copyright certificates and some minor modifications to each of the fanfic books. They say “I respect you and I love you” and that’s that.

Wackner catches Marissa before she leaves and asks her to be his law clerk—part time or full time, 10% of all the legal filings and unlimited use of copy machines. She is hesitant because she “doesn’t even know what this is.”

Wackner says his court is “the future.” Marissa turns him down; notes she wants to pass the bar. “You know why all these people are here? ‘Cause the courts and the lawyers and the appeals have made justice... unattainable. Out of reach. To anyone who doesn’t have a shitload of money to wait it out. That’s why Exxon beats out Mr. Nobody. Read Kafka’s Before the Law.”  

I just read it, and you should too! It literally is a page, but tl;dr, there’s a man who wants to get to the law and instead he spends his whole life trying to win over the first of many gatekeepers on the path to the law. He never gets through the gate.  

“Justice is only just if it’s available to everyone,” Wackner says. Marissa thinks about that.

As I said last week, it’s smart that Wackner makes so much sense. Hearing him say all this, knowing that it’s true... it makes it very easy to get on board with the thought experiment. Of course there would be huge repercussions to this kind of system, but it makes so much sense it’s compelling TV!

Kurt’s showering when Diane gets home, which gives her time to stumble across the WANTED poster and notice that Kurt has drawn facial hair onto one of the pictures. “Who is this?” she asks him. “No one,” he says. “Well, you drew in a beard and a moustache on him,” Diane notes. Kurt says he was doodling, but Diane calls him out as he is the “exact opposite of a doodler.” Kurt says he thought it was someone he knew, but he’s not sure. Diane pushes him to tell the feds. Kurt reiterates he’s not sure, but it’s someone he went shooting with. “Oh my God, then it’s him,” Diane jumps to (not incorrect) conclusions. Kurt says he didn’t talk that way; he’s a veteran. “Kurt! That’s the profile!” Diane argues. Kurt isn’t convinced and he doesn’t want to be responsible for naming names. He notes he’ll be threatened with indictment for not naming names and then only lawyers will end up benefitting. Diane is not convinced.

I think this is an interesting conflict for Kurt and Diane. I understand why Kurt is hesitant to speak out before he’s sure. And I understand and agree with Diane that it’s important to identify the attackers and prevent anything like that from happening again.

I don’t mean to blame Kurt, exactly, but I feel like all of what happens next could’ve played out differently if Kurt had been just a little clearer with Diane about why he was hesitant to ID the man. Like, the threat of indictment for not naming names sounds like some typical anti-government rambling. Saying you specifically are afraid that this will turn back on you and you need to weigh your options and come up with a plan first would put Diane in a very different mode, in which they’d work together to craft the best strategy. Because this man would’ve been ID’d by someone, sooner or later, and Kurt would’ve needed to be prepared.  

Diane stares at the wanted poster at work and asks Jay to find his identity. He’s on the FBI TEN MOST WANTED? Ten!? Ok!  

Diane shares the extra information she has—the gun range and that he’s a veteran—and Jay gets to work.  

Turns out there’s no money in the case that Liz, a name partner, is working on and Marissa just spent all those hours sorting bills for. I could’ve told you there was no money in that case lol.  

Jay IDs the guy very fast. He’s faster than the feds because they didn’t know where he shot. The range had his license on file, and Jay got ahold of it.

“Well, we don’t pay you enough,” Diane says. “Oh, I know that,” Jay laughs.  

Diane says she’s going to think about calling the feds—it's definitely the same guy.

Marissa notes someone high profile (David Cord, who I presume is a thinly veiled stand-in for David Koch given the name, his role in the plot, and the fact that he is “David Cord of the Cord Brothers”) in the lobby giving a fake name and goes to tell Liz.  

David Cord is performing magic tricks for the receptionists (they don’t recognize him) when Liz and Marissa show up. “I knew your father. I hated your father,” Cord says. “Yes, well, he hated you too,” Liz says. He says he gave a fake name to see what the reception would be like since he’s kinda infamous.  

Liz introduces Marissa as one of the law clinic lawyers. Marissa knows what to say in this situation. Specifically, she knows that it is the exact right moment to name drop her father.  

“Democrats as far as the eye can see,” Cord notes. At that, Liz asks Marissa to get Julius involved.

More good expository work! (No, editor feature of Word, I do NOT want that to say “Better expository work,” that would change my meaning, go away and please stop grading my recap??? I don’t know how I brought this up but it’s telling me my score is 72%, so a C, and it’s driving me crazy. Oh, now I’m a 71%. It had me at like, 50%, because I had written “Wackner” and “Wackner” is not a word. No shit.)  

Anyway, back to the exposition. I like that we don’t get a line like, “Liz! David Cord, the Republican super donor, is here!” We just get to see Liz’s reaction, Cord’s hate of Liz’s father, and the line about democrats. Then it becomes clearer who Cord is.

Just noticed Liz is wearing an Apple Watch.

Liz stands for her meeting with Cord, likely to maintain power. Cord says January 6th changed everything to him and now he’s all about unity and loving America.  

Cord has something to say about Liz’s case, the one that’s not making any money, and he seems to know quite a lot about it. That spooks Liz.  

Then Cord offers her $12 million to continue the case for another six months (all of these months, seemingly, will play out in the couple of days the rest of this episode takes, but, whatever). He just wants them to go after the social media company that distributed the fake news... and Section 230.

Don’t know what that is? Now you do, because there is a Good Fight short! These work so much better when they’re actually needed (explaining concepts, etc.) than when they’re trying to force one into every episode (remember that Downton Abbey one? What... was that?)  

I was talking to @mimeparadox about this short and he pointed out that this short has a VERY clear POV on an issue that actually doesn’t seem to be all that straightforward. If you’re like me and only had a vague sense of what Section 230 was prior to this episode, this short is telling you what to think of it—it isn’t just explaining what it is.

I do tend to agree with the show’s POV on most things, but this is an issue I’d like to read more on. I love how Section 230 was something I hadn’t really read up on prior to this episode and now that it’s been on TGF I realize it’s something that actually, yes, I would’ve been interested in knowing about earlier. Is this because things that are on TGF are interesting to me because they’re on TGF or is it because TGF generally only discusses things that would be interesting to me? Probs a little bit of both.  

Diane asks Jay how to make an anonymous phone call and he hands her a burner phone. She calls the FBI with the rioter’s name. She doesn’t leave her name and then she dumps the phone.  

Credits! Did you catch there’s a Jordan Boatman in the credits? She plays one of the associates who passes down the grunt work to Marissa, and she’s Michael Boatman’s daughter in real life! She’s also been in one other episode, in season 3.  

I never get tired of these credits!  

The RL partners (and some associates who are on the case? I think these are the same ones who delegated the work to Marissa?) debate whether or not they should take Cord’s money. Madeline notes that he’s funded a lot of Republican campaigns; Julius notes that both Republicans and Democrats agree that Section 230 is flawed and this is an opportunity for unity.

Diane notes that the right doesn’t want to stop conspiracy theories from spreading, so is this really that bipartisan? “It would help if the boomers would stop falling for those conspiracy theories and sharing it with their friends,” an associate (I believe this is Michael Boatman’s daughter again) notes. That quiets the room and the partners all glare at her. Yeah, that was a kind of stupid thing to say. First of all, it’s just not appropriate to say to the partners, and it’s also, like, missing the point? If it’s easy for conspiracy theories to spread among boomers, maybe just expecting each member of that generation to suddenly have a millennial’s understanding of the internet is the wrong strategy? Maybe there’s some structural issue here? That maybe, just maybe, this case is actually about?  

The associate also points out that the internet is currently a place where people can speak out about sexual harassment-- “they repeal section 230, and there would be no #MeToo.”

One of the partners says he doesn’t believe that—if they regulate section 230, then newspapers can actually be competitive and there’s still free speech online.  

“We’re not going back to reading newspapers, grandpa,” some associate says. What the actual fuck, dude? Who talks like that to their boss?! It’s so condescending. He’s also wrong! “Newspapers” are not just physical things... reporting by major publications still matters and will continue to matter. Like, is he suggesting that in the future all news will just be random people tweeting things they think are true with no fact checking or curation? Sure, journalism is struggling right now—but I don’t think that’s because there’s a lack of desire for well-reported news.  

I am glad the partners call him out on saying “grandpa” and honestly I’m shocked he isn’t asked to leave the discussion after that rude remark. Unless this young looking dude is a partner too? But I don’t think he is.  

Julius notes that if they’re going to pursue this case, they need money like Cord’s. At that, Liz starts to leave the meeting. “We haven’t decided if we’re taking this Cord money yet,” Madeline protests. “Of course we are,” Liz says and leaves.  

Now that’s more like it! I’m not sure if this is necessarily the best way to handle this, but she’s a) correct, they were always going to take the money because it is $12 million and an issue of interest and b) using her authority. Should Liz be making decisions totally on her own? Maybe not. Does Liz making this decision and then leaving (with everyone accepting that she’s correct) cut through a lot of bullshit and establish Liz as the one in charge? Yup.

Diane says, “Ooh-kay” with a little bit of an eyeroll after Liz exits, but she’s still laying low. I think in a different season Diane might’ve tried to push back.  

Is it me or does Baranski get a lot of material this episode we haven’t seen before? Lots of really good reaction shots/tones in this episode I don’t really think we’ve seen from Diane before. I’m impressed there’s still new stuff after 12 years.

At some point maybe I will actually write the essay I’ve been wanting to write for ages about how TGF is still so relevant despite being in a universe that should be showing its age by now. I wish I could find the first time that I called TGW a period piece set in the present day (I know it would’ve been during season five) because I think that’s the key to TGW/TGF’s enduring success. The shows always feel timely because they try to capture the present moment (which is, of course, always changing) and don’t get stuck in any one moment in time. Further, the fact that the writers are always so tuned in to events and skilled at quickly reacting to what happens in the world makes them VERY good in a pinch, which is (I think) why they’re able to make the most of unexpected situations (Josh leaving TGW, the pandemic).  

Liz and Julius bring a suit against ChumHum to attack 230. Judge Friend is initially skeptical of their argument that 230 is unconstitutional; then she’s intrigued. I am too. This argument about the press is a very interesting one. I obviously have a lot of reading to do on 230, but my take after this episode is pretty much that social media platforms have to be held responsible in some way, but I don’t think it’s feasible or desirable for them to be responsible for every single one of billions of posts. I think there has to be some way to regulate social media giants that would allow everyday people to share things and speak out but would prevent the curated (even by an algorithm) spread of fake news and make social media giants accountable when there are very public bad actors using their platforms. What that regulation would be I have no idea. I just refuse to believe that our options are to give the social media sites full immunity or to regulate the internet so strongly that no one is able to speak freely because all the platforms are worried about lawsuits.  

Over at the VA, people are being fired. When Kurt gets into his office, Madeline Starkey (wait, are there two characters named Madeline in this episode?) is waiting for him. She’s still very quirky and scary.  

Starkey says the guy that Diane reported is now saying Kurt trained him on using assault rifles and buying ammunition in bulk. Kurt notes these were topics covered in a group setting, which Starkey knew—and what she’s really after is the names of the others in the group. (She may already know them, since she knows there were five of them.)

Kurt refuses to name names and just stares at her.  

Case stuff happens! (I liked the last two episodes a lot but it’s much faster for me to just write, “case stuff happens” for some of the scenes.)

Hey, surprise Aaron Tveit! (Not really a surprise; he is in the credits. But still yay!)  

I don’t really know why Liz and Julius are talking about newspapers specifically and not all types of fact-based journalism/press? I feel like their argument is most convincing when it’s about actual newspapers (especially local ones) but still would apply to cable news...

Marissa’s still hard at work sorting papers when the associate comes back in and informs her she can stop; they’ve changed strategies and everything she’s done is now irrelevant. She also says “I forgot to tell you” at the start of that thought, meaning that she neglected to tell Marissa this important information earlier and wasted her time. Marissa is not pleased and so she goes to Wackner’s court, where Wackner now has a deli ticket machine and is wearing super-sized novelty sunglasses. Why not!

He sees Marissa and calls a five-minute recess. In “chambers,” Marissa tells him she’d like to work for him part-time but keep her RL job.  

Wackner needs her help processing more copyright certificates. He’s priced them competitively at $20 and found that a lot of writers want these certificates, even though they have no legal value. (Neither do actual copyrights, Wackner notes. And he notes that if anyone plagiarizes, they can sue in HIS court.)  

“Marissa, I’m building something here. I want you to join me. I want your advice on cases. I want to bounce legal theories off you,” he says. “What are your legal theories?” she asks. “I don’t know. That’s why I need to bounce them,” he says.  

Marissa gives him from noon to 2 and 5-7, which seems awfully ambitious for someone working at a law firm!

“That’s how revolutions are made. Back rooms of copy shops,” he says, accepting her offer.  

Kurt is sulking in the dark when Diane arrives home. He lets her know about Starkey’s visit and she immediately goes into lawyer mode. Notably, this scene does not spend much time on how Starkey found out the rioter’s name. Curious if they’re saving that for later or if Diane and Kurt both know what Diane must have done or if Kurt think’s it’s a coincidence.  

Kurt SET UP A TOUR OF THE CAPITOL for one of the veterans in his shooting group, and that tour was ON JANUARY 6TH! I really do wish he’d told Diane that upfront.  

Maybe the long pause where Kurt refuses to tell Diane which congressperson arranged the tour even after she promises she won’t say is him letting on that he knows that Diane ID’d the guy? Or maybe it’s just Kurt.  

I do not like the dead birds in Starkey’s office, mostly because I do not like thinking about dead birds.

Starkey compares Diane and Kurt to the Conways.  

And now more case stuff happens.  

Julius gets to question a witness for the first time in two years! He’s a little shaky at first but then he does a fantastic job! Yay Julius!

When Diane arrives at the office, reception is filled with around a hundred teddy bears. “What?” she asks. “Build-a-Bears. They were sent to Marissa,” the receptionist explains. “Okay... why?” Diane asks the logical next question. The receptionist does not know.  

“This one’s a Marissa bear,” she says, showing Diane a bear wearing boots and a wig. It does not look much like Marissa and it says “Hug me.”

