#Maybe them having healed enough to go back to the source of their traumas as a vacation helps him ground himself:

[thegoatsongs]

Your tag about Jonathan possibly still struggling with unreality made me think about the fact that in the Epilogue he expresses distress that they have no primary source documents left

(For context this is referring to my i wonder if Jonathan still struggles with unreality sometimes)

I hadn't thought of that! It's sad, but not unrealistic, that years later he'd still be struggling with the fear that this is all not real at all and he's still trapped (especially if he still hasn't gotten rid of the nightmares)

[brionysea]

You have only good opinions so I have a query for you: I watched the first season of The Umbrella Academy forever ago when it first came out and really loved it! But I never ended up watching the rest of the seasons. I haven’t heard like literally anything about them either. I was wondering if however they handle the Allison x Luther thing is like, at least bearable? And also whether you think the other season are worth a watch in the first place? Thank you for your time and for always being correct 🙏

First of all, I'm honoured. Thank you for your kind words. I actually rewatched the newer seasons of The Umbrella Academy recently so they're fresh in my mind.

Short answer: Allison and Luther aren't too egregious, season 2 is fine, season 3 is not

Long answer:

Allison x Luther is a thing from the comics, and because the show's sort of subversive, "anti-comic book clichés" approach is what makes it work so well, their romance is quite morally dissonant from the more grounded and likable versions of the characters in the show. They're not Game of Thrones levels, but they're there, and they're weird and annoying and very jarring in a show that otherwise goes so hard on the family angle. But it's *probably* being framed as an intentional negative at this point. They went too extreme for that to not be the case. And both characters keep getting assigned other, non-sibling love interests. Sort of. Timelines are weird.

It feels like the show is *trying* to say something with their relationship, probably about how unhealthy and isolated their childhood was that they felt the need to latch onto each other like that to get *any* kind of attention, but it's not. Trying very hard. And they don't say it nearly well enough that you'd lose anything worth keeping by omitting that part of the source material like they did Diego x Viktor/Vanya (yes, really). It doesn't come across as groundbreaking psychological analysis of abused and isolated children going into adulthood without doing the work to heal from their pasts so they get stuck in this weird cycle, it comes across as the show wanting to remind you of the pseudo-incest every so often just to be edgy.

Season 2 is worth the watch if you meet it where it's at. It handles the part of time travel that nobody talks about through 3 different characters; the big one being Allison, a black woman from the 21st century, fighting back against segregation and clinging onto her temper by her fingernails - and I think they do it decently (but I'm white, so take this with a grain of salt). A quite small moment with Elliot Page's character made me surprisingly emotional. TUA2 absolutely fumbles the thematic core of the first season - the apocalypse as an allegory for their *collective* childhood trauma which they haven't healed from into adulthood, and from there, everything crashes and burns - but if you manage your expectations to what this season is *trying* to be, which is "fun", it's okay. It's even successful - it IS fun! Some of the more juvenile humour doesn't land with me but humour is subjective. Very bright, very colourful, very silly. All the goofy parts of season 1 dialled up to eleven with the dark parts turned way down, which... there's something to be said about the power of contrast, but it is what it is.

Season 3 is... less good. If Allison was my personal highlight of TUA2, then Klaus is my highlight of TUA3, but this season simply doesn't measure up. There's a lot of big empty spaces with only the main characters in them, as if COVID filming restrictions wouldn't let them bring in any more actors/characters to flesh out the world. It's not their fault, but it's very noticeable. I've *seen* shows working under identical circumstances (and with less money!) do better than this. The plot's setup was interesting but managed to lose me with multiple payoffs that felt underwhelming and lacking in vision. They did that two, maybe three times? I didn't like any of them. The writing isn't very tight - you can *feel* how little consideration the writers were given by Netflix. Most of the side characters feel pointless. Some of the core characters feel like different people (Diego particularly bugged me, and I don't even like Diego that much). TUA3 tried to follow 2's lead of being fun, but its flaws are too big to successfully hide them behind the fun. There are a few standout scenes, but overall... Eh.

[phoenix-positivity]

22 april 2024 - have a feeling this will be venty

I have that feeling cause I just started dissociating as I opened this. Maybe I already did before. Am I forgetting why I wanted to make this post? It's getting harder to breathe? Why? What a strange feeling. Overwhelming. Fear in my arms again. Let me move my body around and come back to this. Maybe get a sour candy. Smell a scent stick.

It helped a bit. I have a little spiky ball and I grabbed a plushie to hug. The sour candy was nice. My head started hurting though. I'm still feeling triggered. I don't really know why.

I've not been able to write much on here cause I keep dissociating too much or feel too triggered. I don't remember what the last thing I wrote was..

It makes sense though. Even though I've been very lucky with lot's of rain and cloudy weather!! The plants still grow though, perhaps even more with all the water. Sometimes the rain makes them emit more scent. Like the earth itself will smell. I still don't know what the sources are for the scents that trigger me. It's likely a cocktail of many different things.

I find it hard to actually stand still and face the triggers instead of rushing and trying to get away faster. I've tried standing still and it just keeps building up and up and it makes me want to give up before it starts decreasing, though I did it today too and I focused really hard on grounding and it felt like I had at least taken the edge of. But yeah I am surely avoiding it, I guess I don't feel strong enough to bear the pain perhaps. Or well, it's normal to want to go away from pain. At least I still take my dog for walks and walk through the areas where the scents are bad.

I also said to my therapist last week I felt the trauma I wanted to process that session wasn't bad enough to warrant processing. She replied saying that if that were the case we could start the processing and if we discovered it was no big deal for me then I would be feeling fine and we could just do something else. Obviously it was a big deal for me. I did partly process some triggers during the EMDR as well.

It also makes sense because a big triggering holiday is coming up this week. I've been sensing it's approach for some weeks now. I will do exposure during it. Actually.. it might be good to process that in my next therapy session too. Let me look something up in my trauma diary.. (not the best idea, I admit)

I ended up reading the whole diary. It makes me see how far I have come in my healing. Comparing my current situation to back then. That is hopeful.

Someday, a future me will be reading these journal entries. And they will think what I think now: "wow, I've improved so much compared to the past"

Hope.

This is but a moment in time. A painful journey to travel.

On a brighter side. I purchased VIP tickets to go see a concert and get my album signed and meet the artists. This year is a good concert year for sure. Going to concerts by myself opens up a lot of fun experiences.

I have also been working on my sleeping schedule as much as I've been able to hold myself accountable. Which is why right now I need to turn off my pc and get into bed. I've purchased a white noise machine and I've been using multiple different sound options to fall asleep. It really does make me feel safer in bed. It's a noticeable difference.

I can do this. Being triggered might make it feel like the world is standing still but this is just another day among many. The sun will set and rise again.

Dissociation doesn't last forever. It comes and goes. I will feel fully grounded again. I wont feel this way forever. I wont get 'stuck in this setting'.

Even if my dreams wont be good I will wake up and get to experience a new day and my dreams can be forgotten again.

I can recharge in bed with my plushie. It's okay to feel scared. But there is no danger in bed. The music box will be there for a comforting melody. It will be okay.

[rahleeyah]

Do you think that by killing off Kathy instead of a divorce between her and Elliot, that El is still not "choosing" Liv? That when EO get together it's more of Elliot being "well my wife's dead so I guess I'll be with you". For many fans the choice of killing her off was not the best choice for the reason I state, and cause to fridge a female character is gross too.

What are your thoughts? Hopefully you understand what I am saying.

No, I don't think that.

I know a lot of people feel that way, but as we've discussed on this blog before I really do feel that Elliot couldn't choose Liv over Kathy while Kathy was still alive, not least bc Olivia wouldn't let him. And yes, of course, he could've gotten divorced from Kathy and then turned up looking for Olivia - and it would've been interesting to see Olivia be able to really vent her anger at him in those early days - but there's something....off, if Kathy's still around. She's still such a source of insecurity for Liv - does Elliot really want Olivia more, did he only come to Olivia bc Kathy finally got rid of him (which is essentially the same as only coming to Liv bc Kathy died, maybe even worse), has Olivia taken something from Elliot's family, do the kids resent her, etc - and Olivia's own reticence I think gets in the way too much if Kathy is alive. Olivia has been telling herself that Elliot is someone else's husband for so long that even a divorce isn't enough to nudge her, I don't think; it certainly didn't the first time. And yes the first time they were still partners but this time he's left her for a decade (why is he only coming back now? Isn't Liv still a consolation prize in this version?) and if she leaps straight into her anger without those months of caring for him maybe they don't ever recover.

And like what's the timeline. Elliot comes for the ceremony while still married to Kathy and Liv is furious and he leaves Kathy? Idk about that. Elliot gets divorced and only then turns up? Yeah I don't love that either.

And yeah, obviously, fridging is a serious issue that we do need to talk about but also characters have to die sometimes. We can't just never have a character die, never have the other characters experience loss; that's ignoring a whole vast swath of human emotion that does need to be explored in media. And if you're gonna kill someone off so that you can talk about grief and trauma and love and healing, pragmatically you're gonna kill a side character. Bc you want to keep your mains around for later. You need your mains. They're the story.

On the one hand, it would've been nice to see Kathy stand up for herself and go out and make a new life and not be beholden to Elliot. On the other hand, life doesn't give us all happy endings. Kathy had just as many choices as Elliot did. She asked him to come to bed, she asked - pushed - him to come back to raise Eli. She was happy in Rome. With him. Maybe Kathy didn't want another life. Maybe she wanted her husband - she worked hard enough to keep him - and maybe her ending is tragic, but life is tragic. A man looking at his cell phone while driving hit my mother head on and we spent a week in the hospital with her, jumping every time her eyelashes fluttered even tho we knew there was no activity in her brain. In the perfect story, her eyes would've opened. She would've woken up. We wouldn't have lost her. We did. The story doesn't have a happy ending. We stumble thru our grief. I kind of like it when the stories I consume reflect things I've felt in my own heart; it helps learn to name my emotions, and find connection and solace in the knowledge that I am not alone in feeling them.

Not every story has a happy ending. Kathy's didn't. That's not a crime imo.

[deathlygristly]

I'm back on my spiral again, dealing with the same issues but going up a bit each time, and I think I just cleared a curve and am starting on an incline.

Readmore because long, but anyone can read if they want. I guess very brief and un-detailed mention of childhood trauma? Mostly just me going on about things I figure out anew every day.

I was worrying about being a bad person a bit earlier today. Not nearly as intensely as years ago before I healed so much of the trauma, but still enough to be somewhat uncomfortable.

I looked back at the social issue that caused it, and I realized it was caused by a difference in interpretation of a post. And that really according to the OP's replies to other people my interpretation was probably closer to what the OP meant than the interpretation of the people who were mean and mad about it, and it really wasn't personal and it really didn't mean that I was a bad person.

It was about discussions of marriage online, which has obviously been the rock I've been rolling up the spiral for a while now.

I was re-reading my posts here and I saw the one about giftedness and the subconscious equation about human worth that people believe even if they get really mad about it, and then I saw my reblog about the marriage age thing and how I mentioned that people seemed to have a binary view between Tradition and Rebelling Against Tradition.

I also wrote another post years ago about the word empathy and how it's interpreted and defined online, and how just like with marriage and the worth equation the loudest voices online seem to really agree with the viewpoint of the Hated Authority while they're being really loud and mean and judge-y about hating the Hated Authority's viewpoint.

Also was thinking about Cake's song Rock' Roll Lifestyle and how "excess ain't rebellion."

So maybe it doesn't take other people 40 years of being alive to figure this out, but with my particular chain of experiences and environments it took me this long, okay?

I think that maybe sometimes people in high control social groups have really really internalized the messages and mores of the social group but they also really do not like those messages and mores and they want to be free of them, but the messages are deeply, and I mean deeply, embedded in their brain.

So they try to reject what they hate, but what they hate has formed the bedrock of their worldview. They can't see any way to escape from it other than to loudly and violently go the complete opposite way in what they say and how they act, but it's still there under their words and actions. A shadow takes its form from what is in between it and the light source.