Diane looks confused and furious at the same time. Her look here is, like, a milder version of the death stare she gives Alicia in Outside the Bubble when she learns about Alicia and Cary’s plan to leave.  

“Why don’t we, meaning you, take all these stuffed animals and put them in the conference room,” Diane instructs the receptionist. She is NOT! HAPPY! The receptionist seemed to be having fun with the bears, but clearly the right answer was to have done something with them and... not to have put them over every surface in reception. Eeek.  

Carmen’s new client, the rapist, arrives at the firm before anyone can hide the bears. “This may not be the firm for you,” his advisor/lawyer (I’m not totally sure what this dude’s job is) warns.  

Madeline notices the rapist and glares at the receptionist. “I know. I’m putting them in the conference room,” the receptionist says, thinking Madeline is upset about the bears. She is not upset about the bears.

Diane finds Marissa, who’s working with Carmen again. She asks Carmen to give them a moment.

“Why are there hundreds of teddy bears in our reception?” Diane asks. Marissa is confused. Diane shows her the Marissa bear. Marissa looks horrified and amused. “That doesn’t even look like me,” Marissa notes, completely missing how pissed off Diane is. I don’t think we have seen Diane be this direct/no-nonsense in ages.  

“That would seem to be beside the point. What is going on, Marissa?” Diane demands. Marissa suspects this is based on some advice she offered to a client who was buying a Build-a-Bear franchise and thinks this is a thank you gift. “What client? You’re not a lawyer! Why do you have clients?” Diane says exasperatedly.  

Marissa gives her a look, and Diane immediately understands that she’s been back to Wackner’s court. “Oh my God, this is about that Copy Coop court?”

“Marissa, no. By participating in that simulacrum of a courtroom, you exposed this firm to malpractice, sanctions, and God knows what,” Diane says. If that were really true, she wouldn’t have sat there and argued. I mean, I don’t know the legality of this all, but I feel like it’s a bigger optics issue than legal issue if Diane and other lawyers are willing to even consider participating?  

“If you wish to continue your employment at this firm, you will never do anything like that again. Do you understand?” Diane says. She will not hear any arguments.  

I love that Marissa is the thing that keeps Wackner coming back. It’s a good plot for her, but structurally, it also allows the show to keep Wackner around without many contrivances. Wackner sees that Marissa would understand what he’s up to, she sees that he shares some of her frustrations with the law, and they both want to work together again. It’s not like suddenly everyone’s talking about Wackner’s court and all the cases somehow end up there or anything.

The receptionist, who is having a truly terrible day, comes into announce that Kurt and Starkey have arrived. “Don’t put them in the conference room!” Diane commands, knowing that the teddy bears will be there. It’s too late, though, because the receptionist (who previously seemed to be fine at her job if bad at recognizing public figures and understanding that partners might not find teddy bears amusing) has already put them in the conference room. I feel bad for her, and don’t think the other things were her fault, but I feel like she could’ve seen this one coming...  

I find the teddy bears HILARIOUS, mostly because the reactions to them are so funny. It’s kind of the same gag as the balloons for Lucca in season two, but I don’t really care, because I’m getting to see Diane Lockhart treat hundreds of Build-a-Bears like they are a real work problem.

Starkey jokes about the bears; Kurt is silent.  

The rioter from the poster is now accusing Kurt of coming up with the STRATEGY for January 6th, which Kurt and Diane both dismiss as bullshit.  

I could do without Starkey’s musical cues.

I can’t tell if Kurt is in trouble here or if she’s just pressing him to name names. Why wouldn’t she just have rioter guy name names if he’s so eager to blame Kurt? I guess maybe if the others were actually there, he might be less likely to name the names of his actual co-conspirators? Or, Starkey might already know the names (surely the shooting range has logs) and be using this to raise the stakes.  

No one (except maybe the partner named Daniel) is happy about the rapist in reception. “Since when are we representing people like Wolfe-Coleman?” Julius asks. Didn’t these people help both Sweeney (though I think Sweeney was in some weird police brutality case and they didn’t actually want to represent him) and Bishop? And Rivi? But they draw the line here? Sure.  

Ah, there we go, an expository line-- “he’s the next Jeffrey Epstein”. Almost made it the whole episode without one of these. I’ll forgive it since it’s so late in the episode lol.  

“Did you approve this, Liz?!” Madeline demands. Liz did not. Daniel wonders if that means Diane approved it. Liz doesn’t think so and calls Diane (who happens to be walking past) in.  

“I know, the teddy bears. I’m working on it,” Diane says when she opens the door. I think the teddy bears are a bigger issue to Diane than to anyone else.  

Diane didn’t approve representing Mr. Rapey either. She’s uncomfortable that a meeting was happening without her; Madeline notes that she is standing there specifically because they wanted to involve her.  

David Lee pops up out of nowhere with the answer: one of the new associates (not Marissa, “the real one”) pulled in Mr. Rapey. Are there only two associates now even though orientation was for a big group?  

Firth is gone, btw. David Lee is the new Mr. Firth. I have no idea why David would want to be STR Laurie’s guy for managing RL but... sure, whatever? David Lee is an effective antagonist, especially in small doses, and this allows the writers to keep him around and continue the STR Laurie plot without a key guest star. If STR Laurie is still a thing, and it seems like it is going to be a thing for a while, then having David Lee take on this role makes sense for plot. Otherwise they’re going to have to shoehorn him in to every plot somehow. At least now he has a reason to be around.  

Liz and Diane take a walk to chat. Diane is worried about having David as their boss. Liz says she has a worse worry—David Lee knew exactly when to come downstairs with information, suggesting he know what they were talking about. “Would he do something like that?” Liz asks when Diane wonders if there’s a bug. “Oh, yeah,” Diane replies. Hah, yeah. He absolutely would.  

They decide to have Jay search for bugs and Liz is frustrated with how much time they have to spend on things other than lawyering. Yup.

“What is going on with all the teddy bears in the conference room?” Liz asks as they head back to the office. “It’s a long story,” Diane sighs. I also love that the teddy bears link the various pieces of the episode together—it feels like all of these threads are happening simultaneously because of that constant.  

I don’t get RL’s approach to clients. Bishop and Rivi are ok, Wolfe-Colman is not (except that actually he is fine). Cord is okay too. Do they draw the line anywhere? I know Liz was right when she said that OF COURSE they were taking the money, but is there really nothing that differentiates that situation from this one? I feel like there should be.

Marissa goes back to see Wackner. Since someone refuses to say “I respect and I love you,” Wackner reverses his ruling. This is part of the “Bad Loser Law of last Wednesday,” so the rules of Wackner’s court are clearly a work in progress.

Marissa explains she can’t be the law clerk because of Diane. She tries to connect him with a real lawyer, still not understanding exactly what Wackner’s after. “You know just enough not to crush what I’m doing here,” Wackner explains. “A real lawyer will look for reasons why not. I need someone to look for reasons why.”  

Case stuff happens. I cannot read Cord’s handwriting. Liz and Julius lose the case because Judge Friend says what’s happening isn’t fair, but it is constitutional. (So here we have, at least in the show’s POV, a good and attentive judge who can’t make decisions that make sense because she’s bound by a document written before anyone had ever dreamed of the internet.)  

Cord is waiting for Liz in her office. He’s prepared to bankroll an appeal. Did they blow thorough that $12 million already? Impressive; it’s been like a day.  

Cord says they are definitely the firm he wants. Interesting.

Now Liz wants a meeting with Carmen, so it’s Marissa who leaves the room. This scene seems like it was meant to be a different day?  

Liz wants to talk about Mr. Rapey. Carmen is, yet again, chill about the case. “Carmen, is there anyone that you would not represent?” Liz asks. Funny, Liz, I could ask you the same. Being hesitant about it is not changing the fact that you’re representing bad people. Carmen’s just cutting the bullshit.  

“I don’t understand. Is there someone you don’t want me to represent?” I love how Carmen’s incredibly polite responses always seem very pointed. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Carmen’s reply, and yet it puts Liz in a place where she can’t dance around what she’s trying to say.  

“I’m just trying to get a sense of who you are,” Liz explains.  

Then Liz decides she’s going to help on the Craig Wolfe-Colman (Mr. Rapey) case, and they will keep talking about her career path. Liz, this does not seem like the right solution! You're worried about your associate representing bad people so you’re like, I know, what if I ALSO represented bad people? If your goal is to convince Carmen not to take clients like this, you’re kinda shooting yourself in the foot!  

“Are you worried about me?” Carmen says, again turning things on Liz. “I don’t know what I am about you,” Liz replies. Me either. Well, I know I'm intrigued, but beyond that, no clue!

All the bears have ended up in Diane’s office, where Wackner is waiting. He jokes about how his court is always seen as informal, yet this real fancy law office is covered in Build-a-Bears. Then he says he wants to hire RL—he's willing to pay. He wants consultation from Marissa (“consultation on legal issues”) and he’s prepared to spend a lot. And, if there’s one thing we know, it’s that they’re always going to take the money. So, they do.

I love that Wackner’s goal is to “perfect my little clubhouse of the law.” It’s a fun plot, and it also allows for the rules in his court to change (I’m sure we’re going to be treated to/subjected to a lot of whimsical gags around changing and ridiculous rules). It's also a good way to work through the thought experiment over the course of the season. It’s not like Wackner already has a system set up and it’s perfect—I'm sure we’re going to see his system run into issues and explore that more, too.  

Wackner monologues a bit here about why he’s running fake court, and he lets us know he’s going to monologue. Basically he thinks people no longer want to help people and are only motivated by their own self interest. He notes that no one talks about the Peace Corps anymore and asks the last time Diane heard anyone say those words. I’m sure I’ve heard a reference more recently but my mind went RIGHT to season one Cary Agos saying “Peace Corps. Belize,” as some kind of smarmy pickup line. This is likely not where my mind was supposed to go.

Wackner wants “A new Peace Corps. For America.” Diane’s sympathetic to that and agrees to take him on as a client.  

Wackner asks if he can take a bear. Diane instructs him to take two.  

Aaaand Wackner and Cord end up on the elevator together. Wackner hands Cord a bear, the elevator doors close, and the episode ends. Since last episode ended with Marissa and Carmen in the elevator together, I’m hoping this will be how every episode this season ends. I think using the Kings’ favorite liminal space to transition between episodes is kind of fun, and it fits with the ellipses at the end of every episode title.  

Speaking of... did you see today’s elevator-themed episode of Evil? It was written by the Kings. Those two have been obsessed with elevators for at least a decade.  

[oddlyhale]

As much as I begin to see the horrors of RWBY fndm and how crazed BB fans can be, there'll probably be no comparison to the psychotics I had to deal with in the HH fndm.

While I can totally find myself being tolerant with all RWBY ships, there's something territorial when it comes to HH ships. It's a different beast on its own, especially with the popular artists that can and will control their fanbase.

Boy do I have a tale of 2020 that had me deal with the mental gymnastics these wild shippers put me through. The sheer hypocrisy, the fear fans had of standing up to them, the collective harassment.

In a synopsis, before we start:

Hi, my name is Hale.

Alfa and Alex are probably the most psychotic people I’ve ever met when it comes to my online daily life. I used to think my ex-friends were the bane of my existence, but Alfa and Alex started making me think just how angelic my exes were in comparison.

So let’s begin.

When I first met the Double AAs, it was Alex first (awhile back in late-June 2020 during Vaggie Week) but it was indirect. I was on my Instagram when I was tagged by a random user in something Alex had drawn. This was when I first saw the kill art of Vaggie. I was so upset that I had yelled at this random user for tagging me, as well as showing it via screencap on my twitter, as a warning to never do this to me to my followers. Keep in mind, I had censored Alex’s name from the screencap, not the random user.

However, Alex saw this somehow and became hysterical, thinking I was targeting him for what he drew. This caused an uproar of his fans to come attack me, and it did cause me to become scared and get away from my account. Alfa decided to insert herself into the mix, but I didn’t care enough for her to say anything. It was mostly Alex and how much he was “scared” and cried about the “fandom being so hateful and scary.” He went private for a while I believe, but Alfa was still going hard at me and sending more of her fans to come harass me.

If Alex ever says he is a strong and brave man, don’t believe him. He fears the HH fandom.

Anyhow, after Alfa’s fans had done their best to gaslight me, I didn’t give in. In fact, I made amends with the random user that tagged me. Somehow they assumed I would like the art of Vaggie being killed, which was childish to even believe in. Nonetheless, I forgave them, and we moved on from there.

But even when we both resolved this together, Alfa and Alex decided that it would be fun to make this ��kill Vaggie art” a meme, or trend. With their huge followings combined, they were able to get their artist fans to join in and start creating so much hate art of Vaggie. Many of them drew her head being cut off, mutilated, raped and cheated on.

Alfa and Alex adore gaslighting the hell out of people. While they draw such hideous things, they will go ahead and say, “but it’s just fiction, it’s not real,” and call you psychotic for even caring so much about their bad behaviour. I can only imagine what Alfa’s husband goes through everyday since Alfa loves to make people second-guess themselves often.

Keep in mind, Alfa and Alex are the same people who will cry and shake when their fictional ship is invalidated and written out. They often wish nothing good for Viv and her team that are providing these ungrateful children with the show and content they so badly want. It shows you just how privileged they had grown up as children, doesn’t it?

This wasn’t fun, it was horrible. I didn’t realize just how many toxic people existed in the HH fandom until this “trend” began to spread.

But the funny thing that I'll never forget is how apeshit Alfa went when I had the audacity to draw Alastor plus sized. She accused me of being a pedophile, supporting MAPs. Even though she leans towards being pro-ship (likes incest, OK with lolicon, will condone drawing necophilia.) But me? Having the sheer audacity of drawing Alastor fat? It burned her so bad.

As well, this was being pushed on the VAs during a small livestream. The chat wouldn’t stop asking, “what do you think of the Vaggie kill art going around?” Of course the VAs ignored these questions, but it was really rude to even ask these things. Especially when Vaggie’s VA was in the same livestream.

But then this trend was proven to be a lie, by Alex’s own words. He dropped the ball in a one-off conversation with an anti that “he only created this to get back at the Chaggie shippers.” So retroactively, this trend was worthless.

What also began to start becoming obvious was that Alfa was too afraid to do anything on her own, and thus, she will recruit some darlings to defend her. Alfa seems to have more defenders than she has any confidence to defend herself, and when she has no choice but to stand up for herself, she will buckle and hide. She is weak, is what I had learnt.

I decided to just ignore Alex and Alfa as much as I could. With a friend though, I was given updates of what was happening on the Double AAs’ side in the meantime, and it’s amazing to see just how vile they can be with their own fans and haters. Especially with their new puppy named Salty. (I think that’s their name, another weak ass bitch.)

As months went by, the major event that stirred from the AA camp was when they were harassing Pastel Sky. This would be where the big reveal of just how horrible the AAs and their friends truly are, when they have nobody to harass except for kids. HH has a wide audience of children involved in this fandom, hence why many other artists keep saying we should try to be good examples for them, and keep them safe. But not for the AAs.

Pastel was ruthlessly attacked by them and it was all unwarranted. What they were angry about was that Pastel had the nerve to have negative opinions when it came to AAs, and they broke their own rule of “don’t like then block.” Even Galactic Potatoes (Spuds) would go out of their way, again, to gaslight Pastel into believing that what attacks she received on Twitter was allowed, because Pastel was asking for it. Spuds is well-known to gaslight, a thing they had learnt from the AAs quite often.

Pastel was a minor at the time, and it really doesn’t matter if Pastel was just 17. I don’t care if Pastel was only 17 and that “well she’s almost 18,” because regardless of age, harassment is not the answer. Follow by that, fighting with minors is actually fucking stupid and braindead. Spuds tried very hard to justify why attacks were OK, and that Pastel “should learn” how to grow up. I then learnt that Spuds went into hiding afterwards.

That was until the Double AAs’ discord chats were exposed, showing that they were practically mouth-watering at Pastel’s pain, romanticizing her apparent abuse and trying to convince each other how her punishment on Twitter was correct. Even one (I believe was Jay because he loves me and wants me back) wished that I would die. This would be the third time he asked me to die indirectly, which justifies my points on how toxic and abusive they are.

This entire event seemed to have unraveled a new wave of truths, and it’s sad to know it had to take a literal minor to have their masks fall off.

In 2021, Alex was exposed to be a thief. Stealing commission money for “stress pills.” If Alex is on a path of drug addiction, I hope it’s not the case. That’s a terrible place to be, and hopefully he’ll be clean and grow up for once. I still don’t care enough about Alfa, after now knowing all she is, is just a dramatic housewife with nothing better to do in her life. Perhaps if they just got jobs instead of stealing money from fans, they’d be leading well-productive lives.

From what I understand, many of the toxic fans of the Double AAs have either dropped HH fandom, or have deleted their accounts. Good, I hope they stay gone. The fandom deserves better, not trash.

Needless to say, the best advice I can give to those in the HH fandom that come facing the Double AAs is to not be afraid of them.

Over time, once you get used to their behaviour, you come to realize that this is their default. They’re not likable, they’re not nice, and they aren’t appreciative of one singular thing you do for them (hence Alex stealing from his own fans.)

It’s their M.O., they are just that cruel. So don’t fear them, but challenge their behaviour. Don’t stoop to their level of wanting to draw hateful art, though, that will fuel them. Talking down to them like their idiots always works like a charm.

Anyways, thanks for reading.

If anybody from the Double AAs’ camp ever finds this and reads it, I just wanna say that you are doing a great job, sweety. Thanks for proving me right by the new year. I appreciate the honesty for once. It only took you a year, just think of what other things you’ll do in the next year.

[norgestan]

crisana, norandro, jorgeva and amira x dani

ha, anon just wanted all the canon couples. fair enough!

CRISANA:

see, skam s3 is my favorite season of all time, but it has never been because of the love story. isak's story hits in a lot of sensitive places for me, and isak was also the first main character i encountered that was my age. i have a really special connection to him for that reason. on the other hand... i enjoy evak for what it is, but i never saw a future for their relationship after the season ended. in a lot of ways, isak's season ended just as their relationship started, a trope that i've never liked because how am i supposed to think that they will last? how am i supposed to know how they will work as a couple? it's just, ugh.

i had similar thoughts about crisana when i watched s2, except that the love confession scene and cris as a character made it even harder to get into the couple. moreover, the way people brush other characters' roles and presence on other seasons because they're so caught up on cris and joana is like... blegh. like it makes me forget that they're actually a well-written couple at times. because imo, og they never did anything really interesting with evak once they got together. but eskam........ oh, dear eskam.

there's something so beautiful about thinking of all the girls, the teenagers that will grow up watching a relationship like theirs on popular media. their entire subplot (??? can i even call it that) in s4 is proof of how GREAT of a relationship they turned out to be. like, i just wanna SCREAM thinking about it because, how is it possible that eskam saw evak and said "we're gonna make this SO good and we'll take our time and then tie it up in an incredibly satisfying and emotional way" and then did exactly that!!!!!! the way they respect each other, communicate, genuinely try to get to each other without dumb miscommunication. the way they understand each other and lift each other up! the way joana knew how to recognize cris' intelligence when everyone was telling her she's dumb, the way cris knows how to make joana feel worth it and show her affection in such a selfless, loving way. their last scene on joana's pov in s4 was the first time i cried during that season, just because it was all wrapped up so beautifully. because eskam understood that although the appeal of their relationship comes from the soulmate status of every evak couple, they had to also put in serious work to make it all work and they also managed to get that across with grounded drama, and also a hopeful message for people struggling with mental disorders. like AAAAAAAAAAAAA god what a great couple they are. maybe i'm too much of an eskam bootlicker but they're genuinely the best evak there is. i'll die on this hill. i'm so happy young wlw get to watch them as a guideline of what they should expect of a relationship.

NORANDRO: already done :)

JORGEVA:

i mean... it's eskam's fault, without a doubt. i love what eskam did with them in s1: the change of pacing, the way they created jorge, the little story changes to make it more nuanced, i think come together in a pretty satisfying way to show a teenage romance with no real support to last for more than a while. i don’t think eskam fully got the gist of what jonas was supposed to be, but it’s for the better if we think of the message in season 1. for that reason, jorge is like the one jonas who i really wouldn’t mind coming back to his eva. so why don’t i like them?

the answer is simply that i don’t enjoy their trope and i don’t think eskam made a real case of eva and jorge getting back together. they work well as friends, sure, and it’s clear as day that jorge still has feelings for eva, sure. but like, what tells me that they’re just ready to go all in again? eva goes through a really great arc and i would definitely agree she’s in a good place to be in a relationship again, but we know NOTHING about jorge’s journey. he’s just, silently pining on eva and that’s it. i do think it’s sweet and the hints of their lost romance throughout the show are wholesome, but there’s just nothing more to it. jorge and eva work AMAZINGLY as friends! i don’t see why they should push a romantic endgame for them. in my head, eva kissing jorge at that party was just a mesh of the excitement of a new era, the nostalgia of ending highschool, the high of being on this place with someone she really cares about, stuff like that, but it just ends there, and it’s great that way. nothing about eva’s character really led to her aching to be in a relationship again, and for me it feels right to end things with her being single and surrounded by great friends.

MAYBE if eskam had devoted some time showing us their progress and romantic potential instead of trying to convince us that kasim was a real, compelling character. maybe. lol.

DAMIRA:

(god, i don’t know how long this will be LOL)

i have. so many thought about this fucking pairing. let’s see what we can do LOL. the thing about damira is that i don’t think it’s a pairing that eskam had in mind when they laid out the first two seasons. the little hints of a friendship/childhood crush that happened during cris’ season really got the fandom and they quickly became the most popular non-canon ship in the show, so that’s where i think eskam said “okay, let’s run with this”. but it’s just...... meh. like i can tell that relationships like crisana were carefully crafted (well implemented in nora’s season, greatly wrapped up in amira’s season) but i cannot say the same for dani and amira. it’s almost like virihugo, where they just started giving each other Eyes on the middle of season 3, out of NOWHERE. it just feels forced to me and so i never really felt anything for the couple in question... like, for starters, i think nora and miquel were WAY more shippable than those two, strictly talking about their setup.

if you ever saw any of my posts during s4 then you should know how i actually feel about how they developed their romance (check my anti damira tag for more?) and i don’t wanna go through all those specific points again... but damira is not only an infuriating romance, but also a bad pairing in a narrative setting. like, damira clearly exists to answer amira’s questions about how would the future of a romance with a white guy would be, right? does she get an answer? no she fucking doesn’t, their final clip is like “after all these weeks, we still have no idea so we’re gonna cut things short, go back to our initial dynamic, and wait to see if amira any of us change our minds <3″. so like, even in that sense damira is a HUGE waste of time, and just like everything that happens to amira during her season it has no lasting impacts on her character or her settings.

and personally, i love couples where they’re both equal, and communicate at last, and both make great efforts to change so the relationship can flourish. this is why i offer so much praise to norandro and crisana, where in the first couple both character go through tremendous character growth and work through their problems individually before getting together, and in the second couple they show them clashing and fighting just to display their resolutions and show how willing they are to actually talk to each other and keep their relationship stable. dani and amira, on the other hand.... blegh. eskam wants me to think dani is a knight in shining armor for liking amira but that’s all he ever does. he doesn’t defend her in front of his friends, he doesn’t make efforts to get to know her and her world, he doesn’t communicate his real feelings to her, and the one time he did he humiliated her in public. like, idk, like, even MIQUEL explicitly defended nora when his roommates berated her for not drinking alcohol LOL.

at the end of the day the problem with damira is that it completely misses the point of yousana and its target audience. making yousef a white guy is not necessarily a bad choice if you implement it well (which eskam didn’t do btw), but you have to take into account that sana’s season exists to make a primarily white christian-raised audience relate and stand up for the muslim characters in the show. when the lazier partner of the main couple who makes zero efforts to work on the relationship happens to be white, it just means people will be sympathetic of him, and nor amira - and that’s exactly what happened in the show. people either thought amira was being too harsh by laying conditions for dani before they even began dating and making sure he respected her boundaries, or just wanted all the drama to go away soon so amira could kiss dani by the end of the season. so like, yeah. terrible stuff.

i would’ve liked damira’s impact on the season and amira’s journey a lot more if it had been about a one sided childhood crush from amira’s part. i thought their friendship was charming up to s3, and i simply hate that dani is literally in no way an older brother figure for the girl squad, since it’s a dynamic that’s lacking in the show and it would be a nice way to make dani be some sort of non-creepy eskild for the girl squad (but noooo, his only interactions w the gs are hooking up with eva and dating amira. smh). it would’ve been fun to have amira intimately dealing with those feelings just to learn a lesson by the end of it, at the time that she also falls for her muslim love interest - which is actually the isak/jonas/even dynamic when you think about it, also something that eskam didn’t really do with cris’ season. but also, all of this would mean that eskam had to do the good writing thing for s4, which they kinda forgot to do throughout the entirety of the season so, yeah.

[kitkatopinions]

I'm tired of fantasy world writers being like 'oh, this is my allegory for racism in my fantasy world where actual racism doesn't exist, also I'm going to not do any research on how to properly include said allegory, badly portray it, make my main characters affected by this white or white passing, and then use racist stereotypes later.' Long post full of RWBY criticism ahead.

RWBY is terrible with the Faunus racism they chose to make part of their story. They made the White Fang an evil terrorist group, they made Blake lecture fellow Faunus about how they're the ones actually hurting themselves by using violence against each other, they framed comfortable and peaceful protest as the only good way despite establishing that peaceful protest didn't work, and they made their child slave coded character who literally got branded turn into nothing more than an abusive stalker and then had him killed without ever addressing the aforementioned child slavery. Also, the only Faunus among our main cast now that Sun is gone is one of the most privileged of the Faunus. Blake can pass as a human if she wants to, she grew up fairly rich, she has two loving parents, and she comes from an inherently powerful position as the daughter of the Chief. Having Blake be privileged would be absolutely fine, if she acknowledged her privilege, wasn’t the mouthpiece on Faunus rights, if she wasn’t the only Faunus in our main cast, and if she didn’t repeatedly lecture other Faunus.

On top of that, two of our main cast have been racist (within the narrative of the show) towards our main Faunus character, one of them learns from it (even though that as well was badly handled) and became the only member of Team RWBY to ever call out human's being racist after season three. Oh wait, except the other member of our main cast that was racist that never had it addressed because it was treated like a joke now has yelled at a racist once, in an incredibly tense situation, so I guess her racism is gone. It’s good that it’s gone, since CRWBY is pushing her and Blake as a couple, but it’s frustrating that her racism never even got a ‘that wasn’t funny’ and we never see Yang learn any better, because it feels like CRWBY brushed it off and acted like it was fun and quirky instead of treating it like the casual racism it was. They do a similar thing with Robyn in season seven which came out in 2019, when she calls Marrow ‘Wags.’ Also none of our main cast are ever seen protesting for Faunus rights (sans a two second flashback of child Blake at a rally and a non canon RWBY chibi cartoon.) I don't think Ruby - our main protagonist - has ever even mentioned Faunus rights. In a world where Adam was branded with the SDC logo under fifteen years ago at the most, racism and fighting racism should be a big part of the story, and instead, it's brushed to the side and used for the occasional 'we don't like racism btw' moment now that Blake got rid of a Faunus run terrorist group. To me, this implies that the number one threat to the Faunus… Was the Faunus, and although some humans are still anti-Faunus, no one has to devote their time or energy into fighting for equality. In season 7, Blake doesn’t even attend the rally of the political figure running against Jacques Schnee - who as far as I’m aware, is the only business owner or person in power who has ever displayed anti-Faunus racism in the show. By the way, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. It’s been a hot minute since I watched through the show.

Instead of attending a rally that seems very important for the Faunus, Blake goes dancing with her crush. It’s like she stopped caring about politics and rights after the White Fang got removed. That feels so bad. Also, I'll note that most of the actual POC Faunus that can't pass as white in this show are on the bad side (Sienna, Fennec, Corsac, Lionheart, Ilia, Marrow.) And either they die, or they must learn to give up their destructive ways and become better people. I’m not saying this was intentional, I’m saying it’s a pattern, it’s alarming, and the writers should’ve known better.