So I don't understand it because I grew up in....my own special way, lol. Sounds weird to say my childhood was very low control but to also say that I had complex PTSD from my mother's rages, but well, that's true. My mother's rages were unpredictable and had much more to do with whatever she had going on at the moment than anything I did, and in her non-rage state she was very much a let your kids do what they want type of parent. Part of why I didn't rebel like other teens is that I didn't have anything to rebel against.

So I have no language to understand Hated Authorities or the attempt to escape from them by becoming their shadow, and when I try to contribute to the conversation I guess it's obvious to people who grew up with high control that I have no relevant experiences or knowledge or any way to relate. And on my end I am continually surprised and confused because I never even heard the messages that have been deeply inscribed into other people.

My mother doesn't even recognize the word empathy and when I used it in a text once she asked me what it meant. She never equated the giftedness to my value as a human. She never tried to force marriage or lack of marriage on me. I mean, look at her three kids - one is married with five daughters, one has a daughter and grandsons but never married, and one married but never had kids. And she accepts all those life choices equally. Well, okay, so she was kind of adamant that the younger brother NOT marry his baby momma. But I don't think he ever planned to anyway.

So of course there's alienation and weirdness and misinterpretation on both sides, because me and people who grew up with these high control messages and mores and being "taught" things may as well be from different planets. But it doesn't make any of us bad or better than the other or anything like that. It's just random differences in how our environments and experiences shook out.

I'm not a bad person. Just an unusual one. Despite that also making people online mad. Like decide between "you're not special" and "shut up because your experiences are extremely rare and thus irrelevant" please.

Anyway, wooooo party!

[soubiapologist]

Hi, this might be a silly question, but my mind is stuck on this. So a few hours ago I watched the first episode of the Loveless anime for the first time, and I am intrigued. After the first episode I was a bit confused and decided to take a moment to check the wiki for the fighter & sacrifice deal, just to make sure I got that part of the world building—this turned into a rabbit hole and I’m left with some more confusion.

So what I gathered so far: there are people born with magical abilities and there are normal people without magic. The first group is also the one that has soulmates, sort of? Which then brings up the fighter & sacrifice thing. And here’s where I’m hung up: why are the teams fighting each other? Like does all their fighting training from childhood on have a bigger purpose? It looks like the ones with magic abilities are a minority so training and making fighting each other the main deal seems… counterintuitive? In all the digging I did I realised how little that whole aspect was brought up. Maybe it’s a me issue—either bc I went in with a wrong impression/expectation or just my impatience/not trying the manga first.

So now I wonder: how important is that world building in the story aside from it being the setting that enhances/enables some of the abuse? Does it get more fleshed out in the manga or is it left vague bc it’s really more about the characters themselves, their developments, trying to heal their traumas etc (which is totally fine)? I just walked into this curious about the fighter & sacrifice dynamic that I had heard some vague stuff about before trying the anime.

Thank you in advance :)

ok so hiiiii thank you for sending me this aaaaask i have no idea why i'm the person of all of us you picked to ask loveless questions but i'm so humbled omg......... <- ego inflating massively and kicking my legs back and forth and giggling

ugggghh this is really hard to answer because a lot of stuff in loveless is either left vague intentionally or not um. finished because the mangaka fucked off for like half a decade and has shown signs of like. mulling around on the idea of returning but it's been dead in the water for half a decade and there's still a LOT of unanswered questions but i'll do my best to answer what i thhhhhiiink you're asking?

i've read that yun kouga was inspired to make loveless in part by the buddy battle media that was popular at the time like pokemon/digimon etc but idk how accurate that is it's just something i read on twitter when shit was Blowing Up a few days back from some rando i don't have an actual source on that but ANYWAY yun kouga loves Fucking Tropes and Deconstructing Them And Being Fucked Up With Them it's a whole Thing so...... keep that in mind lol, she loves to present you with something and then go PSYCH YOU THOUGHT and then when you're like MAN she really got me wtf she goes PYSCH GOT YOU AGAIN and this continues on for many many year. where was i going with this. ANYWAY!!!!!!!

so the thing about the soulmates system which is what i'll call it for convenience's sake going forward is that it isssss one of those things we don't have a lot of information on, haha. we can make a lot of assumptions about the symbolic meaning of it but we don't really know on a literal level enough to say where it came from or how it like. WORKS, but on a meta level loveless is VERY invested in the power of language. i believe in one of the essays published in the tokyo pop releases it's mentioned that in the spell battles the spells are influenced partly by like the amount of strokes in the kanji or something idr i donnnnn't have my copies of either the TP or viz releases on me and i don't recall them being included in any scanlation i've seen. loveless is one of those series that does involve some cultural signifiers that are hard or even impossible to parse as westerners but i don't think that they make up so much of the story that it takes a TON away from the story if you don't get them.

mild spoilers ahead;

i CAN tell you that midori and ai aka breathless do show up again, several times (they are cute and i love them) and do have narrative significance, especially ai. i think in the beginning they're just setting up the spell system and letting you know that it's a thing and telling you about the dynamic between fighter and sacrifice for the most part. i don't think the battles themselves are that important outside of kind of being action setpieces and showing the dynamic between the characters BUT the POWER SYSTEM that they use for the battles and the fact that the battles are a thing at all is very significant to the themes of the story. if that makes sense haha. it's sort of hard to explain without like. doing a play by play of literally every part of the story and also without spoiling soubi's uh........ deal so to speak which really recontextualizes basically the entire story once you find out about it somewhere between volumes 3 and 5 i don't. entirely remember. also the whole deal with seimei is uh........ ((gesturing vaguely and grimacing and looking back at the audience for help)) integral. to the understanding why they're fighting in the first place. the first part of loveless is sort of a convoluted slog of bullshit because of characters intentionally obfuscating information for various reasons but it is. mostly intentional in this. loveless is at its core a story about systems of power and an exercise in exploring disempowerment within those systems and having a literal magic battle system using the thing that we most commonly use in the really real world use to navigate interpersonal relationships (language) is an important facet of exploring that, despite the LITERAL battles not really representing that, the EXISTENCE of the battles does, if that makes sense? it also relies heavily on visual language, such as the thing with the cat ears and the bondage, which both seem like fetish bullshit (and honestly definitely probably are to some degree) but both have extremely important functions w/r/t the narrative and storytelling regarding disempowerment and interpersonal relationships.

tl;dr they are fighting for a reason, the reason these people have powers isn't really explained but it's sorrrrt of implied to be some kind of bloodline + genetic thing at one point or another but we don't really know for sure, [the following is purely my opinion] my reading of it is that it's a criticism of the way the nuclear family enables abuse partially through the idea of a One True Love which is something popular in shoujo, and loveless is a deconstruction of a lot of bl and more broadly speaking shoujo tropes.

additionally i would like to say that you are not going to understand what is going on in loveless from one read i would say it takes at least two to really start DIGGING into the meat of it and frankly every time i've reread it i've noticed something new to think about. it's deep! it's dense! it's the nekomimi mariana trench. loveless is an investment. it's like a mortgage or something

[literaryxcatastrophe]

brain dump 9/25

I don't really believe in coincidences. Things don’t accidentally happen, because truly there are no accidents. Everything on this earth is carefully timed. Sometimes I feel like there are people out there watching each individual. Keeping tabs on their lives and peeking into the lives of others. Bringing people together in what seems like the right place right time, as they laugh knowing that it was all aligned for them anyway. I believe people meet on purpose. We encounter the people in our lives for a specific reason. Sometimes it’s to learn about heartbreak, or what not to do, and sometimes it even makes us better people. On a rare occasion we encounter people in a way that just feels safe. Like you’ve known them for lifetimes and they just get you. Even if there are ups and downs, you know that that feeling of safety is always there. Whether these people stay in our lives for days or years isn’t up to us most of the time. It feels like pieces of a puzzle come together the more we heal from others. I collect parts of the people I love and have loved and have yet to love in my heart like a prized possession. Not because of the idea that I myself am loved, but because there is so much light in others. The world is so dark. It feels like a black hole and the deeper you fall the more content you become with the darkness. Until someone or something comes along to give us hope. To tell us, “But what if this isn’t all there is?” I’ve been reflecting back on my past and current friendships. A lot of them weren’t the healthiest, some downright emotionally abusive but the root of all of them was love. I feel like I fall in love harder with my friends than with my lovers. I read old journal entries and feel sad that things did not end up the way I wanted them to, but I’m also learning to appreciate it for what it was. I’m at a place where I don’t feel close to anyone anymore and it’s making me feel as if a part of my identity is gone. The fear of being unseen is something I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to shake. Maybe it’s past trauma, from always being the weird little girl left out of everything. Not being pretty enough, rich enough, skinny enough, white enough. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m scared of being forgotten. I’m scared that the people I hold so close to my heart are going to push me aside where I merely become a memory. It’s happened in the past. I know I can’t dictate everything based on what happened previously because people aren’t other people even if I feel like they are. I want to give people the chance to prove me wrong. To say “I chose you” but it never seems to happen. A part of myself feels like I’m broken. Like I’ll never be satisfied enough. But when I tell someone my struggles they say “You don’t deserve to be treated like that by them” So am I in fact faking? Am I asking for too much? I feel so grateful but so empty at the same time. I feel like I’m being pulled on opposite ends by darkness and light, and I always choose darkness. It’s where I’m comfortable, where I feel at home. It’s not until I see someone's light that I consider the possibility of more. I want to be a source of light for myself. I want to be able to pull myself out of the darkness because I know there is light in me, I just need to search deep enough to find it.

[witchersgoldenbard]

season 2 ruined geraskier for me.

now, that's a pretty loaded statement, i know, but i just realised how i can explain that weird heavy feeling that's been weighing on my chest every time i think about geralt and jaskier since watching season 2. don't get me wrong, i still love my boys to death and i will continue to write stories with them, i still have so many ideas. but before that can happen, i need to ramble and vent a little bit.

during and after season 1, geraskier was my comfort ship. the grumpy one and the sunshine one, one with heavy trauma and the other with enough blank space to serve wonderfully as a projection screen. there was so much between them in little glances and touches and smiles, and also of course in the witcher source material. there was endless room for fluff and angst and hurt/comfort, and it was always so natural. the mountain break-up scene as classic fix-it point, cakes upon cakes only served to revolve around that. there was so much room for everything that could possibly come afterwards, it was beautiful. there was no doubt at all that geraskier would be a lasting ship, a big one, one of the biggest of tumblr.

and then? then season 2 happened. and i only just figured out what bothered me. there was no closure. for anyone. all that pain and trauma i mentioned, situations where both got hurt, and nobody got the chance to properly apologise, or demand an apology. they never, not once, got to talk it out. not even with glances and a fond but exasperated smile that would tell us everything could be okay. nothing. instead, what we got was geralt apologising to jaskier while sitting on a horse, not even properly looking at him, not even on eye level. that is horrible grounds for an apology. and jaskier? he brought back the most traumatising moniker of geralt's and made it famous again, called him "butcher" because he had a broken heart. all of that could possibly be excused but-- oh wait. there was none. no apology, nothing real on either part.

we were left like them: just hanging in the air, somehow, wrongfooted, hooked but unsatisfied. we were given scraps and pieces while they weren't given time to talk and heal.

and you know what that means? it means that it's us, the fanfic writers, who have to fix this all. we cannot possibly write post-season 2 fluff without going through the emotionally heavy and draining parts of reasoning and apologising and talking first. we cannot really write an au without first having to fix whatever the fuck season 2 did. it means that i, as a person who first and foremost used to write geraskier, now find yennskier more appealing simply because it isn't so draining. it means that i get weirdly sad and heavy every time i so much as think about geraskier, because, as a friend said: i hate that i have to write geraskier fluff either in modern au or during season 1.

it's no coincidence that most of the post-s2 geraskier tag is hundreds of versions of geralt apologising, or jaskier apologising (though the first one is far more prominent, and that's another thing i am very very tired of, because it's not just geralt who needs to apologise!). there's just so much trauma in these two that there'll be 200 fics set immediately after that final battle, and all of them will be different and have different angles, because there's still so much left for them to process, it almost makes me angry.

but i'm not angry. i'm just sad and exhausted and i miss my boys. and maybe that's just me, maybe other people don't have problems writing geraskier right now, but i am very drained that in order to make them happy, i have to make them heal first. because the professional writers who were supposed to do that, didn't. and now i can't have my comfort ship anymore, because everything is too heavy.

and that is how season two ruined geraskier for me.