I believe Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross have admitted that they mishandled Faunus racism, but first off, it still doesn’t excuse them because they were grown people putting out a product that premiered in 2013 and they should’ve known to do research and do better. But second off, I still feel like they haven't done the research they need to and continue to mishandle the racism by ignoring it when they want to and bringing it up only to let us as an audience know Weiss and Yang aren't racist anymore. They can’t just cut the Faunus from their storyline now, but they can’t just ignore it, and need to actually make it a better allegory. Honestly though, one of the big reasons I'm convinced that they still haven't done any real research on how to properly portray POC or racism is because of how terribly they're handling the Ace Ops.

They're writing a fantasy show, they aren't tied to real world portrayals of law enforcement, but they went the route of commentating on real world police, corrupt police, and use of excessive force. That's fine. But things are already pretty dicey just starting off because of how they've mishandled and continue to mishandle Faunus racism. Outside of Jacques Schnee and his company and business partners, I don't remember seeing Faunus racism in Atlas (not Mantle, Atlas.) If I'm wrong about that, again, please correct me, I may have missed it. But without seeing actual discrimination against Faunus within the police force, right off the bat, that's a mishandling of commentating on police brutality. But also, other than Clover who is now dead, the Ace Ops are all people of color. CRWBY made their bad cops all not white. Even Ironwood - who is white passing - is voiced by a person of color who has said he believes that James is Chinese American. I'll point out that being a Hunter is pretty much just being a cop with more freedom and seemingly less rules. Qrow (a Beacon Huntsman) goes around destroying public property and comments on how some hunters work outside of the law, and yet it's only the Ace Ops who are held to real world ACAB rules and everyone else gets to be a good cop/law enforcement officer. Ruby gets to proudly proclaim herself a Huntress, Weiss gets to arrest people, Jaune gets told that he deserves his Huntsman license, we've been getting told for seven seasons that Hunters help people and do what's right, and we're given long time Hunters and mentor figures like Oobleck, Glynda, Qrow, and now Robyn is being framed that way, and they back that up. Even training Atlas soldiers like Neon and Flynt are fine and fun. But only the Ace Ops are bad, corrupt law enforcement officers. So that way, we can have the entirely white passing Team RWBY beat up the entirely POC, not white passing Ace Ops. Even though Team RWBY is a byproduct of the same kind of program and even though we’ve seen the police discriminate against Faunus in Vale. If CRWBY wants their allegories to be taken seriously, they need to recognize that RWBY and co are also certified police. Also, it’s really not funny to see people use ACAB as a reason why the Ace Ops are of course bad, but then turn around and simp for Winter, and be like ‘We want Winter to be redeemed, but Harriet? What a bitch!’ Like… I’m side-eyeing that pretty hard.

Speaking of Winter, now she’s in charge of the Ace Ops. But unlike Marrow, Winter doesn’t just look sad sometimes and blindly only follow direct orders without protest. She’s actually feeling all kinds of things, and she’s actually being framed as strong, intelligent, and reasonable. I’m sure no one forgot this, but I’ll note it anyway; Winter is white. Having Winter be the only Ace Op to actually listen to JRY and do things without James explicitly telling her to (although I don’t consider what she did a betrayal or going behind his back) is dicey. They could’ve given this moment to Harriet and nothing would change. ‘This lady typically follows orders, is short tempered, and pushes down her emotions, but she can still recognize a fairly good idea when she sees one and can actually think for herself, so although this isn’t a betrayal, she compromises and lets Team JRY go after their friend.’ Yeah, idk guys, I feel like there was literally no reason to slot Winter in with the Ace Ops to be the lone voice of reason when Harriet could’ve become the new leader and played the exact same role. Instead, Winter gets to have a power move where she puts Harriet in her place. Winter is given actual depth and gets to put down the black woman who the writers have made display nothing but anger for the whole season. The fans rally behind Winter because she was given depth and hate Harriet because she has none, but that’s the fault of the writers. Btw, ‘this black woman won’t show any emotion besides anger’ is a racist stereotype. It would probably have taken like five minutes on google for Luna and Shawcross to have realized that it was a bad idea to write a black woman in any sort of position of power to be constantly angry + hiding her emotions. Elm is in the same boat as Harriet, and I was going to say it’s less severe, but then I remembered that she literally attacked Ren for talking about their emotions.

Look, my point is that RWBY as a show has never handled allegories like racism and corrupt police well, and either they should stop trying and stick to ‘make believe land is just different than the real world’ or start putting in the work and fix this. By the way, I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad for watching or even enjoying RWBY, but I hope people can watch it while recognizing that some of the things CRWBY has chosen to put into their show are destructive and that the creators need to be called out. I’ll continue to hope that most RWBY fans do recognize that RWBY is deeply flawed, but I’ve just been stewing recently about someone who told me that I shouldn’t have expected the show to address Faunus racism in the Atlas arcs because that ended when Adam died.

I want to make it totally clear that I agree with and support ACAB in the real world and I'm not against it being used in fantasy works, I just think CRWBY is doing a poor job of portraying it and many fans are misusing it and it feels disrespectful. This is an actual real world movement with actual real world consequences. It feels very bad to see people use it to argue that the writers who have never handled allegories of racism well can make an all POC group be a destructive, violent, easily controlled, easily beat group of corrupt cops that need a white woman and fellow cop to be the voice of reason.

[exauhstedsunflower]

So, I’m writing Marvel now…

The thing is, Marvel is a special interest for me. Has been for a long time. The MCU while it has its downsides (I will never forgive them for what they did to Steve Rogers.) is one of my favorite movie franchises of all time. It’s a crime that I haven’t written any fics for it yet, honestly.

This isn’t nearly finished, and I have no idea when it will be or how long it’ll be. It doesn’t even have a name or full plan yet. But it’s a fun project for me. I want to explore the fact that Captain America is from the 40’s, however when he wakes up he is still in his twenties. He’s technically the youngest on the team while simultaneously being way older and being treated as way older than everyone around him. It picks up during the first Avengers film and is written from Tony’s POV. (Again, so far. It’s not done and I could still switch POV’s every once in a while.)

All that being said, enjoy!

Steve hates him. He hates Tony. Tony Stark. Son of his old friend, Howard Stark.

The old bastard was right, isn’t that just ironic.

Endless fights over Tony being a disappointment. Being nothing like the Greatest Man Howard Ever Knew. Howard never shut up about the great Captain America, so of course Tony knew this was coming.

Tony had tried when he was younger, he did. He’d tried to be better, braver, stronger, faster, witty in a way Howard would appreciate. But after a while he’d realized that no matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried, he’d never live up to what Howard wanted from him. Howard said daily that Captain America, Steve Rogers, would be disgusted by Tony. And Tony had just about recently decided that he was moving on from all of his daddy issues and metaphorically telling Howard to shove his criticisms very far up his ass. And, isn’t this just the kicker, Steve Rogers is right in front of him confirming it all.

“Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

Exactly what everyone thinks I am, obviously.

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

What? He’s not about to make it easy on Captain America of all people. If anyone can handle his sass, it’s the so called bravest man who ever lived.

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

Wow, okay. He’s really laying it on, isn't he? He must be really pissed. In all honesty, Tony hadn’t thought it would be so easy to get to him. Or, rather, to get him to a point where he’s actually making personal, cutting blows.

Still, Tony doesn’t want to cause an actual fight. If he wanted that he’d have started off a little more strong, like how Rogers is. What with all the steam coming from his ears. Howard hadn’t mentioned the potentially problematic short fuse in all his ramblings. Whatever, just keep deflecting and find a way to defuse, then. He’s been around long enough to know when the right time to fight is. Currently they have a volatile, murderous psychopath who obviously wants them all fighting on board, so now is not a good time.

“I think I would just cut the wire.”

There, nice and simple. There’s no way Mr. Short Fuse can turn that into-

“Always a way out... You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

Now he’s done it. He’s honestly tempted to say ‘Or what?’. Just curiosity speaking, what would Rogers do? And, another thing, Tony has never claimed to be a hero. Sure, he’s saved a few people, and yeah, he’s trying to save the world currently, but the hero label was all but thrown at him the moment he came out to the world as Iron Man. He doesn’t want to be a hero, all he wants right now is for Rogers to get off his damn high horse.

“A hero? Like you? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!”

He hadn’t meant to say that. Truly, he hadn’t. He’s supposed to be actively diffusing the situation. But honestly it was an achievement he’d gone that long without actually retaliating. You can only push a man so far-

“Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds.”

He’s not succeeding in his endeavor to not fight Captain America. His dad is likely screeching from his penthouse in hell.

He moves away from Rogers just in time for the locator to go off, signifying that they’ve found what they were looking for. This is followed by an argument about who is going to get it, a rather horrifying revelation that his new best friend besides Rhodey, Pepper and Happy, (Yes, he has claimed this already, he just has to convince Bruce.) has tried to kill himself, and then suddenly Captain America is trying to fight him, again.

“Put on the suit, let’s find out!”

“I’m not afraid to hit an old man.” He replies calmly, though a little heated.

It’s just oh so ironic, (This whole conversation has been filled to the brim with irony.) that as Tony says that he laments how immature they’re acting. Seriously, the guy’s in his nineties, why is he pulling Tony into this? The irony strikes him then and there, as he’s watching Rogers get all riled up. Captain America is practically a kid.

It’s kind of funny to think about. Captain America, the man out of time, he’s only in his twenties. Tony is twenty years older than him, mentally. Now it’s not about fighting his fathers old friend. It’s not even about the fact that this is Captain America, and how anti-patriotic it would be to deck him.

No, Tony wont fight a twenty-something year old. It’s not dignified. It wouldn’t even be fair. Rogers hasn’t had the time to fully develop patience like Tony has. His brain hasn’t aged just as his body hasn’t. No wonder he has such a short fuse, Tony was the same way when he was young.

Something explodes while his brain is having this revelation, and he realizes that this is an attack. Good thing they weren’t fighting each other, then.

Steve helps him up after they’re both thrown across the room from the blast.

“Put on the suit.”

Tony nods, finally agreeing with the man on something.

“Yep.”

-

Of course they would end up working together to fix the turbine. That’s the way the world works. Rogers hates Tony, and Tony won’t fight him, which seems to be making Rogers more angry. But now all of that has to be put aside for the greater good. Hopefully they’ll be able to do this before another turbine goes down and the whole boat falls from the sky.

“What’s it look like in there?”

Tony really needs this to go well. Surely Rogers can’t be too inept with technology. He’s young, young people are the future of technology! He even understood the Wizard of Oz reference earlier, so he’s sort of up to date, right?

“It seems to run on some form of electricity!”

So much for his optimism. Despite the feeling that this is going to end horribly, his mouth quirks a bit. That’s why it had taken him so long to put together how young Rogers actually is.

Still, this has to be tough for the guy, he’s clearly out of his depth here and is trying to help.

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

He teaches Rogers how to fix the relays, which takes some time given that he can’t personally guide the project. He’s a bit busy clearing the debris from the turbine and trying to keep up with the flying boat’s speed enough to stay beside it. You would think they’d stop moving so he can just hover and do repairs, but no! Although he does suppose that there is quite a bit of commotion happening inside too. Enough to warrant not slowing down, maybe.

“Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump. I'm gonna have to get in there and push.”

“Well if that thing gets up to speed, you'll get shredded!”

Aw, he’s worried. Asshole.

Does this count as laying on the wire? Is this technically superhero-ing right now? Is this enough to prove to Rogers he has the right intentions? He hopes so.

“Then stay in the control unit and reverse polarity long enough to disengage mag-“

“Speak! English!”

Tony nearly laughs. He hadn’t realized how charming Rogers actually is, underneath all of the high and mighty hero stuff.

“Unless, Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect”.

“Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet.” Bruce responds, understanding every word. Oh, Tony might just be in love.

“Finally, someone who speaks English.”

“Is that what just happened?”

It was a sly little comment, but it was there. He should have picked up on it at the time. Captain Rogers is funny.

“See that red lever? It'll slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it, wait for my word.”

He watches the man jump over to the lever, landing a little too close to the edge for comfort. Then instead of dwelling on the fact that he was concerned for Captain America’s safety, he goes into the turbine and starts to push.

While he’s pushing, there’s some gunfire. Also some rushing coming from Director Fury in his earpiece. He wonders if anyone has come out to help Rogers, and then realizes that obviously Rogers can handle himself, so why would anyone? Eventually the turbine feels like it's moving faster than him, so it’s time to get out.

“Cap, I need the lever!”

“I need a minute here!”

Uh oh. That won’t do at all.

“Lever! Now!”

This is so not how he wanted this to go. He falls into a rotor, and slides down into the bottom part of the turbine. He is so screwed. He’s going to break his spine, or his neck. He’s going to die fixing a boat engine. Engine’s are his bitch, he can’t die fixing an engine!

Suddenly the rotors let up, and it only takes Tony a split second to fly out and assess his damage. His suit’s going to give out on him. Any second now surely. He should get out of the air-

Loki’s men are on Rogers with guns, how is that a fair fight?

At least, that’s what he thinks before he tackles one and takes them right through the side of the boat with him, finally hitting the ground and letting the suit turn off.

He can’t quite see anymore, and he can’t quite tell if it's the suit or his eyes that are damaged. He was knocked around quite a bit. Maybe it’s a concussion? He hopes it’s temporary, he can’t work if he’s blind.

Actually, scratch that. That sounds ableist. It also sounds like he’s doubting himself, which he’d never do. He very much can work if he’s blind. Plenty of people do it every day.

He feels tired, a bit hazy. He’d been knocked around maybe too much. Is Steve okay? He looks up, and the captain is jumping back into the ship. Good.

Definitely a concussion, he thinks, letting his head fall back and passing out.

-

Coulson died. Loki killed him.

Tony hasn’t been on this boat for too long now, but he’s starting to think this is a suicide mission. Agent Coulson was Pepper’s friend; how’s he going to tell her? How will the news reach the cellist he was involved with?

“There was an idea, Stark knows this, called The Avengers Initiative-”

He hasn’t been listening, and was honestly okay with the numb indifference of his thoughts. Anything not to hear Fury’s words. Lies, honestly. There’s no excuse for the arsenal that was being built, regardless of if Fury hadn’t bet on it in the first place. And now- what? He wants to use Tony and the others as the replacement arsenal? They can’t even save one agent, let alone the world.

“…to fight the battles that we never could. Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea, in heroes.”

Tony stands, unable to hear anymore of this. Tony’s no hero. If Coulson was smarter, he never would have believed in heroes in the first place.

-

“Was he married?”

He looks at Rogers, at his attempt at starting a tough conversation. He sees why everyone likes the guy, really. Even after their almost-fight he comes to attempt to comfort Tony. Tony, for his part, isn’t even sure why he’s taking Coulson’s death so hard. It’s not like they were friends.

He just- well, it feels like this death is on him.

“No. There was a uh...cellist, I think.”

There’s no one to inform about his death. No one to send condolence flowers to. Pepper might mourn, his coworkers may also. The cellist… well, she won't be able to pick up their fling again.

.

“I'm sorry. He seemed like a good man.”

Steve Rogers has a good heart. He may be quick tempered, but he has a good heart.

“He was an idiot.”

“Why? For believing?”

For believing in them. Believing in this stupid, sorry excuse for a team.

“For taking on Loki alone.”

“He was doing his job.”

Oh, yes, defend the dead guy. Make this argument harder. It was easier to hate Rogers earlier, when he was being irrational.

It circles back to there not always being a way out, and Tony thinks that’s bullshit. He doesn’t take well to being told things are impossible or unavoidable. If something isn’t going to work, he makes it work. Coulson should have thought ahead. He should have waited. He should have-

Better not go down that avenue.

He starts to walk away, and Rogers compares them to soldiers. Right, that makes sense. That’s why Rogers took the death so calmly. He was a soldier in a war. He’s used to losing people and having to move forward immediately. He probably has already figured out how not to blame himself for every death he’s ever witnessed.

“Right now we've got to put that aside and get this done. Now Loki needs a power source, if we can put together a list…”

Tony briefly wonders if it's healthy to compartmentalize like that. It can’t be. But then he spots the blood on the wall and his brain moves on to another thought. Rogers is right, anyway. They need to focus.

“He made it personal.”

“That’s not the point.” Rogers replies, not catching the point just yet.

“That is the point. That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?” He needs to explain. The man will get it if he explains. Sometimes he forgets that not everyone’s brain does the jumps his own does.

“To tear us apart.”

“Yes! Divide and conquer is great, but he knows he has to take us

out to -

win, right? That's what he wants. He wants to beat us and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience.”

“Right,” He’s catching on, thankfully. “I caught his act at Stuttengart.”

“Yeah. That's just previews, this is opening night. Loki's a full-tail diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered…” Tony stops, revelation forming. Steve looks fully interested in wherever this is going.

“Son of a bitch!”

“What?”

“Big ugly building in New York!”

Rogers’ eyes go wide, “Let's go.” He orders, Tony already moving.

-

The battle was terrifying. There were aliens, gigantic half mechanical half flesh monsters flying around, and a murderous Norse god intent on taking control of the chaos and coming out on top. Tony wonders why NASA or SHEILD has never claimed to have seen the species this army is made up of before. These guys don’t seem very low key, what with all the planetary destruction. He doesn’t believe for a second that no one knew these things were out there.

He makes a mental note to hack the department of defense after he’s eaten his shawarma.

Tony never prepared for this. The only people who were even remotely prepared tried to nuke New York. And then Tony the not-hero, thank you very much, had to fix that problem on top of the other very pressing one. The other problem being aliens. Aliens invading the earth.

Aliens, Jesus Christ.

Afterwards, Loki gets taken to Asgard with Thor via Beam Of Light™️. Fury says the Avengers are all free to go. But Tony does extend the offer for the others to stay at the tower. They can if they need to, not forever or anything. But, if they want to stick around and help clean up the mess. Someone’s gotta, you know?

Romanoff took the offer. Then Bruce because he wants access to a lab like Tony can offer and totally not because he’s excited about their new friendship. Then Clint, who would like to stay close to SHEILD; then begrudgingly, Steve Rogers, who admits that he can’t quite afford life in New York City but would like to stay here. And suddenly the Avengers are piling into Tony’s penthouse, exhausted but still helping get rid of all the broken glass.

He goes to his lab as soon as sleeping situations are settled. (Natasha takes a guest room, Bruce gets another one, Clint and Rogers take the living room.) There’s no need to stick around. The superhero’s crashing in his guest rooms and living room are cleaned and fed, New York is saved (and subsequently the world.). Besides, he needs to start working on better living arrangements if these guys are going to stay. He gets half way through Natasha’s layout for her floor, when Jarvis lowers his music.

“What gives? I was just getting into a groove here!”

“It seems you have a visitor, sir.”

His head whips around, expecting Pepper, but instead he finds Steve Rogers standing on the outside of the glass door looking like a lost puppy in designer hand-me-down sweatpants. Tony sighs, Pepper won't be in until tomorrow. He’d had to do a lot of bribing to get the New York Airport to let his jet land. They have to clear some debris from the runway, fix some of the landing gear, that stuff.

“Shall I let him in, sir?”

“What? Yeah, yeah. Yes. Let the captain in, open the door.”

The door unlocks, allowing Rogers to step into the lab. He looks around in wonder, the exhaustion from the day being covered by the inquisitive nature of humans.

“What’s up, Cap?”

Rogers startles, having gotten distracted by the tech in the room. Then hesitantly, he speaks up.

“This place is really swell, Tony.”

He sounds like he means it so genuinely that Tony doesn’t make a remark about the outdated word choice.

“Well, it’s no flying boat, but it’s home. Speaking of, you’ll love this. Dum-e! C’mere boy!”

If Rogers looked amazed before, he looks absolutely awestruck now.

“Did you make him?” He questions as he reaches out to pet the robot. Dum-E nuzzles his hand and Tony smiles a bit at the sight.

“Yeah. Made Jarvis too, right J?”

“Yes, sir.” Rogers jumps at the sound of Jarvis’ disembodied voice.

“See? They get along too well though. They’ll surpass their old man one day. Too much plotting happening while I’m gone.”

Rogers laughs, “See, now, I would have thought you'd be all for the minds of the future.” He comments sarcastically.

“And usually I’d agree, but I don’t think I’d be happy if the new robot overlord was Dum-E. And hearing you, a twenty-something year old, tell me that the flying boat engine ‘runs on some kind of electricity’, settled it for me. I have no faith in the future of technology.”

The other man snorts, “I’m not exactly a prime example of the youth, man.”

Tony puts up a finger, “Ah, see, I’d believe you if you didn’t just call me ‘man’. I’m gonna start calling you kid.”

Rogers rolls his eyes, ignoring how that prompted a mock scolding on rolling his eyes at his elders. He then sees the current work in progress on Tony’s work space.

“Is this what you’ve been doing down here?”

Tony’s eyes follow Rogers as he walks over to the plans and starts reading them over.

“This is so nice. There’s a floor for each of the Avengers in here! Even Thor and I!”

“Yes, God’s need sleep too. At least I think they do. I’ll have to ask, actually. -And, also, why wouldn’t you have one?”

Tony watches the man's eyes widen as if being caught saying something he hadn’t meant to say out loud. Although as soon as the look of panic shows it’s gone, Rogers turns to hide himself in the plans again.

“Look, I know we didn’t start off on the right foot.” He starts, quieter than before.

Is… is Rogers attempting a reconciliation right now? Tony thinks back to all the thoughts he had earlier, where Howard may have had a fit. And how fitting he thought it was that Captain America hated him, although he wasn’t entirely happy about it. But this might be worse, actually.

“I believe you were being beaten up when we met, actually. And then I swooped in and saved you.”

Rogers immediately regains his volume, “Swooped in and saved me doesn’t sound entirely right.”

“This. Coming from the guy who still calls things swell? I think I’ll keep my phrasing.”

“I had him! You can't save someone who is in control of the situation!”

“You call being beaten up being in control? Please elaborate.”

“I was not getting beat up. I was holding my own.”

“Sure, kid. Is that a bruise?”

Rogers immediately starts feeling around his face. This is hilarious for a number of reasons. One, he has super healing and any bruise would have been gone by now. Two, Captain America looks far more worried about a bruise on his perfect face than when he was saving the world.

“Where?”

“Right- yeah, right there. Where Loki absolutely had the upper hand!”

That comment startles the older/younger man into stunned laughter.

And thats all I’ve got!! Thank you if you made it this far.

[obsidiancreates]

Can you do a part 2 to the Henrik and Jameson neglect story? Maybe with him finding the guy who threatened him or telling one of his brothers whats going on?

(You know what? I don’t write the Septics od watch Jack anymore but fuck it, I’m feelin’ funky tonight and may as well give the boys another try. Plus, I just re-read it and the story made me sad, so let’s fix that.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

three weeks.

It’s been... three weeks.

Not a word spoken to JJ, not a glance thrown his way.

Schneep had received more photos. Pictures taken through windows. Whoever this stalker is, they must be taking tips from Anti. It seems like they’re always watching.

“What did I do?” JJ signs, day after day.

Schneep doesn’t reply.

“What did I do?” JJ says with his slides.

Schneep pretends he doesn’t see it.

Marvin has taken over any and all of JJ’s medical care. Schneep didn’t ask him to. After that first incident... Marvin took it into his own hands.

... Schneep’s never felt so low in his life.

And the pictures are gleeful. Shots of him crying in his room (he’s since left the curtains shut at all times), shots of him ignoring a bleeding and sometimes sobbing JJ, shots of him just... just...

...

Jackie knocks on his door.

“Henrik?”

Schneep quickly wipes his eyes. If Jackie is using his first name, that means a very serious talk is about to take place. He needs to pretend as best he can.

“Yes?”

Jackie enters the room.

“Henrik, what the hell is going on with you and JJ?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. You’ve been ignoring him for weeks. You’re acting like he doesn’t fuckin’ exist.”

Schneep shrugs.

“Don’t srug it off, what’s wrong with you?! He’s a wreck! He thinks he did something wrong, and he’s blaming himself!”

Schneep feels tears spring into his eyes. “I have nothing to say.”

Jackie is incredulous. “Nothing to say? Fucking nothing to say?! What’s going on with you?!”

“I need to get back to work.”

“No, you need to-”

“I! Need! To! Work!”

Jackie stares.

“... Is it Anti?” he asks quietly.

Schneep scoffs. “I am not doing the glitching, am I?”

Jackie doesn’t look convinced. “Something’s not right with you.”

“Yes, it is you interrupting me. Shoo! Shoo!”

Schneep stands up, pushing, pushing!, Jackie out of the room.

He slams the door shut.

Jackie takes a moment to process what just happened.

... Because what the fuck just happened?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JJ cradles his photo album as he sits on his bed.

What happened? He and Schneep were close. Why did it all just... vanish?

He wipes his eyes, and shakes his head. He needs fresh air. Maybe that will help. Right? Maybe a nice breath of fresh air will give him some clarity, some clue as to what he did wrong...

He goes over to his window, opens it wide as possible, and leans out.

The bushes below rustle frantically.

“Jumping junipers!”

JJ startles away from the window, and then looks out again.

The bushes are still.

... Perhaps it was some kind of wild animal?

He leans out further, trying to get a better look-

...

Is that...

His eyes widen.

He rushes out of his room, bumping into an angry and perplexed Jackie. 

“I think there was someone watching me from the bushes!”

“Was it Anti?” Jackie immediately jumps to.

“I don’t think so! But I think their clothes ripped, I swear I’ve seen a piece of fabric in the bushes just after receiving a terrible fright!”

“Show me!”

JJ leads Jackie outside, and points out the bush.

Jackie crawls under, and...

Yes, there it is. A bit of bright-red fabric. Sock material, it looks like.

He scowls. “JJ, you’re sleeping in Marvin’s room tonight.”

JJ nods, and quickly head back into the house, no longer feeling safe.

Jackie gets out from under the bush.

He hates when he has to do lookouts over their house. It’s been months, no sign of Anti, and he’d started to hope those days of fear and vigilance could truly be put behind him.

Apparently not.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jackie crouches at the top of a tree, eyes on the house. 

He’s been like this for hours. He’ll be like this for hours more. It’s well into the night, and though his eyes ache, he’s trained himself to be able to keep watch for a full twenty-four hours if need be.

Every little shape, every shadow, ever sound, it’s all potential danger to his family. It keeps the blood pumping, keeps his heart racing. 

And then he sees it.

It’s dark out, so it’s little more than a shadow. But it’s not an animal, he can tell that much. Animals don’t wear baseball caps.

He quietly slips through the trees, getting closer.

The shadow moves quickly. Practiced. Jackie’s blood runs cold, and his temper flares.

How long has this person been stalking them? And why?

He keeps following, ready to drop-

... They’re... going right past JJ’s room, now.

He thought they’d take more pictures than that. That was, what, two? They’d set up a dummy JJ in there, it looks like JJ is asleep in his bed, so why...

...

They’ve got an envelope...

...

Schneep’s room?

He watches them take out some kind of flat... something, and slowly, carefully, wedge Schneep’s window open just enough that they can slip the envelope through.

Jackie’s heart drops.

He climbs out of the tree, and grabs the person by the back of their shirt, yanking them away from the window as harshly as he can.

They yelp.

Schneep’s light comes on.

“Who the fuck are you?!” Jackie barks.

Schneep opens his window, and his eyes go wide.

“Answer me!” Jackie demands.

Marvin’s light goes on as well, and JJ’s head pops out of the window. His hands fly up to his mouth, and he rushes to Schneep’s room. Marvin and Chase follwo right behind.

“Let go of me!” the person says. “I’m fucking armed!”

“With what? This?” Marvin holds up a gun. 

The person’s face falls with fear.

“Thought so.”

“Chase, what’s in the envelope?” Jackie says, not taking his eyes off of the stalker.

Chase rips it open, and his eyes widen in horror. JJ takes a step back. Schneep is near tears.

Photos. Photos of Schneep sobbing, of JJ sobbing, JJ begging Schneep to speak to him...

“Is this why?” JJ signs, hands trembling.

Jackie is livid. “Why?” he growls.