[dreamiesdotcom]

[4:53p.m] Going back to your hometown shouldn't feel this dreadful, really. Chenle and Jisung are to blame, you decide anyway.

"I'm home," you call, smiling emptily.

From a distance, your mother's squeal was exciting. Behind her was your father, a smile of his own. They welcome you, saying how much you've grown, how they longed for your presence during the holidays. You excuse yourself to your bedroom, saying it's been a long trip.

You're way too old to be playing house, you think as you flop down your bed, opening your phone that just won't stop vibrating with messages.

jwijwi: y/n!!!! r u here now

Lele ;) : go outtt

y/n😇: i'm catching up with my parents

Lele ;) : boo. you liar

jwijwi: since when did u like ur parents

Lele ;) : since never

jwijwi: why r they hanging out then

Lele ;) : they aren't

Lele ;) : they're not hanging out, y/n is a liar

You sigh. You weigh your options: it would be tiring to have those two, but you did kind of go here for them, so you'll have the headache sooner or later. Your parents changed, but the strings they tangled inside your head aren't any better to this day and in their presence it was so, so, so hard to breathe. They don't even have to do anything. Their whispers sounded thunderous. You didn't have to hear what they're saying, their incomprehensible mumbling was enough to send you in a panic. Yup, you'd choose the twin headaches.

(jwijwi: well, maybe that's cool. jaemin is here anyway, he's going away tom tho so rest up ig)

You wished you checked your phone before you went to Jisung's, because God, it was suffocating in your house, but at the sight of Na Jaemin, all air came back to your system and you're choking and your heart is pounding it's way out of your chest, and oh God, oh God, he's making his way to yo—

"Yo, Y/N!" Jaemin grins, "How've you been?"

You wave, keeping your eyes somewhere that's not his face. Your eyes always fall from admiring his lashes to staring at his lips. That wasn't acceptable now. Behind him was Jisung and Chenle, both boys fixated on the video game, occasionally looking at you with pitiful gazes.

"Been fine," you timidly say, ducking a little to make your way inside to sit forcefully in the middle of your best friends, who then groan in frustration.

You glare at Jisung.

"What? I told you not to date my stepbrother," he whisper-shouts, pouting. "Don't look like you're about to kill me."

You roll your eyes. This would be fine, it wouldn't be the end of the world to hangout with your best friends at Jisung's, and to have Jaemin there, since technically, it's his house too. You could just sit, wait until they finish their game, and then—

Of course your stomach had to growl in hunger.

"Silence your dragon, goodness," Chenle shoves you away so you have no choice but to stand up and grab something to eat. He knows how you often neglected your needs.

"Chenle—"

He smiles, "Silence. The. Dragon."

And you could only groan, stomping to the kitchen to raid the fridge in hopes of finding something you like. Delightfully, as if for you, there was a cup of pudding under Jisung's name. You squeal, now feeling better.

You turn around and you suddenly feel utterly dreadful.

"Hey, Y/N," Jaemin chats you up again, but his smile from before was gone and his eyes were void of emotions, making him hard to read. He leans against the counter, glass of water held in his hands, "You didn't come see me after you graduated, before you left."

"I didn't feel like it," you supply with a fake smile. "They're waiting for me, so excuse me—"

"I didn't deserve that," he says confidently. Almost walking out of the kitchen with your back already turned against him, you slowly look back

"And what you did, did I?" You ask, calm despite the tsunami of emotions washing over the shores of your soul. "I did not deserve that. You knew that."

"You're still holding that grudge? It was a long time ago in the past—

"And that past holds me back from living in the present to this day, you know?" You utter softly, your fierce act slowly fading away. "Those are wounds that are yet to heal, and I appreciate if you don't touch them."

He tries to speak. Maybe you should've listened. But you were tired of listening, God, and homesickness for your best friends was not worth dealing with the source of your trauma and sadness. You would've been less hurt if you three fell apart with the distance you put in between yourself and the life you used to live. They were worth a lot of things; however, you've learned that nothing is worth of your pain. Not friends. Not even best friends.

Not even the stubborn old you clawing its way out of the chamber you've locked it in down inside you.

So you sit back down in utter silence when you come back, and they don't notice for a while, but you keep wiping away at your eyes every now and then.

Jaemin mutters something about going for a walk, his energetic self not present. Jisung and Chenle looks at you attentively.

Neither of your best friends have to ask why you're crying as you ate pudding.

[kataraslove]

katara: “do you hear that?”

aang: “sounds like it’s coming from over there...”

for kataang week day 3: post canon @kataang-week​

newly wedded aang and katara (now sporting a cute little bob) were travelling across the world for their honeymoon. on their way to the kingdom of omashu, the two decided to stop and revisit the cave of two lovers. as aang and katara leaned in for a quick kiss by the entrance of the cave, they heard a blood-curling scream come from inside. immediately pulling away, the couple shared a suspicious look with each other before deciding to investigate.

katara cautiously grabbed her pouch as aang drew out a small flame to lead the way. however, the waterbender stopped her husband to remind him that the tunnels were filled with fluorescent crystals that glowed in the dark. 

“oh yeah,” aang recalled. he looked down at the flame dwindling in his palm. “i’ll put it out when we get further in there. if we hear screaming again, we’ll be able to find out where it came from.” 

“you can also use your earth bending this time around.” 

aang nodded. “that i can.” the gentle lines of his face - reserved especially for his wife - quickly switched up to the avatar look, the signature look that he bore whenever there was danger and people in need of his help. 

“let’s go.”

(continued under the cut, 2.4k words)

the broad sunlight of the summer day was reduced to a small crevice against their backs, as the two lovers made their way into the shadows of the labyrinth. their primary light source came from aang’s flame, which had grown brighter the farther they travelled. the avatar could not help but become a little bit mesmerized with the vivid red and orange hues that danced in his left palm, the warmth that occupied his hand having stretched out to his entire body. the flame synchronized so perfectly well with his heartbeat. fire is life, he recalled the words of the sun warrior chief. not just destruction. 

aang nearly chuckled out loud. firebending came so naturally to him now - almost as natural as his airbending. to think that there was ever a time that he had outright hated the element and vowed to never learn it, even if it had meant jeopardizing his avatarhood.

however, a small voice crept to the back of his mind, uncomfortably reminding of the exact reason as to why he initially refused to learn the element at the age of twelve. it was the same reason that brought shame and guilt inside his gut - even eight years later - whenever the memory unexpectedly crossed his mind. what he had done to katara on that day, how he had refused to listen to jeong jeong’s advice and lost control of his fire, the image of her fresh burns - it was all there, forever smeared across his brain and heart as a painful reminder. no matter how many times katara had insisted that good had come from that day through the discovery of her healing abilities, aang could never wash away the trauma associated with that event.

he inhaled sharply. it won’t happen again. he wasn’t twelve anymore, and he had full control over all the elements now. fire was energy, he had learned, and life.

sparing a glance at katara, who had been awfully quiet since they got into the cave, he noticed that his wife was chewing anxiously on her lower lip. the trouble in her beautiful features was easily detectable by the bright flames within his hand. he moved closer to her, his shoulder gently bumping hers in an attempt to comfort her. “you okay?”

she met his eyes, and he could see the hint of fear reflected in them. “aang, i’m worried.”

“you have nothing to be worried about,” aang reassured her with a small smile. “whatever it is, or whoever it is, we can take ‘em.”

katara shook her head. “i’m not worried about the who. we’ve probably dealt with far worse than whatever is lingering in this cave. but i - aang, what if it’s bad?”

he frowned, confused. “what if what’s bad, then?”

she studied her hands carefully. her hands were the hands of a fighter, of a healer. the same hands who had resurrected an avatar back to life and saved a firelord from near death, while dismantling another firelord from the throne. he felt the sudden urge to draw her hands in his own, to hold her tight enough to ease away her fears.

“what if there’s a bunch of dead bodies stashed away in this tunnel, rotting away for days or even weeks?” she answered in alarm, eyes widening at the dark path ahead of them. “or, what if there’s a bunch of people lying around in pain, on the brink of death, and I don’t have enough water to save them all?”

his eyes turned to the road ahead. he saw nothing, except for earth and more earth. but he knew better than to dismiss those kind of fears. 

“that wouldn’t be your fault.” he responded gently. “we’ll do our best to help, to make sure that whoever is out there is safe and unharmed. but if they do happen to be harmed - or worse, dead - and we’ve tried everything that we could,” he shuttered out a breath at the imagery. “i don’t want you to blame yourself for whoever you can’t save, katara.”

“and i don’t want you to blame yourself, aang.” she placed a hand on his shoulder as they walked on. he tried to ignore the immediate sweep of panic churning in his stomach at her proximity to the fire. if he envisioned a future with both katara and firebending, he would have to get used to accepting that she would be around the times when he required the element. 

“i know you feel a sense of responsibility, as the avatar, to ensure that the world is kept safe,” she continued on. her voice softened, a sad tone. “i know it upsets you when it isn’t.”

“wasn’t i the one consoling you just a second ago?” aang joked, deflecting. 

“we’re consoling each other.” katara insisted with a small smile. the corners of her mouth dropped at her next statement: “i know you don’t like to talk about it, aang, the stress and pressure that you feel. but i also know how it keeps you up at night. why you choose to sometimes spend long periods of time meditating.”

just like that, she had flipped the switch on him in the way that only she knew how. katara was undoubtedly right. of course he had seen and experienced his fair amount of injustice and morbidity; they all had. but the guilt of not being able to do anything about it - to know that people all over the world were counting on him to end their suffering and plight and despair, while there were many days when all he could do was sit in lavish cushions arguing endlessly with politicians who could not relate to the earth kingdom boy who had nothing to eat, or to the water tribe girl who had lost her parents, or to the air nomad who was the sole survivor of an entire culture - ate away at his heart and mind at every minute of every hour. even now, when he was supposed to be enjoying his blissful vacation with his wife.

“aang.” he felt katara lightly pull his chin towards her, forcing him to look at her before his mind could wander down the same dangerous road that it had so many days and nights before. she stopped the two in their tracks, the light from his palm illuminating their darkened features.

the fire reflected back in the indigo of her eyes, embodying the energy and intensity and life that was katara, his best friend, his saviour. suddenly, he was transported back to a time during the war, when he had just been a fidgety twelve year-old boy staring up at his fourteen year-old best friend. his heart thumped furiously against his chest the closer he inched to her face. when their lips met, he felt electricity course through his veins and wondered if the warmth that pooled in his stomach was what love felt like. 

as he caught her lips in his own again, this time at the age of twenty, he could confirm - a memoir to his twelve year old self - that the warmth was indeed love. but love was also so much more, he came to realize over the years. love was the cautious hands of a fourteen year-old girl spending weeks at his side, healing him from his coma, sobbing in despair and frustration when he would not wake up. love was the way that he had thrown his arms around her waist, and she around his neck, relief flooding each other’s veins at the knowledge that they were both alive and safe and together after his defeat of ozai and her defeat of azula. love was the way her hand fit so perfectly in his, palm pressed to palm and fingers intertwined, as the two watched the early formations of republic city from their home, vowing to leave a lasting legacy on a world where benders and non-benders of all types could live together in safety and harmony.

love was also the brief kiss in an abandoned cave that said a million more things than he could ever say in words. 

when the two pulled back, he noted the way that her eyes twinkled up at him under the fluorescent light. the crystals shone overhead, leading them down a familiar path, just as how it had done when he was twelve. aang checked his left palm and realized that he had extinguished his flame during the kiss. 

katara’s smile reached her eyes when she grabbed for his hand, pulling him along. “funny,” she said, bemused. “that thing you said when we were kids. guess it held up all these years, didn’t it?”