The person looks at him, and realizes there’s no way out of this.

“Your hack of a brother killed mine,” the person says, spitting as they speak. “My brother trusted this idiot to save his life, and he died! So-”

“So if you couldn’t talk to your brother, Schneep couldn’t talk to his?” Chase  interrupts, digging through Schneep’s desk. He waves a little piece of paper, angry words scribbled in it’s lines. “Good evidence collecting, bro.”

“What kind of sick, twisted logic is that?” Marvin says, snarling. 

“It’s justice!” the person snaps.

“No, it isn’t,” Jackie says coldly. “But you’re sure as fuck going to find that out soon.”

“What does that-”

“Marv, knock him out.”

Blue and green magic shoots into the person’s skull, and they’re out like a light.

“You-” Jackie says, pointing at Schneep, “-should have fuckin’ told us what was going on.”

“I could not risk,” Schneep says, wiping his eyes. “Not JJ. He is out so often, and I could not warn him what to watch out for without knowing who this was...”

JJ cuts Schneep off by wrapping him in a hug.

“You thought you were protecting me, and I can hold no ill will against you for that. I’m just glad to know it wasn’t animosity, or something I-”

“You are my brother,” Schneep says, hugging JJ back tightly, “I would never wish to hurt you or let you be hurt! I am sorry, for all of these last weeks.”

“I accept.”

 The hug lasts a long time. 

They’re both just glad to have each other back.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “Trapped” Part 2

Almost one year ago, someone tried to kill The Joker in a speeding car and Y/N pushed him out of the way, getting hit instead. With a fractured skull and broken bones, she was out of business for 6 months; when she finally recovered, The Queen of Gotham wasn’t the same anymore. Trapped inside her own mind and exhibiting severe cognitive impairment, Y/N’s life switched upside down without any hope of ever returning to normal.

Part 1      Part 3     Part 4    Part 5

The Joker feels your hand searching around and he knows what you’re looking for: the yellow teddy bear.

“Here Pumpkin,” J gives you the toy that landed on the other side of the bed during the night; a couple minutes pass and his cheek is covered in soft kisses. He opens one eye and you instantly pretend to be asleep.

“I’m onto you, Y/N!” The King of Gotham sneers while you giggle at his affirmation. But as soon as he pecks the scar on your collarbone, your attitude changes.

“No…”, you whimper and cover your face with the sheets.

“I told you before I don’t care about scars,” The Joker tries to reason with you because it happens each time he touches the numerous stitch marks scattered all over your frame: some are deeper lacerations perfectly normal after the surgeries you sustained, others are cuts that might diminish in a few months. “Princess, are you listening?” J traces the lesion on your wrist.

Y/N is so stiff though he has to fight in order to pull the covers away from her.

“Hey…hey… See? I have scars too,” The Clown attempts to distract you. “Are you having a panic attack? No need to!”

You try to keep up with what he’s saying and it’s pretty difficult giving the circumstances; at least you do understand J is making you relax.

His cell phone starts vibrating on the nightstand and he reaches for it.

“Perfect timing, Frost!” The Joker takes his frustration on Jonny. “What do you want?!!”

The short conversation ends fast with The King yelling a bunch of angry stuff, including an interesting grand finale: “Next time you interrupt when I’m on a roll struggling to get laid, maybe you’d like to intervene and convince Y/N her scars don’t bother me!!!”

Why is he mad?...

You watch him toss the phone on the floor and crawl by him, intrigued.

“Upset?” you begin caressing his hair with the teddy bear’s paw.

“My throne won’t be ready until June, Princess! I requested that fancy chair for a reason and paid a fortune to have it customized! What am I supposed to use at the club?! I don’t like the old furniture anymore!!”

You already lost track of what he’s saying: something about not having a throne???… … …

Oh, there’s one really close by!

You grab The Joker’s arm and drag him out of bed towards the bathroom.

“Where are we going?” he inquires, confused.

You quickly guide him to the toilet, making J sit on the closed lid.

“Throne,” you point at the porcelain bowl and The King of Gotham frowns, immediately bursting into laughter afterwards.

“You’re brilliant, Pumpkin! Brilliant!” he praises your interpretation as you are pulled on his knees.

“Hm?”

“You’re a clever Kitten and whoever says otherwise is an idiot! Turns out I do have a throne,” he admits and gropes you.

Too much for your brain to decipher all his sentences, yet Mister J seems content and that’s enough for you.

“The plan for this morning is simple,” he continues. “We’ll have sex, then take a shower and whatnot, then eat breakfast. Later I have a meeting; you just stay here and wait for me, alright?”

“Mmm…” you hesitantly process the words coming out of his mouth, opting to agree for his sake. “Ok?”

“You naughty girl,” he pulls down on your tank top spaghetti strap. ”I know you hate me sometimes, but in the end can’t resist my charm.”

“No hate… Love,” you snuggle to J while he walks back into the bedroom carrying the sweet burden of his existence; of course he ignored your statement because why would he pay attention to nonsense?

*************

You’re outside the car and sulk when Alice sneaks on the passenger’s seat that literally belongs to The Queen.

“Stay here, Princess. I won’t be too long,” The Joker mutters.

“W-why?” you ask since you are not a fan of the idea of having your boyfriend’s ex riding alone with him.

“You get bored at meetings,” he explains. “Circle the property and let the boys know if you need anything,” J emphasizes and drives down the path leading to the gates, leaving a puzzled Y/N behind: you never liked Alice and that didn’t vanish after the accident.

“Bye, Y/N!” she shouts and you can’t make a lot of sense of what you’re feeling, still one detail is certain: it hurts.

How come you couldn’t go?! Why didn’t he give you a choice?! He always does.

If The Joker thinks you can’t put two and two together these days, he’s very wrong.

“Y/N recovered quite nicely,” Alice smirks.

The King of Gotham sighs and she fixes a rebel strand of green hair rebelliously flying over his ear.

“I was wondering if you’ll call me at one point. I missed you, babe.”

“Did ya’?” he scoffs at her bold confession; but she’s a direct person, one of the qualities J admired when they were an item.

“I can’t image how you two function; I mean… her unfortunate transformation, it must be hard for you to put up with someone fighting to comprehend the easiest tasks.”

“It’s not easy,” The Clown admits and gazes at her: Alice dolled up for their rendezvous. Everything he considers attractive is there: beautiful pair of legs popping from under the short skirt, his favorite perfume discretely lingering on her flawless skin, the tip of the purple lace bra she’s wearing casually showing each time the woman leans forward.

“I bet,” Alice pretends to sympathize with his problems. “A man like you has needs that I’m positive Y/N can’t even remember how to satisfy,” she pats his thigh, slowly working her way to his crotch.

The Joker chuckles, accomplice with her insinuations, also super annoyed when his phone rings.

“Yes?” he promptly answers.

“Sir,” Frost reports, ”we have a situation; Y/N is increasingly agitated and…”

“Deal with it!” he hangs up and strives to cruise straight despite the sexy distraction urging him to do otherwise.

“Why did we split?” she scoots closer to him, pouting.

“Beats me,” J purrs as she squeezes her fingers in his pants’ pocket.

“What’s this?” Alice rattles the small plastic pouch.

“Y/N’s anti-inflammatory drug; there’s not much that can be done now and this is helping with the blood clot pressing on her frontal lobe. The doctors say it will reabsorb; granted it won’t matter regarding her cognitive impairment.”

“Awww,” The Joker’s past flame pretends to be affected by his briefing. “That’s too bad, babe; probably the future is not too bright…” she shoves your pills in the glove compartment. “Why don’t we reconcile? You know I’d do anything for you,” the flirtatious tone makes J reply:

“Would you jump in front of a speeding car like Y/N did to save me?”

“Ha! I would,” she elbows him, snickering at his antiques.

“Prove it then,” J growls. “Get out of the vehicle and don’t flinch if I run you over. If you survive, I’ll take you back!”

Alice opens her mouth in amazement and the SUV halts before The King reprises driving.

“Got cha’!” he cracks up at her baffled reaction.

“For God’s sake, babe! You scared me!” she playfully pinches him and teases: “Are we going to our spot?”

“I was wondering when you’ll notice,” The Joker navigates the unpaved road guiding the automobile towards Clear Sky Summit.

“Pull over,” Alice urges him and he complies at once. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” she moans climbing on his lap. “I can tell you missed me too,” the woman grins at his body’s response.

“That’s my gun,” J buries his face in the revealing cleavage, firmly holding her waist.

“I bet it is, babe,” she winks while unbuttoning his silver shirt. “I love you!” she tries to bite him and he violently yanks her long hair, snarling.

“Is that why you tried to kill me?”

Alice cautiously exhales, a bit nervous at the switch in his demeanor.

“What are you talking about?!”

“Who was driving the car meant to hit me, huh? Tinted windows, no license plate.”

“Babe, you’re hurting me,” she winces in pain at his strong grip. “I swear I don’t know anything!”

“Are you sure?” J sniffs her scent.

“Yes I’m sure! I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our…”

“Our what? What exactly our means in this context? We separated more than two years ago!” The Joker crushes her spine against the wheel.

“Babe, let go!” Alice wiggles in his tight embrace.

“Why did you do it? Were you jealous I found a new fling? Took me months to track the culprit!!!” J restricts her movement when she stretches to open the door. “You fucked up my girl!” his hands forcefully twist her neck and the snapping noise of fractured bone halts the argument.

The Joker pushes the corpse off him, numb to the murder he committed out of pure rage: what’s another name added to the list?

Yet… this was personal.

He keeps staring at the trees surrounding the trail without discerning their shape. 30 minutes pass and the phone’s alarm alerts him it’s time for your remedy: The Clown Prince of Crime is so out of it he doesn’t stop it until he’s on the main road.

He speeds up to ensure a timely arrival at the mansion where Y/N will definitely confront him after being abandoned in such fashion: the truth is he doesn’t mind.

What he does mind though is that no matter what happens, Y/N will never be her former self.

***************

The Joker parks in front of the villa and hops out of the car, barking instructions at the goons patrolling the area:

“I want this gone!” he gestures at the cadaver crammed under the front seat. “Where’s Y/N?”

“In the garage, boss” Frost indicates. “You should know that…”

“I got it! I got it!” J waves and sprints towards your destination.

Nothing prepared him for the carnage.

“Holy… … shit!!!” he inhales at the shocking landscape depicting all five of his most beloved vehicles mauled to pieces: broken windows, scraped paint, karoseri indents…a whole mess!

Bam!!! You smash the rearview mirror of his favorite Ferrari with the baseball bat.

“What are you doing, Pumpkin????!!!!” J screams, aggravated.

Oh, he’s back!

“Y-you like her??!!” The Queen redirects her wrath. “B-because she’s smart??!!”

“Who? Alice?” he quizzes for no reason whatsoever: The Joker’s aware of the reply.

“Wh-where did you go, hm?” you point the wood weapon at the man taking you for a fool; you try not to stutter but it’s impossible with the strained neurons firing up a storm inside an already troubled brain.

“Nowhere, I killed her.”

“Hm?”

“I killed Alice!” The Joker raises his voice and watches you squint your eyes, a clear hint you’re analyzing his disclosure. “Look what you did, Princess! Are you happy now??” he finds the perfect opportunity to divert the outcome of the mayhem he actually created: J repeatedly learned this is the best strategy.

“U-hum,” you serenely admit since you’re indeed pleased with the results of your rampage.

The two parties glare at each other in silence and The Joker grabs the yellow teddy bear resting on a nearby hood, proposing truce before you bash something else:

“I’ll trade you the fur ball for your bat.”

Yikes, you’re reluctant to his treaty: further distraction is required.

“My collection is destroyed, Pumpkin!” The Joker approaches with the toy he stole for you on your first date. “Who we’re gonna call on such short notice to fix all this crap?!!”

Oh, you know this one! You and Mister J watch the movie on a regular basis.

“Mmm… Ghost Busters?” Y/N innocently suggests.

He puckers his lips at the astonishing proposal and it takes a lot of effort not to laugh.

“That’s brilliant, Y/N! Best idea I heard all week!” The Joker proudly compliments your intuition. “You’re a clever Kitten and whoever says otherwise is a moron!” he swiftly snatches the baseball from your grasp and replaces it with the teddy bear.

He rolls the weapon by the closest tire, signaling you to follow.

“Come on, Pumpkin, it’s time for your med. Why are you limping? Is your knee hurting again?”

“U-hum.”

“Serves you right for going rogue!” he scolds. “Com’ere,” J lifts you up, placing your legs around his midsection. “I expect apologies by the way!”

“No,” you sniffle while dangling the toy with one arm.

“Pain in the ass!” he huffs and you kiss him. “This is not an apology!” The Joker spanks you butt.

“Mine,” you cuddle to his shoulder, totally blocking his grouchiness.

“Yeah, yeah, yours,” J grumbles heading for the elevator. “So this is how the rest of today will unfold, Y/N: I’ll be mad until evening time, then we’ll have makeup sex and dinner, the last two not necessarily in the same order. And you’re not going to freak out when I touch your scars, OK?”

“Mmm…OK?”

“Why is that a question?” The Joker continues bickering. “You have other prospects? Boyfriends I should know about? Are you even listening?”

“U-hum,” you poke J’s star tattoo. “No… freaking out.”

“Fair enough,” he compromises and lifts you higher on his hips when you cling to him: selective perception is infinitely better than none. “Is this Pink Blossoms?”

“Yes,” you nod at the familiar brand you use all the time.

The King of Gotham smells his favorite perfume in the air, reckoning he wouldn’t enjoy it if another woman wears it for him.

Also read: MASTERLIST

You can also follow me on Wattpad and Ao3 under the same blog name: DiYunho.

[flying-nightwing]

Dark Fox (1/7)

Okay so I’m super excited about this one. It was supposed to be a one shot, but my head got carried away with the developpement of the story and I found the potential just too good not to bring further. So this is gonna be a multi parts, no idea how long yet.

This will not be exactly dark/gritty, but it will deal with existential struggle with identity and sense of justice (for reader, and indirectly for Jason as well). It’s my first time tapping into the questioning of the Self in a work of fiction, so I hope you enjoy exploring this topic with me.

Feedback is always appreciated!