“what thing?”

“oh, you know,” she replied with a casual shrug, a mischievous glint forming in her eye. “you choosing to kiss me over dying - ”

he groaned. she was never going to let him live that one, was she?

“did i say that?” aang feigned innocence. “i can’t quite recall. maybe what my awkward twelve-year old self had meant to say, instead, was that the thought of not being able to kiss you is just so unbearable that i would rather have chosen death.”

“mmhmmm. sure you had.” a blush slowly crept up her cheeks, betraying her sarcastic tone. success.

“good thing that hasn’t happened yet, though. the not being able to kiss you anymore part.” he paused, adding as an afterthought: “the death part, too, if we’re being honest.”

“don’t speak so soon. what if there’s a serial killer in here?” she hushed him, looking around conspiratorially. 

“you’d rather a serial killer kiss you instead of your own husband? ouch.” 

she smacked his arm. “aang! i’m serious. with the recent bender supremacy uprisings going on in major cities of the earth kingdom, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. what’s stopping a bender supremacist from kidnapping a bunch of non-benders in omashu and dumping their bodies in this cave right now?”

“well, for starters, we would’ve heard by now if that were the case, wouldn’t we have? there’d be rumours, like with what happened with hama. so far, there hasn’t been any reports of mysterious non-bender disappearances in the cities where the uprisings are taking place. definitely not any in omashu.”

a dark look settled across katara’s face at the mention of the estranged bloodbender. “an earth bender supremacist could be dragging bodies from the city and burying them in the rubble of the tunnels. no one would even think to look because the legend says that the cave is cursed.”

aang scratched his head, suddenly very wary about his surroundings. his eyes scanned everywhere around him, from the plethora of crystals that provided them light on top to the solid stone that held the cave in place, trying to spot any semblance of a decomposing body. just as before, he couldn’t detect anything unusual.

while he knew that katara’s suspicions had merit to them, his mind still hesitated over the idea of a bender supremacist trapping people in caves. he would have heard something by now, if that were the case. besides, they were drawing all of these inferences from a scream that he wasn’t even sure came from a human. the high-pitched sound could have belonged to a species of wolfbats, for all they knew. and even if it were to emerge out of a person, who was to say that it was connected to the victim of a bender supremacist murderer? it could have been from a lost and hungry traveler stuck in the cave for days, unsure of their way out. or perhaps it was from someone whose foot was trapped under rubble, screaming out in sheer pain. maybe it even belonged to a villager being chased by an angry spirit.

he walked over to one of the walls, running his hand over the sharp rocks that pricked at his skin. or perhaps, he thought bitterly, gritting his teeth, it was his own refusal to accept that he was failing the world again that led him to dismiss such possibilities. given the political climate, it was entirely possible that bender supremacists were using their bending to hide bodies within the cave. he just wasn’t aware of any of it because it was all taking place underneath his nose, while he remained in blissful ignorance with the women he loved on what was supposed to be his vacation.

aang closed his eyes. he focused on the vibrations emitting from the ground, trying to detect if there was anything that could give him a clue, like a direction to the source of the scream. he was even searching for the large footsteps of badger moles or the fluttering wings of wolfbats. while he was no toph, his earthbending had vastly improved over the years to the point where he had gotten very good at perceiving the world around and underneath him through vibrations. but this time around, he was sensing absolutely nothing. 

well, not entirely nothing. aang noted that some parts of the earth below his hand felt kind of fresh. and quite warm. it didn’t take an earth bender to realize that their texture and temperature were evidently different from the rocks comprising the rest of the cave. this new formation of rock - whatever it was - also felt very familiar to him, almost like he had dealt with this type before. 

his eyes widened in recognition. it was rock that had hardened after the eruption of a volcano. and not just any ordinary eruption; a special kind of eruption that didn’t require any volcano whatsoever.

lavabending.

“hey, katara. would you be able to come over here? i think i found something.”

aang’s words were interrupted by the sudden howl of a blood-curling scream. this time, he had felt the vibrations perfectly through the earth, and spirits did they hurt. he winced in pain, his ears ringing, reflexively removing his hand off the ground.

the screaming did not seem to stop the longer the seconds passed. multiple more emitted from the path ahead in unison, echoing off the chambers of the cave. his heart pounded. there was no denying that the cries had unmistakably belonged to humans. 

katara already had a stream of water out from her pouch. she had sprang into action, pointing in the precise direction that the noise was coming from. 

“this way,” she shouted, running ahead. 

be careful, he couldn’t help think as he trailed after her.

--

this art was adapted from the following comic panel in imbalance part 2:

[thevindicativevordan]

Since you wrote about Livewite recently, do you have any thoughts on Volcana, the other villainess introduced in STAS?

Other than "wow she's really hot and I like her design"?

I'm always wanting more women supporting characters in Superman's world, whether as heroines in their own right, civilians in key roles, or villainesses going up against him. Claire Selton is another character I really like that originated from the DCAU, and I am a bit bummed she never made the jump to the comics continuity like Livewire did, even if it's easier for me to understand why she didn't, than why it took so long for Livewire to do so. Volcana only appeared a handful of times, and mostly as a cameo outside her debut episode. Plus while I think electricity works fine as a force that can hurt Supes, fire is a much harder sell, especially since Superman walking through flames unharmed is such an iconic part of his imagery. Then there's also the difficulties with her characterization and background.

She actually works pretty great as his "Mr. Freeze" villain if we use her DCAU incarnation (which pretty shamelessly rips off of the Stephen King novel Firestarter now that I checked it out again). She was captured for her pyrokinesis powers by the shadowy Men in Black from Cadmus and was trained to be a government weapon. She busts out and escapes, but can't take care of herself other than using her powers for petty crime. Just like the obvious ending to DCAU Mr. Freeze is Batman funds a cure for Nora in exchange for Victor giving up his criminal career, the obvious ending for Volcana is that Superman intimidates the Cadmus thugs pursuing her into backing off or else, and then takes her somewhere she can live her life free of their influence. Preferably also somewhere she can get therapy and not just dropping her off on a tropical island like he did in the DCAU.

I'm sure the problem is obvious right away: you can't really use either one of those villains again without ruining what made them great to begin with can you? If you use Mr. Freeze again after Batman tells him to give up crime while Bruce Wayne funds a cure, Freeze isn't really sympathetic anymore, he's just an asshole using his tragedy as an excuse. Similarly with Volcana, if she's out killing and robbing people again, which is what happened with the DCAU version when she was brought back, it really detracts from her sympathy. The audience can only accept so much wrongdoing from a villain before their trauma doesn't excuse their actions anymore and they lose that sympathy.

What I Would Do With Volcana

So powers wise, *just* being a regular pyrokinetic isn't enough to keep you on Superman's level, we have to upgrade her powerset. Luckily there's already a character in a Superman related franchise who offers the perfect blueprint: Mano of the Fatal Five (he's the guy who blows shit up by touching it in the JL vs. FF animated movie if you need a refresher). Mano has an "anti-matter touch" that I would copy the basics of for Volcana. She doesn't just create "fires" she creates "anti-matter fires", and those can actually hurt Superman as a way to differentiate them from normal fires. This lets her be a threat to Superman because anti-matter can actually hurt Clark. I don't see any reason anti-matter wouldn't hurt him, he's still made of regular matter after all.

Adding on to that let's swipe a bunch of powers from other pyrokinetics elsewhere that I don't think Volcana had in the DCAU. So she can fly like the Human Torch and is of course immune to fire in all its forms (so Superman's heat vision doesn't work on her). If you really wanted to give her a boost she could cause anything to explode by superheating the atoms with her anti-matter, basically making her a walking nuke. I remember some firebenders in the Avatar universe being able to use their powers to heal (in Korra's time I think), so maybe give Volcana the ability to reconstruct her body from any source of fire? With all of that now she feels like a Superman-level threat in her own right.

So how do you keep her sympathetic while still allowing her to be used? Should she be kept sympathetic at all? Hot take but I don't think Freeze necessarily only works as a sympathetic bad guy (I watched The Batman cartoon's take on Freeze growing up though, so I'm not a DCAU diehard). I think Volcana likewise can work as a more sinister villainess.

If we're abandoning the sympathetic angle, then the route that seems the most obvious to me is that Claire actually really enjoyed her role as a weapon. She enjoys burning things down, whether that's buildings, or people, or civilization itself. She's a pyromaniac who gets a thrill out of using her powers, and doesn't want to stop. But she utterly loathes her government handlers for how they control her life, and there is nothing she wants more to do than to put every single one of them and their families to the torch. Volcana sees her role as the equivalent of a controlled burn, she burns away the old, the stagnant, and the rotten to make way for new forms of life.

To her, there's a clear parallel between what she does and what Superman does. Both of them act as cleansing forces, Superman purifies Metropolis of evil in the form of supercriminals, he was a force of change that ushered in the Age of Metahumans. Volcana sees herself as the next step in that Age, she burns down the structures and people that act as barriers to keep society from undergoing the rebirth she believes will rise from the ashes. Whether Superman is a part of that next step or someone she has to burn so a new hero of the new Age can come around to replace him is a position she's unsure of. Regardless, if he stands in her way she won't hesitate to fry him.

She's a foil for Clark then in terms of their wrath. Both are disgusted by the evils they see, and both think people can be inspired to change. Superman simply thinks its possible to inspire people to change the way things are without violence, while Volcana believes that's impossible. Some people need to be reduced to ash in order to build a better life, whether that's her government handlers, the group of supervillains who wouldn't follow her, or the corrupt politicians running Metropolis, or even Superman himself if he can't be made to see that truth. Clark channels his wrath towards constructive purposes while Volcana channels hers towards destructive ones.

If we want to keep the more sympathetic angle however, then I think there's still a way to do that while carrying over the basics of her DCAU origin. The big difference is that Volcana doesn't have control of her powers due to the mental trauma she endures as a result of her time with Cadmus. Periodically she will "flare up" even when she doesn't want to, and this hurts those around her who aren't wearing protection. The only safe place for her is STAR Labs where they are working on a way to control her powers and give her counseling, but because of her PTSD Volcana regularly attempts to escape. Living in a laboratory and being poked by scientists again, even though this time they're trying to help her is simply too much for Claire to endure. Regularly her temper explodes and she burns her way out (not killing anyone though). What happens next is always varied as Claire is constantly trying to gain her freedom while others exploit her for their own ends.

Superman thus has to constantly try to track her down and get her to go back to STAR Labs. Clark feels an enormous degree of sympathy for Claire, recognizing that it could've easily been him being trained as a weapon if someone less scrupulous than the Kents had found his rocket. He has a temper himself and understands the frustration Claire feels about her lot in life, while also appreciating the difficulty of constantly keeping your destructive powers under control. In that regard Volcana is a foil for Clark in regards to control: Clark has control of his powers and his life while Volcana has neither, something she envies and resents him for. Whenever she breaks out again, it's a reminder to Clark how few people truly get to take charge of their own destinies.

Probably more than you expected huh? Sorry I tend to get carried away a bit. TL;DR she's a neat character who could work well as an ongoing foe for Superman with a bit of work.

[crimeronan]

Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so.  yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes 

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world.  follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content.  in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass.  which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype.  mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that.  yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale.  both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness??  rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family??  rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life??  rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry??  once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks??  all that repression baybey.  this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years.  every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far.  not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc.  i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc.  but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me.  he’s so fucking good

[runawaymun]

Oooo, okay, I didn’t know that about Thal. :o That’s a lot to unpack with the both of them. I really hope they’re able to heal and learn to love their new family. :/ Celebrían probably has a lot of trauma of her own (hello Eregion—-), as does Elrond, so I wonder if the kids ever were to witness them somehow (organically ofc) dealing with their own respective traumas and realising that these immortal beings are maybe kinda… almost human?

Eregion yeah-- yikes.

We'll have to see how this all plays out. Elrond and Cel are still very much a central part of this fic. The fic continues to be about Elrond, even with everything else going on. I'm not sure what will come up exactly with Cel, but I'm sure some things will. Elrond is dealing with... a lot, right now. Having Maglor back is awesome, of course! It's really nice to have his dad around again, but there is a lot of childhood trauma there that he just kind of suppressed for over five thousand years because it involved the Kinslayers, and nobody wanted to hear about it. There's the trauma of losing them, but there's also the trauma of Maglor and Maedhros not really being the most fit parents. They loved them, of course, and they did their best, but they were also kind of on a Silmaril murder rampage and working through their own explosion of heavy trauma, let alone raising kids. Sirion was enough trauma for a lifetime for Elrond and Elros by itself, but even after that Elrond continued to see things that he probably should not have at his age, and I think that's something he hasn't really come to terms with yet. There are memories that he has definitely buried which Maglor is going to trigger.

And then there's Maglor, who is gonna play a huge part in helping the kids deal with their trauma in this one. He's dealing with his own CPTSD and is really an expert at it by this point, and also has experience raising two severely traumatized, adopted kids. He's going to be a big source of help for both Elrond and Cel and both the kiddos.

And now as I'm typing all of this out I'm realizing this is turning out to be very generational-trauma focused hm...

[hongism]

mists of celeste ➻ twenty-one

➻ pairing: ??? x fem reader ➻ genre: space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst, smut ➻ word count: 7.2k ➻ rating: M ➻ warnings: language, fighting, smut ➻ summary: Sneaking aboard the ship of a renowned space pirate may not have been the best idea, but you’ll have to make do with what fate has handed to you

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act three ➻ part three  ​​

​​​

“I said keep your leg straight!”

“It is straight,” you counter, huffing through your teeth as Yunho smacks the underside of your calf yet again. It’s probably the fourth time he’s done so in the past twenty minutes, and he tells you to straighten your leg each time even though it’s already perfectly straight.

“You need to get your eyes checked, because that is most definitely not straight.” Yunho pulls away from the bed you’re lying back on, and you let your leg fall back to the mattress so you can sit up and glare at the back of his head.

“You’re the doctor here, so why don’t you check them if you think there’s an issue?”

“Your attitude is the issue here.”

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be nice to me? Is that any way to talk to your patient?”

“If you did your exercises properly, maybe I would be nicer!” Yunho chastises, coming back to the edge of the bed with arms crossed over his chest. You resist the urge to roll your eyes but fall back to the mattress anyway and start doing the exercises again.

“I am doing them properly,” you grumble. Seonghwa laughs from off to the side. He leans up against the wall, arms crossed like Yunho’s, and in all honesty, you had forgotten that he was standing there all this time. You don’t quite understand why he’s on the ship today; the only thing you were told is that it was per Hongjoong’s request. The captain took Yeosang with him to the city instead of Seonghwa, and San went along again as well. Based on Seonghwa and Yunho’s exchanged whispers that ceased when you came into the medbay, it has something to do with you. You want to ask about it, but Yunho interrupts your train of thought by speaking again.

“I wish Hongjoong would let me off the damn ship for one day. Just one.” He glances over at Seonghwa and plops down on his rolling stool that he’s left near your bed. “I haven’t been back here in years.”

“Can I stop yet?” You interject, a slight whine to your words. Yunho pays you no mind though, so you just continue to do the exercises while he speaks to Seonghwa.

“It’s wintertime on Kebos, which means winter festivals! And snow! When do we ever get to see snow?” Yunho slaps his palms against the bed. You jolt a little, whipping your chin to look at him. “Do you remember me telling you about it, Y/N?”

“W-What?”

“The winter festivals on Kebos?”

“I – no, I don’t remember us ever having that conversation.”

Yunho sighs and sits up straight again. He leans forward to tap your knee. For a moment, you think he’s going to tell you to do the exercises properly again, so you prepare to smack him, but he doesn’t.

“That’s enough for today. I can’t wear you out too much before you go spar.”

“Thank goodness,” you mutter, falling back to the mattress with a deep heave.

“Okay, but back to the festival thing – we’re near the capital Reinig. Literally at the town right outside Reinig. I could take a day trip to the city to see the festival! But no, no, no. Not allowed. The healer has to stay on the ship even when there’s no one to heal!” Yunho waves his hand through the air before bringing it to his pale locks. Seonghwa offers a smile that’s filled with fondness. His arms fall away from his chest, and he blinks over at you for a few seconds then turns back to Yunho.

“Maybe Hongjoong can slow down for a day,” Seonghwa suggests. “Let everyone have some time for themselves to do… anything they want to do. That way you could go to the festival. Maybe you could bring Wooyoung along? You’d have to take Yeosang as well, but that might not be so bad.”

“Hm, that would be nice.” Yunho hums and thumbs over his chin as he considers Seonghwa’s offer. “Wooyoung doesn’t get to see many nice or relaxing things, so the festival might be a good opportunity for him to take a step back. Yeosang is just – well, he’s Yeosang. He hates everything.”

Seonghwa releases a loud snort. “You’ve never been more accurate.”

“If we did that, I would want to bring you along, Y/N.” You snap your chin back towards Yunho, eyes narrowing in a second. You don’t want to shoot the idea down, but Yunho is well aware of your desire to stay on the ship where it is safe and sound. Away from the military and the idea of being in such a dangerous sector of the universe. Out the corner of your eye, you spot Seonghwa opening his mouth as well, and he seems ready to refuse the suggestion for you. Yunho lifts a hand to stop him before he can talk. “Listen to what I have to say as the healer of this crew. One way to confront emotional and mental trauma is through trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy. You know what that is?”

You blink away from Yunho, lips parted and expression contorted in a confused manner. Seonghwa is in a similar predicament, and when you lock gazes, he shrugs a little.

“Yeah, of course, we don’t, Yunho. You’re the doctor here.”

“It’s like talking to two brick walls, I swear.”

“Are we at least good-looking brick walls?” You tease with a cheeky grin.

“No comment, you little shit.” Yunho jabs his index finger at your face, so you take that answer as a ‘yes’ and pull yourself into a sitting position with a more pleased smile now. “Anyway, the process involves gradually exposing yourself to feelings and situations that remind you of a trauma and replacing distorted and irrational thoughts about the experience with a more balanced picture. So the idea is to expose you to a place that brings you discomfort and is tied to bad memories. Once exposed, we would try to replace those emotions with good ones and reshape your perception of the place, while breaking down some of the trauma you’ve faced. Overcome trauma, alleviate some of your pain and distress, and have a good time. Make sense now?”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Seonghwa nods, eyes trailing over your form.

“Okay, so now you see why I want you to come with. As much as I want you to come with though, I want you to make the final decision. If Hongjoong allows it, that is.” Yunho’s gaze returns to Seonghwa, and he looks up at the lieutenant with a hopeful gleam in his dark eyes. Seonghwa shakes his head ever so slightly, but his smile persists even as he pushes away from the wall and walks closer to where Yunho is sitting. He punches the healer’s arm, swing light, and Yunho laughs in response.

“It’s up to Hongjoong and Y/N then.”

“Perfect!” Yunho grins. It quickly dissolves as he begins to make shooing motions towards Seonghwa. “Go wait in the hall for a few minutes now. I gotta ask some private doctor questions that you don’t need to be around for.”

Seonghwa rolls his eyes but steps closer to the door. He stops to look back at you, a slight smile playing at his lips. “Yell if he starts acting weird.”

“Oh, quit it! Get out before I smack you.” Seonghwa has to dodge Yunho’s weakly swung arm, but he doesn’t get away completely unscathed as he runs into the doorframe on his way out, and you have to stifle your laughter along with Yunho until he’s completely gone. “Okay, okay,” Yunho exhales through a chuckle. “Now that we have some privacy let’s talk about how you’ve been mentally and emotionally. How are you sleeping? Flashbacks, nightmares, anything like that?”

“No,” you utter without thinking twice, and Yunho blinks back in surprise. You hesitate before correcting yourself. He’s told you already that you don’t need to be embarrassed about things not working or going well, that it’s part of the process, and there will be slip-ups along the way, but it still feels like you’ve failed in some way. Your old squad from the military – predominantly Jisung – has been haunting your dreams and intruding on your thoughts without rest. Even Yunho’s medications do nothing to cease their presence. Yet whenever one comes along, you can’t push it out or ignore it, which is probably what you should be doing. You just let yourself slip into the memories and be consumed by them. The only relief you get is when you talk to someone because that provides an ample amount of distraction for a while.

“Y/N?” Yunho snaps his fingers in front of your face. You shake your head a little and look him in the eye. “You spaced out on me. All good?”

“Y-Yeah, um, the medications aren’t working,” you admit. Yunho’s lips press into a delicate frown, but he doesn’t seem surprised at all by the information. “I haven’t been sleeping well, and it’s hard to get rest when I do sleep. I just… constantly have nightmares of my time in the military. Some flashbacks during the day as well.” Yunho nods at your words, then he hums to himself for a moment.

“Is that the only thing you’ve been struggling with?” He asks next.

“I mean, talking to San helped clear the air a lot about t-that whole issue. Not completely. Something still feels off and wrong, but thinking about it doesn’t make me as afraid as it used to.”

“That’s really good, Y/N. Even small steps are progress. I’m glad to hear it. As for sleeping issues, I can adjust your dosage and have the new medicine ready by tonight. We can test it out and see how well it works. Not a permanent solution, but something for now.”

“Okay, yeah, we can do that.”

“Now concerning your memories of the military… where do you think that’s coming from? Has it started since we entered Aurum, or is it something else? Is Kebos a source of trauma for you as well?” Yunho has that all too familiar tablet in his hands, and you resist the urge to clam up and panic at the thought of him having all your weaknesses written down in it.

“Um, no, Kebos isn’t.”

“I want to move back to Kebos once I retire from the military.”

You can’t keep the memory from slipping through. Your jaw stutters as you try to recover from the sudden lapse in speech, and if Yunho notices, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he settles for patiently waiting for you to continue your thought.

“It’s j-just Aurum. Uh, sorry, it’s Eros. The idea of being near Eros stresses me out. Makes me remember my time in the military and the things I experienced while there.” You look up to the ceiling as to avoid Yunho’s piercing gaze. The heat of his stare lingers on you. Silence envelops the air between you for what feels like hours. Then, Yunho pipes up again with another question.

“What is your earliest memory, Y/N?”

“My – my what?” You stammer. The question is random, the last thing you were expecting for him to ask, but Yunho just repeats himself without seeing the oddness of his inquiry.

“Your earliest memory. As far as you can remember.”

“I, um, I don’t really know,” you trail off, shaking your head a bit as you speak. It’s all honesty on your part for once, because you truly don’t recall much about your childhood or life before the military. Everything is hazy as though there is a film over your vision up until the moment you joined the military. “I remember… voices and, uh, people telling me things while growing up, but I can’t picture it or see it in my mind. I don’t know who the people talking are, I just hear their voices. Occasionally I think I remember an old man from my childhood, but he seems to be more of an extension of my dreams. I only see him there but have no memories of him. The earliest thing I remember is joining the military.”

Yunho’s hand hesitates over the tablet. “How old were you when you joined?”

“Around fourteen.”

“Ah…” Yunho’s voice dies almost immediately, expression crumbling a little. “Fourteen.” You don’t want to look at him, but you can hear what sounds like pity in his voice. “Do you remember anything at all about the first fourteen years of your life?”

“I have vague recollections of water. Flowing water and crashing waves and foggy skies. But I really can’t remember more than that,” you say after a slight pause.

“That’s strange,” Yunho mutters back. “No recollection of the first fourteen years of your life. How old are you again?”

“U-Uh, twenty-one.”

“So, two-thirds of your life are empty memories.”

“I’ve never really thought too much about it. Figured that what I went through in the military was enough to block it out.”

“Hm, I suppose that’s a possibility. Do you any happy or – or fond memories? A person or a place that brings you joy?”