Next 

Pairing: Jason Todd x League!reader

Word count: 3352

Warnings: Violence, swearing, death.

Summary: You’re torn in between your heart and your head, who you are and what you aren’t, right or wrong for yourself. The answer is so close you can taste it, but you can’t help but doubt. 

"They don't know what's coming for them"

You waited in the shadows, still and patient, watching the gang of thugs hyping themselves for their takeover. 

"No cops, no swat team, no fucking vigilante will be able to stop us!"

Cheers went around the group, their military grade firearms raised in the air. All the big fists of Kiev's underground criminal network were there, ready to storm the city. It had been a carefully crafted plan that had started with buying the right people, then diverting NATO's shipment to pro-america extremists to feed the anti-russian movement. Tonight was the night the final blow would strike, with a takeover.

"The city is ours, boys!" The leader shouted. "Take what's yours, and kill the rest!"

That was your cue. As they began running out of the warehouse, you dropped from the ceiling to block their path. You were alone, but the surprise made them all halt nonetheless. 

"Who the fuck are you?" 

Your eyes found the leader. "You are operating on a territory that is not yours, Dmitri Liyanov" You spoke through your mask, which was distorting your voice without making it any less clear. "Ra's Al Ghul is not pleased with your defiance"

He narrowed his eyes, then relaxed and laughed. "So he sent his little pet alone to confront me about it?" He mocked condescendingly, and with a hand gesture, all firepower in the room pointed to you. "In case you haven't noticed, you're outgunned"

You didn't move an inch, your eyes only trailed on the goon that had taken a step forward, ready to end you. You weren't worried, especially since you caught the movement of the fifteen other shadows silently dropping from the ceiling, unbeknownst to the forty or something goons all facing you.

"Alright boys, let's end this--"

"Oh, you don't wanna do that" A casual, laughing voice then echoed behind you. Your eyes widened in frustration as you recognized too well the intruder. Fuck. "The second you fire that gun, you have fifteen plus one super ninjas cutting you to pieces"

And with that, all hell broke loose. 

You threw a Shuriken in the thugs' throat and one that sticked into Liyanov's eye, before spinning around and blocking the oncoming dagger over your head with your forearm brace spikes. You paused there for a few seconds, glaring at the red mask looming over you.

Todd.

"Missed me?" The smirk could be heard in his voice. Of course he’s show up now.

You grabbed a blade in your belt and slashed forward, missing him by inches in his quick drawback. You hadn't expected fighting your equal tonight, but the thrill of a fair fight flared in your veins. The exchanges of hits was swift and graceful, like a river running down it's course. You barely grazed each other, as both of your training was sufficient to plan exactly the other's next move. The question was now about who would make the first mistake. 

He backed you up against a wall, you used the crates to propel you up and come down on him. He blocked your motion, you dropped the blade down in your left hand to attack his open side. But before it could reach him, a quick manoeuvre sent you over his shoulder. You recovered the fall with a roll and went at him again, but the movement of Liyanov trying to get up and run caught your eyes. It effectively distracted you, and before you knew it, Jason's foot collided violently with your stomach. 

It sent you flying back and rolling ungracefully on your stomach a few feet away. You heard a laugh as you groaned, slowly pushing yourself off the ground. You had forgotten the sheer power of his muscles when catching you off guard. You raised one knee as you caught your breath, glaring at Jason. There was laughter behind his eyes, but he wasn't the one making the sound. Your eyes slid over to Liyanov, who was watching the show.

"Seems like I have some people protecting my interests"

You raised your arm, fist pointed straight at him and shot a small barbed arrow straight to his hand. His laughter turned into screams of pain, but you tuned him out easily. Who's laughing now?

"I'm not done with you" You rasped at him, then pulled yourself up, feet apart and shoulders straight. You faced Jason, now angry and determined.

"Sweet upgrade" He whistled, nodding at your arm "And for the record, I was here to kill him too, but you're far more entertaining"

You didn't answer just yet, you only pulled your sword slowly out of the sheath on your back. You knew that you'd have to bring out the big guns against him.

"Oh I see" He hummed in amusement. "Drawing the sword, for old times' sake"

In a few seconds the metal of your weapons was clashing. It reminded you of all the sparring you did with him, when Talia sent you to him to train with him under Ra’s radar. It reminded you of the first time you had put Jason on his back when he was fresh out of the pit, and how he never could beat you with a sword. 

You were light on your feet, making sure that his wider range didn't get you into a leg sweep. He was trying to bring the fight to close range--closer than it could be possible with swords--so he would fall into the one type of combat he actually beat you at. But you could see his game and you refused to give in. 

You knew your strengths as well as his and there was no way you'd let the favor switch to him.

So when his long arms sneaked around and got you into a headlock, you threw all fairness out of the window and rose up your left forearm, shooting the same hidden crossbow you had used against Liyanov. Jason jumped back to avoid the arrow piercing through his jaw and was forced to let you go in the process.

"That's cheating" He tsked as you circled each other. You shot three more arrows, which he all dodged and broke mid air. "Really?"

"You're in my way" You only said, suppressing the emotion from your voice. You refused to admit you were holding back, and that you only wasted your small quiver because you knew none of them would hit him. But you still had a job to do, and not even him could stop you.

“Is that a warning?” He snorted. “Because you’ll have to do more than that to convince m- fuck”

You interrupted him with a distraction flash bang and took the moment to attack. He was quick enough to recover on time and block your blade before it slashed his arm, but not enough to have the upper hand in the fight. He was forced into a totally defensive stance as you left him no space to attack. You sped up your hits, so much that his helmet cracked and came flying off. The next moment, your blade swung at his neck--he closed his eyes when he understood your next move-- but came to a dry stop as it touched his skin. 

The world froze. There you both were, breathing heavily in the silence of the warehouse. He opened his eyes, like he knew you wouldn’t do it. Still, there was this glint in his eyes, like he dared you to finish your motion. 

“You could at least look at me directly” He muttered. “Unless you’re too afraid”

Slowly, you pulled off your mask, showing him your full face. It’s not like there was anybody around who didn’t know who you were under the black hood of the league, and for Liyanov, he wouldn’t leave this warehouse alive to tell on you. 

“You’ve changed” He remarked.

“So did you” You replied sternly. But he didn’t, not really. He was still handsome, and a distraction to your work. So you raised your sword, like you would swing down, but instead took his inattention to deliver a round kick at the exact same place he did to you. He flew backwards, and in the middle of his fall, you loaded a sedative dart in your forearm crossbow. You shot him in the neck, and by the time his back hit the ground, he was out. 

You watched him for a few more seconds before you turned away and walked to Liyanov. His left eye was now a red mess, no doubt it would have been lost had you let him live. His hand was still stuck to the wooden crate, and he was muttering incoherent things. Probably overwhelmed by the pain, you thought. He looked at you with his one good eye, silently pleading you to end him.

How easy it was to break a weak man’s spirit.

Without a word, you pressed the tip of your sword to his throat and pushed, then slowly pulled back out. You wiped the metal on the inside of your folded elbow and sheathed it back, watching Liyanov choke on his blood and die not so long after. You lifted your head and turned to your team. 

“Linadhhab” You ordered to your team as you slipped your mask back on, and left the scene.

----

You never talked.

Despite sharing a hut, meals and basically both of your personal space, words were rarely used in between you. He was always brooding, angry and miserable. And you? Well, you didn’t feel the need to speak unless it was to correct his form, or to tell him to do the work all over again. He hated you for that, and you hated that you were there because of him. You would have done anything for Talia, but you felt conflicted about betraying Ra’s. You knew this could happen when you agreed to become her right hand, but you didn’t expect for it to happen because of an unstable, revengeful boy she rescued. 

The rain was pouring nails over the mountain. It was cold and seeping through your clothes, yet still you were outside, circling Jason. There was fury in his eyes, directed at you, at the rain, at the world. Yet, he couldn’t control his swing. You had tried to teach him the art of Katana for days now, but he would always be too rash, to much in a hurry to end things. And the pit clearly didn’t help, giving him muscle strength he had not the discipline to control. 

“Again”

He leaped at you, and despite his enhanced speed, you saw his attack coming from miles away. You swatted him and sent him to a tree trunk, his sword falling out of his hands. He was both panting and shaking from the cold, or anger, or both. He slowly got back got his feet, jaw clenched and knuckles white.

“Again”

“Fuck you!” He exploded, walking toward you angrily. You stood your ground. “What’s the point of this, uh? Make me catch a fucking pneumonia?”

“You need to learn control” You simply said, and that made him even angrier. 

“I don’t need fucking control!” He yelled. “I’m strong enough to break your bones”

“Try”

He didn’t like the challenge, and even less when you side stepped all of his attacks. He was skilled, but he was getting tired and numb in the rain. And his rage made him way too predictable. You only pushed him when he tried to go for your neck, knowing a chokehold from him was the one thing you wouldn’t get out of.

“Fight back god dammit!” 

So you did. A few moves and you had him in checkmate, your blade on his neck. It didn’t stop the fuming in his eyes, nor the venom in his words.

“I know why you’re here” He croaked. “You’re stalling me. Talia is stalling me from getting justice for my death. Because that’s what you do, you hide behind a mask to hide the fact that you’re only glorified hitmen, and that you’re afraid to face your own incapacity to change a goddamn thing in the world”

You waited a second before drawing back your sword, your eyes never leaving his. 

“That’s enough for today”

You watched him retreat in frustration toward the hut up the tree, pondering over his words. It was the first time he had talked that much, and you’d be lying if it didn’t make you reflect on it more than you cared to admit.

-----

You never understood the need for luxury. 

The suite that had been reserved for your fake identity was way too spacious for comfort, and so full of things you didn't need. It only made it harder, more straining on you. Smaller spaces were easier to control and to securise, and you knew what to expect. nothing-- nobody could lurk when you were at sword range of everything. 

But unfortunately, your given identity was most of the time part of the higher class, as money could buy silence better than force. Nobody would dare look for a serial killer in a five star hotel, and if there was suspicions, it would be swept under the rug with any organized crime business the elite conducted. The cover was perfect, but it still made you restless.

As soon as you sneaked back in your room, you went straight to your suitcase and threw it on the bed. With a hiss, you peeled off your mask and league uniform, to reveal a red gash on your arm where Jason’s blade got you. You hadn’t noticed before a few minutes ago, when the adrenaline died down. You sighed and began cleaning it up, then applied a bandage to it. It wasn’t deep enough for it to need stitches, but you would still be careful.

Then, you sewed back up your sleeve. It had had other slashes that you could only see their patchwork from up close, sewn back with a large thread the exact same shade of the black leather. 

Next was your shower, to wash down the sweat and the grime and the dried blood. IT was the first one you had in a week, and your first hair wash in twice as much time. The undoing of your braids hurt, and you couldn’t wait to get under water You liked your showers burning hot, it made you feel alive. You had grown up in the desert, after all, and despite your exposure during your training, you hated the cold. You could barely stand it, as a matter of fact. But you’d never show this to Ra’s, it was a weakness which he would try to repress with more cold. 

The steam following you out of the shower clouded the bathroom. You reached for your night kimono and wrapped it around you, the black satin clinging to the dampness of your skin. You dried your hair with a towel and brushed your teeth before going back to the suite. There you folded your black league suit and carefully arranged your weapon on the table. You were almost done when the hairs on the back of your neck stood up, and a shiver went down your spine.

Half a second later, you felt his presence close behind you. Your head rose up slowly, yet you didn’t make another move. You simply waited as he did, listening to the almost inaudible sound of his breathing. You didn’t know if he had a weapon close by, and your hand was still at reaching distance from yours. And yet, there was no threat lingering in the air. It was almost… Comforting. 

And you wanted it to stop.

“After all this time…” Jason’s voice was a whisper, meant for you and only you. “All I get is an ass kicking and a sedative?”

It wasn’t angry, it wasn’t playful. It sounded disappointed, if anything. You felt a pang in your heart that was there no matter how hard you tried to push it away. You hadn’t seen him in years, and his sheer presence was already messing with your head. Why did he show up again?

“What else was I supposed to give you?” Your voice wasn’t much louder. His smell clouded your senses and you so wanted to give in, but you had to resist your instinct. It would be your downfall again if you did.

“You’re still angry” He stated, his fingers barely grazing the skin of your neck in a ghost of a caress. It gave you goosebumps, so much you had to close your eyes. His touch was always your weakness when it came to him. 

No matter how cold his skin would get.

“You’re the one who left” You turned your head to the side to catch a glimpse of him behind you. Your voice betrayed your own feelings as it hitched at the end. He moved in your field of vision, his hand gently trailing your neck to cup your cheek. You sighed and leaned in, despite your inner protests. 

“I had to go” He repeated the same thing he had told you three years ago. “You could have come with me. You didn’t have to--”

You didn’t have to stay with them, you completed for him in your head. You’ve had this argument already, and you were tired. 

“I did. Ra’s--Talia gave me everything” You replied. “The league is the only way. I must stay loyal”

“No you don’t” His face was closer to you know, so much you felt with breath on your lips. “They won’t help you, you know this inside. Come with me”

He knew your secrets, your goals, your drive; it was impossible to lie to him. You had opened yourself like a book to him, and now he had power over you. Over your feelings and your thoughts, and while your heart wished nothing more than to surrender, your head kept pulling you back. And for a moment, you did. You pressed your lips against his, softly and quietly. It felt just as you remembered. But reality caught up with you again and you pulled away. 

“I’m sorry” You breathed, turning away from him. “I can’t leave. Not when I’m this close”

"Okay" He took a step back, nodding to himself. "If you change your mind, I'll be there"

The next time you turned around, he was gone.

------

Only a few lights were still open in the Gotham division of LexCorp that late at night. The guard on shift didn’t even bother scolding the over zealous technician still inside, as he found it was no use to get him out of there at reasonable hours. He was always working on something, some small, insignificant detail. It always had to be perfect.

“No, why are you always doing this to me” The tech whined out loud, even though there was no other colleague to entertain him. “Please remain calm”

He would always say some weird stuff, but that night he seemed more agitated that usual. The security guard paused, making a face at the crazy tech.