Bright eyes and a round smile come to mind in an instant. It isn’t just Jisung this time though; everyone in your unit makes an appearance at the forefront of your mind. The oldest of your group, Hyunwoo, with his broad shoulders and towering persona that always felt so intimidating despite how harmless he was with you all. Jisung’s closest friend, Juyeon, with his dark blue hair and clear laugh that was always resounding through every room he stepped through. Soojin, the only other girl on the squad, as deadly as she was charming and beautiful. And Ash, barely older than you – maybe only a few weeks older at best – who always looked up to Jisung like he held the universe in his hands. If the universe was your ragtag group of neglected recruits, then perhaps Jisung did hold it in his hands. At one time, each and every single one of them brought you joy and happiness. Made you feel warm, comforted, and wanted.

How did it all end so badly?

You can only feel cold and desolate as you think about them now. Guilt eats away at your gut, and you frantically try to push the memories aside before it consumes you and sends you into a frenzy.

“N-No,” you rush to answer Yunho’s initial question. “No, none at all.”

A frown paints his lips, one that is painful to look at, so again, you avoid his face in favor of looking at the ceiling.

“Well, I want to try to make some happy memories for you then. And maybe show you that you have people here now who can bring you joy and comfort. Hopefully, Hongjoong will let us go down to Reinig for a day in the very least.” A sigh passes through Yunho’s lips, then the sound of him tapping away at his tablet resounds shortly after. “You’re free to go spar with Seonghwa now.”

“Thanks,” you mutter, swinging your legs over the edge of the bed and getting to your feet. Yunho stops you before you move for the door though. He latches a hand around your wrist and blinks up at you all of a sudden.

“You’re doing well with the physical therapy, Y/N. Staying on top of it and putting in effort. I can tell you’re taking it seriously this time, and I’m proud of you for that. Not just as your doctor, but as a friend too. You’re doing well.”

The words shouldn’t hit you as hard as they do. You manage a weak nod and shaky smile, then step around Yunho’s chair to step through the door. His words linger like a bad taste on your tongue. You can’t tell whether they make you feel good or not; there was almost an ulterior meaning to what he said that causes your gut to twist and coil. Pushing out of the medbay, you heave a deep sigh and find Seonghwa standing just outside the door. He’s leaned up against the wall, arms back over his chest, and the second he sees you, he pushes himself into an upright position.

“Are you still up for some sparring?”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” you mutter. Falling into step beside him, you press your hands against your sides, nails digging into your palms. Thinking about the squad was a bad idea, because now you can’t get them out of your mind. Jisung alone was bad enough, but you know where this train of thought is headed, and it’s going to take you straight to those tall brick walls and public execution again. The broad shoulders of the man under a black hood with chains around his wrists.

“You’re getting closer with Jongho and Wooyoung,” Seonghwa cuts through your impeding thoughts with his clear tone, almost sensing your sudden distress and pushing it to the side like it’s nothing. “I’m glad to see it.”

“If this is an attempt at small talk, you’re awful at it,” you tease. Seonghwa huffs a laugh through his nose and shakes his head, but he obviously isn’t too bothered by your comment. “But yes, I am. They don’t ask questions incessantly like some people do.”

“Is that a dig at me?” Seonghwa scoffs, clutching his chest as though offended.

“That’s for you to figure out, pretty boy.”

“It’s also nice to see that you haven’t forgotten your little nickname for me, princess.” Seonghwa rolls his eyes a little, punching at the keypad outside the training room. You smile in response. The memories of Jisung and your old squad are slowly fading away and leaving you with a new sense of peace, at least for the time being. “Do you need to warm up?”

“I’ll just do some stretches,” you answer, moving for the mat while Seonghwa heads for the cabinets to retrieve the tape as he always does. You plop down on the mat, a small oof leaving you. “By the way, how did things go yesterday?”

Seonghwa glances back at you, rifling through the cabinet, and he doesn’t answer right away. You keep your eyes on him while you stretch. His movements are languid even as he wraps the tape around his wrists and hands.

“Everything went well,” he says at last, coming to join you on the mat. He lingers at the edge and tosses the tape onto your lap before starting to stretch a bit himself. “Not much progress yet, but Hongjoong thinks it will take upwards of a week to take care of everything. He has to meet with several other captains of pirate crews while here – discuss business over the inventory in the cargo hold as well as figure out positions of military ships and units, those sorts of things. I’ll be joining him again tomorrow as we have some treaties to negotiate with a couple of crews concerning free travel. It isn’t free to fly around after all. We need to restock some basic necessities too. Food, drink, medical supplies, clothes. Hongjoong will be looking into bringing on some new crew members as well. And of course – Siren hunting.”

You exhale a huff. “He’s a busy man. I’m surprised. I figured he just didn’t give a flying fuck about anything other than Sirens.” Grabbing the tape from your lap, you pull yourself into a sitting position then start to wrap the material around your hands like Seonghwa did. He smiles at your words.

“Hongjoong takes care of many things and manages a lot as the captain. It may not seem like it at times because of his focus on Sirens, but he’s not a captain for nothing.”

You pull yourself up to your feet once you finish wrapping your wrists, not bothering to respond to Seonghwa’s comment, and kick your shoes off the side of the mat.

“Let’s go, pretty boy,” you tease, falling into an offensive stance. Seonghwa’s lips quirk further up as he mimics your position, his own shoes thrown off to the side as well.

“Someone is more confident than usual.”

You answer with a swift kick swung into Seonghwa’s side, and he’s caught off-guard by your haste and power. He rolls out of the way before you can hit him, a quiet laugh leaving his lips as he dodges you. Your moves are more confident and powerful, but only because of Yunho’s incessant urgings that you do your physical therapy and exercises so often. You haven’t sparred with Seonghwa in around a week; Jongho has been taking his place in recent days. Seonghwa would kill you if you said it out loud, but Jongho is a much harder opponent.

“You’re getting your strength back, I see.” Seonghwa catches your next swing, twisting you around, and you have to hook a foot around his ankle to maintain your balance. “Give it a few weeks and you’ll be better than ever.”

“You haven’t seen the half of it yet,” you laugh as you pull your arm out of his tightening grip. You slide back across the mat to put some more distance between the two of you, gaging his movements carefully.

“Oh, then I’d love to see the full thing.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, pretty boy.” He steps left, more weight on his left foot than his right. “You’ll lose your footing if you do.” You lunge forward and throw your right foot into his. The impact, along with his unbalanced weight, causes him to stumble backward. He nearly tumbles to the ground but catches himself at the last second.

“How about we make it a competition then?” He asks through a clear laugh. “Two of three falls. Five seconds down, just like we did during our first spar.”

You stand up straight and tap at your chin. “There’s no incentive for me to win.”

“Maybe I’ll let you pin me down if you win. Last time you tried it was cute.”

You roll your eyes at his cheeky comment. If it’s an effort to get you riled up and agree to the challenge, then it works quite well because now you really want to plant his ass on the mat and win. Thus, you drop your hands to your hips and tilt your head at the man across from you.

“Okay, if I win then… you get to clean up dinner dishes all by yourself. I normally do it with either Jongho or Wooyoung, and we get no help from anyone else. So, you deserve to do it alone for once. For fairness. You should know what it feels like. And it would be awfully amusing to see the Lieutenant of Death doing dishes.”

Seonghwa clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth in response to your terms. “It’s a good thing that I am going to win then.”

“What do you want if you win?” He doesn’t answer right away; instead, he tilts his head from side to side a few times before letting his sharp gaze settle back on you.

“You’ll find out when I win.”

“You’re too cocky.”

Seonghwa takes the aggressive stance you had before, and he barely lets you finish speaking before he’s crossing the mat. You swing your arms up to block the oncoming attack. Despite the intensity in his moves, they are still quite simple and easy to read. You slip out of his way time and time again, but in your haste, you neglect to watch his feet. Seonghwa slides a foot between yours right as he swings a jab at your hip. You try to sidestep to avoid the attack, and your foot catches on his. The impact sends you to the ground, Seonghwa goes down with you, and a second later, you find yourself pinned to the mat. Seonghwa leans over you, a cocky smirk painting his lips. You struggle against his grip, but he’s too strong for you to escape in this awkward position.

“Five seconds. One for me. Zero for you.”

Seonghwa rolls off of you and gets to his feet. You stay down, however, pushing yourself up onto your elbows, and glare up at him. He extends a hand towards you, which you nearly take, but at the last second, you get an idea and shift your weight on the mat. Taking his hand, you wait for him to shift all his weight into his forward leg then yank hard. He stumbles and almost lands on top of you. You duck out of the way just before he hits you. Your grip on his hand persists, and you twist his arm behind his back and swing a leg over his back. Without the use of both arms, you have Seonghwa successfully pinned to the mat, your weight keeping him down with ease. Seonghwa manages to huff out a laugh as you bend at the waist to taunt him.

“That’s five seconds,” you whisper close to the shell of his ear. Releasing his wrists, you sit back and climb off Seonghwa’s body to let him get up properly. Before you have the chance to get to your feet, a sudden force hits you square in the chest, and you fall back to the mat. “Fuck.” Seonghwa’s weight is back on you a moment later. His knees press against your hips so hard that you can’t even try to wiggle out of the hold, and he keeps your wrists planted firmly on the mat.

“You were saying?”

“That’s a cheap trick, Park Seonghwa.”

“You played that card first, princess.”

“I’m at a disadvantage.”

“How so? Because you’re a girl? Weaker than me? No. You aren’t at a disadvantage because we’re equals in the ring and outside the ring. It’s only fair that I treat you as my equal no matter what.”

Your chest heaves as you try to catch your breath. Seonghwa knocked most of the air out of your lungs when he sent you down to the mat again, but you’re also a bit worked up from the exercise. Seonghwa is in a similar predicament; sweat drips down the side of his face, a few stray drops hitting the mat near your head. Your body reacts before your mind does, but you blame the close proximity and intimate fighting for how you’re feeling.

“But anyway… I won, princess.”

“What do you want then?” Seonghwa dips his chin to his chest, a small laugh reverberating before he looks back into your eyes.

“I want no one else to be on the ship right now because I would love to fuck you into the mat.” You choke on your saliva, teeth clattering as you snap your lips together. The boldness of his words is shocking enough, but what he actually said has you getting flustered within a second. “But, I suppose I can settle for a kiss instead.”

“Y-You – you can’t just… say stuff like that,” you stammer, blinking away from his face. His gaze persists though, and even out the corner of your eye, you can see the way his stare lingers on your lips.

“Can I kiss you, Y/N?” The question is whispered, but it sounds so loud in your ears. You bring your chin forward again and look Seonghwa in the eye. He doesn’t move, watching and waiting for a sign of approval or denial from you.

“Please,” you whisper back. Seonghwa closes the already minimal distance between your lips. They’re just as soft as you remember them to be, but there’s a bit more hunger when he kisses you this time. He doesn’t let the touch stay sweet and innocent for long, tongue swiping over your bottom lip. A small whine slips through as you part your lips for him, and his tongue meets yours in a sudden clash for dominance. He hums against you, the grip on your wrists tightening ever so slightly, and you lean into his touch without second thought. His lips leave yours too soon for your liking. “W-We – we shouldn’t do th-this here.”

Seonghwa’s eyes drag over your face as he nods. “My room is closer than yours.” Again he hesitates, waiting for you to give some sort of response, and he alleviates the pressure on your wrists to sit back on his heels.

“Hurry up and take me there then before we get caught.” That’s all the permission Seonghwa needs. His hands dart down to your thighs, pulling them around his waist, and you let him hoist you up. He’s stronger than he looks, you have to give him that because the lithe form and lean muscles do not look like he should be able to lift you and stand up with the added weight with such ease. He manages to do it without batting an eye. “What if someone is in the corridor?” You ask under your breath, bringing a finger up to trace over his rosy lips.

“Do you want me to put you down already?”

“Not really but – but you probably should just to be safe.” Seonghwa’s lips twitch into a smile, and he helps you untangle from around his waist.

“Lead the way then, princess.” His smile is teasing as you turn towards the door. Then, the flat of his hand comes down on your ass, and you gasp, whipping your head back towards him. “You don’t know where my room is though, so I’ll take the lead.”

“I hate you,” you grumble, cheeks burning with embarrassment as he steps past you and leads the way out of the training room.

“Say that after I fuck you into the mattress.” The comment has you choking on your spit again, and you nearly trip over the threshold of the door. The walk to his room is both brief and awkward. He walks a little ways in front of you, and even though you’re trying to avoid looking suspicious, you think that your motives are quite obvious. Especially as you reach his room and he taps at the keypad to open the door. You follow his steps as closely as you can without stepping on his heels. Once you’re both in his room, the air of awkwardness is dispelled. His hand finds the back of your neck, the other traveling to your hip, and he pushes you back against the cool metal door. You meet him halfway, lips crashing together in a mess of skin and teeth.

He kisses you with a bruising force, hands slipping away to press against the door instead. You hum against him and loop your own hands around his back to pull him flush against your body. Both of your movements are frantic and rushed, a stark difference compared to last time’s slow ministrations. You fumble for the hem of his shirt, trying and failing to grab at it. Seonghwa pulls back from your lips and gasps for air. He simultaneously yanks his shirt up and off his body. The only noise you can make in response is a startled moan, then his hands return to your body, grabbing the hem of your shirt. Your hands move by instinct to cover his and stop him from pulling it off of you.

“We can stop if you want,” Seonghwa whispers. His forehead falls against yours, and you could cry at the gentleness of his tone and actions. Instead, you shake your head slowly.

“N-No, I don’t want to stop. I… I want you,” you reply, voice equally as quiet. You know you should talk this through with him first, especially after the first time you had sex, but you’ve already made up your mind about this. Something about Seonghwa makes you trust him, and his visual and sexual appeal is very tangible. Still, you aren’t much of the type to go for one-night stands or quick fucks. With Seonghwa, it feels different from a one night stand, as though there is some sort of connection between the two of you that spurs you to do this. His lips brush against yours as his hands find yours. Your fingers intertwine, the kiss growing deeper and deeper by the second.

Seonghwa doesn’t say anything else; he stumbles back to pull you towards the bed. He falls to the mattress when his knees hit the edge. You bring your legs up to the bed, straddling his lap without breaking the soft kiss. You pull your hands away from his to grab at the edge of your shirt, and Seonghwa sits back to look at you fondly as you peel the material off your sweat-slick skin. There is a sudden shyness to your movements, and Seonghwa picks up on it in an instant. He brings his hands to your bare sides, tracing small circles against the skin as a form of encouragement. You swallow around nothing and reach around your back to peel the band around your chest off as well.

Seonghwa’s gaze never wavers, eyes peering so intently into yours that your breath hitches a little. It’s only when you drop the band to the floor that he moves, and his lips find yours in an instant. The pads of his fingers trail goosebumps along your skin as he drags them upwards. You gasp into his mouth when his thumbs ghost over your perked nipples, and he pinches them lightly. He pinches them again with a bit more force, causing you to throw your head back and release a throaty moan that’s far too loud. Seonghwa takes it as an opportunity to let his lips trail down to your neck. He sucks softly at the skin, and you know that he’s leaving marks as he goes lower and lower, but you can’t find it in you to care.

The bulge in his pants is pressing hard against the inside of his thigh, straining painfully against the fabric around it, and you stretch a hesitant hand down to palm him through his pants. Seonghwa moans around your nipple, lips parting around the skin. The noise spurs you on, and you hasten your movements to press hard against his concealed member. It’s enough to cause Seonghwa to shift, and he suddenly gets to his feet with you still wrapped around him. He twists in and instant and places you flat on your back against the bed as gently as he can.

When he stands up straight, you whine at the loss of contact and warmth, but you understand why a moment later because he fiddles with the button of his pants. You mimic his movements and tug at your own pants. Seonghwa grabs your ankles before you can fully get them off though. His pants are gone and forgotten on the floor, and he focuses all his attention on you, slowly pulling the material off to completely expose you to him. He moves to kneel on the bed, but you extend a hand and press it against his hip, a sudden boldness to your actions.

“C-Can I… can I suck you off?” You ask, tone so quiet you can barely hear yourself over the sound of your racing heart. Seonghwa’s jaw stutters a little, but he nods nonetheless and lets you guide him back into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. He groans as you slip off the mattress and between his legs. One hand trails over your forehead and brushes a few loose strands of hair out of the way. Now that you’re face to face with his member, you’re doubting yourself. You don’t do this often for obvious reasons; in fact, you think this might be only the second or third time to do this. Seonghwa keeps brushing over your skin with such gentle and soft touches that it pushes the insecurities to the side for the time being. You reach up to grip his member at the base then lean in to lick a long stripe up his cock.

A hiss leaves Seonghwa at the contact, and you repeat the motion once more before hesitating over his tip. You quickly blink up at him with fluttering lashes. His cheeks are already flushed, and sweat glistens on his skin. Still, his gaze is gentle on you, and you maintain that sweet eye contact as you begin to take his cock into your mouth. Seonghwa breaks the eye contact as your wet heat sinks down further. He throws his head back with a shaky groan, hand falling away from your head to grip the edge of the mattress tight. You hasten your bobs along his cock. His reaction spurs you along, the pretty string of moans escaping him like music to your ears. His hips twitch and jerk, but you can tell he’s holding back and trying to keep from fucking up into your mouth.

“H-Hold on, hold on, princess,” he stammers out, one hand returning to brush through your hair. You pull off him with a lewd pop and curious eyes. “I don’t wanna cum yet.”

“Oh,” you exhale and let your hand fall away from his hard cock. Seonghwa brings his fingers to your chin. You lean into the soft touch and bring yourself up again, Seonghwa’s hands guiding you to straddle his lap once more. Your lips brush over his, hot breath fanning your face as he exhales.

“Do you need me to prep you?” He whispers.

“I j-just want you to fuck me, please,” you plead and drape your arms over the man’s shoulders. He nods against you then reaches a hand down between your hips. You instinctively tighten your grip on him as he guides his cock to your entrance. Your gut coils a little when he pushes against you, but you do your best to relax your muscles to make it easier for the both of you.

“Relax, princess,” Seonghwa murmurs. His lips ghost over the shell of your ear before traveling lower to nip at the sensitive spot on your neck. He sinks further into you when your body relaxes around him. He bottoms out a moment later, and a breathy whine leaves you. “I’ve got you, princess. You’re okay.”

There’s so much warmth in his tone, the fire of his presence consuming you, and you shift your hips to bring him deeper in you.

“Fuck me, please.”

Seonghwa attaches his lips to your neck again, hands guiding your hips up and down along his cock. You try to help him a bit by bouncing a little on him, but the sensation of him being so deep in you is enough to have you slumping against his body like jelly after a minute. He doesn’t seem to mind one bit though; he just continues to nip and kiss your neck. Every once and a while, he’ll whisper soft praises against your skin. Each word sends shivers down your spine, and you clench around him at the sound of the praise.

You know you won’t last long like this, but Seonghwa doesn’t seem to be in a better predicament as he was already close before fucking you. You reach around the back of his head to tug at his hair. He pulls off your neck at the touch and looks you in the eye, brows furrowed in concentration as he continues to thrust into you. Your words die in your throat when you meet his gaze. Instead of speaking, you just lean in and press your lips to his. The gentle touch and soft prodding of his tongue against yours sends an orgasm crashing over you. You whine into his mouth, and Seonghwa just eats the sound up, thrusting into you only two more times before he cums as well. Your muscles fail you in that moment, but you cling to Seonghwa like he’s the only thing you have and ride out your orgasm with him. His lips are on your ear again, whispering and muttering sweet praises, but you can’t hear them through your pleasure.

You don’t know how long the two of you remain like that, clinging to each other and sucking in deep breaths of air with foreheads pressed together. The haze finally passes though, and you can hear his words clearly again.

“Do you want a shower?” Seonghwa asks, chest heaving from the exertion. You’re too fucked out to think straight, let alone speak, so you can only manage a few nods. “Am I going to need to carry you over there too?”

His teasing remark gives you just enough energy to slap his bicep. He tightens his arms around you and lifts you with ease though, and you settle into his touch as he carries you to the bathroom. You have to reassure him multiple times that’s you’ll be fine showering on your own, but he eventually lets you be and shuts the door to the bathroom to give you a bit of privacy. You don’t take too much time showering, only enough to get the rest of his cum out of you and wash the sweat off your body. Seonghwa left an impressive trail of marks from your collarbone down to your right hip. They vary in shade and color, but are quite visible nonetheless. A slight laugh escapes you as you trail a finger over them, then you shut the water off and step out to grab a towel from the rack. Only once you’ve fully dried off do you realize that he brought in a shirt and pants for you. They’re far too big for you, but it’ll do for the time being or at least until you get back to your own room later.

That might be much later than you anticipated, however, because when you step back into Seonghwa’s bedroom, you’re greeted by a sight that has you so stunned that you choke on air. The man – the supposed Elitist at that – has his back to you, and he’s pulling a shirt over his head when you step out. It gives you just enough time to trail your eyes over his bare back and spot a column of black tattoos lining his spine. Directly between his shoulder blades resides an insignia of flames. Aside from that, each and every tattoo is identical to the ones that decorate your own back.

“Holy fuck, no way–” Your voice fails you at the last second, but it’s loud enough for Seonghwa to hear you. He whips around, tugging the shirt all the way down as he looks back at you with wide eyes. “Y-You’re – you – holy shit, y-you’re–”

Seonghwa cuts you off, which is probably a good thing because you can’t come up with a coherent thought anyway.

“A Siren. Just like you.”

✧✧✧ a/n: okay okay OKAY i did it im 5 minutes late but i DID it jfc i didn’t expect it to be so long ;-; but in any case i hope you guys enjoy let me know what you think of this chapter it isn’t my best work but aslkdfjlkdsjf i tried and it’s crucial to the story ;-; so yeehaw woo i would love to hear your thoughts on this one!

if you would like to, you can take the survey here! you can take it at any point or again if you wanna or you’ve changed your mind, it’s up to you really laskdfjlkdf 

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[honestlyfrance]

( oranges in october )

You’d think that just because he had wings and he flies, that makes him an Icarus. Icarus fell to his death. He did not resurface, he did not live beyond that power. Sam Wilson soared high into the missiles of war and came back battered and red, dripping love and death as he stands in the aftermath of it all. You think he was an Icarus when he was actually Apollo. Anyone who gets too close to him falls to the ocean waves, then sooner than later, he’s left singing eulogies as his heart rattles in a cage.

He’s sadness in a bottle. He’s got a lot of baggage, and it took so much of him to figure out how he was going to carry it.

If you ever wondered why tragedy is always romanticized, it was because the red was too much, and what else is there to do? They made songs out of the fallen and poems from their last breaths. Sam Wilson gasped, “Let him live. Let me catch him,” and his arms caught the air that whisked Riley away. He only had a few regrets.

Sam’s thoughts ran that day. He wondered what would have happened if he did catch him. Would Riley say some ridiculous remark, or would he be shaken, overcome with the trauma of near-death? Would Riley cry, or would he be quiet, forever empty? Would Sam never have left the Air Force or would he be more careful, a never-ending feeling of death following him? It was no use anyway. All that Sam thinks of was What if I never met Riley? What if Sam never loved a man so much his death shattered his very soul. He’s battered. Gold can’t glue him back together. He’s seen so much red, it’s bleeding in his heart.

They buried an empty coffin.

Maybe if he had never let himself love then he wouldn’t get hurt. If Sam never let himself be vulnerable, maybe he could think of death as a missing person. Gone from your world, but somewhere out there living their best life, now that would be quite the belief. Sam wouldn’t have to spend so many nights alone if he had only let himself believe that. What if I never met him? He thinks that he would be better off okay.

It’s selfish, he knows, but seeing it happen and pretend it never did was something awfully wrong to him. It was like driving through an empty highway in the dark, speeding by with your headlights the only source of light, and suddenly by your right, you see the mangled corpse of some dead thing on the side of the road. You were too late, you couldn’t stop now or turn back around. It was dream-like, it always was. Sam couldn’t turn back and save it. It was like he didn’t know him anymore.