“That’s it that’s it” He nodded to himself. “See? You can do it”

The guard squinted his eyes, before scoffing and walking away. “Fucking weirdo” 

The tech kept working like the guard never passed by. In fact, he hadn’t even noticed when he did. He was close to the solution of his problem, of why the damn machine would not start. Well he knew why it wouldn’t start; a disbalance in the molecular component triggered the fail safe. He just had to find the right element to add without messing up the entire thing…

“Dear Lord” He gasped, looking a his microscope, then at his notes. Then back at his microscope. “I found it. I FOUND IT!”

A few miles away, two people watched the feed of the tech laughing to himself and celebrating. One had a smirk, the other an incredulous expression.

“I’ll be damned” The latest mumbled. “The fool really did it”

“So it seems” The other hummed in agreement. “We can now proceed to the next step”

[fandom-necromancer]

1651. You will regret this.

This was prompted by the amazing @aurea-b! I hope you enjoy, even though it got a bit dark.

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 (Warnings: For Reed900: bullying/mental abuse, Gavin is anti-android at first. For the rest: mentioned implied sexual abuse/rape)

Nines had been confident his future would be better. He was ready to leave his past behind him and thankful for the chance at life the DPD was willing to give him. He had been made Detective and had been given a partner. So far, so good.

Only that his partner had to be Detective Gavin Reed.

It was easy to say the man was a total asshole. There was no sign of compassion in the man, on the contrary even: He liked to be the embodiment of a school bully grown up. He hated androids and let him know it. Giving him useless tasks just to get him out of his way, calling him names and accidentally “spilling” his coffee or any other liquid, causing him more than once to short-cut in non-vital system, was just the tip of it.

It wasn’t as bad as some other things that had been done to Nines during his time at Cyberlife, but he had wanted his life to get better, not just a different kind of bad. The prolonged exposure to the man’s bullying was tiring and at some point, the nights spent alone in the bullpen weren’t enough to brace himself for the next day. He needed to stand up for himself. He had to tell Gavin he couldn’t simply do as he pleased with him. He would start setting simple boundaries, easy enough to respect, and work his way up from there. Surely, the man would be able to learn. Maybe Gavin simply didn’t know that what he was doing was annoying and disrespectful. Who knew how human minds worked. He would come around surely.

So, as Gavin stood up for a smoke break, Nines did so, too. ‘I think I’ll accompany you today.’ ‘Knock yourself out, plastic. Just don’t expect any chit-chat.’ Nines nodded and followed the man, convinced that the fact he hadn’t reacted aggressively just yet was a good sign. Once outside, he waited for Gavin to light his cigarette. He was usually calmer once he had took a few drags and Nines thought that them being alone without anyone watching would make the man more diplomatic. So, when he decided he had waited enough, he spoke up: ‘I want to be called Nines. You don’t call your other co-workers names and I want to be treated the same way. I want you to stop calling me tin-can or toaster or whatever racist term you throw my way.’

Nervously he watched the man’s reaction, who simply took another drag, before putting the not even halfway finished cigarette out and throw it away. ‘Oh yeah? You want that?’ Nines was pleasantly surprised, when the human seemed to actually think about it, nodding to himself. That belief was shattered, when the human looked up grinning and Nines knew he had made a grave mistake. In a sudden fit of anger, Gavin took him by the lapels and pushed him against the next wall. He was a surprisingly lightweight model and although it had been one of the reasons why he was allowed to exist, he really wished Cyberlife would have finished him and installed the heavy reinforced plating.

‘You know what?’, Gavin hissed, pushing him against the wall for emphasis. ‘I don’t give a shit what you want! You are a machine. A tool. You may help me with analysing things and being able to see stuff I can’t. But here’s the thing: You can do nothing I couldn’t do myself with blacklight and a bit of time. I don’t need you. I was fine before and I’m fine now. And how I see it, you don’t have anything to force me to comply. Complain to Fowler, see if I care. The only two options you have, tin-can…’ He smiled and cupped Nines cheek to give him a little slap. ‘Is either become the obedient machine you were supposed to be or fend for yourself on the streets where some kids will have their fun with you one night. Who knows, maybe Cyberlife takes you back in – Oh wait… They didn’t want you either, right?’

If Nines applied any more force to his jaw, he would shatter it. He was furious. What did this human think who he was? He wanted more than anything else in the word to punch this man in the face. Maybe break his nose a second time, see the blood spill and Gavin in pain. A bit of revenge for the last month’s abuse. But even more than the human fuelled his anger did the fact that he was right: That were Nines’ only options. Cyberlife had deactivated him and thrown him into a heavily reinforced room to rot after he had deviated and lashed out on the testing grounds, effectively killing all seven Cyberlife researchers that had tortured him plus some more security guards afterwards. He was deemed dangerous and aggressive; most thought his soldier programming had simply never worked correctly and was too dangerous to develop any further. The DPD’s fifth precinct had been the only one to take him as Connor would be able to easily overpower him without his reinforced hull plates. So, Gavin was right saying he could either obey or live his life as a fugitive on the streets of a city that had only recently began seeing androids as sentient beings. The futility of it all had Nines fuming though and he leaned in, hissing: ‘You will regret this.’ He freed himself from Gavin’s grip and marched back into the building.

He didn’t want to give in. He didn’t want to bow his head and let the Detective slap him around. He continued to stubbornly go his way of enduring the abuse and trying to retaliate, but at this point he was just tired. Maybe trying to fend for himself wasn’t as bad as he thought. He could at least try it and if it wasn’t any better, he could still come back. If his only other option was to become slave to Gavin Reed, then the humiliation of crawling back to the police was just another drop in the ocean. He told no one. He just waited until the nightshift arrived, then he put his badge and gun on his desk and send an apology email to Fowler. He would get out of here. He would get away from Gavin Reed and it would be better surely. These thoughts in mind he nodded to himself and walked out of the building.

-

Gavin came in the next day unsuspecting of what waited for him. As he walked towards his desk and Tina stood next to it, he didn’t think much of it. A grave mistake. ‘Gavin.’ Oh-oh. ‘What the hell did you do to him again?’, she said, her calm voice far worse than any shouting. ‘Isn’t it enough the guy was tortured his whole life?’ ‘The hell you talking about?’, Gavin tried to brush the accusation off, but was interrupted: ‘Did you really need to make it worse? How do you think a bot like him will survive out there? Everyone thinks he’s a murderer! How the hell did you bully him away from the only safe place he knows?’ Gavin held up his hands. ‘It’s just a machine, Tina, chill!’ ‘Just a machine?’ This wasn’t their usual arguments or nagging, Gavin knew. The woman was extremely angry. ‘Gavin. I understood your anti-android bullshit back when it made still sense. Back when those plastics took our jobs and made our lives miserable. But I won’t accept it now. Connor isn’t just a machine. And even if, he saved Hank’s life! If he hadn’t been there, Hank would be dead. That has to account for something, right? And if they were just machines, what would that make me? My fucking girlfriend is an android! Do I love her any less? Do I treat her as if she wasn’t a person?’ Gavin just looked at her, lost for words. She sighed.

‘Wake up Gavin. The world has changed. The world is still changing, damnit. You can’t stop that. And you hurt someone. You met someone who only knew pain and you hurt him even more. I’m sorry Gavin. I liked you once, because you were funny and because you saw what most of these science-fiction freaks didn’t see in their euphemism. But I can’t- I don’t want to stay in contact with someone like that.’ ‘What? Tina!’ ‘No, Gav, please. If you change your mind, I’ll be there for you. But please, don’t speak with me until then.’

 Gavin was at a new low. He knew that as he found himself alone at home the entire week. He started drinking more, the time he spent at work is his only anchor point. He went to work, did his job, came home and waited for the day to end. With Tina gone he was lonely. Worse than lonely, he was alone. They had been constantly with each other, going drinking, to the movies or just chilling at home. His actions had really cost him his last connection to the world. Again. Well, that was fine, right? He had spent the best times of his life alone. He had been successful, moving away from his family to Detroit, acing one exam at the academy after the next, getting a job at the police and quickly making it to Detective. Who said this wouldn’t be the same? He nursed his whiskey bottle and swallowed the burning liquid. Yeah. This wasn’t the first time his life had been miserable. Life had its ups and downs, Gavin’s just seemed to have them at a lower average than normal people. That was fine, he was fine, he would just move on, step after step and pull himself out of the shit he was in right now. He always did.

He didn’t manage to do that for several weeks. He drowned himself in work, but life didn’t get better. He should go out and meet people, maybe some that wouldn’t leave him behind, but deep down he knew he would only meet persons that would drag him down even more. He needed good people to remind him when he was entire shit again, but the problem was that for good people you actually had to change to be likeable. And for him that was just a little too much work.

Finally, after nearly a month, he got one of these big cases that would either destroy you or gain you a promotion. A huge Red Ice lab somewhere in Detroit, base of operation for a whole gang. He had found most of the evidence himself, now it was time for SWAT to build up a plan on how to get in there and arrest everyone involved. Later he could go in and search for more evidence to make sure they got every last one of them. Everything went smoothly. Gavin sat in a police car, watching the black SWAT-vans and listening in on their radio. There were the first easy arrests before inevitably chaos broke loose when they entered the main room and sounded an alarm. But after a short and intense shooting, they had cleared the building.

Gavin sighed, getting out of the car and following his team: Tina, Chris, Person. None of them looked at him, none of them could be bothered. Gavin didn’t care. The first chance he got, he walked away from them, deciding to investigate the basement. He walked through a few small corridors, narrowed even more by pipes running along the ceiling and side. So far nothing indicated anyone really used the area. Until he came to a door that was kept open by a brick. Red light painted the wall, likely emergency lighting. But as he opened the door, he was corrected. In the middle of the room on top of a few dirty mattresses laid an android. It was without its skin and completely naked. Gavin carefully stepped further into the room and froze all over as soon as he recognised the android. ‘No way.’

Nines lay before him, looking up to him with wide eyes. He seemed not able to move anything but his eyes, otherwise Gavin was sure he would have scooted into a corner and not lay there exposed in the open. The android watched him with unbelievable fear and panic in his eyes and his LED a dark red. Gavin swallowed and finally had the sense to crouch down towards him. But that only made it worse, Nines pressing his eyes closed hard, seemingly bracing for something far worse.

Gavin couldn’t take this anymore. The way Nines responded, even if -or maybe because – it had been just his eyes, broke the man. This was his fault. The android indeed had been safe with the DPD. And only because he had repeatedly been an asshole, he had fled one night just to end up as a plaything for some thugs. He knew touching him wouldn’t do any good, so he decided to quickly shrug off his jacket and drape it over Nines’ torso. The android looked up at him in surprise, blinking at him as Gavin positioned the jacket to hide the necessities. Only then he realised he was actually crying. He didn’t even care that the android was watching him closely. He pressed his own eyes closed, whispering: ‘I am so, so sorry.’

Suddenly, the door opened and Nines’ eyes jumped up in panic again. Gavin only sniffed and whipped away his tears with his sleeve before turning around. ‘Tina? Get Connor.’

-

Back at the DPD, Gavin sat at his table, watching Connor and Hank taking Nines to an interrogation room. Gavin didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to know what they would be talking about once they had reactivated the android’s full motor control. He didn’t want to think about what had been the cause of this all and he definitely didn’t want to deal with any of his feelings at the moment. So, when the door opened and Hank’s face turned up at the entrance, Gavin decided to bolt.

He hurried out of the building just to find himself in the DPD parking lot. He leaned heavily on his motorcycle, pushing the key in hoping to get home as soon as possible. Of course, his stupid bike wouldn’t start though. And that was the time, the damn android had made its way out of the building towards him. Nines came to a halt next to him and Gavin simply panicked. He didn’t know what exactly happened, but with all his thoughts racing a mile a minute, he began babbling: ‘I’m sorry, this is all my fault, tin-can, I- Damn, see I can’t get it right even this time! I’m sorry, Nines, I was the one who drove you away. I’m the one who send you straight to them, I’m…’ He couldn’t continue talking as he hadn’t any more air to speak. He felt his chest tighten and his eyes water up and he struggled to even get air through his blocked-up throat. Nines used the break to hold out a hand. ‘I just wanted to give you your jacket back. Thanks for that.’ ‘Thanks? Damn it, bolts- …Nines. I send you to hell and you thank me for bringing a jacket?’ ‘I didn’t expect that’, the android answered in a completely collected manner. ‘Yeah, sure. Wouldn’t expect that from me either if I were you…’, Gavin admitted. ‘You look terrible.’ Gavin chuckled through tears that had started rolling down quietly. ‘Yeah, my life kinda went to shit. Deserved that though.’

‘Why?’ ‘Because I treated you like shit, tin-can!’ Gavin had shouted that, but the echo from the parking lot let him quiet down a bit. ‘I treated you like a machine, like… Phck, even a machine doesn’t deserve the shit I pulled on you.’ ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Gavin swallowed and nodded, looking at his bike. ‘What I did to you wasn’t fair.’ ‘No it wasn’t.’ ‘You endured it all and I made it even worse.’ ‘You did.’

Silence stretched, until Nines spoke up again: ‘Do you regret it?’ ‘Oh, yes. Tin- Nines, yes I regret it like nothing else in my shitshow of a life.’ ‘Would you change the way you treated me if you could?’ ‘Yes…’ Another quiet break followed until Gavin finally looked up and Nines smiled at him. ‘Then prove it. Hank and Connor offered me to live with them should I ever need it again, but I want to stay with the DPD. Although this time I won’t take any shit from you. I would have asked to be partnered up with someone else, but you look like you mean it.’ ‘Phck, yes, Nines, I mean it. I… I don’t think I see your kind as human, maybe I’ll never. But… You are not just a machine. You are a person. If I didn’t see it before, I know it now. The way you… The way you looked at me when… No one should ever look at someone like that. I… I want to make up for what I put you through, I really want to. And I promise you one thing: If I ever do something like that again, if I ever wrong you again, I’ll be the one who leaves. I have… more options than you have.’

Nines laid his hand on his motorcycle to start it up for him, then held it out for him. Gavin hesitantly took it. ‘Then I’ll be looking forward to working with you, Gavin. Just know that I’ll remember your promise and will use it.’ ‘I wouldn’t expect anything else. Detective Nines.’