He’s screaming in his head because Riley wasn’t supposed to die young. That man had ambitions and plans. The world hadn’t had the right to do something so cruel.

If anyone tried to touch his hand, it would only go through. Sam couldn’t feel himself as he mourned. It’s all falling apart.

The thing is, it wasn’t just Riley. It was everyone who ever tried to be close to him. He’s a grown man whose most feared words were still, “Your mother isn’t coming home” and he wouldn’t even know how to begin to explain it. He knows he doesn’t owe an explanation about his grievances, but the thing that terrifies himself is the fact that he can’t even begin to explain anything. Sam can’t say how much he loved these people to even begin to comprehend how much it hurts. It’s a pool of love that drained itself every time he tried to do so. He can’t reach the seafloor.

Sometimes he thinks his remorse is just an overreaction, and then he becomes numb to the point it’s his normal to grieve this deeply.

He’s trying. He’s trying so hard. Please believe him when he says it.

He sees himself break and he doesn't even know what from. He's falling so slow he braces for the impact before he even brought out his wings. God, he’s trying, believe him when he says it.

Sam knows he's shattered. He's looking like a lost cause. Like a bruise pressed every time he sees it, he's screaming for the ache. He wants to live but at the same time, he wants every tear he shed to drown him. Heaven sighs at their angel, and Sam's going down like Babylon.

He's lonely, after the war. He's curled into his sheets as if everything was too loud to look at. He left the Air Force then he's looking up into the sky, wondering if every pararescue was an angel in disguise. Sam’s eyes were tired and he wished for a kiss goodnight.

Forgive him. He's sad and lonely. He wants to romanticize every single quiver of life before he loses it.

Goddamn, how he loses it. Sam walked alone on the pavement and dropped his umbrella, feels the first drop of rain on his cheek like a lover's kiss. And, oh, he's gone mad — mad with loneliness. He wants to kiss the sun all of the sudden but his tongue tasted like ashes from the war he died to escape from. He's losing his mind deciding if he's allowed to love again, and now he's shattered as he thinks about it.

Is a kiss any less lovely if it had been a different set of lips? Sam's turned to Shakespeare just wondering about it. He's still trying, believe him. It's just that the wounds on his back ran deeper than the trenches in the ocean and no one seemed to want to even acknowledge the depths of it. No one wanted a scar so deep they'd have to fill it with love to dig out the doubt.

War made poor boys angry and Sam might be one of them, he doesn't know. The pull of heaven’s light is enough to blind him but he knows the books, don't trust his own faith as much as he's used to. He's praying blindly and confesses as if he's got the right to in the first place.

If repentance was a kiss, Sam wouldn't even think he'd deserve to think about it.

He moves sluggish but that’s what depression does to you. It takes all of his might to even hold his niece in his arms without crying and then his sister's whispering in his ear, "I love you, Sam, but don't you ever hurt yourself." He finds himself in front of the VA Hospital in D.C. and suddenly he’s crying in the car as he drives home afterward. It was like an ocean wave cleansed his soul, but the shore was still a mess, he knew as much, but he'd watched the water ebb and flow for as long as the day burns bright.

There are years of healing after that, and he knows he’s trying, believes it some days but sometimes he forgets. It felt like eons finding help. Sam tells himself that war kept chasing him when in reality he just misses it, jumps at the first sight of danger, and follows it through the depths of hell. It wasn’t his fault — no one’s fault really. Who was to predict that Sam would be an Avenger?

No one thinks that what he does is like war, but Sam could sense the familiarity. He’s soaring into the sky and he’s kicking helicopters by the tail. He’s following orders and sending them out, back on a team so different from his own that it grounds him into reality. This isn’t war, he thinks, it’s just what your body wants you to think.

Sometimes he’s falling and he feels like he’s in another dream. Other times, he’s dreaming and he screams. But he knew that he shouldn’t regret what he had lost, all he needed was to take care of what he has now before he loses it later. You know, Natasha Romanoff once said that he was the embodiment of the present, so aware of your surroundings, you pick out exit strategies as if you made the floorplan. You don’t think of how the past is haunting you or even think of what you could have.

I’m trying to get through the day, he says to himself and her. Little things like these keep me okay.

Years pass and he finds what he could have had a little too late. He appreciated what he had had with his closest friends but he feels like pouring alcohol on a wound that never truly healed. Sam finds out Natasha was gone and he breaks even further, grief becoming too much of a permanent thing in his life.

He's singing Ave Maria as he's dying.

( read more on AO3 )

[asphodel-storm]

So. If Cobra Kai were DC.

First off, the man who is the source of most problems, John Kreese:

Kreese’s mentor was an agent of the League of Shadows/Assassins planted within the military. Kreese was invited to take his place after his death. He trained with Ra’s al Ghul after the war and then left to found Cobra Kai as a covert recruitment operation for the League (not every Cobra alum became an assassin, only the ones Kreese saw that potential in). Johnny was on the path to recruitment and it was the loss against Daniel and resulting fallout that changed that. Kreese has been on League business every time he’s been ‘dead’. 

Mr. Miyagi:

Mr. Miyagi was a Green Lantern. The ring chose him a while after he received his medal of honor and he was protecting the universe secretly during the Karate Kid movies. When Daniel overcomes his fear in TKK 3, Miyagi retires and the ring chooses Daniel.

Daniel LaRusso:

Daniel was a Green Lantern for years (a secret from everyone except Amanda and Miyagi), but the lantern’s power never replaced karate for him because karate is part of the balance that allows him to use the ring in the first place. The ring started to reject him during the period where his resentment of Johnny was overpowering his will (season 1-ish). It chose him again when he got a handle on that, but by then he had already turned his attention to teaching and empowering young people. He gave it up and it chose his daughter after she overcame her own fear at the end of season 3.

Samantha LaRusso

Samantha LaRusso was chosen by a Green Lantern ring after overcoming her fear and facing Tory at the end of season 3. She enters season 4 as a newly minted super hero. 

Tory Nichols 

Tory witnesses Sam as a Green Lantern early on. She has a lot of anger inside of her and seeing her rival - the girl who in her opinion was handed everything in life - chosen by cosmic power pushes her over the edge. Kreese encourages and feeds this anger, of course, though he does it with the intention of making Tory a better assassin. When a Red Lantern power ring chooses her that’s honestly a bonus. 

Johnny Lawrence 

Johnny was nearly recruited to the League of Assassins as a teenager - he would have been shipped off to official league training after highschool if he hadn’t lost to Daniel (and, likely, if Kreese hadn’t impulsively burned that bridge before remembering the larger plan). Instead, he was approached by the representative of an anonymous east coast billionaire after high school and paid to use his connection to the ‘late’ John Kreese  - and pre-assassin training - to infiltrate and sabotage some activities the League of Shadows had going in the Valley. He never learned the full extent of what the League was or his or Kreese’s connections to it during this time (like, he probably could have if he’d tried, but he’s Johnny). He was inconsistent at best in his vigilantism after that, putting on a mask and patrolling more when he needed an outlet than based on the needs of the community. He was briefly the ‘Batman of the Valley’ when Batman first franchised out into Batman Inc. He’d given that up for years by the time he met Miguel, but dusts off his cape when he learns of new League operations in the Valley in season 4 (likely being run by Terry Silver). 

His ‘cape’ is actually a red leather bodysuit. He definitely calls himself something like DeathFist or DeathFang or whatever in the long tradition of people in red bodysuits being called stuff like that (DeadShot, DeathStroke, etc.). 

Miguel Diaz

Miguel will hit the streets patrolling with his mentor, but the transition to vigilantism also hits him at a time when he’s realized he probably shouldn’t have Johnny on such a pedestal so he’ll also use the opportunity to strike out alone or with friends. The transition also comes at a time when Miguel has noticed certain changes about himself he can’t explain - like how he destroyed Demetri’s tv with lasers that shot out of his eyes when he got a bit too competitive about Mario Cart.

Yeah, the bad man Carmen moved them to escape was not connected to organized crime. He wasn’t Terry Silver. He was General freaking Zod. Why does General Zod live in Ecuador? He’s building up forces there. Anyways, Miguel is half Kryptonian and just awakening to his powers since his body has been healing from the school fight. The injury was a kind of catalyst and as he heals he’s also becoming invulnerable. So much for his rivalry with Robby, right? Nope, that’s still on. 

Robby Keene

Kreese thinks a mistake he made with Johnny was not bringing him into the fold sooner and getting him excited about the prospect of the League of Shadows. He knows very well that Robby will march out of Cobra Kai forever if he mentions anything about assassins before he’s ‘ready’, but he does start letting him know about the secret society of warriors and introduce him to some alumni who are with the league now. Maybe show off some missions where they actually intervened for good. Essentially, he makes him feel like he could be part of something - something that feels like family - which is bigger than himself (which is already an established part of his schtick). 

As part of this pre-assassin buttering up, Kreese procures something special for Robby - gloves laced with kryptonite. He told him it would only level the playing field between him and Miguel, but it is enough to weaken Miguel enough to be killed. The plan is for Robby to go in thinking ‘Miguel is pretty much indestructible even with these gloves’ so he goes all out and kills him and then while he’s dealing with the trauma of having killed him Kreese can pull him fully into the League. While the plan won’t work, the path to it will see Robby getting a lot more weapons/assassin-specific training than Johnny did.

He will eventually take over Johnny’s suit and code name.

Eli ‘Hawk’ Moskowitz

Kreese’s plan for Robby is a more elaborate and thought out version of his original plan for Hawk. Hawk was never really a top priority for Kreese, but he spiraled so nicely that it seemed he could be plucked off into assassin-dom early. He saw Tory and Robby as better prospects than Hawk for long term use in the valley in part because he expected to have Hawk shipped off to train under Lady Shiva by now. He just had to rip the murder bandaid, and the plan was to push him until he killed Demetri. 

Because Hawk was on the fast track, and because he was so good at convincing himself he didn’t care what he’d done to Demetri’s arm, Kreese actually already let him in on the true nature of Cobra Kai. He didn’t know for long before leaving and its not like he had any strategically vital info, but he knows enough to make him a loose end. Kreese sends the Cobras (minus Robby, but possibly including a Tory who isn’t quite used to her new power yet) after him. Hawk is murdered. And isn’t that a waste? 

Kreese set it up, but when the likes of Tory and Robby almost leave over it he pins it on Kyler ‘going overboard’ and says it’s fine, they can save him. Hawk gets thrown in a Lazarus Pit and rises confused and angry. Under the grips of Pit Madness he temporarily forgets a lot (like leaving Cobra Kai and reconciling with Demetri and Miguel, but also things like his parents. Kid is a very angry blank slate.) and since most people think he’s dead its pretty easy to send him to the League. He’ll turn up again a few months later, when the League sends a squad to secure their interests in the valley. He breaks off when he can’t quite kill Demetri in a fight, but he doesn’t remember why and roams around the valley causing trouble or helping out as he sees fit until Demetri can get through to him (Demetri’s eternal struggle). 

He doesn’t call himself Red Hood, but you get the gist. Hawk is already a code name. 

Demetri [Insert Surname]

Got Eli back only to lose him for good. He thought. Until Not-Red Hood shows up and causes problems. But the slippery assassin keeps getting away before he can really talk to him! Miguel is steadily developing Super Powers and wants to help, but things are also heating up over in the Main Conflict and Demetri is left chasing Hawk alone a lot of the time. 

Maybe it’s that determination that causes his latent metagene to activate. 

Demetri only ever thought super speed was the second best superpower, but he rethinks that after he has it. In hindsight, his smart ass does fit the speedster profile and Eli definitely can’t get away now! 

His lightning when he runs is blue.

And yep, that’s all for now. I’ll never write a fic for this ‘verse it’s just fun to think about. More so about how after the San Fernando branch of the League of Shadows is destroyed the kids can all make up and form a cool super team. Also, if I were to write fic, it would be Demeli. As I'm sure anyone I've interacted with in this fandom knows.